BARACK OBAMA HAS RAKED IN BIG (STOLEN) BUCKS FROM HIS CRONY JAMIE DIMON'S JP MORGAN. OBAMA HAS STATE PUBLICALLY THAT MORGAN IS A "WELL RUN BANK".
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).
"As a result of the crimes perpetrated by JPMorgan and other banks over the past decade, millions of people have had their homes foreclosed, and millions more have lost their jobs, while countless university endowments, pension plans, and municipalities have been swindled out of billions of dollars."
Why aren’t the banksters in prison?
22 May 2015
On Wednesday, five major international banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, America’s largest and third-largest financial institutions, pleaded guilty to felony charges for helping to manipulate global foreign exchange markets, paying a wrist-slap fine of about $1 billion apiece.The financial impact on JPMorgan and the other banks for pleading guilty to a felony will be effectively zero. As part of the deal, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued waivers exempting the banks from the legal repercussions arising from their status as criminal organizations, giving them continued preferential treatment in issuing debt, as well as the continued right to operate mutual funds.
Despite the claims by Justice Department officials of a criminal conspiracy "on a massive scale," carried out with "breathtaking flagrancy," there was no talk of breaking up JPMorgan or any other bank, let alone bringing criminal charges against any of their executives.
The rigging of global foreign exchange rates is only the latest in the string of crimes, frauds and criminal conspiracies for which JPMorgan has been fined by US and international regulators.
* In January 2013, JPMorgan, together with 10 other banks, agreed to pay a combined $8.5 billion to settle charges that they forged documents to foreclose homes more quickly.
* In November 2013, the bank agreed to pay $13 billion to settle charges that it defrauded investors by selling fraudulent mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the housing bubble collapse in 2007 and 2008.
* That same month, JPMorgan paid $4.5 billion to settle charges that it defrauded pension funds and other institutional investors to whom it sold mortgage bonds.
* In December 2013, JPMorgan and eight other banks were fined $2.3 billion for manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), the global benchmark interest rate on which the values of trillions of dollars in securities are based.
* In January 2014, JPMorgan paid $2 billion in fines and penalties to settle charges that it profited from and helped operate Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
As a result of the crimes perpetrated by JPMorgan and other banks over the past decade, millions of people have had their homes foreclosed, and millions more have lost their jobs, while countless university endowments, pension plans, and municipalities have been swindled out of billions of dollars.
Based on this partial list of only the latest and largest crimes carried out by JPMorgan, it is no exaggeration to conclude that America's largest bank is a criminal organization. Why then is it impossible to prosecute, much less jail, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, the mastermind of all of these crimes and conspiracies?
The answer to this question lies in the vast retrogression in social relations that has taken place in America amid the enormous growth of social inequality. Behind the increasingly threadbare outwards trappings of democracy, America has become an aristocratic society, with entrenched legal and social privileges for the ruling elite.
Before the French Revolution of 1789, European society was divided into feudal estates, such as the nobility, the church prelates, and the commoners. The estate into which someone was born was not only an economic category, but affected all aspects of life, from the laws that applied to him, to the types of taxes he paid, even to the kind of clothes he was legally allowed to wear.
The foundations of American democracy, laid in the aftermath of the American Revolution, were set up in opposition to the rigid social hierarchy that dominated contemporary Europe. The American Constitution prohibits the granting and holding of titles of nobility, while the 14th Amendment explicitly guarantees "the equal protection of the laws" to all people.
But could anyone argue that this is the case now? According to the American Bar Association, there are more than three hundred people serving sentences of life without parole for shoplifting in the state of California alone, while countless thousands of men throughout the United States are imprisoned for being too poor to pay child support.
Meanwhile the financial oligarchy and the state officials who defend their interests are effectively immune from prosecution. This tiny elite constitutes not merely a separate economic class, but effectively a separate estate, judged under what are, in effect, a different set of laws. A worker can be thrown in jail for failing to show up for a court date, while bankers who steal billions of dollars get off scot-free.
The American financial aristocracy is an inherently criminal class. Its wealth is based not on production, but on plunder, speculation and the upward redistribution of wealth through the impoverishment of the great majority of the population.
This financial oligarchy controls all the levers of power in contemporary society. The media, courts, politicians and so-called financial regulators are all under the thumb of the Wall Street mafiosos. Far from seeking to restrain Wall Street’s criminality, the government functions to facilitate and cover up for its crimes.
In exchange, politicians are provided with millions of dollars in campaign contributions and "speaking fees," while top financial regulators are invariably assured high-paying positions on Wall Street after their stints with the government.
YOU DON'T WORK IN THE OBAMA
ADMINISTRATION UNLESS YOU'RE
BANKSTER CONNECTED FOR A LA RAZA
SUPREMACY PARTY MEMEBER.
Ben Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chairman who funneled
trillions of dollars to Wall Street during the 2008 bank bailout,
announced this year that he has been hired by two major Wall
Street firms, the hedge fund Citadel and the bond trading firm
Pimco, each of whom will presumably pay him a seven-figure
salary. Bernanke followed in the footsteps of his colleague Timothy
Geithner, who became the head of hedge fund Warburg Pincus in
November 2013, following his stint as Treasury Secretary.
There is no way to break the power of the criminal cabal that dominates political life in the United States within the framework of the present social order. Holding the Wall Street criminals to account requires a radical reorganization of society. Only then can the criminals who head
the major US financial institutions be arrested, tried and convicted
of the crimes that they have orchestrated against the populations of
the United States and the whole world. Their ill-gotten gains must be seized, and the major Wall Street banks must be put under democratic control by the international working class.
This requires the building of a mass movement of the working class, whose aim must be the overthrow of the capitalist system and the socialist reorganization of economic life in the interest of the great majority of the world's population.
Andre Damon
“Barack Obama's favorite
banker faces losses of $2 billion and
possibly more -- all because of the complex, now-you-see-it-
now-you-don't trading in exotic financial instruments that he
has so ardently lobbied Congress not to regulate.”
possibly more -- all because of the complex, now-you-see-it-
now-you-don't trading in exotic financial instruments that he
has so ardently lobbied Congress not to regulate.”
Is JPMorgan's Loss a Canary in a Coal Mine?
That sound of
shattered glass you've been hearing is the iconic portrait of Jamie Dimon
splintering as it hits the floor of JPMorgan Chase. As the Good Book says,
"Pride goeth before a fall," and the sleek, silver-haired,
too-smart-for-his-own-good CEO of America's largest bank has been turning every
television show within reach into a confessional booth. Barack Obama's favorite
banker faces losses of $2 billion and
possibly more -- all because of the complex, now-you-see-it-now-you-don't
trading in exotic financial instruments that he has so ardently lobbied
Congress not to regulate.
Once again, doing
God's work -- that is, betting huge sums of money with depositor funds knowing
that you are too big to fail and can count on taxpayers riding to your rescue
if your avarice threatens to take the country down -- has lost some of its
luster. The jewels in Dimon's crown sparkle with a little less grandiosity than
a few days ago, when he ridiculed Paul Volcker's ideas for keeping Wall Street
honest as "infantile."
To find out more
about what this all means, I turned to Simon Johnson, once chief economist of
the International Monetary Fund and now a professor at MIT's Sloan School of
Management and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International
Economics. He and his colleague James Kwak founded the now-indispensable
website baselinescenario.com. They co-authored the bestselling book
13
Bankers and a most recent
book, White
House Burning, an account every
citizen should read to understand how the national deficit affects our future.
Bill Moyers: If Chase began to collapse because of
risky betting, would the government be forced to step in again?
Simon Johnson: Absolutely, Bill. JPMorgan Chase is
too big to fail. Hopefully in the future we can move away from this system, but
right now it is too big. It's about a $2.5 trillion dollar bank in terms of
total assets. That's roughly 20 percent of the U.S. economy, comparing their
assets to our GDP. That's huge. If that bank were to collapse -- I'm not saying
it will -- but if it were to collapse, it would be a shock to the economy
bigger than that of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and as a result, they
would be protected by the Federal Reserve. They are exactly what's known as too
big to fail.
Moyers: I was just looking at an interview I did with you in February of 2009,
soon after the collapse of 2008 and you said, and I'm quoting, "The signs
that I see... the body language, the words, the op-eds, the testimony, the way
these bankers are treated by certain congressional committees, it makes me feel
very worried. I have a feeling in my stomach that is what I had in other
countries, much poorer countries, countries that were headed into really
difficult economic situations. When there's a small group of people who got you
into a disaster and who are still powerful, you know you need to come in and
break that power and you can't. You're stuck." How do you feel about that
insight now?
Johnson: I'm still nervous, and I think that
the losses that JPMorgan reported -- that CEO Jamie Dimon reported -- and the
way in which they're presented, the fact that they're surprised by it and the
fact that they didn't know they were taking these kinds of risks, the fact that
they lost so much money in a relatively benign moment compared to what we've
seen in the past and what we're likely to see in the future -- all of this
suggests that we are absolutely on the path towards another financial crisis of
the same order of magnitude as the last one.
Moyers: Should Jamie Dimon resign? I ask that
because as you know and as we've discussed, Chase and other huge banks have
been using their enormous wealth for years to, in effect, buy off our
politicians and regulators. Chase just had to pay up almost three quarters of a billion
dollars in settlements and surrendered fees to settle one case alone, that of
bribery and corruption in Jefferson County, Alabama. It's also paid out
billions of dollars to settle other cases of perjury, forgery, fraud and sale
of unregistered securities. And these charges were for actions that took place
while Mr. Dimon was the CEO. Should he resign?
Johnson: I think, Bill, there should be an
independent investigation into how JPMorgan operates both with regard to these
losses and with regard to all of the problems that you just identified. This
investigation should be conducted separate from the board of directors.
Remember that the shareholders and the board of directors absolutely have an
incentive to keep JPMorgan Chase as a too-big-to-fail bank. But because it is
that kind of bank, its downside risk is taken by the Federal Reserve, by the
taxpayer, by the broader economy and all citizens. We need to have an
independent, detailed, specific investigation to establish who knew what when
and what kind of wrongdoing management was engaged in. On the basis of that,
we'll see what we'll see and who should have to resign.
Moyers: Dimon is also on the board of the
Federal Reserve Bank
of New York, which, as everyone knows is supposed to regulate
JPMorgan. What in the world are bankers doing on the Fed board,
regulating themselves?
of New York, which, as everyone knows is supposed to regulate
JPMorgan. What in the world are bankers doing on the Fed board,
regulating themselves?
Johnson: This is a terrible situation, Bill. It
goes back to the origins, the political compromise at the very beginning of the
Federal Reserve system about a hundred years ago. The bankers were very
powerful back then, also, and they got a Federal Reserve system in which they
had a lot of representation. Some of that has eroded over time because of
previous abuses, but you're absolutely right, the prominent bankers, including
most notably, Jamie Dimon, are members of the board of the New York Federal
Reserve, a key element in the Federal Reserve system. And he should, under
these circumstances, absolutely step down from that role. It's completely inappropriate
to have such a big bank represented in this fashion. The New York Fed claims
there's no impropriety, there's no wrong doing and he doesn't involve himself
in supervision and so on and so forth. Perhaps, but why does Mr. Dimon, a very
busy man, take time out of his day to be on the board of the New York fed? He
is getting something from this. It's a trade, just like everything else on Wall
Street.
Moyers: He dismissed criticism of his dual
role yesterday by downplaying the role of the Fed board. He said it's more like an "advisory group
than anything else." I had to check my hearing aid to see if I'd heard
that correctly.
Johnson: Well, I think he is advising them on
lots of things. He
also, of course, meets with some regularity with top Treasury
officials, and some reports say that he meets with President Obama
with some regularity. The political access and connections of Mr.
Dimon are second to none. One of his senior executives was until
recently chief of staff in the White House, if you can believe that. I
really think this has gone far enough. Under these kinds of
circumstances with this amount of loss of control over risk
management, what we need to have is Mr. Dimon step down from
the New York Federal Reserve Board.
also, of course, meets with some regularity with top Treasury
officials, and some reports say that he meets with President Obama
with some regularity. The political access and connections of Mr.
Dimon are second to none. One of his senior executives was until
recently chief of staff in the White House, if you can believe that. I
really think this has gone far enough. Under these kinds of
circumstances with this amount of loss of control over risk
management, what we need to have is Mr. Dimon step down from
the New York Federal Reserve Board.
Moyers: He told shareholders at their annual
meeting Tuesday -- they were meeting in Tampa, Florida -- that these were "self-inflicted mistakes"
that "should never have happened." Does that seem reasonable to you?
Johnson: Well, it's all very odd, Bill, and
I've talked to as many experts as I can find who are at all informed about what
JPMorgan was doing and how they were doing it and nobody really understands the
true picture. That's why we need an independent investigation to establish --
was this an isolated incident or, more likely, the breakdown of a system of
controlling and managing risks. Keep in mind that JPMorgan is widely regarded
to be the best in the business at risk management, as it is called on Wall
Street. And if they can't do this in a relatively benign moment when things are
not so very bad around the world, what is going to happen to them and to other
banks when something really dramatic happens, for example, in Europe in the
eurozone?
Moyers: Some of his supporters are claiming
that only the bank has lost on this and that there's absolutely no chance that
the loss could have threatened the stability of the banking system as happened
in 2008. What do you say again to that?
Johnson: I say this is the canary in the coal
mine. This tells you that something is fundamentally wrong with the way banks
measure, manage and control their risks. They don't have enough equity funding
in their business. They like to have a little bit of equity and a lot of debt.
They get paid based on return on equity, unadjusted for risk. If things go well,
they get the upside. If things go badly, the downside is someone else's
problem. And that someone else is you and me, Bill. It goes to the Federal
Reserve, but not only, it goes to the Treasury, it goes to the debt.
The Congressional
Budget Office estimates that the increase in debt relative to GDP due to the
last crisis will end up being 50 percent of GDP, call that $7
trillion dollars, $7.5 trillion dollars in today's money. That's extraordinary.
It's an enormous shock to our fiscal accounts and to our ability to pay
pensions and keep the healthcare system running in the future. For what? What
did we get from that? Absolutely nothing. The bankers got some billions in
extra pay, we get trillions in extra debt. It's unfair, it's inefficient, it's
unconscionable, and it needs to stop.
Moyers: Wasn't part of the risk that Dimon
took with taxpayer guaranteed deposits? I mean, if I had money at JPMorgan
Chase, wouldn't some of my money have been used to take this risk?
Johnson: Again, we don't know the exact
details, but news reports do suggest that yes, they were gambling with federally
insured deposits, which just really puts the icing on the cake here.
Moyers: Do we know yet what is Dimon's
culpability? Is it conceivable to you that a risk this big would have been
incurred without his approval?
Johnson: It seems very strange and quite a
stretch. And he did tell investors, when he reported on first quarter earnings
in April, that he was aware of the situation, aware of the trade -- he called it a "tempest in a teacup,"
and, therefore, not something to worry about.
Moyers: He's been Wall Street's point man in
their campaign against tighter regulation of derivatives and proprietary
trading. Were derivatives at the heart of this gamble?
Johnson: Yes, according to reliable reports,
this was a so-called "hedging" strategy that turned out to be no more
than a gamble, but the people involved perhaps didn't understand that or maybe
they understood it and covered it up. It was absolutely about a bet on
extremely complex derivatives and the interesting question is who failed to
understand exactly what they were getting into. And how did Jamie Dimon, who
has a reputation that he burnishes more than anybody else for being the number
one expert risk manager in the world -- how did he miss this one?
Moyers:I've been reading a lot of stories
today about members of the House, Republicans in particular, saying this
doesn't change their opinion at all that we've got to still diminish regulation.
What do you think about that?
Johnson: I think that it is a recipe for
disaster. Look, deregulating or not regulating during the boom is exactly how
you get into bailouts in the bust. The goal should be to make all the banks
small enough and simple enough to fail. End the government subsidies here. And
when I talk to people on the intellectual right, Bill, they get this, as do
people on the intellectual left. The problem is, the political right largely
doesn't want to go there because of the donations. I'm afraid some people, not
all, but some people on the political left don't want to go there either.
Moyers: The Washington Post reported
that the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into
JPMorgan's trading loss. Have you spotted -- and I know this is sensitive --
but have you spotted anything in the story so far that suggests the possibility
of criminality? Dodd-Frank is not in existence yet, so where would any
possibility of criminality come from?
Johnson: Well Dodd-Frank is in existence but
the rules have not been written and therefore not implemented. So yes, it is
hard to violate those rules in their current state. And many of those rules, by
the way, violation would be a civil penalty, not a criminal penalty. If you
violate a securities law -- if you've mislead investors, if there was material
adverse information that was not disclosed in an appropriate and timely manner
-- that's a very serious offence traditionally.
I have to say that
the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission have not
been very good at enforcing securities law in recent years, including and
specifically since the financial crisis. I am skeptical that this will change.
But if they have an investigation that reveals all of the details of what
happened and how it happened, that would be extremely informative and show us,
I believe, that the risk management approach and attitudes on Wall Street are
deeply flawed and leading us towards a big crisis.
Moyers: So what are people to do, Simon? What
can people do now in response to this?
Johnson: Well, I think you have to look for
politicians who are proposing solutions, and look on the right and on the left.
I see Elizabeth Warren, running for the Senate in Massachusetts, who is saying
we should bring back Glass-Steagall to separate commercial banking from
investment banking. I see Tom Hoenig, who is not a politician, he's a
regulator, he's the former president of the Kansas City Fed, and he's now one
of the top two people at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the FDIC.
He is saying that big banks should no longer have trading desks. That's the
same sort of idea that Elizabeth Warren is expressing. We need a lot more
people to focus on this and to make this an issue for the elections.
And I would say in
this context, Bill, it's very important not to be distracted. I understand for
example, Speaker Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House of
Representatives, is proposing to have another conflict over the debt ceiling in
the near future. This is the politics of distraction. This is refusing to recognize
that a huge part of our fiscal problems today and in the future are due to
these risks within the financial system that are allowed because the people
running the biggest banks hand out massive campaign contributions across the
political spectrum.
Moyers: Are you saying that this financial
crisis, so-called, is at heart a political crisis?
Johnson: Yes, exactly. I think that a few
people, particularly in and around the financial system, have become too
powerful. They were allowed to take a lot of risk, and they did massive damage
to the economy -- more than eight million jobs lost. We're still struggling to
get back anywhere close to employment levels where we were before 2008. And
they've done massive damage to the budget. This damage to the budget is long
lasting; it undermines the budget when we need it to be stronger because the
society is aging. We need to support Social Security and support Medicare on a
fair basis. We need to restore and rebuild revenue, revenue that was absolutely
devastated by the financial crisis. People need to understand the link between
what the banks did and the budget. And too many people fail to do that.
"Oh, it's too complicated. I don't want to understand the details, I don't
want to spend time with it." That's a mistake, a very big mistake. You're
playing into the hands of a few powerful people in the society who want private
benefit and social loss.
Watch Moyers &
Company weekly on public television. See more web-only features like this
at BillMoyers.com
*
For much of Obama’s tenure, Jamie Dimon was known as the
White House’s “favorite banker.” According to White House
logs, Dimon visited the White House at least 18 times, often to
talk to his former subordinate at JPMorgan, William Daley,
who had been named White House chief of staff by Obama
after the Democratic rout in the 2010 elections.
White House’s “favorite banker.” According to White House
logs, Dimon visited the White House at least 18 times, often to
talk to his former subordinate at JPMorgan, William Daley,
who had been named White House chief of staff by Obama
after the Democratic rout in the 2010 elections.
JPMorgan Chase: Break Up the Big Banks Now. Here's
How.
When Jamie Dimon
revealed that JPMorgan Chase had lost billions through risky and legally
questionable trading, he said the losses would be about $2 billion and maybe
more. Apparently it is more -- a lot more. People in a position to know
are saying the real figure is probably in the $5-7 billion range.
The JPMorgan Chase
scandal -- and yes, it is a scandal -- shows us why we need to break up
the big banks as quickly as possible.
But that won't happen
unless we can get our hands around the real scope of the problem, which is
probably far greater than we're being told. That means cutting through the
enveloping shroud of jargon, euphemisms and double talk -- "crap," if
you will -- that keeps us from seeing the situation as it really is.
Here's why we need to
do it, and here's how.
Talk Talk
Two images come to
mind when considering too-big-to-fail banks like JPMorgan Chase: The first is
of the gigantic spaceships hovering over all of the world's cities in
Independence Day, leaving the citizenry in shadows and the world in fear
and uncertainty.
The second image is
of an old New Yorker cartoon which shows a husband and wife chatting
with guests over drinks and h'ors d'oeuvres while an enormous monster
scowls in the corner. The caption reads: "We deal with it by not talking
about it."
Most politicians are
either talking about tighter regulations for too-big-to-fail banks, or about
the virtues of self-regulation and the so-called "free markets." But
the real problem isn't how to manage too-big-to-fail banks, which are
inherently unmanageable. The real problem is that they exist, an everpresent
menace that hovers over our economy while we go about our daily lives.
They deal with that
problem by not talking about it.
Monster Mash
JPMorgan Chase is
either our largest or second-largest bank, depending on when and how you ask
the question. News stories often point out that it has $2 trillion in assets,
which sounds impressive. But they usually fail to mention that it has
liabilities of more than $2 trillion, too, leaving it roughly $183 billion in
the black.
That ain't bad -- but
it's not much more net worth than you'll see sitting around the table when Mitt
Romney's super PAC friends get together for lunch.
And we can't trust
those numbers. We now know that these risky London deals weren't accurately
conveyed in last year's annual report. What else don't we know about JPM's
liabilities?
All of our big banks
were on the hook for hundreds of trillions of dollars in the run-up to the
financial crisis of 2008. And now they're bigger than ever. How big? We don't
know for sure -- and that's a big part of the problem.
Our four largest
banks have 95 percent of the total exposure to derivatives.
Two years ago we analyzed the raw data and found that JPM alone held 44
percent of that risk -- and JPM has grown since then.
Because they intend
to keep right on growing. As Jamie Dimon promised shareholders, "I want to assure you that your
company will be bigger and stronger and better a year from today."
If that doesn't
frighten you, you haven't been paying attention.
Bigger ≠ Better
Here's an example of
what we mean when we say it's time to "cut the crap" when we talk
about big banks:
Writers should no
longer be allowed to tell us, even in passing, that "I agree we need large institutions"
unless they tell us why we need them.
Jamie Dimon was
leading the chorus of bankers saying that their large size leads to increased
efficiency and economies of scale. Okay, Mr. Dimon: Where are they? Is the cost
of borrowing cheaper at JPM than it is at community banks? Are ATM fees lower?
Are loans easier to get?
"Economies of
scale" work well for customers -- when you're manufacturing toasters. But
banks like JPM aren't in the toaster business. They're not even in the customer
business anymore. Ordinary clients at the big banks are like cannon fodder in a
colonial army: They're there to be used and discarded, not to be served or
respected.
(John Reed's interview with Bill Moyers offers an
enlightening glimpse into this shift in banking culture.)
So let's stop
repeating the mantra that big institutions have anything to offer us --
anything, that is, except moral hazard. We did fine without them for centuries,
and we'll be better off once they're gone.
Gaming the Numbers
Here's something else
that needs to stop: When a bank deceives its investors, reporters need to stop
saying only that it "changed its risk model." That makes it sound
arcane. What JPM really did was mislead everyone.
The bank told
investors that they had begun assessing internal risk in a new and more
effective way. But reports say that the unit which made these hazardous trades
reported directly to Dimon, bypassing the bank's other executive and risk
management channels. And despite what they told the public -- including
investors -- the bank did not use its new risk model to assess these
trades. They used an old model which dramatically understated the risk
involved.
Listen, I know this
kind of talk confuses some people, but if there's one thing I learned after
working in risk management it's this: The more jargon you hear, the less
trustworthy the source.
If reports are true,
then Chase was deceiving the public and it was deceiving investors. That's not
"changing its risk model." It's lying. And it's very possibly fraud.
Byline Creep
And while we're in
the crap-cutting business, here's something else that needs to stop:
Just because Jamie
Dimon described the loss as "stupid" doesn't mean that you have to
believe him, or use the same language. Listen, writers: He's the architect of
this charade, not an observer.
If this disaster
should tell you anything, it's to stop letting Jamie Dimon write your copy for
you.
Something Stupid
Executives at Chase
and the other big banks live in confidence that they'll reap the profits for
risky betting and leave the losses to you. That may be many things -- venal,
selfish, greedy -- but it's not stupid.
What's more, as long
as nobody is indicted for Wall Street's ongoing criminality, they can keep
breaking the law knowing they'll never pay the price for that either.
And if laws were
broken in JPMorgan Chase's case, as Dimon himself acknowledges is possible,
then these deals were only "stupid" the way any crime is stupid: It's
only stupid if you get caught.
It Can Be Done.
Here's How.
We've been led to
believe that it's politically and economically impossible to break up these
banks. That's not true. How can the political climate be changed?
The first step is to
push for better financial reporting, so that we see less of the mistakes
described above. If people are better-informed about big banks, sentiment
against them will run even stronger than it is right now.
Which gets us to the
politics of big banks.
Democracy First
The commonsense SAFE Act introduced by Sen. Sherrod Brown and
Rep. Keith Ellison would end the era of too big to fail. It's a smart first
step toward ridding the world of these menaces to society.
Legislation should
also be introduced to strengthen and expand antitrust laws so that they can
rein in out-of-control banks like JPM.
True, the SAFE Act
and antitrust banking bills are unlikely to pass under our corrupt political
system. But every politician in Washington should be forced to vote
"yes" or "no" on this bill before the elections and let the
public know where they stand on this vital issue. That's the only way Americans
can make an informed decision in November.
During the drafting
of Dodd/Frank financial legislation we saw something important happen a number
of times: If politicians were allowed to craft deals in private, those deals
always benefited the big banks. But if they were forced to debate these issues
publicly, we saw a much greater consensus against Wall Street.
Public debate: It's
how democracy is supposed to work. It will help us break up the big banks.
Contraptions and
Elegance
The Dodd/Frank bill's
reforms, while anemic, are somewhat useful. It's madness to suggest repealing
them, as Republicans are trying to do. But Dodd/Frank isn't useful at all
unless agencies are staffed with regulators determined to do their jobs. The
Administration's record has been lackluster (or worse) in that regard, while
the Republicans have made it clear that they'll staff regulatory agencies with
people determined not to do their jobs.
It doesn't help that
when it comes to too-big-to-fail banks the current system of financial
regulation is a rickety, complicated, Rube Goldberg-ish contraption designed to
work around the massive danger that they pose to the economy.
Simple solutions are
usually the best, and the simple solution to too big to fail banks is: Break
them up.
That may not be
politically feasible right now, but it's the job of a mobilized citizenry to
change the political equation with public pressure whenever possible. That
means keeping the issue on the front burner by inundating elected officials
from the White House on down with emails and calls in support of the SAFE Act.
(More here.)
Lead the Fed
Lead the Fed
The public needs to
pres Congress about the Federal Reserve, too. The Fed is feeding the growth of
the megabanks with free or very low-interest money, no strings attached. That
gives megabanks the resources and the incentive to place that where it can
maximize income in a stagnant, nearly consumerless economy. That tempts the
banks into increasingly risky transactions and instruments like the ones that
caused JPM's loss.
The Fed must also
stop interfering with shareholder democracy, which cuts to the core of
executive accountability. We should demand that Congress hold the Fed
accountable for its actions in propping up too-big-to-fail banks.
That's not very
likely to happen as long as the Federal Reserve, a creation of the United
States government, is governed by boards that are dominated by bankers --
bankers like Jamie Dimon. So the public must demand that Dimon step down, and
that bankers are removed from Fed boards altogether.
Shine a Light
The public has the
right to know about the banks it's been coddling, spoon-feeding low interest
loans to, and protecting for years. It should demand a full and complete audit
of these banks by trustworthy outsiders -- if enough of them can still be
found. Auditors can provide the banks with all the proprietary protections they
rightfully deserve. But twe rescued them, and now we need to shine a light into
their dark corners.
In addition to these
general audits, we also need an immediate, extensive and transparent
no-holds-barred review of the JPMorgan Chase debacle. Simon Johnson compares this event with the
near-collision of two jet airliners, which would trigger an immediate
investigation by the National Traffic Safety Board. It's an apt analogy, and an
excellent idea.
And bank executives
must be investigated, too -- for criminal activity. That, and that alone, would
discourage illegal risk-taking. It would also make them take their legal
responsibilities under Sarbanes-Oxley much more seriously than they apparently
do today, and would discourage them from routinely deceiving the public --
which in many cases appears to cross the line into fraud.
Declare Independence
Declare Independence
Our national and
world economies are in grave danger as long as banks like JPMorgan Chase exist
in their present form. They've already left our economy in ruins once. It's
only a matter of time before they do it again.
Even if we assume
that JPM's current problems can be contained, we should realize that every loss
of this kind has the potential to turn into a chain reaction. Each could become
a cascading failure that threatens JPM or another megabank -- and which
therefore threatens the entire financial system.
The megabanks pose an
existential threat to our economy. They hover over our economy, our political
system, and our personal lives like a fleet of giant spaceships. They serve no
useful social purpose, and they only exist because we allow them to exist.
it's time to declare
our independence from their domination and demand that our elected officials
help us in our fight for freedom. It's time to stop living in their menacing
shadow and come out into the sunlight.
It's time to dedicate
ourselves to breaking up JPMorgan Chase and the other too-big-to-fail banks,
and to ensuring that they never threaten the world's economy again.
THE
BANKSTER-OWNED PRESIDENT PROMISED HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS NO real
REGULATION, NO PRISON TIME, AND UNLIMITED PILLAGING OF THE NATION’S ECONOMY!
DESPITE
THE DEVASTATION THESE BANKSTERS HAVE CAUSED AMERICANS, THEIR PROFITS SOARED
GREATER DURING OBAMA’S FIRST TWO YEARS, THAN ALL EIGHT UNDER BUSH. SO HAVE
FORECLOSURES!
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).
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
JPMorgan debacle
15
May 2012
The economic and
political fallout from JPMorgan Chase’s sudden announcement last Thursday night
that it lost more than $2 billion from speculative bets on credit derivatives
continued to grow on Monday. The biggest US bank announced the forced
retirement of Ina Drew, who headed up the bank’s London-based Chief Investment
Office, which placed huge bets on the creditworthiness of a collection of US
corporations. Other top executives and traders are expected to be sacked or
demoted.
The bank’s shares
fell another 3.2 percent, bringing its two-day market capitalization loss to
nearly $19 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported that JPMorgan was
prepared for a total loss of more than $4 billion over the next year from its
soured stake in credit default swaps—the same investment vehicle that played a
central role in the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the government bailout of
insurance giant American International Group (AIG) in September of 2008.
In an interview on
NBC’s “Meet the Press” program on Sunday, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon sought to
present the loss as an innocent mistake, resulting from “errors, sloppiness and
bad judgment.” Only a month ago, Dimon, who has led the public campaign by Wall
Street against even the mildest restrictions on speculative banking practices,
dismissed warnings over the massive bets being made by his Chief Investment
Office as “a complete tempest in a teapot.”
The scale of the loss
and the denials that preceded it raise the likelihood that banking rules and
laws against investor fraud and deception were breached.
President Obama, however, rushed to the
defense of JPMorgan and Dimon, declaring on a daytime television talk show
Monday that JPMorgan was “one of the best managed banks there is” and Dimon was
“one of the smartest bankers we got.”
At the same time he cited the bank’s loss as a vindication of the Dodd-Frank
financial regulatory bill that he signed into law in July of 2010. “This is why
we passed Wall Street reform,” he said.
In fact, the JPMorgan debacle
demonstrates that nearly four
years after the Wall Street crash nothing has changed for the
financial aristocracy. No measures have been taken to rein in
the banks, which received trillions of dollars in government
handouts, guarantees and cheap loans. The same forms of
speculation and outright swindling that led to the financial
meltdown and the worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression continue unabated.
years after the Wall Street crash nothing has changed for the
financial aristocracy. No measures have been taken to rein in
the banks, which received trillions of dollars in government
handouts, guarantees and cheap loans. The same forms of
speculation and outright swindling that led to the financial
meltdown and the worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression continue unabated.
The big banks, such as JPMorgan, have
increased their stranglehold over the US economy. They have recorded bumper
profits by withholding credit from consumers and small businesses, keeping
unemployment high, while speculating on credit default swaps and other exotic
financial instruments that drain resources from the real economy. On this
basis, bank executives and traders, including those at bailed-out institutions,
have continued to rake in eight-figure compensation packages. Last year, Ina
Drew made $14 million, and Jamie Dimon took in $26 million.
The Dodd-Frank law trumpeted by Obama
is a fraud, an attempt to give the appearance of financial reform while
enabling the banks to continue their parasitic and criminal activities. A case in point is the so-called
Volcker Rule, named after the former chairman of the Federal Reserve and
economic adviser to the Obama White House, Paul Volcker.
The rule,
incorporated into the Dodd-Frank Act and supposedly one of its most daring
provisions, ostensibly bars proprietary trading—speculation by a bank on its
own account—by commercial banks whose consumer deposits are guaranteed by the
federal government. The idea is to prevent government-insured banks from
speculating with depositors’ money.
But the regulation as
drafted by federal regulators—under pressure from the Federal Reserve and
Obama’s treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, as well as the banks—would
actually allow the type of speculative bet made by JPMorgan in the guise of a
“hedge” to offset risk in the bank’s overall investment portfolio.
The Volcker Rule,
whose precise form is yet to be announced, will do nothing to halt speculation
by government-backed banks using small depositors’ money.
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.
When Iowa Senator
Charles Grassley submitted a letter to the Justice Department earlier this year
asking how many bank executives had been prosecuted in response to the
financial crisis, the Justice Department replied it did not know because it was
not keeping a list.
According to a study
by Syracuse University, however, federal financial fraud prosecutions have
fallen to 20-year lows under the Obama administration, and are down 39 percent
since 2003. Under Obama, the number of financial fraud cases has fallen to
one-third the level of the Clinton administration.
These facts
demonstrate the de facto dictatorship exercised by the financial aristocracy
over the entire political system and both major parties. The Obama
administration, in particular, is an instrument of the most powerful financial
institutions. It has focused its efforts on protecting and increasing the
wealth of the privileged elite while utilizing the crisis to permanently slash
the wages and living standards of the working class.
For much of Obama’s tenure, Jamie Dimon
was known as the
White House’s “favorite banker.” According to White House
logs, Dimon visited the White House at least 18 times, often to
talk to his former subordinate at JPMorgan, William Daley,
who had been named White House chief of staff by Obama
after the Democratic rout in the 2010 elections.
White House’s “favorite banker.” According to White House
logs, Dimon visited the White House at least 18 times, often to
talk to his former subordinate at JPMorgan, William Daley,
who had been named White House chief of staff by Obama
after the Democratic rout in the 2010 elections.
The incestuous and
corrupt relations between Wall Street, the Obama administration and the entire
political system underscore the necessity for the working class to build its
own mass socialist movement to fight for its interests in opposition to the
ruling elite.
The bankers
responsible for the financial crisis, including Dimon and his co-conspirators,
must be held criminally liable for their lawlessness and held accountable for
the social suffering that has resulted from their actions. The ill-gotten
trillions accumulated by the banks must be expropriated, with full protection
for small depositors and small businesses, and used to provide decent jobs,
housing, health care and education for all.
There is no way to
rein in the banks and end their socially destructive activities within the
framework of the capitalist system. The only way to stop the fraud and
parasitism that go on every day on Wall Street is to nationalize the banks and
run them as democratically controlled public utilities.
Andre Damon and Barry
Grey
FACT: JP MORGAN IS ONE OF BANKSTER-BOUGHT OBAMA’S BIGGEST
PAYMASTERS! HE’S PROMISED THEM NO PRISON TIME AND NO REAL REGULATION.
THERE IS A REASON WHY THE BANKSTERS INVESTED HEAVILY IN
OBAMA’S CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION!
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).
Obama: JPMorgan Is 'One of the
Best-Managed Banks'
By Mary Bruce | ABC
OTUS News – 2 hrs 31 mins ago
Obama:
JPMorgan Is 'One of the …
Lou
Rocco / ABC News
Just
hours after a top JPMorgan Chase executive retired in the wake of a
stunning $2 billion trading loss, President Obama
told the hosts of ABC's "The View" that the bank's risky bets
exemplified the need for Wall Street reform.
"JPMorgan is one of the best managed banks there
is. Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of
the smartest bankers we got and they still lost $2 billion and counting,"
the president said. "We don't know all the details. It's going to be
investigated, but this is why we passed Wall Street
reform."
The
full interview airs on "The View"
Tuesday on ABC at 11 a.m. ET
While
a powerhouse like JPMorgan might be able to weather an error that the bank's
own CEO called "egregious," the president questioned what might
happen to smaller institutions in similar situations.
"This
is one of the best managed banks. You could have a bank that isn't as strong,
isn't as profitable managing those same bets and we might have had to step
in," he said. "That's why Wall Street reform is so important."
While
touting his efforts to rein in the Wall Street behavior that led to the massive
taxpayer bailout of the banks following the financial crisis, he noted his
administration is still fighting for tough reform.
Pivoting
to November, the president said Wall Street reform is one of the many critical areas
where he and his Republican challenger, presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney,
have a different vision for the future.
The
president's full interview airs Tuesday on "The View." Tune into
"World News with Diane Sawyer" tonight for more.
*
Nicole Gelinas
It’s Not About Jamie Dimon
We should look to markets, not men, to govern the economy.
14 May 2012
It’s Not About Jamie Dimon
We should look to markets, not men, to govern the economy.
14 May 2012
On
Meet
the Press
yesterday, JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon epitomized what’s wrong with
America’s approach to the financial crisis. The American media and political
elite remain obsessed with personalities, looking for heroes and villains
instead of focusing on what we really need: the dispassionate rule of law that
would allow free markets to flourish. Meet the Press is for politicians,
and Dimon performed like a model one. He spoke in short sentences and
apologized directly: “I was dead wrong,” he offered, for having made a
“terrible, egregious mistake.” Specifically, last Thursday, JPMorgan announced
a $2
billion trading loss
on a derivatives bet.
Theoretically,
anyway, such a loss should be a matter between the bank and investors, not TV
fodder. Yet Dimon’s business—too-big-to-fail
banking—is
no ordinary business. Washington’s willingness to subsidize failure means that
Dimon’s job is as much political risk management as financial risk management. Because JPMorgan depends on Uncle Sam’s backing, one of
Dimon’s key constituencies is politicians and government regulators. And one way to charm regulators—and
the voters who elect the politicians—is through a killer interview.
In
October 2008, the Bush administration, not normally a fan of government
expropriation, forced
nine big banks,
including Dimon’s, to accept $125 billion in TARP money. The banks were deemed
so important that they had to take the money to protect them against failure,
whether they wanted it or not. Since then, the banks
and the government have stayed bound together. President Obama’s Dodd-Frank
financial reform law, enacted two summers ago, has tied the two sides closer
still.
The problems that led to the financial crisis, remember, included investors’
perception—honed over two decades of smaller-scale bailouts—that big banks were
too big to fail. Dodd-Frank has given such banks an official title:
“systemically important financial institutions.”
Another
problem that led to the financial crisis was that, over the years, politicians
and regulators determined that banks had become so good at risk management that
they no longer needed to abide by consistent rules—fixed limits on borrowing,
for example, so that banks could fail without leaving behind so much unpaid
debt that they endangered the economy. Instead, banks could largely do what
their executives wanted, as long as regulators believed, on a case-by-case
basis, that they knew what they were doing.
In
the aftermath of the JPMorgan mess, politicians and reporters have been
invoking the Dodd-Frank law’s “Volcker Rule.” Named after Paul Volcker, the
Federal Reserve chairman from the Carter and Reagan eras, the rule prohibits
banks whose customers benefit from taxpayer-backed deposit insurance from
engaging in “proprietary trading,” or speculation. But the Volcker Rule isn’t a
rule at all: it prohibits behavior that has no set definition. Twenty-two
months after Dodd-Frank became law, regulators have delayed
enforcing the rule
because they still cannot figure out what proprietary trading really is.
Consider how JPMorgan lost all that money: creating derivatives that let it
sell billions of dollars’ worth of protection against the risk that some
corporate securities would default. That sure doesn’t sound like a good idea.
Banks, because they’re lenders, are already at risk if people and companies
default in droves.
But
does selling such synthetic “insurance” constitute proprietary trading?
Michigan Senator Carl Levin, who helped draft the Volcker Rule language, says
it does. Bank officials have argued that such behavior is hedging, which would
be okay under Dodd-Frank.
Real
rules could govern Wall Street, but politicians must give regulators the
backing to create and enforce them. Rather than worry about the Volcker Rule,
politicians and reporters should be focusing on derivatives rules. One reason
that Washington had to bail out the financial system four years ago was that
financial firms such as AIG had taken on virtually infinite risk through the
derivatives markets. Through derivatives, AIG could “sell” protection against
other companies’ defaults with almost no cash down. Lo and behold, that’s what
JPMorgan Chase was doing, too. Regulators should demand that traders—whether
big banks or tiny hedge funds—put a set amount of cash down behind such bets,
curtailing the amount of potential unpaid debt in the financial system.
Regulators should also require that traders execute such transactions on open
clearinghouses and exchanges—so that markets can determine which bets are going
well and which aren’t, and clearinghouses can demand more money from traders to
cover their losses. Such rules empower market signals, not regulatory micromanagement,
to control risk. If such rules were in place, it’s unlikely Dimon would have
visited the White House 18
times in three years,
as he would have had no way to manipulate a restriction that, after all,
applied to everyone.
The
best way to stop bailouts is to limit borrowing and demand transparency. When
markets know that financial firms have put a cash cushion behind their bets—and
where the risk behind such bets lies—they’re unlikely to pull their money out
of the financial system en masse, necessitating a government rescue. The
Volcker Rule, by contrast, adds no such protection against future taxpayer
rescues; all it does is unleash regulators to debate, in private, the
definitions of risk.
Dodd-Frank
gave regulators the authority to impose real rules on derivatives, and the
regulators have done
so. But
lobbyists demanded and secured exceptions, which could eventually prove the
rule. With such loophole-ridden reform, America has hardly set a good example
for Europe, which lags even further behind in enacting derivatives rules. In
fact, JPMorgan Chase may have executed the derivatives deals from London
because the bank perceived London as a looser environment. Moving this activity
around the world so that financiers can play inconsistent rules against one
another does nothing to help the struggling Western economies.
The
media and the politicians, however, would rather discuss people than arcane
issues like financial rules. Look at how politely—almost obsequiously—NBC’s
David Gregory treated Dimon. Gregory asked Dimon: “Here you are, Jamie Dimon,
you’ve got a sterling reputation. . . . How does a guy like you make this
mistake? If this happened at JPMorgan Chase . . . what about all the other
banks out there? If somebody else made a mistake like this, would we be again
talking about too big to fail and taxpayer bailouts?” Then, when asking
delicate questions about potential criminal liability, Gregory unconsciously
switched from “you” to “the bank.” Lowly regulators will hardly be more willing
to take on Dimon and his colleagues.
Focusing
on one man represents bailout thinking. Policymakers continue to be distracted
from the rules needed to protect the economy from the consequences—including
corporate failure—of the bad decisions that individuals can make. Nearly four
years after the financial crisis began, Washington seems to have learned almost
nothing.
NO PRESIDENT IN HISTORY HAS TAKEN MORE LOOT FROM
CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS THAN OBAMA. HE PROMISED HIS BANKSTERS NO CRIMINAL
PROSECUTION, AND NO REAL REGULATION.
PROFITS FOR BANKSTERS HAVE SOARED UNDER OBAMA, JUST
AS FORECLOSURES HAVE. DURING HIS FIRST 2 YEARS THE BANKSTERS MADE MORE LOOT
THAN ALL 8 UNDER BUSH!
WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU?
*
"In general,
these are professional prognosticators," said Ritsch. "And they may
be putting their money on the person they predict will win, not the candidate
they hope will win."
Token fines for banks caught rigging foreign exchange markets
The payouts, much of them tax deductible, are a fraction of the combined profits of the banks.
The payouts, much of them tax deductible, are a fraction of the combined profits of the banks.
The payouts, much of them tax deductible, are a fraction of the combined profits of the banks.
OBAMA’S PROMISE TO CRONY BANKSTERS: Not one day
in prison!
“Nearly five years after the greatest financial crash since the Great Depression, triggered by rampant illegality and fraud on the part of the major banks, not a single major institution or leading bank executive has been indicted, let alone tried, convicted and jailed.”
Token fines for banks caught rigging foreign exchange markets
By Andre Damon and Barry Grey
21 May 2015
In yet another wrist-slap settlement for bankers involved in criminality on a massive scale, the US government on Wednesday announced that five major banks had pleaded guilty to felony conspiracy and antitrust charges and agreed to pay a combined total of approximately $5 billion in fines.The payouts, much of them tax deductible, are a fraction of the combined profits of the banks. The amounts have already been set aside by bank CEOs as the cost of doing business in an environment in which banks routinely break the law, secure in the knowledge that there will be no serious consequences.
The banks—JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Barclays and RBS—admitted to conspiring to rig global currency exchange rates. They made billions of dollars by illegally manipulating rates affecting countless businesses and individuals around the world. All of the banks were previously implicated in rigging Libor (the London Interbank Offered Rate), the global benchmark used to set short-term interest rates for hundreds of trillions of dollars in loans.
Two of the banks, UBS and Barclays, carried out the foreign exchange fraud in violation of the terms of their non-prosecution agreements with the US government stemming from their involvement in the Libor scandal.
The documents released by the Justice Department in relation to the settlement point to the culture of fraud and criminality on Wall Street. As one Barclays vice president put it, “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.”
Since the Wall Street crash of 2008, these and
other major banks have been cited for crimes
ranging from fraudulently selling worthless
mortgage securities, to laundering money for
Mexican drug lords, facilitating Bernard Madoff’s
Ponzi scheme, and concealing billions in
speculative losses. For these crimes they have
suffered no serious consequences.
Instead, regulators in the US and internationally have crafted settlements in backroom negotiations with the criminals involving token fines that turn out to be significantly smaller than the nominal figures announced by government officials.
“The criminality occurred on a massive scale,” said FBI Assistant Director Andrew McCabe, announcing the foreign exchange fraud settlement on Wednesday. He explained that traders at multiple banks rigged estimates of global currency exchange rates every day for up to five years.
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke of the conspiracy’s “breathtaking flagrancy, its systemic reach, and its significant impact.” Aitan Goelman, the head of enforcement at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, called the five banks a “cabal.”
These statements, meant to give the appearance of government toughness toward the banks, only underscored the gaping discrepancy between the scale of the crimes and the toothless character of the punishment. Wednesday’s announcement was further confirmation that the US and international financial aristocracy is above the law.
Not a single major bank has been closed down or broken up since the 2008 crash, triggered by reckless and illegal speculative activities. Not a single bank CEO or top official has been prosecuted or jailed for crimes that have led to the impoverishment of countless millions of people.
But a petty crime carried out by a US worker or working-class youth brings down the wrath of a so-called “justice system” that is merciless when it comes to the lower social orders. Tens of thousands of workers and poor people are cast into America’s prison gulag every year for offenses that pale in comparison to the crimes carried out by Wall Street CEOs.
Or they are killed outright by the militarized police who occupy America’s working-class neighborhoods. Michael Brown, an 18-year-old unarmed youth, was gunned down last August by a Ferguson, Missouri cop who was tracking him for allegedly stealing a package of cigarillos from a convenience store.
In the deal announced Wednesday, the banks pleaded guilty to felony charges. This is a departure from previous settlements in which the government allowed the banks to avoid any admission of guilt.
But the guilty pleas were part of a scheme worked out between the government and the banks to render the pleas virtually meaningless. The Securities and Exchange Commission issued waivers exempting the banks from the legal repercussions of committing a felony, giving them continued preferential treatment in issuing debt as well as the continued ability to operate mutual funds.
In today’s thoroughly corrupt political environment, totally dominated by corporate money, there is no stigma attached to a bank that effectively admits to being a criminal enterprise. The media pays no attention and the markets could care less. Shares of most of the banks involved in the settlement spiked on Wednesday. UBS and Barclays both rose 3.4 percent. RBS finished the day up by 1.9 percent.
Wednesday’s settlement is further evidence of the reassertion of the aristocratic principle in contemporary capitalist society: there is one set of laws for the vast majority, the working people, and an entirely different legal framework for the financial oligarchs—one that can be summed up with the phrase “Anything goes.”
FRAUD for FEES
WELLS FARGO’S LOOTING OF AMERICA CONTINUES!
WELLS FARGO a criminal enterprise
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN’S PAYMASTERS….. MUCKING OVER
MINORITIES FOR PROFITS FOR YEARS… it’s only one of the reasons this
criminal outfit has had their CA mortgage license REVOKED!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/11/sen-dianne-feinsteins-paymasters.html
THE UNLEASHING OF WALL STREET’S BIGGEST
MONSTERS and the ASSAULT ON the AMERICAN
MIDDLE-CLASS STARTED WITH BILL CLINTON.
MONSTERS and the ASSAULT ON the AMERICAN
MIDDLE-CLASS STARTED WITH BILL CLINTON.
You think Hillary’s any different? Obama’s crony banksters don’t!!!
OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTER-DRIVEN ECONOMY
First he sabotaged America’s borders and then invited endless waves of illegals to grab America’s jobs and keep wages depressed.
Then he went after America’s pensions, medicare and social security towards his design of destroying the American middle-class.
AND IT’S WORKING!
“Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America (ALL MAJOR DONORS TO BARACK OBAMA) and every other major US bank have been implicated in a web of scandals, including the sale of toxic mortgage securities on false pretenses, the rigging of international interest rates and global foreign exchange markets, the laundering of Mexican drug money, accounting fraud and lying to bank regulators, illegally foreclosing on the homes of delinquent borrowers, credit card fraud, illegal debt-collection practices, rigging of energy markets, and complicity in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.”
IMF PREDICTS THAT OBAMANOMICS and the GLOBAL
LOOTING BY OBAMA’S CRIMINAL CRONY BANKSTERS
WILL SOON DESTROY THE AMERICAN ECONOMY.
LOOTING BY OBAMA’S CRIMINAL CRONY BANKSTERS
WILL SOON DESTROY THE AMERICAN ECONOMY.
The International Monetary Fund warned Wednesday that the world economy would remain locked in a pattern of slow growth, high unemployment and high debt for a prolonged period. The forecast, contained in the organization’s updated World Economic Outlook (WEO), marks a shift from previous economic projections in acknowledging that there is little prospect of a return to the growth levels that prevailed prior to the 2008 Wall Street crash.
The document’s grim analysis amounts to a tacit acknowledgement that the crisis ushered in nearly seven years ago by the financial meltdown is of a historical and fundamental character, and that the underlying problems in the global capitalist system have not been resolved.
THE LOOTING OF AMERICA: BARACK OBAMA AND HIS CRONY BANKSTERS set themselves on America’s pensions next!
The new aristocrats, like the lords of old, are not bound by the laws that apply to the lower orders. Voluminous reports have been issued by Congress and government panels documenting systematic fraud and law breaking carried out by the biggest banks both before and after the Wall Street crash of 2008.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and
every other major US bank have been implicated in a web of
scandals, including the sale of toxic mortgage securities on
false pretenses, the rigging of international interest rates
and global foreign exchange markets, the laundering of
Mexican drug money, accounting fraud and lying to bank
regulators, illegally foreclosing on the homes of delinquent
borrowers, credit card fraud, illegal debt-collection
practices, rigging of energy markets, and complicity in the
Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.
every other major US bank have been implicated in a web of
scandals, including the sale of toxic mortgage securities on
false pretenses, the rigging of international interest rates
and global foreign exchange markets, the laundering of
Mexican drug money, accounting fraud and lying to bank
regulators, illegally foreclosing on the homes of delinquent
borrowers, credit card fraud, illegal debt-collection
practices, rigging of energy markets, and complicity in the
Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.
MUCH, MUCH MORE ON OBAMA’S ECONOMIC CRIMES PERPETRATED ON
BEHALF OF HIS CRONIES ON THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS
BEHALF OF HIS CRONIES ON THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS
One government-organized settlement has followed another, utilizing “deferred prosecution” deals and other gimmicks to allow Wall Street CEOs to get off scot-free. All the banks have had to do is pay largely fictitious fines, much of the nominal amount written off as tax credits.
BANKSTER RAHM’S VICTORY FOR HIS 1% CRONIES – FIRST ON THE RAHM AGENDA: CUT PENSIONS, MORE “BAILOUTS” FOR CRONY BANKSTERS.
RAHM EMANUEL…. only one more of Obama’s dirty crony banksters implementing OBAMANOMICS: loot from the middle-class and hand it to the 1%!
“Mayor Emanuel embodies the foulest characteristics of American politics in general and the Democratic Party in particular. An operative in the Clinton administration, Emanuel made millions as an investment banker before returning to the White House as Obama’s chief of staff.”
HILLARY CLINTON VOWS THAT OBAMA’S CRONY
CRIMINAL BANKSTERS WILL TAKE OUT ELIZABETH
WARREN!
…. Hillary has filled her pockets with dirty Obama bankster money!!!!
CRONY CAPITALISM… predicated on keeping wages depressed to third world levels for his billionaire donors!
Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses…and Muslim Dictators
Hillary has declared bankster looting will see
even greater rewards from her
administration!
“In reality, the settlement falls far short of holding JPMorgan
accountable for its fraudulent sale of mortgage-backed assets,
which netted the bank tens of billions of dollars in profits
while exacerbating the sub-prime mortgage crash that led to
over ten million foreclosures in the US and a global economic
downturn that thrust many millions more into
unemployment and poverty.”
accountable for its fraudulent sale of mortgage-backed assets,
which netted the bank tens of billions of dollars in profits
while exacerbating the sub-prime mortgage crash that led to
over ten million foreclosures in the US and a global economic
downturn that thrust many millions more into
unemployment and poverty.”
OBAMANOMICS: Did Obama’s Crony Banksters Destroy the Global Economy after sucking up trillions in tax payer-paid welfare?
You bet! That’s why they invested in Obama!
You bet! That’s why they invested in Obama!
THE IMPENDING GLOBAL DEPRESSION –
OBAMANOMICS AT WORK… even as his crony banksters loot trillions.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/02/did-obamas-crony-banksters-destroy.html
INCEST! The case of bankster-owned Barack Obama and crony Jamie Dimon of JP
MORGAN… their looting continues!
“In reality, the settlement falls far short of holding JPMorgan
accountable for its fraudulent sale of mortgage-backed assets,
which netted the bank tens of billions of dollars in profits
while exacerbating the sub-prime mortgage crash that led to
over ten million foreclosures in the US and a global economic
downturn that thrust many millions more into
unemployment and poverty.”
accountable for its fraudulent sale of mortgage-backed assets,
which netted the bank tens of billions of dollars in profits
while exacerbating the sub-prime mortgage crash that led to
over ten million foreclosures in the US and a global economic
downturn that thrust many millions more into
unemployment and poverty.”
OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERS PARTY UP AND STILL
GIVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THE MIDDLE FINGER
GIVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THE MIDDLE FINGER
'Not when those foibles had resulted in real harm to millions of people in the form of foreclosures, wrecked 401(k)s, and a devastating unemployment crisis.'
Loretta Lynch – DEDICATED SERVANT TO OBAMA’S
CRONY CRIMINAL BANKSTERS! Why else would he nominate her?
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/02/obama-and-his-crony-criminal-banksters.html
OBAMA’S PROMISE TO CRONY BANKSTERS: Not one day in prison!
“Nearly five years after the greatest financial crash since the Great Depression, triggered by rampant illegality and fraud on the part of the major banks, not a single major institution or leading bank executive has been indicted, let alone tried, convicted and jailed.”
Big bucks, but no bankers jailed in $5.7B settlement
By Peter Schroeder - 05/20/15
Six of the biggest names in global finance shelled out billions of dollars Wednesday to settle charges of rigging currency markets, but liberal lawmakers complain the government is just doling out slaps on the wrist.
On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced a settlement that also saw five banks plead guilty to illegal gaming of financial markets. But the new settlement, the latest in a long series of hefty payouts by bad-acting banks, did little to tamp down vocal criticism from the left that the Obama administration is doing little to actually change Wall Street’s course and culture.... BUT AREN'T THEY ALL OBAMA DONORS CRONIES???
“The big banks have been caught red-handed
conspiring to manipulate financial markets ...
but not a single trader is being held
individually accountable,” she said in a
statement. “That’s not accountability for Wall
Street. It’s business as usual, and it stinks.”
Since the financial crisis, nearly every major financial
institution has struck some sort of government deal to close
probes on a sundry list of wrongdoing, including mortgage
servicing flaws, offshore tax evasion and aiding rogue nations
like Iran in evading U.S. sanctions.
But while the government has pulled in the largest monetary settlements in history during that time, with several reaching billions of dollars, the continued failure to prosecute high-ranking executives at any of these firms remains a sore point for some groups and lawmakers.
Liberal critics lament that the fines appear to be doing little to change the culture of the financial sector, making them just the cost of doing business.
“Since 2009, huge financial institutions have paid $176 billion in fines and settlement payments for fraudulent and unscrupulous activities,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is running for president, said Wednesday. “The reality is that seven years after too-big-to-fail banks crashed the economy, fraud still appears to be the business model on Wall Street.”
The latest settlement announced by the Justice Department saw the government assessing penalties and accepting guilty pleas from a host of banks for conspiring to rig currency markets to maximize profits.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the agreement brings to an end a manipulation scheme of “breathtaking flagrancy,” in which traders conspired across institutions to artificially alter currency exchange markets to obtain illicit profits, forming a group they dubbed “the cartel.” Dating back to 2007, Lynch said traders “acted as partners rather than competitors” in a “brazen display of collusion.”
The settlement marked the first against the financial industry since Lynch took over the Justice Department. Her predecessor, Eric Holder, was dogged by comments he made during a congressional hearing, which he later refuted, that seemed to imply the government was wary of bringing serious charges against large banks because it could damage the economy.
The banks will pay the Justice Department and the Federal Reserve a total of $5.7 billion in criminal penalties, with most of the institutions also agreeing to plead guilty to some criminal charges.
Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan and the Royal Bank of Scotland all agreed to plead guilty to charges of conspiring to fix prices. UBS agreed to plead guilty to charges stemming from a previous investigation after the bank’s role in this new probe led the Justice Department to toss out a prior agreement not to seek criminal charges. Bank of America agreed to pay a fine as well.
The announcement is just the most recent in a string of settlements the government has struck with huge banks over industry-wide bad behavior.
In April, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay a record $2.5 billion in fines, and fire several employees, for its role in rigging benchmark interest rates. And in November, five large banks agreed to pay a combined $4.25 billion in penalties to U.S. and British authorities on the same matter.
That’s on the heels of Bank of America
agreeing to pay $16.6 billion for its role in the
financial crisis, $2.6 billion by Credit Suisse
for helping wealthy Americans evade taxes,
and $1.9 billion by HSBC after laundering
money for Mexican drug cartels and
violating sanctions against Iran, Libya and
Sudan, among others.
In many of those cases, bank executives assigned the bad actions to a handful of rogue employees. As part of the most recent settlement, the Justice Department threw out a non-prosecution agreement it struck with UBS following a rate-rigging probe in 2012.
The discovery of new illegal behavior during the currency-rigging investigation prompted the U.S. to toss out that deal, and forced the bank to plead guilty to charges. But UBS said Tuesday that the $545 million it was paying to settle the new claims, after paying $1.5 billion during the previous investigation, was due to “a small number of employees.”
But Wall Street critics argue the settlements are sign that bad behavior is a cultural issue in the finance sector. Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen has expressed concern that banks are failing to properly police themselves, sometimes “brazenly” breaking the law.
And recent research seems to back up that
sentiment. One day before the new settlement
was announced, a survey of 1,200 financial
services workers found that 47 percent of
executives believe their competitors have
engaged in illegal or unethical behavior — up
from the 39 percent found in 2012.
The poll, from the law firm Labaton Sucharow and the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, also found 23 percent of Wall Street professionals suspect their colleagues of serious wrongdoing, up from 12 percent in 2012.
On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced a settlement that also saw five banks plead guilty to illegal gaming of financial markets. But the new settlement, the latest in a long series of hefty payouts by bad-acting banks, did little to tamp down vocal criticism from the left that the Obama administration is doing little to actually change Wall Street’s course and culture.... BUT AREN'T THEY ALL OBAMA DONORS CRONIES???
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) criticized
the new settlement hours after the Justice
Department hailed its historic nature —
specifically that no individual bank employees
faced criminal charges, even as the overall
institutions pleaded guilty to criminal
wrongdoing.
conspiring to manipulate financial markets ...
but not a single trader is being held
individually accountable,” she said in a
statement. “That’s not accountability for Wall
Street. It’s business as usual, and it stinks.”
Since the financial crisis, nearly every major financial
institution has struck some sort of government deal to close
probes on a sundry list of wrongdoing, including mortgage
servicing flaws, offshore tax evasion and aiding rogue nations
like Iran in evading U.S. sanctions.
But while the government has pulled in the largest monetary settlements in history during that time, with several reaching billions of dollars, the continued failure to prosecute high-ranking executives at any of these firms remains a sore point for some groups and lawmakers.
Liberal critics lament that the fines appear to be doing little to change the culture of the financial sector, making them just the cost of doing business.
“Since 2009, huge financial institutions have paid $176 billion in fines and settlement payments for fraudulent and unscrupulous activities,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is running for president, said Wednesday. “The reality is that seven years after too-big-to-fail banks crashed the economy, fraud still appears to be the business model on Wall Street.”
The latest settlement announced by the Justice Department saw the government assessing penalties and accepting guilty pleas from a host of banks for conspiring to rig currency markets to maximize profits.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the agreement brings to an end a manipulation scheme of “breathtaking flagrancy,” in which traders conspired across institutions to artificially alter currency exchange markets to obtain illicit profits, forming a group they dubbed “the cartel.” Dating back to 2007, Lynch said traders “acted as partners rather than competitors” in a “brazen display of collusion.”
The settlement marked the first against the financial industry since Lynch took over the Justice Department. Her predecessor, Eric Holder, was dogged by comments he made during a congressional hearing, which he later refuted, that seemed to imply the government was wary of bringing serious charges against large banks because it could damage the economy.
The banks will pay the Justice Department and the Federal Reserve a total of $5.7 billion in criminal penalties, with most of the institutions also agreeing to plead guilty to some criminal charges.
Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan and the Royal Bank of Scotland all agreed to plead guilty to charges of conspiring to fix prices. UBS agreed to plead guilty to charges stemming from a previous investigation after the bank’s role in this new probe led the Justice Department to toss out a prior agreement not to seek criminal charges. Bank of America agreed to pay a fine as well.
The announcement is just the most recent in a string of settlements the government has struck with huge banks over industry-wide bad behavior.
In April, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay a record $2.5 billion in fines, and fire several employees, for its role in rigging benchmark interest rates. And in November, five large banks agreed to pay a combined $4.25 billion in penalties to U.S. and British authorities on the same matter.
That’s on the heels of Bank of America
agreeing to pay $16.6 billion for its role in the
financial crisis, $2.6 billion by Credit Suisse
for helping wealthy Americans evade taxes,
and $1.9 billion by HSBC after laundering
money for Mexican drug cartels and
violating sanctions against Iran, Libya and
Sudan, among others.
In many of those cases, bank executives assigned the bad actions to a handful of rogue employees. As part of the most recent settlement, the Justice Department threw out a non-prosecution agreement it struck with UBS following a rate-rigging probe in 2012.
The discovery of new illegal behavior during the currency-rigging investigation prompted the U.S. to toss out that deal, and forced the bank to plead guilty to charges. But UBS said Tuesday that the $545 million it was paying to settle the new claims, after paying $1.5 billion during the previous investigation, was due to “a small number of employees.”
But Wall Street critics argue the settlements are sign that bad behavior is a cultural issue in the finance sector. Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen has expressed concern that banks are failing to properly police themselves, sometimes “brazenly” breaking the law.
And recent research seems to back up that
sentiment. One day before the new settlement
was announced, a survey of 1,200 financial
services workers found that 47 percent of
executives believe their competitors have
engaged in illegal or unethical behavior — up
from the 39 percent found in 2012.
The poll, from the law firm Labaton Sucharow and the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, also found 23 percent of Wall Street professionals suspect their colleagues of serious wrongdoing, up from 12 percent in 2012.
Shaping up to be the most corrupt
administration in American history:
administration in American history:
- Obama’s team:
Not the “best of the Washington insiders,” as the liberal media style
them, but rather, a dysfunctional and dangerous conglomerate of
business-as-usual cronies and hacks
- In the first two
weeks alone of his infant administration, Obama had made no fewer than 17
exceptions to his “no-lobbyist” rule
- Why the fact
that the massive infusion of union dues into his campaign treasury didn’t
trouble him in the least reveals Obama’s credibility as a reformer
- The lack of
unprecedented pace of withdrawals and botched appointments -- and how
getting through the confirmation process was no guarantee of ethical
cleanliness or competence, even as Obama’s cheerleaders were glorifying
the Greatest Transition in World History
- Inconsistency:
How Obama, erstwhile critic of the campaign finance practice known as
“bundling,” happily accepted more than $350,000 in bundled contributions
from billionaire hedge-fund managers
- How Obama broke
his transparency pledge with the very first bill he signed into law --
helping make hostility to transparency is a running thread through Obama’s
cabinet
- Michelle Obama:
Beneath the cultured pearls, sleeveless designer dresses, and eyelashes
applied by her full-time makeup artist, is a hardball Chicago politico
- Joe Biden: It’s
not just that he lies, it’s that he lies so well that you think he really
believes the stuff he makes up
- Treasury
Secretary Geithner: His ineptness and epic blundering -- including how he
nearly caused the collapse of the dollar in international trade with a
single remark
- The appalling
story of Technology Czar Vivek Kundra, the convicted shoplifter in charge
of the entire federal government’s information security infrastructure
- Obama’s “Porker
of the Month” Transportation Secretary, Roy LaHood: An earmark-addicted
influence peddler born and raised on the politics of pay-to-play
- SEIU:
Responsible for installing a cabal of hand-chosen officers who exploited
their cash-infused fiefdoms for personal gain and presided over rigged
elections -- in the process, becoming all that they had professed to stand
against as representatives of the downtrodden worker
- How Obama lied
on his “Fight the Smears” campaign website when he claimed that he “never
organized with ACORN”
- ACORN: How the
profound threat the group poses is not merely ideological or economic --
it’s electoral
- ACORN’s own
internal review of shady money transfers among its web of affiliates: How
it underscores concerns that conservatives have long raised about the
organization
- Liar, liar,
pantsuit on fire: How Hillary Clinton has already trampled upon her
promise not to let her husband’s financial dealings sway her decisions as
Secretary of State
- How even a few
principled progressives are finally beginning to question the cult of
Obama -- even as Obama sycophants in the mainstream media continue to
celebrate his “hipness” and “swagga”
*
GET THIS BOOK!
*
Obamanomics:
How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends,
Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses
BY TIMOTHY P
CARNEY
Editorial Reviews
Obama Is Making
You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman
Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack
Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from
Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and
consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs
up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you
wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism
to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate
welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.
Congressman
Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.”
And Johan Goldberg, columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics
is conservative muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the
Obama years.”
If
you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the federal government swallows
up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit
exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam.
Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger,
somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book
names the names—and it will make your blood boil.
*
Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman
Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack
Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from
Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and
consumers.
Investigative
reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and
the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is
delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling
corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s
Obamanomics. In this explosive book, Carney reveals:
* The
Great Health Care Scam—Obama’s backroom deals with drug companies spell
corporate profits and more government control
* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda
* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)
* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists
* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle Obamanomics
* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda
* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)
* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists
* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle Obamanomics
If
you’ve wondered what’s happening to our country, as the federal government
swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts
deficit exploding “stimulus packages” that create make-work government jobs,
this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils
down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and
those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will
make your blood boil.
*
Praise for Obamanomics
Praise for Obamanomics
“The
notion that ‘big business’ is on the side of the free market is one of
progressivism’s most valuable myths. It allows them to demonize corporations by
day and get in bed with them by night. Obamanomics is conservative
muckraking at its best. It reveals how President Obama is exploiting the big
business mythology to undermine the free market and stick it to entrepreneurs,
taxpayers, and consumers. It’s an indispensable field guide to the Obama
years.”
—Jonha Goldberg, LA Times columnist and best-selling author
—Jonha Goldberg, LA Times columnist and best-selling author
“‘Every
time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich.’ With this astute
observation, Tim Carney begins his task of laying bare the Obama
administration’s corporatist governing strategy, hidden behind the president’s
populist veneer. This meticulously researched book is a must-read for anyone
who wants to understand how Washington really works.”
—David Freddoso, best-selling author of The Case Against Barack Obama
—David Freddoso, best-selling author of The Case Against Barack Obama
“Every
libertarian and free-market conservative who still believes that large
corporations are trusted allies in the battle for economic liberty needs to
read this book, as does every well-meaning liberal who believes that expansions
of the welfare-regulatory state are done to benefit the common people.”
—Congressman Ron Paul
—Congressman Ron Paul
“It’s
understandable for critics to condemn President Obama for his ‘socialism.’ But
as Tim Carney shows, the real situation is at once more subtle and more
sinister. Obamanomics favors big business while disproportionately punishing
everyone else. So-called progressives are too clueless to notice, as usual,
which is why we have Tim Carney and this book.”
—Thomas E. Woods, Jr., best-selling author of Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to American History
—Thomas E. Woods, Jr., best-selling author of Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to American History
*
·
Hardcover: 256 pages
·
Publisher: Regnery Press (November 30,
2009)
·
Language: English
·
ISBN-10: 1596986123
·
ISBN-13: 978-1596986121
*
*
ARE AMAZED AT HOW UTTERLY BRAZEN THESE CORPORATE OWNED
POLITICIANS ARE?
GET THIS BOOK!
Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats,
Crooks, and Cronies
by Michelle Malkin
Editorial Reviews
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.
From the Inside Flap
The era of hope and change is dead....and it only took six
months in office to kill it.
Never has an administration taken office with more inflated
expectations of turning Washington around. Never have a media-anointed American
Idol and his entourage fallen so fast and hard. In her latest investigative
tour de force, New York Times bestselling author Michelle Malkin delivers a
powerful, damning, and comprehensive indictment of the culture of corruption
that surrounds Team Obama's brazen tax evaders, Wall Street cronies, petty
crooks, slum lords, and business-as-usual influence peddlers. In Culture of
Corruption, Malkin reveals:
* Why nepotism beneficiaries First Lady Michelle Obama and
Vice President Joe Biden are Team Obama's biggest liberal hypocrites--bashing
the corporate world and influence-peddling industries from which they and their
relatives have benefited mightily
* What secrets the ethics-deficient members of Obama's
cabinet--including Hillary Clinton--are trying to hide
* Why the Obama White House has more power-hungry,
unaccountable "czars" than any other administration
* How Team Obama's first one hundred days of appointments
became a litany of embarrassments as would-be appointee after would-be
appointee was exposed as a tax cheat or had to withdraw for other reasons
* How Obama's old ACORN and union cronies have squandered
millions of taxpayer dollars and dues money to enrich themselves and expand
their power
* How Obama's Wall Street money men and corporate lobbyists
are ruining the economy and helping their friends In Culture of Corruption,
Michelle Malkin lays bare the Obama administration's seamy underside that the
liberal media would rather keep hidden.
• Publisher:
Regnery Publishing (July 27, 2009)
• Language:
English
• ISBN-10:
1596981091
• ISBN-13:
978-1596981096
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