No Moral Hazard Here: BlackRock Wants To Create And Control Its Own Indexes, And Sell Securities Based Upon Them

Pshaw, ya'll! What could go wrong?


Besides...

IShares said in its application that neither the advisers to the funds nor the internal index provider would have the ability to manipulate a benchmark, in part because the company plans to set up “firewalls.” Each BlackRock index would be rules-based, composed of equity and/or fixed-income securities, whose methodology would be clearly disclosed, according to the application.


That'll take care of things, fer sure. No possibility of folks from one side of the wall having a friendly fishing trip with folks from the other side. That sort of stuff never happens, 'cuz it would be immoral...

And, when it all blows up, Little Timmy and Uncle Ben will simply make it all good with taxpayer money, and send the bill to our grandchildren.

No problem!

Home Is Where The Heart Is: Rahm Emanuel's 'Glad to be home' Video Filmed In Washington

Just too good not to pass along.

Rahmbo may be one the front end of finding out just how cheesed everyone is at his boss, and how willing they will be to take their vengeance out on his scurvy behonkus come election day.

He makes it too easy, like shooting fish in a barrel.

Wouldn't it be rich if he is barred from running because he does not meet the residency requirements for the City of Chicago?

Planet Knucklehead

OS was visited by an insight sometime in the wee hours this morning. It came about as a result of a near-death experience the day previous.

The sainted Mrs. OS owns a Volvo station wagon, bought in the wake of her previous Volvo station wagon being used by a despairing nine-point buck who decided to end it all by walking in front her vehicle on the highway one late night. The buck died, and the occupants of the car walked away. World's best advertisement--survival.

Mrs. OS drives to Louisville about two weeks ago, and on the way discovers a major oil leak in the engine. Off to the mechanic it goes, only to find out that the problem is not desperate (like a head gasket job), and can be repaired. So, OS sez--repair it, we'll go up when it's finished, and I'll drive it back. No biggie.

OS drives said Volvo home, and 100 yards from the house, the car dies. Oil pressure light comes on, car will start, but car won't go past about 10 mph. He raises the hood, and there is oil everywhere in the engine compartment. He limps it home, calls his trusty local mechanic. Tow truck takes car, and the local mechanic looks it over.

One person who worked on it in Louisville had checked one hose leading to the turbo, perhaps to see if it was the source of the leak. Problem is, he didn't remember to tighten the clamp that held the hose in place. Hose pops off 100 yards from home, car dies. Home mechanic clamps hose in place, test drives it, charges $53 for his troubles, which OS gladly pays.

Had said hose popped off twenty minutes earlier, Mrs. OS would now be finalizing funeral plans for her husband, and no one would have ever known why that Volvo wagon suddenly stalled in front of that semi going 75 mph.

It was a near-death experience. OS nearly died because one knucklehead did not take the time to tighten one clamp. He's alive because a Volvo line worker did take the time to make sure the airbags were hooked up properly in 1992, on the previous Volvo.

Planet Knucklehead.

The second insight was: 'This feels familiar, this grinding sense of what's-going-to-fall-apart-next'. Last time he had it, he was living in a third world country. He coped with it, knowing he had his passport to a first-world country.

He doesn't have a passport out of the third-world country in which he now lives.

Whoops!: Katie Couric As Katie Couric (So Much For Feminist Sisterhood, Ya'll)

Somebody at CBS, beginning with Ms. Couric, gots a whole-lotta-'splainin'-to-do, Lucy.

At the same time, OS is most grateful no cameras were running at the worst moments of his last ten years or so.

Play nice out there, ya'll. It's better for everybody.

Air America's Unlamented Demise

It's management's fault.

It's the economy's fault.

It's the affiliates' fault.

It's Rush Limbaugh's fault.

Or, maybe, nobody wanted to listen to the HopeAndChange they were serving up.

Naaah, couldn't be that.

It's management's fault.

It's the economy's fault.

It's the affiliates' fault.

It's Rush Limbaugh's fault.

No, wait for it....

IT'S BUSH'S FAULT! THAT'S IT!

Whew, glad we cleared that one up....

Richard Nixon Redux

OK, it's Wednesday afternoon, driving through the rain on an errand before heading to Wednesday night church supper and choir rehearsal (it's a Southern Thing...it's what we do on Wednesday nights).

Radio's on NPR, because they make OldSouth giggle, claiming the recession is over, that the medical correspondents on duty in Haiti are acting unethically by attempting to assist the suffering people surrounding them--people with massive fractures and secondary infections, the young woman in the middle of a breech birth.  These people should be ignored, because these MD's are really 'journalists', and 'journalists' never dirty their hands with the 'little people'. They're all dirty and smelly, and didn't go to an Ivy.  Eeewww!

You know, the normal left-wing idiocy NPR pours forth every day.  They tell us that ThePeopleInCharge have everything well under control, and that we are simpletons if we disagree.

OldSouth drives, giggles, and makes his way along the rain-drenched roads.

Then, they cover the ABC interview with Prez HopeyChangey in the wake of the Scott Brown victory, or as Another Black Conservative labels it, the Massacusetts Bitch-Slap.

This time OS almost drives into the ditch in laughter and amazement. Here's Obama's quote, verbatim:

"Here's my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts, but the mood around the country: the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office. People are angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years." 

When all else fails:  Blame George Bush!

Here's the link, and you can see it for yourself.  It really happened. He really said it.

President Obama: We Lost Touch With American People Last Year - ABC News

This sort of delusion in the Oval Office hasn't been seen since the days of Richard Nixon. Hilary Clinton ranting about 'The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy' runs a close second, but then again she wasn't really the President at the time--only pretending to be.

This man is deeply, deeply, profoundly out of touch with the simple realities of the nation. 

He honestly believes Massachusetts voted for Brown because they were upset with George Bush!

Let's hope no one in the White House is able to dissuade him. November isn't that far away, and his ass needs to be stumpin' for allll his favorite candidates!

Go, Barry. Go, Barry. Go, Barry.

Poor NBC...

They tossed Conan O'Brien under the wheels of the bus, and kept Keith Olbermann...

It's going to cost NBC $40,000,000 to make Conan go away.

Keith, on the other hand, will just stay on to keep poisoning the well.

Don'tcha know the folks at Comcast, who just bought NBC, are just gleeful?

$6.5 billion in cash on the table, and they get Keith Olbermann...

Shareholder meeting should be interesting this year!

O Heavens, OldSouth Underestimated The Spin!

Just a few posts ago, OldSouth speculated on the list of parties who would be blamed were Scott Brown to win the Senate special election in Massachusetts.

It's the racists.
It's the teabaggers.
It's Rush and the radioheads.
It's the homophobe pro-lifer fascist zealots.
It's Bush's fault(always a favorite...).
It's Martha Coakley's fault.
It's the voters' fault--they were all duped into voting for the wrong person--we must repeat the election.
It really wasn't a legal election, 'cuz a Democrat didn't win. (Therefore he can't be seated.)

Along comes Keith Olbermann, MSNBC's pet attack dog, with this rant that hits most of the points on the list.

Really, OldSouth was attempting (lamely, it appears) to be a bit tongue-in-cheek.

Along comes Olbermann, unbidden and unrehearsed.

To quote the great Jeff Foxworthy: 'Folks, I just can't make this stuff up!'

Can You Say 'Out of Touch'?--'I Knew You Could!'

Ah, yes, for decades Fred Rogers would don that comfy cardigan and lead his TV audience of tykes on another gentle journey through Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.  He would carefully explain new ideas unfamiliar words with the phrase, 'Can you say...? I knew you could!'  He was also painstakingly careful to let children know when he was talking about real things or make-believe things, because young kids sometimes can't make the distinction.  It's something grown-ups are supposed to do with ease.

Which leads us to the musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra, who are supposed to be grown-ups. 

The city of Cleveland has not fared well these past few years, which is a reality the musicians seem to have overlooked. The massive wealth the city built has in great part melted away, and no new industries have arisen to carry the city forward.

The city is depopulating. ('Can you say 'depopulate'? That means more people are moving out than moving in. The city gets smaller and poorer when that happens, boys and girls.')

The orchestra has been running $4,000,000 deficits annually for years. ('Can you say 'deficit'? That means more money is being spent than is being taken in, boys and girls.')

The management has laid off staff and taken pay cuts, and asked the musicians to take a 5% cut in salary this year, with a return to par next year, and a modest raise in two years.

The musicians children chose to strike instead. Right before the lucrative tour that makes or breaks the orchestra's finances.

The New York Times tells the tale:

The Cleveland players’ minimum salary stood at $115,000, seventh in the nation, but most earn more through additional payments; principal players can earn two or three times that amount.
As the musicians see it, losing further ground will make it tougher to attract the absolute best players, and to keep them, threatening the orchestra’s greatness. “Continuity and stability have been the backbone of this orchestra,” said Michael Sachs, the principal trumpeter.

Before the settlement, Mr. Hanson, the executive director, dismissed these arguments. “The proposal that we’re making is fair and reasonable and will not cause any artistic impact such as they’re predicting,” he said. Though the orchestra has been toward the bottom of the elite orchestra pay scale for a decade, he added, virtually no member has defected. 

Defected?!!!  Every opening announced opens the floodgate of stellar one-page resumes, hundreds of them.  The management could start over, advertise the positions starting at 75k and staff the equivalent of two orchestras, with never a worry about quality of employee. 


Remember when the Major League Baseball players went out on strike in 1994, and the World Series was cancelled?  What happened next season? The fans stayed away in droves, and television ratings sank.

Did it occur to the children that no one in the Land of Reality sympathizes with people who make high incomes, doing really pleasant work, who decide to go on strike? Especially in industries that exist to entertain the rest of society?

The Cleveland Orchestra departs for Miami tomorrow for their winter concert season there. Here's hoping the good people of Miami stay home and donate their ticket money to people with real problems, like the injured and starving of Haiti.

Audiences and donors can strike, as well.

The Bank That Couldn't Foreclose Straight: Bank of America, But Are We Surprised?

You know, if you're going to seize a house in a foreclosure, change the locks, cut off the power and water, etc....you just might want to check to make certain you're at the correct ***!!!** ADDRESS!

This story is a real nightmare.

From the 10 January Galveston News:

GALVESTON — A West End property owner is suing Bank of America Corp., asserting its agents mistakenly seized a vacation house he owns free and clear, then changed the locks and shut the power off, resulting in the smelly spoiling of about 75 pounds of salmon and halibut from an Alaska fishing trip and other damages.

Dr. Alan Schroit filed the lawsuit Monday in the 122nd State District Court in Galveston against the bank with which he has neither a relationship nor a mortgage.

*******


OhpleezeOhpleezeOhpleeze let this case make it to a jury!!!

Wonder what a jury of twelve Texans in Ron Paul's district will do to Bank of America in this situation?  Punitive damages, anyone?


Too Big To Fail actually means Too Big To Be In Business.

The Unanticipated Obvious Question

The Wall Street Journal chronicles the continuing self-destruction of the once grand Chrysler Corporation.

In May, Randy Painter and his nine siblings were taken aback to learn their 65-year-old family business—two Chrysler Group LLC dealerships in Nephi and St. George, Utah—would be terminated as part of the auto maker's restructuring. The dealerships, opened by their grandfather and father, respectively, were historically profitable and had long been an integral part of their small communities. Since June, they have struggled to convert their stores into used-car dealerships—and, like many rejected dealers, they still question the logic behind Chrysler's decision. 

Let's remember Spring 2009:  President Hopey-Changey and company rammed a pre-packaged 'bankruptcy', which violated much of the federal code, through the court of a willing judge, and what remained of Chrysler was handed to Fiat, in a no-cash transaction.  The bondholders, who held bonds that told them in black-letter type they were first in line in the event of a bankruptcy, were shoved to the end of the line, behind the UAW.  Many of the dealers, the ones tasked with selling the vehicles, were told that their franchises were being revoked arbitrarily, and in some cases, handed arbitrarily to other dealers; in one case, the franchise was handed to a dealership ACROSS THE ***!!!*** STREET from the former dealership.

Without notice. Without compensation. They were simply told to take a hike. Hope and Change have spoken.

Many of these dealers were multi-generation family businesses in smaller cities around the country. You know, the people who for eighty years had provided jobs, funded the local charities and churches, sponsored the softball teams, etc. etc.

All gone. You guys go away, even if you were making good money. Hope and Change have arrived, and your services are no longer needed. TV screens across the land were filled with the images of devastated family business owners standing in front of their empty dealerships sporting Chrysler signs, some of them freshly purchased a few months before, at the insistence of Chrysler Corporation.

Then comes Cash-for-Clunkers. Toyota wins, Ford wins, even GM sells some, and Chrysler sales barely move.  Then things got worse.

Even the press release hacks at Chrysler had to admit the truth at the bottom of the page after several paragraphs of optimistic verbiage.

Did anyone, anywhere in President Hopey-Changey's staff ever anticipate the potential car buyer's obvious question:

If they'll do this to their dealers, what will they do to me?

I Miss Arnie and Jack, Ben and Byron, Gary and Lee

Here's why.