Cornucopia

The Benghazi scandal … see: Weekly Standard Story

The IRS scandal … see: Washington Post Story

The Associated Press wiretap scandal … see: AP Story

The Gosnell conviction … see: Philadelphia Inquirer Story

And, Beyonce is pregnant again … see: Breitbart Story.  Perhaps, if a boy, they will name him Fidel?

Afterthought: These three major scandals are now tainting the Obama Cabinet: Benghazi involves the State Department, IRS-targeting involves the Treasury Department, and the AP-wiretaps involves the Justice Department.  Only one of these Administration members did not scurry down the ship's hawser onto the dock and steal away in January.  Hillary Clinton left State ... Little Timmy Geithner left Treasury ... but Eric Holder decided to stay on at Justice ... a decision that, I suspect, he will live to regret..

Something Stinks

Ben Bernanke was testifying in front of a Senate Banking Committee yesterday (see: Miami Herald Article) and he was squirming.  He looked and acted chagrined when the subject of the recently disclosed manipulation of the Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate, a key worldwide interest rate benchmark) that has cost the Chairman and CEO of Barclays Bank their jobs.  It also probably has cost numerous players in the financial markets over the last four years billions, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars ... all because of illegal manipulation of this rate.  And, it seems that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was on to this scandal as early as 2008 and possibly earlier.  This was when Little Timmy Geithner was running the New York Fed and Bernanke was running the whole Fed Reserve Banking shebang.  Their failings were obvious because, with a few phone calls, these two men could have, and should have killed this monumental malfeasance in its tracks.  But, it appears, they chose to emulate Penn State's Joe Paterno by conveniently looking the other way for all these years.  To me this is shameful behavior and emits a miasma that is not befitting of Bernanke.  Given Little Timmy Geithner's past tax peccadillo's, his lack of decisive action here does not seem out of character.

The feeble excuse that Bernanke offered was that such manipulation allowed these banks to appear, in 2008, financially stronger than they really were (a good thing?).  This then morphed into clear criminal behavior.  What good are regulators if they don't regulate?  Today Little Timothy Geithner also testifies in front of Congress and I expect him to be his old elusive self.  And when this scandal fully erupts (see: WSJ Article), I hope that, this time, these rats cannot run down the hawsers to their East Hampton and Martha's Vineyard get-aways.  I strongly suspect that they need to be fitted with some black and white stripped overalls and given an extended vacation in Leavenworth.  And don't be surprised if Congress's response is to demand more regulations ... quickly echoed by Elizabeth (Pow Wow Chow) Warren.

Deficit Hawk

What is $400 billion between friends? Recently, in this blog, I reported that the federal deficit for fiscal 2009 was $1.4 trillion. Well, I was wrong. Bernie Madoff has nothing on the U.S. Treasury Department when it comes to financial shenanigans. It turns out that our country's real deficit is closer to $1.8 trillion ... see The Real Deal. This was because our Government is treating bail-out funds as though they are not money down a rat hole ... kinda like the way Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, et alii dealt with all their "investments" in Credit Default Swaps. This is not just irresponsible, I think it may well be criminal. If Geithner can't figure out his personal income taxes, how can we expect him to keep our federal finances straight? I predict that Obama, on his up-coming visit to China, might have to bob and weave through this deficit legerdemain over his King Pao chicken.