Federal Reservations

As the Office of Congressional Ethics begins its investigation into the insider trading allegations leveled by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer and 60 Minutes against Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), a former Security and Exchange Commission official who now makes his money consulting individuals and corporations on financial regulatory or enforcement matters says he believes Mr. Bachus did nothing wrong.

“I haven’t seen anything that would indicate a law violation, in my view,”  Stanley Sporkin told the Birmingham News. “I don’t see why he would need my services. It’s not necessary.”

According to Larry Lavender, Rep. Bachus’s campaign manager:

“A friend of Congressman Bachus’ who knows Judge Sporkin asked Judge Sporkin if he might be of assistance in this matter,” said Bachus’ campaign manager Larry Lavender. He said Bachus’ lawyer gave the documents to Sporkin with the intention of hiring him as a consultant, but Sporkin “did not see any reason that he should be retained,” Lavender said.

If Rep. Spencer Bachus is not found to have engaged in using nonpublic information for personal gain, then it is unlikely that any member of Congress ever will be.

According to the Birmingham News, “Sporkin said he did not see evidence of insider trading because it was broadly known at that time that the economy was on the brink.”

That bit of revisionist history may benefit Rep. Bachus’s defense, but it belies the facts.

On October 6, 2008, CNBC’s Jim Cramer went on the TODAY Show and told Americans: “whatever money you may need for the next five years, please, take it out of the stock market right now—this week.  I do not believe that you should risk those assets in the stock market.”

The host pressed Mr. Cramer, saying, “Very dramatic statement, Jim.  Very dramatic statement.”  “I thought about this all weekend,” said Cramer.  “I do not want to say these things on TV.”

In the wake of Cramer’s comments, Mr. Cramer was strongly criticized as being alarmist and causing a market panic.

However, three weeks prior, Rep. Bachus–who was then the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee—had access to high-level private meetings and phone conversations with then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, among other senior financial officials, that let him know in advance what Jim Cramer would later be criticized for saying publicly.

Indeed, according to Peter Schweizer, on September 18, 2008, Bachus and congressional leaders received a private briefing from Mr. Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke inside then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.  Bernanke warned of a total financial meltdown in a matter of days. The very next day, September 19th, Bachus shorted the market by buying contract options on Proshares Ultra-Short QQQ, an index fund that strives for results 200% of the inverse of the Nasdaq 100. He nearly doubled his money when he sells his shares four days later for over $13,000.

In total, from July to November 2008, by executing well-timed, highly risky options trades throughout the turbulent period, Congressman Bachus made at least 40 trades that netted him as much as $50,000 in capital gains.

The argument that “everyone knew the markets were in meltdown” is a farce.  Rep. Bachus was aggressively trading while ducking in and out of meetings that were so secretive participants were forced to hand over their cell phones before entering them.  Again, even three weeks after said meetings, CNBC’s Jim Cramer was being blasted as a doomsayer for telling people to protect their assets, just as Rep. Bachus had already done weeks prior.  Put simply, the public did not know what Rep. Bachus knew–information that led him to maneuver his money and protect his assets.

The “logic” offered by Stanley Sporkin that everyone already knew “the economy was on the brink” brings to mind the classic insider trader’s defense used by almost all those accused of the crime: “I didn’t know anything special.    Nothing to see here.”   It’s the kind of defense reminiscent of Enron’s executives: “Everyone knew the company was in trouble.  Everyone knew what I knew.”

Whether the Office of Congressional Ethics will buy into Rep. Bachus’s story remains to be seen.  According to the Birmingham News, it is presently unclear whether the Office of Congressional Ethics will complete its investigation of Rep. Bachus prior to the March 13 Republican primary for Alabama’s 6th Congressional District.

Originally from Big Government

Obama finally got something right. Can you believe it? In a recent interview, Obama said he is confident we will not enter a double dip recession. Brilliant Sherlock. No, we are not entering a double dip. That is because we never left the first dip. Only Obama could get something so right, because he is so wrong.

While Obama, Fed Chief Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Geithner, and various other Obama economists, lackeys and socialist cabal members drone on about double dip, or not to double dip, common folks on Main Street understand that there has never been a recovery.

The continuing Great Recession started on Bush’s watch in 2007 and has never ended. Like Herbert Hoover, another Republican President who panicked, and failing Capitalism 101, abandoned fiscal conservative principles, George W. Bush turned to big government to “save us.” And as usual, the more government tries to save us, the worse it gets. So Bush channeled Hoover, starting the bailouts, stimulus, and insane levels of spending and government intervention.

Then, just when you thought it could not get any worse, along came Obama with his “Axis of Evil” game plan. What is the “Axis of Evil,” you ask? It is the principles to which Obama’s life is dedicated: Taxation, Regulation, Government Strangulation, Unionization and Litigation.

Obama is obsessed. He drools and dreams of taxes, lawyers, and unions. He reads his daughters bedtime stories about his heroes — IRS auditors, union goons, and the greatest class action lawyers of all-time. At Christmas, he decorates his tree with IRS tax forms, union labels, and law firm mastheads.

Obama actually believes that unemployment checks and food stamps are economic stimulus, jobs are created by lawsuits and tax money grows on trees. He believes teachers unions educate children (although not his little girls — they are safely tucked away in private school for $60,000 per year). He believes Lincoln saved the union — the auto union, teachers union and government employees union. Obama and Michelle’s favorite song must be “Axis of Evil” sung by Geithner & The Taxes.

Like other big government comrades such as Castro, Chavez, Mao, or that dashing couple that bankrupted Argentina, Eva & Juan Peron, Obama actually believes this stuff. He drinks the Axis of Evil Kool-Aid. Of course it has a union label. Much like Kosher foods that are blessed and approved by a rabbi, Obama’s foods are blessed and approved by the SEIU. His Presidential limo features a bumper sticker that states “Workers of the World Unite.”

Obama’s Axis of Evil has wrecked the U.S. economy from sea to shining sea. This Axis of Evil targeted, demonized, frightened, and punished business owners until there were no jobs. It is this Axis of Evil that turned Bush’s Great Recession into the Obama Great Depression. It is this Axis of Evil climate of fear that has turned this nation into Obamageddon.

Only those who are blind or drink the Kool-Aid can fail to see that America is in shambles, chaos and unprecedented crisis. True unemployment is at Great Depression levels. The Real Estate collapse has surpassed the Great Depression. The stock market is limping along, on the verge of collapse. Consumer confidence, manufacturing, and retail sales are plummeting. Inflation is skyrocketing (on the products that matter — energy and food prices). Banks cannot lend because they are either insolvent or handcuffed by new government regulations. And, our AAA credit rating is gone for the first time in history.

Our national debt goes up $3 million per minute under Obama. In one day under Obama the debt went up $200 billion — more than the entire 2007 deficit under Bush. But have no fear — our President is hard at work on the golf course at Martha’s Vineyard. Rest assured he is burning the midnight oil searching for the solution to save our economy. You just never know what you might find in a golf hole or on a putting green. Perhaps the answer to all our troubles is staring at Obama…in the clubhouse. Thank goodness Obama is on the job!

Obama is a tax stalker obsessed with these Axis of Evil ideas. Taxes and government spending are the twin monsters he turns to in a pinch every time. As he plays golf all over Cape Cod, rest assured he has visions of entitlements and tax fairies dancing in his head. The reason American business is frightened and paralyzed is because Obama’s obsessions (taxes, spending and regulation) and best friends (lawyers and unions) are the mortal enemies of all taxpayers, job creators, investors and small business owners. Obama’s game plan has created a climate of fear, uncertainty and crisis.

But at least Obama got one thing right — there is no chance of a double dip. Not in the middle of this Great Obama Depression. There is no recovery – only debt, depression and disaster. As long as the Axis of Evil reigns supreme, there can be no recovery, no new jobs, no hope or change.

Taxation, Regulation, Government Strangulation, Unionization and Litigation. The Axis of Evil ruins lives, kills jobs, redistributes our wealth, destroys workforce productivity, hinders investment, and weakens heroes of the workforce like kryptonite.

There is nowhere left to hide…except the golf course.

Originally from Big Government

Peter Boockvar of Miller Tabak says Wall Street may be comforted that Fed Chief Ben Bernanke says the Federal Reserve could commit more money to QE2, but he finds the prospect alarming. Boockvar argues that cheap money and runaway borrowing are what sank the economy to begin with, and yet that seems to be the Fed's strategy for fixing the economy. Boockvar also thinks Wall Street's end-of-year rally took place in September and October, "so I'm of the belief that we'll chop around here until year-end."

Originally from MarketWatch

By CNBC.com The European Central Bank's reluctance to consider further monetary easing exacerbates the problems the euro zone is currently facing, and Germany's criticism of the Federal Reserve's second round of bond buying is "misplaced," economist Nouriel Roubini told CNBC Thursday.

"In a situation where there is massive fiscal consolidation ... the ECB should be providing more liquidity to the financial system and do more bond buying," Roubini said in an interview, adding that the ECB did not do enough to limit the widening of bond-yield spreads.

German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble recently irked U.S. authorities when he criticized the Federal Reserve's decision to launch another round of bond buying and called the policy "clueless." More from CNBC Here's How to Cut the Deficit, But Nobody Will Like It Geithner on World Cooperation G-20 Showdown...

Originally from TheStreet

I am standing on the corner of the street, doing my duty to "give back" to society, in this case by yelling at morons passing by in the cars, "We're freaking doomed, you moron! Your own stupid government has destroyed you by letting the foul, fetid, festering Federal Reserve create too much money that they stupidly, stupidly, stupidly did as part of the stupid neo-Keynesian econometric theoretical lunacy that has mesmerized them, so that a shiny computer in front of a neo-Keynesian econometric economist is like a shiny toy in front of a monkey, and which has mesmerized the Fed and the government for similar reasons, and with similar results, in that the toy is now broken, the monkey cut its hand on the broken toy, the cut is infected, and there is a good chance that the monkey will die a horrible, painful death! Hahaha! How do you like them apples? Horrible, painful death! We're freaking doomed, including you and your hotshot car with the radio turned up real loud, trying to drown me out! And stop honking at me! I have rights, you moron!"

Originally from The Market Oracle