Claude Raines: “I’m shocked, shocked to find gambling going on in here!”
Waiter: “Your winnings sir.”
Claude Raines: “Oh, thank you very much.”

Be careful about the polls David. The first one to show New Democracy ahead was commissioned by Alpha TV, which is a subsidiary of the German corporate giant Bertelsmann, whose interests in this fight are obvious. The polls are now part of an intense campaign to defeat the left. Remember that these folks have been fixing elections in Europe since 1947. Tsipras is right where he should be, trying to build some protection in numbers and geography. This is a vicious, take-no-prisoners fight, make no mistake about that.

Quelling criticism from the right by advancing right wing arguments. Typical CAP.

When it comes to capitalism we live in a one party state.

You’d think that after cleaning up after the two cretins who blew up Bear Stearns’ hedge funds (with billions in Uncle Sam’s money of course), leading to the demise of that august institution, the JPM people would have been a bit more careful about policing the cretins who just blew up its prop desk. You know we got similar stories about stanching the contagion at the Bear hedge funds too. Just saying.

The real lesson here, beyond the probabilistic kibbitzing about what’s next, is that if you really want to make an impact, you have to have a focused political movement that plays on the political field, keeps its eye on state power, is willing to stick to its mandate, and is willing to take on both the conservatives and the neoliberals. No such party exists in the U.S. or Spain, e.g., but perhaps they’ll get there some day. If they don’t it will remain street theater and photo ops.

“Almost a month”? I.e. after the “London Whale” stories started appearing? Can’t put on over on these dufuses.

You aren’t hallucinating. The gross positions on CDX were around $3.6 trillion, supposedly netted to $647 billion. See the table at the bottom(Not all JPM of course). But where were the regulators on all this, whatever one thinks of the various Volcker rules? Didn’t they notice the amount of these trades blowing out from October to March? Who else has this trade on their books? How exposed are they to each other? Well I guess when the tide goes out we’ll find out who’s swimming naked, yet again.

The Greek President, Papoulias, is trying to broker an interim government composed of New Democracy and Pasok, and headed by Kouvelis of the Democratic Left. This would short circuit the idea of elections next month. The Germans and French, despite the bluster, are reluctant to play with a Greek exit. So stay tuned.

It will be interesting to watch how the propaganda campaign against a left victory plays out. The dire consequences will be spelled out in greater and greater gruesome detail (not to mention the sabotage activities that will be going on on the ground against the left). This is a direct political conflict between the banks and democracy.

I know I just saw their “expert” on Greece, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, mock Tsipras’ denial he was a Communist and scrunch up her face like that was a distinction that American investors need not trouble themselves with (don’t confuse them with the facts). Thing is, even if the KKE did double their support in the next election, since they’re opposed to any coalition with the other left parties, it wouldn’t make a difference. But if Syriza got another five points and was able to beat out the New Democracy party for the top spot, then Syriza would ger the block of 50 parliamentary seats that the first-past-the-post winner automatically gets, and if they were able to put together a left coalition with those extra seats they could actually form a government. It would only take them getting another 5% or so more of the votes than they took this past Sunday. THEN it would hit the fan, with the Allende option, etc.

Welcome back David. Hope you had a restful and interesting time. Re Hollande, don’t underestimate his ability to sell out and line up with Merkel after getting a miniscule EIB program on infrastructure. Will he line up with her to put the knife into Greece? Re Greece itself, now we’ll see a brutal campaign of propaganda terror and intimidation to try and get the electorate to vote for the austerity parties in the elections next month. If Syriza comes in first, then watch for the Allende option.

Stan Collender was late to pick up on how serious the last debt ceiling crisis was too. The lame duck session could in fact be a doozy, with the Bush tax cuts, the debt ceiling, and the sequestration battles looming, whoever wins the election.

The German hardliners are still stuck on stupid and the Spanish banks are running out of LTRO money. One bad employment report here and it’ll be battle stations.

Let’s not forget that the glorious ball-less Democrats, led by Joe Biden, put the crazed goose-stepper Scalia on the court without a single no vote in committee, because they didn’t want to upset Strom Thurmond. Plus ca change.

First Larry gets chumped out by Ben Bernanke when he wanted to become Fed chairman, now he gets chumped out by a Dartmouth liberal. Looks like Larry’s going long on being a loser.

No surprise from Easterly, who’s an anti-development hack. From his CV:

John Templeton grant 2006: $58,959
John Templeton grant 2008: $729,236
Charles G. Koch Foundation 2008-2009 $115,000
Searle Freedom Foundation 2008-2009 $240,000

Here’s a Reuters report on it.