Tuesday, September 17, 2013

SOARING POVERTY SWEEPS AMERICA Census finds 46.5 million living in poverty - AND THE RICHER GET RICHER UNDER OBAMAnomics! The Hill's On The Money

Census finds 46.5 million living in poverty - The Hill's On The Money

STAGGERING POVERTY IN AMERICA CAUSED BY OBAMA, HIS CRONIES AND WALL STREET DONORS…AND THEN ILLEGALS GET THE JOBS!

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/obamanomics-and-obamas-crony-capitalism.html

According to a new report by University of California Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez, the gulf between the wealthy and the rest of society has sharply expanded under Obama. The richest one percent now monopolize more than 22 percent of all household income in America. The richest ten percent of the population now control more than half of the nation’s income, 50.4 percent—the highest proportion since the government began collecting income statistics in 1917.

Since 2009, the richest one percent has captured a staggering 95 percent of all income gains. The class war policies of the government—including bank bailouts, “quantitative easing” and an attack on wage and benefits for the working class—have led to a 31.4 percent rise in income for the top one percent. The wealthy have more than recovered the losses that came from the Wall Street collapse of 2008.

Meanwhile, the bottom 99 percent has seen a negligible 0.4 percent rise in income. Tens of millions of workers—who never recovered from the record household income drop of 2007 to 2009—continue to reel from the effects of mass job losses, falling wages, home foreclosures, indebtedness and social service cuts.

THE WRECKING OF AMERICA: BARACK OBAMA and his LOOTING WALL STREET DONORS PILLAGE A NATION BUSH STYLE!

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-wrecking


On fifth anniversary of Wall Street crash, Obama tries the Big Lie technique

17 September 2013
 

On Monday, US President Barack Obama marked the fifth anniversary of the Wall Street crash of September 15, 2008 with a White House speech that only underscored the unbridgeable chasm that separates the entire political establishment from the broad mass of working people.

 
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/crony-capitalism-obama-celebrates-5.html
 

Forbes magazine reported that the wealth of the 400 richest Americans had climbed to $2 trillion, a jump from $1.7 trillion in 2012.

AS OBAMA'S WALL STREET DONORS LOOT AMERICA - POVETY SOARS FOR LEGALS - ILLEGALS STILL GET OUR JOBS! 23,116,928 to 20,618,000: Record Households on Food Stamps Outnumber All Households in Northeast U.S. | CNS News

23,116,928 to 20,618,000: Record Households on Food Stamps Outnumber All Households in Northeast U.S. | CNS News

STAGGERING POVERTY IN AMERICA CAUSED BY OBAMA, HIS CRONIES AND WALL STREET DONORS…AND THEN ILLEGALS GET THE JOBS!

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/obamanomics-and-obamas-crony-capitalism.html

According to a new report by University of California Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez, the gulf between the wealthy and the rest of society has sharply expanded under Obama. The richest one percent now monopolize more than 22 percent of all household income in America. The richest ten percent of the population now control more than half of the nation’s income, 50.4 percent—the highest proportion since the government began collecting income statistics in 1917.
 
POVERTY IN THE BURBS…you are next and an illegal is next in your job!
OBAMAnomics at work: SOARING RICHES FOR THE 1%, SOARING UNEMPLOYMENT FOR AMERICANS (LEGALS), SOARING PROFITS and CRIMES FOR OBAMA’S BANKSTER DONORS and SOARING TAXES TO PAY FOR MEXICO’S WELFARE STATE IN OUR BORDERS!
Much of the rise in suburban poverty is due to the impoverishment of working families already living there. The decline in manufacturing, the Great Recession, and widespread foreclosures have left many longtime suburban families reeling
Much of the rise in suburban poverty is due to the impoverishment of working families already living there. The decline in manufacturing, the Great Recession, and widespread foreclosures have left many longtime suburban families reeling.
 
 
SOARING POVERTY in PENNSYLVANIA ... OBAMAnomics at work
One in four Pennsylvania workers earn poverty wages
OBAMAnomics:
"The politicians don’t care about the working and young people. We have billions in student loan debts, but they don’t help us, but they give billions to the wealthy."
By Douglas Lyons
2 September 2013
One in four Pennsylvanian workers, and two out of three workers under 24, are paid poverty wages according to a recent report released by the Keystone Research Center.

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/obamanomics-at-work-soaring-poverty-in.html
IN MEX-OCCUPIED CA, 25% OF THE POPULATION LIVE BELOW THE POVERTY LEVEL AND MORE THAN HALF OF ALL JOBS GO TO ILLEGALS USING STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS. YOUR STATE…???
 
POVERTY IN THE BURBS…you are next and an illegal is next in your job!
 
OBAMAnomics at work: SOARING RICHES FOR THE 1%, SOARING UNEMPLOYMENT FOR AMERICANS (LEGALS), SOARING PROFITS and CRIMES FOR OBAMA’S BANKSTER DONORS and SOARING TAXES TO PAY FOR MEXICO’S WELFARE STATE IN OUR BORDERS!
Much of the rise in suburban poverty is due to the impoverishment of working families already living there. The decline in manufacturing, the Great Recession, and widespread foreclosures have left many longtime suburban families reeling
Much of the rise in suburban poverty is due to the impoverishment of working families already living there. The decline in manufacturing, the Great Recession, and widespread foreclosures have left many longtime suburban families reeling.
FORECLOSED ON AMERICA: OBAMA, DIANNE FEINSTEIN AND THEIR CRIMINAL BANKSTERS AT WORK!
 
DURING THE BANKSTER-OWNED PRESIDENT’S FIRST TERM ALONE, BANKSTER PROFITS SOARED AS DID BANK CRIMES and FORECLOSURES.
 “That McLaughlin’s plan can be presented as “left” only underscores the fact that the Obama administration has done absolutely nothing to assist homebuyers. Its mortgage programs have been based on the banks voluntarily agreeing to restructure loans for small sections of the population, with no reduction in principal. The administration has worked closely with the banks to minimize their liability for their fraudulent and criminal practices that have already led millions to lose their homes.”
 THE WRECKING OF AMERICA: BARACK OBAMA and his LOOTING WALL STREET DONORS PILLAGE A NATION BUSH STYLE!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-wrecking-of-america-barack-obama.html
THE WRECKING OF AMERICA: BARACK OBAMA and his LOOTING WALL STREET DONORS PILLAGE A NATION BUSH STYLE!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-wrecking-of-america-barack-obama.html
WARS FOR MUSLIMS, OPEN BORDERS WITH NARCOMEX AND UNLEASHED RAPE BY WALL STREET DONORS!

On fifth anniversary of Wall Street crash, Obama tries the Big Lie technique

17 September 2013
On Monday, US President Barack Obama marked the fifth anniversary of the Wall Street crash of September 15, 2008 with a White House speech that only underscored the unbridgeable chasm that separates the entire political establishment from the broad mass of working people.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/crony-capitalism-obama-celebrates-5.html
Forbes magazine reported that the wealth of the 400 richest Americans had climbed to $2 trillion, a jump from $1.7 trillion in 2012.
the figures are in on Obama’s looting of America for Wall Street!

STAGGERING POVERTY IN AMERICA CAUSED BY OBAMA, HIS CRONIES AND WALL STREET DONORS…AND THEN ILLEGALS GET THE JOBS!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/obamanomics-and-obamas-crony-capitalism.html
 
According to a new report by University of California Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez, the gulf between the wealthy and the rest of society has sharply expanded under Obama. The richest one percent now monopolize more than 22 percent of all household income in America. The richest ten percent of the population now control more than half of the nation’s income, 50.4 percent—the highest proportion since the government began collecting income statistics in 1917.
Since 2009, the richest one percent has captured a staggering 95 percent of all income gains. The class war policies of the government—including bank bailouts, “quantitative easing” and an attack on wage and benefits for the working class—have led to a 31.4 percent rise in income for the top one percent. The wealthy have more than recovered the losses that came from the Wall Street collapse of 2008.
Meanwhile, the bottom 99 percent has seen a negligible 0.4 percent rise in income. Tens of millions of workers—who never recovered from the record household income drop of 2007 to 2009—continue to reel from the effects of mass job losses, falling wages, home foreclosures, indebtedness and social service cuts.
 
 
*
JOBS – ALL BELOW:
 
STAGNANT WAGES
 
OBAMA SERVES THE 1%, HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS and THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA… ILLEGAL VOTERS!
 
FOR AMERICANS IT’S ONLY MORE LOOTING BY THE CON HE CALLED “CHANGE”.
 
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/obamanomics-serving-1-criminal-bankster.html
 
 
 
WARS FOR MUSLIMS, OPEN BORDERS WITH NARCOMEX AND UNLEASHED RAPE BY WALL STREET DONORS!
 
*

On fifth anniversary of Wall Street crash, Obama tries the Big Lie technique

17 September 2013
 
On Monday, US President Barack Obama marked the fifth anniversary of the Wall Street crash of September 15, 2008 with a White House speech that only underscored the unbridgeable chasm that separates the entire political establishment from the broad mass of working people.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/crony-capitalism-obama-celebrates-5.html
Forbes magazine reported that the wealth of the 400 richest Americans had climbed to $2 trillion, a jump from $1.7 trillion in 2012.
 
 
 

The Obama Looting of America - Wall Street's WAR on the AMERICAN PEOPLE


On fifth anniversary of Wall Street crash, Obama tries the Big Lie technique


17 September 2013

 

On Monday, US President Barack Obama marked the fifth anniversary of the Wall Street crash of September 15, 2008 with a White House speech that only underscored the unbridgeable chasm that separates the entire political establishment from the broad mass of working people.

 

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/crony-capitalism-obama-celebrates-5.html

 

Forbes magazine reported that the wealth of the 400 richest Americans had climbed to $2 trillion, a jump from $1.7 trillion in 2012.

CRONY CAPITALISM: Obama celebrates 5 YEARS of Wall Street's looting of America

On fifth anniversary of Wall Street crash, Obama tries the Big Lie technique

17 September 2013
On Monday, US President Barack Obama marked the fifth anniversary of the Wall Street crash of September 15, 2008 with a White House speech that only underscored the unbridgeable chasm that separates the entire political establishment from the broad mass of working people.
Even as he spoke, the stock market was soaring to new highs on the news that Obama’s expected choice to succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Lawrence Summers, had removed himself from consideration because of opposition from Wall Street.

Forbes magazine reported that the wealth of the 400 richest Americans had climbed to $2 trillion, a jump from $1.7 trillion in 2012.

With corporate profits at record highs, CEO pay once again hitting the tens and hundreds of millions, and the concentration of wealth the greatest since 1928, Obama boasted of the great success of his economic policies in restoring “security and opportunity for the middle class.”

With breathtaking cynicism—and contempt for the intelligence of the American people—Obama presented himself as single-mindedly focused on “my number one priority since the day I took office”: fighting for the so-called “middle class.” (There is, according to the mythology of the American ruling class, no working class in the United States, even though America is the most economically unequal of all industrialized countries).

Employing the technique of the Big Lie, Obama described his response to the financial crisis as follows: “We put people back to work repairing roads and bridges, to keep teachers in our classrooms, our first responders on the streets. We helped responsible homeowners modify their mortgages so that more of them could keep their homes. We helped jumpstart the flow of credit to help more small businesses keep their doors open. We saved the American auto industry… we took on a broken health care system … We put in place tough new rules on big banks … And what all this means is we’ve cleared away the rubble from the financial crisis and we’ve begun to lay a new foundation for economic growth and prosperity.”

No. The Obama administration categorically rejected any program of public works to hire the unemployed and refused to aid bankrupt state and local governments, resulting in the layoff of hundreds of thousands of teachers, firefighters and other public employees. As a result, mass unemployment is a permanent fixture, and the labor force participation rate is the lowest in 35 years. Moreover, the vast majority of new jobs created under Obama—still 2 million below the total before the crisis—are low-wage and part-time.

The administration refused to halt home foreclosures or force banks to reduce loan principals, allowing the banks to throw millions of families out onto the street.
While continuing and vastly expanding the bank bailout begun under Bush, Obama refused to impose any conditions on the money stolen from taxpayers, allowing the bankers to use government funds to speculate rather than provide loans to small businesses. The result was a wave of small business failures that continues to the present.

Obama forced General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy in order to impose plant closures, tens of thousands of layoffs, cuts in workers’ benefits, and a 50 percent pay cut for new-hires. The wage-cutting in the auto industry was the signal for an assault on wages and benefits in every sector of the economy, public as well as private.

Obama passed a health care overhaul devoted to cutting costs for corporations and the government by rationing health services, drugs, medical tests and procedures on a class basis. Millions of workers will see their coverage slashed while the health care giants and insurance companies enjoy windfall profits.

The Dodd-Frank financial “reform” bill passed in 2010 is a joke. A compendium of half measures meant to provide a fig leaf of reform while leaving the existing financial system intact, it largely remains a dead letter. Provisions such as the “Volcker Rule,” which would restrict—but not end—the legal ability of banks to speculate on their own accounts with depositors’ money, have not been enacted because of opposition from Wall Street.

Not a single leading bank executive has been criminally prosecuted, let alone jailed, for rampant fraud and criminality both before and after the 2008 crash. Over the past five years, bank scandals have proliferated—Libor-rigging, foreclosure fraud, concealing speculative losses, drug money laundering—with no serious consequences for the criminals. Not only have the biggest banks not been broken up, they have been allowed to grow even bigger and strengthen their grip on all aspects of economic and political life.

As for the “new foundation for growth and prosperity,” the offloading of the bad debts of the banks to the government and the massive money printing by the Federal Reserve to subsidize Wall Street have created the conditions for a financial crash of even greater proportions than the debacle of 2008.
The bankrupting of governments has, meanwhile, been used, in the US and around the world, to justify the launching of an historic assault on social programs and the jobs and living standards of the working class. Obama has spearheaded a social counterrevolution, utilizing the economic crisis to turn the wheel of history back to levels of exploitation and poverty last seen 100 years ago.

The centerpiece of this assault in the US is the bankruptcy of Detroit, backed by the White House, which is being used to destroy the pensions and health benefits of city workers, privatize and slash city services, and sell off public assets, from the water department to the Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit will set a precedent for cities across the country and internationally.

In his speech, Obama made passing reference to the further growth of social inequality during his tenure, noting that “the top one percent of Americans took home twenty percent of the nation’s income last year, while the average worker isn’t seeing a raise at all.” Typically, however, he spoke as though he was an innocent bystander and the further enrichment of the financial aristocracy had nothing to do with himself or his own policies.

In reality, the single-minded focus of Obama’s domestic agenda from day one has been to enable the ruling class to recover its losses from the crash and exploit the crisis to amass even greater wealth. Even as he sought in his speech to blame congressional Republicans for obstructing his supposed campaign in behalf of the middle class, Obama signaled that he intended to intensify his attack on social programs for workers and grant new windfalls to big business.

Boasting that deficits were falling at the fastest rate since the end of World War II, he said, “there’s not a government agency or program out there that still can’t be streamlined … So I do believe we should cut out programs that we don’t need.”

He reiterated his support for “reforms” to Medicare and Social Security, including raising the retirement age for Medicare, introducing a form of means testing, and cutting cost-of-living raises for Social Security beneficiaries. At the same time, he repeated his support for a massive cut in corporate taxes.

Obama’s speech will not fool the vast majority of workers, whose anger is increasingly focusing on the White House and the former candidate of “hope” and “change.” This opposition must be mobilized on the basis of a clear, independent, socialist political program, which starts from the need to build a political movement in opposition to the entire political establishment and the capitalist system it defends.

Barry Grey

DURING THE BANKSTER-OWNED PRESIDENT’S FIRST TERM ALONE, BANKSTER PROFITS SOARED AS DID BANK CRIMES and FORECLOSURES.


 “That McLaughlin’s plan can be presented as “left” only underscores the fact that the Obama administration has done absolutely nothing to assist homebuyers. Its mortgage programs have been based on the banks voluntarily agreeing to restructure loans for small sections of the population, with no reduction in principal. The administration has worked closely with the banks to minimize their liability for their fraudulent and criminal practices that have already led millions to lose their homes.”

 
THE WRECKING OF AMERICA: BARACK OBAMA and his LOOTING WALL STREET DONORS PILLAGE A NATION BUSH STYLE!

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-wrecking-of-america-barack-obama.html

 
WARS FOR MUSLIMS, OPEN BORDERS WITH NARCOMEX AND UNLEASHED RAPE BY WALL STREET DONORS!

the figures are in on Obama’s looting of America for Wall Street!

STAGGERING POVERTY IN AMERICA CAUSED BY OBAMA, HIS CRONIES AND WALL STREET DONORS…AND THEN ILLEGALS GET THE JOBS!


http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/obamanomics-and-obamas-crony-capitalism.html

According to a new report by University of California Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez, the gulf between the wealthy and the rest of society has sharply expanded under Obama. The richest one percent now monopolize more than 22 percent of all household income in America. The richest ten percent of the population now control more than half of the nation’s income, 50.4 percent—the highest proportion since the government began collecting income statistics in 1917.

Since 2009, the richest one percent has captured a staggering 95 percent of all income gains. The class war policies of the government—including bank bailouts, “quantitative easing” and an attack on wage and benefits for the working class—have led to a 31.4 percent rise in income for the top one percent. The wealthy have more than recovered the losses that came from the Wall Street collapse of 2008.

Meanwhile, the bottom 99 percent has seen a negligible 0.4 percent rise in income. Tens of millions of workers—who never recovered from the record household income drop of 2007 to 2009—continue to reel from the effects of mass job losses, falling wages, home foreclosures, indebtedness and social service cuts.

AT AT TIME OF UNEMPLOYMENT (for legals) CRISIS, LA RAZA MEXICAN CRIME TIDAL WAVE, MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS POURING OVER OUR BORDERS.....Dems tire of waiting on immigration reform - The Hill - covering Congress, Politics, Political Campaigns and Capitol Hill | TheHill.com

Dems tire of waiting on immigration reform - The Hill - covering Congress, Politics, Political Campaigns and Capitol Hill | TheHill.com


What will America stand for in 2050?

The US should think long and hard about the high number of Latino immigrants.

The principal beneficiaries of our current immigration policy are affluent Americans who hire immigrants at substandard wages for low-end work. Harvard economist George Borjas estimates that American workers lose $190 billion annually in depressed wages caused by the constant flooding of the labor market at the low-wage end.

 “What's needed to discourage illegal immigration into the United States has been known for years: Enforce existing law.” ...CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
… BUT OBAMA HAS PROMISED LA RAZA BLANKET AMNESTY or CONTINUED NON-ENFORCEMENT!
Heather Mac Donald: White House doesn't want to enforce immigration
MEX WITH 37 CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS FINALLY DEPORTED… wonder if he’s back looting already???
more at this link – post on your Facebook and email broadcast
In FY 2012, ICE says it removed 409,849 illegal aliens. Fifty-five percent of them (or 225,390) were convicted criminal aliens, the largest number of criminal aliens removed in agency history, ICE said.
MICHELLE MALKIN: another brutal murder by another illegal criminal long on the loose in our open borders!
AMNESTY….LA RAZA IS PRINTING OUT FRAUD I.D.s BY THE MILLIONS.
"They hauled them down to the border," Sakuma said. "Three days later, they were standing in our office, but they had a different name and a different Social Security number."

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN'S LOOTING OFF ELECTED OFFICE - SHE SMELLS MONEY EVERYWHERE SHE GOES! EXCLUSIVE: Senator's husband's firm cashes in on crisis - Washington Times

EXCLUSIVE: Senator's husband's firm cashes in on crisis - Washington Times


FEINSTEIN IS A MAJOR DONOR TO BARACK OBAMA and SEN. BARBARA "BRIBES" BOXER. IN FACT FEINSTEIN AND HER PIMP HUSBAND, RICHARD C. BLUM HAVE DOLED OUT BRIBES TO VIRTUALLY ALL DEMOCRATS IN THE SENATE SO THEY KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT ABOUT THE STAGGERING CORRUPTION AND CONFLICTS OF INTERESTS FEINSTEIN PERPETRATES ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE YEARLY!


 

The social and historical catastrophe confronting mankind is not simply the product of an economic crisis in the abstract. This crisis is mediated by class interests, and these class interests find expression in definite actions. Behind the central banks and governments stand the interests of a financial elite whose relationship to the rest of society is fundamentally parasitic.

THE BARACK OBAMA, SENS. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, BARBARA "BRIBES" BOXER and RICHARD C. BLUM PACT TO LOOT AMERICA


FEINSTEIN IS A MAJOR DONOR TO BARACK OBAMA and SEN. BARBARA "BRIBES" BOXER. IN FACT, FEINSTEIN AND HER PIMP HUSBAND, RICHARD C. BLUM HAVE DOLED OUT BRIBES TO VIRTUALLY ALL DEMOCRATS IN THE SENATE SO THEY KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT ABOUT THE STAGGERING CORRUPTION AND CONFLICTS OF INTERESTS FEINSTEIN PERPETRATES ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE YEARLY!
 The social and historical catastrophe confronting mankind is not simply the product of an economic crisis in the abstract. This crisis is mediated by class interests, and these class interests find expression in definite actions. Behind the central banks and governments stand the interests of a financial elite whose relationship to the rest of society is fundamentally parasitic.

BARACK OBAMA, LA RAZA FASCISM and the CULTURE of DEM CORRUPTION

They Destroyed Our Country ... OBAMA AND HIS HAREMS OF CORRUPTION

“They knew Obama was an unqualified crook; yet they promoted him. They knew Obama was a train wreck waiting to happen; yet they made him president, to the great injury of America and the world. They understood he was only a figurehead, an egomaniac, and a liar; yet they made him king, doing great harm to our republic (perhaps irreparable.)”

more at this link – post on your Facebook and email broadcast


EXCLUSIVE: Senator’s husband’s firm cashes in on crisis ON FORECLOSURE CRISIS CAUSED BY FEINSTEIN'S BANKSTER DONORS WELLS FARGO and BANK of AMERICA


The Washington Times

On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband's real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms.

Mrs. Feinstein's intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn't a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments - not direct federal dollars.

Documents reviewed by The Washington Times show Mrs. Feinstein first offered Oct. 30 to help the FDIC secure money for its effort to stem the rise of home foreclosures. Her letter was sent just days before the agency determined that CB Richard Ellis Group (CBRE) - the commercial real estate firm that her husband Richard Blum heads as board chairman - had won the competitive bidding for a contract to sell foreclosed properties that FDIC had inherited from failed banks.

 
DURING THE BANKSTER-OWNED
PRESIDENT’S FIRST TERM ALONE,
BANKSTER PROFITS SOARED AS DID
BANK CRIMES and FORECLOSURES.


 “That McLaughlin’s plan can be presented as “left” only underscores the fact that the Obama administration has done absolutely nothing to assist homebuyers. Its mortgage programs have been based on the banks voluntarily agreeing to restructure loans for small sections of the population, with no reduction in principal. The administration has worked closely with the banks to minimize their liability for their fraudulent and criminal practices that have already led millions to lose their homes.”


THE WRECKING OF AMERICA: BARACK OBAMA and his LOOTING WALL STREET DONORS PILLAGE A NATION BUSH STYLE!

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-wrecking-of-america-barack-obama.html

 

WARS FOR MUSLIMS, OPEN BORDERS WITH NARCOMEX AND UNLEASHED RAPE BY WALL STREET DONORS!


the figures are in on Obama’s looting of America for Wall Street!


STAGGERING POVERTY IN AMERICA CAUSED BY OBAMA, HIS CRONIES AND WALL STREET DONORS…AND THEN ILLEGALS GET THE JOBS!

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/obamanomics-and-obamas-crony-capitalism.html

According to a new report by University of California Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez, the gulf between the wealthy and the rest of society has sharply expanded under Obama. The richest one percent now monopolize more than 22 percent of all household income in America. The richest ten percent of the population now control more than half of the nation’s income, 50.4 percent—the highest proportion since the government began collecting income statistics in 1917.

Since 2009, the richest one percent has captured a staggering 95 percent of all income gains. The class war policies of the government—including bank bailouts, “quantitative easing” and an attack on wage and benefits for the working class—have led to a 31.4 percent rise in income for the top one percent. The wealthy have more than recovered the losses that came from the Wall Street collapse of 2008.

Meanwhile, the bottom 99 percent has seen a negligible 0.4 percent rise in income. Tens of millions of workers—who never recovered from the record household income drop of 2007 to 2009—continue to reel from the effects of mass job losses, falling wages, home foreclosures, indebtedness and social service cuts.

Banking Is a Criminal Industry Because Its Crimes Go Unpunished

Posted: 07/16/2012 8:23 am

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


On fifth anniversary of Wall Street crash, Obama tries the Big Lie technique
17 September 2013
On Monday, US President Barack Obama marked the fifth anniversary of the Wall Street crash of September 15, 2008 with a White House speech that only underscored the unbridgeable chasm that separates the entire political establishment from the broad mass of working people.
Even as he spoke, the stock market was soaring to new highs on the news that Obama’s expected choice to succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Lawrence Summers, had removed himself from consideration because of opposition from Wall Street.

Forbes magazine reported that the wealth of the 400 richest Americans had climbed to $2 trillion, a jump from $1.7 trillion in 2012.

With corporate profits at record highs, CEO pay once again hitting the tens and hundreds of millions, and the concentration of wealth the greatest since 1928, Obama boasted of the great success of his economic policies in restoring “security and opportunity for the middle class.”

With breathtaking cynicism—and contempt for the intelligence of the American people—Obama presented himself as single-mindedly focused on “my number one priority since the day I took office”: fighting for the so-called “middle class.” (There is, according to the mythology of the American ruling class, no working class in the United States, even though America is the most economically unequal of all industrialized countries).

Employing the technique of the Big Lie, Obama described his response to the financial crisis as follows: “We put people back to work repairing roads and bridges, to keep teachers in our classrooms, our first responders on the streets. We helped responsible homeowners modify their mortgages so that more of them could keep their homes. We helped jumpstart the flow of credit to help more small businesses keep their doors open. We saved the American auto industry… we took on a broken health care system … We put in place tough new rules on big banks … And what all this means is we’ve cleared away the rubble from the financial crisis and we’ve begun to lay a new foundation for economic growth and prosperity.”

No. The Obama administration categorically rejected any program of public works to hire the unemployed and refused to aid bankrupt state and local governments, resulting in the layoff of hundreds of thousands of teachers, firefighters and other public employees. As a result, mass unemployment is a permanent fixture, and the labor force participation rate is the lowest in 35 years. Moreover, the vast majority of new jobs created under Obama—still 2 million below the total before the crisis—are low-wage and part-time.

The administration refused to halt home foreclosures or force banks to reduce loan principals, allowing the banks to throw millions of families out onto the street.
While continuing and vastly expanding the bank bailout begun under Bush, Obama refused to impose any conditions on the money stolen from taxpayers, allowing the bankers to use government funds to speculate rather than provide loans to small businesses. The result was a wave of small business failures that continues to the present.

Obama forced General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy in order to impose plant closures, tens of thousands of layoffs, cuts in workers’ benefits, and a 50 percent pay cut for new-hires. The wage-cutting in the auto industry was the signal for an assault on wages and benefits in every sector of the economy, public as well as private.

Obama passed a health care overhaul devoted to cutting costs for corporations and the government by rationing health services, drugs, medical tests and procedures on a class basis. Millions of workers will see their coverage slashed while the health care giants and insurance companies enjoy windfall profits.

The Dodd-Frank financial “reform” bill passed in 2010 is a joke. A compendium of half measures meant to provide a fig leaf of reform while leaving the existing financial system intact, it largely remains a dead letter. Provisions such as the “Volcker Rule,” which would restrict—but not end—the legal ability of banks to speculate on their own accounts with depositors’ money, have not been enacted because of opposition from Wall Street.

Not a single leading bank executive has been criminally prosecuted, let alone jailed, for rampant fraud and criminality both before and after the 2008 crash. Over the past five years, bank scandals have proliferated—Libor-rigging, foreclosure fraud, concealing speculative losses, drug money laundering—with no serious consequences for the criminals. Not only have the biggest banks not been broken up, they have been allowed to grow even bigger and strengthen their grip on all aspects of economic and political life.

As for the “new foundation for growth and prosperity,” the offloading of the bad debts of the banks to the government and the massive money printing by the Federal Reserve to subsidize Wall Street have created the conditions for a financial crash of even greater proportions than the debacle of 2008.
The bankrupting of governments has, meanwhile, been used, in the US and around the world, to justify the launching of an historic assault on social programs and the jobs and living standards of the working class. Obama has spearheaded a social counterrevolution, utilizing the economic crisis to turn the wheel of history back to levels of exploitation and poverty last seen 100 years ago.

The centerpiece of this assault in the US is the bankruptcy of Detroit, backed by the White House, which is being used to destroy the pensions and health benefits of city workers, privatize and slash city services, and sell off public assets, from the water department to the Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit will set a precedent for cities across the country and internationally.

In his speech, Obama made passing reference to the further growth of social inequality during his tenure, noting that “the top one percent of Americans took home twenty percent of the nation’s income last year, while the average worker isn’t seeing a raise at all.” Typically, however, he spoke as though he was an innocent bystander and the further enrichment of the financial aristocracy had nothing to do with himself or his own policies.

In reality, the single-minded focus of Obama’s domestic agenda from day one has been to enable the ruling class to recover its losses from the crash and exploit the crisis to amass even greater wealth. Even as he sought in his speech to blame congressional Republicans for obstructing his supposed campaign in behalf of the middle class, Obama signaled that he intended to intensify his attack on social programs for workers and grant new windfalls to big business.

Boasting that deficits were falling at the fastest rate since the end of World War II, he said, “there’s not a government agency or program out there that still can’t be streamlined … So I do believe we should cut out programs that we don’t need.”

He reiterated his support for “reforms” to Medicare and Social Security, including raising the retirement age for Medicare, introducing a form of means testing, and cutting cost-of-living raises for Social Security beneficiaries. At the same time, he repeated his support for a massive cut in corporate taxes.

Obama’s speech will not fool the vast majority of workers, whose anger is increasingly focusing on the White House and the former candidate of “hope” and “change.” This opposition must be mobilized on the basis of a clear, independent, socialist political program, which starts from the need to build a political movement in opposition to the entire political establishment and the capitalist system it defends.

Barry Grey

On fifth anniversary of Wall Street crash, Obama tries the Big Lie technique

17 September 2013  

On Monday, US President Barack Obama marked the fifth anniversary of the Wall Street crash of September 15, 2008 with a White House speech that only underscored the unbridgeable chasm that separates the entire political establishment from the broad mass of working people.

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/crony-capitalism-obama-celebrates-5.html
 
Forbes magazine reported that the wealth of the 400 richest Americans had climbed to $2 trillion, a jump from $1.7 trillion in 2012.

OBAMA VOWS TO BANKS HE WILL CONTINUE TO IMPLEMENT THEIR LOOTING OF VICTIMS of FORECLOSURES - THE PROFITS and CRIMES of OBAMA'S BANKS SOAR.. SO DO FORECLOSURES!

DURING THE BANKSTER-OWNED PRESIDENT’S FIRST TERM ALONE, BANKSTER PROFITS SOARED AS DID BANK CRIMES and FORECLOSURES.

“That McLaughlin’s plan can be presented as “left” only underscores the fact that the Obama administration has done absolutely nothing to assist homebuyers. Its mortgage programs have been based on the banks voluntarily agreeing to restructure loans for small sections of the population, with no reduction in principal. The administration has worked closely with the banks to minimize their liability for their fraudulent and criminal practices that have already led millions to lose their homes.”

AS A NATION , WE’VE WATCHED BARACK OBAMA BECOME THE WILLING RENT BOY TO HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS. DURING OBAMA’S FIRST YEAR ALONE, THESE BANKSTERS MADE MORE PROFITS THAN DURING ALL EIGHT YEARS OF BUSH. THEIR CRIMES AND FORECLOSURES ARE SOARING AS WELL.

WELLS FARGO, ONE OF THE BIGGEST BANK CRIME WAVES IN AMERICAN HISTORY, HAS LONG HAD IT CALIFORNIA MORTGAGE LICENSE REVOKED IN THE STATE of CALIFORNIA FOR FRAUD AND MALFEASANCE. IT REMAINS REVOKED TO THIS DAY. THIS FILTHY BANK SIMPLY DECLARED ITSELF ABOVE STATE LAW AND WENT ON LOOTING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WITH THEIR FRAUDULENT AND CRIMINAL MORTGAGE PRODUCTS. THERE ARE COMMUNITIES NATIONWIDE THAT HAVE BEEN LAID WASTE BY WELLS FARGO’S MORTGAGE PRACTICES. 

CALIFORNIA SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, ONE OF THE MOST CORRUPT AND SELF-SERVING POLITICIANS IN AMERICAN HISTORY, IS WELLS FARGO AND BANK of AMERICA’S BIG WHORE IN CA. EVEN AFTER WELLS FARGO HAD THEIR MORTGAGE LICENSE REVOKED IN CA, FEINSTEIN, THE BOUGHT WHORE, PUSHED FOR THE SO CALLED “BANKSTERS’ BANKRUPTCY REFORM” WHICH PREVENTS CONSUMERS FROM OBTAINING HELP IN BANKRUPTCY COURT FROM THESE TOXIC MORTGAGES WELLS FARGO AND BANK of AMERICA PERPETRATED A NATIONWIDE. THESE BANKS ARE BIG BRIBESTERS TO THE OLD WHORE FEINSTEIN.

WHILE BARACK OBAMA DID NOTE VOTE FOR THE “BANKSTERS’ BANKRUPTCY REFORM” AS A U.S. SENATOR, AND SAID HE WOULD REVOKED IT, OF COURSE IT WAS ONE OF THE MANY LIES HE PERPETRATED ON US. THIS IS THE MAN THAT DECLARED IN THE FACE OF THE NATION HIS BANKSTER CRONIES ARE LOOTING, THAT HE WAS NOT THERE TO PUNISH BANKS, AND NONE AS BEEN. MOST OF THE BIGGEST CRIMINAL BANKSTERS NOW VIRTUALLY OPERATE OUT OF THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE, OR HAVE ADMINISTRATION JOBS TO ASSURE BANKSTER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANY REAL REFORM.

THESE FILTHY BANKSTERS HAVE DESTROYED TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN HOME EQUITY IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA ALONE AND ARE STILL LOOTING US THANKS TO OBAMA AND FEINSTEIN, AND THEREFORE FEINSTEIN’S LAP BITCH, BARBARA “BRIBES” BOXER, WHO VOTES FOR ANYTHING THAT WILL PUT BUCKS IN FEINSTEIN’S PIMP-HUSBAND, RICHARD C. BLUM’ POCKETS. BLUM IS A MAJOR DONOR/BRIBESTER TO BOXER AND OBAMA.

NOT ONLY IS FEINSTEIN THE BIGGEST WAR PROFITEER IN AMERICAN HISTORY, SHE HAS PUSHED A DEAL FOR PIMP BLUM TO PROFITEER OFF THE VERY FORECLOSURES HER BRIBESTERS WELLS FARGO AND BANK OF AMERICA CAUSED…. WERE YOU WONDERING WHY NOTHING EVER CAME OUT OF HER BIG WHORE’S MOUTH ABOUT THE FORECLOSURE CRISIS IN CALIFORNIA OR THE NATION? WHEN THERE’S A DEAL TO BE MADE, THIS OLD WHORE IS RIGHT THERE IN THE ALLEY ON HER KNEES DOING IT!

The housing crisis in Richmond, California and the debate over “eminent domain”

By David Levine
17 September 2013

Last Tuesday, the City Council in Richmond, California approved, by a vote of 4-3, a plan to take over the mortgages of a small section of the city’s population, organize a reduction of the principal and refinance the loans under the auspices of another private company.

The move has been combined with a push to utilize the government’s eminent domain powers to seize mortgages with the ostensible purpose of keeping families in danger of foreclosure from losing their homes. The city will need a 5-2 vote in order to actually begin exercising eminent domain over mortgages.

On Thursday, September 12, US District Judge Charles Breyer granted the city’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit by mortgage bond trustees Wells Fargo and two units of Deutsche Bank on the grounds that it was “unripe.” However, there can be little doubt that if the program goes forward, more lawsuits by the banks will be forthcoming.

The determination of the banks and financial institutions to scuttle the city’s plan points to their intransigent opposition to any measure that involves a reduction in the principal (the overall amount owed) on mortgages to distressed homeowners in the US. However, the city’s plan itself is a token measure that will do nothing to remedy the housing crisis, even if the eminent domain component goes forward.

The idea of using a city government’s eminent domain power in this way belongs to Cornell University Law School Professor Robert Hockett. However, its proliferation is most strongly associated with the San Francisco-based Mortgage Resolution Partners LLC (MRP). Beginning last year, MRP has consulted city governments in various parts of California and other states, offering partnership agreements for the administration of eminent domain programs based on Hockett’s approach. Richmond is the first city to execute such an agreement with MRP.

MRP’s proposed plan, which the city government has titled Richmond CARES (Richmond Community Action to Restore Equity and Stability), is for the city to seize at-risk mortgages, compensate the mortgage holders (the mortgage-security firms) based on the fair market value of the loans, and then make refinancing arrangements that would be more manageable for homeowners. MRP, in addition to gaining a fee of $4,500 per house, is to split the profits from the refinancing with the city.

On July 31, Richmond City Manager William Lindsay sent out a letter to the mortgage holders of 624 residences offering to purchase the mortgages for their fair market value (minus 20 percent representing the estimated costs of foreclosure). He warned that those mortgages whose holders refuse this offer would be subject to seizure through eminent domain, which would provide a “fair” amount of compensation based on a court-approved valuation. The letter requested a response by August 13.

Not only were none of those offers accepted, but Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank filed a lawsuit seeking injunctions against the proposed eminent domain program. In the lawsuit, the two banks are acted under the direction of a group of investors including Pacific Investment Management Co. (Pimco), BlackRock Inc., DoubleLine Capital, as well as the government-supported mortgage loan insurance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

OBAMA SABOTAGES ANY ACT THAT WILL NOT PUT BUCKS IN HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONOR’S BOTTOMLESS POCKETS, EVEN AS HE HAS HANDED THESE CRIMINAL ENTERPRISES BILLIONS IN FEDERAL WELFARE.

On August 8, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, declared that the agency would instruct those companies to “limit, restrict or cease business activities” in any jurisdiction that uses eminent domain to seize mortgages. This directive from the Obama administration significantly undercut the proposed program, as the city could not possibly afford to handle being abandoned by these companies, which provide insurance for mortgage loans.

In August, when the city of Richmond tried to refinance $34 million of its bonds, it failed to find willing purchasers on the markets. Apparently, investors decided to forgo purchasing the bonds as payback for the mortgage proposal, which failed to toe the line dictated by the financial elite.

The city of Richmond, a largely working class city north of San Francisco, is experiencing some of the worst consequences of the subprime mortgage crisis that began in 2007-2008. Despite a recent modest recovery in property values, some 4,600 homeowners, or about 50 percent of the mortgages in the city, are still “underwater,” meaning that the current balance on their mortgage loans is greater than the houses’ respective fair market values. The average mortgage debt is 45 percent of the property’s value.

The limited nature of the proposed eminent domain program becomes clear in light of the above numbers. MRP has selected 624 residences for the program—less than 15 percent of the city’s residences with underwater mortgages. Even more telling are the criteria by which the residences were selected. Over 70 percent of those selected are current on their payments, and those that are not current have, for the most part, missed only one or two payments.

MRP deliberately selected loans that were not at risk of default. Rather, it chose loans where the borrowers have a high likelihood of avoiding default and qualifying for new loans that could be sold to a new securitized trust. The other criterion that MRP followed was that it selected only mortgages held by “private label” mortgage-backed security trusts, and excluded mortgages held directly by banks and/or guaranteed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. None of these criteria have anything to do with protecting homeowners from foreclosure and have everything to do with MRP’s own business strategy.

The proposed eminent domain program has been the subject of extensive commentary in the media, with the majority of commentators opposing the program. However, the debate has generally been framed in terms of potential impacts on investors and markets, with no concern shown for the countless millions of victims of the ongoing housing crisis who cannot afford to refinance their homes, not to speak of the broader housing crisis in the US.

Although there is no question that the big banks and investors that are driving the lawsuits and media campaign against the proposed program represent America’s financial aristocracy, opponents of the program have also made the legitimate criticism that investors in the mortgage-backed securities under threat of seizure include “public and private pension plans, college savings plans, 401(k) plans, insurance companies, mutual funds, university endowments, and government-sponsored enterprises” (quoting the Wells Fargo/Deutsche Bank complaint). In other words, a program that may help some remain in their homes could leave others with less retirement savings and smaller pensions than they thought they had, and for still others make college education even less affordable than before.

Essentially, the conflict between the banks and Richmond and MRP is a fight between two factions within the ruling capitalist class. On the one side are those banks that act as trustees for the possessors of mortgage-backed securities. They have profited from subprime lending and other shady policies that victimize individual borrowers, as well as the fraudulent overvaluation of the securities created out of the resulting debts. These were the criminal processes carried out on a massive scale that culminated in the financial market crash of 2008, for which no one has been held accountable to this day.

On the other side are MRP and other financial institutions, which stand to profit from the refinancing of mortgages. In other words, having recognized the social devastation wrought by the financial and economic crisis, they have developed an approach that will allow them to rearrange the debts of a small percentage of the lesser-affected victims for their own benefit while contributing to the creation of a new housing bubble. Richmond has become their testing ground. If the program is successfully implemented there, they aim to secure the adoption of similar programs throughout the country.

MRP has won the support of Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, a member of the Green Party who postures as a “left.” McLaughlin participated in Occupy protests and collaborated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and various “antiwar” organizations. On August 15, she led a group of about 50 protesters to the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters in San Francisco in a phony display of defiance that can only serve to disorient and demoralize those who suffer the brunt of the banks’ rapacity. She has also won the backing of pseudo-left groups like the International Socialist Organization.

That McLaughlin’s plan can be presented as “left” only underscores the fact that the Obama administration has done absolutely nothing to assist homebuyers. Its mortgage programs have been based on the banks voluntarily agreeing to restructure loans for small sections of the population, with no reduction in principal. The administration has worked closely with the banks to minimize their liability for their fraudulent and criminal practices that have already led millions to lose their homes.

A real solution to the housing crisis in America must necessarily proceed from a recognition that housing is a social right, and that the realization of that right requires the expropriation of the banks and other financial institutions whose criminal practices caused the crisis but continue unchecked. Such a policy can be effected only as part of a revolutionary socialist program.

*
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, AND HER VOTING LAP BITCH, BARABARA"BRIBES" BOXER  ARE TWO OF THE MOST CORRUPT AND SELF-SERVING POLITICIANS IN U.S. HISTORY. ADD NANCY PELOSI TO THE MIX!


 

LA RAZA DEMS LIKE OBAMA, FEINSTEIN, BOXER, PELOSI and REID, A WHO’S-WHO OF CORRUPTION, HAVE WORKED TIRELESSLY ADVANCING THE INTERESTS OF THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA. TO THESE LA RAZA DEMS, KEEPING OUR BORDERS WIDE OPEN KEEPS WAGES DEPRESSED AND PUTS MONEY IN THEIR POCKETS.

 
YOU CAN NOT SEPARATE THE CORRUPTION OF THESE POLITICIANS, THE LA RAZA OCCUPATION, AND THE LOOTING OF THE NATION BY THEIR BANKSTER DONORS!

MEXICAN DRUG DEALER OPERATES IN OUR BORDERS

THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS OPERATE IN 2,500 AMERICAN CITIES AND WHOLEHEARTEDLY ENDORSE OBAMA’S OPEN AND UNDEFENDED BORDERS AGENDA.

 


 

“Oropeza, 48, was arrested May 31, 2007, by police in Saraland, Ala., who stopped him on a traffic violation. Checking his record, they learned of the investigation in Texas.

They searched the van and discovered 185 pounds of cocaine hidden under a false floor. That allowed federal agents to freeze Oropeza's bank accounts and search his marble-floored home in Brownsville, Robinette says.”

The government, like the banks, had a vested interest in shutting down the investigation, as the results of any genuine inquiry would have exposed negligence and collusion on the part of the regulators as well as gross violations of law by the banks that would have made it more difficult for the Obama administration to avoid criminal prosecutions.

The Times also reported that such “independent investigators” played a key role in the HSBC money laundering scandal, helping cover up the extent of the British-based bank’s money laundering operation for Mexican drug cartels.

 
Firms make billions as middlemen in government cover-up of Wall Street crimes

By Andre Damon
7 February 2013

In the network of corrupt and incestuous relations between government financial regulatory agencies and the banks they nominally police, a growing role is played by private, for-profit “consulting” firms that serve as middlemen in the government cover-up of corporate crime.

The New York Times in a front-page article last week called attention to this lesser-known mechanism used by the government to protect Wall Street from being held to account for the fraudulent and illegal practices in which it engages on a daily basis.

The Times wrote: "Federal authorities are scrutinizing private consultants hired to clean up financial misdeeds like money laundering and foreclosure abuses, taking aim at an industry that is paid billions of dollars by the same banks it is expected to police."

The firms in question operate in essentially the same way as the credit rating agencies that facilitated the subprime meltdown. Just as Standard & Poor’s Rating Services and Moody’s Investors Service are paid by the banks whose securities they rate, the consulting firms tasked with investigating banks are chosen and paid by the very institutions they are investigating. This arrangement is based on a howling conflict of interest. Consulting firms that want to keep old clients and add new ones, and increase their profits, are obviously under pressure to cover up the misdeeds of their banking paymasters.

Moreover, the same revolving door by which individuals move seamlessly between Wall Street and the regulatory agencies exists between the consulting firms and the banks and regulatory bodies.

Last month's $8.5 billion foreclosure fraud settlement with major US lenders lifted the lid on bank regulators' increasing use of these “independent investigators.” Tasked with finding the extent of fraud and illegality in the processing of home foreclosures, these companies helped the banks cover up their fraudulent activities and ensure that the extent of their wrongdoing was not brought to light.

The settlement between ten major mortgage lenders and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a branch of the Treasury Department, related 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.

This resulted in the improper expulsion of an unknown number of families—probably in the hundreds of thousands—from their homes.

In April of 2011, the OCC, the Office of Thrift
Supervision (OTS), and the Board of Governors
of the Federal Reserve System ordered individual
reviews of foreclosures carried out between 2009
and 2010 by fourteen mortgage lenders, including
Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and
Wells Fargo.

The investigation was intended to individually review all cases in which homeowners claimed that they were improperly foreclosed on, so that each victimized household could receive a cash payout. The findings of such an investigation would have undoubtedly shown that foreclosure fraud was far more prevalent than had been previously known, and laid the basis for further lawsuits against the lenders.

Instead of reviewing the foreclosures themselves, regulators had the banks hire so-called independent investigators, who, while receiving $2 billion in fees from the lenders, dragged their feet in reviewing the foreclosure cases.

Last month, government regulators closed down the review on the grounds that it was too time-consuming and too expensive for the banks and came up with a sweetheart settlement that cost the banks a relative pittance.

Instead of payouts to individuals who were harmed by the banks' wrongdoing, the lenders agreed to split a $3.3 billion cash payout among 4.2 million foreclosed homeowners, without "determination of harm." As a result, homeowners will receive a check of under $1,000 even if they were illegally thrown out of their homes.

The government, like the banks, had a vested interest in shutting down the investigation, as the results of any genuine inquiry would have exposed negligence and collusion on the part of the regulators as well as gross violations of law by the banks that would have made it more difficult for the Obama administration to avoid criminal prosecutions.

When setting up the "Independent Foreclosure Review" in April 2011, regulators claimed that they had to rely on independent contractors such as Promontory Financial and PricewaterhouseCoopers because regulators themselves had neither the money nor the manpower the review the claims.

"The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency employs just 3,800 people, only about 2,000 of whom are bank examiners," said Bryan Hubbard, director for public affairs operations at the OCC in a telephone interview Monday. "It would simply not have been practical to hire the staff necessary for the review."

He added that "independent consultants are used often by many regulators, not just the OCC, in support of enforcement actions. It was not unusual." He added that the decision to end the review "will provide more money to more borrowers than maintaining the original course."

The argument that closing down the investigation resulted in greater compensation for victimized borrowers is absurd.

The growing scandal over the role of “independent consultants” in the foreclosure abuse settlement prompted Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Elijah Cummings to send a letter to the US Federal Reserve and office of the Comptroller of the Currency last week, asking them to publish documents related to the role of the consultants hired by the banks to review foreclosures.

The role of such "independent investigators" in covering up the banks' crimes goes beyond the foreclosure settlement. Since the 2008 financial meltdown, it has become increasingly common for financial regulators to rely on such companies in regulatory actions. The New York Times reported that the OCC required the hiring of such consultants in more than 130 regulatory actions since 2008.

The Times also reported that such “independent investigators” played a key role in the HSBC money laundering scandal, helping cover up the extent of the British-based bank’s money laundering operation for Mexican drug cartels. The newspaper reported that HSBC was cited for its loose money laundering protections in 2003 and turned to the consulting firm Deloitte & Touche to review its compliance with regulations.

In 2010, the bank was again investigated in connection to its money laundering activities, ultimately leading to a $1.9 billion settlement with regulators late last year. To help determine the fine to be levied, HSBC was ordered to hire an independent consultant to assess the extent of its legal transgressions.

The bank hired its reliable ally of previous years, Deloitte & Touche, which, according to the Times, "generously bundled hundreds of missed transfers into a single report," which "may have helped save the bank from some government fines."

"Independent investigators" like Deloitte and Promontory are staffed largely by former regulators, who, having gained experience in government, have turned to using their knowledge to help banks skirt regulations, for sizable fees. Promontory Financial, which examined loans for Bank of America and Wells Fargo, is a case in point. The company was founded in 2000 by Eugene Ludwig two years after he left his position as Comptroller of the Currency.

Last month, Promontory announced that Julie Williams, the former chief council at the OCC, would join the group to become the firm's director of advisory practice. “I thought I could do more good helping firms understand and comply with government expectations—which are not always just what’s in rules and regulations—at Promontory,” she said upon taking the job.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, which carried out the foreclosure fraud investigation for Citigroup, brags to potential clients that its "teams consist of experienced regulatory risk specialists, including ex-regulators, who not only know the rules, but have also implemented and assessed compliance against them." OBAMA PROMISED HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS NO PRISON TIME AND NO REAL REGULATION. DID HE DELIVER?

 

The JPMorgan scandal also throws into relief the government’s failure to prosecute those responsible for the 2008 financial meltdown. Despite overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing and criminality uncovered by two federal investigations last year, those responsible have been shielded from prosecution.

 

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).

 

The settlement, reported to be worth $25 billion, was announced February 9 and hailed by President Obama as a serious rebuke to the banks and boon to distressed homeowners. (See: “Obama administration brokers pro-bank mortgage fraud settlement”).

*

The social and historical catastrophe confronting mankind is not simply the product of an economic crisis in the abstract. This crisis is mediated by class interests, and these class interests find expression in definite actions. Behind the central banks and governments stand the interests of a financial elite whose relationship to the rest of society is fundamentally parasitic.

 
AMERICAN HAS WITNESSED HOLDER AND OBAMA PROMISE OBAMA’S CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS THEY WOULD NEVER BE PROSECUTED.

OBAMA HOLDER HAVE ALSO ENDLESSLY HARASSED AMERICAN STATES WITH LAWSUITS TO ADVANCE OBAMA’S LA RAZA AGENDA OF OPEN BORDERS, NO E-VERIFY, NO ID TO VOTE, ENDLESS GRINGO-PAID DREAM ACTS TO KEEP THE ILLEGALS CLIMBING OUR BORDERS AND JOBS.

OBAMA’S DEPT of (illegal) LABOR IS LA RAZA SUPREMACIST HILDA SOLIS!

CRIMINAL BANKSTERS WELLS FARGO ARE BANKSTERS TO THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS.

 

WELLS FARGO, ALONG WITH BANK of AMERICA, IS A MAJOR DONOR TO THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA.

BOTH BANKS HAVE OPENED BANK ACCOUNTS FOR ILLEGALS USING PHONY MEX CONSULATE IDS.

A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF THE MONEY ILLEGALS DEPOSIT IS MEX GANG MONEY.

WELLS FARGO HAD THEIR CALIFORNIA MORTGAGE LICENSE REVOKED IN 2003. IT SILL IS. THE CRIMINAL BANK SIMPLY DECLARED ITSELF ABOVE THE LAW AND WENT ON PERPETRATING THEIR MORTGAGE SCAMS ON CONSUMERS NATIONWIDE UNTIL TAX PAYERS WERE FORCED TO BAILOUT OUT ALL THE DAMAGES.

 “The program of “gunwalking,” as the tactic of permitting known buyers for the Mexican gangs to purchase weapons and take them to Mexico, was part of a murky but undoubtedly reactionary effort by the US government to develop relations with the drug cartels, some of which deposited huge sums in American banks, to the benefit of Wall Street.”

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

Posted: 07/16/2012 8:23 am

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.


OBAMANOMICS: HIS BANKSTERS PROFITS AND CRIMES ARE SOARING… so are foreclosures and illegals get all the jobs!

WILL WE SURVIVE OBAMA’S SECOND TERM? 

He noted that though the number of foreclosures has dropped significantly, it is still more than double the pre-crisis amount.

WASHINGTON POST

Americans have rebuilt less than half of wealth lost to the recession, study says

By Ylan Q. Mui, Thursday, May 30, 9:00 AM

American households have rebuilt less than half of the wealth lost during the recession, leaving them without the spending power to fuel a robust economic recovery, according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve.

From the peak of the boom to the bottom of the bust, households watched a total of $16 trillion in wealth disappear amid sinking stock prices and the rubble of the real estate market. Since then, Americans have only been able to recapture 45 percent of that amount on average, after adjusting for inflation and population growth, according to the report from the St. Louis Fed released Thursday.

In addition, the report showed most of the improvement was due to gains in the stock market, which primarily benefit wealthy families. That means the recovery for other households has been even weaker.

“A conclusion that the financial damage of the crisis and recession largely has been repaired is not justified,” the report stated.

The study is part of a growing body of research on the role of household wealth — or lack thereof — in amplifying the impact of the recession and slowing the rate of recovery. Traditionally, economists and policymakers have focused on the effects of employment and income. But the report from the St. Louis Fed argued that swings in household balance sheets — which include home values, stock prices, savings and debt — were critical in determining which families weathered the financial storm and which got swept away.

The report found that the most fragile households were not well educated, relatively young or black or Hispanic, or some combination of those characteristics. Those families tended to have low savings combined with high debt and accrued much of their wealth through housing.

How those households respond to the changes in wealth is a critical component of the recovery. Top officials, including Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, have pointed to the rebound in real estate and the soaring stock market as evidence of the success of the central bank’s policies.

The Fed is spending $85 billion a month to lower long-term interest rates and stimulate the economy. It has also kept short-term interest rates to near zero. That has helped push stock markets to record highs, while home prices have jumped by the most in seven years. Consumer confidence is at its highest point since February 2008. Officials hope those factors will eventually result in more consumer spending power.

“I think we’re at an inflection point,” said Beth Ann Bovino, senior economist at Standard & Poor’s. “We’re seeing things turn around. And that’s where the optimism comes in among households.”

But research by noted economists Karl Case, John Quigley and Robert Shiller found the households were more powerful affected by declines in wealth than increases. An unexpected 1 percent drop in housing prices caused a permanent 0.1 percent decrease in spending, that study found. But a similar 1 percent rise in housing prices boosted consumer spending by only 0.03 percent.

“Rising wealth is gratifying, but the loss of wealth is terrifying,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys.com. “Households spend somewhat more freely as their nest eggs grow, but they slash their spending when their nest eggs shrink.”

William Emmons, chief economist for at the St. Louis Fed’s new Center for Household Financial Stability, said that many of the most vulnerable households began to treat credit as another form of income during the boom. After the bust, they were forced to dramatically rethink their finances, resulting in more cautious spending.

Emmons said many families have not experienced any recovery — or are even still losing wealth. Young Americans, those with few skills or are unemployed may not have been able to rebuild any wealth. He noted that though the number of foreclosures has dropped significantly, it is still more than double the pre-crisis amount.

Meanwhile, he estimated that recent gains in the stock market mean that the recovery of wealth is nearly complete for white and Asian households and older Americans.

Wealth accumulation not only impacts families’ current financial status but also their prospects for future economic success. The St. Louis Fed report points to studies that connect savings to the likelihood of attending and completing college and economic mobility.

“Balance sheets matter in ways that income alone does not,” said Ray Boshara, head of the center.

Related Articles: Tax breaks tilt toward the rich The economy is holding up surprisingly well in a year of austerity Low-interest-rate environment exposes seniors to fraudsters Hiring slowed to 88,000 jobs in March; unemployment rate drops to 7.6 percent

OBAMA’S CRONY CAPITALISM – A NATION RULED BY CRIMINAL WALL STREET BANKSTERS AND OBAMA DONORS


Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies

by Michelle Malkin

In her shocking new book, Malkin digs deep into the records of President Obama's staff, revealing corrupt dealings, questionable pasts, and abuses of power throughout his administration.

assault on America – THE OBAMA – JP MORGAN LOOTING of a nation


DID OBAMA PUNKED US OR IS HE SIMPLY A  FAILED PRESIDENCY?

OBAMA, THE MAN THAT NEVER VOTED DURING THE BRIEF PERIOD HE WAS IN THE SENATE, OWNED AND OPERATED BY BIG BANKSTERS, IS NOTHING BUT A CON JOB CALLED “CHANGE”… OR DICTATOR IN THE MAKING.


EITHER WAY HE IS THE MOST FAILED PRESIDENCY IN MODERN AMERICAN

CONGRESS DECLARES THAT ILLEGALS SAP TAX DOLLARS… SO THEN WHAT WOULD 40 MILLION LEGALIZED MEXICAN LOOTERS DO??? GO OUT AND VOTE GOP?


OBAMA’S CRONY CAPITALISM – A NATION RULED BY CRIMINAL WALL STREET BANKSTERS AND OBAMA DONORS


Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies

by Michelle Malkin

In her shocking new book, Malkin digs deep into the records of President Obama's staff, revealing corrupt dealings, questionable pasts, and abuses of power throughout his administration.
Government of, by, and for the banks

25 May 2013

Five years since the 2008 financial meltdown, the speculation and fraud that caused the crash are back in full force in the United States. Flush with the $85 billion in cash printed up and handed to the banks every month by the Federal Reserve, business at the Wall Street casino is booming. Stock values are at record levels and so are bank profits, amidst declining wages and mass poverty.


Big Banks Get Break in Rules to Limit Risks

OBAMA-STYLE CRONY CAPITALISM… business as usual for Obama’s banksters!

OBAMA AND HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTERS… THE LOOTING GOES ON, AND AS PER OBAMA’S PROMISE…NONE HAVE GONE TO PRISON!


“The changes to the rule, which will be announced on Thursday, could effectively empower a few big banks to continue controlling the derivatives market, a main culprit in the financial crisis.”

 CRIMINAL BANKSTERS  BANK of AMERICA and WELLS FARGO are two of criminal Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s paymasters. She voted for each and every banksters bailout that came along and did nothing about these banks crime tidal wave the destroyed billions of dollars of property value held by the people of California where she lives in a $16 million dollar war profiteers mansion in San Francisco.

Feinstein is a major donor to the OBAMANATION and supports his amnesty hoax, open borders, no E-VERIFY and any policy that aids the looting of this nation by Obama’s BIG BANKSTER DONORS!

*

BANK of AMERICA – A MAJOR CAUSE OF MILLIONS OF FORECLOSURES, A MAJOR DONOR to the MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA and  a MAJOR MONEY LAUNDERER for the MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS. Seen that American flag flying over their executive offices???

BUILDING THE OBAMA DICTATORSHIP: BANKSTERS, LA RAZA FASCIST and the MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS… business is good for them under the Obamanation!

 

“Not one banker was prosecuted for illegal involvement in the drugs trade.”


BANK of AMERICA – A MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR TO MEXICAN FASCSIM AND DRUG CARTELS


OBAMA’S INCEST WITH BIG BANSTERS CONTINUES… WHO’D A THOUGHT???

With his faith in government and coziness with big business, Watt personifies Obamanomics.


Big government and big banks -- Watt is the perfect fit for Fannie, Freddie, and Obama.

TOP OBAMA BANKSTERS AND MEX DRUG CARTELS

BUILDING THE OBAMA DICTATORSHIP: BANKSTERS, LA RAZA FASCIST and the MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS… business is good for them under the Obamanation!

“Not one banker was prosecuted for illegal involvement in the drugs trade.”


 SHE RANKS AS ONE OF THE MOST CORRUPT AND SELF-SERVING POLITICIANS IN AMERICAN HISTORY.

THE STAGGERING DEGREE OF HER CORRUPTION IS SIMPLY EMBLEMATIC OF THE CORRUPTION OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE.

 

MONEY GRUBBING KLEPTOMANIAC DIANNE FEINSTEIN

 

A COMMENT ABOUT THE WHITE COLLAR CRIME DUAL OF SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN AND RICHARD C. BLUM, MAJOR OBAMA DONORS:

 

This system is best characterized as a plutocratic kleptocracy, completely lacking in authentic democracy, operated by and for corporate racketeers, in short, a dictatorship of big capital, the top 1% of wealth holders, which makes up a ruling class."


 
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, WHOM RALPH NADER HAS APTLY CHARACTERIZED AS A "CLOSET REPUBLICAN" (LIKE OBAMA), HAS TURNED CALIFORNIA INTO A MEXICAN LOOTED WELFARE STATE.


FEINSTEIN - BLIM LOOT VICTIMS OF HER BANKSTER-CAUSED FORECLOSURES!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

EXCLUSIVE: Senator’s husband’s firm cashes in on crisis



-

The Washington Times

On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband's real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms.

Mrs. Feinstein's intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn't a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments - not direct federal dollars.

Documents reviewed by The Washington Times show Mrs. Feinstein first offered Oct. 30 to help the FDIC secure money for its effort to stem the rise of home foreclosures. Her letter was sent just days before the agency determined that CB Richard Ellis Group (CBRE) - the commercial real estate firm that her husband Richard Blum heads as board chairman - had won the competitive bidding for a contract to sell foreclosed properties that FDIC had inherited from failed banks.

Read the rate list for the FDIC contract from CB Richard Ellis, the firm Sen. Feinstein's husband heads as board chairman. (downloads 4-page pdf)

Read the correspondence between Sen. Feinstein and FDIC chairman Sheila Bair (downloads 5-page pdf)

About the same time of the contract award, Mr. Blum's private investment firm reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it and related affiliates had purchased more than 10 million new shares in CBRE. The shares were purchased for the going price of $3.77; CBRE's stock closed Monday at $5.14.

Spokesmen for the FDIC, Mrs. Feinstein and Mr. Blum's firm told The Times that there was no connection between the legislation and the contract signed Nov. 13, and that the couple didn't even know about CBRE's business with FDIC until after it was awarded.

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• Axelrod: Anti-Americanism now not cool

Senate ethics rules state that members must avoid conflicts of interest as well as "even the appearance of a conflict of interest." Some ethics analysts question whether Mrs. Feinstein ran afoul of the latter provision, creating the appearance that she was rewarding the agency that had just hired her husband's firm.

"This clearly gives the appearance of a conflict of interest," said Kent Cooper, a former federal regulator who specializes in government ethics and disclosures. "To maintain the people's trust in government, it is incumbent on a legislator to take the extra steps necessary to ensure that when she introduces any legislation that it does not cause people to question her motives or the business activities of her spouse."

Mrs. Feinstein and Mr. Blum, a wealthy investment banker, are a power couple in both Washington and California who sat behind President Obama during his inauguration in January. Mrs. Feinstein also is mentioned as a candidate for California governor.

The FDIC contract "highlights the problem of a senator with a spouse who has extensive business interests that intersect frequently with the federal government," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). "Even if there is no actual conflict of interest, it often has the appearance of a conflict."

A 'very sweet deal'?

Real estate specialists also question the government's generosity in the CBRE contract.

The firm, known for its commercial real estate services, is to be paid monthly maintenance fees for each foreclosed property it handles, as well as commissions and incentives. The total compensation can range from 8 percent of the sales price on many residential properties to 30 percent for properties worth $25,000 or less. A smaller firm also won a slice of the work with similar terms, records show.

Most real estate agents earn no more than 6 percent on residential, even on foreclosed properties, and CBRE doesn't have as much experience in foreclosure sales as other firms, the experts said.

"From everything I know about it, it is a very sweet deal and went to somebody who is less than qualified in dealing with foreclosed residential properties. Their expertise is in commercial real estate," said Cynthia Kenner, a Colorado real estate agent who specializes in selling bank-owned residential properties and last year helped sell more than 600 foreclosed properties.

"There are companies that are more experienced in selling such properties than CB Richard Ellis," she added.

FDIC and Feinstein respond

The FDIC said politics was not involved in its decision, noting the contract was awarded after a six-month competition run by career staff who determined that CBRE was "deemed to be technically qualified and their fee structure fair and reasonable." That means the competition did not mandate the contract go to the lowest bidder necessarily, officials said.

The agency said the above-market incentives were designed to encourage quick sales of the growing number of foreclosed properties the FDIC has inherited during the recession. "The longer the asset is held, the more costly it is for the FDIC, and more expenses are incurred for the assets," the agency said in a statement to The Times.

Feinstein spokesman Gil Duran said there was no conflict of interest between Mr. Blum's firm getting the contract and the senator's legislation. He said she introduced the legislation because it would help prevent home mortgage foreclosures at a time when many Californians were in danger of losing their homes.

"She was not aware of the contract before she introduced the legislation," Mr. Duran said. "There is no evidence of any relationship or conflict between this foreclosure relief bill and the contract. Senator Feinstein complies with the rules and guidelines of the Ethics Committee."

Mr. Duran also said Mr. Blum "is not involved in the day-to-day operations of the company, nor does he have any involvement in the company's contracting." Mr. Blum declined through a spokesman to comment.

CBRE spokesman Robert McGrath said the firm had $5 billion in revenues last year and was "well positioned" to help the FDIC as the nation's largest commercial real estate services company. Its pricing was at market rates after a highly competitive bid process, he said.

"We believe the FDIC will realize significant value from all the work we perform on their behalf," he said.

The contract process

In May, the FDIC began the formal process of looking for help to manage and market its growing portfolio of foreclosed real estate acquired from failed financial institutions nationwide. It sent letters to 33 real estate firms and received proposals from 18.

In November, the FDIC signed a contract with CBRE that could be worth tens of millions of dollars or more at a time when real estate firms are scrambling for business in the distressed economy.

CBRE said it was hired to act "as a primary adviser" to the FDIC for its real estate portfolio nationwide, according to a press release announcing the contract. The firm called the FDIC a "major account."

Mr. Blum became chairman of CBRE in 2001 and has played a major role in its corporate business strategies. He led a buyout of the company, first taking it private and then a few years later taking it public again. He runs an investment management firm called Blum Capital Partners, which controls the second largest block of publicly traded CBRE stock - 38 million shares or 14.4 percent.

Mr. Blum, whose position as chairman of CBRE is not full time, sets up partnerships through Blum Capital Partners that invests money for its clients and its owners. He reported owning more than $3 million in CBRE stock through various partnerships at the end of 2007, according to Mrs. Feinstein's personal financial disclosure statement.

CBRE's initial contract is for three years. The FDIC has the option to extend it for three two-year periods, records show. The contract calls for the real estate firm to be used "as needed."

In March, the FDIC said it had assigned CBRE 507 properties for disposal, valued at $221.7 million. In March, the company already had 23 FDIC properties valued at $11 million under contract to be sold.

Over the past 16 months, 50 banks have failed and more are expected to close. As a result, nobody knows how much CBRE will be able to earn over the life of the FDIC contract.

Blum and the stock offering

The FDIC contract came at a good time for CBRE. Even though it remains the world's largest commercial real estate services firm, it was hit hard by the economic downturn. The company saw its revenues and income slide in 2008 and its stock price tumbled from $24.50 in May to below $4 in November.

"Our third quarter results reflected the extremely challenging market conditions, which continued to deteriorate globally," Brett White, president and chief executive officer of CBRE, said in early November.

A few days later, CBRE raised $207 million through a stock offering that sold for $3.77 a share. Mr. Blum's investment partnerships bought 10.6 million shares at the market price of $3.77. The stock offering was announced a couple of days before the signing of the FDIC contract.

In its November prospectus for the stock sale, CBRE warned potential investors that the company could be hurt by the money problems of its clients, noting that federal regulators had recently taken over one of its "significant" clients, Washington Mutual, the nation's largest savings and loan.

The terms of the contract

CBRE won a highly favorable contract, according to real estate experts who reviewed the terms at the request of The Times.

CBRE is to be paid under a three-tiered system with sliding rates, according to a rate proposal provided to The Times under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. For starters, CBRE gets to charge a setup fee of $450 for each residential property and $600 for each commercial property it takes over from the FDIC.

"That is highly unusual," said Ms. Kenner, the Colorado-based foreclosure expert. She said she does not collect a separate setup fee and was expected to do such work as part of her commission.

The FDIC said: "The setup fee is for setting up the assets in the contractor's database and the FDIC database. In the private sector, a similar fee is usually charged as an administrative fee, document preparation fee, or asset handling fee."

Milt Shaw, senior vice president of LPS Asset Management Solutions, which manages nearly 20,000 foreclosed properties for banks and other clients, said his firm did not charge setup fees. Others in the industry also called the fee unusual.

CBRE also gets to collect a monthly administrative management fee of at least $200 for each residential and $1,600 for each commercial property in its inventory. Ms. Kenner and Mr. Shaw said fees for management services often come out of the sales commissions at closing.

But the biggest fees for CBRE will come from the sales.

CBRE charges commissions of 6 percent of the sales price on residential and 7 percent on commercial properties worth up to $1 million. It also is entitled to an incentive fee of as much as 2 percent of the sales price for properties it sells within six months. The incentives start at two percent for residential properties worth between $25,001 and $500,000 and for commercial properties worth between $25,001 and $1 million before dropping to 1.5 percent. The percentages for both the commissions and incentives become smaller as prices get higher.

Six percent commission is a standard rate for residential property in the private sector, but some experts said many buyers negotiate a lower fee.

Ms. Kenner, who deals in foreclosed residential properties, said she charges 5 percent to 6 percent, depending on the market, adding that she shares the fee with the buyer's agent and often with the asset management company.

Mr. Shaw said incentive fees are not that frequent in the private sector, but when he sees them they are usually smaller than 2 percent and pegged for a specific market.

The FDIC defended the fees, saying they were "intended to incentivize the contractors to sell the assets as quickly as possible for the benefit of the FDIC and to protect the insurance fund."

"The private sector normally does not have an urgency to sell assets quickly and thus do not normally have any incentive to do so," the agency said.

Mr. Shaw disagreed and said his private sector clients - banks and loan servicers - also wanted their properties sold quickly.

CBRE has the chance to collect the largest percentage of the sales price for properties worth $25,000 or less, under a flat fee agreement far more generous than the private sector.

Under the FDIC contract, CBRE charges a $5,000 sales commission for each property and can collect an additional $2,500 incentive fee if they sell it in under six months. In other words, they can collect as much as $7,500 on the sale of a property worth $25,000 or less - which works out to a sales commission of 30 percent or more.

Ms. Kenner said she charges $2,000 to $2,500 to sell properties worth $25,000 or less. Another firm, Prescient Inc., which won a similar FDIC contract at the same time as CBRE, charges a $1,948 commission and a $485 incentive fee.

"I think it is a little egregious," Mr. Shaw said of the CBRE compensation deal for small properties.

CBRE said its rates were market and commission money would be shared with other agents who co-listed the properties or represented the buyers.

Feinstein and the legislation

Mrs. Feinstein introduced her bill Jan. 6, seeking $25 billion from the government's bailout fund know as the Troubled Asset Relief Program to help bankroll an FDIC proposal to systematically prevent home mortgage foreclosures by expediting loan workouts and expanding federal loan guarantees.

The proposal was a pet project of FDIC Chairman Sheila C. Bair, who wanted expand a program the agency had used successfully with borrowers of the failed IndyMac bank to help reduce foreclosures.

Records show Mrs. Feinstein's public support for the Bair proposal surfaced Oct. 30 in letter to Mrs. Bair as CBRE was still competing for the FDIC contract. Mrs. Bair responded in late November pointing out that she had not been able to get the Treasury Department to adopt her program and authorize bailout funds for it, according to the correspondence released under FOIA.

Mrs. Feinstein's legislation would have required the government to finance Mrs. Bair's foreclosure plan.

"The FDIC estimates that roughly 2.2 million home loans, worth $444 billion, could be modified under this plan, with 1.5 million foreclosures avoided," she said in her statement on the bill.

Her spokesman said she introduced the foreclosure relief bill not at Mrs. Bair's request but after becoming aware from news accounts of the effect of the mortgage crisis, especially on California homeowners.

"California has one-third of all foreclosures in the nation, and the need to provide relief to struggling American families is the sole motivation for this bill," Mr. Duran said.

FDIC spokesman Andrew Gray said the agency's proposal got bipartisan backing.

Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, twice introduced a similar bill in the House. Both bills by Mrs. Feinstein and Mrs. Waters have been superceded by Mr. Obama's economic stimulus plan to aid homeowners, which adopts parts of the FDIC concept.

Mr. Gray said none of the FDIC board members such as Mrs. Bair played a role in the selection of CBRE because there is a fire wall between them and contracting decisions. He said Mrs. Bair first learned of the contract by reading the newspaper.

A question of ethics... FEINSTEIN THE OLD WHORE!

As for Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Duran said she did not learn of the contract until The Times asked her office about it in late January, even though the contract was publicly announced by the company and had been mentioned in an article in the Los Angeles Times in late November. Her spokesman said her office was not aware of the article.

Ethics analysts question whether Mrs. Feinstein had an obligation to track her husband's business dealings with the government to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.

"I find it amazing that they did not know that CB Richard Ellis had gotten the FDIC contract," said Mr. Cooper, the ethics expert and former regulator. "Why wasn't she or a staff person regularly watching for possible conflicts?"

Other experts said they do not think that the Senate Ethics Committee will take any action because Mrs. Feinstein's legislation did not directly financially benefit her husband and was aimed at solving a problem affecting a broad section of America.

Robert L. Walker, a former chief Senate Ethics Committee counsel, said the Senate conflict rule is so narrow that it "almost requires a senator's sponsorship of a private bill resulting in some personal or family benefit before a violation of the rule would be found."

Mr. Walker added that the Senate usually relies on the senator to police against improper appearances, but the policy "assumes that a senator and his or her staff will know about and remain alert to investments and other financial ties, including family financial ties, that could be the basis of such appearance concerns."

Mr. Duran said Mrs. Feinstein and Mr. Blum make "an intensive effort" to maintain a wall between their financial interests.

"Her staff carefully reviews all votes," he said. "Senator Feinstein complies with all required congressional disclosure requirements. She follows the guidance of the ethics committee and its requirements."

Mrs. Feinstein, who declined to answer detailed question about the steps she takes to avoid conflicts, is one of the wealthiest members of Congress, mainly from Mr. Blum's holdings. Together, they are worth at least $52.3 million, according to her 2007 personal financial disclosure forms filed with the Senate and analyzed by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors money and politics.

"When a spouse has so many business interests, it will always raise questions about how contracts are acquired or decisions made," said Ms. Sloan, CREW's executive director


  
On fifth anniversary of Wall Street crash, Obama tries the Big Lie technique
17 September 2013
On Monday, US President Barack Obama marked the fifth anniversary of the Wall Street crash of September 15, 2008 with a White House speech that only underscored the unbridgeable chasm that separates the entire political establishment from the broad mass of working people.
Even as he spoke, the stock market was soaring to new highs on the news that Obama’s expected choice to succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Lawrence Summers, had removed himself from consideration because of opposition from Wall Street.

Forbes magazine reported that the wealth of the 400 richest Americans had climbed to $2 trillion, a jump from $1.7 trillion in 2012.

With corporate profits at record highs, CEO pay once again hitting the tens and hundreds of millions, and the concentration of wealth the greatest since 1928, Obama boasted of the great success of his economic policies in restoring “security and opportunity for the middle class.”

With breathtaking cynicism—and contempt for the intelligence of the American people—Obama presented himself as single-mindedly focused on “my number one priority since the day I took office”: fighting for the so-called “middle class.” (There is, according to the mythology of the American ruling class, no working class in the United States, even though America is the most economically unequal of all industrialized countries).

Employing the technique of the Big Lie, Obama described his response to the financial crisis as follows: “We put people back to work repairing roads and bridges, to keep teachers in our classrooms, our first responders on the streets. We helped responsible homeowners modify their mortgages so that more of them could keep their homes. We helped jumpstart the flow of credit to help more small businesses keep their doors open. We saved the American auto industry… we took on a broken health care system … We put in place tough new rules on big banks … And what all this means is we’ve cleared away the rubble from the financial crisis and we’ve begun to lay a new foundation for economic growth and prosperity.”

No. The Obama administration categorically rejected any program of public works to hire the unemployed and refused to aid bankrupt state and local governments, resulting in the layoff of hundreds of thousands of teachers, firefighters and other public employees. As a result, mass unemployment is a permanent fixture, and the labor force participation rate is the lowest in 35 years. Moreover, the vast majority of new jobs created under Obama—still 2 million below the total before the crisis—are low-wage and part-time.

The administration refused to halt home foreclosures or force banks to reduce loan principals, allowing the banks to throw millions of families out onto the street.
While continuing and vastly expanding the bank bailout begun under Bush, Obama refused to impose any conditions on the money stolen from taxpayers, allowing the bankers to use government funds to speculate rather than provide loans to small businesses. The result was a wave of small business failures that continues to the present.

Obama forced General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy in order to impose plant closures, tens of thousands of layoffs, cuts in workers’ benefits, and a 50 percent pay cut for new-hires. The wage-cutting in the auto industry was the signal for an assault on wages and benefits in every sector of the economy, public as well as private.

Obama passed a health care overhaul devoted to cutting costs for corporations and the government by rationing health services, drugs, medical tests and procedures on a class basis. Millions of workers will see their coverage slashed while the health care giants and insurance companies enjoy windfall profits.

The Dodd-Frank financial “reform” bill passed in 2010 is a joke. A compendium of half measures meant to provide a fig leaf of reform while leaving the existing financial system intact, it largely remains a dead letter. Provisions such as the “Volcker Rule,” which would restrict—but not end—the legal ability of banks to speculate on their own accounts with depositors’ money, have not been enacted because of opposition from Wall Street.

Not a single leading bank executive has been criminally prosecuted, let alone jailed, for rampant fraud and criminality both before and after the 2008 crash. Over the past five years, bank scandals have proliferated—Libor-rigging, foreclosure fraud, concealing speculative losses, drug money laundering—with no serious consequences for the criminals. Not only have the biggest banks not been broken up, they have been allowed to grow even bigger and strengthen their grip on all aspects of economic and political life.

As for the “new foundation for growth and prosperity,” the offloading of the bad debts of the banks to the government and the massive money printing by the Federal Reserve to subsidize Wall Street have created the conditions for a financial crash of even greater proportions than the debacle of 2008.
The bankrupting of governments has, meanwhile, been used, in the US and around the world, to justify the launching of an historic assault on social programs and the jobs and living standards of the working class. Obama has spearheaded a social counterrevolution, utilizing the economic crisis to turn the wheel of history back to levels of exploitation and poverty last seen 100 years ago.

The centerpiece of this assault in the US is the bankruptcy of Detroit, backed by the White House, which is being used to destroy the pensions and health benefits of city workers, privatize and slash city services, and sell off public assets, from the water department to the Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit will set a precedent for cities across the country and internationally.

In his speech, Obama made passing reference to the further growth of social inequality during his tenure, noting that “the top one percent of Americans took home twenty percent of the nation’s income last year, while the average worker isn’t seeing a raise at all.” Typically, however, he spoke as though he was an innocent bystander and the further enrichment of the financial aristocracy had nothing to do with himself or his own policies.

In reality, the single-minded focus of Obama’s domestic agenda from day one has been to enable the ruling class to recover its losses from the crash and exploit the crisis to amass even greater wealth. Even as he sought in his speech to blame congressional Republicans for obstructing his supposed campaign in behalf of the middle class, Obama signaled that he intended to intensify his attack on social programs for workers and grant new windfalls to big business.

Boasting that deficits were falling at the fastest rate since the end of World War II, he said, “there’s not a government agency or program out there that still can’t be streamlined … So I do believe we should cut out programs that we don’t need.”

He reiterated his support for “reforms” to Medicare and Social Security, including raising the retirement age for Medicare, introducing a form of means testing, and cutting cost-of-living raises for Social Security beneficiaries. At the same time, he repeated his support for a massive cut in corporate taxes.

Obama’s speech will not fool the vast majority of workers, whose anger is increasingly focusing on the White House and the former candidate of “hope” and “change.” This opposition must be mobilized on the basis of a clear, independent, socialist political program, which starts from the need to build a political movement in opposition to the entire political establishment and the capitalist system it defends.

Barry Grey


 

On fifth anniversary of Wall Street crash, Obama tries the Big Lie technique


17 September 2013
 

On Monday, US President Barack Obama marked the fifth anniversary of the Wall Street crash of September 15, 2008 with a White House speech that only underscored the unbridgeable chasm that separates the entire political establishment from the broad mass of working people.

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/crony-capitalism-obama-celebrates-5.html

Forbes magazine reported that the wealth of the 400 richest Americans had climbed to $2 trillion, a jump from $1.7 trillion in 2012.