Am I being insufficently supportive of Obama if I post this? Oh well! Leo Hindery:

Almost every day, Mr. Geithner gilds the economy’s lily in inappropriate attempts to delude American workers into believing that: business investment is in fine shape when in fact businesses are sitting on an unprecedented $2 trillion of cash precisely because of ‘uncertainty’; the “surge in imports” is “healthy” when in fact it is an ongoing nightmare (i.e., just in June the overall U.S. trade deficit in goods and services surged 19% to a 21-month high of $49.9 billion); income inequality is not so unequal when in fact it is at its highest level since 1928; the “auto industry is coming back” when in fact most of its vigor is coming from cutting domestic employment in favor of offshoring; and “8.5 million” jobs have been saved by the White House when just a few weeks ago Geithner himself used the figure of “3 million” for jobs created and saved.

These several assertions of Geithner’s aren’t just disingenuous and disrespectful — they’re also dangerous, especially his implicit suggestion that consumers should once again feel comfortable ‘borrowing and spending’. If they become commonly embraced by the American people before there are significant economic reforms and successful major job creation initiatives, then that double-dip recession that many of us fear may be coming will arrive in a very big way and it could turn into the second longest L-shaped recession in our country’s history.

Here are some additional truths about our economy, over and above the sad income inequality truths that now hang over our nation like a plague:

• The real unemployment rate is 18.3%, not the 9.5% official rate the administration uses.
• The number of real unemployed workers in all four categories of unemployment is 29.3 million, not the administration’s one-category-only figure of 14.6 million.
• Since the start of the Obama administration, the number of real unemployed workers has increased by 4.6 million. By contrast, the economy needs to add around 150,000 new jobs each month simply to keep up with population growth.
• In real terms the all-important “jobs gap” is 21.3 million new jobs.
• The average number of weeks unemployed is at least 34.2, and the number of workers unemployed a half year or longer is at least 10.1 million.

Mr. Geithner’s rhetorical deceptions mask the ineffectiveness of the only two potentially meaningful job-creation initiatives — aid to the states and the bailout of Detroit — that he and Summers largely put together, while letting him ignore the several initiatives, including trade reform, which could actually create, relatively quickly, millions of jobs.

In early 2009, Geithner and his colleagues promised that the stimulus package would materially help turn around the states’ crushing budget woes, which is critical because the states remain the foundation of much of America’s job stability and significant job creation. Yet even with the $26 billion of emergency aid just approved by Congress, for the years 2009 to 2012 the states will have had to confront around $275 billion in budget deficits. For the fiscal year ending next June, 46 of them will have to close budget shortfalls aggregating $100 billion or so. Without significant further federal intervention, in the amounts originally contemplated, the states’ bleak fiscal and unemployment positions will “continue to erode and hurt the U.S. economy through 2060“, according to a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

A much needed promise, yes, but actual, meaningful assistance, not so much.

Then there is Treasury’s bailout of Detroit. Or better said, its bailout of ‘Detroit-cum-Mexico’.

The bailout of the U.S. auto industry by Treasury was indisputably appropriate. But what was indisputably inappropriate was the almost complete absence of any meaningful “quid” for the massive financial “quo” we gave the industry. Despite the staggering $85 billion bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, U.S. automobile production will actually decline over the next decade because of further offshoring, mostly to Mexico, by the two rescued automakers and by Ford — even now, the three U.S. automakers and their associated parts manufacturers have a $46 billion trade deficit with the rest of the world.

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This is very, very interesting. Everyone should read this, it could be useful.

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This should be enlightening — a little too enlightening. Wonder if we’ll ever get to see them, or know what they contain? (Or, for that matter, if they were altered during their “missing” period?”)

WASHINGTON—The CIA has videotapes of Sept. 11, 2001, plotter Ramzi Binalshibh being interrogated in a secret overseas prison. Discovered under a desk, the recordings could provide an unparalleled look at how foreign governments aided the U.S. in holding and questioning suspected terrorists.

The two videotapes and one audiotape are believed to be the only remaining recordings made within the clandestine prison system.

The tapes depict Mr. Binalshibh’s interrogation sessions at a Moroccan-run facility the CIA used near Rabat in 2002, several current and former U.S. officials told the Associated Press. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the videos remain a closely guarded secret.

When the CIA destroyed its cache of 92 videos of two other al Qaeda operatives, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nashiri, being waterboarded in 2005, officials believed they had wiped away all of the agency’s interrogation footage. But in 2007, a staffer discovered a box tucked under a desk in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and pulled out the Binalshibh tapes.

A Justice Department prosecutor who is already investigating whether destroying the Zubaydah and al-Nashiri tapes was illegal is now also probing why the Binalshibh tapes were never disclosed. Twice, the government told a federal judge they did not exist.

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Oh, horsefeathers. They’re not paying those taxes now, and they’re still not hiring.

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Good to know that not every community in our nation is filled with bigots!

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Go read.

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Even for the SEC, which is known for mere wrist-slapping when Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe are concerned (but please, remember how bravely they made an example of Martha Stewart), this is a joke. I’m very pleased that the judge is calling them to task on it:

A federal judge refused on Monday to accept a $75 million settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Citigroup, marking the second time this year that a judge has questioned whether the agency had exacted the proper sanction from a major bank.

During a hearing on the settlement, Judge Ellen S. Huvelle of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia raised questions about the SEC’s investigation into Citigroup, and how it decided on the size of the penalty and on the individual executives who also face sanctions, according to lawyers who were present. She asked why company shareholders must ultimately bear the price of the sanction, and why the agency charged only two executives with wrongdoing when more senior executives were involved.

Huvelle demanded additional information from the SEC and Citigroup, ordering the parties to file briefs and scheduling a hearing for late September. Through spokesmen, the SEC and Citigroup said they would provide the judge with all the requested information.

[...] An SEC lawyer told the judge on Monday that the agency did an expansive investigation into Citigroup and could only find evidence of wrongdoing by those two executives. The lawyer told the judge that the agency did an economic analysis of the bank’s alleged wrongdoing, trying to determine what gain the company enjoyed as a result of the faulty disclosures, and came up with what it considered a reasonable penalty.

Matthew Miller, a lawyer at Cuneo, Gilbert and Laduca who is representing a shareholder who has sued Citigroup executives over losses incurred by the firm, praised the judge’s action.

“There’s very little explanation as to why these two individuals who are named in a related administrative complaint are the only two people responsible for the conduct at issue, and why there are no more senior executives involved in this proceeding,” he said.

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Bob Herbert points out that a year ago, General Petraeus told Obama he would be ready to pull out of Afghanistan in a year:

According to Mr. Alter, the president said to General Petraeus:

“David, tell me now. I want you to be honest with me. You can do this in eighteen months?”

Mr. Petraeus replied: “Sir, I’m confident we can train and hand over to the A.N.A. [Afghan National Army] in that time frame.”

The president went on: “If you can’t do the things you say you can in eighteen months, then no one is going to suggest we stay, right?”

“Yes, sir, in agreement,” said General Petraeus.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was also at the meeting, and he added his own crisp, “Yes, sir.”

That was then. The brass was just blowing smoke, telling the commander in chief whatever it was that he wanted to hear. Over the past several days, at meetings with one news media outlet after another, General Petraeus has been singing a decidedly different song. The lead headline in The Times on Monday said: “General Opposes a Rapid Pullout in Afghanistan.”

Having taken over command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan after the ouster of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Mr. Petraeus is now saying he did not take that job in order to preside over a “graceful exit.” His goal now appears to be to rally public opinion against the very orders that President Obama insisted, as he told Joe Biden, could not be countermanded.

Who’s in charge here?

[...] We are never going to build a stable, flourishing society in Afghanistan. What we desperately need is a campaign of nation-building to counteract the growing instability and deterioration in the United States.

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This is hysterical:

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And hilarity ensues!

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