Talks have resumed again today in Geneva between the Iranians on one side and the group known as P5+1, which consists of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (US, Russia, China, France, UK) and Germany. The talks seemed poised for a breakthrough the last time they met but were torpedoed at the last minute by the French. [Read more…]
According to the Catholic bishop of Phoenix, Catholics should not help people sign on to health insurance via the Affordable Care Act “because of the implications of these actions for cooperation with evil.” [Read more…]
The revelations about the scale of NSA snooping on everyone’s information and communications and storing that information to be used against you has spawned interest in how to combat it. [Read more…]
Timothy Geithner has, during his entire time as governor of the New York Fed and then as Treasury Secretary, been a loyal servant of Wall Street and the big banks. Neil Barofksy, in his blistering expose and insider’s view of how the financial bailout played out, showed how Geithner and the other senior executives in Treasury seemed to see their role as serving the interests of the banks rather than the taxpayers who were paying their salaries. [Read more…]
There were several items that I had noted and was planning to write about but found that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report had addressed them well. So I am handing it off to them. [Read more…]
Matt Taibbi has been one of the biggest scourges of the megabanks, relentlessly cataloging their criminality (he memorably described Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money”). He was incredulous that anyone at JP Morgan Chase thought it was a good idea to invite the general public using the hashtag #askJPM to ask them for career advice on a public forum like Twitter. [Read more…]
One of the things that really puzzle me is how people can get worked up over the most absurd things. Take the Affordable Care Act. There has been a concerted effort by those opposed to this reform to scuttle it by whipping up anger against any and all aspects of it. I find it really despicable how far some states have gone to prevent people from signing up for health insurance under the new system. [Read more…]
In an effort to improve its image using social media, megabank JP Morgan Chase invited people on social media to tweet questions to them in advance using the hashtag #AskJPM and that Vice Chairman Jimmy Lee would take an hour to answer them.
They got a good response all right, an avalanche of questions which were predominantly snarky and angry. See more here and here. The hashtag is still active and the hits keep coming. [Read more…]
I wrote recently about my great distaste for the Cleveland Indians logo of Chief Wahoo and how as long as they kept the logo I was perfectly content if they never won a single game again, let alone win the World Series. I have been totally unconvinced by those who say it is harmless or even meant to honor Indians. [Read more…]