The Goat Pen

Illuminating

Yes, to some, it will be.

Wait, are you saying the president of Bob Jones U. doesn't believe in evolution?

a bit long but a good read -

the New York Fed and Goldman Sach's - conflict of interest pushed under the rug

http://www.propublica.org/article/carme ... w-york-fed

Yeah, I read that last week, myself. Sent it around to my staff about not fearing to challenge the chain of command...ie, me. With that said, homegirl was a bit excessive in her demeanor. She seems like she would only do well in corporate or internal audit. Even then, while she may not get far in any corporate position, she at least would be respected for her field work.

That whole story flashed in my head when I read this...http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ ... story.html

I'm reading the secret service story now

One thing I think you have to keep in mind about the woman at the Fed was she was hired to be exactly the kind of person she was due to the Breim report - to challenge authority , to not accept a watered down conformist approach - and for her to admit there was a policy - even the foundation of a policy would have been enough for her superiors to rewrite her findings in a more favorable light. As long as she stuck to her guns and said there was no policy, then they would be guilty of lying, not "enhancing" if they changed her words.

Goldman Sachs is the Monsanto of Financials - they are just evil

"Amid conflicting radio chatter, including a Secret Service dispatcher calling into 911 with contradictory descriptions of vehicles and suspects, police began looking for the wrong people: two black men supposedly fleeing down Rock Creek Parkway.'

see, its not just trashy white women who didn't get taxi money the morning after

the story kind of conflicts itself a bit - early on it notes that the secret service could not have prevents a man from stopping his car in front of the white house and takes shots , but then later on talks about the security lapses causes a greater concern, that someone with a more powerful weapon could have penetrated the residence behind the bullet proof glass. Additional surveillance cameras will not stop the shooting in progress.

its amazing how far we've gone - back in the 1800's, the presidents would just walk down the street and mingle with the people like the mayor of a small city.

regardless its a bad time nationally for anyone in law enforcement - the past fews years have shown their attitudes have changed about the general public and overall their reliance on technology and rapid information is replacing common sense.

eCat wrote:a bit long but a good read -

the New York Fed and Goldman Sach's - conflict of interest pushed under the rug

http://www.propublica.org/article/carme ... w-york-fed

Soooo 2008. You also have the revealing of the AIG bailout's documents that the bailout was not to save AIG, but of course, those they owed money, i.e. Goldman Sachs. I was preaching that way back when.

I am not one for limiting capitalism, but if you can't get rid of "too big too fail", and we can't because fed and Treasury are incestuous with Goldman Sachs, then you have to reinstate Glass-Steagall. It won't happen because Wall Street has its grip on both parties. Instead we have this Dowd Frank façade that gives the appearance of oversight, but only adds unnecessary burden to mid to small banks, who weren't the main culprits of 2008, and gives the larger banking institutions an edge.

I know we used to talk about Sarbanes Oxley almost weekly until we got our shit together on our financials call.

When you have a former Goldman Sachs executive as the Finance Secretary heading up the bailouts, you gotta believe they'll come out ahead of the game while the people they don't like (Lehman bros) gets fucked

True on both of your posts. AIG's bailout not only helped GS and the other big IBs, but also a slew of hedge funds...then both groups get all high and mighty when Washington asked them to play ball on loosening credit.

Since Obama's been in office for 6 years, my list of gripes with him is longer than a little (which is par for the course for all Presidents), but I've always said his first big mistake was honoring the CDS payouts dollar for dollar. All these entities knew they were looking at getting nothing (or having claims tied up for a decade, much like Lehman claims are now). The Fed, the administration and the Treasury all dropped the ball and it pissed me off then and still does today.

on a pisstivity separate note

Stories like this always get my emotions up...

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/law-3

My college housemate was a BX ADA. He used to tell me stories about how some of the ADAs, police and COs acted, so I was not totally surprised by this. But, 3 years...what the fuck?

Jack McCoy would be proud...

this is the money quote from that article

“If you took a sixteen-year-old kid and locked him in a room for twenty-three hours, your son or daughter, you’d be arrested for endangering the welfare of a child"


there are so many things wrong with our country - if you focus on it - it can be overwhelming

and we're one of the good countries.

EFZ

kudos for that kid for not taking the plea - the price he paid for it was still less than if he plead guilty - and he wouldn't have any chance for compensation for his delay in justice

that said, given our justice system, if the Mexican guy was adamant it was the kid that robbed him, whose to say if he had a speedy trial he wouldn't have been found guilty with a court appointed attorney overwhelmed with cases representing him - and I don't think any pro-bono charity case is going to interested in an innocent kid convicted of a crime with 18 months left in his sentence.

my short stint on the grand jury had me realize just how important plea deals are to our court system - politicians, attorneys and police get to spout how tough they are on crime, site statistics about criminal cases being solved and conviction rates - meanwhile privately run prisons profit from the money being dispensed by placing ever more increasing criminals in overcrowded prisons - and our court systems benefit from removing the masses of "small" crimes from their dockets.

I personally believe we should pass a law that you can only be prosecuted for breaking a single crime for a single act - and a single act is defined as the comprehensive attempt of criminal activity in a single event by your own doing

that way you don't get aggressive D.A.'s charging someone with multiple crimes in a not so subtle attempt to elicit a plea bargain from them to get jail time while avoiding court.

Think how many other kids took a reduced charge to get out with time served after the bulldog lady judge was called in to clear the dockets. Certainly, some (many? most?) of them were actually guilty, but just as certainly, there had to be dozens (at minimum) who were probably in the same boat as this kid, but just took a plea on a misdemeanor to go home, even though it meant having a criminal (if minor) charge against them...

If I have a moment tonight I'll post an anectdote (sp?) witnessed about 10 years ago in a barbershop. It was a ridiculous abuse of power display by the police...and not something that would ever be tolerated (let alone attempted) in a politically active, high tax base neighborhood.

Once as an 17-year-old, I witnessed a south Louisiana sheriff make a friend of mine "make out" with the pavement for good amount of time. As in, kiss and lick the ground because he didn't like the tone of my friend's answer. This is after he had been thrown down and cuffed. Power unfortunately corrupts these public "servants". Especially when said power is dealing with people who have less of a power base (young, minorities) themselves.

Most were bullies in high school like IB.

Looks like there is going to be no shortage of horror stories as people start renewing/enrolling in their company provided health care for 2015.

Already ready some of them now from around the forums.