Jr Deputy Accountant

Your Bailout Dollars Hard at Work: Why Sell Cars When You Can Google Sex Tapes?

2010-03-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

I caught a Chevrolet dealership in Georgia Googling sex tapes in the middle of the day (shame on you, dirty car boys) and decided to do a little digging. Hardy Chevrolet (insert juvenile joke here) has bailout ties but I'm sure their Googling habits have absolutely nothing to do with it, right?

HuffPo September 25, 2008:

Finally, there are 3,796 Chevrolet dealerships in the US (down from 4,063 a year ago), and yesterday the world's top-selling Chevy dealership group announced the closing of its 13 stores.

Dealer "Bill Heard Enterprises" has been a target of the Georgia Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs.

That office was seeking more than $50 million in penalties for deceptive marketing and alleged signature forgery, but that suit will fall through if the company declares bankruptcy.

The closing affects about 2,700 employees at stores in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee and Texas. The group ranked No. 13 on the Automotive News list of the top 125 US dealership groups, with 2007 group revenue of $2.13 billion.

GM swore it would keep Bill Heard running and apparently it managed to do just that, giving the dealership plenty of time to look for sex tapes on the Internet and somehow end up on fringe financial blogs like this one. So glad our bailout money is going towards such useful activities.

Oh and they must have safe search turned off over there because yours truly tried to Bing the phrase and was cockblocked by her own laptop AT HOME. Dirty dirty, Hardy Chevrolet, here I thought I was bad.

Personally I don't want to see a Rielle Hunter/John Edwards sex tape but if anyone knows where I can get my hands on Mark Sanford's......

Dissent in San Francisco Government Ranks

2010-03-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

Embiggen this image. Please.

Bwhahahahahahaha!!*

*"Gavin Newsom and his stupid ideas"

Jobs I Don't Envy: Census Takers

2010-03-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

Auditors, name the scenario...

it's like December 31st but with people!

You know, JDA is hungry for cash these days after ditching the 9 - 5 (make that 8 - 7, it was a hard-knock life) but there are some lines even she won't cross.

CNNMoney tells us if you need a job, there's always Census taking. At a price, of course:

The Census Bureau estimated Monday that Americans could save the federal government $1.5 billion by mailing their 2010 census forms instead of waiting for a census taker to show up at the door.

The gig pays between $10 and $22 an hour depending on where you live - if the Census were a full-time gig in California, takers making $22 an hour would still be considered hovering dangerously close to the poverty line (I believe it's $45,000 here in San Francisco, no kidding).

Best of luck and here's to hoping none of you knock on MY door when I return my Census form with a big 1 PERSON, AMERICAN across it in Sharpie. No, actually, I dare you. Please.

Psst: Big Brother Might Not Be Watching But Microsoft Is

2010-03-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

Surprise surprise. Via Wired's Threat Level blog, Microsoft Takes Down Whistleblower Site, Read the Secret Doc Here:

Microsoft has managed to do what a roomful of secretive, three-letter government agencies have wanted to do for years: get the whistleblowing, government-document sharing site Cryptome shut down.

Microsoft dropped a DMCA notice alleging copyright infringement on Cryptome’s proprietor John Young on Tuesday after he posted a Microsoft surveillance compliance document that the company gives to law enforcement agents seeking information on Microsoft users. Young filed a counterclaim on Wednesday — arguing he had a fair use to publishing the document, a full day before the Thursday deadline set by his hosting provider, Network Solutions.

Ouch. Microsoft's "Global Criminal Compliance" document isn't all that comforting but that's why one should generally choose to opt-out of their creepy "anonymous user survey" crap. I'm slowly weaning off of shitty Microsoft technology myself; first the BlackBerry, next thing you know I'll trade in my Windows 7 laptop for a Mac. Stranger things have happened.

(h/t The Animal Spirits Page)

TLP: Just Don't Let Her Husband Serve the Refreshments

2010-03-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

I'm guessing Jr Deputy Accountant will be annoyed, but how could I pass this one up? And really, it's not an obsession. I'm just interested in the political process. This whole Tea Party thing is about the politics, right?

"Ordinary citizen" Virginia Thomas spoke recently with Tea Party leaders in Washington about the group she founded to fight the "hard-left agenda" of President Obama. But, as Kathleen Hennessey reported in the Los Angeles Times, Thomas isn't like your average political activist.

LA Times:

She is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and she has launched a tea-party-linked group that could test the traditional notions of political impartiality for the court.

In January, Virginia Thomas created Liberty Central Inc., a nonprofit lobbying group whose website will organize activism around a set of conservative "core principles," she said.

The group plans to issue score cards for Congress members and be involved in the November election, although Thomas would not specify how. She said it would accept donations from various sources — including corporations — as allowed under campaign finance rules recently loosened by the Supreme Court.

See? I'm not obsessed. All about the politics, with barely any innuendo. And not even one reference to ...

The White House is Transparent About Not Being Transparent

2010-03-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

What this tells me is that "transparency" is only important when it comes to everyone but the White House. OMG! The official quote goes something like this: "Going forward, anytime the American people want to know something that I or a former president wants to withhold, we will have to consult with the Attorney General and the White House counsel, whose business it is to ensure compliance with the rule of law. Information will not be withheld just because I say so; it will be withheld because a separate authority believes my request is well-grounded in the Constitution. Let me say it as simply as I can: transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency."

Soooooo... how is that working out so far?

NYT:

In his first full day at the White House almost 14 months ago, President Obama declared openness and transparency to be touchstones of his administration, and he ordered federal agencies to make it easier for the public to get information on the workings of government.

Indeed, Mr. Obama’s administration has posted White House visitor logs online, it has made public the once-classified memorandums on torture policies in the George W. Bush administration, and it has developed an internal system for archiving its own unclassified e-mail messages.

But a new report released Sunday by a private research group, the National Security Archive, suggests that the results of Mr. Obama’s push for transparency have been decidedly mixed across the federal government, with progress slow and erratic.

Erm, from the National Security Archive:

The Rosemary Award for worst open government performance, named after President Nixon’s secretary who erased 18 ½ minutes of a crucial Watergate tape, this year goes to the Federal Chief Information Officers Council, the senior federal officials (responsible for $71 billion a year of IT purchases) who have never addressed the failure of the government to save its e-mail electronically, according to the citation today by the National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org).

Formed by Executive Order in 1996 and codified in law by Congress in the 2002 E-Government Act, the CIO Council describes itself as the “principle interagency forum for improving practices in the design, modernization, use, operation, sharing, and performance of Federal Government information resources.” Yet neither the Council’s founding documents, its 2007-2009 strategic plan, its transition memo for the Obama administration, nor its current Web site even mention the challenge of electronic records management for e-mail.

Last month, the Justice Department investigation of former senior officials John Yoo and Jay Bybee over their authorship of the so-called “torture memos” revealed that “most of Yoo’s email records had been deleted and were not recoverable.” The Yoo deletions represent only the latest red flag about government e-mail preservation – dating back to the January 1989 attempt by the Reagan administration to destroy its e-mail backup tapes, thwarted by the National Security Archive’s lawsuit.

A 2008 survey by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and OpenTheGovernment.org did not find a single federal agency policy that mandates an electronic record keeping system agency-wide. Congressional testimony in 2008 by the Government Accountability Office indicted the standard “print and file” approach by pointing out: “agencies recognize that devoting significant resources to creating paper records from electronic sources is not a viable long-term strategy”; yet GAO concluded even the “print and file” system was failing to capture the historic records “for about half of the senior officials” checked – John Yoo’s peers.

Transparency! Accountability! It's your money (not really, it's actually your great-great-grandchildren's money but let's not split hairs) and we want you to know what we're doing with it, America!

Chris Dodd's Last Land Mine: Transforming the Fed and Screwing the Consumer

2010-03-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

Pic credit: toothpaste for dinner

Don't hate but from Wikipedia:

A step shaft (a.k.a. land mine) is usually a victim-triggered explosive device which is intended to damage its target via blast and/or fragments.

Notice you didn't hear a peep out of the NY Fed when a handful of clever Fed Presidents were campaigning to keep the Fed "independent" and free from political interference. JDA will ignore the fact that they gave that up about 18 months ago when they pledged whatever it takes to prop up everyone except Lehman Brothers as this is not about arguing over whether or not they are actually independent but criminalizing the NY Fed. Duh.

Dodd is making his last move and it's a doozy.

Sewell Chan via NYT (and seriously, does Sewell Chan ever sleep? I'm just wondering):

The bill that Christopher J. Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, will introduce on Monday appears written with the goal of forging a consensus that can overcome partisan division, with provisions that incorporate ideas from both Democrats and Republicans.

Among the most recent provisions in the bill to emerge, according to people who have been briefed on the draft, is one that would curb Wall Street’s influence over the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Its president would be appointed by the president of the United States, not by a board that includes representatives of member banks.

Another rule would ban bank officers from sitting on the New York Fed’s board, meaning that Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, would probably have to leave the board.

Then it gets weird.

The legislation would create a consumer protection agency within the Federal Reserve to write rules governing mortgages, credit cards and other financial products, said the people, who insisted on anonymity because the details were still in flux.

In a concession to liberals, states’ attorneys general could sue violators of those rules, and the agency would have enforcement powers over large banks, mortgage originators and servicers, and other large lenders.

But in a nod to Republicans, the bill would allow a council of regulators, led by the Treasury, to overturn proposed consumer rules by a two-thirds vote. And although the consumer protection agency would have a director appointed by the president, it would be housed within the Fed, an anathema for consumer advocates.

How on Earth does this have a chance? Congress may not know its ass from a hole in the ground but it knows it's in trouble with the population for blowing that whole babysitter of the Fed thing. They don't seem prepared to accept that responsibility at this point so why hand over more to the beast they can't tame?

No clue. Not even wild speculation can answer that one.

TLP: Bank of America, Now With Less "Scary and Ugly"

2010-03-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

Image credit: Best Behavior books

First, Bank of America decides to scrap overdraft fees on debit card purchases. Then the bank says it has bumped up loan modifications by 60 percent.

And now, BofA agrees to publish online an annual summary of it corporate political donations. Pound of flesh, anyone? John Liu got himself a fresh bite, without that stale Ken Lewis aftertaste.

From the WSJ:

New York City Comptroller John C. Liu has scored a coup in an ongoing national effort to increase corporate transparency after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a century-old ban on corporate political spending.

Fearing the ramifications of the January court ruling, which opens the way for millions of corporate dollars to be poured into this year's elections, the trustees of the city's pension funds and other major institutional investors have begun to demand more transparency and accountability from the companies in which they invest.

The deal calls for Bank of America to list donations made with corporate funds to political parties and committees, plus gifts from the bank's PACs. Contributions from specific BofA employees won't show up.

More WSJ:

"This kind of agreement with Bank of America is critically important in the wake of that court decision that essentially allows unlimited amounts of money to be contributed for political causes at essentially the whim of the top management," said Mr. Liu, the city's chief financial officer. "Full disclosure can and will be a disinfectant." ...

All of the information the bank agreed to publish online is already publicly disclosed elsewhere, the bank said, but Mr. Liu said a full accounting of the bank's political activities is very difficult for the general public or the company's shareholders to find.

So, NYC's comptroller is happy and has his sights set on some other companies where the city invests. The WSJ cites Charles Schwab, Sprint Nextel and Union Pacific.

But what's behind all of this? What could be in it for BofA? Fox Business News has an idea that could be too big to fail.

Blowing a Bigger Bubble: The Green Scam

2010-03-14T19:27:00.000-07:00

I remind you I live in San Francisco. California. You know, the state that invented hijacking tax refunds because it cannot pay its bills - ever the trend-setter, California may not be alone this year in holding on just a tad longer to money that was never theirs in the first place. Oh dear, someone might need a lesson in government accounting. Expenditures, not expenses, the difference is subtle but translates from accounting terms to real-life terms to mean you might be waiting for your state tax refund this year. Being a Californian, I already know what that's like. (They finally started paying them out in October of last year)

That's not all California is good for. Al Gore seems to believe he can work everyone up into a green technology lather but the reality is they'd burned out technology everywhere else and needed another bubble. Really? I watched dot com from the inside in San Francisco at 19 years old, let me tell you, SFMTA didn't have any fucking funding problems back then. Muni did, however, have the "bunching" problem that still pisses most of us off today (those of us that are still around). The point is, Arnold would love to see you green technology alchemists (whatever that is) spin your straw here in California. Case in point, the Bloom Box everyone was jerking themselves off about a few weeks ago.

So they know what a good bubble can accomplish. And if that doesn't work, how about baiting dumb old America with some line about terrible Red China to get the support of the unwashed masses?

The Jakarta Globe:

With the US economy struggling and the political system in gridlock, there is one thing everyone in Washington seems to agree on: The Chinese do it better.

Cyberspace? China has an army of hackers ready to read your most intimate e-mails and spy on corporations and super-secret government agencies. Education? China is churning out engineers almost as fast as it’s making toys. Military prowess? China is catching up, so quickly that it is about to deploy an anti-ship ballistic missile that could make life on a US aircraft carrier a perilous affair. The economy? China has gone from cheap-clothing maker to America’s banker. Governance? At least they can build a high-speed train. And energy? Look out, Red China is going green!

This new Red Scare says a lot about America’s collective psyche at this moment. A nation with a per capita annual income of $6,546 — ensconced above Ukraine and below Namibia, according to the International Monetary Fund — is putting the fear of God, or Mao, into Americans’ hearts.

Here’s US President Barack Obama talking about clean energy in February: “Countries like China are moving even faster ... I’m not going to settle for a situation where the United States comes in second place or third place or fourth place in what will be the most important economic engine in the future.”

Look out, it's fucking China coming to compete with our asses!

The protectionism is rampant and it feels like OMG! Obama is staging outrage towards our 2nd largest creditor. 3rd if this keeps up and China keeps dumping Treasurys. Eventually, the "Caribbean Banking Centers" (ha!) will be our 2nd largest creditor with Japan racing by a distant 1st (out of control accelerators anyone?) and Russia catching up. Don't expect that to last. In reality, a year from now US creditors will look like this (I'm guessing):

1. The Fed (duh, let's be transparent about this)
2. Japan (because otherwise we won't be allowed to buy their cars - since the government owns most of the car companies in America except Ford, it would obviously want to run those popular damn Japanese cars off the market)
3. Caribbean Banking Centers (also the Fed, let's be real about that too)
4. Russia
5. China

I'd put money on that.

Anyway, hopefully you are nowhere on that "creditor of the United States" list, even if they ask nicely and/or make it convenient to transform your tax refund into Treasury debt.

When does it end?

Not with green energy, I assure you.

No Administration Left Behind, Just America's Few Remaining Geniuses

2010-03-14T12:33:00.000-07:00

My what is a dumbass?! (seriously, it's real)

Ask Skeptical CPA how he feels about the state of education in America. I am compelled to agree with him, the educational system in this country is a fraud, plain and simple. Some have suggested state-subsidized "higher" education is little more than a trick to keep working age adults out of the workforce as long as possible as there are not enough jobs to go around. Conspiratorial as it may be, something must be up and that's as good an explanation as any.

Still others claim that in the first half of the 20th century, it was decided the "dumbing down of America" would be beneficial to future generations as it would make it harder for them to qualify for well-paid positions, thereby avoiding the yoke of higher income tax. Again, sounds a tad tin foil hat but there must be some explanation for the proliferation of total idiots in this country and you can't blame it on American Idol as that show has only been around for a handful of years.

As a child of 1980s public school myself, I'm going to have to go with "Campaign to Dumb Down America" and insist that one need only look at Gen Y to see how well that plan has worked. Too well, in fact.

And now we're trying to reverse the trend. Too little too late if you ask me.

WaPo:

President Obama proposed Saturday to overhaul the No Child Left Behind law, saying he wanted to help all students get on track for college and careers, through a new school accountability system that he hoped could be in place within four years.

"Under these guidelines, schools that achieve excellence or show real progress will be rewarded," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address, "and local districts will be encouraged to commit to change in schools that are clearly letting their students down."

Obama wants to drop the No Child label and reshape the law without scrapping it entirely. But that approach drew immediate fire from teachers unions, which have been among the foremost critics of the testing program begun under President George W. Bush.

"No Child Left Behind" does not help the brilliant child who is left back because her braindead schoolmates need 13 weeks to learn the multiplication tables. It does not help the voracious kindergarten reader. It certainly does not help the creative genius as music and art programs have all but been vaporized from our public schools.

Yeah, America, good luck catching China now. You can go back to American Idol now. Or Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader. Here's a hint: you probably aren't.

Ask yourself why we need directions on shampoo bottles and warnings on soda bottles not to open them pointing directly at our faces. Then think about how many times just this week you've seen "your" and "you're" used as if they are interchangeable. And if that still isn't enough proof, I've got plenty of war stories about college-educated accountants (some with Masters degrees!) who can't understand the question "what is your name?" if you'd like to get into that whole mess.

Obama's Foreclosure Plan a Success (Half of One, at Least)

2010-03-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

There isn't much to say about this, least of all "I'm shocked" or "OMG you have to be joking me!" - more like "yeah, and?"

WaPo:

About 90,000 distressed borrowers have lost their mortgage aid under the government's foreclosure prevention plan, and many more are at risk of losing the help, according to Treasury Department data released Friday.

Many of those borrowers did not turn in required documents to prove they qualified for the program, which typically lowers mortgage payments by more than $500 a month. Some applicants earned too much under the government's formula, while others made too little and were unlikely to be able to keep up even with the lower payments.

Under the program, which was launched a year ago, borrowers could receive a loan modification after a phone conversation with their lender and then have three months to prove they qualified for the program and to make the initial payments. Then they would be moved into a permanent loan modification.

But the Obama administration was forced to loosen those guidelines as lenders struggled to collect all the required documents, including pay stubs and tax returns. Although more than 1 million borrowers have had their payments lowered under the federal program, about 500,000 have passed the required three-month threshold without receiving a permanent loan modification.

Wait a minute, that's 90,000 borrowers who got aid and lost it because they didn't meet Treasury's requirements and then another 500,000 who "pass the required three-month threshold without receiving a permanent loan modification" whatever the hell that means.

Realizing they could not recruit known skeptics like Financial Armageddon's Michael Panzner and Naked Capitalism's Yves Smith to their side (sketchy Treasury meeting anyone?), perhaps the Treasury decided to stick with Plan B in inviting raging liberal bloggers to their last blogger pow-wow. JDA isn't bitter that she hasn't been invited or anything, I don't know if Tim Geithner has been groomed to handle the likes of me. Hell, he can't even handle a bunch of Chinese students.

Anyway, the PR push seems odd but forgivable; the Treasury has one hell of a pitch to shove and somehow have to tailor it to convince just about everyone they have a clue what they are doing. They have to convince China to jump back in the T-bill game, convince America they aren't screwing our great-great-grandchildren into being on the hook for an impossible bill, convince the smarmy bloggers to keep their traps shut... it's a rough gig, I get it.

But uhhh... who is buying it?

This is a pathetic show by our friends at the Treasury but most of these people shouldn't have been in houses anyway so I guess that's what has to happen. I've said it before and I'll say it again: enough already with the help, Treasury. We're so much better off without it.

OMG! Obama Moves Quickly to Populate the Fed, Announces 2 Possible Board Picks

2010-03-12T11:28:00.000-08:00

Pic credit: married to the sea

Suddenly concerned with filling up vacancies at the Fed Board of Governors, Obama is busting his ass to get his picks into the temple on 20th and Constitution. I need not even express my skepticism, I'm sure you all already know how I feel.

NYT:

Moving quickly to put its mark on the Federal Reserve, the White House on Friday identified two economists and a lawyer as its choices to fill all three vacancies on the central bank’s board of governors, a senior administration official said.

The economists are Janet L. Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, who is the top choice for vice chairwoman, and Peter A. Diamond, an M.I.T. economist who is an authority on Social Security, pensions and taxation. The lawyer, Sarah Bloom Raskin, is the Maryland commissioner of financial regulation.

The Obama administration stopped short of saying that it would formally nominate all three to the Senate, stating only that Ms. Yellen was “a leading contender” and that Mr. Diamond and Ms. Raskin were “under consideration,” the administration official said.

Bizarre, why now? I could make a few wild guesses and probably be 95% right (politicizing the Fed anyone?) but the Obama administration's timing is the most suspect aspect of all.

In case you missed it, I'm still freaking out over the whole Janet Yellen thing and don't want to talk about it.

JDA's Worst Nightmare Comes True: Obama Taps SF Fed's Janet Yellen as Fed Vice Chair?

2010-03-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

Pic credit: married to the sea

First the official stuff and let me just tell you, I had to step outside and get a breath of fresh air after I read this just to make sure I wasn't suffering from some kind of paranoid delusion. Was I sleeping? Someone fucking pinch me and really hard, that maniac Obama has just offered San Francisco Fed's Janet Yellen (arch-nemesis of both JDA and a handful of pretty sharp Fedheads) Don Kohn's vacated position as Fed Vice Chair.

WSJ:

President Barack Obama plans to nominate Janet Yellen as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, a person familiar with the matter said.

Ms. Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco since 2004, has been a strong supporter of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's policies to fight the deep economic downturn.

This sends a clear signal from the administration: we're ready to do whatever it takes to keep the Dirty Fed money coming. Well how in the hell did that happen? The Fed is entirely politicized at this point so let's just stop arguing about the independence bullshit because if this doesn't make obvious what is going on, I personally volunteer to come to your house and bitch slap you myself, just send me your address.

And if somehow I can get through the metal detectors, I'm not against slapping the Fed for letting this happen either. Jeffrey Lacker is over there whining about the Fed being scapegoat for misplaced bailout anger and meanwhile his most clueless System colleague just got "promoted" to Jr Supreme Ruler of Dirty Fed Money. It'll be a pay cut but she won't have to pay San Francisco prices anymore, I'm sure she'll do just fine. Besides, she'll get back to her salary in no time if she lives up to her SF Fed legacy at the Board of Governors as Ben Bernanke's bottom bitch and fantasizes about 4% inflation targets.

Don't mention that number to Dallas Fed's Richard Fisher, he'll get pissed.

OK wait for it.

Reuters:

President Barack Obama plans to nominate San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Janet Yellen, a respected policy dove, to be vice chairman of the central bank, a source familiar with the process said on Thursday.

Yellen would replace Donald Kohn, a 40-year veteran of the Fed who announced earlier this month that he would retire on June 23. The nomination for the four-year term as the Fed's No. 2 would be subject to Senate approval.

She is considered one of the most "dovish" members of the central bank's policymakers, meaning she is seen to lean toward policies that will boost growth and promote employment rather than those aimed at keeping inflation at bay.

Yellen, reached by telephone, declined to comment, as did the Treasury Department. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

"The FOMC top brass is starting to look like the dream team," said Chris Rupkey of the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, referring to the Fed's interest rate-setting panel.

WHOSE DREAM ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?! This is the sort of shit that makes me jump out of bed at 3a in a cold sweat. The dream team? Please, if we're talking the Dream Team, Janet Yellen would be Christian Laettner and would have been traded 16 times already by now.

Janet, seriously, how can I talk you out of this? It's too late to get to Obama but from one San Franciscan to another, please just say no.

Reuters gives us five fun facts about Janet Yellen for those of you that aren't hip to our esteemed local Fedhead (don't worry, I'll catch you up in a minute):

* Yellen was a governor on the Fed's Washington-based Board of Governors from August 1994 to February 1997.

* She chaired the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 1997 through August 1999 under President Bill Clinton.

* She has been president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, one of 12 regional Fed banks, since June 2004.

* Yellen, 62, is a native of Brooklyn, New York, and received a PhD in economics from Yale University in 1971.

* She is considered one of the most "dovish" members of the central bank's policymakers, meaning she is seen to lean toward policies that will lift growth and promote employment rather than those aimed at keeping inflation at bay.

Rad but um frightening and not all that useful. I have 5 better ones (naturally):

Janet Yellen once suggested the Fed issue its own debt (F-bills). I believe she has misread the playbook and probably embarrassed more than one of her colleagues by even suggesting this.
"If it were possible to take interest rates into negative territory I would be voting for that," she told reporters after the speech" (Reuters February 22 ) How easy would Janet like the Dirty Fed money to go? I think that statement pretty much sums up her attitude. Miraculously, the woman who endorses these horrible easy money policies does not care about inflation.
She's one of the worst monetary enablers I've ever seen. Check out SF Fedhead Yellen: If Her Husband Were a Crack Addict, He'd Be Turning Tricks as We Speak
She's a mini Bernanke - obsessing over the Great Depression - focusing too much on unemployment and not enough on the consequences of this stupid ass easy money addiction. Do we really need two of them at the Board?!
She lacks the ability to see the long-term effects of her desired policy actions. And sometimes gets snippy with System colleagues who don't share her completely asinine view. They may not be able to say as much to her face but I'm happy to. See Yellen Takes a Big Swing at Inflation Hawks (WSJ's Real Time Economics)

And then we have this from Zero Hedge September 14, reminding me (and hopefully Janet's cheerleaders at the SF Fed) that I'm not the only one who thinks she's a tad... off:

Grandma Janet sounds like an insane and/or senile bureaucrat who does not want to admit that she was one of the select cabal of monetary druids whose mistakes essentially destroyed the financial world a year ago... and their reaction to this destruction has made sure that the US economic system is now promptly heading either toward hyperdeflation or hyperinflation (likely both).

Nonetheless, some interesting quotes:

* On negative fund rates:

"[QE] is stimulating the flow of credit, but [it is] simply not as powerful levers as large rate cuts."

In other words, if Bernanke could charge savers 10% for keeping money in the bank, he would be first in line to do so.

Surely Obama knew all these facts and then some when he made his decision. And the Fed is independent hahahahaha.

Drug Dealers and Crackheads Go Free in San Francisco

2010-03-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

Seriously.

First California is broke and has to release state prisoners to alleviate part of the costs sunk into housing their bad asses, now the SFPD drug lab has a cokehead problem and the City Attorney's office has to let a bunch of criminals go as a result.

What the San Francisco media will not tell you while they're getting outraged by this is that this happens every day at 850 Bryant. In 2003, the SF City Attorney's Office could boast a 52% felony conviction rate (compared to 83% for the entire state of California). By 2006, it was 66.6%.

It's not easy being on either side of the criminal line here in not-so-sunny San Francisco. I always blame the magnetic field (hello, have you ever tried to read SF Fed research?)

I digress.

SF Gate:

San Francisco drug dealers are waltzing out of court this week, all charges dropped after an embarrassing - and unprofessional - foul-up by law enforcement.

Months too late, prosecutors and police woke up to reports that a drug-lab technician was stealing and using cocaine seized by cops. Until the claims of tainted evidence are sorted out, drug cases will be withdrawn. That means 25 to 30 per day this week, no matter the size or severity.

The tale has generated plenty of finger-pointing and tail-covering. Communication, oversight procedures and management all broke down. A hurry-up fix is on the way to farm out drug testing to Alameda and San Mateo counties beginning next week, and many of the drug cases may be re-filed if no connection is found to the suspected drug tester.

KCBS tells us that what the "understaffed" SFPD crime lab really needs is another audit because the first one so adequately identified the issue (long after Deborah Madden's problem had directly and negatively affected her position at the SFPD):

Police Chief George Gascón says the AG will review the lab’s operations as well as help with retesting evidence. That’s in addition to an audit by state and national crime lab experts that is scheduled to begin within the next week.

All of this comes in response to allegations that former crime lab technician Deborah Madden stole cocaine evidence for personal use last year. She left the crime lab shortly after a December audit revealed that drug evidence was missing.

A 60 year old police lab technician is busted with guns and cocaine in her home. Seriously. You can't make it up.

More SF Gate:

Madden had been working as a criminalist for the city for 29 years and earned $122,000 last year in salary and overtime. She is free on $40,000 bail in San Mateo County, where she was arrested March 3 on weapons charges as a result of a search of her home.

San Francisco and San Mateo County officers searched her home last month and found a gun, which she is barred from having because of a domestic violence case, and a small amount of cocaine.

It's my understanding that charges have not been filed for the whole stealing cocaine from the crime lab thing. Come on, San Francisco, you can actually prosecute this one all the way through, what's stopping you?

China Likes It Hot

2010-03-12T06:00:00.001-08:00

Not that there's anything wrong with that necessarily.

Business Week:

China’s accelerating inflation has started to erode household savings, threatening to spur purchases of property and stocks and fuel asset-price pressures.

Consumer prices rose a more-than-forecast 2.7 percent in February, the most in 16 months, the statistics bureau said in Beijing yesterday. The increase means the rate exceeds the one- year deposit rate of 2.25 percent.

So-called negative real rates skew incentives to spending just as China’s economy is already accelerating -- reports this week showed exports rose, industrial production accelerated and new loans exceeded forecasts. The central bank may raise interest rates within the next three weeks, Standard Chartered Bank Plc, Nomura Holdings Inc. and Royal Bank of Canada said.

Hey China, not only should you knock that off and unpeg from the dollar, Obama is kind of pissed that you price your crappy lead-tainted exports so cheaply, can you kindly knock that off?

Holy F%$^ing Lehman Brothers Autopsy

2010-03-11T22:16:00.000-08:00

Holy shit, E&Y has some 'splainin to do.

DealBook has the entire 2,200 page report that recounts the final months of Lehman by Lehman's own bank examiner Anton R. Valukas. NYT tells us it includes accounting fraud, crackhead-like risk management, acknowledgment of fraud, and, uh, tales of getting strong-armed by Citigroup and JP Morgan:

According to the report, Lehman used what amounted to financial engineering to temporarily shuffle $50 billion of troubled assets off its books in the months before its collapse in September 2008 to conceal its dependence on leverage, or borrowed money. Senior Lehman executives, as well as the bank’s accountants at Ernst & Young, were aware of the moves, according to Mr. Valukas, the chairman of the law firm Jenner & Block and a former federal prosecutor, who filed the report in connection with Lehman’s bankruptcy case.

Christ, and I thought Fedgate was bad.

Update: Naked Capitalism is calling out the NY Fed:

Well, it is folks, as a newly-released examiner’s report by Anton Valukas in connection with the Lehman bankruptcy makes clear. The unraveling isn’t merely implicating Fuld and his recent succession of CFOs, or its accounting firm, Ernst & Young, as might be expected. It also emerges that the NY Fed, and thus Timothy Geithner, were at a minimum massively derelict in the performance of their duties, and may well be culpable in aiding and abetting Lehman in accounting fraud and Sarbox violations.

It's too early to call anything, hope you've got a safe bunker to hide out in while the smoke clears.

The FDIC Jumps into the Securitized Asset Business While Still Failing at Their First Business

2010-03-11T15:28:00.000-08:00

Library of Congress photo, LC-USF34- 028362-D

The FDIC needs to come up with some cash so instead of sitting on all that crappy left-over collateral, they're going to try to get some loans. Yeah. That's exactly the point of "deposit insurance" I'm sure.

Business Week:

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. sold $1.38 billion of guaranteed notes backed by construction loans and seized property from a failed bank, according to a person familiar with the offering.

The debt was broken into three parts, with an $850 million portion that matures no later than October 2012 pricing to yield 21 basis points more than interest-rate swaps, said the person, who declined to be identified because terms aren’t public. Barclays Capital underwrote the sale, the person said.

The debt represents part of the assets the FDIC acquired after seizing Chicago-based Corus Bank in September, the person said. The offering was one of two sales planned for this month of bonds tied to loans the FDIC sold partly last year through so-called structured loan sales, people familiar with the matter said last month.

The pace of bank failure will “pick up this year and is going to exceed where we were last year,” FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair told reporters last month.

Last week the agency sold $1.81 billion of guaranteed debt backed by mortgage securities from failed banks, as it begins to tap the bond market to raise cash after the collapse of 193 banks since 2007. The FDIC also may sell bonds linked to the assets of Houston-based Franklin Bank this month, the people said.

Apparently investors are foaming at the mouth for a piece of this FDIC-guaranteed action, so says WSJ:

This issue is backed by non-agency mortgage-backed securities.

The top-tier floating-rate notes with a size of $1.33 billion is talked in the area of 65 basis points over one-month Libor.

The lower-rated fixed rate notes with a size of $480 million is in the area of 90 to 95 basis points over a different benchmark.

The initial price talk on the deal had both classes in the area of 75 basis points. Now, the guidance shows a tightening of 10 basis points on the floating-rate tranche, while the fixed-rate class widened by almost 15 to 20 basis points.

"The interpretation of the underlying collateral is that going forward, investors have a better appetite for floaters, while with fixed rate there's fear that interest rates will go up when government ends its various programs," said Jim Harringotn, senior portfolio manager at Ryan Labs Asset Management.

The FDIC guarantee on this issue, the first of its kind for a structured issue, creates a new class of securities raising questions in investors' minds on what the comparables would be.

"We've not seen anything like this before," Harrington said. "So it offers a number of different mindsets."

We've certainly never seen anything like this before (this is the part where you imagine JDA's hipster ass staring at the computer screen with WTF written across her face).

The FDIC is scraping its collection of failed bank assets to package ABSs with a federal guarantee against loss, surely that sort of well-thought-out crackpot scheme can't go badly?

Perhaps the FDIC wouldn't have to replenish its coffers so often if it weren't trying so hard to "regulate" - so much so that it actually seized Waterfield Bank in Maryland (bought by Affinity Financial in 2008 - and we all know what happened to Affinity) instead of allowing Affinity's majority owners to sink their own capital into the bank to resolve the FDIC's threat of closure. Check out LA Times:

[P]eople involved with Affinity and the bank said the biggest problem was regulators' discomfort with its unusual Internet-based business model. This involved taking deposits indirectly through the websites of so-called affinity groups -- big companies, insurers and associations -- including automaker BMW, the advocacy group AARP and the American Medical Assn.

The FDIC regarded the affinity-group deposits as a less-stable source of funding than deposits from core customers of the bank. The bank had $156.4 million in deposits.

The differences between the bank and its regulators proved so great that when the wealthy Waterfield family, Affinity's majority owners, offered to recapitalize the failing bank with funds from a family trust, the regulators rejected the offer, according to two people with personal knowledge of the situation. These people spoke on condition of anonymity because they have other dealings with bank regulators and feared offending them.

Officials at the FDIC, which is charged with minimizing losses to the deposit insurance fund, did not respond to requests for comment. The OTS declined to comment.

The deal cost the FDIC $51 million (the OTS seized the S&L and handed them off to the FDIC March 5th). Since Waterfield was a savings and loan, perhaps it's not their problem. They'd been on the OTS's bad behavior list for quite some time but I guess owners coming up with their own money doesn't equal that cash money regulators like so much. Grease up that finger and let's get ready to point!

Via Going Concern: Helpful Suggestions for Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne's Apology to Sam Antar

2010-03-11T14:18:00.000-08:00

JDA is a helpful young lady (potty mouth aside) and so is the rest of the Going Concern team, which is why we offered some helpful suggestions to Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne in response to this recent request from our friend Sam Antar:

From: Sam E. Antar
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 11:02 PM
To: Patrick M. Byrne
Subject: Overstock.com Restatement
Importance: High

Hi Patrick:
Will you finally admit that I was correct when I reported in my blog that Overstock.com violated GAAP by using a phony gain contingency in light of the company’s recently announced restatement?

You owe me a public apology.
Regards,
Sam

Check out the rest on Going Concern if you're interested in my suggestions. I'm partial to cupcakes myself but that's just me. Note it if you're in the habit of pissing me off *coughI'mstaringdirectlyatyouBenBernankecough*

Gary Weiss also picked up the post (for which we are grateful), thanks Gary!

Update: Seriously, how did I miss this from Sam's blog? "Analyzing Overstock.com's financial reporting is a forensic accountant's wet dream and Patrick Byrne is about to become the SEC's new orgasm." Fuck the SEC, I think JDA just had one...

Stiglitz and Forbes Team Up to Call Out the Fed

2010-03-11T13:16:00.000-08:00

Joseph Stiglitz (yup, the Nobel economist who called the Fed "corrupt") has some bad ideas about the "reverse" stimulus happening in state legislative houses around the country as they scramble to cut social services and education but we'll ignore those cracked-out Keynesian ideas and focus on the important stuff: hating on the Federal Reserve.

HuffPo:

Despite their different opinions on the role of government in monetary policy, both Forbes and Stiglitz found some common enemies, including the IMF and, notably, the Federal Reserve.

An audience member asked the pair if the Federal Reserve was private, and, following an uncomfortable murmur in the crowd, Stiglitz replied, "That's a good question", calling the nature of the Fed "a little bit ambiguous" and stating that the functioning of the regional Feds made them somewhat like a "federally chartered club."

"The Fed's a creature of Congress," added Forbes. "The amazing thing is, when you say monetary policy people's eyes glaze over, especially in Congress. As a result, this powerful institution has less oversight in Congress then the CIA."

"I don't want Congress running the Federal Reserve, but that's quite different from accountability," Forbes added.

Stiglitz also had some more harsh words for the Fed: "If we looked at a banana republic with a structure like that, we would say you've got to change or we won't give you any money."

"It's just not consistent with a democratic government," he said.

Since when are we a democracy anyway? You can't put dumbed-down America in charge of deciding their future, they can't even decide how many inches to dedicate to the ole big screen TV they can't afford!

Steve Forbes can suck a dick but for once he actually made sense - I know, I was shocked too - and it's great to see warring factions holding hands and agreeing that regardless of how we feel about abortion, healthcare, gay marriage and legal drugs, we can all agree that the Fed's got to go. I knew there was a reason I still loved America.

CTFC's Gensler Trying to Put on the Big Bad Regulator Face

2010-03-11T11:22:00.000-08:00

Yeah ok, just months ago Gensler was giving Goldman Sachs the old wink and rub while putting the smackdown on Deutsche Bank for no apparent reason but now make no bones about it, he's sick of all of their shit. Sure, I totally buy that!

WSJ:

U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler took another swipe at Wall Street Thursday, saying financial firms' objections to over-the-counter derivatives regulations could leave a large portion of the market in the dark.

"Let there be no mistake: Wall Street has not been enthusiastic about this reform," Mr. Gensler planned to tell a room full of derivatives industry experts at the Futures Industry Association's annual conference. "They would prefer transparency only be brought to the regulators or at most that regulators just publish aggregate trading data rather than real-time trade information," he said.

Mr. Gensler has been among the most vocal Washington regulators in his push to bring more transparency to the over-the-counter market. His plan, which is largely aligned with the Obama administration's views, calls for mandating that all routine derivatives be traded on regulated platforms and routed through clearinghouses, which guarantee trades.

Derivative dealers such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. or Morgan Stanley, meanwhile, would also be subject to strict capital and margin requirements as well as reporting and record-keeping rules and new business conduct standards.

Are we talking about the same chief of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission who used to work for Goldman Sachs? Just want to make sure before I start foaming at the mouth and attacking the guy. Quick refresher (from my August 20 2009 CFTC Chair to Deutsche Bank: Goldman's Cojones are Larger than Yours):

Huh? Did anyone else see what they did there?

From the CFTC:

Release: 5695-09
For Release: August 19, 2009

CFTC Withdraws Two No-Action Letters Granting Relief from Federal Speculative Position Limits on Soybeans, Corn and Wheat Contracts

Washington, DC – The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission today announced that it is withdrawing two no-action letters that provided relief from federal agricultural speculative positions limits set forth in CFTC regulations (17 C.F.R §150.2).

“I believe that position limits should be consistently applied and vigorously enforced,” CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler said. “Position limits promote market integrity by guarding against concentrated positions.”

In CFTC Letter 06-09 (May 5, 2006), the agency’s Division of Market Oversight (DMO) granted no-action relief to DB Commodity Services LLC, a commodity pool operator (CPO) and commodity trading advisor (CTA), permitting the DB Commodity Index Tracking Master Fund to take positions in corn and wheat futures that exceed federal speculative position limits set forth in CFTC Regulation 150.2. Subsequently, in CFTC Letter 06-19 (September 6, 2006), DMO granted similar no-action relief to a CPO/CTA employing a proprietary commodity investment strategy that includes positions in Chicago Board of Trade corn, soybeans and wheat futures contracts. Among other things, DMO’s no-action position in both cases stated that any change in circumstances or conditions could result in a different conclusion. DMO has previously stated that the trading strategies employed by these entities would not qualify for a bona fide hedge exemption under the Commission’s regulations.

DMO will work with each of these entities as they transition to positions within current federal speculative limits. The withdrawal of these no-action positions is very specific and limited and does not affect any other no-action or regulatory positions taken by the CFTC or its staff with regard to these entities or other market participants.

Or in other words:

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Thursday announced that it is withdrawing two no-action letters that provided relief from federal agricultural speculative positions limits set forth in CFTC regulations (17 C.F.R §150.2). The PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking Fund (DBC: 22.77 -0.19 -0.83%) and the PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund (DBA: 24.99 -0.40 -1.58%), will no longer be exempt from U.S. position limits in soybeans, wheat and corn, forcing a shift in their holdings to comply with federal trading restrictions.

Bloomberg reports, “The CFTC move will curtail the commodity holdings of PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking Fund, the largest broad- based commodity index fund in the U.S., and PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund, the largest agricultural exchange-traded fund. Both track Deutsche Bank indexes. The Deutsche Bank funds will have to comply with caps designed to keep a single investor from gaining too much control of the market, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said today. The agency has been tightening restrictions on commodity speculation amid concerns it’s pushing up prices and increasing risks.”

The ex-Goldman head of the CFTC has not removed GS' exemption, has he? Maybe I missed that part. Maybe everyone else saw what they did there too. I only know this makes me want some bacon.

I really believe an ex-Goldman rat would suddenly get tough on the big boys. Really. Maybe it is Gensler's experience behind the scenes that makes him so adamant about bringing much-needed transparency to the swaps market but uh, what else does his experience behind the scenes make him do? Just curious.

TLP: Ahem, There Is a Way to Tell If He's a Real Teabagger

2010-03-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

Three? Maybe Harry should be worried.

As if it wasn't enough that the Coffee Party is trying to steal their buzz, now the Tea Party faces the prospect that a U.S. Senate candidate running under their banner in Nevada is a phony.

Republicans are accusing Jon Scott Ashjian of being a fake teabagger, a plant to pull votes from the GOP, which is trying to unseat Democrat Harry Reid, the majority leader. Republican candidate Danny Tarkanian is one of the complainers and tells CNN, "Nobody in the Tea Party knows who he is. He didn't know any of the principles of the Tea Party."

More from CNN:

Sue Lowden, the Republican front-runner in the Senate primary, according to recent polls, is the former Nevada Republican Party chair and seems to be the Republicans' best hope of unseating Reid in November. Or at least she did, until Ashjian got into the race.

Lowden says she's been very active with Tea Party groups in Nevada. "I am a Tea Party voter, absolutely." Which is why she says she finds it "a little strange" that Ashjian is emerging now. "I don't know who this person is. He's never been involved with anything that I'm aware of in this state."

What does it take to be a Tea Party member or candidate anyway? Isn't the whole point of the party that it's a populist movement? You know, come along and let's fuck with the political establishment, that kind of thing?

Reid denies all of it, mumbling something to CNN about "conspiratorialists" and Ashjian says he isn't anybody's bitch, least of all Harry Reid's. Or the Republicans, for that matter. "I don't think Republicans own the Tea Party," he told CNN. "In fact, I know they don't in Nevada, because I do."

Now that's a mouthful.

The San Francisco/California/US Budget Crisis: SFMTA Edition

2010-03-10T23:00:00.000-08:00

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is in trouble and anyone who rides Muni, tries to park in San Francisco, or visits the city on weekends should know as much.

Tonight, yours truly attended SFMTA's FY 2011 - 2012 Town Hall Budget Meeting at SFMTA HQ on South Van Ness and Market Streets and holy fuck have I been missing an opportunity.

I was overwhelmed by the number of senior citizens at the meeting; I offered to give one a ride home on my back for $1.50 ($0.50 less than Muni charges) but he politely declined. SFMTA media spokesperson Judson True implied that his old ass should get a bike or a car and "diversify" his transportation options in the city. It gets worse. First, check SFMTA media homie looking fabulously SF ironic in a bizarre Muni Fast Pass costume. Hawtness.

I digress, let's get into the nerd shit. My first concern with SFMTA - obviously - is that they are on government accounting, not GAAP. The one speaker at the Town Hall who suggested Muni be privatized was met with sparse applause (um, JDA +2?) and some boos but surely the CPAs can get behind me on this one. Let's remember a huge chunk of SFMTA's "budget" comes from the assumption that they will receive a "subsidy" (for all intents and purposes we can rebrand this a bailout, to use terminology you in America should be more than familiar with by now) from the California state legislature. That's totally cool but they forgot California is broke. California, meanwhile, is waiting for a federal handout. Naturally I pointed this out when it was my turn to rail on Muni.

"Since 2007, over $257 million of State Transit Assistance funding has been diverted away from the SFMTA" they tell us. SFMTA even draws up a handy chart of "Amount Owed vs. Amount Received" but I'm a little confused on what "owed" means. "Payments were halted in Fiscal Year 2010" a big bubble says. What do they mean halted? Like they stood there with their hands out and suddenly the state didn't have it? Was it an actual bill that they mailed to Sacramento or is there just an accountant in charge of the dr made up money cr you wish account?

Still, says SFMTA's True, $400 million in "possible" legislative funding "in the works" could provide $7.2 million in FY 2010 and $28.8 million in FY 11. Yeah, I'm not sure where those numbers come from. It's also counting on $78.3 million in FY 2011 under voter-approved measures. You fucking Californians make me ashamed to be one sometimes but whatever.

True also gave us some valuable insight into government accounting admitting "budgets are only balanced for one day." That's funny, we're talking about how deep the hole will be 2 years from now and can't even figure out this fiscal year's budget and the year is almost through. Wow, that fund/expenditure bullshit wears out quickly, doesn't it?

The SFMTA insists that hard choices must be made and inefficiencies must be addressed but when JDA offered to take my own personal time to transcribe questions and answers from Muni riders to SFMTA officials (as requested by one town hall speaker), True seemed stunned at the very concept. Free? They can't do that. I volunteered my fellow Muni riders in the audience, some even held their hands up. See? Fire your bloated Board, SFMTA, and put a diverse, varied group of San Franciscans in there who would gladly do it for free.

Speaking of which, ANSWER's Forrest Schmidt gave the town hall JDA's personal favorite metaphor, the old polishing a turd (you can catch the whole thing on the SFGTV in a few days if you missed the live stream, I'm sure) and later accused True of lying when he said "most" SFMTA Board positions are volunteer, with Board members receiving a small fee for each meeting.

*cough*

SFMTA CFO Nat Ford (who showed up to the meeting long enough to be seen and then snuck out before True gave the podium to speakers) makes $308,000 a year. Tell me again why I have to put up with this shit? The theft in this city was obvious when Willie Brown was running the show but at least then we had the dot com cow to milk; True even used that as a defense when I mentioned I'd been here for 11 years and Muni has always been inefficient, dirty, excruciatingly slow, unsafe, etc. He's only been here 1 year longer than me so surely he remembers those days. He wistfully drifted back to the dot com days and challenged my memory of our public transit system. Whatever. He's also quitting SFMTA, did I mention that? Best of luck to him, I hope he's 67% less full of shit in his next media adventure, surely fronting for the SFMTA must be a rough gig.

Some other ideas for fixing the budget problem (besides improving efficiency, of course):

A city sales tax of 1/2% - that would bring us up to 10% in San Francisco. Fuck you.

Sunday parking meters - yup. But who comes to the city anymore anyway, Sunday or not?

Adding 1,000 new metered spaces - fun fact: San Francisco is 49 square miles of hills and landfill prone to earthquakes. I'm not sure where exactly SFMTA thinks they are going to put these but this particular scheme seems a tad suspect.

Window advertising wraps on Muni buses - They tried it once and apparently people don't like not being able to see their stop, especially when Muni's broken "voice" systems don't necessarily announce them and one can't expect a driver to actually tell you when you're there. One woman at the town hall seemed extra offended by this and insisted we were not cattle. I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying "you mean whores."

Automatic indexing - this one is especially interesting. Muni would adopt a CPI increase policy on fares based on CPI-U forecast. It expects 2.7% in FY 2011 and 2.8% in FY 2012. This would work out in SFMTA's favor if Zimbabwe Ben keeps up his antics and would totally protect their asses from having to hike fares $200,000 overnight. Look how pissed we got about $15.

You can watch the whole thing go down on the SFMTA website. They want you to think your opinion counts but really, even if you volunteer your time to help save part of your city out of gratitude for being able to call one of the most beautiful cities in the entire world home, they won't do anything with your suggestions. They can't. There are charters and unions and stupid fucking red tape in Sacramento keeping their hands bound even if the Board theoretically wanted to solve their budget issues.

Their own metrics tell them the system cannot handle an additional 5% cut in service and yet that's once again one of their only options. Like I told them tonight, we've reached the breaking point where the price to ride is no longer worth the bullshit we put up with. And we put up with a lot.

Get off your asses, San Francisco, there should have been way more than 75 of you out there tonight. Old people none-the-less. Who had to ride Muni to get there. Shameful. (WC Varones will like to hear there were plenty of bike helmets in the room too and SFMTA's own media hack is a biker. And a driver. And a Muni rider? Does this guy even live in the city?)

For additional reading on SFMTA's WTFs, I recommend the N Judah Chronicles' Mind Boggling Legislative WTF... and Mission Local's Save Muni Groups Look to Meters and Accountability. We're not playing around over here, you never see San Francisco unite like this. No one at the meeting, even foaming-at-the-mouth-liberals, seemed to mind that I was San Francisco's last conservative. I resisted the urge to wear my Reagan for President t-shirt, that would have been pushing it and this is about unity, damnit, not frivolous politics (nor dead politicians that were last in office when I was 8).

Seriously, I'm moving, fuck this.

The next FY11 - 12 meeting is March 30th, it's a Saturday and you bastards are unemployed anyway so get down there.

p.s. SFMTA, that's Adrienne, A-d-r-i-e-n-n-e and you can email me any time about getting that transparency on your website for the greater good of the city.

Bank of America Cuts the $35 Cup of Coffee for Overdrafting Customers

2010-03-10T12:50:00.000-08:00

Bank of America, doing its part for the greater good of the country (naturally), announced that it will eliminate overdraft charges on debit card transactions for its customers who can't figure out the value of balancing one's checkbook (see, when you have too many numbers in the left-hand column and not enough in the right-hand column, that means you're screwed).

Reuters:

Late Tuesday, Bank of America announced plans to suspend overdraft fee charges on all debit card transactions, beginning this summer.

"The $35 cup of coffee at Bank of America is gone," Moynihan said, speaking at Citigroup Inc's Financial Services Conference in New York City, referring to the overdraft fee customers could be charged for overdrawing on small transactions.

The move is the latest in a series of changes the bank has made over the last year to clarify its mortgage and credit card agreements with customers since a first curb of overdraft fees last September.

Debit card overdraft charges accounted for 60 percent of all overdraft transactions, the company said on Tuesday.

Again, a debit card implies that one has a debit to pull from.

Bank of America's move is endorsed by our esteemed Treasury Secretary, who would like to see other banks take a cut in revenue to protect the poor, over-leveraged, non-checkbook-balancing consumer. Listen, JDA is all for consumer protection but sometimes you've got to teach the consumer not to live beyond their means and that means charging their asses for using money that they don't have.

Via Going Concern: WTF is with PwC's New Indian HR Campaign?

2010-03-10T11:03:00.000-08:00

Pic credit: Toothpaste for Dinner

I'm a little baffled by the announcement from PwC that they've launched this mega HR campaign in India that they find really, really exciting.

Will there be shiny marketing materials to accompany this? One can only hope.

GC:

On the surface, Saratoga [PricewaterhouseCoopers' Indian HR project] looks like little more than an inventory count of companies’ human capital, which means something when you have to keep a leash on a bunch of customer service guys with fake first names (how else would you keep track of them?).

See, PwC cares. They care that JP Morgan outsources call center jobs to India – I know this because I’m a Chase customer (leave me alone) and have had the misfortune of dialing in. Meanwhile, JPM’s off-shore hiring spree continues and someone’s got to handle all that “human capital”, why not PwC?

Want to commiserate with me about PwC's latest overseas adventure in human capital? Go check out the rest on Going Concern.

Like I said there, I don't care that some guy in India has a job, I care that he tries to pretend like his name is actually Patrick and puts on a bizarre American accent while doing so. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Crusading Against the Census (Plus Internet B*tchfighting for Dummies)

2010-03-10T10:04:00.000-08:00

After a bunch of hard-core Ron Paulnuts attacked TLP yesterday as they chose not to actually read his headline nor any of the content here on JDA (which would have clearly shown that we are on the side of freedom, small impotent government and of course Dr Paul's cause, lost as it may be sometimes), I'm loathe to even mention the census again.

Let's reiterate: I've got a big fucking End the Fed sign hanging next to my bed that is made out of recycled Ron Paul '08 signs from Campaign for Liberty so stop getting up my ass about flame-baiting, you asshats. Read the fucking article and know who you are speaking to before you start getting your tin foil panties in a bunch, you're making the honorable Doctor look bad with your sweeping generalizations and ignorant arguments. Arguments staged on the Internet with your own people, I remind you. Way to use your precious energy wisely.

Anyway. Fuck the Census.

Big Government:

In addition, the census process has had to endure a White House power grab making Americans very skeptical of the WH’s true intentions. Moreover, there’s is some inherent distrust of how the census is designed and the information it may yield that could allow for a permanent Democrat-controlled government:

The civil rights community won an important battle today in the fight for a fair and accurate 2010 census that counts every person in the United States as required by the U.S. Constitution.

By voting today for cloture on the Commerce-State-Justice Appropriations bill, the Senate effectively ended debate on the divisive Vitter-Bennett amendment. The amendment, which would have forced the Census Bureau to add questions on citizenship and immigration status to the census form less than six months before the count, is clearly unconstitutional. Under the 14th amendment to the Constitution, the apportionment of members of the House of Representatives is based on a full count of persons – not just citizens – in each state. emphasis mine

Unconstitutional? Not sure about that if the people they are referring to are in this country illegally. But, because the citizenship question is not on the form, illegal residents will be more inclined to fill out the form.

Furthermore, the questions asked are quite intrusive and appear unconstitutional.

Really? Because according to Politics Daily, this year's census is not nearly as invasive as previous versions (I know, I'm shocked too), even if the government is wasting a shit ton of money to send out letters warning Americans that they'll be sending out letters (oh government efficiency, I love you so).

Libertarian hero and small government crusader Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has a message for the Census Bureau: "None of your business."

In his weekly column for constituents, Paul writes that the only question the Census Bureau has the constitutional right to ask Americans is, "How many people live here?" Anything more than that, the congressman says, is an invasive expansion of government power.

"It is not hard to imagine that information compiled by the census could be used against people in the future, despite claims to the contrary and the best intentions of those currently in charge of the Census Bureau," he writes. "The government can and does change its mind about these things, and people have a right to be skeptical about government promises."

The 2010 census asks 10 questions, the fewest of any decennial count in decades. In addition to asking how many people live in each household, this year's census asks for respondents' names, addresses, telephone numbers, and race or ethnicity. Past forms have asked for people's occupations and incomes, and even the make of their cars and their immigration status.

You have a choice, America. You can indulge the Big Brother government and divulge how many illegal immigrants you've got stashed in your closet or you can simply check off how many human beings live in your home and mark their ethnicity as AMERICAN. Case closed. It is none of their business.