Mika Brzezinski and her 7% Husband

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In the guise of pitching her book on career and family yesterday, Mika Brzezinski had this to say:

Finding a job is hard enough, but have you ever considered the odds and the challenges of finding a good man?

Bad news, girls. The odds are definitely better on getting the right job than getting a good partner for life. Someone who will grow with you. Someone to develop memories with. Someone who was there in the beginning. Someone who will be there at the end.

Don’t push away that chance if you’re one of the lucky ones who find that partner. And remember, you can always change a job. I hear it’s much harder to switch out a husband.

Now maybe this will come as a surprise to someone born into fame and connections like Mika, but it’s not actually all that easy to find a job. As CNN pointed out the other day, statistically it’s actually harder to find a job right now than it is to get into Harvard (or Mika’s alma mater of Williams).

Since the beginning of the recession in December 2007, job openings declined from 4.4 million to 2.4 million and the number of officially unemployed persons grew from 7.5 million to 15.7 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

If the 15.7 million officially unemployed workers were to apply for those 2.4 million jobs, the chance of any one of them finding a job are about 15 percent, or roughly the same odds as being accepted to the University of Pennsylvania.

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Break with the Bankers

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In the calm before yesterday’s election night storm, Howie Kurtz took a moment to engage in his favorite hobby, obsessing about Democratic men’s penises.

If any of the candidates are patronizing hookers, Chris Matthews has the right guest. Eliot Spitzer, on the set.

But Matthews may in fact have had the most logical guest on to interpret last night’s results. As Digby concluded last night,

At this point, the only thing that seems obvious to me is that the super wealthy just aren’t as popular as they used to be. Even in New York City.

You see, regardless of his own considerable fortune and whether he has paid for sex, Spitzer had this to say yesterday (presumably before Bloomberg almost failed to buy a city):

Imagine this: by next spring, an intellectual consensus will have emerged that the concentration in the banking sector that developed from the 1980s until the crash of ‘08 was misguided. Voices as disparate as Former Fed Chair Paul Volcker, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, meta- investor George Soros, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page will be in agreement on this point.A few brave souls on the Right — recognizing that the Republican Party has been bereft of ideas in its attacks on President Obama — will then try to re-define a populist, conservative attack by asserting that the White House has been captured by Wall Street. Real populism and change, they will argue, will come from the Republican, not the Democratic, party.

The power of such an attack from the Right should not be underestimated. There will be a huge first mover advantage that goes to the candidates who grab the real banner of attacking the structure of Wall Street as having been the root of the crash of ‘08.

[snip]

So the simple question remains: why aren’t we focusing on the problem that got us here in the first instance — the scope, range, and size of the mega-institutions whose risk taking has so far inflicted only enormous harm on our economy? If the Republicans pick up this issue before we do, the elections of 2010 could be even worse than we are now fearing.

The teabaggers failed yesterday, but there’s every reason to believe they will be more successful at mobilizing anxiety and frustration in Florida. And they’ll be doing it all the while downplaying Dick Armey’s considerable financial largesse.

If the teabaggers can then turn their energy into a focus on Wall Street, I do believe they’ll be successful in coming years. Particularly if the Administration continues to coddle the bankers.

Update: Speaking of Spitzer, Gawker has the journalist/flack emails from the first days that scandal broke.

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Leo Gerard: I’m Tired of Hearing about Stimulus

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I’m at the New American Economy Conference, watching Leo Gerard, the head of the Steelworkers, talk about the need for a manufacturing plan. He has quoted Jeff Immelt and Alan Mulally talking about the need for a concerted focus on manufacturing in the United States.

One point he made is that by framing economic recovery in terms of “stimulus,” rather than a manufacturing plan, you imply a one-time lightning strike, rather than the plan that Immelt and Mulally–and the Steelworkers–are calling for.

Update: He went on to say, “When I was a kid if they asked your for 15% interest, they’d arrest you. Now, they make you Employee of the Year.”

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Building the New Economy Conference

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A couple of days ago I pointed out how Steve Rattner, Obama’s auto czar, was absolutely blind to the degree to which his impressions of the auto industry were true, too, for Rattner’s own finance industry. That highlighted an issue I’ve been trying to focus on (between covering Obama’s cover-up of Dick Cheney’s crimes): the huge imbalance in our economy.

I’ll be heading to DC tomorrow for a conference that tries to address that issue, “Building the New Economy.” As Scott Paul, who’s been leading these issues, says,

But chalking up the blame to a few bad apples on Wall Street and their risky financial instruments, and responding by simply providing appropriate regulation in the financial services sector, will ultimately be unsatisfying. There are much deeper, structural issues which must be urgently addressed. Otherwise, the absurd positive feedback loop will continue: consumer debt, subsidized Chinese imports, American job loss and factory closures, the growing U.S. current account deficit, burgeoning Chinese currency reserves reinvested in American debt … These will only inflate new bubbles and reinforce our current problems.

Some of us warned that this day would come. We knew that an economic strategy predicated on replacing wage growth with debt and credit to maintain a certain standard of living was doomed to fail. We knew that this nation could not replace manufacturing jobs and their multiplier effect, as well as their positive impact on the trade balance and wealth generation, with lower-wage service and retail jobs.

If you’re in town, stop by–some cool bloggers–and people like Sherrod Brown and Richard Trumka will be there.

Hopefully, we can fix health care then start talking about how Americans can make something again.

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Depression Economy

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It says something, I think that the State Chamber of Commerce that has invited Glenn Beck as a keynote speaker this week–Michigan–has a state economy that is functionally in a depression.

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Hell Loses Its Guard Dog

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cerberus.thumbnail.jpgAtrios baited me to weigh in on Cerberus’ imminent demise.

Investors in hedge funds run by Cerberus Capital Management LP, whose audacious multi-billion dollar bet on the U.S. auto industry went bust, are bolting for the door, clinching one of the highest-profile falls from grace of a superstar in the investment world.

Clients are withdrawing more than $5.5 billion, or nearly 71% of the hedge fund assets, in response to big investment losses and their own need for cash, according to people familiar with the matter.

"We have been surprised by this response," Cerberus chief Stephen Feinberg and co-founder William Richter wrote in a letter delivered to clients late Thursday.

And while I suggested I would keep my schadenfreude in check until such time as I got to see Cerberus’ Senate defender, Bob Corker, weep, I just couldn’t resist two points.

First, who the hell thought a financial institution in which John Snow, 43’s failed Treasury secretary, and Dan Quayle, 41’s laughable Vice President, had significant management roles would succeed? Sure, having Snow and Quayle on board promised that people like Corker would subvert the national interest in favor of his buddies at Cerberus. But even an institution wired into the best crony network must exhibit some basic competence.

And, too, I take some joy that this model of financialized predation has failed. Yeah, Cerberus is not singlehandedly responsible for Chrysler’s failure. But it is nice to see Cerberus pay for its efforts to suck some value out of a company by extracting its financial wing at the expense of its productive core.

It’s just a damned pity that so many real human beings have suffered in the interim.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/puyo/ / CC BY-ND 2.0)

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Greetings from Steel-Town

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I know I’m going to have a blast visiting with people here at Netroots Nation. But I’ve already done what will likely be the coolest thing I do: a tour of a local steel plant. There were about 30 of us who took a bus out into the Monongahela Valley and all dolled up in hard hats, Nomex suits, and safety glasses to see how they make steel (Jane will be posting a photo of us, but I’m sure it won’t give you the proper sense of just how gorgeous Jane looks in an industrial suit). 

The video doesn’t give you a full sense of the size and heat of the process. The ladle that appears in the early part of the video is maybe a story and a half high, all moved around on a giant pulley system.

There were a number of us who left saying, "next time I hear someone complaining about their job, I will tell them to shut up unless they’re a steelworker." It is hot, there are tons of steps everywhere. But the whole trip was a fascinating way to understand something about Pittsburgh–and about where our cars and stuff comes from. 

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Madoff’s Finance Chief to Plead Guilty

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For those of you complaining that I’m not reporting on 3-year old Sibel Edmonds revelations, here’s some news that may offer fresh new insight into the sordid world of international crime and power.

Frank DiPascali, the finance chief at Bernard Madoff’s investment advisory business who agreed to plead guilty, could help prosecutors build criminal cases against other players in his boss’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme.

DiPascali, 52, is scheduled to enter his plea tomorrow in federal court in Manhattan, U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin told a judge in an Aug. 8 letter that didn’t specify the charges. DiPascali would waive indictment and plead guilty, which signals to lawyers that he is cooperating to lessen his prison term.

"I believe he’s cooperating," said John J. Fahy, a former federal prosecutor not involved in the case. "He would be very valuable to the government because he has been close to Madoff for so many years and had to have seen some of the fraudulent transactions that went on. From what we know of Madoff, he trusted very few people."

Madoff, of course, has gone off to prison without really telling anyone where the bodies are buried, where the money went, or even who on Wall Street knew and facilitated his scheme. 

We won’t know for some time how cooperative DiPascali will be, but if he is cooperative, and if he does know where even a few of the bodies are buried, his cooperation might free up information that is otherwise, thus far, successfully buried.

Here’s John Taplin, writing in January, about what cracking open the Madoff scandal might reveal.

The Wall Street Journal is very careful with the libel laws, but I am increasingly confident that their reporters are beginning to sense that organized crime sits somewhere in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme. The tipoff come from their classic tabloid use of the “made man’s” street name in quotes (like Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel). The main feeder fund to Madoff was Cohmad Securities.

Cohmad, a conjunction of the last names of investor Maurice “Sonny” Cohn and Mr. Madoff, carried especially tight ties. Cohmad was filled by employees with long-term or family relationships with the Madoffs, and its operations were enmeshed in the main Madoff businesses, interviews and records show.

Maurice “Sonny” Cohn and his associate Alvin “Sonny” Delaire have both been accused of playing fast and loose with securities regulations. Read more →

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SEC Charges Hank Greenberg on AIG Accounting Violations

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You mean we had to bail out AIG because Hank Greenberg was making misrepresentations about the company’s profits that enabled it to keep blowing up the bubble?

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged former American International Group Chairman and CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg and former Vice Chairman and CFO Howard Smith for their involvement in numerous improper accounting transactions that inflated AIG’s reported financial results between 2000 and 2005. The SEC alleges that Greenberg and Smith are liable as control persons for AIG’s violations of the antifraud and other provisions of the securities laws. Smith also is charged with direct violations of the antifraud and other provisions of the securities laws.

The SEC alleges that Greenberg and Smith were responsible for material misstatements that enabled AIG to create the false impression that the company consistently met or exceeded key earnings and growth targets. According to the SEC’s complaint, Greenberg publicly described AIG as the leader in the insurance and financial services industry with a history of delivering consistent double-digit growth. However, AIG faced numerous financial challenges under Greenberg’s leadership that were disguised through improper accounting.

[snip]

The SEC’s complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, charges the defendants with responsibility for the following improper accounting transactions:

  • Sham reinsurance transactions to make it appear that AIG had legitimately increased its general loss reserves.

  • A purported deal with an offshore shell entity to conceal multi-million dollar underwriting losses from AIG’s auto-warranty insurance business.

  • Economically senseless round-trip transactions to report improper gains in investment income.

  • The purported sale of tax exempt municipal bonds owned by AIG’s subsidiaries to trusts that AIG controlled in order to improperly recognize realized capital gains.

And do you want to guess how much a first-hand role in the bubble costs a gazillionaire? $15 million.

Greenberg and Smith agreed to settle the SEC’s charges and pay disgorgement and penalties totaling $15 million and $1.5 million, respectively.

Hmmm. Greenberg pays $15 million, taxpayers pay over a hundred billion, and Eliot Spitzer remains sidelined because he (admittedly, utterly hypocritically) slept with a high priced sex worker.

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McCain Is A Clunker, Can I Trade Him In?

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graphic by twolf

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John Sidney McCain III, the blue blooded husband of a beer heiress, has decided he will be the Republican face of opposition to continuance of the wildly successful Cash For Clunkers program. The man who cannot remember how many houses he owns is going to kill the program helping regular people put a decent and efficient new car in front of their humble middle class homes. From FOX News:

Fox has learned that Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, will oppose any move to take up the House bill. Around here, we call that a filibuster.

McCain told Fox earlier today, "I not only wouldn’t vote for the extra two billion, I was opposed to the initial billion. "

McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee who ran as a deficit hawk, said, "Within a few weeks we will see that this process was abused by speculators and people who took advantage of what is basically a huge government subsidy of corporations that they already own. "I can’t imagine that any taxpayer of America would have thought that the TARP, the financial recovery money, would be used now to subsidize the sale of automobiles in America."

This is a pile of bunk; John McCain is not a deficit hawk, he is a narcissistic publicity hawk and he hasn’t had enough lately and saw an opening. What is really rotten, however, is he is trying to take down the one program that has demonstrated immediate and tangible systemic benefits. In other words, the precise stimulus the economy is dying for.

Wildly successful is almost an understatement for the Cash For Clunkers program as Marcy indicated in this post. Quoting from the official website:

According to www.CashForClunkersInformation.org, 79% of clunkers being traded in so far are SUVs, trucks and vans with over 100,000 miles and most are being replaced with new passenger vehicles. The average age of a trade-in model is almost 13 years old, and the average odometer reading is approximately 138,000 miles. The most popular clunker trades are Chevrolet, Ford and Dodge and 84 percent of the new vehicles purchased are passenger cars.

This is economic stimulus at its finest. Customers are flocking to dealerships, dealerships are selling cars, service bays are active, manufacturers are moving inventory, financing shops are making loans, accessories are being sold, manufacturing suppliers are being paid and kept in business – it is one heck of an economic spur to a major sector of the economy and a fantastic lead in to the critical opening of the traditional new model year that annually starts in Read more →

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