Maybe instead of sending 200 million to their own foundation, Goldman could spend part of the billions they plan to give out in bonuses funding homeless shelters:
But this fall, she exhausted all options. She had once owned and overseen a group home for homeless people. Now, she succumbed to that status herself, checking in to a shelter.
“No one could have told me that in a million years: I’d wake up in a homeless shelter,” she said. “I had a house for homeless people. Now, I’m homeless.”
Growing numbers of Americans who have lost houses to foreclosure are landing in homeless shelters, according to social service groups and a recent report by a coalition of housing advocates.
Just love Mondays.
Bob In Pacifica
What’s the fun of being rich if you have to give to the poor?
Ash Can
This is why I really do like to hear any good news on the economic front at all, even if it’s something as esoteric and detached from reality as the Dow hitting 10,000. Economic recovery is a gradual and gargantuan process, and it has to begin somewhere. With such factors as employment and home ownership (i.e., the truly important factors) unfortunately lagging the other factors as far as they do, the sooner the early factors start perking up — meaningless though they may be in and of themselves — the better.
br
Come on, John, it’s not all black and bleak. There’s always good news if you look for it. For instance, the DOJ will no longer be persecuting medical marijuana dispensaries.
drillfork
Goldman’s donations go mostly to Obama…
arguingwithsignposts
F**k Goldman Sachs. Those wankers could feed hundreds with their bonuses, but they choose not to. F**k them.
/dfh out
El Cid
This was impoxxible to predict. No one could have anticipated. Surely they would simply have changed their market choices to less expensive houses, or perhaps the rental market, or maybe cars at the bottoms of rivers.
Thank god we were manly and anti-fringe / anti-hippie / anti-soc_ialist enough to avoid the Depression / New Deal era solutions such as the HOLC helping / forcing banks to renegotiate mortgages & principles to keep homeowners in their homes, because otherwise we’d be making the ghost of John Galt cry.
Zifnab
The last time we had this kind of rally, we called it the “Jobless Recovery”. I don’t think we really want to relive that. The public remained complacent while unemployment hovered above 6% all through the the Bush Era. We don’t have the European welfare state that can support 10-15% unemployment for another eight years.
DOW 10,000 – to me – just signals that people are going to get ready to return to complacency until they become the next victims of the next bubble economy.
pragmatic idealist
Mr. Ford: Oh. I wondered whether you’d like to contribute to the orphan’s home. (he rattles the tin)
City Gent: Well I don’t want to show my hand too early, but actually here at Slater Nazi we are quite keen to get into orphans, you know, developing market and all that… what son of sum did you have in mind?
Mr. Ford: Well… er… you’re a rich man.
City Gent: Yes, I am. Yes. Yes, very very rich. Quite phenomenally wealthy. Yes, I do own the most startling quantifies of cash. Yes, quite right… you’re rather a smart young lad aren’t you. We could do with somebody like you to feed the pantomime horse. Very smart.
Mr. Ford: Thank you, sir.
City Gent: Now, you were saying. I’m very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very rich.
Mr. Ford: So er, how about a pound?
City Gent: A pound. Yes, I see. Now this loan would be secured by the…
Mr. Ford: It’s not a loan, sir.
City Gent: What?
Mr. Ford: It’s not a loan.
City Gent: Ah.
Mr. Ford: You get one of these, sir. (he gives him a flag)
City Gent: It’s a bit small for a share certificate isn’t it? Look, I think I’d better run this over to our legal department. If you could possibly pop back on Friday.
Mr. Ford: Well do you have to do that, couldn’t you just give me the pound?
City Gent: Yes, but you see I don’t know what it’s for.
Mr. Ford: It’s for the orphans.
City Gent: Yes?
Mr. Ford: It’s a gift.
City Gent: A what?
Mr. Ford: A gift?
City Gent: Oh a gift!
Mr. Ford: Yes.
City Gent: A tax dodge.
Mr. Ford: No, no, no, no.
City Gent: No? Well, I’m awfully sorry I don’t understand. Can you just explain exactly what you want.
Mr. Ford: Well, I want you to give me a pound, and then I go away and give it to the orphans.
City Gent: Yes?
Mr. Ford: Well, that’s it.
City Gent: No, no, no, I don’t follow this at all, I mean, I don’t want to seem stupid but it looks to me as though I’m a pound down on the whole deal.
Mr. Ford: Well, yes you are.
City Gent: I am! Well, what is my incentive to give you the pound?
Mr. Ford: Well the incentive is – to make the orphans happy.
City Gent: (genuinely puzzled) Happy?… You quite sure you’ve got this right?
Mr. Ford: Yes, lots of people give me money.
City Gent: What, just like that?
Mr. Ford: Yes.
City Gent: Must be sick. I don’t suppose you could give me a list of their names and addresses could you?
Mr. Ford: No, I just go up to them in the street and ask.
City Gent: Good lord! That’s the most exciting new idea I’ve heard in years! It’s so simple it’s brilliant! Well, if that idea of yours isn’t worth a pound I’d like to know what is. (he takes the tin from Ford)
Mr. Ford: Oh, thank you, sir.
City Gent: The only trouble is, you gave me the idea before I’d given you the pound. And that’s not good business.
Mr. Ford: Isn’t it?
City Gent: No, I’m afraid it isn’t. So, um, off you go. (he pulls a lever opening a trap door under Ford’s feet and Ford falls through with a yelp) Nice to do business with you.
anonevent
But isn’t this the invisible hand at work: All of these people leaving their houses means prices will go down, and therefore other people’s net worth will come down, meaning they will spend less, causing more people to lose their job and their houses, causing house prices to go down, until house prices cost zero and no one has to pay property taxes?
Zifnab
@arguingwithsignposts: Hundreds. They’re giving out – what? Billions in bonuses? You could run a branch or two of government with the bonuses they give out.
http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/5927/wallstatsdatlarge.jpg
We’re dropping $38 billion on the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Just to put things in perspective.
Morbo
George Carlin, naturally, had it right.
pragmatic idealist
anonevent,
And when taxes go to zero the government will collect an infinite amount of taxes, at least according to Laffer.
Napoloen
This reminds me to write a check to my local food bank, and maybe a little early this year instead of waiting until December.
Ash Can
@Zifnab: I should clarify that I need to see some follow-up on, say, Dow 10k in order to remain hopeful. Positive factors appearing on a relatively regular basis — a retail sales number here, a lower unemployment gain there — that’s what I’m talking about. As you rightly say, Dow 10k in and of itself is meaningless.
David
JP Morgan Chase in the news:
“A woman who died in a Queens fire yesterday was reportedly due in federal court today for a hearing in a sexual harassment suit.
Police identified the victim as Bianca Kuros, 44, seen above.
According to published reports, the victim is better known as Bianca Wisniewski, a construction worker suing JP Morgan Chase and her own firm for sexual harassment.
According to the New York Post, she was due in federal court today for a hearing in her case.
Investigators are still determining the cause of the fire in Flushing. More than 100 firefighters were needed to contain the flames in the chilly temperatures.
Neighbors stepped in to help wake up the family.
“I started knocking on the door but when I knocked on the door I realized the door was hot, so at that time I realized there was a fire inside the apartment,” said neighbor Rickey Burrus.
Three other people were also seriously injured, including the victim’s 16-year-old daughter.
Four firefighters suffered minor injuries.”
http://ny1.com/1-all-boroughs-news-content/top_stories/107516/reports–fire-victim-had-filed-sexual-harassment-suit
debit
@pragmatic idealist: I love that skit. John Cleese is the perfect merchant banker. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUhb0XII93I
wilfred
Come on! What’s good for Goldman is good for America!
Questioning that is de facto pro Palinism.
inkadu
If homeless shelters allowed dogs in, I might be able to cope with it. If they had a free wifi connection, I’d never leave.
Being homeless became a lot less fun after Reagan released people with dangerous (and now untreated) mental illness.
inkadu
@br: Those “states rights” nuts on the fringe right have finally gotten something they wanted.
Zifnab
@Ash Can: It bothers me because it’s not meaningless. When unemployment continues to rise while the stock market rebounds, you’ve got a fundamental flaw in the economy.
Money should be flowing back into businesses to encourage development. But that’s not the way the market works anymore. Apple stock rises 10 points, but that doesn’t mean Steve Jobs is hiring anyone. Capital is flowing into business, but we’re not getting any actual economic growth. We’re just shuffling paper around at the highest levels of income.
This is “trickle down” economics at its worst. Hundreds of billions of dollars are floating around in hedge funds and investment banks, but the guy on main street isn’t seeing a dime of it.
I mean, the truth of the matter is that we need some higher taxes in this country and some genuine infrastructure development. That’s the only way we seem to successfully plow money back into the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. DOW 10,000 is just more money shuffling.
wilfred
@Zifnab:
Tariffs versus free trade. 140 year old debate. Free trade won – now we can’t produce anything that China or India can’t produce more cheaply.
satby
@Morbo: George Carlin was taken from us just as we really needed him to help fight back against impending peak wingnut. Thank FSM we still have Stewart and Colbert.
Chad N Freude
@pragmatic idealist: I clicked into this thread intending to post something about Dickens and poorhouses and orphanages, but there is no way I could even come close to this. Do you give writing courses? Where can I sign up?
I close with the obligatory observation that Goldman, Sachs is a shelter for the homeful.
geg6
OT, but the John Cleese brilliance that pragmatic idealist posted above reminded me.
Anybody else watching the Monty Python mini-series documentary on IFC this week? Brilliant!
Watched Part One last night, followed by “Live at the Hollywood Bowl.” A very good way to spend a Sunday night.
Chad N Freude
@Zifnab: Capital isn’t exactly flowing into business. It’s flowing through a business filter into the personal bank accounts of the business managers.
ellaesther
Thread jacking to say:
Vote Bitsy!
Also, this was fucking depressing. Thanks ever so. (Hey, you know who could really help out the lovely woman WE are trying to help by “voting Bitsy”? Fucking Goldman Sachs, that’s who. They could do a bang up job of getting her the money the animals need!)
inkadu
@wilfred: Exceptions to the China rule are sugar and corn. I would also add teh stupid to the list but I do believe our stupid is competitive in the global marketplace.
Brian J
On a related note, I’m reading that the members of the Obama administration are become infuriated at the nonsense surrounding bonuses and everything else happening on Wall Street. Whether or not they should have seen this coming is open for debate, I think, but we know that Obama is a long-term thinker. Part of me suspects that his reticence and reluctance to throw down in various areas is part of a strategy designed to let the shit hit the fan on its own. Maybe there’s not much populist anger at Wall Street as there once was, or maybe there’s more than I realize; I’m just not sure. But the possibility for people to get pissed off at the financial system and its players remains strong, because these guys keep acting like, well, gigantic greedy assholes. Maybe a long-term demonstration that nothing has changed is exactly what is need to make it seem like robust reform is necessary.
Or maybe I’m being too naive.
Zifnab
@wilfred: I’m not asking for tariffs, I’m asking for actual taxes. The richest 1% of Americans have stopped producing things. We’re all out of John Galt magic machine makers. The big earners are just brokers taking a cut off the top transactions in a massive economy.
It’s that old movie troupe “steal a penny from every bank account” writ large. Goldman Sachs isn’t funneling money into emerging businesses or financing big businesses ventures. It’s just shuffling money around at a premium.
We need to tax that kind of usery. Take the money and spend it on domestic capital improvements. Then you get the cash out from those nebulous higher reaches of the derivatives on derivatives markets and plow it back into tangible goods and services for people not on the Fortune 500 list.
Lupin
All the following recipes also work if you replace pork with bankers:
http://southernfood.about.com/cs/porktenderloin/a/pork_tenderloin.htm
Brian J
I don’t think anyone really questions the logic of free trade. The problems are that (a) it’s not the same for everyone and (b) there’s not always appropriate support systems in place for those who are dislocated. As Dean Baker has described, we hear all about how competition is good for everyone, but it only seems to affect manufacturing and others on the lower end. People become curiously silent when the discussion turns to foreign labor among professionals, yet there’s nothing in the trade theory that suggests doctors and lawyers are a special case. And while I am not sure there’s direct proof of this, it doesn’t seem nutty to suggest that people would be a lot more open to trade deals that might disadvantage them personally for a period of time if they wouldn’t have to worry about things like health care.
Chad N Freude
@geg6: Continuing MPOT (Monty Python OT): A couple of weeks ago there was a short-run stage production in LA of classic Monty Python sketches put together by Eric Idle. A good time was had by all.
Chad N Freude
@Brian J: The administration is vigorously wagging their fingers to show they mean business. It appears to me that the fear of change crowd, led by the we’re comfortable and don’t want change crowd, is seriously trumping the we have to change crowd. I am not sanguine about the likelihood of things being actually, you know, changed.
Ash Can
@Zifnab: I agree; I meant meaningless in the sense that it doesn’t act as a harbinger, however tenuous, of overall improvement if it goes up in a vacuum. (Also, keep in mind the Dow is an average of a lousy 30 publicly-traded companies — big ones, granted, but only 30. As an economic indicator, it’s not much; other market indices, e.g. the S&P 500, are significantly better.)
Coincidentally, an economist posting over at the GOS has an interesting take on other improving indicators which make him feel optimistic that a recovery of the jobless variety may not be in the cards this time around. Now, I know that “economist” and “GOS” don’t exactly go together, and I’ll always think less of the GOS community for driving away bonddad and his outstanding economic commentary. But the diarist I link to here uses extensive technical information to support his claims, which is always a plus in my book. Actual economists reading this may be able to look over his technical info and find holes that I don’t see, but more thorough and disciplined treatment such as this diarist’s beats the living hell out of simply running around and yelling that we’re all doomed.
inkadu
@Chad N Freude: Plus Obama seems poorly positioned for a backlash against Wall St. Not only has he thrown money at them, his inner circle is full of them, and he hasn’t done anything but talk about serious regulations.
Brick Oven Bill
I have a better plan to help Americans in need. There are two parts of this plan.
1. Constitute a panel of NCOs and mid-grade military officers. preference being given to combat Veterans, with full powers to investigate unlawful or unethical ties that Goldman Sachs may have to public policy, whereby they make their profits. Goldman Sachs’ stock price has tripled since the seating of President Obama. Eliminate these ties and nationalize any profits that have been realized through them. Put in a penalty even.
2. Deport the illegal aliens that are assuming the employment opportunities, and consuming the safety net resources, intended for American Citizens.
Brian J
@Zinfab:
Two things you might be interested in.
First, I came across an interesting link last week from CJR about the difference between the effective tax rate between the richest of the rich and everyone else. It turns out, there is very little difference. For the richest one percent of Americans, it’s 30.9 percent. For everyone else, it’s 29.4 percent. No joke. I’m not saying that we should jack up tax rates to something extreme, but seeing information like that makes me think people who suggest the rich can pay just a little more are on to something.
Second, let’s just say that we do want to soak the rich just a little. One of the more radical proposals I’ve read–or at least something that seems radical to me–involves essentially eliminating payroll taxes for those below the median income and shifting the taxes through a combination of higher rates and/or uncapping the income levels to those on the higher end of the income scale. The point of his argument is that such a shift would make people a lot more open to trade deals, the size of which would then be possible would be a boon for the U.S. economy. Read more about it here. Guess which Marxist revolutionary proposed this? Matthew Slaughter of Dartmouth, who served on President Bush’s CEA. Something tells me he’d be run out of a room full of Republicans after announcing a proposal like that, but that doesn’t mean Democrats should ignore him. If President Obama is really interested in having bipartisan cover for some pretty incredible ideas, why not hire this guy to work for him?
inkadu
@Brick Oven Bill: 2. Deport the illegal aliens that are assuming the employment opportunities, and consuming the safety net resources, intended for American Citizens.
Just the task of deporting all the illegal immigrants should give us citizens full employment for at least two years.
Brick Oven Bill
Sounds like a better stimulus plan inkadu.
wilfred
Cultural hegemony, Gramsci 101. Millions of Americans questioned it from c. 1870 right until NAFTA was passed (we’ll remember in November chanted the sell-out AFL-Cio leadership). They didnt’t.
Presidential campaigns turned on the issue; you could even argue that it was the last battle of the civil war.
Good manufacturing jobs are gone. The day when a blue collar family could buy a house and send a kid to college are gone. Free trade killed the working class in the US – in exchange you got cheap 42 inch televisions. Bravo.
Ash Can
@inkadu:
I’m not so sure those regulations either can or should originate from him alone. And, in fact, both the House Finance Committee and Senate Banking Committee are currently looking into tightening regulations. Presumably they’ll come up with draft legislation and the two houses of Congress will take it from there. It’s a slower process than any of us may like, but that’s the way it works.
Zifnab
@Ash Can: The GOS has a mixed bunch. They get, like, half a million hits a day or something. I don’t doubt they’ve got a few credentialed economists.
Notorious P.A.T.
She could have it worse: she could be a rich person who used to have $20 million but now has to get by on only $10 million. That would REALLY be sad.
Zifnab
@wilfred: Cheap 42″ TVs and millions of white collar jobs. I think you underestimate the growth of the IT and service industries.
We went through a sort-of NAFTA situation in the 70s and 80s when a lot of the manufacturing plants started getting mechanized and assembly lines went out of fashion. Blue collar work has been on the decline for over a generation. You can’t keep hanging your hat on that.
inkadu
@Zifnab: I sure hope the GOS has some economists on staff. Economics is too important and too complicated to be left to amateurs without any grounding in the subject.
That’s why I only read Thomas Friedman.
wilfred
@Zifnab:
I was living in Los Angeles in the ’80’s. The LA Times Sunday classifieds ran to entire sections for engineers – it was the height of Reagan’s re-militarizing. Do they still do that? TRW would hire entire graduating classes from engineering schools in the UC system. Still?
White collar growth was fueled with government money. I don;t know how old you are but if you remember the 80’s you know there was far, far less money around. Where did it come from?
Debt, debt and more debt. Debt that made the dollar a fictitious currency and debt that flooded the economy with the cheap money necessary to float a service economy.
All done with now. We stopped creating and started servicing. All we make is more debt.
Svensker
@Ash Can:
But running around and yelling are so much more fun. Also, studying stuff and learning makes yer brain hurt.
gwangung
@Ash Can:
Haven’t we figured out by now that this is Obama’s modus operandi? Set a general direction and let the legislators work out the details? Push when necessary, but let it play out? Because it leaves out fewer people?
inkadu
@Zifnab: We could bring fifties-level manufacturing if we could bomb the shit out of everyone else’s factories and limit their ore production.
Joshua
@Zifnab: IT jobs are being shipped to India or staffed with low-pay H1B hires as we speak. And yes the business community has been working on Congress to get them to raise visa limits for years now.
liberal
@Ash Can:
Does the diarist take into account projections of home foreclosures and their impact on consumer spending?
ericblair
@wilfred: I was living in Los Angeles in the ‘80’s. The LA Times Sunday classifieds ran to entire sections for engineers – it was the height of Reagan’s re-militarizing. Do they still do that? TRW would hire entire graduating classes from engineering schools in the UC system. Still?
In LA, hell no. That ended decades ago. It’s in the DC area now mostly. The job market is fairly good for government-related techies, because the funding is still there, plus you need to be a US citizen and usually able to obtain a security clearance, which means no outsourcing and no H1B visas. If you have foreign language fluency and a top secret intelligence clearance, you can basically put up you feet on the interviewer’s desk and fling boogers at him while he begs you to take the job.
It’s interesting how Golden Slacks has blundered onto the wingers’ shit list because of campaign contributions. I’d be thrilled to have an actual investigation into GS’s role in the fun and games of the last couple of years. I’m waiting for the money wing of the Republican party to try to walk this one back to safer ground: usually, they’ve been pretty good at keeping the wingers away from any of the real culprits and chasing after ACORN.
trollhattan
Did I hear correctly on das Radio this a.m. that the Goldman bonuses (boni?) will average half a mil per employee?
(It was pre-coffee, so I may have misheard. What’s the pre-coffee shorthand “-2”?)
Sooooo, we’re talking salary+benefits+bonus? And I’m sure it’s spread across the board, so the receptionist, the HR staff, the IT folks etc. all share in the booty. Right?
I am SO glad we, giving Americans, gave to this worthy cause. It makes my heart go pitterpat just thinking about it.
Ambergris
Goldman sucks.
Zifnab
@wilfred:
Alright, two things. First, you can’t just shit all over the service economy and walk away. Tell a doctor or a lawyer or a cop or a teacher their jobs aren’t “creating” anything. Value isn’t just what you can hold in your hands, and you don’t have to mine gold and turn it into necklaces, or process steel into cars, or mold plastic into TV shells to add to the economy. Simply creating mountains of stuff isn’t enough to continue an economy’s growth.
Secondly, the debt we’re seeing in 2009 is the product of unequal income distribution. You’ve got a very small fraction of the country hording all the currency. Then they just pass it between each other endlessly at the peak of the economy and declare endless profits. It’s why we’re seeing these massive financial bubbles but no significant inflation outside said bubbles. TV prices have to drop because people simply can’t afford $10k for a flat screen. Oil spikes, but only because of temporary speculation. Then it crashes back down to reasonable levels. You had trillions of dollars in derivatives vaporized off the balance sheets, but main street only felt the aftershocks.
But the banking crisis isn’t the service economy. There are a large number of white collar jobs necessary to run a technology heavy business. I’m an IT guy who contracts with medical clinics. We’re a 30 person business that help out several other hundred person businesses. Every single one of us is classified as service industry. But go catch the flu or break your arm or get a bad case of the cancer, and then come tell me how the service industry isn’t adding value to the economy.
Florida Cynic
Not to minimize anyone’s problems, but the NYT does it’s usual half-assed reporting job here. Ms. West isn’t homeless because she foreclosed on. She’s homeless because she was unemployed for an an extended period of time, something the article pays scant attention to. The article pulls the standard, crappy reporting-by-anecdote stuff that makes me want to bang my head on the wall in frustration. Of course, rather than report on the fact that the working poor have no savings and any little blip in their circumstance will potentially put them out on the street (not sexy), it’s easier to cite a report by a group of organizations (only one identified) blaming foreclosure (look! evil bankers!)
Luthe
I maintain that what we need is a nice fat tax on the rich, with the proceeds going directly to the SBA, who will use the money for loans to small businesses which only have to be paid back if the business makes a profit.
Voila! Republicans are left between a rock and a hard place since they can either oppose the tax increase or oppose small businesses. Plus, the program would be nothing more that the privatize profit, socialize debt model, only for small businesses instead of giant banks.
Not that I would be against a tax on the rich no matter what. Perhaps one on unearned compensation (bonuses) and capital gains (only applies to incomes of $1 million or more).
Leelee for Obama
@Luthe: I like the way you think!
mai naem
Businessweek had a list of wealthy countries with the highest wealth disparity. We were number 3 behind HK and Singapore. All the european countries did better than the US. Japan,South Korea, NZ and Australia did better than the US. This is not a good thing.
Little Macayla's Friend
Just heard (3:30 p.m. west coast) Ben Stein on CNN’s Sit. Room w/ Blitzer talking about Obama’s remarks on latest bank bonuses.
Stein said “I hate to say this as a republican . . . “, “. . . wall street owns this country”, and “. . . get use to it”.
I left, came back, they’re on to balloon boy, I left.