OBAMA and HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTERS – THEIR CRIMES ARE MUCH
WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT!
“…and we
may even have gotten a glimpse or two of a banking system that uses computerized insider
trading programs to steal from everyone who has an IRA or a mutual fund or
any stock at all by manipulating markets like the NYSE”.
|
Posted: 28 Mar 2013 07:59 AM PDT
After
watching a screening of the documentary ‘We Steal Secrets’, by
Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney on Wikileaks, Matt Taibbi sees a massive looming showdown with the public over
state secrets. The recent government prosecutions of whistleblowers have, in
Taibbi’s opinion “Reflected an obvious institutional terror of letting the
public see the sausage-factory locked behind the closed doors not only of the
state, but of banks and universities and other such institutional pillars of
society.” And that terror indicates there are secrets far, far worse
than the ones released by institutions like WikiLeaks. Which is truly
frightening given what has already come out. Says Taibbi:
What
will we find out? We already know that our armies mass-murder women
and children in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, that our
soldiers joke about
smoldering bodies from the safety of gunships, that some of our closest diplomatic
allies starve
and repress their own citizens, and we may even have gotten a glimpse or two
of a banking system that uses computerized
insider trading programs to steal from everyone who has an IRA or a mutual fund or
any stock at all by manipulating markets like the NYSE.
According
to Taibbi, the government has effectively thwarted the attempts of
individuals like Julian Assange and Bradley Manning with prolonged smear
campaigns, but won’t be able to when more secrets are published by bigger
institutions that have the ability to withstand immense government pressure:
But the
stink is rising to the surface. It’s all coming out. And when it isn’t Julian
Assange the next time but The New York Times, Der Spiegel and The
Guardian standing in the line of fire, the state will probably lose,
just as it lost in the Pentagon Papers case, because those organizations will
be careful to only publish materials clearly in the public interest – there’s
no conceivable legal justification for keeping us from knowing the policies
of our own country (although stranger things have happened).
The
mass expansion of the internet has been closely mirrored by the rise of the
security state, following the simple logic that there’s a lot of stuff the
government doesn’t want us to know about. As the public’s ability to know
exactly what their government’s are up to increases, so does the militancy of
the government in finding and prosecuting those responsible for it.
And the
thing is, neither side is backing down, making Taibbi’s prediction a near
certainty.
ARE OBAMA’S CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS DOIN’ WELL??? YOU BET! THAT’S BECAUSE
THEY INVESTED SO MUCH IN BARACK OBAMA.
NO ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN SO INFESTED WITH
BANKSTER-CONNECTED CRIMINALS THAN OBAMA’S! IN FACT YOU MUST BE A BANKSTER OR
LA RAZA SUPREMACIST TO BE PART OF OBAMA’S CULTURE OF CORRUPTION.
OBAMA’S BANKSTER LOOTERS:
According to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
City, nearly $6 trillion in property value has simply been erased due to the
mortgage crisis.
Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is
Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists,
and Union Bosses
BY
TIMOTHY P CARNEY
Editorial
Reviews
Obama
Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the
same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the
temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that
crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics,
investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream
media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope
and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while
claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and
regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.
Banks post near-record
earnings as sequester looms
By Vicki Needham -
02/26/13 03:46 PM ET
U.S. banks reported near-record earnings
last year, the best performance since before the financial crisis crippled
the economy in 2008.
Banks posted $141.3
billion in total earnings, a 19.3 percent improvement over 2011 and the
second-highest level ever reported by the industry since the $145.2 billion
earned in 2006, the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) reported on
Tuesday.
Despite the
improvement, the American Bankers Association (ABA) argues that banks will
feel the pressure if economic growth is slowed by $85 billion in automatic
spending cuts that are set to go into effect on Friday.
"All businesses,
including banks, will suffer if the economy slows dramatically because of
sequestration," said James Chessen, ABA's chief economist.
"It will increase
uncertainty, making businesses more reluctant to borrow and consumers more
reluctant to spend."
FDIC Chairman Martin
Gruenberg said the nation's slow but steady economic recovery has been a
contributing factor to the industry's rebound during the past three years and
the sequester could certainly hamper that improvement.
"We're watching
it closely," Gruenberg said at a press conference Tuesday.
Because the pace of
earnings growth is not likely to continue at this level, Gruenberg said and
banks will depend on increased credit by the industry because "troubled
loans, problem banks and bank failures remain at elevated levels, while
growth in lending and revenue remains sluggish.”
“Going forward, we
think the industry earnings are really going to depend on increased credit,”
Gruenberg said.
Total loan balances
rose $118.2 billion, or 1.6 percent, in the quarter, led by 3.7 percent
growth in commercial loans, according to the FDIC.
“There’s not a lot of
great opportunities out there at these rates,” Chessen said.
Banks posted a 12 percent growth in
year-over-year business lending, and will need to similarly increase consumer
lending to bolster revenues, especially if a sequester goes into effect and
stymies economic growth.
HE HAS NOT PUBLICALLY CONCEDED THE TRUTH TO THE FACT THAT
OBAMA IS SABOTAGING THE AMERICAN BORDERS WITH MEXICO, SABOTAGING E-VERIFY AND
PROMISING HIS LA RAZA PARTY BASE NON-ENFORCEMENT TO EASE MORE “CHEAP” LABOR
ILLEGALS INTO OUR JOBS!
THEN THE AMERICA MIDDLE CLASS GETS THE TAX BILLS FOR
MEXICO’S LOOTING of AMERICA AS WELL AS OBAMA’S BANKSTERS’ ECONOMIC RAPE OF
THIS NATION.
MEANWHILE… OBAMA HAS WORKED HARD FOR ILLEGALS AND THE 1%
BILLIONAIRE CLASS HE SO CLOSELY IDENTIFIES WITH.
THE REALITY of OBAMAnomics on
AMERICANS:
Since
the onset of the recession, the level of individuals above age 50 and out of
work has more than doubled, with the average unemployment period skyrocketing
to over 17 months. The percentage of individuals able to return to work at
equal or higher wages since being laid off is in the single-digits. The film
calculates that roughly one-in-five individuals over the age of 50 currently
remains out of work in the US.
MEANWHILE… OBAMA HAS WORKED HARD FOR ILLEGALS AND THE 1%
BILLIONAIRE CLASS HE SO CLOSELY IDENTIFIES WITH.
A
theme visited throughout the documentary is the issue of home mortgages. The
film provides statistics showing that since 2007 nearly 5 million homes have
been lost to foreclosure, with market analysts expecting between 3 million
and 8 million more to come in the ensuing period. According
to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York City, nearly $6 trillion
in property value has simply been erased due to the mortgage crisis. The
film is dotted with scenes of abandoned neighborhoods and homes, some with
signs hanging outside looking to sell for as cheaply as $350.
In
this, one sees the director pulling her punches at just the point where she
should begin exploring. Sipprelle herself admits that due to budget cuts
enacted under the administration of President Obama, many of the federal and
state programs upon which these workers rely are now being phased out. The
reality is that both political parties at federal, state and municipal levels
of government are pursuing austerity policies and are responsible for the
deepening social misery being inflicted on the working class as a whole.
*
wsws.org
Set for Life: The effects of recession on an older generation
By Nick Barrickman
27 February 2013
Set for Life, a documentary by directors Susan Sipprelle and Samuel Newman,
focuses on the effects that the economic crisis of 2007-2008 has had on the
generation of Americans 50 years and older. The film is compiled from dozens
of interviews obtained across the country, often gotten on the spot at
unemployment offices. These videos are stored for viewing at the multimedia
web site www.overfiftyandoutofwork.com. Set for Life has won multiple awards since first
appearing in January at the New Jersey Film Festival and is currently being
screened in limited viewings around the country.
The documentary focuses mainly on the lives of three
workers, selected probably to represent various sectors of the economy, from
private and public sector “blue-collar” workers to an information technology
specialist, all trying to survive after having lost their jobs during the
collapse of the US economy in 2007-2008.
The film is interspersed with images of family videos from
an earlier period, picturing the happier times that existed in American
society at this time, contrasted with up-to-date shots of idled factories in
the American heartland. One individual describes the “feeling of calm” he
experienced in his younger years, believing that working for AT&T was a
guaranteed ticket to a secure life, “like having a government job,” he says.
This is contrasted with a clip of a woman saying that even the “most loyal,
paternalistic companies are not like that anymore,” recalling the cold and
impersonal way in which she and many others have been laid off.
The film shows Joe Price, a third generation steel worker
from Weirton, West Virginia. Particularly proud of his 30-plus-year career,
Joe at one point revisits his long-idled former job site, holding up a steel
rod while asking the camera, “What is wrong with a man making a living by
working with his hands?” The scene captures the feeling of loss many have
experienced. Now, Joe and many others like him face the prospect of searching
for work from employers who view older age as a detriment to hiring.
In this, the film delivers some of its most striking
moments, as one gets a sense that the vast shift in society has left a
substantial portion of the population simply unable to cope in today’s
economic situation. Many interviewees recall the dreadful experience of
putting out hundreds of resumes to receive no reply from job providers.
Holding onto the hope of achieving the “American dream,” many of the workers
evince a sense of determination to get back on their feet, though many have
given up on the prospect of ever retiring.
The tragedy of George Ross, Jr., an IT worker fallen
victim to California’s misfortune, is compounded when he is informed that his
son, a Marine, has been left crippled by an improvised explosive device while
serving in Afghanistan. Owing nearly $200,000 on a mortgage he had refinanced
before losing his job in 2008, George is forced to put his job search on hold
in order to care for his son.
In one scene, George and his wife Linda attend a
debt-consolidation workshop while driving a Wounded Warrior charity
van in hopes of persuading the hosting firm to take up their case. The
attempt fails. Linda, in tears while speaking to the camera, says that to
her, the “American dream” has been simply “erased.” In these scenes, one
can’t help but note a parallel between the condition of the Ross’s
war-damaged son and the images of the once-great industrial heartland, now an
idled and rusting shell of its former self.
Somewhat scant, statistically speaking, the film relies
heavily on the anecdotal experiences of its subjects. Those figures it does
provide, however, are staggering.
Since the onset of the recession, the level of individuals
above age 50 and out of work has more than doubled, with the average
unemployment period skyrocketing to over 17 months. The percentage of
individuals able to return to work at equal or higher wages since being laid
off is in the single-digits. The film calculates that roughly one-in-five
individuals over the age of 50 currently remains out of work in the US.
A theme visited throughout the documentary is the issue of
home mortgages. The film provides statistics showing that since 2007 nearly 5
million homes have been lost to foreclosure, with market analysts expecting
between 3 million and 8 million more to come in the ensuing period. According
to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York City, nearly $6 trillion
in property value has simply been erased due to the mortgage crisis. The film
is dotted with scenes of abandoned neighborhoods and homes, some with signs
hanging outside looking to sell for as cheaply as $350.
One former GM employee, Stan Bednarczyk, informs the
interviewer of his incurring a $40,000 loss on a home due to having to
relocate from Ohio to Michigan, only to later wind up with a mortgage that
was nearly $150,000 underwater in Detroit. Including the total taxes owed
between the two homes, Bednarczyk informs the audience that it cost him
nearly $400,000 simply to break even, “and there’s no write-off in our income
system for that,” he adds.
The film concentrates on age, dedicating a certain amount
of its time to the idea of “agism,” in which workers feel they are being
discriminated against strictly on that basis. This is perhaps due to the
director’s own perceptions, as Sipprelle, a baby-boomer herself who sought to
switch careers in mid-life, felt this issue in particular needed covering.
The result is somewhat narrow, tending to fuel the filmmakers’ perception
that the “Great Recession” is simply a generational issue.
Other limitations emerge. In a Q&A session at the
Economic Policy Institute in Washington DC, Sipprelle, when questioned about
the film’s general lack of a political focus, expressed her preference to see
political divisions “left out” of the documentary, wanting to obtain the
“widest appeal possible” because the issue was so pressing.
In this, one sees the director pulling her punches at just
the point where she should begin exploring. Sipprelle herself admits that due
to budget cuts enacted under the administration of President Obama, many of
the federal and state programs upon which these workers rely are now being
phased out. The reality is that both political parties at federal, state and
municipal levels of government are pursuing austerity policies and are
responsible for the deepening social misery being inflicted on the working
class as a whole.
The power of Set for Life lies in its drawing on
the real lives of workers. Despite its weaknesses, the film deserves a wide
audience.
*
WIKILEAKS EXPOSES OBAMA’S AGENDA OF
ASSAULTING OUR BORDERS, AMERICANS IN JOBS HE WANTS TO FILL WITH ILLEGALS
JUDICIAL WATCH:
It proves the Obama administration is willing
to go to any extent - including gaming the courts - to continue stonewalling
the full story of its lawless release of illegal aliens. Now, with the prison
floodgates being thrown open to illegal aliens under the phony pretense of
abiding by sequester cuts, it is more important that details of this threat
to the public safety be revealed.
Obama
combines sequester cuts with demagogy
By Andre Damon
27 August 2014
As the deadline approaches for triggering $85
billion in across-the-board budget cuts, the indications are that the White House
and congressional Republicans intend to allow the so-called “sequester” to
take effect. The crisis over the program of cuts, set to begin on March 1
unless an alternative plan to slash the deficit is reached, is entirely
manufactured, the result of previous deals reached by the Obama
administration and the Republican leadership.
The impact of these cutbacks will be borne overwhelmingly by
working and poor people, with billions slashed from education, anti-poverty
programs, health care and other vital services. Once enacted, these cuts will
never be fully restored. In effect, a new baseline will have been established
for the ongoing onslaught on social programs upon which millions of working
people depend.
Behind the stage-managed partisan bickering,
there is a tacit consensus between the two parties that the cuts in domestic
discretionary spending, estimated to reach $1.2 trillion over the next
decade, can be used to create more favorable conditions for bullying the
public into accepting immensely unpopular cuts in the basic social programs
remaining from the reforms of the 1930s and 1960s—Medicare and Social
Security.
The unstated agenda behind the demagogy of Obama and the
Republicans is to deliberately create a crisis atmosphere and inflict painful
cuts in order to claim, weeks or months down the road, that the only way out
is a longer-term assault on the basic social “entitlement” programs.
The sequester cuts will have harsh
consequences for working people, including:
* A 9.4 percent reduction in benefits for
recipients of federally-funded long-term unemployment insurance.
* A loss of federal education funding
affecting 1.2 million students and resulting in the possible layoff of 30,000
teachers and education staff, plus a $598 million cut in funding for special
education programs.
* The removal of between 600,000 and 775,000
low-income women and children from the WIC food assistance program.
* A cut in federal housing assistance that
will deprive up to 125,000 families of aid.
* Unpaid furloughs of up to 15 days of meat
and poultry inspectors at the Agriculture Department, resulting in $10
billion in production losses.
* The closure of as many as 100 air traffic
control towers and furlough of controllers, resulting in widening flight
delays.
On Sunday, the White House released reports on
the potential impact of the sequester on all 50 states and Washington DC.
California, for instance, “will lose approximately $87.6 million in funding
for primary and secondary education, putting around 1,210 teacher and aide
jobs at risk.”
The pre-school Head Start program will be cut
for 8,200 California children, $2.6 million will be cut from public health,
and the state will lose $5.4 million in funding for food assistance for
low-income families.
Depending on the federal agency, the cuts will
amount to between 5 and 9 percent of the budget for the year.
These cutbacks will have a severe impact on the US economy as a
whole. Stephen S. Fuller, a professor at George Mason University, found in a
study last year that the sequester will cost 2.14 million jobs and increase
the unemployment rate by 1.5 percentage points.
The sequester also includes $42.7 billion in
cuts to military spending. The Pentagon has threatened to furlough 800,000
civilian Defense Department employees, beginning as early as April.
The slated military cuts have prompted howls
of protest from the military brass and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who
claim that they will “hollow out” the US military machine and threaten
“national security.” One way or another, the Pentagon, whose base budget has
soared since 9/11 from $397 billion to $557 billion, will be shielded from
any significant cuts.
At the same time, the proposed cuts in defense
and security spending will be used for fear-mongering propaganda about the
terrorist threat. Already on Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet
Napolitano called a press conference to declare that the cuts will make the
US more vulnerable to a terrorist attack.
President Obama is continuing his demagogic
campaign to place the entire blame for the sequester on the Republicans and
posture as the advocate of a “fair” and “balanced” program of
deficit-reduction that will “protect the middle class” and make the rich pay
their “fair share.”
On Tuesday, he made an appearance at the
Newport News shipyard in Virginia, a facility that is directly tied into the
military and dependent on contracts from major defense contractors. In
selecting this site for his latest speech on the sequester, Obama, speaking
in front of a giant submarine propeller, signaled his opposition to any
significant cuts in military spending.
He blamed congressional Republicans for
blocking his proposal for a combination of spending cuts and token increases
in taxes for corporations and the wealthy. The Republicans are insisting that
there be no tax increases in any new budget deal.
“All we’re asking,” Obama declared, “is that
they close loopholes for… hedge fund managers and oil companies... so we can
avoid laying off workers, or kicking kids off Head Start, or reducing
financial aid for college students.” The cynicism of this claim to be
fighting for higher taxes for the rich is exposed by Obama’s support for a
“comprehensive tax reform” that includes a cut in corporate taxes from 35 to
28 percent.
The real substance of Obama’s agenda, behind the
pseudo-populist rhetoric, was indicated by his reiteration of support for
cuts in entitlement programs. In a line meant to reassure his real
constituency—Wall Street and corporate America—he said, “Democrats like me… have
said we’re prepared to make some tough cuts and reforms, including to
programs like Medicare.”
*
A FEW BASIC FACTS ABOUT OBAMA:
“Behind the thin rhetoric about reigniting a
“thriving middle class,” Obama made clear that the administration’s policies
in its second term will be subordinated entirely to the interests of big
business, beginning with plans to slash hundreds of billions more from health
care programs.”
*
“In concluding
the pittance of a settlement, a fraction of the billions taken in by the
banks from the sub-prime mortgage racket, the Obama administration is once
again letting the banks get away with massive crimes that have had
devastating social consequences, while giving them a green light to continue
similar practices.”
Another sweetheart bank settlement on mortgage
fraud
By Andre Damon
9 January 2013
Ten major financial firms agreed on Monday to pay $3.3 billion
in cash to settle allegations of mortgage fraud by the Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in the latest in a string of sweetheart
settlements between the major Wall Street banks and their nominal regulators.
As usual, there were no criminal charges and no bank officials were held
accountable.
The settlement, which nominally totals $8.5 billion, includes
$3.3 billion in direct payments to borrowers and $5.2 billion in loan
modifications and other forms of “borrower assistance” left largely at the
discretion of the banks.
The settlement with the OCC, a branch of the Treasury
Department, relates to widespread fraud committed by the banks in their rush
to foreclose on as many homes as possible in 2009 and 2010. To expedite the
foreclosure process, the banks had employees or contractors sign off on
thousands of mortgage documents every month, swearing that they had intimate
knowledge of their contents when in reality they had not even read them.
In many cases,
banks illegally imposed fees on targeted homeowners or failed to inform them
of their rights.
In concluding
the pittance of a settlement, a fraction of the billions taken in by the
banks from the sub-prime mortgage racket, the Obama administration is once
again letting the banks get away with massive crimes that have had
devastating social consequences, while giving them a green light to continue
similar practices.
In all the
scandals relating to the banks’ criminality in the run-up to and aftermath of
the 2008 financial crisis, the government has deliberately avoided bringing
cases to trial. This is not only to protect the banks’ activities from
further public scrutiny, but also to cover up regulators’ complicity in
facilitating the banks’ illegal activities.
*
OBAMA and HIS
CRIMINAL BANKSTERS – THE LOOTING OF A NATION CONTINUES!
Records show that four out of Obama's top five
contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs
($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup
($358,054).
Consider the Obama administration's choices for the four
most important positions in financial sector law enforcement. The attorney
general (Eric Holder) and the head of the Justice Department's criminal
division (Lanny Breuer) both come to us from Covington & Burling,
a law firm that represents and lobbies for most of the major banks and their
industry associations; indeed Breuer was co-head of its white collar criminal
defense practice, and represented the Moody's rating agency in the Enron
case. Mary Schapiro, the head of the SEC, spent the housing bubble in charge
of FINRA, the investment banking industry's "self-regulator," which
gave her a $9 million severance for a job
well done. And her head of enforcement, perhaps most stunningly of all, is
Robert Khuzami, who was general counsel for
Deutsche Bank's North American business during the entire bubble. So zero
prosecutions isn't much of a surprise, really.
Banking Is
a Criminal Industry Because Its Crimes Go Unpunished
07/16/2012
Consider
just this month's news in financial services.
First,
Barclay's has been manipulating the Libor, the main interest rate upon which
most other interest rates and financial transactions are based, since 2005.
Moreover, Barclay's traders were colluding with traders in many other banks
to assist them in manipulating the Libor too, so that they could all profit
from their bets on it.
Second,
JP Morgan Chase is having a really great month. Recent reports describe how
it is resisting Federal subpoenas related
to price-fixing in U.S. electricity markets. It is also accused (by former
employees among others) of deliberately inflating the performance of its
investment funds to obtain business. And finally, JP Morgan's failed "London
whale"
trade, which has now cost over $5 billion, is being investigated to determine
whether the loss was initially concealed from regulators and the public.
Third,
HSBC is paying a fine because it allowed
hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of dollars of money laundering by
rogue states and sanctioned firms, including some related to terrorist
activities and Iran's nuclear efforts. But HSBC is only one of at least 12
banks now known to have tolerated, and in some cases aggressively courted,
money laundering by rogue states, terrorist organizations, corrupt dictators,
and major drug cartels over the last decade. Others include Barclay's,
Lloyds, Credit Suisse, and Wachovia (now part of Wells Fargo). Several of the
banks created special handbooks on how to evade surveillance, created special
business units to handle money laundering, and actively suppressed
whistleblowers who warned of drug cartel activities.
Fourth,
a new private lawsuit cites documents indicating that Morgan
Stanley successfully pressured rating agencies into inflating the ratings of
mortgage-backed securities it issued during the housing bubble.
Fifth,
Visa and Mastercard have just agreed
to pay $7
billion to settle a private antitrust case filed by thousands of merchants,
who alleged that Visa and Mastercard colluded to fix fees and terms of
service.
Just
another month in financial services. Is it unusual? No, it's not. If we go
back just a little further, we have UBS, HSBC, Julius Baer, and other banks
actively marketing tax evasion services to wealthy U.S. and European
citizens. We have senior executives of several banks (including JP Morgan
Chase and UBS) strongly suspecting that Bernard Madoff was running a Ponzi
scheme, but deciding to make money from him rather than turn him in. And
then, of course, we have the financial crisis and everything that led to it.
As I show in great detail in my book Predator
Nation,
we now possess overwhelming evidence of massive securities fraud, accounting
fraud, perjury, and criminal Sarbanes-Oxley violations by mortgage lenders,
investment banks, and credit insurers (including senior executives of
Countrywide, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, AIG, and
Lehman Brothers) during the housing bubble that caused the financial crisis.
If we go back to the late 1990s, we have the massively fraudulent hyping of
Internet stocks, and several banks (including Merrill Lynch and Citigroup)
actively aiding Enron in committing its frauds.
So,
July 2012 really isn't abnormal at all. The reason for this is very simple.
Over the past two decades, the financial services industry has become a
pervasively unethical and highly criminal industry, with massive fraud
tolerated or even encouraged by senior management. But how did that happen?
Well,
deregulation helped, of course. But something else was far more important. It
is the one critical factor that unites all of the episodes cited above,
including those of this month. This critical unifying factor is the total
number of criminal prosecutions of major firms and senior executives as a
result of all of these crimes combined.
And
what is that number?
Zero.
Literally
zero. A number that neither President Obama nor Mitt Romney shows the
slightest interest in changing.
Consider the Obama administration's choices for the four
most important positions in financial sector law enforcement. The attorney
general (Eric Holder) and the head of the Justice Department's criminal
division (Lanny Breuer) both come to us from
Covington & Burling, a law firm that represents and lobbies for most of the
major banks and their industry associations; indeed Breuer was co-head of its
white collar criminal defense practice, and represented the Moody's rating
agency in the Enron case. Mary Schapiro, the head of the SEC, spent the
housing bubble in charge of FINRA, the investment banking industry's
"self-regulator," which gave her a $9
million severance for a job well done. And her head of enforcement, perhaps
most stunningly of all, is Robert Khuzami, who was
general counsel for Deutsche Bank's North American business during the
entire bubble. So zero prosecutions isn't much of a surprise, really.
In
contrast, what do you think would happen to you if, as a lone individual, you
were caught supporting Iran's nuclear program? Do you think that you would
get off with a "deferred prosecution agreement" and a fine equal to
a few percent of your annual salary? No?
But
that's because you don't live right. You probably haven't been to the White
House a dozen times since President Obama took office, or attended White
House state dinners, like Lloyd Blankfein has. Nor have you probably overseen
millions of dollars in lobbying and campaign donations, or hired senior
administration officials, or sent your executives into the government in
senior regulatory positions, or paid $135,000 for a speech by someone who
later became chairman of the National Economic Council. And, well, you get
the law enforcement that you pay for.
Charles
Ferguson is the author of Predator
Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of
America.
OBAMAnomics: FROM THE MAN THAT
HATED AMERICAN BUT LOVED AMERICAN BANKSTERS:
*
OBAMA BUILDS THE LA RAZA WELFARE STATE IN OUR
BORDERS AS HE CUTS PROGRAMS FOR AMERICANS (LEGALS) TO FINANCE THE CRIMES OF
HIS WALL STREET BANKSTERS.
Most
Illegal Immigrant Families Collect Welfare
April
05, 2011
Surprise, surprise; Census Bureau data reveals that most U.S.
families headed by illegal immigrants use taxpayer-funded welfare programs on
behalf of their American-born anchor babies. Even before the recession,
immigrant households with children used welfare programs at consistently
higher rates than natives, according to the extensive census data collected
and analyzed by a nonpartisan Washington D.C. group dedicated to researching
legal and illegal immigration in the U.S. The results, published this month
in a lengthy report,
are hardly surprising. Basically, the majority of households across the
country benefitting from publicly-funded welfare programs are headed by
immigrants, both legal and illegal.
*
WSWS.ORG
The
US is the most unequal of all industrialized countries. Yet for three
decades, as the wealth of the financial aristocracy has soared and the living
conditions of masses of working people have deteriorated, every struggle of
the working class has been isolated and defeated. In this, the official trade
unions have played the central role.
No open door: White House denies selling access to
President Obama to wealthy supporters - Washington TimesObama campaign raises record sums from the wealthy By Patrick Martin 15 July 2011 Proving that President Obama is the first choice of Wall Street and the American super-rich, his reelection campaign announced Wednesday that it had broken all previous records for fundraising, raking in $86 million during the second quarter of this year.
WHO IN THE OBAMA ADMIN IS NOT CONNECTED TO HIS CRIMINAL
BANKSTER DONORS, OR A LA RAZA SUPREMACIST PARTY MEMBER?
OBAMA HAS TWO AGENDAS.
SERVICING BANKSTER DONORS, AND PUSHING OUR BORDERS OPEN FOR MORE ILLEGALS. HE
KNOW WE WON’T BE PUNKED BY HIS PERFORMANCES THE SECOND TIME AROUND!
*
“Records show that four
out of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry
giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase
($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).”
*
BOOK
Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is
Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists,
and Union Bosses
BY
TIMOTHY P CARNEY
Editorial
Reviews
Obama
Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the
same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the
temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that
crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics,
investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream
media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope
and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while
claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and
regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.
Congressman Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and
free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.” And Johan
Goldberg, columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics is
conservative muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the
Obama years.”
If you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the
federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and
healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes
it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this:
every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those
somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make
your blood boil.
“I’m not here to punish banks!”
Barack Obama in the faces of the American People his bankster donors looted –
State of the Union Message
BANKSTER PROFITS and CRIMES HAVE SOARED UNDER OBAMA. SO
HAS FORECLOSURES, AND THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS OPERATE IN 2,500 AMERICAN
CITIES. OBAMA’S BANKSTERS LAUNDER THEIR MONEY WITH IMPUNITY.
THERE IS A REASON WHY THE MEXICAN
DRUG CARTELS OPERATE IN MORE THAN 2,500 AMERICAN CITIES, INCLUDING OBAMA’S
CHICAGO!
THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS IN OBAMA’S
HOMETOWN OF CHICAGO:
This
exchange occurred during a discussion of the Justice Department’s settlement
last month with British-based HSBC, the world’s third-largest bank. HSBC had
been charged with laundering billions of dollars for Mexican and Colombian
drug cartels. In exchange for avoiding charges, HSBC agreed to pay $1.9
billion, or roughly two months’ profits.
NO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN HISTORY HAS TAKEN MORE MONEY FROM
THE BANKSTERS THAN BARACK OBAMA, WHO THEN ULTIMATELY FILLED HIS
ADMINISTRATION WITH BANKSTERS or LA RAZA SUPREMACIST.
“Records show that four out
of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants -
Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and
Citigroup ($358,054).”
Too big to jail
12 March 2013
In
testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, US Attorney
General Eric Holder made an extraordinary admission.
Responding
to questioning from Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who noted that there
had been no major prosecutions of financial institutions or executives by the
Obama administration, Holder said: “I am concerned that the size of some of
these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to
prosecute them, when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute—if
we do bring a criminal charge—it will have a negative impact on the national
economy, perhaps even the world economy…”
In
other words, major banks are so economically important that, according to
Holder, it is impossible to prosecute them for criminal activity. They are
above the law.
This exchange
occurred during a discussion of the Justice Department’s settlement last
month with British-based HSBC, the world’s third-largest bank. HSBC had been
charged with laundering billions of dollars for Mexican and Colombian drug
cartels. In exchange for avoiding charges, HSBC agreed to pay $1.9 billion,
or roughly two months’ profits. Top US officials explicitly vetoed any criminal charges,
even on lesser counts than money laundering.
HSBC
is only the latest bank to have received a free pass. Earlier this year, ten financial
firms agreed to pay $3.3 billion in cash to settle charges of mortgage fraud:
amid the housing market collapse, they had employees fraudulently sign off on
thousands of mortgage foreclosures a month.
Last
year, the government ended an investigation into Goldman Sachs without
charges over its promotion of mortgage-backed securities at the height of the
speculative bubble—even as Goldman Sachs bet against the assets itself.
In 2010, the
Obama administration reached a settlement with Wachovia Bank on similar
charges as those brought against HSBC: laundering billions of dollars of drug
money, in this case for the Sinaloa Cartel. The fine was $160 million, less
than 2 percent of the previous year’s profits.
Many
similar arrangements could be cited. In each case, a check is signed—if there
is any punishment at all—and business goes on as usual. Whatever money the financial institutions
lose is more than balanced by their take of the $85 billion funneled into the
markets every month by the US Federal Reserve.
In
justifying the administration’s refusal to prosecute, Holder cites the banks’
immense power over economic life. That these institutions exercise
dictatorial control over the economy and engage in unchecked criminal
behavior is not an argument for refusing to prosecute them, however. Rather, it is an argument for
expropriating them, taking them out of the hands of the criminals that run
them, and placing them under the democratic control of the working class.
In its dealings with these institutions, however, the
government acts as a direct representative of the financial aristocracy.
First Bush and then Obama justified the bank bailouts after the 2008 crash by
citing the need to “save the economy.” Since then, millions of jobs have
disappeared. To pay for such bank bailouts, governments around the world are
implementing brutal austerity measures, wiping out public education, health
care, retirement and other social programs.
A stench
of corruption hangs over the whole process. There is hardly a single Obama
administration official in a position important to the banks that does not
have previous ties to Wall Street. These include:
Jacob
Lew was
confirmed this month by the Senate as Obama’s new treasury secretary. Lew,
Obama’s former chief of staff, is also the former chief operating officer of
Citigroup’s Alternative Investment Unit, which bet against the housing market
as it collapsed.
Mary
Jo White
is Obama’s pick to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. White, who
will likely be confirmed easily after hearings scheduled for today, is a
former attorney at the corporate law firm Debevoise & Pimpleton, where
she defended Wall Street banks and executives, often against investigations
by the SEC itself.
Then
there is the extraordinary case of David S. Cohen and Stuart Levey.
As members of corporate law firm Miller Cassidy in the 1990s, they defended
banks and other corporations from white-collar criminal charges, including
money laundering. They passed in and out of the Treasury Department and
private practice.
In
2004, Levey joined the Bush administration as undersecretary for terrorism
and financial intelligence, responsible for overseeing narcotics trafficking
and money laundering. He left in March 2011 to become HSBC’s chief legal
officer. His deputy at the treasury department, and his successor, was none
other than David S. Cohen. The two ex-colleagues would have both been heavily
involved in forging the recent deal to settle HSBC’s money-laundering charges.
No
banks or executives are prosecuted, because the individuals who would do the
prosecuting and the individuals who would be prosecuted are, more or less,
the same people.
Holder
made his statements on the banks at the same hearing in which he laid out the
Obama administration’s position that it has the authority to assassinate
citizens within the United States without judicial review.
The
coming together of these two statements is not simply coincidental. There is
a class logic at work. With the active assistance of the state, the financial
aristocracy is engaged in a looting operation, and criminality has become an
integral part of the mode of wealth accumulation.
Anticipating
social opposition, this same aristocracy is engaged in a conspiracy against democratic
rights. While the banks and executives cannot be touched, anyone opposing
these policies will face repressive police-state methods.
The
political and economic system is rotten to the core. The only rational and
appropriate response to such a state of affairs is to overturn this system,
capitalism, and institute a new form of social organization based on the
principle of social need—that is, socialism.
The
active involvement of the state and all its institutions and parties in the
criminal operation makes clear that the interests of the working class cannot
be advanced except through a mass social and political movement, which aims
to replace the government of the banks with a government of, by and for the
working class.
Joseph
Kishore
*
OBAMA’S WALL
STREET and the LOOTING of AMERICA – SECOND TERM
The corporate cash hoard has likewise
reached a new record, hitting an estimated $1.79 trillion in the fourth
quarter of last year, up from $1.77 trillion in the previous quarter. Instead
of investing the money, however, companies are using it to buy back their own
stock and pay out record dividends.
Megan
McArdle Discusses How America's Elites Are Rigging the Rules - Newsweek/The
Daily Beast special correspondent Megan McArdle joins Scott Rasmussen for a
discussion on America's new Mandarin class.
*
DID OBAMA PUNK AMERICANS AS BADLY AS IT LOOKS
NOW?
"There is a populist and conservative revolt against
Wall Street and financial elites, Congress and government," Democratic
pollster Stanley Greenberg warned in an analysis this week. "Democrats
and President Obama are seen as more interested in bailing out Wall Street
than helping Main Street."
OBAMA, THE BANKSTER OWNED LA RAZA
DEM
“The response of the
administration was to rush to the defense of the banks. Even before coming to
power, Obama expressed his unconditional support for the bailouts, which he
subsequently expanded. He assembled an administration dominated by the
interests of finance capital, symbolized by economic adviser Lawrence Summers
and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.”
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