Bill Black:

It came to my attention yesterday that Bank of America’s “senior advisor” in Germany is Hans-Olaf Henkel. I believe that Bank of America should consider the context in which I became aware of this fact very disturbing. Mr. Henkel has just written the following:

Mr. Galbraith should familiarize himself Jimmy Carter's "Housing and Community Development Act" where in Section VIII Banks were prohibited the practice of "red lining" which until then enabled them to distinguish "better living quarters" and "slums."

The full context of Dr. Galbraith’s interview, and Mr. Henkel’s written reply to Dr. Galbraith can be found at the following links to my response to Mr. Henkel (see here, here and here).

Honesty comes to Lord Kos, albeit belatedly:

Army Sergeant who served in Iraq accused of waterboarding his 4-year-old daughter.

"Sternly worded letter" appears in mainstream news story:

Over the past 12 years, Josh Libresco's health insurance premium has increased almost eight-fold for his family of four.

The 54-year-old San Rafael resident is facing a 39 percent rate hike from Anthem Blue Cross on March 1 that will raise his premium from $858 to $1,192 a month. In 1998, his monthly premium was $151.

Libresco was one of a number of Anthem policyholders who received a letter last week saying California's largest for-profit health insurer plans to hike premiums on individual policies by as much as 39 percent.

Anthem has declined to say how many of its 800,000 individual policyholders in California are being affected by the hike. But Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius demanded specifics in a sternly-worded letter Monday, saying the insurer has "a responsibility to provide a detailed justification for these rate increases."

Of course, the great thing about the health care reform debate over the past year has been how the progressives with big megaphones have systematically educated the public on the issues, and shown how we don't even need insurance companies, if we adopt a health care system that works.

James Kwak:

We like to make fun of government in this country, but really, what are you and a few of your buddies going to do to fight JPMorgan Chase on your own? For all of our beloved rugged individualism (and our individual right to handguns), it doesn’t do much good when you’re up against your credit card issuer.

Concluding an extra-long thumbsucker on the FT piece everyone's talking about -- about how Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs, Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod are destroying Obama's presidency, a process that Obama is completely unaware of -- Steve Clemons advises Obama:

[G]et back to putting good policy before short term politics.

"Get back?" Oh, really? When would that have been?

"Progressive" Alaska:

Here. Good!

Haw.

Prudent Bear:

Rent-seeking is another current problem of Wall Street, not addressed by Volcker. This takes many forms, and has resulted from computerization and from the endless proliferation of derivative instruments. Basically, Wall Street houses, by their substantial market share in trading businesses, acquire insider information about money flows, and then profit by trading on this information. Traders have always done this, of course, and there is no sensible way of making it illegal. In addition genuine “crony capitalism” insider information about future finances and future government actions is as available as it always has been, but with larger trading volumes and fewer inhibitions is more usable without technically contravening insider treading legislation. Thus insider trading, almost all of it technically legal, has acquired an enormously magnified profit potential. This is the principal reason for Wall Street’s greater share of the economy; the genuine value added to third parties from “hedging” or liquidity” is only a tiny fraction of the rents Wall Street can extract from these markets.

After two days of tech troubles.

MMT (Modern Monetary Theory, or "chartalism")*. BillyBlog:

But the point is that the Bush deficits are immaterial to judging whether the Obama deficits are sustainable or whether the Obama administration has “more” or “less” fiscal space. What defines the amount of fiscal space is not the past fiscal position – surplus or deficit – but the extent to which there are underutilised real resources that can be brought back into production.

Ugh. And ugh.

because it is, but:

And now for something completely different...

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Maine Owl:

Big Picture:

A 30-second commercial this Sunday should cost around $2.6 million, down from $3 million last year. This 13% decline is only the third decline ever and the largest year-to-year decline on record. At $2.6 million, the cost of a commercial is the same as it was in 2000. Interestingly, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is also near its 2000 levels, as is total employment in the United States. America’s Lost Decade takes many forms.

... I'm sure the administration political operatives will be very grateful; the last thing the voters want to see is an M-shaped depression.* But can they? And would the administration's financial operatives want them to? Simon Johnson:

Significant banks and large hedge funds have been selling insurance against default by European sovereigns. As countries lose creditworthiness – and, under sufficient pressure, very few government credit ratings will hold up – these financial institutions will need to come up with cash to post increasing amounts of collateral against their derivative obligations (yes, the same credit default swaps that triggered the collapse last time).

Just now!

Not bad for a blog that everybody hates and nobody reads.

Essential reading on class warfare.

Very interesting article at OpenLeft (and related material here) on the youth vote -- though oddly, or not, it hasn't been front-paged.*

Yves points out that the Volcker Rule doesn't cover the shadow banking system, which caused the collapse. (This is an important and very clear article with nice charts. Go read!)

Energy transmitted through quantum entanglement.

Reuters: Goldman CEO bonus will be $9 million.

Now, Izvestia -- I swear, and Yves remembers -- originally had the headline: "Goldman Chief Gets Bonus of Only $9 Million in Record Year" but they changed it to the richly ironic or totally self-unaware "Goldman Chief’s Bonus Seen by Some as Show of Restraint." *

So, why $9 million?