By The Beachwood Occupation Affairs Desk
1. I Am Not Moving.
Posted on October 14, 2011
Why No One Believes The Banks
By Jesse Eisinger/ProPublica
By almost any measure, Morgan Stanley is fine.
Look at this impressive rundown of the bank’s critical numbers and ratios compiled by Paul Gulberg, an investment-banking analyst with the independent research firm Portales Partners.
Morgan Stanley has much more capital and lower leverage than it did at the height of the financial crisis, which I like to think of as 9/08. It has almost $60 billion in common equity, compared with $36 billion before September 2008, and its ratios are stronger. Its trading book – which is volatile and where any bank can take sudden, large losses – is smaller than it was. Morgan Stanley has more long-term debt and higher deposits, both of which stabilize its finances. The bank has more cash available in case there’s a crunch and a smaller amount of Level III assets, which don’t have an independently verifiable value and so must be estimated by the bank. Hedge funds have parked a smaller amount of assets at Morgan Stanley. That’s good because in the financial crisis, they pulled them from the bank.
Yes, Morgan Stanley by any measure is a safe and solid investment bank. Except for one: The amount of trust people have in the whole financial and political system. It’s just about zero.
Posted on October 13, 2011
Occupying The Hyatt; Trashing Bank of America
By The Beachwood Occupation Affairs Desk
“Chicago police arrested 21 people protesting against economic inequality on Tuesday at two rallies, charging them with trespassing,” Reuters reports.
Let’s take a look.
1. Uploaded by TheWallwriter on Oct 11, 2011:
“This is a video of an Action organized by Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL) to protest the Mortgage Bankers Association of Chicago.
“Operating on the assumption that mortgage bankers are in part responsible for the current mortgage crisis that is affecting the lives and threatening the homes of thousands of Americans, SOUL organized a group to claim space in the Hyatt so that their demands might be heard.
“This group set up a home complete with television and roof over their heads in order to underscore the fundamental nature of their protest: a widespread threat to where people live based on overvalued mortgages and a depressed housing market.”
Posted on October 12, 2011
“We’ve Got The Guillotine!”
By The Beachwood 99 Percent Affairs Desk
1. “Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert talk about Marie Antoinette’s last words on a banner at the Chicago Board of Trade.”
Posted on October 11, 2011
Occupy America
By RT
“The collective voices of American dissent has manifested into a movement impossible to ignore. ‘Occupy Wall Street’ began in the world’s financial capital, but this week protests have blazed through dozens of cities nationwide.”
Posted on October 10, 2011
The Week in Occupy Chicago
By The Beachwood Occupation Affairs Desk
This is what democracy looks like.
1. “There is fundamentally something wrong with the system.”
Posted on October 7, 2011
Bill Cellini’s Peerless Jury
By Ed Hammer
If you were accused of a felony and the potential victims of your alleged crime were a specific class of people, the last thing you would want is a member of that class to sit on the jury that decides your fate. That’s why the team of lawyers representing William Cellini in his federal corruption trial that got underway this week asked the judge to exclude teachers and relatives of teachers from the jury.
Teachers’ and other public workers’ pensions are facing growing fiscal difficulties. The politicians who have mismanaged these pensions for years have been on a media campaign since last spring to discredit the teachers and other public workers, implying that elaborate benefits are the cause of the fiscal problems. Cellini’s trial will be an opportunity for teachers to expose the deceptions Illinois power brokers have played with public workers retirement funds.
Posted on October 5, 2011
After School Special: How The City Secretly Strong-Armed TIFsters Into Giving Money To Maggie Daley’s Crappy Charity
Daleys Refuse To Answer Taxpayers’ Questions
“The charity founded by former Chicago first lady Maggie Daley received more than $900,000 in mostly undisclosed contributions from companies subsidized by much-criticized special taxing districts, according to a report released today by the city’s top internal watchdog,” the Tribune reports.
“After School Matters got 16 contributions – far more any other private, non-profit charity – found in the fine print of tax increment finance district agreements negotiated by city officials and aldermen under former Mayor Richard Daley, Inspector General Joseph Ferguson’s report states.
“Ferguson, who has criticized the city’s use of special taxing districts, said city officials were unable to explain exactly how and why charities received money. There is no oversight and no guidelines to evaluate the programs that got money.”
Posted on October 4, 2011
Occupy Chicago. Occupy The Nation.
By ChiTownView
“Under the watchful eyes of Ceres the Goddess of agriculture, a revolution seems to be brewing. Another clip from this evenings Occupy Chicago’s Federal Building protest. It should be noted that I had no idea this song was going to start playing just as started shooting.
“It’s an inspirational group of people that are have come together to try and do something about what is going on in this country. It is open to anyone that wants to join and take part in the discussion. They deserve your support.”
* Occupy Chicago
* Occupy The Nation
* Occupation TV
Posted on October 3, 2011
Labor’s Pension Scam
By Steve Rhodes
In the wake of the Tribune’s report last week about the backdoor pension deals of a select few union leaders, a faithful Beachwood reader sent me this note:
“I, as a union member and staffer at my Local, am shamed by the Trib expose of the last two days. (for the record I read those articles in the Library, because I would never give money to a filthy union-busting outfit like the Tribune.)
“But isn’t an equally important story the fact that the deal for these pensions was put in place right when Daley was running for election and his brother John was the state senator who was pulling much of the weight for the bill downstate?
“And Daley had to have city agencies approve the deal. That was treated in barely two paragraphs in the story. But it is the basis for the whole thing. Why risk enhancing union leaders’ pensions if not to secure there support and the support of their membership for political gain?
“And if no one can remember 15 years ago whose fingers are on the papyrus of the bill, how about the board members of the Municipal Benefit Fund. Didn’t any of them have a comment on a state law that would cripple the financial status of the funds and conflict with the fiduciary responsibility of the board members? My father was a building engineer for the Bd. of Ed and paid into that fund his whole working life.”
Posted on September 29, 2011