Calling Captain Obvious

Global Stocks Tumble on Concern Economic Slump Will Hurt Corporate Profits
from Bloomberg.com

This Just In ....

Hey Alan ... YA THINK ????!!!!!!!!
-----------------------------
Greenspan Concedes to `Flaw' in His Market Ideology
By Scott Lanman and Steve Matthews
Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said a ``once-in-a-century credit tsunami'' has engulfed financial markets and conceded that his free-market ideology shunning regulation was flawed.
``Yes, I found a flaw,'' Greenspan said in response to a grilling from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. ``That is precisely the reason I was shocked because I'd been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.'' ….

Sex for Lube ... I Mean Oil.

Nope!  Can't possibly IMAGINE that there was ever any pressure from the administration - or those that thought they were doing the administration's bidding.  It's predictable from these people - and despicable.  We have been walked all over  for so long now by  this culture of greed and superiority.  It's time to stand up for ourselves and demand accountability.  

===============================

Whistleblower: Oil watchdog agency 'cult of corruption'

From Dan Simon and David Fitzpatrick
CNN

HONOLULU, Hawaii (CNN) -- Bobby Maxwell kept a close eye on the oil industry for more than 20 years as a government auditor. But he said the federal agency he worked for is now a "cult of corruption" -- a claim backed up by a recent government report.

"I believe the management we were under was showing favoritism to the oil industry," Maxwell told CNN.

Maxwell is referring to a tiny agency within the Department of the Interior called the Minerals Management Service, which manages the nation's natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on federal lands.

A report, conducted by the Interior Department's inspector general and released earlier this month, found that employees at the agency received improper gifts from energy industry officials and engaged with them in illegal drug use and inappropriate sexual relations. It looked at activities at the agency from 2003 through 2006.

Maxwell said the report doesn't surprise him. The agency, he said, is corrupt "top to bottom." Watch a failure to "protect America's interests" »

"It sounds like they forgot they work for the government," he said. "It's disgusting. ... There's no excuse for that. Those people should not be working in those positions at all.

"They crossed a lot of lines that should never have been crossed," he said. "They lost all objectivity."

Maxwell was in charge of keeping track of the millions in royalty payments owed taxpayers by oil and gas companies who explored and found oil on U.S. government lands.

He estimates he and his team were responsible for saving the government close to $500 million in royalties, either underpaid or somehow skipped by oil and gas companies, over the years.

He received the Interior Department's highest award in 2003 for his work. But not long afterward, his job was killed.

He believes it was retribution for his cracking down on Big Oil and blowing the whistle on what he believes was a "cult of corruption" within the agency. The Interior Department denies that, saying his job was reorganized as part of routine restructuring.

Just before he lost his job, he said, one of his superiors in Washington ordered him not to investigate why Shell Oil had raised its oil transportation costs. Maxwell said it jumped from 90 cents to $3 a barrel without adequate explanation. The government paid Shell to transport oil from offshore platforms.

When asked why a government worker would tell an auditor not to investigate, he said: "I believe it started from the top down," he said.

Shell Oil told CNN it "pays the same rate any shipper does" and that it has "never engaged in fraudulent transactions or entered into sham contracts as Mr. Maxwell alleges."

Maxwell, a registered independent, said the shift in attitude at the agency began about seven or eight years ago, about the time the Bush administration came into power. He said he was discouraged from aggressively auditing oil companies.

"Laws and regulations were not applied, also not enforced," he said.

The inspector general's 27-page summary says that nearly a third of the roughly 60 people in Maxwell's former office received gifts and gratuities from oil industry executives.

Two received improper, if not illegal, gifts at least 135 times, the report says. It goes on to describe a wild atmosphere in which some staff members admitted using cocaine and marijuana.

In addition, two female workers at the Minerals Management Service were known as the "MMS chicks" and both told investigators they had sex with oil industry officials they were supposed to be auditing.

One e-mail from a pipeline company representative invited government workers to a tailgating party: "Have you and the girls meet at my place at 6 a.m. for bubble baths and final prep ... Just kidding."

Inspector General Earl Devaney said in a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne accompanying the report that it details "a textbook example of improperly receiving gifts from prohibited sources."

Maxwell is now retired from the government and teaches at the University of Hawaii. He said it was just a matter of time until the agency's behavior was exposed. He feels vindicated now in the wake of the inspector general's report, but is still disgusted by what he was happening at the Minerals Management Service.

"Their job is to protect United States taxpayers' interest. It's like they completely forgot that, like they just became part of the oil companies," he said.

The Interior Department said it could not comment on Maxwell's specific allegations or removal, saying his former supervisor no longer works for the Interior Department either.

Kempthorne said he was "outraged" by the disclosures in the inspector general's report and that the actions "of a few has cast a shadow on the entire agency."

But the department said there is no evidence taxpayers lost money as a result of unethical behavior between government workers and the oil and gas industry.

Maxwell doubts that.

The former auditor said he'd love to put all the government royalty records under his magnifying glass.

"I think the government should be transparent. We are for the people, by the people. This is the government. We're here to serve," he said.

Maxwell has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the Kerr-McGee Corp., an energy company involved in oil and gas exploration. In it, he claims the company defrauded taxpayers out of millions in oil royalty payments.

The company denies the accusation. If Maxwell wins, the government would recieve about $40 million in additonal revenue and Maxwell would be entitled to about a third of that.

 

By George !!!

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty."

George Washington - 1796, on the idea of political parties.

"Freedom Payments" for All

From US News & World Report Daily Update:
Senate Expected To Pass Financial "Rescue Plan" The Senate today is expected to take up and pass the $700 billion proposal to right the financial markets; a vote in the House is expected later this week.. The Washington Times notes the bill is now being dubbed a "rescue plan" by proponents, who believe the term "bailout" engendered much of the public animosity toward the plan. USA Today reports the Senate "is moving to revive a $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan with a vote tonight that Democratic and Republican leaders predicted will put the legislation on track for enactment later this week." Sens. John McCain, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden "announced they will interrupt their...campaigns to vote for the measure."


YES, because the PEOPLE are fucking idiots and won’t know that you can call it a “bailout”, a “rescue plan” or God damn “Freedom Payments” but that it’s still the same thing. MAYBE that’s the problem – you think that all people are fools as compared to you – only you in Congress, government & the administration are in a great way responsible for allowing this to happen.

Let’s review: People were told they have to pay for illegal immigration, even though no one wanted it; People were told they had to pay for the war in Iraq, even though they didn’t want it; People were told they had to give up a level of their privacy with the strong-arming through of the domestic wiretapping program; People were told they had to put up with Bush’s upper class tax cuts because it would “trickle down” to them, even though they didn’t want it ….
And Congress is surprised that people don’t want to pony up for the bailout? That they don’t bow to your alleged superiority in understanding and directing the situation? You think that perhaps the NAME of the freakin’ plan is what’s turning people against it? ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID??

So let’s see… it’s 5 weeks before election day and every one of the House members that voted against the plan just happened to be in a contentious race, or WAS in a contentious race last time. Amazing. So the ONLY time the electorate is considered is when you might lose your office. Other than that, YOU know better and everyone in your constituency is an uninformed moron. Riiiight.

Oh, and the new “attractive” measures of the revised plan include such gems as increasing the FDIC protected amount of money in institutions. And making sure that health care insurers cover more treatment of mental disorders. Yes, all fine and dandy, but they DON’T ADDRESS THE ISSUE.

Wake the fuck up.