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Hedge Fund Terrorists

David Horsey
© David Horsey

[Notes about the comic by David Horsey]

When are America’s leaders going to step up and protect us from the most threatening terrorists, hedge fund managers?

Sure, some Islamist nutcase might be able to set off a bomb on a bus or in a building, but, horrific as that may be, the damage to our society is not nearly as great as the wrecking ball that can hit us all when one of the greedy schemes of aggressive and unscrupulous financiers goes awry. Yes, Islamic terrorists took down the World Trade Center in 2001, but the financial terrorists took down the world economy in 2008.

Vast new wealth is being manufactured from thin air by the financial sector, and almost all of that wealth goes to the very few hedge fund managers, derivatives traders and other money manipulators who operate in a world of their own creation with scant regulation and no sense of obligation to society. The rest of us only get hooked into this bigger game when the guys in high finance screw up, drive the economy over a cliff and drag everyone down with them.

Right now, we are in a period of recovery from the 2008 financial disaster. Finally, there are more jobs for more people. But, structurally, nothing much has changed. We still live at the mercy of the financiers, and it is hard to imagine that they will not blow everything up again, unless someone steps in to stop their kind of terrorism.

It is a good sign that a crew of hedge fund managers from SAC Capital Advisors has been indicted for insider trading. Finally, someone has taken a shot across the bow of their pirate ship. But it will take far more to scare off this gang of buccaneers. There is just too much money to be made.

As Ted Siedle wrote in a recent column for Forbes, “There have always been scammers in the money management industry but hedge funds, with outrageous fees and compensation structures, are money management on steroids. The abuses related to the staid world of traditional investing, a percent or two here and there, are chump-change compared to brazen hedge fund gouging.

“While mutual fund managers sip tea, hedgies pound flaming tequila shots.”

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Security

Matt Wuerker
© Matt Wuerker

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.” – Benjamin Franklin

“We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking… is freedom.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.” – Douglas MacArthur

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” – Helen Keller

The Tarkin Doctrine: “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”
― Princess Leia to Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars

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Late Night Political Humor

“The state attorney general of New York is suing Donald Trump for $40 million, claiming that Donald Trump University is not a real university. The state claims it’s not a real college because students get very little education and were unable to find jobs after they graduated. Sounds like a real college to me.” – Jay Leno

“I guess the attorney general got suspicious it wasn’t a real college when Donald took the senior class on a field trip to try and find President Obama’s birth certificate.” – Jay Leno

“Donald Trump had a university. Well, the state attorney general decided that the Donald Trump University was an unlicensed sham. And I thought, you know you’re at a bad university when your commencement speaker is Whitey Bulger.” – David Letterman

“Anthony Weiner was involved in a three-way car accident over the weekend. One embarrassing moment when someone took out their cell phone camera to take photos of the damage and out of force of habit, he unzipped his fly.” – Jay Leno

“You see Miley Sunday night on the VMA thing, the MTV show? The White House is considering military intervention.” – David Letterman

“The treasury secretary has now asked Congress to raise the debt limit for borrowing more money as soon as possible. The secretary of the treasury said if Congress doesn’t act soon, the government will have to work with only the money it has now. You know, like the rest of us do.” – Jay Leno

[You know, I usually try to pass on the late night humor without comment. But that last one from Jay Leno is just about least funny joke I’ve ever seen, which is saying a lot coming from him. Not only is it not particularly funny, but it isn’t even remotely true. Most people have a home mortgage, or borrow money to buy a car or go to college, and businesses borrow money to expand. It is so wrong it is almost an anti-joke. –iron]

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What’s in a Name?

This would make the news far more interesting!

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Privacy

Jeff Parker
© Jeff Parker

First it was decided that Corporations are people and money is free speech. Then it was decided that the right to privacy only applied to the spies. I guess 1984 was just 30 years early.

What I find really ironic about this is the news that even though Snowden was a lowly system administrator at the NSA, it was easy for him to just impersonate people with more security clearance than himself, and even give himself the clearance to download top secret information onto thumb drives. Yes, that’s right, the NSA’s network security is so weak that a contractor had no problem circumventing it. And they still have no idea what all he downloaded. I think it is pretty darn likely that just about every one of our enemies has more access to this secret information than either the American people or Congress.

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Late Night Political Humor

“But it’s not all bad news for the former San Diego mayor. Today Bob Filner was offered a new job as a TSA agent at the airport. So, you fly often, do you?” – Jay Leno

“Eighteen women are accusing Bob Filner of sexual assault. He even groped a great grandmother. Isn’t that awful? Even great grandfathers don’t do that.” – Jay Leno

“New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner got in a car wreck over the weekend – not to be confused with his campaign. That’s a train wreck. And today he tweeted the insurance company the wrong photo.” – David Letterman

“So New York City comptroller candidate Eliot Spitzer says if he wins, he will work for only $1 a year. Which is pretty smart, because at that rate, he won’t be able to afford another $5,000 an hour hooker until the year 7013.” – Jay Leno

“Donald Trump and Trump University have been sued by the New York attorney general for running an unlicensed university. They said ‘It’s illegal. Your university is just like that thing on your head. They’re both unlicensed.'” – David Letterman

“Do you think Donald Trump’s own kids went to Trump University? No! His kids went to that fly-by-night diploma mill, the Wharton School of Business.” – David Letterman

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Fifty Years Ago Today

I am told that when I was just a toddler my mother took me and we marched with Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Today is the 50-year anniversary of his famous “I have a dream” speech, so it is appropriate to take stock of how much has changed for the better in the last 50 years, and yet how much more needs to be done.

Obama is giving a speech today to commemorate King, and he has already made one thing clear:

Let me just say for the record right now, it won’t be as good as the speech 50 years ago. I just want to get that out there early.

UPDATE: Nine interesting and heartwarming things about MLK’s speech and the ’63 March on Washington.

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Hollow Threats

Joel Pett
© Joel Pett

I’ve been wondering when someone would point out the utter ludicrousness of right wingers claiming that Obamacare was going to force businesses to lay off employees and cut benefits. Like, did they think we wouldn’t notice that they’ve been doing that for years without Obamacare?

Not to mention that just threatening to not raise the debt ceiling probably will cost far more jobs than Obamacare, while actually following through on their stupid threat will cost even more jobs. Why would we ever believe they care about jobs?

UPDATE: Actually, there is no evidence that Obamacare is causing an increase in part-time jobs at the expense of full-time jobs. In fact, the number of “involuntary” part-time jobs is falling. Apparently, this is another propaganda myth cooked up by anti-Obamacare forces (cough, Karl Rove and Fox News).

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Science on Science

Religious people often like to claim that without religion, people would abandon their morals and the world would descend into chaos. Or something like that. Of course, they don’t have to offer any proof of that because, well, they are religious, so they just take it on faith.

But now we are finally hearing from the opposition. A new series of studies indicates that just thinking about science triggers more moral behavior.

That’s right, just playing a word game that included scientific words, like “logical”, “hypothesis”, “laboratory” and “theory” made people act in a significantly more moral way after playing the game.

I love this. Science uses science to prove a connection between science and morality. With the unstated logical conclusion that people who think less about science are less moral.

Unfortunately, I guess people who are religious can dismiss these studies, since assuming they don’t believe in science.

Back to square one.

P6te15H

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The Search for Sanity … Out There!

Tom Tomorrow
© Tom Tomorrow

The “journalist” in the last panel is David Gregory from “Meet the Press”. Who during a heated exchange did indeed ask Greenwald why he shouldn’t be charged with a felony. Gregory claimed that Greenwald “aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements”. Gregory seems to think it is the job of journalists to make accusations, even without any supporting evidence.

What’s really ironic about this is that in January, during an interview with NRA head Wayne LaPierre in Washington DC, Gregory displayed a large-capacity rifle magazine. Which is illegal in DC.

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Late Night Political Humor

“So former President George W. Bush had to go into the hospital, had a little heart surgery and he’s OK, but he blames it all on the fatty foods served by White House butler Forest Whitaker.” – David Letterman

“Doctors told him to avoid any heavy exertion, so that means no reading. He had a little touch of coronary artery disease. One of his arteries was clogged with old Al Gore ballots.” – David Letterman

“So you have your regular Oreos and they have Double Stuf Oreos. Somebody measured the things, and it turns out there is not twice the amount of stuff as in the regular Oreos. No double ammonium bicarbonate, no double thiamine mononitrate, no double calcium phosphate. Now if you are at home measuring stuff in an Oreo, you should take a long, hard look at your life. I’ll tell you something else right now, we wouldn’t have to worry about stuff like this if New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was president.” – David Letterman

“Last night Anthony Weiner was at a forum for all the candidates for mayor, and he actually got booed by the crowd. Which got even worse when Weiner was like, ‘Boobs, where?'” – Jimmy Fallon

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How to Think like a Birther

Tea Party Senator Ted Cruz was born in Canada (and is still a Canadian citizen), to an American mother and a Cuban father. So how are birthers who questioned Obama’s eligibility to be president responding to Cruz’s desire to run for the highest office?

With an extra dose of irony, of course!

The constitution is a little vague on the issue. It says only that to be eligible to be president, a candidate must be a “natural born citizen“, but does not define what that means. Indeed, John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone (not even considered American territory) to American parents who were stationed there in the military, but hardly anyone questioned his eligibility to run for president. And Mitt Romney’s father George ran for president, but he was born in Mexico to parents who fled the USA so they could practice polygamy.

Birthers claimed that despite Obama having a Hawaiian birth certificate, he was secretly born in Kenya and thus ineligible to be president. But they believe that Cruz, even though he freely admits he was born in Canada, is eligible to be president because he has an American-born mother. Somehow, they ignore the undisputed fact that Obama’s mother was born in the USA (in Kansas).

But it gets even stranger. Take Republican voter Christina Katok, who attended a tea party rally to see Cruz speak. She believes that Obama was not eligible to be president but says she would vote for Cruz in a heartbeat. Her reasoning? “As far as I’m concerned, Canada is not really foreign soil.”

Jack Ohman

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More Frisking, not Less

The Daily Show points out that if the police are going to stop and frisk anyone who looks suspicious, they are leaving out a very significant group of criminals.

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False Flag?

Glenn Greenwald is accusing the UK government of purposely leaking damaging classified information and blaming Edward Snowden for the leak, in order to make it look like Snowden has been leaking damaging information (information that could place people in danger).

I am going to reserve judgement about what is really going on, but it is pretty suspicious that The Independent, a UK paper that has never before published any revelations based on Snowden’s NSA leaks, suddenly publishes potentially damaging information, and when journalists working on Snowden’s information up until now have been careful to avoid publishing any such damaging information.

Furthermore, even though The Independent claims that the information came from Snowden, Snowden himself denies that he has ever talked to The Independent or provided them with any information.

It is also suspicious that this occurred at the exact moment that the UK government is coming under attack for detaining Greenwald’s partner David Miranda under the Terrorism Act and confiscating his laptop, phone, and camera, when they knew that he was not a terrorist. Indeed, the UK government is currently trying to convince a court that Snowden’s disclosures constituted a danger to public safety, and suddenly out pops the first disclosure that could be considered a danger to public safety.

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Late Night Political Humor

“Mayor Filner of San Diego has had 14 women come forward alleging that he sexually harassed them. In San Diego, Hooters restaurants are refusing to serve Filner because they say he’s disrespectful to women in his office. The CEO said there’s a time and a place to be disrespect to women and that’s at a Hooters.” –Conan O’Brien

“The mayor of San Diego has been accused of sexually harassing 14 women. Now a Hooters in San Diego has put up a sign saying they won’t serve Mayor Bob Filner because he disrespects women. A spokesperson for Hooters said we don’t want him as a customer, but would love him as a manager.” – Conan O’Brien

“According to a new poll, over 50 percent of New Yorkers say they won’t vote for Anthony Weiner no matter what. The other 50 percent say they’re going to wait until they see all the other candidates’ penises. It’s called comparison shopping.” – Conan O’Brien

“According to a new study, most men would like women to occasionally pick up the check. The study also found most women would occasionally like to be paid as much as men for doing the same job.” – Conan O’Brien

“In North Korea, they developed the first-ever smartphone, just like an iPhone. But if you ask Siri any questions, she reports you to the police.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“It is widely believed these phones were secretly built in China and shipped to North Korea. It’s hard to believe they built a smartphone, because wi-fi and cellphone data plans are illegal there. You can’t even have friends and family in North Korea” – Jimmy Kimmel.

“The makers of drones want the media to stop calling their unmanned aircrafts ‘drones’. They don’t like the name drones. The manufacturers said, we prefer the term ‘surprise visitor’.” – Conan O’Brien

“Some park rangers in California found a plot on which someone grew 500,000 pounds of marijuana. They assume this pot was grown by humans, but I wouldn’t rule out bears. Think about it: They sleep three months a year, all you ever see them doing is rummaging through the trash trying to find food, and their leader’s name is Smokey.” – Jimmy Kimmel

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