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Saturday, May 10, 2003

Whenever we login to the blank page here at hinky's opposable thumbs, we always find something hinky to bitch and moan about... "and so we move on, boats against the tide, borne back ceaselessly"... (if anyone has the energy to look that quote up and check my hinky spelling, we'll fix it). Today is no exception upon reflection, after a long walk to the parking garage last night after work, past the protesters on the east side who were banging gongs for Worker's Comp reform (is what the signs stated), and past the young buppie, holding the wire of his cellphone headset like a microphone, as he as he pitched some sap over the phone, telling him that "the premium has nothing to do with the strike price...;" and past the smokers outside the overcrowded gin mills on Murry Hill, it occurred to us that the press is laying down like a beat dog on Wall Street's dirty deeds, in cases that reach back to the Reagan revolution. These go back past Bill and Bush, Sr., and the press focused on stories about the bullet that bounced off the boy's head in the Bronx, and the baseball players problems in Shea.

The damn muted press about all these three card monty hucksters who are getting pinched by the fuzz right and left is hinky, and has been for too long. The FBI is opening three cases per month in the 100 million dollar range. Calpers, which represents pension funds of workers in California is going to vote it's share such that Steve Case will get a message when aol-TIME Warner holds it meeting of stake holders (also known as "saps" on wall street, since before Joe Kennedy took over sat as the first chairman of the SEC, which was put together after the crash to white wash the white collar crime of the day.) There are reports about payoffs to cover up churning of clients accounts for vast fees by hinky Todd Eberhard, the CNN commentator-media frontrunner who pump his picks to millions in the 1990s on the ultimate low cost misinformation delivery device, Cable TV.

Yet the talk in the press about the Federales gunning for CEOs is a little breathless, muted and low. The press even has the horns to assert that it is clear that it's over now, and that it obvious to the public that Wall Street Analyst is a role that should be viewed three knotches below used car saleman, as anyone on wall street has knew, knows or should have known at or before the time... .This coverage sounds like the hopes of legislators who took to keep quiet about the hinky accounting (like Joe Lieberman, who has horns on him too, as he seeks the nomination over Kerry to lead the Dems to the Whitehouse. As you recall, Joe was the point man in congress for the accounting rule board, that didn't do anything as the markets overcooked for the last 10 years as investors ponied up, based on absurd reporting by 7 BIG Accounting firms that permitted large expenses to be footnoted off the page, rather then kept on the pretty balance sheets of what were America's most wanted companies.)

We don't agree that it is becoming clear enough; and this hinky attempt to explain away the fraud in muted, low key coverage of the fraud, and the Tripple Grand Mocha Laite sized larceny that has bankrupted the country hinky too for all of the people all of the time. While it's good that hinky schemes are coming to light, slowly but surely (3 to 5 per month is not nearly enough); it not good that the press is not doing turning up the heat with bold headlines in explaining what was done, and what is being done to stop and change the monkey business on wall street. Obviously TV isn't going to do it. TV is just eye of hell in living color, as most american's sense by now. But it looks like print isn't doing much either, but trying to reach out to what's left of the declining news paper readership that isn't finding much worth 50 cent- 1.00 per day to interest them in their pages. The answer is right in front of these slack assed editors too; if they'd only start talking truth to power, the damn papers will sell.

The story about the hinky economy is ongoing, from accounting fraud, to Mr. Greenjean's poker face at the Fed. A lot of people got wiped out, as 7 trillion dollars went the way of smoke. There is so much finanical pain out there, maybe some people do not want to hear about it, the way rape victums don't want to come forward. But they should, and many people do want to hear about it. Many people want to see the reasons for the Bubble, and the aftermath we are living through. Many people want to see the accounting fraud exposed, and the well dressed, well educated, well connected, well healed well wisher bandits shown the door, to a federal cell. And even as it is happening, slowly, the press coverage stinks. It's as if the assumption is that everyone's eyes are on the last statue of Saddam being tipped over, and whatever relief efforts are taking shape. They're not, many people's eyes move back and forth.

Take hinky Healthsouth, and the hinky CEO that ran it. It was looking like he may have needed to run for his freedom; but as if yesterday, it looks like he is going to be more of a jog than a run, since US District Judge Inge Johnson ruled to give him all the money he has been creaming over the years from the scheme (150 million). The SEC has charged that his company, the operations of which he now is look to distance himself from, stated hinky earnings since, get this, 1986, when it went public. And now he can hire the kind of firm that can make any charge that might come up from the 2.5 Billion dollar scam go away.

Hinky 4:12 PM

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Thursday, May 08, 2003

The hinky radio keeps broadcasting the hinky hope like a mantra: the consumer can bail this hinky economy out of the hole it's in. But last time we checked, the first half of that story was "give workers higher wages..." and it was run by unionists, a few generations ago. Now what? Maybe the consumer will keep spending Capitol One's money, with 10% juice on it. You know, take a loan to buy that boat, or marry off your daughter, or go on vacation.... Hey, who deserves it more, right?

Hinky's got 0% interest, and judging from the report on Easter spending, neither do most Americans.

Hinky 11:17 PM

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Wednesday, May 07, 2003

The Fed is worried about "decreased inflation." I mean, if that is not hinky double talk, what the fuck is it? DE CREASED IN FLA TION? Isn't that Mr. Greenjeans haughty way of saying dEfLaTiOn? DEFLATION! DE FLATION>>>> you know, when a few wiseguys fly high tech gear to a mining town in China, and start making underwear for the cost of air, then sell it back to the United States, Luxumborg, Austria, Japan and maybe France for half the price people pay to cover their naughty bits, and still make suitcases full of tax free money to hide in some tropical bank with the larged titted bank teller and the charming lilt in her voice.

Who would have thought? Make shit cheap offshore, where they never heard of the AFL CIO, and then, sell it back to the bloated American's who are so busy fighting for cut 49 dollars off their tax bill, that they miss the sucking sound from offshore that is spreading their money around the world like cow shit in Iowa. But hey, at least the right people get it, right? They are right, until we say different. Saddam's sons thought they were right, right? But don't get me wrong-- I'm not complainer.

Hinky 10:14 PM

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Tuesday, May 06, 2003

The Federal Reserve's hinky growth in income number was used as a benchmark to show that times are better than they seem, and to help explain why they kept interest rates where they were. Nobody seems to want to slice the onion any thinner, say 12.5 basis point, rather than the ham fisted .25 they chop and paste with whether at 2 percent or 6 percent interest. What's the difference? Well, a change of .25 bpts at 1 percent is a greater per cent gain than 25 bpts at 5 percent, yes? It was like the year that the Dow started fluxuating 100 points for the first time (at Dow 5000, while a new generation of investment bankers were rolling up stationary stores and Dot con was getting underway). This made the finacial press go wild at the time, as half the jackasses reporting just read the numbers, with no understanding of relative percentage moves (nor did half the stock brokers Hinky worked with at the time).

Crudele laid out what's hinky about the Fed's math today, and how it make the hinky system hinky, so don't miss what he said about interest rates if you have any idea of how the official story is told with numbers in America. The bottom line, we are better off because there are certain "imputations" that the Fed uses to count what the rest of us won't necessarly regard as anything of value, more than businesses with their balls in a vice, such as "TOTALLY FREE CHECKING". Since we don't "pay" for it (won't pay for it), it's imputed by Al Greenjeans and the boys with the stinking badges. Imagine this, we are enjoying deflationary times, so I guess we have to foot the bill. Hell, even if you went to school for 15 years to find that the job you had waiting is gone, you still get TOTALLY FREE CHECKING, right? It's like the middle ages, you are a monk, studying your Corporate training books all day and night and praying for a relationship with the wife you see each night when she gets home after work at 11:30pm, and you should count your blessings from Washington. Iraqi is free, and so is your checking. This is as good as Ketchup, the Reagan Administration's vegi of choice for school lunches back in the 1980's. Crudele also claims they are counting the food they feed the Army (that one is better than Reagan's Ketshup).

Money is cheap, and making it cheaper may have diminishing returns. Hell the president knows that, having crapped out in a few business ventures in his time. Just because it can be done, is not a good reason to do it. Cheap money alone is no solution. So maybe Big Al has a point in holding the line on rates and pricing. Earnings sure need to look better if nobody is going to have the money to buy more. So if putting more money to work chasing the same monopolistic businesses or stupid new business plans isn't the answer, what is? I wonder if the police exam, for Bagdad PD is in English?

Hinky 9:21 PM

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Hinky has been hacked, in case you haven't noticed. But we are repairing the damage, which can be a good thing. Take the example of Cray Computers founder, who builds a new sail boat each year, uses it, and destroys it, so he will have to build a better one for the next season.

Anyway, fuck you guys at haxlab. Big deal, you made a mess. Free speech is not for eveyone I guess; esp. the boys from Brazil.

Greenspan may cut rates at 2pm, but we think not. Slow growth, while the world waits. Speaking of slow growth, It looks like USAI bought Lendingtree.com, so smoke em if you got them. We think the juice is being squeezed out of anything that makes money online, but bigger, well capitalized media companies that are sure to choke the life out of these Dot coms as they fold them into their corporate media empires.

The rapist in Chelsea and Coop city in Bronxwins the hinky award today for earning a living by taking money and his jollies from women at gunpoint, like Saddam's mini me, right here in our back yard.

Hinky 10:07 AM

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