Banks Fight to Kill Proposed Consumer Protection Agency

Peacenik calls this shameless. Peacenik says to the bankers: "shut your pie holes." Ferchrissakes, bankers destroyed the global financial system. Crimes were committed. Not only should there be a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, but a lot of bankers should be in jail. Yet they have the nerve to lobby against regulation? Start investigating, start charging, start confiscating, and start imprisoning. Where in the hell is the media? Oh, Peacenik forgot. It is bought and paid for. It is part of the scam. Have a good weekend.

by Kevin G. Hall

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, center, talks with Congressional Oversight Panel Chair Elizabeth Warren before the start of a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

WASHINGTON — If you doubt that U.S. banks long to return to the days of impotent regulation, you need only look at one of the financial sector's top legislative priorities: killing a proposed new agency that would be dedicated solely to protecting consumers' financial interests.

The Obama administration is asking Congress to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to regulate consumer financial products ranging from credit cards to mortgages, and to simplify disclosure about them all.

Though virtually every cause of the nation's recent financial crisis was rooted in weak consumer protection, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is leading the fight against the proposed agency on grounds that it would make credit less available and more costly. The American Bankers Association, the Independent Community Bankers of America, and the Financial Services Roundtable also oppose the measure.

Read on...

Food Companies Are Placing the Onus for Safety on Consumers

By MICHAEL MOSS
Published: May 14, 2009

The frozen pot pies that sickened an estimated 15,000 people with salmonella in 2007 left federal inspectors mystified. At first they suspected the turkey. Then they considered the peas, carrots and potatoes.

The pie maker, ConAgra Foods, began spot-checking the vegetables for pathogens, but could not find the culprit. It also tried cooking the vegetables at high temperatures, a strategy the industry calls a “kill step,” to wipe out any lingering microbes. But the vegetables turned to mush in the process.

So ConAgra — which sold more than 100 million pot pies last year under its popular Banquet label — decided to make the consumer responsible for the kill step. The “food safety” instructions and four-step diagram on the 69-cent pies offer this guidance: “Internal temperature needs to reach 165° F as measured by a food thermometer in several spots.”

Read on...

Just another example of the anti-regulation mindset that drives corporate America and rules social America. It is no better in Canada. That insurance policy you own, the money in your bank account, the planes you fly on, the cars you drive, the water you drink, the food you eat, you thought someone cared about how safe these things are? What meager consumer safety or financial regulations that exist aren't enforced. As you are enjoying barbecuing this May 24 weekend, Peacenik advises that you burn the living shit out of whatever you are cooking. And enjoy the weekend.

BAC: More Obfuscation by The Media

An unbelievable spin-cycle of nonsense has been coming from CNBS this morning.

Here's the story that started it all (although originally not on Bloomberg):

May 6 (Bloomberg) -- Regulators have determined that Bank of America Corp. requires about $34 billion in new capital, the largest need among the 19 biggest U.S. banks subjected to stress tests, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

CNBS is claiming that this isn't really "new capital" in that the preferred already held by government can be converted as part of it.

That's true but if you are a shareholder it doesn't matter!

If you are a stockholder dilution is dilution and it doesn't matter how it happens. As I noted yesterday:

Read on...

Peacenik's Greyhound bus broke down on the Gardiner Expressway this morning, on Peacenik's way into work. As Peacenik walked along the shoulder of the Gardiner, with cars whizzing by, Peacenik contemplated regulation, or the lack thereof. Who regulates Greyhound buses? When was Peacenik's bus last checked? Who regulates anything anymore? Food? Transportation? Water? Consumer products? Safety? Banks?

Which brings us to the bank stress tests in the US. These stress tests, by bank regulators, were sold to the public to demonstrate that the public's money wasn't being pissed away. The stress tests were/are an exercise in public relations. But even the phoney stress tests can't hide the obvious. The banks are bankrupt. The test results have been delayed, massaged, manipulated and distorted. The public desperately wants to believe that the current market rally is real. The public desperately wants to believe the stress tests are legitimate. The stress tests, the market rally, the market are all bullshit.

Peacenik was rescued from the shoulder of the Gardiner this morning by another Greyhound bus. People who still have money in the market should be so lucky.

Meet Lady Subprime

By Richard CohenTuesday, January 13, 2009; Page A15

The French have the comely Marianne, the British have the fetching Britannia, and we have the welcoming Lady Liberty. May I now suggest, at least for the duration of the current recession, a new feminine emblem of our times: Marvene Halterman of Avondale, Ariz. At age 61, after 13 years of uninterrupted unemployment and at least as many years of living on welfare, she got a mortgage.

She got that mortgage less than two years ago. She got it even though at one time she had 23 people living in the house (576 square feet, one bath) and some ramshackle outbuildings. She got it for $103,000, an amount that far exceeded the value of the house. The place has since been condemned.

Read on...

If you're having trouble understanding how the world's finanical system got sucked into a black hole of derivative debt, this is a fairly readable explanation. This is why almost every financial institution in North America is bankrupt. Peacenik read a bunch of financial news yesterday and early today. It is all bleak. It is all bad. The only thing that will prevent Peacenik's prognostication about the markets from coming true is the small chance that there will be a small rally because of Obama's inauguration. A small short rally.