#ExxonValdez — remembering 25 years

One dead whale in Prince William Sound, 1989, via Exxon.
AP photo via Houston Chronicle

In the spring of 1989, I was in the first full year of graduate divinity school. I still belonged to, and believed in the tenets of, a fundamentalist Lutheran church. (No, family and friends, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod doesn't fit a narrower definition of Christian fundamentalists, but it does fit nicely in a broader sociology of religion definition.)

Anyway, I digress.

I was also, for the most part, still steeped in my parents' political beliefs, between my dad's Eisenhower-Main Street conservativism (with his twinge of Eisenhower-Main Street racism), and my mom's "None Dare Call It Treason" moving to Art Bell-listening Tea Party progenitorship (as I know with that anecdotal proof positive that the Tea Party idea is nothing new).

Anyway, again I digress.

I was already a bit of an environmentalist, at least in the sense of believing that Christian creationism did imply some sort of "good stewardship." And I was moving a bit beyond that, even.

Then, a seemingly drunken captain, Joseph Hazelwood, sailing a past-its-due-date, environmentally inadequate oil tanker, ran it aground on Alaskan rocks. And caused a massive animal die-off and other problems for which eXXXon (that's the correct spelling, folks) still refuses to admit full responsibility today.

That includes full financial responsibility, getting punitive damages cut to 10 percent of the original award due to "quirks" in maritime common law, per Wikipedia. And, since then? I've not seen either major party make major changes to environmental civil law to increase punitive damages for "takings" of reducing environmental and scenic value.

As for me? I took the next steps toward becoming a real environmentalist. (In the next five years, I took a chunk of steps toward becoming a real secularist [I avoid the Big A label, as much at times due to some Big As as well as Christian fundamentalists] and becoming a real liberal. By the end of the 1990s, I had moved beyond the Democratic Party, in fact and fortunately.) As part of that, I also became even more of an environmentalist, and a more activist one.

Indeed, while I had the pleasure of living in the Dallas area for most of the first decade of this century, I even "visited" a couple of eXXXon's annual shareholder meetings, as you can see. 

And, per the poster, we had even more to protest against eXXXon by 2008, or earlier. Since then, eXXXon has continued to be just as responsible of a corporate citizen on global warming and climate change, and now on oil and gas fracking, as it was on the Exxon Valdez. So eXXXon is the gift that keeps on giving.

And, in more ways than one. Per Wikipedia's story on the disaster, when in the original suit, eXXXon was hit with $5 billion in punitive damages, it got a $4.8 billion line of credit from J.P. Morgan. To insulate itself, Morgan created the first modern credit default swap.

In other words, eXXXon's Alaskan oil slick helped crap on the American economy nearly 20 years later. That said, why would anything about any unholy alliance between Wall Street and Big Oil surprise you? See: "Bros., Koch" for more.

Meanwhile, as High Country News notes, eXXXon's "cleanup" wasn't. There's still officially 21,000 gallons of oil in Prince William Sound and unofficially, much more.

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And Perry reminds us, in light of the Houston Ship Channel collision over the weekend, that things haven't changed a lot. That includes the damage to wildlife, not just the inconvenience to the modern economy.

Team Obama suing #banksters on #CDO and #CDS - more on why this is likely 'show'

I said yesterday that, after Dear Leader's minions, including and starting with Little Timmy Geithner, along New York Fed members and others, have spent months attacking N.Y. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, color me skeptical at least, and cynical at most, that any talk  of a federal lawsuit against banksters for their alphabet soup diarrhea of CDOs, CDSs, etc., is anything more than a hill of diarrhea-inducing beans.

 The suit's been filed. So, let's update this from yesterday Adding to my skepticism? It names no dollar amount for damages sought. (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reportedly lost $196 billoin on the alphabet soup crap.) So, let's look more at the reality of why this is probably a dog-and-pony show.

Here's how this will likely play out.
1. Team Obama goes through motions of filing suit.
2. Goddam Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley et al plead remorse. (Like AT&T pleading to "tweak" the T-Mobile takeover.)
3. Said banksters eventually agree to a settlement. (This is part of "doing God's work," of course. Loyd Blankfein will combine this with the "remorse" part for Goddam Sachs.)
4. Money for said settlement will pennies on the dollar, payable over a decade or more. Updated with the new link, 10 percent of this is about $20 billion. And, not coincidentally, that's what Team Obama suggested in initial settlement talks. Even prorated by company size among the 17 defendants, that's, say, $3 billion for Bank of America. BofA had that much profit in one quarter in 2010. Even if I temper my cynicism somewhat, and call it 20 percent on the settlement, payable over three years, that's $6 bil for BofA over three years, or $500M a year. It will be able to digest that, write it down on earnings statements, and possible even find a way to a tax deduction or two.
5. Said money is then used by Team Obama to create a successor to HARP and HAMP called HEMP: "Home Equity Maintenance Program." God, I love being snarky.
6. Said program is started, oh, say, July 2012? Just in time for the Democratic National Convention and some appropriate re-election PR?
6A. Said program, said start of payments, said percentage markdown of payments, etc., all get connected in some way to Democratic campaign contributions.
7. Team Obama tells Schneiderman: "We really, really tried. This is the best we can do. Now, for the last time, stop bothering the banksters."

Take THAT, JPMorganChase (and other subprime banks)

Old Republic National Title says that, due to questions about how foreclosures have been processed, it's going to stop offering title insurance on JPMorganChase residential foreclosure properties.

Several notes:
1. This is not automatically good news for homeowners in foreclosure; JPMC can always go shopping for another insurer.
2. Even if this does motivate JPMC, along with Bank of America, which has also stopped foreclosures do to processing legality issues, and any other financiers that may wind up in the same spot, it's still not necessarily long-term good news for homeowners. These financiers may simply tack the costs of additional work onto the foreclosure process. Or, it could cause other problems:

Mark P. Stopa, a lawyer in Florida who represents defaulting homeowners, said that if more title insurance firms began to shy away from insuring foreclosed properties, the entire housing market could suffer. The prices of foreclosures would plummet, because lenders will not issue a new mortgage without title insurance.

“Judges have to force banks to do foreclosures correctly,” Mr. Stopa said. But that would require a significant increase in staff, he said, and “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

So will I, Mark, so will I.

We've already seen, whether in a state that requires judicial proceedings for foreclosure or ones where individual homeowners have been fighting back, that judges haven't really done this.

And, state legislatures, if any of this additional staff means additional judicial/legal staff, aren't going to like that idea anyway.

JPMorgan head sees recovery, welcomes regulation

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says he sees “modest signs” of economic recovery.

He also said he welcomes a federal government systemic risk regulatory agency, like Rep. Barney Frank is proposing.

What’s in Wells Fargo’s wallet?

More than 10 percent of U.S. banking assets, violating Federal regulations. You know BushCo will do nothing about WF, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.

Joe Stiglitz (and, why isn’t he getting mentions for Treasury, OMB or CEA?) says banking consolidation is “a very serious problem.”

But, what about an Obama Administration? Will it do more than Bush?

And, will it address other concerns raised in the story about the dysfunctionality level of much modern American banking?

Given that Obama’s top choices for Treasury are anti-regulatory neolibs, likely answer is nothing.