Yeah, I read that article this morning and felt the same as you RO. Yves has been getting more and more pointed in her criticism of the O-gang's faux policy "reforms". BTW, did you read any of the comments to her post? The one by commenter "Richard Kline" @ 8:28 am is absolutely right on, IMHO.

the real nasty is a cramer bit about 7:50 minutes into the thing. Title is Indecision 2010 - the Re-enchanging.

The whole thing is a scream but this is particularly amusing.

Ummm, the implication being that we should regulate behavior that exacerbates the irrationality of markets?

I don't have any reason to hold that view than I see to hold the view suggested by you question. But, a simple reading of the story that you are quoting would seem to favor my reading over your more sensational interpretation.

"The commission asked the public last April to comment on strategies to cushion the impact of short selling following criticism that hedge funds and other speculators used trading tactics to deepen market retreats that began in 2008."

The statement I make above seems to be true as although being educated I am a loser and its obvious to my young son who, sees the obvious hypocrisy in my extolling the virtues of education.
How can I demonstrate the truth without obviously lying to my own son when I tell him he must keep up his grades and go to college when he sees me at home, unemployed and helpless to do anything about it.
But I have degrees, and experience and therefore is perfectly logical that companies used to respond back (this no longer happens) that I am OVERQUALIFIED.
Overqualified?
Come on! I am not that educated that endowed with special talents that I am overqualified. I would say i'm pretty under qualified for what i understood to be the required levels of education necessary for respectable positions in industry etc.
In fact up until the early 90's this seemed to be true and I could provide for my growing family and not worry about how am I going to survive or pay for a simple home repair or any other expenditure beyond a few hundred dollars, without sacrificing my survivability. SURVIVAL....but the government (yeah of the people, for the people and what was that last one ..? by..or lies to the people?
Lies yes..more and more swill from them whose serves which has become an acronym for those who have their hand in the till and our stimulating foreign economies.
Money does not have any borders and so you see they will benefit from more jobs in india whereas we poo folk who lives in this country can't find work!
SO they government has earned an honorary BS.

I am going to rant and rave because this has effected me personally and I am increasingly incensed at the debate when its clear as day as we see and hear and touch those whose lives and livelyhood destroyed by those, representatives?

BS
I am commenting on an opinion stated on this blog purporting that the government is lying to us about there not being enough skilled workers to fill job vacancies presumably in technical fields:
When issues strike home they become personal and when the governments actions effect me at home then I become personally involved because the government is hitting me where it hurts the most: The pocket book let alone my self respect.

With over 30 years of experience in a wide range of disciplines and two degrees in the sciences you would think I would have businesses calling me up and begging me to take a job.
The cold hard reality is that I get zero responses from my resume, zero responses from my phone calls, zero responses from my webpage advertising my skill set on the internet.
Now if the government is not lying then .... well the government is just plain lying.
Needless to say there are no jobs for technically competent people and what jobs there are I am as well as many I know; that I am over qualified!
How can that be if there is a lack of trained skilled and educated individuals?
Further the almost cruel hoax is in trying to justify to my 14 year old son that he will find gainful employment through education.
Its that apparent when he sees me becoming increasingly frustrated and disenchanted; spending my days desperately trying to find employment but always with the response:
"We no longer have our facilities here in the US".
OR "most of our manufacturing is now down overseas"
"We just have a small office here in the states and all of our research, development and manufacturing are done elsewhere"

So this is personal and this is about the government selling our economic vitality , actively and openly , selling our economic vitality and future to foreign governments.
I even heard a politician state that , in effect, how can we expect them to cut carbon emissions if we can;t provide them with jobs.
This to me is treason because it is helping a country that is philosophically and ideologically opposed to this country and to democracy.
But then again I am angry and I tend to be that way whenever someone strikes me at home, strikes me so that it hurts and it creates concern and real fear that my future has been compromised and that my son's future is all but forgotten during the exchanges and deals made without our knowledge by our duly elected representatives.
Not one to become outspoken about politics - there is a time to act and if we do not act now there may never be a time to act because we will be too busy trying to survive and people too busy with the details of survival do not have the time or energy to actively stand up for their rights.
That, we all know, is the perfect time for new leaders to emerge who promise us what we are desperate for and as we are lead away deluded we remain unemployed, disenfranchised and more and more helpless as those in power gain more and purchase still more with the lifeblood of this countries wealth.
I know I sound angry and probably irrational. But there is no logic to what is happening its pure and unmitigated greed and abuse of power by those in government.
As long as we pretend and allow those in power to lie to us we are at fault and so we need to stand up and demand accountability.
Who are we but the people to continue to take this crap from the government?
So yes more lies...statistics about unemployment only being 10-12 percent yet we see tent cities...we see more and more of the obvious.

The truth is too painful and as we reel from its sinister implications we lose more ground and more jobs and pretty soon its all academic because there will not be any country to defend against all enemies foreign and domestic. Which by the way is what our REPRESENTATIVES are supposed to defend that document..what is it called..
constipati.. constitution!
if there are any organizations that put the government to task on this where are they?
Information is the key to freedom by lying to us they take our freedoms away

HELL YES THEY ARE LYING

If this is just a swiss cheese mask for 'reform' rather than real reform Obama exposes himself as the biggest con man in US history.

If he institutes real reform and starts cleaning out the scumbags from his circle he could still have a huge positive effect on the country's future.

Even better, lets eliminate property taxes all together. They have existed only recently in the timeline of our history. You are only renting from the government if they can seize your property because of property taxes.

10th Amendment needs to be pushed hard here and decentralize govt as the constitution mandates. This will be a huge step to force it to live within means.

I'm not sure that one can overstate the significance (or should I say ominous forboding) of this ruling. We have 3 branches of government here in USAnistan, and all appear to be controlled and/or occupied by Corporatists.

To wit, please consider Ian Welsh's observation today, The Unvarnished Truth About The US.

Yesterday’s decision makes the US a soft fascist state. Roosevelt’s definition of fascism was control of government by corporate interests. Unlimited money means that private interests can dump billions into elections if they choose. Given that the government can, will, and has rewarded them with trillions, as in the bailouts, or is thinking about doing so in HCR, by forcing millions of Americans to buy their products the return on investment is so good that I would argue that corporations have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to buy out government - after all if you pay a million to get a billion, or a billion to get a trillion, that’s far far better returns than are avaiable anywhere else.

{snip}

Add to this the US’s complete inability to manage its economic affairs, and its refusal to fix its profound structural problems, whether in the financial system, the education system, the military, concrete infrastructure, technology or anything else and I cannot see a likely scenario where the US turns things around. The US’s problems in almost every area amount to “monied interests are making a killing on business as usual, and ologopolistic markets and will do anything they can to make sure the problem isn’t fixed”.

Even before they had the ability to dump unlimited money into the political system, they virtually controlled Washington. This will put their influence on steroids. Any congressperson who goes against their interests can be threatened by what amounts to unlimited money. And any one who does their bidding can be rewarded with so much money their reelection is virtually secure.

This decision makes the US’s recovery from its decline even more unlikely than before—and before it was still very unlikely. Absolute catastrophe will have to occur before people are angry enough and corporations weak enough for their (sic) to even be a chance.

(my emphasis added)

What more can I say, except that maybe we should reconsider our hegemonic overreach vis a vis The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It does seem to me that we are approaching the end of American exceptionalism, aka the American Empire.

Okay, here's what we have to do. We MUST elect a third party candidate if ONLY TO PROVE THAT WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO ACT ON OUR FRUSTRATIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENT. Who that candidate is does not matter. No candidate can afford to willingly break the cycle of taking big money from the the corporations. We are fools to think that it will happen on its own. But as long as we sit back and let the cycle continue, then we are impotent, and who wouldn't walk over the impotent if they continue to lay down for you.

A vote for the 3rd party candidate has alwasy been a vote of protest. So let's do it...and as long as we are going down that road, let's support a 3rd party candidate that wants to legalize marijuana (hey...why not)

According to phone logs Geithner spoke to Warren Buffett - a big investor in Goldman Sachs and Lloyd Blankfein the day of the AIG bailout.

Do you think they were planning a golf trip? Hell NO.

Geithner was getting wiring instructions for the $33 BILLION that want to Goldman Sachs!

RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.