Richard Rodriquez needs your help to overcome a banking giant. Rich was the victim of an overzealous manager at US Bank who rigged a credit rating higher than it should have been. That means US Bank is fiddling with credit rating numbers, making them look better than they are. Doesn’t that sound like 2008 all over again? Rodriquez blew the whistle and now needs your help to bring down the corrupt giant. Listen to his story in the video above and decide for yourself.
The financial collapse of 2008 was the worst recession since the Great Depression. Give President Obama and his administration credit for saving the economy from the depredations of Wall Street despite massive Republic resistance to resuscitating it, which they did solely for political gain. However, this historically weak recovery masks a startling reality.
Only one perpetrator of Wall Street crimes was ever brought to justice, and he wasn’t a big figure in the massive corruption going on. In March 2009, Obama met with Wall Street leaders and said, “I stand between you and the pitchforks. I am on your side and I will protect you.”
Only one banker from that era was prosecuted. That was Bernie Madoff, and the only reason he was carted off to prison was because he stole from rich people. And not one other Wall Street criminal executive went to jail after stealing billions via fraud, money laundering of Mexican drug cartel profits, and numerous other crimes. Many became his financial advisers, which meant Obama pursued policies to redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent for eight long years.
At all times, Obama refused to bite the hand that funded his past, present and future, as well as funding much of the Republican and Democratic Parties. In other words, Obama was largely, if not completely, in the back pocket of Wall Street as were President Bill Clinton, both President’s Bush, Ronald Reagan, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Wall Street Senator’s Ron Wyden, Mitch McConnell and Orrin Hatch.
Obama operated in a cesspool corruption. He was part of the problem, not the solution.
Three senior Irish bankers were jailed last Friday for up to three-and-a-half years each. They were convicted of conspiring to defraud investors in the most prominent prosecution arising from the 2008 banking crisis that crippled the country’s economy.
The trio will be among the first senior bankers globally to be jailed for their role in the collapse of a bank during the crisis.
The lack of convictions until now has angered Irish taxpayers, who had to stump up 64 billion euros – almost 40 per cent of annual economic output – after a property collapse forced the biggest state bank rescue in the eurozone.
The crash thrust Ireland into a three-year sovereign bailout in 2010 and the finance ministry said last month that it could take another 15 years to recover the funds pumped into the banks still operating.
Former Irish Life and Permanent Chief Executive Denis Casey was sentenced to two years and nine months following the 74-day criminal trial, Ireland’s longest ever.
Willie McAteer, former finance director at the failed Anglo Irish Bank, and John Bowe, its ex-head of capital markets, were given sentences of 42 months and 24 months respectively.
All three were convicted of conspiring together and with others to mislead investors, depositors and lenders by setting up a 7.2-billion-euro circular transaction scheme between March and September 2008 to bolster Anglo’s balance sheet.
Unfortunately, the United States government is rife with corruption, and while US bankers committed fraud and other crimes, such as money laundering in the tens of billions for the Mexican drug cartels, not a single Wall Street banker-criminal has even been charged with a crime, although the banks have had to pay fines in the billions.
That’s because Wall Street bankers and other major corporate players own the US government, and both major political parties. This goes to show how political corruption in the US trumps justice.
Here are the 10 major components to Sanders’ Wall Street reforms.
1. End Too-Big-to-Fail
The underlying logic of this federal policy is that the biggest banks cannot fail and shut down, even if they make terrible investments or wreak great harm to the economy, because the U.S. economy and millions of ordinary people would become financially destitute. Sanders said this “scheme … is nothing more than a free insurance policy for Wall Street.” Compared to before the crash of 2008, the biggest banks in the country are larger than ever, he said, adding, “if a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.”
The truth is that the big banks are not too big to fail. When Lehman Brothers died, not one member of the 99.9 percent was impacted in the slightest. However, the super rich have a massive financial stake in the banks, and they would lose their shirts if the banks were allowed to fail. Using the “too big to fail” slogan means that the banks don’t need to be responsible for their bad decisions, and bad bets, and bad investments, and why should they? Especially when the banksters know the government or the Federal Reserve will bail them out instantly.
“In 2008, the taxpayers of this country bailed out Wall Street because we were told they were ‘too big to fail,’” Sanders said. “Yet, today, three out of the four largest financial institutions [JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo] are nearly 80 percent bigger than before we bailed them out. Incredibly, the six largest banks in this country issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards and more than 35 percent of all mortgages. They control more than 95 percent of all financial derivatives and hold more than 40 percent of all bank deposits. Their assets are equivalent to nearly 60 percent of our GDP. Enough is enough!”
Sanders concluded, “A handful of huge financial institutions simply have too much economic and political power over this country. If Teddy Roosevelt, the Republican trust-buster, were alive today, he would say, break ‘em up. And he would be right.”
2. The above is why we need to Break Up the Biggest Banks
If elected, Sanders said he would direct the Treasury Department to compile a list of the institutions “whose failure would pose a catastrophic risk to the U.S. economy without a taxpayer bailout.” Using the power of executive authority, he would break up these institutions. “Within one year, my administration will break these institutions up so that they no longer pose a grave threat to the economy as authorized under Section 121 of the Dodd-Frank Act.”
3. Pass a 21st-Century Glass-Steagall Act
This Depression-era law, which was repealed by Congress under President Bill Clinton, prevented commercial banks from investing in risky and arcane financial instruments, such as bundled home loans during the housing market bubble that predated the 2008 financial market collapse. Now investment and commercial banks are merged, and the government couldn’t bail out homeowners, such as FDR did. Had they done so, homeowners would have renegotiated lower home prices that reflected reality. But the Obama regime couldn’t do that because an 8 percent decline in home prices effectively rendered the tens of trillions of dollars in home mortgaged backed bonds valueless. Instead, the government bailed out the banks, and the Federal Reserve bailed out the banks. But they really weren’t bailing out the banks; they were bailing out rich investors.
“Secretary Clinton says that Glass-Steagall would not have prevented the financial crisis because shadow banks like AIG and Lehman Brothers, not big commercial banks, were the real culprits,” Sanders said. “Secretary Clinton is wrong. Shadow banks did gamble recklessly, but where did that money come from? It came from the federally insured bank deposits of big commercial banks—something that would have been banned under the Glass-Steagall Act.”
Moreover, Sanders said his work as a senator revealed that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department “provided more than $16 trillion in short-term, low-interest loans to every major financial institution in the country” to stop the global economy from imploding after the 2008 crash. “Secretary Clinton says we just need to impose a few more fees and regulations on the financial industry. I disagree.”
4. End Too-Big-to-Jail
Sanders said that the government needs to run Wall Street, not the other way around, which he said is the reality today. He said that “equal justice under the law” means that banking and finance executives whose reckless gambles damaged people’s lives must face real criminal penalties including prison.
“The average American sees kids being arrested and sometimes even jailed for possessing marijuana or other minor crimes,” Sanders said. “But when it comes to Wall Street executives, some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country, whose illegal behavior caused pain and suffering for millions—somehow, nothing happens to them. No police record. No jail time. No justice.”
He noted that “not one major Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for causing the near collapse of our entire economy” and that “will change under my administration.”
What Sanders doesn’t mention is that large banks also have been caught engaging in drug money laundering for the Mexican banks. The US government has fined the banks, but never indicted any bank officers, not even when the banks have been caught committing this crime time and again.
5. Criminalize Wall Street’s Business Model
One of Sanders’ most incisive comments concerned Wall Street’s ways of doing business, which he said are based on intentionally ripping off average Americans and engaging in all kinds of unethical and illegal behaviors. He said the government must do more to penalize companies that routinely rip off the public and richly reward the executives overseeing that process.
“The reality is that fraud is the business model on Wall Street,” Sanders said. “It is not the exception to the rule. It is the rule. And in a weak regulatory climate the likelihood is that Wall Street gets away with a lot more illegal behavior than we know of. How many times have we heard the myth that what Wall Street did may have been wrong but it wasn’t illegal? Let me help shatter that myth today.”
Sanders read from a dozen business page headlines to underscore that the banks most Americans use have been fined $204 billion since 2009 for malfeasance. “And that takes place in a weak regulatory climate,” he said. “And, when I say that the business model of Wall Street is fraud, that is not just Bernie Sanders talking. That is what financial executives told the University of Notre Dame in a study on the ethics of the financial services industry last year.”
Sanders said he would appoint regulators who are not afraid to tackle this caldron of corruption. “I will nominate and appoint people with a track record of standing up to power, rather than those who have made millions defending Wall Street CEOs. Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks will not be represented in my administration,” like they will be in a Clinton, Trump, or any other Republican administration.
6. Tax the Casino Culture
Sanders said one of the keys of reforming Wall Street was ending its culture of financial speculation. He said he would do that by imposing a transaction tax aimed at high-speed, high-volume traders who are not investing “in the job-creating economy.” Those funds would then be used for cutting the cost of higher education. This was something first proposed in The Rigged Game: Corporate America and a People Betrayed.
“We will use the revenue from this tax to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. During the financial crisis, the middle class of this country bailed out Wall Street. Now, it’s Wall Street’s turn to help the middle class.”
7. Reform the Financial Rating Agencies
Sander’s notes that the ratings agencies committed fraud when it came to rating mortgage backed bonds. If the investment banks didn’t like the ratings of the liar loans they were purchasing from, say, Country Wide, then they simply went to a different ratings agency. For the ratings agencies, it’s either fraud or bust. This must end.
8. Cap Credit Card Interest and ATM Fees
Sanders doesn’t mention that just as there are tens of trillions of dollars of mortgage backed bonds issued by Wall Street Investment firms, such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, the credit card debt backed bond market is a billion dollar industry. Capping interest rates charged by banks and credit card companies, and curtailing some of their fees, will bring the full might of an enraged banking/investing industry down around Sanders neck because what he proposes will undercut the value of credit card backed bonds, which is a trillion dollar plus industry. Sanders proposals might even send the value of the bonds to zero, which would be a good thing for the 99 percent, but a bad thing for the idle rich and their unearned income stolen from the 99 percent.
Sanders says banks and credit card companies must stop “from ripping off the American people by charging sky-high interest rates and outrageous fees. It is unacceptable that Americans are paying a $4 or $5 fee each time they go to the ATM. It is unacceptable that millions of Americans are paying credit card interest rates of 20 or 30 percent.”
Sanders wants interest rates “capped at no more than 15 percent for borrowed money. He also said ATM fees should be capped at $2. “People should not have to pay a 10 percent fee for withdrawing $40 of their own money out of an ATM. Big banks need to stop acting like loan sharks and start acting like responsible lenders.”
9. Let the USPS Offer Banking
The post office’s money order service could be greatly expanded “to give Americans affordable banking options,” Sanders said. “The reality is that, unbelievably, millions of low-income Americans live in communities where there are no normal banking services.”
“Today, if you live in a low-income community and you need to cash a check or get a loan to pay for a car repair or a medical emergency, where do you go?” he asked. “You go to a payday lender who could charge an interest rate of more than 300 percent and trap you into a vicious cycle of debt. That is unacceptable.”
10. Reform the Federal Reserve
Sanders said this arcame institution that regulates the flow of the U.S. currency and interest rates charges to banks must be reformed so that its primary purpose is serving the public, not private bankers. “When Wall Street was on the verge of collapse, the Federal Reserve acted with a fierce sense of urgency to save the financial system,” he said. “We need the Fed to act with the same boldness to combat unemployment and low wages.” What Sanders doesn’t mention is that the Federal Reserve is a private bank, and not a government agency. It’s primary goal is to ensure that the big banks are solvent and their profits and stock prices are rising, even at the expense of the American people.
“It is unacceptable that the Federal Reserve has been hijacked by the very bankers it is in charge of regulating,” Sanders said. “I think the American people would be shocked to learn that Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, served on the board of the New York Fed at the same time that his bank received a $391 billion bailout from the Federal Reserve. That is a clear conflict of interest that I would ban as president. When I am elected, the foxes will no longer be guarding the henhouse at the Fed.”
As striking as Sanders’ reforms sound, he said they were unlikely to be sufficient to ensure that American capitalist excesses do not harm the country again.
“No president, not Bernie Sanders or anyone else, can effectively address the economic crises facing the working families of this country alone,” he said. “The truth is that Wall Street, corporate America, the corporate media and wealthy campaign donors are just too powerful.”
But Sanders said that new rules of the financial game could be written and that government could force Wall Street to follow them.
“Yes, we can make our economy work for all Americans,” he said. “And so my message to you today is straightforward: If elected president, I will rein in Wall Street so they can’t crash our economy again. Will they like me? No. Will they begin to play by the rules if I’m president? You better believe it.”
Iceland’s Supreme Court upheld charges against several bankers implicated in the world meltdown via fraud and other illegal opportunities last February. Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson sits in prison in Iceland. So do three of his associates. They were all forced to pay millions of dollars in fines.
Why doesn’t that happen in the USA. The answer is simple. The USA government is one of the most corrupt in the world. Money rules, and that’s what US democracy looks like. The corporate press is also remarkably corrupt, and so, the so-called free press has become a willing partner in criminal activities by sponsoring such slogans as “Too big to fail,” and “Too big to Jail.” The US public, for the most part, swallows this propaganda like fresh candy, and without question.
The US bankster’s should be in jail, just like their brethren in Iceland, but the US in-justice department finds it better to focus on corporate crimes, and then lay fines against these corporations, rather than at the employees perpetrating the crimes. Those employees are among the most politically corrupting influences in the US government today.
It should be pointed out that food stamps go to feed people, and that corporate subsidies go toward redistributing income from the 99 to the parasites of the 1 percent via higher corporate profits, rising share prices and surging dividends, and all at the expense of the 99 percent. It’s a rigged game against the 99 percent via corrupt US governments at most levels and a corrupt corporate US Supreme Court.
Okay, exit polls aren’t perfect, but they were 100 percent accurate until the presidential election of 2000 pushed George Bush into the oval office. Now why all of a sudden have exit polls become more inaccurate?
Yesterday, the exit polls showed a dead even race between Tom Barrett and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. The election was anyone’s to win. But Walker won by six points. The Republicans have a long history of election fraud over the last twelve years. The Wisconsin recall election was probably no different.
For example, in 2004 an electronic voting machine was found to have credited President Bush with 3,893 extra votes in a suburb of Columbus where only 638 people voted. During that presidential election, 150,000 Democrats were taken off the voter rolls by the Republican Secretary of State between the primary and the general election. Nobody told them, so they had no chance to appeal. When those people voted, they didn’t know they’d been whacked off the rolls. So the exit polls showed John Kerry defeating President Bush in Ohio, but when the votes of the legal voters were counted, Bush won by less than 130,000 votes. In other words, Kerry really defeated Bush in Ohio and won the presidential election, but election fraud stopped what should’ve been.
Below is the story from Reuters about the exit polls in Wisconsin, and below that are the stories of fraud in Ohio in 2004. However, election fraud has been discovered in several different states that Bush really lost. Now how could those exit polls be wrong? Let me count the way.
(Reuters) – Exit polls show the Wisconsin recall election on Tuesday is essentially tied between
Governor Scott Walker and Democratic challenger Tom Barrett, CNN said.
The CNN data is based on interviews with voters after they cast ballots and not on actual results.
Most polling stations closed at 8 p.m. CT (9 p.m. EDT), although voters in line to were allowed to cast ballots after the official deadline. First results were expected to begin trickling in from around the state soon after the polls closed, although the winner might not be known for hours.
Walker is only the third governor in U.S. history to face a recall from office. He angered Democrats and unions when he championed a law to severely restrict the collective bargaining of unionized state and local government workers. Walker said the changes were necessary to close a large state budget deficit.
“One of the major problems that has emerged in the foreclosure crisis is that it is far from clear that many lenders foreclosing on properties actually own the loans and have the right to take action against them. In many cases during the housing bubble that burst in 2008, original mortgages were repackaged and sold to so many investors that it is now unclear who actually holds the loans.”
So naturally banks are using fraudulent documents to back up their claims that they hold the mortgages to homes that they don’t own the mortgages on. It’s thievery, pure and simple, when a bank presents falsified documents claiming they own houses when they don’t, and then forecloses on them. This fraud and stealing is rampant all over the United States.
The Rigged Game: Corporate America and A People Betrayed
The Rigged Game: Corporate America and a People Betrayed
Wall Street is up to no good, and has been since 1980, when it took over the Republican Party, and then the Democratic Party in 1994. Income has been massively redistributed from the 99 to the 1 percent via legislative scam after scam, from tax cuts for the rich to international income redistribution schemes falsely labeled as trade agreements. In The Rigged Game, John Hively exposes how this has all come about starting with a revolutionary, but simple reality, all recessions begin in the financial markets.
The financial collapse of 2008 was the worst recession since the Great Depression. Give President Obama and his administration credit for saving the economy from the depredations of Wall Street despite massive Republic resistance to resuscitating it, which they did solely for political gain. However, this historically weak recovery masks a startling reality.
From left to right: Former CEO of Kaupthing Luxembourg Magnus Gudmundsson, Olafur Olafsson, the bank’s second largest shareholder at the time, Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson, Kaupthing’s former chief executive, and former chairman Sigurdur Einarsson—all sentenced to between four and five and a half years. (Image: DV)
John Hively's Blog: News and Analysis of the War Against the Middle Class 