Tag: financial sector

Oh, those witty JP Morgan Guys, Pissing on Little Timmy Geithner

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JP Morgan Exec mocks Treasury Sec for bailout money.

To which I cannot help but respond:

I am glad Mr. Dimon is so pleasant with us;
His words and his sneer, I thank him for:
When we are next met in Congress assembled,
We will, by God’s grace, pass such a bill as
Shall send his wits into the hazard.
And we understand him well,
How he comes now with memory of wilder days,
When he did reign as Prince untouchable
And those set to guard against his excesses
Catered to his whims and kept him safe against all
Accountability that had once been law.
What wonder when, having supped so freely and so long
at public feast, that he should task us so
for daring to restrain his monstrous appetites?

So tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
Hath turn’d his balls to gun-stones; and his soul
Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
That shall fly with them. For I swear
His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
When his colleagues weep more than ever they did laugh at it.

(With apologies to Henry V)

I do hope the folks at Treasury who fought so hard to restrain the “radical” demands that public money have some conditions attached take note of how grateful their financial sector “clients” are for their services.

Stay tuned . . . .

The Fragmentation Games Continue: Cable Has a Plan So Cunning Even THEY Can't Figure It Out.

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So back in September ’08, when ESPN.com cut a deal with Verizon and AT&T to lock out subscribers to rival ISPs, I predicted the cable guys would try to lock up content of their own. and, indeed, the cable guys have proven uniquely ambitious. As reported at DSL Reports and elsewhere, the cable guys want to lock in all cable network programming. But subsequent reports, and a lack of object from competitors like DIRECTV, make it look more like a cable programming network play and less like an incumbent cable ISP play.

One way or another, I expect this to keep getting interesting over time.

More below . . .

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ESPN360.Com Locks Up It's Content — Let The Fragmentation Games Begin!

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There’s been a lot of back and forth over whether letting broadband providers lock up content, or content providers lock out ISPs, is a good thing or a bad thing. And now, ESPN360.Com is going to kick off the fragmentation games and let us all find out.

It is a fine old Republican free market anti-deregulatory tradition to deregulate critical infrastructure and hope for the best, pooh-poohing doomsday predictions as ignorant exaggerations and fear mongering by business-hating regulation-loving quasi-commies. And since this philosophy worked so well with our financial sector, we have now moved it to the next major engine of the economy — broadband.

I am so excited! For those who have developed a taste for Lehman Bros-type thrill rides, the ESPN360.com deal will bring back fine memories of your first subprime derivative. You (and the rest of us along for the ride) can look forward to the thrill, the excitement, the dramatic highs and lows of playing high stakes roulette with our digital future. True we’ve lost our mortgage money (literally and metaphorically) playing “follow the Subprime queen.” But don’t worry. As any economist will tell you, the combination of a lack of information, high transaction costs, complex interrelated markets, and poorly understood network effects is just tailor made for that wild west anything goes atmosphere that made all them miners rich in the Sacramento gold fields!

Bet our critical infrastructure? How can we afford NOT TOO!!!

Details below . . .

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This Is Ready From Day 1?

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In his most recent emphatic response to the financial crisis that cannot in any way be blamed on the former Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee (because really, it was those bozos over at Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs and possibly the folks over at the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Antitrust), former Deregulator turned Regulatory Hawk John McCain told a cheering crowd of supporters that if he were President he would fire SEC Chairman Christopher Cox.

“The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the president and in my view has betrayed the public’s trust,” McCain said. “If I were president today, I would fire him.”

Firey, determined, definitely a stern rebuke to the Bush Administration and its lackeys who — although confirmed by McCain and the rest of the Republican Senate back in 2005 despite nasty bad bad partisan allegations that Cox had been involved in some shady investment schemes — certainly have nothing to do with McCain the Reformer!

Except, of course, that the Chairman of the SEC does not serve at the pleasure of the President and cannot be “fired,” only impeached by Congress. The President can “demote” Cox by redesignating someone else on the Commission as Chairman — which would probably prompt a Chair to resign before letting that happen. But still, saying you would fire someone you have no authority to fire? This is ready from Day 1?

I suppose I could give McCain the benefit of the doubt and assume he knows the actual law, and that he was just shorthanding “I can’t actually fire him, but I would certainly embarrass him and harass him out of a job faster than a Wasilla Librarian who refused to censor books!” To the more dramatic “I would fire him and then be all embarrassed when I was told I can’t actually do that.” But either way, it’s a pretty stupid response when McCain spent all his time as Chair of the Commerce Committee perfectly happy with the way the SEC regulated the financial sector. (I know, I know, wrong committee, not my fault . . . .)

Stay tuned . . . .