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Friday, July 17, 2009

The New York Times reports that some French workers have kidnapped their bosses, and others are threatening to blow up their own factories (a bluff, they admit) if employers won't negotiate with them. (The photo in the paper showed workers playing ping-pong.)

The threats reminded me of another story
about how French farmers in the 1980's reacted to the visitors who proposed putting a nuclear waste dump near their town -- the farmers marched the guests out of town with pitchforks.

categories: Pitchforks

4:03 - July 17, 2009

 
Tuesday, June 2, 2009

James Kwak sharpens the tines over at Baseline Scenario, taking on Wall Street types and Richard Posner, who argues that lawmakers should stop bullying them. Kwak writes:

The idea that people can commit egregious misdeeds at the expense of other people, yet cannot be criticized by our own government -- the body that is supposed to represent our interests -- violates a simple, common sense notion of justice. At least the one that I hold.

Bonus from Kwak: Why Are SUVs More Profitable?

categories: Pitchforks

11:24 - June 2, 2009

 
Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Twitter pal @vigorousnorth forwards this dose of outrage, from a professed GM stockholder blogging at May Shrink or Fade.

At issue: GM's plan to (as Reuters put it) "wipe out current shareholders" by issuing 60 billion new shares to pay back the U.S. government, bondholders and the United Auto Workers Union. From the blogger:

For me, this will likely mean losing several thousand dollars. I currently own about 0.0004 % of GM; after, I will own 0.000004%.
Karl Marx said the revolution will be recognizable when the people-- or more specifically, the proletariat-- come to own the means of production. I can't think of any more obvious example than the UAW owning a third of GM. And taking my share in the company away seems not much different from the proletariat breaking down the door to my bourgeoisie house and hauling off my jewels for communal ownership. I guess it's slightly better than taking the current shareholders via ox-cart to the guillotine; but if I had all my money invested in GM, it would be about the financial equivalent of execution.

I've got an e-mail in to the author.

categories: Pitchforks

2:19 - May 6, 2009

 
Public Integrity chart

From the Center for Public Integrity's "Meltdown" project.

 

The Center for Public Integrity rolls out a giant clickfest today, with Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown. The project tracks nearly 7.2 million subprime mortgages in search of the 25 lenders most responsible for the housing crisis. Bill Buzenberg, former NPR hand and current executive director of the CPI, suggests looking at the problem this way:

The truth is these mega-banks invested trillions, made billions, and took risks with their eyes wide open. Now, because they are deemed "too big to fail," they need trillions in government bailouts and guarantees to solve problems they helped create. But let's look at it another way: perhaps these mega-banks are simply "too politically connected to fail." Their unbridled political contributions and massive lobbying created the lack of regulation and oversight that led to this crisis. Where is the accountability -- of management and boards, of auditors and regulators -- for what has happened? It is time to set aside the myth of the mega-bank as victim.

categories: Pitchforks

9:36 - May 6, 2009

 
Friday, April 24, 2009

Steve Hanke, professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University, is getting in on the blame game. In an upcoming issue of Forbes, he points the finger at Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and former chairman, Alan Greenspan. Hanke writes:

Now the Fed has opened the money floodgates again and its balance sheet has more than doubled in size since August. Investors watching the recent rally may think that the Fed has stabilized the markets and saved the day but its approach is fraught with danger.
As the self-regenerative powers of the market system kick in, the demand for money will fall and the velocity of money will correspondingly go up. Unless the Fed shrinks its balance sheet by selling bonds and mopping up excess dollars, inflation will roar back with a vengeance.

Continue reading "Steve Hanke Blames The Fed " >

categories: Pitchforks

1:52 - April 24, 2009

 
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Columbia, Maryland

Red Hook, Brooklyn Christopher DeWan

 

Today's populist rage is brought to you by Andrew Ross Sorkin, in his NYT column headlined "Bank Profits Appear Out of Thin Air":

Why can't anybody read the room here? After all the financial wizardry that got the country -- actually, the world -- into trouble, why don't these bankers give their audience what it seems to crave? Perhaps a bit of simple math that could fit on the back of an envelope, with no asterisks and no fine print, might win cheers instead of jeers from the market.

categories: Pitchforks

10:52 - April 21, 2009

 

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