Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail. That’s all you need to know. Lehman was one of the largest investment banks in the world. And yet, when push came to shove, the government allowed the company to die. It didn’t impact me or you one bit, unless you were heavily invested in the company.
What would’ve happened if Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan/Chase had been allowed to die? Nothing, except several of their hedge funds and a lot of superrich people would’ve been allowed to fail with them. Tens of billions of dollars would’ve evaporated with the implosion of these corporations that have gone to corrupting government and both major political parties. Had they been allowed to fail, that probably would’ve been a good thing for 99.9 percent of all American citizens. Democracy would’ve been a little less corrupted.
The slogan “Too Big to Fail” should be changed to “Too Big to Exist.” If anybody thinks they’re too big to be allowed to fail, then the logical thing is that they should be broken up into more competitive pieces, which is what the Sherman Anti-Trust Act is supposed to do, if it were seriously enforced by the US government, which won’t do this because the politicians have been under the intoxicating influence of the billions of dollars of the big banks give them.
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.”
Many highly-respected Washington types have been running around for the last three years yelling that because of its large budget deficits, the United States is Greece. Then we learned a few weeks ago that the immediate danger is the United States becoming Cyprus.
Cyprus is a small island country with a financial sector that has run amok, following in the footsteps of Ireland and Iceland and the United States. The assets of its banks were eight times the size of the country’s economy, which is a little more than in the USA, but maybe not, since the Federal Reserve provided permanent loans to several banks to the tune of $26 trillion at zero percent interest. That’s one and a half times greater than the gross domestic product of the United States.
Anyway, in Cyprus, when the banks’ big bets went bad, there was no way Cyprus’ government could afford the price of the bailout. As a result, Cyprus was forced to go hat in hand to the European Central Bank and accept whatever offer was put on the table. However the Cyprus crisis is finally resolved, it is not likely to be a pretty picture for the citizens of Cyprus. The cost is a minimum ten percent of their savings. In other words, to bail out rich people who had invested poorly, the 99 percent of Cyprus are going to pay the price of the epic incompetence of the 1 percent who bet badly. It’s one of those, “Too big to fail moments.” But the real question is, who says that any business is too big to fail? Let me see. It’s the executives and their flunkies in political office that say so, just like they told us trickle down economics was good for us. They lied then and they’re lying now in order to protect their worthless assets. What would happen if they were allowed to fail?
Investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Citibank would be in the dustbin of history. How would that effect the 99 percent? Executives of these banks would have less money to buy legislation from their paid plutocrats in congress and the white house to redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent. Geez, is that so bad? On top of that, there are other, better managed, businesses that would be happy to step into the financial breach. That’s called letting the market decide winners and losers. Instead, we have the specter of more financial depravity by Wall Street’s finest.
As the Cyprus crisis was unfolding, the report of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on JP Morgan’s losses at its “London Whale” trading division. The report chronicles a series of bad bets on derivatives that were compounded by traders doubling down their stakes. They concealed the size of their losses both to bank officers and regulators, so the officers and regulators claimed. The end result was a $6 billion loss.
JP Morgan is a huge bank and can swallow $6 billion in losses easy enough, but the incident showed as clearly as possible that the Dodd-Frank reforms are not working, which is precisely what they were intended to do: nothing. The London Whale’s losing trades were all done in the Dodd-Frank era. The bill’s provisions worked perfectly because they did not prevent JP Morgan from making massive bets and misleading regulators about their nature and the risks involved.
If the regulators were not able to catch the London Whale’s huge gambles before they went bad, why would we think they will catch the next crap-shoot from the Wall Street gang? It’s time that we looked at this seriously: the regulators lack either the will or the competence to rein in the big banks. The big banks are going to get away with everything they want, regardless of the timid and valueless provisions of Dodd-Frank.
If the big banks are really too big to regulate and, according to Attorney General Holder, too big to prosecute, then the only sensible course is to break them up. Of course, Holder is lying on behalf of his Wall Street buddies. Regardless, there have been some promising developments in this area.
At the top of the list is Elizabeth Warren’s election to the senate. Senator Warren has already made it clear that she will use her seat on the Senate banking committee to try to hold the banks and bank regulators accountable. The other important development is that Warren seems to have an ally in Louisiana Senator David Vitter.
At first glance, this might seem an unlikely alliance. Warren is clearly on the left side of the Democratic party and Vitter is to the right of center of a very conservative Republican party. But Vitter, apparently, takes his belief in the market seriously enough to realize that there is no place for “too big to fail” banks in a free market. The point is straightforward: if a bank’s creditors know that the government will cover its losses, the bank is gambling with the taxpayers’ money, not its own.
If there is ever going to be enough political force to break up the big banks, it will have to come from this sort of left-right coalition that moves in toward the center. As it stands, the leadership of both parties is too closely tied to the financial sector to take any steps that fundamentally threaten their interests.
This has nothing to do with political philosophy: the leadership of both parties is owned by the financial industry. However, if the outsiders in both parties can build up enough popular outrage over Wall Street’s shenanigans, the party leadership may be forced to follow.
There is precedent for this sort of left-right coalition. In 2009, Representative Alan Grayson, one of the most progressive members of the House, joined with Ron Paul, one of the most conservative Republicans, to co-sponsor a bill calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve Board by the Government Accountability Office.
Over the next year, the bill gradually got more co-sponsors until eventually an overwhelming majority of members had signed on. It was difficult to see why the operations of such an important government agency should be exempted from normal oversight. As a result of this pressure, an amendment was slipped onto the Dodd-Frank bill that required the Fed to release the details of the $16tn in loans that were made through its special lending facilities.
It will take the same sort of dynamic to create the political space where the big banks can be broken up. Of course, this effort will be much harder. It means pulling the big banks away from the public trough, not just releasing some embarrassing information.
We can also expect the elite media to provide the same sort of condescension and misinformation in the battle to break up the banks as they did in the battle over the Fed audit. Proponents of downsizing the banks will be ridiculed, regardless of their expertise in finance. The big banks will be given every opportunity to push their line, in spite of its absurdity and the lack of supporting evidence.
It will be a tough fight. On its face, it seems that the Wall Street crew is invincible. But the London Whale episode and the silly efforts at cover-up should provide some grounds for confidence. These people can be pretty brazen in their contempt for the law and the general public. This arrogance on the part of the Wall Street gang is exactly what we need to give democracy a chance.
Now think about this. Bear Stearns wasn’t too big to fail, and neither was Lehman Brothers. Those were two of the biggest Wall Street investment banks. General Motors? It’s the second largest vehicle manufacturer in the world, and a close second at that. According to Republicans, it wasn’t too big to fail, either. Now politicians are playing the “too big to fail game.” It’s a lie, but some people such as Warren and Vitter have bought into it. Let them break up Goldman Sachs. Then its executives won’t have that lying argument about being too big to fail. But then maybe they’ll claim some weird trickle down effect if their business is allowed to exist after making more incompetent decisions.
Too Big to Fail is a Big Lie. It’s a euphemism for “Too rich to be allowed to look like dunderheads because of the really bad investments rich folks make. It’s also a euphemism for “Too rich to let the markets decide winners and losers. So we politicians must always use the power of government to make our rich friends and benefactors winners, no matter how stupid they are.
Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone has once again exposed the banksters, Obama, Bush, the liars and the thieves in a marvelous piece of investigative journalism that we will never get from the corporate mainstream press. This time his story is about the distribution of the TARP bailout, which would have done this nation a ton of good if it had never happened. Taibbi tells us below what occurred with the bailout.
“So what exactly did the ($700 billion Tarp) bailout accomplish? It built a banking system that discriminates against community banks, makes Too Big to Fail banks even Too Bigger to Failier, increases risk, discourages sound business lending and punishes savings by making it even easier and more profitable to chase high-yield investments than to compete for small depositors. The bailout has also made lying on behalf of our biggest and most corrupt banks the official policy of the United States government. And if any one of those banks fails, it will cause another financial crisis, meaning we’re essentially wedded to that policy for the rest of eternity – or at least until the markets call our bluff, which could happen any minute now.”
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.
John Hively's Blog: News and Analysis of the War Against the Middle Class 