Well, I chuckled. Kevin Roose at NYMag reminds us “Don’t Pay Attention to Wall Street’s Whines About Regulation“:
Five years after the financial crisis, Wall Street banks are recovering splendidly. Record profits are becoming routine, and earnings are way, way up. Today, we learned that Goldman Sachs made $1.93 billion last quarter, or double what it made in the same quarter last year. Last week, we learned that JPMorgan Chase made $6.5 billion in the second quarter, or more than $72 million per day. And on Thursday, we’re expected to learn that Morgan Stanley — the last of Wall Street’s Big Three — made something like $900 million in the quarter.
The lesson of all this? When Wall Street CEOs and other prognosticators warn about the apocalyptic effects of new regulation designed to make the financial industry safer, the best response is to turn around and walk away…
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Besides the Waltham meet-up, what’s on the agenda this evening?
PsiFighter37
About to drive by the Palace of Starbursts in Wasilla. I wish I had thought about this more and brought a bouquet of green balloons.
TooManyJens
I just wanna hear more about John’s new cat.
Tone in DC
Whiny bastards. Can’t create any jobs if their very existence depends on it. Actually don’t even want to.
I’m not bitter or anything, though.
Off topic:
wonkette.com/522976/maybe-michele-bachmanns-thefty-aide-was-just-looking-for-her-stash-of-feminine-p…
Read it and weep.
ranchandsyrup
My pregnant wife requested a Thanksgiving in July dinner so I’m brining and then roasting a bird with sides some garlic and shallot mashers, some stuffing and some cranberry sauce.
BGinCHI
Glass fucking Steagall, baby.
TooManyJens
@Tone in DC: That puts a whole new spin on Bachmann’s comments the other day about Obama having a “magic wand.” Maybe she just meant a Hitachi!
lurker dean
apparently betty’s “cole stuffing face with pizza” masterpiece was a casualty of the recent computer issues. hopefully betty has a copy she can re-up for posterity. (repost from dead thread below)
Ted & Hellen
Barack’s New Grille
Tone in DC
@TooManyJens:
LULz.
Seeing her name in that story, with the Brookstone purchase by the esteemed Mr. Elsass… classic. Almost epic. And maybe some other terms that end in -ic.
scav
@lurker dean: If Betty doesn’t have one — I assume she will — I’ve got a local download.
lurker dean
@scav: excellent. not to mention that iirc it also had the mighty tunch in it overseeing the gluttony, so it would be nice not to lose it.
Chris
@Tone in DC:
That’s been my shtick about the “Job Creator” bullshit ever since the start of this financial crisis. If the reason we’re supposed to love the banksters so much is that they create jobs, well, clearly they’re not creating them right now, so why not tax the shit out of them and use that money to create jobs – you know, fulfill the societal function that they’re not fulfilling right now?
rikyrah
WATB – the entire lot of them
Tone in DC
I hear that.
Only good thing about the last six months is the unemployment rate is actually declining in spite of these MoTU/WATBs.
Jebediah
@rikyrah:
They like to go on about being the smartest and “eating what they kill” and how their expertise is irreplaceable – but the challenge of profiting under SOME regulation is just too much to ask of the delicate, delicate little flowers.
rikyrah
@Jebediah:
the thing that just kills me is the lack of humility from them…
they nearly ruined the fucking WORLD ECONOMY and have the audacity to be OFFENDED when folks are like, well maybe there outta be some RULES IN PLACE so that it doesn’t happen again.
like…HOW DARE US want to place the blame where it belongs.
rikyrah
this is why I want Elizabeth Warren to have as long a career as Robert Byrd…and hope that she sticks it to them until her very last day in the Senate.
Jebediah
@rikyrah:
Bunch of toddlers who keep spilling the fucking milk, and have a tantrum when you try to pour it for them. “I CAN DO IT!!! LET ME DO IT!!”
Except you know the toddler will eventually grow up.
gene108
@rikyrah:
I think she’d be the oldest person ever, or close to it, to rival Byrd’s tenure in the Senate. She’s already in her 60’s.
Regarding the OP, government finds ways to regulate what banks were doing yesterday, while the banks are finding new ways to make money tomorrow.
That’s one of the inherent flaws in our financial regulations. Unlike the 1930’s, “financial innovation” happens very rapidly now.
It’s hard to come up with regulations that can keep pace with the rate of “financial innovation”.
lojasmo
@Ted & Hellen:
Your art is as terrible as your trolling, fuckwit.
MikeInSewickley
When is the rest of the country going to wake up and realize these bastards could care less about America? They are globalists and will move on from any area that they have sucked dry.
None in jail – None! Even that Goldman Sachs douche on trial is some lower level fool who was stupid enough to leave an email trail.
I saw a cartoon a while back of a Monopoly board that had this saying in the middle:
“You can tell Monopoly is an old board game because there is a Luxury Tax and rich people can go to Jail.”
Zifnab
Didn’t JPMorgan take a $9B loss not long ago with their Whale scandal or something? If they’re still coming out $2.5B ahead of the game… sweet lord.
fuzed
So down here in VA, yes we are really moving it along, yes sir. No more blowjobs for
youus.Only if he wins governor. Brought to you by No Climate change emails allowed.
Ted & Hellen
@lojasmo:
Last week’s $15,000 in new commissions says otherwise, Jism.
Man the fainting couches!
Ted & Hellen
@rikyrah:
I fear Obama and the national dems will have her knocked off…she makes them look as spineless as they are.
gene108
@gene108:
Just want to add a bit of perspective, from what I’ve gathered from anecdotes talking to folks in banking in NYC regarding their antipathy to animosity towards Obama and the Democrats.
First off, I’m going to side track to a point about public school teachers. A lot of them want to punch Obama and Duncan in the throat, because of bullshit from Race to the Top and now Common Core.
I bring up teachers, in addressing Wall Street, because do not think education is the only thing Obama and company are dealing with in a way that is detached from the reality of what the people in the industry have to deal with. From what I’ve gathered one of the big issues with the Administration’s handling of the financial industry is how haphazard and amateurish it has been.
Notices get sent out that new rules are in place and then get rescinded, so the work done towards complying with part ‘x’ of Dodd-Frank gets tossed in the trash bin, until the next new notice comes out.
In the company I work for we have some folks on work visas. Dealing with getting visas renewed has gone from an exercise of complying with rules to an act
how good a mood the nameless faceless USCIS case official is in that dayof god. I’ve had visas rejected for people, who have been doing the same thing for years and years legally in this country, where someone else in the same position gets approved.The worst thing to see are the people with kids in school, who have to pull a kid out of school in mid-year and try and figure out getting into school in their country of origin. Note, not all country’s school years run on the U.S. schedule, so who knows if the kid is going to be behind a year or not getting bored repeating a grade.
Anyway, the point of this rant is that despite wanting to dismiss all of Wall Street’s complaints about regulations as a matter of greed, there are legitimate gripes people, across various industries, have with how this Administration is trying to implement sweeping changes and transform America; therefore ignoring folks, whose jobs you may not think are important isn’t the best way to build a strong Democratic coalition.
There are folks, who voted for Obama in 2008, who have left the Democratic coalition because of the amateurish and/or haphazard ways in which this Administration has done things.
Chris
@MikeInSewickley:
Yeah, there’s some tremendous irony in the fact that the most frothing-at-the-mouth nationalist elements in the country are so deferential to what’s basically the Internationale on the other side of the aisle. Especially when they start imploring their businessmen to “go Galt,” leave the country, “before it’s too late!” Or to outsource their businesses to the third world to teach those uppity American workers.