Showing posts with label FTC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FTC. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

David Dayan — Google Gets a Seat on the Trump Transition Team

Google is among the many major corporations whose surrogates are getting key roles on Donald Trump’s transition team.
Joshua Wright has been put in charge of transition efforts at the influential Federal Trade Commission after pulling off the rare revolving-door quadruple-play, moving from Google-supported academic work to government – as an FTC commissioner – back to the Google gravy train and now back to the government.
The Intercept
Google Gets a Seat on the Trump Transition Team
David Dayan

Friday, March 14, 2014

Whiny hedge fund idiot, Bill Ackman, buys the government's help to bail him out of his Herbalife short















Bill Ackman, the whining, crybaby hedge fund manager who has been disastrously selling short shares of Herbalife for two years, bleeding money in the process, has finally found someone to help his losing cause: the U.S. government.

That's right, he basically paid off the government to launch an inquiry into whether or not Herbalife is a pyramid scheme. The Federal Trade Commission has just launched an investigation on the behest of a group funded by Ackman.

We have all kinds of problems here in the U.S. folks: unemployment, income inequality, homelessness, maimed veterans, an education system that sucks, rotting infrastructure, monopolistic companies, plus much more. But no...the government feels it's more important to  get involved to protect the short position of one fucking idiot hedge fund manager.

The U.S. has become so corrupt it's almost impossible to describe at this point. Corrupt and rogue. A sham government and a nation that is rewriting the book when it comes to hypocrisy. (Sec of State Kerry: "You can't just invade a country on false pretense." LOL!!!!)

Remember that brilliant TV exchange between Carl Icahn and Ackman on CNBC a couple of years ago? It was all about Herbalife back then as well. I love the part where Icahn said that he used to beat up whiny little kids like Ackman in the schoolyard when he was growing up in Queens. I don't know about you, but I would pay handsomely to see him do it again. 

The existence of all these hedge funds is a symptom of a sick nation, a sick society and totally corrupt government. It is a glaring sign that we have our priorities soooo out of whack that it is not even funny. 

Guys like Ackman are parasites of the worst kind. This guy can't trade to save his life. He's a fucking sorry investor if you ask me. He also got his ass burned on JC Penney and I think he bought gold on the whole, "Fed is printing money," false inflation meme, just like all the other idiots. In short, what the fuck is he doing managing any money in the first place? And who invested with this guy? Whoever it was I'd like to see them go up in smoke, too.

Sorry for the editorializing here, but I guess you can tell I'm mad as hell.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Affordable Care Act, a Profit Center, Public Private Partnership, or another Financial Scheme??

Do we need more Financial Schemes in this Country?  Isn't it a national security risk, if only Wall Street Insiders know who the sucker is in American Deal Making??


I'm just an Everyday Guy that has lost some money and watched more disposable income disappear in the modern American Age... The Financial Battleground.  A war for your wages, your income, your savings, and your retirement.


In the US Military we have Single Point of Contact who is responsible for particular expertise, operations, and coordination.  In the army I think that is called the SPO.  The SPO is responsible he gets both blame and accolades as he guides commanders and units through transitions.   

Do you think the USA has a SPO for Insurance, Financial Instruments, & Public Private partnerships??  I don't think you will get a returned phone call from the Federal Reserve, the US Treasury, the OCC, FSOC, the Executive Office, your congressman, FINRA, SEC, FTC, the US Media, the American Bar Association, ETC.   The CFPB is supposed to be the latest in a long line of agencies to protect us.  The list of federal agencies that protect us sort of looks like the 16 powerful big budget US Intelligence Agencies, ... except in the case of protecting individuals from commerce  they seem to lose most of their power when a new agency is added.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_Bureau  

Dobb-Frank has provided us with yet another federal agency to follow behind the FTC and all the other agencies in protecting citizens from organized corruption and fraud.  But has that agency been given the Power, Authority, Budget, Resources, and Staffing to take a look at the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obama Care)??  

Today it has become even more clear all the risks American face in what is clearly another US Financial Scheme called the Affordable Care Act. 

1) Mandatory Program with Fees or Taxes in which personal data is surrendered and shared among various unknown agencies... enforced by the IRS.  
2) Appears there is no cost controls, policies are termed Insurance, policies exclude many features that would actually be needed for personal health, there is much lawyer language involved in the contract policies for which you will not be covered.  
3) We hear that all policies are doubling in costs, figure that co-pays and fees will also increase in some cases.  
4) All Insurance is a Financial Scheme. 
5) US Health Care is one of the most expensive in the world, no one ever talks about the costs, the executive compensations, the dividends or profits shared with investors, no one is addressing the inflation and overall yearly increases in costs.  It is sort of a spin zone. Or it is a "No Mans Land".  No one seems to be bringing the yearly cost growth to a National Discussion Level.  Capitalism Rules in the land of Insurance & Finance.   
6) The Affordable Care Act seems to be another mechanism for transferring Middle Class Wealth or Savings to Investors or Financial Managers.  The money is going to come from working Americans, I'm just not sure who the money is going to go to.  The health system will expand with more health facilities I'm sure.  But as a Public Private Partnership the wealth will be a transfer from the Federal Government to Investors and executives.
7) Bubbles, Financial Bubbles... Middle Class Savings Gone, Retiree Savings Gone, Home Equity Gone, Education Debt in process, Hurricane Damage losses to the US Wealth, US Wages Down, US GINI Coefficient Wage Gap increasing, Decapitalization of US Manufacturing, Offshore Incorporation, lower investment in US R & D, lower investment in US Job Training, No Real Leadership in Investing in the USA, ETC.   
8) I predict the Affordable Care act will create another Bubble, and transfer more wealth out of the poor and middle class.   
9) We have entered "A New Era of Financial Battles & Financial Profit taking characterized by the Rentier Class".  Executive Bonuses & Salary Increases are enough to keep the game going.  There are always ways to cut costs, cut wages, go off shore, to find new resources, and to invent new materials.  This is a kind of Social Darwinism in which corporations are sovereign, but don't really have to maintain or steward the US Economy or the US Consumer.  In the Affordable Care Act the taxpayer becomes more of a cog or "Profit Center" owned by the vast corporate system to be a monopolistic kind of bubble.

After all who can understand public private partnerships??  We have no National Security in the many areas of Economic, Financial, and Social Risk.  There is no Responsibility in Washington DC OR New York on Wall Street in this Era of Financial War... If there was then we would have a SPO and we would have National Discussions in the Mainstream Media about Financial, Economic, & Banking Literacy.    And as you have notice in federal budget discussion... the real budget data never sees the light of day.  In national budget discussions only the pieces of the budget which are getting cuts and increases are touched on at all.  Most Americans have never even seen the US Federal Budget Lines, the Trust Funds, the Revenue Streams, or the Budget Outlays.    

It is a Financial Battleground with National Security importance.  There is decapitalization in the US Economy, Capital Flight, Loss of Wealth, Loss of Average Wage Rate, Loss of Social Cohesion, and Institutional & Systemic Control Fraud.  None of this can be refuted.  No sane American would want to hide National Security Issues from the Voting Public or from Public Discourse.   

The point is the Affordable Care Act makes the federal budget & citizenry more risky as it was not designed to be simple or to address all the problems.  It is some kind of monster which might help 1% of the population while putting profits in the hands of an other 1%. Emergency rooms are still going to be filled with the uninsured who freely walk across the border and are not covered and seems doubtful they will pay into the program. Drugs are not covered. Inflation is not covered. Industry waste is not addressed. The spectrum of costs, wastes, fraud, and risk are ignored... and control has been ceded to Industry Executives.

I hate to even mention the possibility of more power going to technocrats in our government.  But we should start to broadcast and listen to the personalities that run our other agencies like the FTC, Department of Labor, SEC, FDIC, and FSOC.  Maybe if our agency heads felt more like they were on the National Stage and had more of a feeling of responsibility to the citizenry ... they would take a personal stand & develop their own personal networks to oppose the stupid political clucking out of congress.  The reason I fear technocrats is because of my perception of the EU and the Austerity imposed across Europe which is grinding all middle class people down to poverty.  

Conclusion:

But in the USA we have a chance if we recognize the changes to the global economy, transnational corporations, and the financial battle against taxpayers.  We just might be able to re-institutionalize the fight against fraud, control fraud, propaganda, the dumbing down of citizens & investors, and the loss of American Liberty, the American Dream, and American Privacy.  Maybe we should have US Celebrities that Fight Fraud, that work in our Federal Government, that expose complicated financial schemes which drain the Vitality of America!