(Jeff Danziger’s website)
.
Most unlikely sighting of the week, by NYMag‘s Kevin Roose:
As a chief architect of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law, former Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank was a bit of an odd sight at SALT, the giant hedge-fund confab in Las Vegas. Many hedge-fund managers openly detest Dodd-Frank, which increased transparency requirements for hedge funds and other private investment firms and generally made Wall Street a less lucrative place to work.
“He’s like Daniel in the lion’s den,” one fund worker said of Frank’s trip to Vegas.
Still, on Thursday morning, after finishing up a SALT panel with former politicos Harold Ford Jr., Karl Rove, and Scott Brown, Frank was in high spirits.
“I don’t feel like Daniel at all,” he said, while husband Jim Ready dabbed at his made-up face with a moist towelette following a CNBC hit. “Daniel was afraid of being bitten and clawed. It never occurred to me that I was going to be bitten and clawed here.”…
Last night, Frank was spotted at SALT’s Latin-themed pool party at the Bellagio, mingling among showgirls in feathers, a cigar-rolling station, and busty servers in halter tops. Asked whether the bacchanalia on display at SALT meant that his efforts to humble Wall Street after the crisis had failed, Frank sniffed.
“We weren’t trying to humble anyone,” he said. “We want them to be more careful.”
Part of the reason Frank is such a divisive figure at SALT is that for hedge-fund managers, the introduction of Dodd-Frank has often meant having to hire extra accountants and lawyers to comply with new reporting requirements. Frank said that, judging from the expensive surroundings on display in Vegas, the industry is doing just fine, even with the added compliance costs.
“I think it shows they haven’t been severely hurt,” he said…
Gods bless our Barney. I wonder if he looked at his three co-panelists and thought about the old quip — “Here’s See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Evil”?
WereBear
It’s always weird when economists and bankers betray that they haven’t any real grasp of how money actually works.
ulee
No, they have not been severely hurt. They are severely rich. Time to cut off heads in the village square.
Bill E Pilgrim
Schlemizel
OK, I get Frank and Rove but why the hell would anyone want Ford & Brown to talk about anything? Seriously, why?
oldster
Oh shit. Why did he have to do it?
Krugman just put up a post praising public libraries.
Now the axe is going to fall–Cantor and Boehner are going to go on a jihad against all public libraries, Fox news will be blaring about how they are socialism incarnate, and pretty soon all of the libraries will be gone.
Anne Laurie
@Schlemizel: Because every ventriloquist needs a dummy?
Or maybe the planners were just afraid to have Frank & Rove sitting next to each other, without the grounding potential of two huge photogenic boobs separating them?
ulee
Abe Lincoln was a good guy, but he should have let the South go. Of course, he should have freed the slaves, let them come north, and then leave those bigoted ignorant southerners to deal with it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@ulee: That’s all well and good, but watching Morning Ho, Benghazi!!!
Schlemizel
@BillinGlendaleCA: watching Morning Ho
Well, theres yer problem right there!
PsiFighter37
It’s 3:30 on the Left Coast and I’m toasted as shit.
BTW, Barney Frank is not Daniel, at all. Every industry has its useful idiots.
BillinGlendaleCA
@PsiFighter37: Welcome to Left Coast.
Elizabelle
Purposely not watching Morning Ho for Benghazi.
Watching BBC America News.
They might have found a female survivor in the Bangladesh factory collapse, 17 days out.
And some charming footage of Prince Harry visiting Michelle Obama in the White House as he interacted with young children of military families.
Elizabelle
@PsiFighter37:
Did you succeed in arranging your BJ meetup?
Suffern ACE
@ulee: darling, we have plenty of nitwits up here to lead us into disaster. Them there hedge fund managers didn’t all go to Duke.
Schlemizel
@Elizabelle:
I have been really angered by the disappearance of news stories on that collapse. The death toll is near 1000 and there was a fire at a different plant yesterday that killed a bunch. All conveniently dropped down the rabbit hold so that the industrial masters can continue to impoverish the entire world.
I’d say maybe if it happened here things would be different but thats not even true. The mine collapse, that fire at the chicken processing plant (with its locked fire exits echoing the Triangle Shirtwaist fire) and many more are all greeted with a giant “MEH”.
Schlemizel
BTW – since this is an open thread – an update on my chromebook purchase.
I started noticing that when I use the touchpad to click I get a lot of double posts but if I use the buttons I do not. Not sure if that is the software or the hardware (its an Acer not a Samsung). But it deff is something with this device.
BTW thanks for all you guys do, someone (I assume AL) cleaned up my earlier double post. From now on I am going to try to only use the buttons I think that will fix it
BillinGlendaleCA
@Schlemizel: Or maybe a fertilizer plant in West, Texas; yup nothing to see here.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle: It’s a go as far as I know, I’m making the 5 block trek from my cave tomorrow evening.
ETA: Technically, this evening.
David Koch
@BillinGlendaleCA:
You mean the guy who was forced from office after killing the married intern he was fucking? You mean the guy who used to represent
abortion bombersdomestic terrorists? That morning ho?Marc
Every politician does TV spots, and every politician since Nixon has worn make-up for them. But I can’t imagine anybody else getting described in this way.
BillinGlendaleCA
@David Koch: I believe that’s the same one.
And now I sleep.
Elizabelle
@Schlemizel:
Ayup.
One thousand dead Bangladeshis in factory collapse; they were making cheap clothing for American consumers.
Four dead Americans in a war-torn country; Republicans making hay with that after they cut State Dept funding which might have provided more protection.
Where is the outrage focused?
Patrick
@Elizabelle:
There were 11 deadly attacks on US embassies during the Bush era. There were 3 hearings about that. There has already been 9 (Nine!) hearings about Benghazi.
Why are the lives of those that perished during the Bush era worth so much less than those that perished in Benghazi?
And maybe Senate Democrats should launch a bunch of hearings regarding the House GOP cutting $300 million to embassy security funding.
scav
@Elizabelle: My comparison was, oh look, one third a 9-11 for cheap shirts! Same basic idea. No doubt we’ll be chided for not remembering the entirely economically reasonable and expected different values placed upon those lives under the best of all possible differences of economic regulations.
David Koch
There’s some PUMA/bagger blogs I read for shitz and gigglez.
Naturally they latched on to Ben Gahz1!1 because more than anything in life they hate the usurper.
Now they’re freaking out because Ben Gahz1!1 has been turned around against them.
I would like to help them out. But after five years of Obummer bashing, the motivation escapes me.
Moral of the story: when you sleep with the enemy, don’t be surprised when they stab you n the back.
Kay
I had a funny thing happen yesterday.
Joyce Yoder, who is a local woman who is active in Democratic politics, stopped by the office.
I like her a lot, she’s (notoriously)…blunt, so I went out to our reception area and she was standing there, with her hands on her hips, and she said “what are we doing for Hillary?”
The answer is “nothing” because it’s only 2013, but her combative approach made me smile because I didn’t expect it.
She sees this as an attack on Clinton. She’s already furious at them. I haven’t been following it but Joyce is retired and seems to be listening :)
Schlemizel
@Patrick:
11? at least 43, more if you count local cops & soldiers
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/12/1130950/-If-diplomatic-attacks-are-a-sign-of-weakness-Bush-was-the-weakest-of-all
(yes, its the GOS so shoot me? – just don’t wade into the comments)
NotMax
Lions?
Bulls and bears with delusions of grandeur.
Also too, wasn’t the Daniel of the religious fairy tale both Persian and under divine protection?
Schlemizel
There has been an interesting change in the ads I am being fed here. Up until a few days ago the anit-marriage people of MN were all over this page ever time I came here. Then, When I assume the realized that fight was lost a couple of days back, those ads stopped & I am getting graphic anti-abortion ads. The funniest one has a picture of Obama that they have worked over to make him blacker than even in African ancestors!
I bet a venn diagram of the two groups (anti-marriage and anti-abortion) supporters and their funders would be a single circle. But it was the sudden shift I find hilarious. Gotta keep the rubes enraged with wallets open
liberal
@PsiFighter37:
Why do you think he’s a useful idiot? ISTM he’s not interested in real banking reform, and I don’t see any good evidence that he’s not aware of that.
Hunter
If Daniel had been more like Barney Frank, he wouldn’t have needed divine intervention.