Jimmy Cayne eulogises Bear Stearns as shareholder fill its grave

Jimmy Cayne finally apologises to Bear Stearns shareholders on 29 May 2008 as JPMorgan Chase took full hold of the company at its gravesite in a leathal merger which will long be chewed over for the way it was done. Yet 16 per cent of shareholders voted against merger, which is saying something since JPMorgan Chase walked into the room with 49,5 per cent. Cayne got a stone cold reception from Bear Stearns employees who lost liquidity when the original offer was us$2 a share but raised to us$10 for the buyout. [A year ago Bear's shares were selling at us$150!]. Cayne's words came too late for everyone; he walked away less a paper billionaire he once was but he and wife took us$80m or so, and two condo suites at the reburished Plaza hotel on Central Park South. JPMorgan exercised its droit de seigneur, and deflowered virginal Bear Stearns. By Monday Bear employees totalling a good 7000 or more will be pounding tthe streets for work. Outside Bear Stearns billion dollar headquarters on Madison Avenue which JPMorgan picked up for a song, a caricaturist drew a bloated face of Jimmy Cayne...any and everyone was invited to have his say around Cayne's face. And boy did they! The language is crude but fitting for a man who ruined his own bank by a bad decision, and walked away laughing to the bank. However a shareholder who voted against merger put it straightforwardly. Bear didn't deserve to be ruined for a bad decision. JPMorgan and the Gang of 4--US Fed, New York Fed, Herr Bush's man at Commerce, and Hank Paulson took Bear over without a blush in a fuzzy deal. The psychology of the takeover deserves study, and it is bruited that Goldman Sachs whom the nasty like IB flea that Bear was becoming was annoying it very much, and so GS seized the moment to kick off the rumour mill which would end up withdrawing Wall Street's confidence in the firm and lead to its takeover. As a learned rabbi once said, let the stomachs of these thugs rot for eternity! Ameen!

Bear Stearns R.I.P.

Today [29 May 2008]shareholders buried the financial house Bear Stearns. It lived a long and cutting edge of the market life till the subprime market meltdown did it in. At 85, it disappears but for the history books, and greedy JPMorgan Chase ably assisted by the Gang of 4 at the US Fed, the New York Fed, and Herr Bush buried it in a coffin of gimcrack manoeuvres.

China points the finger of blame at the US ... it's the subprime meltdown stupid!

China's equivalent to the US Federal Reserve is pointing a finger of blame at the laxness in governmental regulation of financial markets in the US. It says that the US is enamoured by the market that it lets itself lose sight that there are financial shoals beyond which trouble brews. And the subprime meltdown is one! It has sown turmoil in not only the US but in world markets, too. Why is China now so huffy puffy today? Well, Beijing has its renminbi yuan pegged to the US dollar; Washington has wooed it with flowers or thundered with menances for China to re evaluate its currency. It help up high the banner of China's self interests, and won't budge on a matter which it deemed of internal importance and told the US to buzz off in so many polite words. Now the US dollar is in a bad way which affects the reminbei yuan badly. It spurred inflation which is nearing 25 per cent, and for an overheated economy that ain't good news, coupled as it is with natural disasters which is stretching the Chinese leadership tightly and is slowing eroding its power base. So China is offering 'free' advice to Washington...out of a purely alturistic motive. If you believe that, Santa Claus will bring you a bag full of toys at Christmas. The Chinese are not good players, so now they're suffering as much as anyone else relatively speaking.

Scott McClellan kisses & tells

Scott McClellan came to Washington as Herr Bush's press secretary, a post he ably handled when Herr Bush was governour of Texas. His boyish, friendly smile graced television screens as he became at press conferences the spokesman for Herr Bush. He left the White House in 2006 after 3 years of services. Now he telling all or almost all in his memoir 'What happened: inside the Bush White House & Washington's culture of deception'. A blogger had an advanced copy, and now the news of this kiss & tell book is making the rounds globally. McClellan writes at times with a vitriolic pen and confirms what everyone has suspected about Herr Bush & his henchman. Herr Bush doesn't come off well, it goes without saying. Narcissitic [sic] and self indulgent, he lives within the world of his own fantasy. In this he was ably handled by Karl Rove who so far has escaped any criminal liability for his deceit and dirty tricks. Herr Bush set out to deceive and deceive he did. Look at the failed war in Iraq if you need any proof. Go read the book when it comes hot off the presses in a week!
McClellan is also hard on the Washington press corps who like sheep time and time again were led to Herr Bush's abbatoir of lies, swallowed them whole, and were a willing handmaiden to Herr Bush's lies, high crimes, & misdemeanours. If you want another example of the press' easy pass, go out and read 'Why the press love John McCain'.

Herr Bush on Memorial day 2008

Herr Bush is so universally disliked in the US, he can only speak before an audience which is duty bound to listen to him. On Memorial day 2008 he spoke as he usually does to the military. He waxed with false tears of the deeds of the fallen, of the bravery of the dead and living fighting in Iraq, a war he lied his country into. His cow of a wife had the gall to say, Herr Bush suffers terribly at the loss of American lives...he who was a summer soldier in the Texas National Guard during the war in Vietnam so he could escape combat; he spent his time drunk and rumour has it spaced out on smack and awol...he was a congressman's son after all! And Herr Bush to show the price he is paying for the dead in battle has given up golf! And the next minute you see him on a golf course. The irony is bitting and enough to make you to vomit green. Herr Bush deserves to be tried for high crimes and misdemeanors and serve a long prison time till he expires for his dark deeds, among which is the shredding of the US constitution!

Toilet bowl cleaner Alan Greenspan pontificates...again

If you thought he had silently gone into the night, he didn't. Toilet bowl cleaner Alan Greenspan's voice once again raises in forked, sybilline tones. The US is on the verge of recession, says he, at a time when it really is and can no longer hide behind the technical definition of what economics textbooks define as recession. Of course the scourer of financial toilet bowl talks of turmoil and the need to rescue the big banks that he as head of the US Fed begninly let do creative accounting to lift hefty profits out of the pockets of the poor. Of course, he is blameless and as the eternal virgin whore that he is, he can speak as though without sin. If ever a man deserves a long prison term and the penance of spreading cow shit with his hands on fallow fields, he is toilet bowl cleaner Alan Greenspan.

John McCain is forced to repudiate the Revend Mr. Haggee

McCain is a class act prostitute in politics. Hailed as a reformer at the turn of the 21 century, he has done everything to become the Republican party's standard bearer for the White House. He's the GOP's Hubert Humphrey who threw out his values with the baby in the bathwater. He actively courted Haggee who is a loud mouth evangelical from Texas with a 7000 member mega church and wide influence in right wing politics. T'ain't nothing wrong in being right wing, but Haggee is an extremist and his words are not taken out of context. He calls the Roman church a whore of Babylon; he mock turtled this by apologising when McCain forced him, but then the senator from Arizona stuck by his man no matter what. Hagge a Christian Zionist has gone on to say more offensive things. He said God chose Hitler to drive the Jews out of Europe to the promised land which is the state of Israel! or words to that effect. This broke McCain's camel's back; he needs the Jewish vote if he wishes say to beat Barak Obama whom many American Jews think wrongly is Muslim, anti Israel, pro Palestinian, too tightly close to his former pastor the Reverend Mr. Wright. And of course Israel thinks Obama is a menace and McCain their candidate of choice. However, this time McCain not only had to distance himself from the man he courted for evangelical votes in November, but repudiate him totally and reject the man's endorsement of him. A little too late, Mr. McCain who proves as a political animal he has no morals.

Dora Kwok

Dora Kwok has gone to the other side of the mountain. Her heart gave out on Monday evening [19 May 2008]. Dora is one of the legion of decent people who walk this earth, and go unnoticed. Born in Shanghai in the year of the Dog, she knew the ravages of war and exile. She came to the US more than a half century ago. Dora was the embodiment of the virtues America preaches but hardly these days do not practise.
In retirement Dora volunteered at the Caring Community in New York's centre at the Presbyterian church on lower 5 Avenue on the edge of Greenwich Village. Already in her 80's, she was a Jane of all trades. Willing to serve was her motto, for doing nothing meant to her, it seems, not being well. Well she served too well and a heart attack put an end to her days. 18Brumaire wishes to remember for her goodness, her kindness, and generosity of heart.

Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and the death of Bush's Middle East policy

Hardly 10 days ago in the Beit Knesset US president Herr Bush was greated as though he were Jesus entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, with flowers and flowery speech and much fanfare as Israel's best friend. But that was before the Arab league brokered and deal in Lebanon which allowed a new formula for sharing power among Beirut's religious groups. And thus Hezbollah Israel's bete noire to take its rightful seat at the table. Unlike Herr Bush & his useless lot in State and Defence, Israel's Kadmina led government are realists. And so acting on the newer realities in the Middle East they're ready to make peace with Syria and return the Golan Heights which for almost 20 years now the Israeli military establishment have been saying they weren't necessary for Israel's defences. No matter. By allowing Hezbollah a say in governing Lebanon and coming to peace with Syria, Jerusalem bargains that it will wean the Arabs from Iran and thereby reduce its arch enemy's hold on the region which wouldn't have happened were it not for Herr Bush's stupidity by waging war in Iraq. Israel's 'peace overtures' through friendly Turkey already shows that the kaleiscopic designs of power are reshaping not so much to Israel disadvantage but towards ending Israel's hold on territy it has held on to for far too long since the 6 day war. Agreement with Syria means lessening of tensions with Lebanon and most of all allowing for the firm establishment of a Palestinian state and it is hoped the uprooting of Jewish settlers in the west bank. Israel will go through turmoil internally because most of the settlers are rabid millenianists, so in a way Israel is reaping the whirlwind it has sown. And what's more Israel will be more secure as a state because one way or the other all the Arab states will recognise its legitimacy. And Iran who always had back door dealing with Israel since the fall of the Shah, will breathe more easily and look towards better relations with it. And so Herr Bush's road map is in tatters and it is another black mark in Herr Bush's lunatic foreign policy.

Israel, Obama, and American Jews

Recent pollsters in the US find that many people think Barak Obama is Muslim, but a confirmed practising Christian that he is, despite the brouhaha over his old pastor the Reverend Mr. Jeremaiah Wright, jr, which has not dented the junior senator from Illinois' numbers at the primaries, nor slowed his reach for the Democratic party's candidate for the White House. Yet there is another red herring. Obama's unfriendly attitude, many think, towards Israel. The word has gone amongst the 12 tribes that he is a dangerous man, harbouring inimical thoughts about the state of Israel, and fundmentally when you get down to it, he's not good for the Jews! Of course this is tosh. But for the right wing Jewish lobbists, in bed with the Bush administration, this false idea is good grist for their slander mills. For the majority of American Jewry Israel is like Caesar's wife--above suspicion. Thus anyone who dares question her purity, well...he deserves death, destruction, and the eternal fires of hell. So it is not surprising to read long articles about Jews in America who won't think of voting for Obama because he's viewed not as friend of Israel but an enemy. It makes no difference if now Israel is willing to sign a peace treaty with Israel, or that Israel engages in secret or open relations with Arab countries. What is at stake is Eretz Yisroel...the land of Israel which American Jewsry in the main think Obama is going to hand over to the Palestinians, regardless of Israel 40 year occupation of the west bank and its aggressive policies of colonisation there. American Jewry have swallowed the hokum of the Jewish zealots from Brooklyn who reclaim Palestine on their reading of the Torah that what they call Samaria and Judea belongs by divine right to them. It ain't for nothing that the most rabid anti Arab party in Israel is Kach whose founder came from Borough Park, Brooklyn, and whose ideology best mimics Adolph Hitler's. It ain't for nothing that the US not Israel is the goldene Medina for Jews not Israel, and it also ain't for nothing that America Jewry is blinded by guilt for doing little to save European Jews from ha Shoah! American Jewry is on the wrong scent in attaching Obama!