[Marxism] A word of cauition (was: Key Obama Backer...)

[Joaquin Bustelo]

S Artesian writes: "The last investment vehicle to claim returns like that
belonged to Bernie Madoff.  Buffett is up to his elbows in bailing out AIG
and making money on both ends of the deal.  Nice work if you can get it, and
you can get it if you... well you know how it goes."

A few words of caution here. 

Madoff is a confessed and convicted criminal. I know of absolutely no
evidence that suggests that Berkshire Hathaway is not what it pretends to be
--essentially, a holding company--  and is instead a Ponzi scheme passing
itself of as an investment fund. 

It is one thing to denounce capitalism as an unfair, unjust, an outrageously
criminal and even murderous system, qualities that then would obviously be
shared by the chief players therein. It is quite another to impute to
individuals among these players specific actions or schemes that violate the
law. 

The difference is that the former is considered fair commentary; the latter
is arguably libelous and actionable. 

In addition, there is a HUGE amount of misinformation out there on the
Internet about various companies. Many people who have been market
participants as well as those who cover financial markets believe that in a
number of cases these are part of pump and dump operations or its opposite,
short attacks. If one is invested in the financial markets and spreads
information that does or could affect the prices of stocks, bonds, options
and so on, the rules are different. The liability is not just civil but
criminal. And it extends not just to those who are directly invested, but
those who can be portrayed as being in concert with them. Worse, it is not
necessarily a defense, or even relevant (depending on the case), that the
information was true.

When a potted plant occupied the White House, the policy of the feds was to
ignore all this. THAT IS NO LONGER THE CASE. The feds are on the prowl for
"bad actors" in the financial markets that can be fed to the lions in the
coliseum of cable news for the entertainment of the plebes and the rubes,
especially because even the blindest are beginning to stumble upon questions
like, not just why someone who played a role in blowing up the economy and
destroying the retirement savings of millions of people should receive a
multi-million dollar bonus, but isn't a system that rescues the super-rich
from the consequences of THEIR OWN actions, while leaving us, the VICTIMS of
those rich bastards twisting in the wind, without jobs or savings, isn't
that really criminal?

The answer from those Obama has put in charge of the economy is no, the
system is not criminal, what happened is that some criminals gamed the
system. They want and need scapegoats and, capitalism being what it is and
the United States what it is, there will be no shortage of suitable
subjects. 

And after some time, if the economy continues to deteriorate, Obama will be
saying that himself also, as he throws Geithner & Co. to the lions and
brings the Krugman faction of bourgeois economists into the government to
see whether they can clean up the mess.

Both Berkshire Hathaway's role as the parent company of firms in the
financial sector, especially insurance, as well as its investments in other
financial firms are well known and a matter of public record. And Warren
Buffett's promotion of the TARP rescue, using his reputation as "the sage of
Omaha," while conveniently forgetting to mention that he himself and his
company had billions of dollars at stake in this sort of plan being adopted,
as opposed to a nationalization where those who made investments and
decisions that turned out badly would face the normal consequences that
happen when firms go bankrupt, is, as S Artesian and others have pointed
out, the sort of thing most people would consider immoral and even criminal,
although there may be no law against it. The same can be said of the media's
publicizing Buffett's position in, basically, campaigning for the TARP even
though Buffett's massive and direct, personal interest in this should have
been obvious and prominently reported.

But other stuff that's been mentioned, about the supposed arrangements to
settle claims and disputes, details of deals and so on, are generally NOT
matters of public record but on the contrary, the normal business practice
is that strict confidentiality clauses form part of all those agreements.
Some of them may have to be disclosed in regulatory filings, but often not
until long after the fact, and only certain aspects of them. 

I would urge list participants to stay away from this sort of material
unless you have checked it out yourself sufficiently so that you know the
original source of the information and to the extent possible have verified
it there. This is (relatively) easy to do with the Internet and Google, but
you will be surprised at the huge number of inaccuracies, mistakes,
misinterpretation and what appear to be conscious efforts to twist the truth
or just flat out lie to be found whenever you try to run one of these
stories to ground.

Joaquin