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December 23, 2013 12:38 AM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 32 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."

–Thomas Paine 

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32 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

  1. Sell drugs, go to jail. Knowingly provide banking to the drug dealers – no big deal.

    Federal and state authorities have chosen not to indict HSBC, the London-based bank, on charges of vast and prolonged money laundering, for fear that criminal prosecution would topple the bank and, in the process, endanger the financial system.

    It doesn't take a genius to see that the reasoning here is beyond flawed. When you decide not to prosecute bankers for billion-dollar crimes connected to drug-dealing and terrorism (some of HSBC's Saudi and Bangladeshi clients had terrorist ties, according to a Senate investigation), it doesn't protect the banking system, it does exactly the opposite. It terrifies investors and depositors everywhere, leaving them with the clear impression that even the most "reputable" banks may in fact be captured institutions whose senior executives are in the employ of (this can't be repeated often enough) murderers and terrorists. Even more shocking, the Justice Department's response to learning about all of this was to do exactly the same thing that the HSBC executives did in the first place to get themselves in trouble – they took money to look the other way.

    And not only did they sell out to drug dealers, they sold out cheap. You'll hear bragging this week by the Obama administration that they wrested a record penalty from HSBC, but it's a joke. Some of the penalties involved will literally make you laugh out loud. This is from Breuer's announcement:

    As a result of the government's investigation, HSBC has . . . "clawed back" deferred compensation bonuses given to some of its most senior U.S. anti-money laundering and compliance officers, and agreed to partially defer bonus compensation for its most senior officials during the five-year period of the deferred prosecution agreement.

    Wow. So the executives who spent a decade laundering billions of dollars will have to partially defer their bonuses during the five-year deferred prosecution agreement? Are you fucking kidding me? That's the punishment? The government's negotiators couldn't hold firm on forcing HSBC officials to completely wait to receive their ill-gotten bonuses? They had to settle on making them "partially" wait? Every honest prosecutor in America has to be puking his guts out at such bargaining tactics. What was the Justice Department's opening offer – asking executives to restrict their Caribbean vacation time to nine weeks a year?

    Imagine the uproar here if the Romney Administration has done this.

      1. Sure.

        People can reliably know how drugs can interact with one another and their medical conditions, and pharmaceutical companies can be relied upon as good shepherds of this information.

        1. It's been my experience that pharmacists, the real ones, are the ones who know there stuff about drugs. It's their thing. Doctors often can't answer all your questions accurately. The best thing about prescriptions is they send you to the pharmacy. I always find out which of the people manning the counter is the real pharmacist and ask about things like interactions, with or without food, is it one of those that you can't drink grapefruit juice with, alcohol, etc. 

          We have enough over prescribing of all kinds of drugs without making them OTC which would have people dosing themselves with even more drugs they don't need and which have potential serious side effects for inaccurately self diagnosed conditions and without a clue how they should be taken. Americans take way too many drugs compared to everyone else as it is.

          We don't need more OTC. We need national single payer.

          1. I'm with you on phamacists, B.C. I'm deathly cillin allergic and my doctor once prescribed a sporin for me. It was the druggist who caught the potential allergy (cillins and sporins are kissin' cousins). He gave me three of them and told me to try them. I called the drugstore the next morning and told him I looked like I had the measels; hives from head to toe. The druggist called my doctor and got me a mycin. Much better!. My doctor missed it, but the pharmacist didn't.                                                                                   BTW, the grapefruit thing? Some drugs need an enzyme called cytochrome P-450 to potentiate. You also need it to digest grapefruit. If you consome the fruit (or juice) it's not available for the med and the med won'twork.

                  2. I remember that story. I don't remember that the kid swiped the smoke detectors, though. As I remember it, those were defective devices that First Alert or some other maker had stockpiled waiting to be collected by an agency (probably the NRC) that could render them harmless. The kid wrote to the company and asked if they had cast-offs that he could have. Some low-level 9now-former) employee bundled up the stockpile and shipped it to this high school kid who disassembled them in the shed and combined the extrated parts to build his (fortunately)  small reactor.

                    1. Damn I can't type today.                                         ( not 9.

                      Extracted.

    2. Were you just cleaning out your kid's empty bedroom of old magazines  to find this year-old article?

      The banks' laundering transactions were so brazen that the NSA probably could have spotted them from space. Breuer admitted that drug dealers would sometimes come to HSBC's Mexican branches and "deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, in a single day, into a single account, using boxes designed to fit the precise dimensions of the teller windows."

      Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213#ixzz2oJKDSBqh 
       

      Matt Taibbi has been on the bankster beat for ages.  His reporting alone is reason to keep a RS subscription.

      1. I did not think Alberto Gonzales and Monica Goodling were strong choices for DOJ.

        Lanny Breuer is no better.

        I recall this last year – and remember thinking that if FDIC had taken over, the performing assets would have been transferred, the crimes could be prosecuted and  the significant loss would have been to the HSBC shareholders and the staff involved in committing crimes. 

  2. Shop lift a small inexpensive item, it's a misdemeanor. Rob a gas station, it's a felony.  Get busted for petty nonviolent drug related crime, you might need a Presidential intervention to avoid a sentence up to life. Rip off or engage in scams or laundering involving billions, no problem. Too big to mess with. Pay Masters of the Universe pocket change fines and continue on your merry way growing the gap between the oligarchy and the rest of us.

  3. I saw this on PoliticalWire.com today.  Note the reference to CO-6, Coffman's district.  I wonder what Coffman's position is on extending unemployment benefits.

    New Public Policy Polling surveys in 4 key swing Congressional districts (CA-31, CO-6, IL-13 and MI-1), as well as Speaker John Boehner's home district, "find overwhelming bipartisan opposition to cutting off extended unemployment benefits at the end of this year. Voters say they would be inclined to punish their already vulnerable representatives at the polls next year if they vote to cut off benefits."

    Key finding: "Anywhere from 63-68% of voters in the five districts support continuing unemployment benefits with only 28-34% OK with cutting them…This is a rare issue in this polarized political climate where we find agreement across party lines."

    2. not to mention. Bill Koch just laid off most of his coal miners…and Scott Tipton will not return my emails..I was just asking how he was going to vote on the UI extension…and what can I tell my friends who have just been laid off???? these folks have no conscience…they are cold and dead inside…

    3. "I wonder what Coffman's position is on extending unemployment benefits"

       

      Why?  that one is easy – 2 or 3 weeks oughtta do it. Anything longer and it just kills th emotivation to find work. Besides, doesn't everyone have 3 gov't pensions?

    1. MamaJ, Please post the next installment when it comes in.Westword doesn't carry this anymmore 🙁 . That would be funny if someone had made it all up.

  5. Sad story out of Colorado Springs today. An errant stepdaughter tried to sneak back in to her house in the early morning hours, but she was mistaken for a burglar and shot to death by her stepdad.

    Here's a Scripps News Service piece via 7 News. Not a lot of real local coverage popping up – all wire service pieces. No information available from police, who say they do not plan on releasing the names of either the 14-year old victim or her stepfather.

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