I heard so many superlatives used to describe the day. The first of 2012 – not a cloud in the sky -  at least 75 – and waves. It wasn’t big, but it was fun and clean. I’m still out of the water, but I enjoyed being part of the gallery and talking with the boyz. It was pretty crowded, and there were the usual drop-ins and the like. But, I would have been on it – maybe LB to take the edge off.

Happy New Year! 9.7 feet at 17 seconds from 280 – and a little foggy. Still out of the water, but I’m getting ready to make weekend warriors look like pussies.

Merry Christmas! 9.2 feet at 14 seconds from 305 degrees and I can hear it.

Water – comes out of the tap, buy it custom at the store, bath in it, and recreate in it. Is Water like health care? Is water socialized? What about water and energy? Water is heavy – and needs to be lifted before it pours out the tap – questions for the coming year.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff looked to end the SEC’s $258 million proposed settlement with Citibank, one judge refused to approve a $75 million settlement with Citibank, and another judge was critical of a $298 million deal between Barclay’s and the U.S. Department of Justice. In all cases, the resolution include no admission of guilt.

Violations are plentiful. For example, Bank of America’s securities unit has agreed four times since 2005 not to violate a major antifraud statute, and another four times not to violate a separate law. Merrill Lynch, which Bank of America acquired in 2008, has separately agreed not to violate the same two statutes seven times since 1999.

Of the 19 companies that the Times found to be repeat offenders over the last 15 years, 16 declined to comment. They read like a Wall Street who’s who: American International Group, Ameriprise, Bank of America, Bear Stearns, Columbia Management, Deutsche Asset Management, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Putnam Investments, Raymond James, RBC Dain Rauscher, UBS and Wells Fargo/Wachovia. Nearly every settlement allows a company to “neither admit nor deny” the accusations — even when the company has admitted to the same charges in a related case brought by the Justice Department — so that they are less vulnerable to investor lawsuits.

Bank of America provides a case study. In 2005, Bank of America was one of several companies singled out for allowing professional traders to buy or sell a mutual fund at the previous day’s closing price, when it was clear the next day that the overall market or particular stocks were going to move either up or down sharply, guaranteeing a big short-term gain or avoiding a significant loss. In its settlement, Bank of America neither admitted nor denied the conduct, but agreed to pay a $125 million fine and to put $250 million into a fund to repay investors. The company also agreed never to violate the major antifraud statutes.

Two years later, in 2007, Bank of America was accused by the S.E.C. of fraud by using its supposedly independent research analysts to bolster its investment banking activities from 1999 to 2001. In the settlement, Bank of America without admitting or denying its guilt, paid a $16 million fine and promised, once again, not to violate the law.

Again, in 2009, the S.E.C. again accused Bank of America of defrauding investors, saying that in 2007-8, the bank sold $4.5 billion of highly risky auction-rate securities by promising buyers that they were as safe as money market funds. They weren’t, and this time Bank of America agreed to be “permanently enjoined” from violating the same section of the law it had previously agreed not to break.

In fact, the company had already violated that promise, according to the S.E.C when it was accused last year of rigging bids in the municipal securities market from 1998 through 2002. To settle the charges, Bank of America paid no penalty, but refunded investors $25 million in profits plus $11 million in interest. And, the bank promised again never to violate the same law. The S.E.C. allowed the bank to settle without admitting or denying the charges, even though Bank of America had simultaneously settled a case with the Justice Department’s antitrust division admitting the very same conduct.

Now, out here in the jungle, it’s three strikes. Get caught in a robbery several times and its prison, restitution, can’t pay restitution-break parole-back to jail – no chance for a living-wage job – pretty much caught up in the law enforcement-judicial-incarceration-industrial complex. Something about Justitia’s scales just don’t seem right – like $omething tilting the balance.

More on money, law and judgment: Between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the House more than doubled, according to the analysis of financial disclosures, from $280,000 to $725,000 in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars, excluding home equity. Over the same period, the wealth of an American family has declined slightly, with the comparable median figure sliding from $20,600 to $20,500, according to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from the University of Michigan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not long ago, I wrote about how consumers crashed Netflix’s ambition of higher profits. Netflix tried to gimmick a new rate structure, and the customers called them on it. This was followed by an attempt by Bank of America to charge consumers a fee on a monthly basis for using their bankcard.  Again, consumers collectively said, “blow me!” At the time, I made the point that profit growth was harder to come by, and blatant rip offs were not as easy after the great financial larceny; so, Corpgov has moved to tricks, fees, surcharge, tax, less for more – steal, lie, forge, fuck, hide and deal. Well – it’s happened again. Verizon decided that they could charge customers a fee for paying their bills with a credit or debit card via the Internet or telephone – a $2 convenience fee. Once again – people got pissed off. So the company decided not to institute the fee. Check the double speak – Verizon said the fee was “designed to improve the efficiency of those transactions.” Right. The hidden message here is that Corpgov is running out of ways to take your money and call it growth. Sustainability is not in their model – and inflation is always gnawing at growth. Be ready – there will be more attempts – from both sides of Corpgov. Importantly, consumers do have a voice! They may not care about understanding the health care system in the US – the multilevel profit structure that renders our health care system one of the worst in the industrialized world – they may not care that part of their health care expenditures go to pay for all those who do not have health care – (no mandate – we would rather pay and not know it!) – they may not care that food stamps and other welfare programs are corporate welfare – BUT –they do care when Corpgov blatantly tries to grab more for less. With a little more thought – consumers may get the idea they could change more than just the lame plans of Verizon, or B of A , or Netflix – maybe they will turn their attention to the US government.

Oh my – we must drill more and build a pipeline from Canada to Mississippi – it will lower our dependence on foreign oil…..What? U.S. refineries exported a record amount of refined fuels in 2011 to markets in South America, Central America and Europe. It was one reason why Americans spent a record amount on gasoline this year: Supplies that might have helped lower prices here had been shipped abroad. In 2007, U.S. exports of all kinds of fuel held steady throughout the year at 1.24 million to 1.25 million barrels a day, according to Energy Department statistics. But by 2011, exports of diesel, gasoline and other products surged. In November and December, U.S. fuel exports averaged between 2.77 million and 2.89 million barrels a day, the highest ever. Meanwhile, U.S. drivers paid an average of about $3.50 a gallon for gasoline during the year, also the highest ever.

On another note – those pesky regulations are “job killers” because of costs – but wait – during the last few years, U.S. low-sulfur diesel products were coveted in Europe, which had been more dependent on higher-sulfur fuel coming out of Russia. Why do we refine low-sulfur fuel?

“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, ‘This is mine,’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.” Rousseau, 1754.