Quote of the Day
10.21.2011 Leave a comment
“If the Occupiers start chanting ‘Mark to Market,'” an attorney highly conversant with the darker workings of the Wall Street-Washington complex told me, “we’ll know they’re serious.” Such a call would quickly presage the collapse of our “too big to fail” banks, for it would highlight the fact that a huge proportion of the assets of Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, and Citigroup consist of loans that will never be paid back and are therefore essentially worthless. The so called “recovery” of our leading financial institutions from the post-Lehman abyss has depended on a fraudulent valuation of these assets, but stripped of the fiction, the banks are insolvent.
What does ‘Mark-to-Market’ mean? The Wikipedia definition states:
Mark-to-market or fair value accounting refers to accounting for the fair value of an asset or liability based on the current market price of the asset or liability, or for similar assets and liabilities, or based on another objectively assessed “fair” value. Fair value accounting has been a part of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in the United States since the early 1990s, and has been used increasingly since then.
If America’s major banks were forced to use the Mark-to-Market rule when reporting their financial status, it would become clear that they are undercapitalized and insolvent.
All Tied Up and Nowhere to Go 
BOA meant DOA
8.21.2013 Leave a comment
Should anyone find this event surprising? No, they should not. Moritz Erhardt was a commodity. He was nearly fungible. Bank of America could easily find someone to replace him if it had wanted to do so. As such, Erhardt needed to prove his worth to his current and any future employer, doing so while knowing that the job market has been and will remain tight. There ought to be a law, and there is such a law when the hyper-exploited laborer is a medical resident working in the state of New York. Known as the Libby Zion Law. Ms. Zion died when severely overworked medical residents blundered into prescribing medicine for her that would prove fatal. Nationally, medical resident’s hours are now capped, albeit at an astonishing 80 hours per week! There is yet no federal law addressing this matter. There are, however, compelling personal and socio-economic causes which produce deaths like Mr. Erhardt’s. The problem, of course, is an intrinsic feature of capitalism. A commodity like Mr. Erhardt has monetary value only insofar as it produces for those who employ it. Despite his impressive credentials, Mr. Erhardt would soon need a job. He gave his life to secure a good one.
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Filed under Commentary, News, Video Tagged with Bank of America, Moritz Erhardt, Neoliberalism, Superexploitation