Join a New Way Forward Protest on April 11th to Break up Banks "Too Big to Fail"

By Donny Shaw

BuzzFlash Note: BuzzFlash fully supports the "New Way Forward" movement to fundamentally change the finance/banking system in the United States and to punish those who made our taxpayers pick up a $2 trillion tab for fraud, abuse and greed. Citizen protest is a vital part of a vibrant and progressive democracy. Join the "New Way Forward" demonstrations on April 11th.

Another day, another sign that the people in charge of our economy are looking out for the banks, not the public. The Financial Accounting Standards Board's decision on Thursday to let banks report the value of their toxic assets however they choose, regardless of what anyone is actually willing to pay for them, only serves to increase secrecy and manipulation in the financial sector. It's a politically motivated decision that gives banks a quick way to inflate their balance sheets without doing anything to address the underlying problems with their holdings.

The AIG bonuses, the Geithner subsidy plan, the mark to market changes -- Americans are seeing the pattern of protection for Wall Street, and we're angry. But unlike the media's fantasy of an irrational working-class mob seeking revenge on the first Wall St. executive they can find, our anger is targeted at the systematic injustices in America right now that continually provide for the financial elite and neglect the millions unemployed and foreclosed. If we are going to fight back, we are going to go straight at the root of the problem -- the collusion between Wall Street and Washington that leaves the rest of us behind.

As the banks grew bigger and bigger until they were "too big to fail," they also became so politically powerful that they are now immune to ordinary actions from our government. Decades of unprecedented campaign funding and political access have led to a gray area between Washington and Wall St. where it's uncertain who is on which side and people move back and forth fluidly between the two realms. Bankers have ingratiated themselves in our politics and sold to both major parties the belief that what is good for them is also good for the public at large. Now we have let this free-market fundamentalism run its course and it has led America to a complete economic meltdown. But the people in charge of our government and our economy have built their power on this intertwining of interests and they remained determined not to shake up the system.

They only way to end the bonus loopholes for executives, the blind-eye regulatory system and the trickle-up profit machine is for the bankers in power to be removed and the banks that caused this mess to be broken up. They need to be taken out of the equation so our policy-makers can operate with political independence to make decisions that protect the public. Can this be done? In a word, yes. It will be an epic struggle, but if we the people can find the courage to trust our guts and take on the economic injustices that have become so painfully obvious, this is precisely the kind of thing that America can overcome.

On April 11th, people across the country will take to the streets to show President Obama and Congress that there is political support for a progressive approach to fixing the economy. Fourteen days ago, a new grassroots initiative to demand structural change in the banking sector -- A New Way Forward -- was launched. In just two weeks, the group has grown from four people to over six thousand. Individuals have stepped up in 58 cities to organize protests to break up the banks; thousands have pledged to attend. Here is the plan:

NATIONALIZE: Insolvent banks that are too big to fail must incur a temporary FDIC intervention. No more blank check taxpayer handouts.

REORGANIZE: Current CEOs and board members must be removed and bonuses wiped out. The financial elite must share in the cost of what they have caused.

DECENTRALIZE: Banks must be broken up and sold back to the private market with new antitrust rules in place -- new banks, managed by new people. Any bank that's "too big to fail" means that it's too big for a free market to function.

Breaking up the banks is not a contrarian call to protest, it is a practical step our country must take right now if we are to have the independence to rebuild our economy so that it is sustainable, free, and in the interest of all people. The people in charge of our country consider these issues of decentralization secondary. They are determined to reset the status quo of the banking sector as soon as possible, and then take a stab at regulation. But if we re-inflate the banks without addressing the fundamental issues plaguing our economic and political systems, our chance as a country to tackle the power that the financial industry holds over our democracy will pass us by. The collusion between policy makers and bankers will be further cemented and we will have to wait until the next crisis (which will be much worse, and soon) takes its toll on working Americans.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY 

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Regyulators and the Effing banks

---

By STEPHEN LABATON and EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON — As the Obama administration completes its examinations of the nation’s largest banks, industry executives are bracing for fights with the government over repayment of bailout money and forced sales of bad mortgages.

President Obama emerged from a meeting with his senior economic advisers on Friday to say “what you’re starting to see is glimmers of hope across the economy.” But there were also signs of growing tensions between the White House and the nation’s banks over the next phase of the financial rescue.

Some of the healthier banks want to pay back their bailout loans to avoid executive pay and other restrictions that come with the money. But the banks are balking at the hefty premium they agreed to pay when they took the money.

Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, and two other executives of large banks raised the issue with Mr. Obama and the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, at a meeting two weeks ago.

“This is a source of considerable consternation,” said Camden R. Fine, who attended the White House meeting as president of the Independent Community Bankers, a trade group of 5,000 mostly smaller institutions, many of which are complaining about the repayment requirements.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration wants weaker banks to move more quickly to relieve their balance sheets of the toxic assets, the home loans and mortgage bonds that nobody wants to buy right now. But the banks are resisting because they would have to book big losses.

Finally, there is increasing anxiety in the industry that the administration could use the stress tests of the 19 biggest banks, due to be completed in the next three weeks, to insist on management changes, just as it did with General Motors when officials forced the resignation of its chief executive after examining that company’s books.

Senior officials, recognizing that the next few weeks could prove pivotal for both the industry and the bailout effort, are moving ahead with major plans.

“You will be seeing additional actions by the administration,” Mr. Obama said after the meeting Friday, when the officials discussed the bank stress tests and the new $500 billion to $1 trillion plan that will use public subsidies to encourage private investors to buy mortgage assets.

Attending the session were Mr. Geithner; Sheila C. Bair, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Lawrence H. Summers, the chairman of the National Economic Council; and other top regulators.

The tension between the industry and the administration is rising as the government’s bailout fund is dwindling, putting the administration in a bind. It is all but certain to need to seek more money from Congress, which wants to see results from existing programs first.

The fund is down to its final $134 billion, according to Treasury officials, and is expected to face new requests for money in the coming weeks to aid tottering banks, the auto industry and possibly insurance companies.

“Between now and Memorial Day we’re going to know a whole lot more about the degree of trouble the banks are in,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat who is vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee. “At the same time, we will begin to have a good initial reading as to how well the administration’s programs are working.”

This month, the nation’s largest banks began announcing their latest quarterly earnings. Some, like Wells Fargo, have released results early to trumpet their profitable first quarter — and possibly to give them leverage in coming negotiations with their regulator.

The immediate concern for the administration is how to get the weaker banks to relieve their books of deteriorating mortgages and mortgage-backed securities.

Industry analysts estimate that United States banks alone have more than $1 trillion of such mortgages on their books but have recognized only a small share of the likely losses.

Economists at Goldman Sachs estimated recently that banks were valuing their mortgages at about 91 cents on the dollar, far more than investors are willing to pay for them.

Even though the Treasury Department plans to subsidize the purchases of toxic assets by giving buyers low-cost loans to cover most of their upfront cost, a growing number of analysts warn that many if not most banks will remain reluctant to sell.

“The gap is still very wide,” said Frank Pallotta, a former mortgage trader at Morgan Stanley, now a consultant to institutional investors. “If every bank was forced to sell at the market-clearing price, you’d have only five banks left in the market.”

The stress tests of the banks are aimed at estimating how much each bank would lose if the economic downturn proved even deeper than currently expected.

Government officials do not plan to disclose the results for individual banks but may reveal broad results for the entire industry at the end of the month.

If the test indicates that the losses would leave a bank with too little capital, the bank will have six months to either raise extra money from private investors or get money from the government. Executives at some banks are worried that regulators will start demanding changes in management and strategy, possibly forcing them to merge with stronger institutions.

Treasury officials said they understood that banks had valid reasons for placing higher values on their mortgages than investors, and said they were hoping to avoid major conflicts.

Facing a host of government restrictions — from how much they pay executives to how many foreign citizens they employ — some small banks have returned the bailout money, and some larger ones, including Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Northern Trust, have said they want to do so as quickly as possible.

On Friday, Sun Bancorp of Vineland, N.J., became the sixth bank to exit the program, returning $89.3 million just three months after it received its loan.

Regulators are reluctant to approve the early repayments until banks can show that they have the capital to withstand further erosion in the economy and will not curtail their lending.

Both large and small banks have pressed the Obama administration to make it less costly for them to exit the bailout program by waiving the right to exercise stock warrants the banks had to grant the government in exchange for the loans. At a meeting last month, the chiefs of three of the largest banks separately asked Mr. Obama to direct the Treasury not to exercise the warrants, Mr. Fine said.

Douglas Leech, the founder and chief executive of Centra Bank, a small West Virginia bank that participated in the capital assistance program but returned the money after the government imposed new conditions, said he complained strongly about the Treasury Department’s decision to demand repayment of the warrants. That effectively raised the interest rate he paid on a $15 million loan to an annual rate of about 60 percent, he said.

“What they did is wrong and fundamentally un-American,” he said. “Even though the government told us to take this money to increase our lending, the extra charge meant we had less money to lend. It was the equivalent of a penalty for early withdrawal.”

Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman at the Treasury Department, said it did not comment about the participation of specific banks in the plan or their efforts to exit the program.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Where are we headed now?

I hate to say it, but I sometimes believe that the only hope for us is the total collapse of the rotten, corrupt system we have lived under for decades.

It's all image, no substance, and the vast majority still buy into it.

Obama cannot fix, overnight, what it took years to create.

Where Is Obama Taking Us?

by Stephen Fleischman | April 7, 2009 - 10:26am | permalink

Does Barack Obama think he can stop the collapse of an economic system by throwing money at it? That's what he's doing in massive amounts, in stimulus packages, budgets and bailouts, and it's our money.

It seems to be having little effect. With job losses at the rate of 600,000 per month, 660,000 last month, the economy is slip-slidin' toward a 1930s type depression.

The official unemployment rate is now 8.5% but, according to economist Peter Morici at the University of Maryland, the real unemployment rate is closer to 17% when discouraged adults who have left the labor force and part-time workers are factored in.

» article continues...


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

No More Refuge for Scoundrels

By Joe Conason

While the leaders of the world’s largest economies debate stimulus and regulation in London, let us hope they do not forget the compelling questions of crime and punishment. Rooted in the most massive swindles in financial history, the global crisis offers an unprecedented opportunity to prosecute the criminals whose machinations steered us toward disaster—and to deter them in the future.

Unfolding on the very doorstep of the G-20 meeting in London and in Washington is the instructive story of Joseph Cassano, former head of American International Group’s Financial Products Group, whose role in his company’s crash—which triggered the ruin of world money markets—may soon lead to criminal charges against him. What the Cassano story points up once more is how the existence of tax and regulatory havens across the world encourage nefarious conduct, lack of transparency, evasion of taxes and corporate criminality.

According to a new investigative report from ABC News, Mr. Cassano is the subject of a criminal fraud investigation by the F.B.I. that is examining how he and his colleagues in AIG’s financial products division set up the scheme to insure more than a trillion dollars of junk mortgage paper held by major banks. He walked away from those bad deals with over $300 million in personal profit. Aside from the fascinating matter of how he managed to commit these catastrophic bets without interference from his superiors, the most pertinent question is how he gamed the gaping loopholes in the international regulatory and legal systems.

Evidently Mr. Cassano established dozens of separate companies, including many that were located offshore, to handle the allegedly fraudulent transactions—a maneuver that was designed to keep the deals effectively off the books of AIG and to mislead regulators in the United States and Britain. The crooks at Enron Corporation used the same techniques, essentially, to conceal what should have been reported on their corporate balance sheets—and they too used offshore locations as instruments of fraud.

Jack Blum, a former Senate staffer who helped to lead the investigation of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International more than a decade ago, told ABC reporters that the abuse of tax havens “is the other very important issue underneath the AIG scandal. All of these contracts were moved offshore for the express purpose of getting out from under regulation and tax evasion.”

Massive fraud has been at the center of this  crisis from bottom to top, as everyone paying attention must know. The criminal mind-set extended from the bankers and mortgage agents who made loans to unqualified borrowers and sometimes tricked them into signing agreements they could not fulfill. (Among the most industrious marketers were many with actual criminal records, whose entry into the mortgage industry was not blocked by the state regulators.) They marketed those same bad loans with false assurances of their soundness to convince investors to buy them—and somehow induced rating agencies to offer hollow testaments to their creditworthiness. Investors then resold the toxic packages to other investors both here and abroad. At every step, the inflation of the bubble was hastened by fraud, forgery and deception.

At the highest levels, those fraudulent transactions were aided by the existence of “secrecy spaces” in nice quaint places from Switzerland to Anguilla, where the malefactors could rely upon local authorities to collude in their conspiracies. Not only do the governments in the tax and regulatory havens pretend not to see what their corporate visitors are doing, but they actively shut out the scrutiny of anyone who might take action.

The costs imposed on the world by those selfish little entities are too great to ignore any longer. Vast amounts of taxable wealth, last estimated to exceed $12 trillion, are hidden in the protected banks of tax-haven principalities, with annual losses to the U.S. Treasury that may well be greater than $100 billion. But those same places appear to have provided a regulatory twilight zone where financiers like Joseph Cassano could run wild and ruin the rest of the world for profit. The urge to cheat on taxes and the desire to evade regulation represent the same destructive impulse, which governments around the world should now take steps to suppress.

jconason@observer.com

Joe Conason can be reached via email at joe.conason@observer.com.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Shuster Nails McCain Economic Advisor

These people, the Goopers, actually live in a reality all their own.


SHUSTER: Joining us now John McCain's chief economic adviser. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, John McCain said over the weekend that he wasn't phoning it in, that would get lawmakers to get support this, Republicans. What happened?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: Well, David, today Barack Obama failed the American people. what should have been a --

SHUSTER: Whoa, specifically, how did they fail them?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: At every point when John McCain came and tried to put together a negotiating process with all parties at the table --

SHUSTER: Whoa, back up a sec. You said today. How was John McCain involved in negotiations today? If you can't answer that specifically, how did the democrats fail them today?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: Today, Speaker Pelosi delivered an incendiary partisan speech at a moment when bipartisanship was needed to prevail. John McCain put together a process where the Republicans were at the table. At every point in that process as he tried to develop --

(In other words, Pelosi told the truth about the fascist Gooper policies!)

SHUSTER: Let's take your first point, Doug. So you're saying, fair enough, partisan speech. fair enough. That would also then mean that republicans today put their own feelings, their own hurt feelings about partisanship, ahead of the good of the country. right?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: Look, John McCain worked the phones today. He worked the phones every day. He's visited with members of the Republican party. This was a tough vote. A week ago they were excluded from the process. There was no deal. Taxpayers weren't protected. He moved the bill to match the principles they wanted. They really were counting on some Democratic participation in that.

SHUSTER: Doug, if he was moving it as much as you said, why was John McCain nowhere to be found on Saturday night? I mean, he was off having dinner with the Liebermans, which is fine, but up on Capitol Hill you have the House Republicans, the Democrats, Secretary Paulson eating pizza out of boxes in the Speaker's office negotiating until 1:00 in the morning. Where was John McCain on Saturday night?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: Let us be very clear that John McCain understands that had he looked like he would have been the key to the success, the Democrats would have attacked him and killed the deal. That's what you saw today. They were not going to let McCain do the job that he was trying to do, deliver a bill to help the American people. The American people will lose as a result of this. John McCain understood if he had kept a low profile, talked to members of Congress as he did, called those members who were reluctant, he did his job and doing it with the low profile necessary.

(What B.S.! McCain is not the president yet. He is a candidate. He isn't even part of the leadership in Congress, nor a member of any of the committees involved in the financial crisis. So, what the hell was he even doing in D.C., claiming to be America's economic savior when he knows little about the subject? Trying to save his campaign, I suspect, and his own party made him look like a fool)

SHUSTER: Where was the low profile last Thursday, Doug, when John McCain decided he needed to suspend his campaign and go to a meeting at the White House? Where was the low profile then?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: Beginning last Tuesday, Harry Reid said Republicans needed to be in on this. John McCain needed to deliver votes. Speaker Pelosi said continuously she was not going to deliver Democratic votes. Republicans had to do it first. John McCain suspended his campaign to get relief for the American families.

(That's not what she said. She said that any rescue of Wall Street, proposed by the Republican administration, would have to be a shared responsibility on the Hill. In other words, the Democrats don't entirely trust the Bush administration. Who does.?)

SHUSTER: Right back to the original point.

HOLTZ-EAKIN: Yes, we are.

SHUSTER: No, no. Wait a second.

HOLTZ-EAKIN: We are back to the Democrats once again sabotaging a bipartisan effort to help the American families.

SHUSTER: You said he was there to deliver Republican votes. The fact of the matter is, he did not.

HOLTZ-EAKIN: He took process from dead in the water to a vote in the House of Representatives this morning. absolutely dead in the water, no hope whatsoever, a bill everyone condemned. This morning we had a vote only because of John McCain. That vote could have been successful, but the Democrats behaved poorly. That's too bad.

SHUSTER: Because the Democrats' poor behavior, because Republicans got their feelings hurt, that's why this vote blew up, right?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: This is a serious matter that should have been conducted in a serious bipartisan fashion. That's not what we saw at many points in this process. The Democrats displayed no commitment. Where was Barack Obama today? If you look at what he said, he was praising the passage of the bill. Bill didn't pass.

SHUSTER: He was supporting it and you issued a statement saying he wasn't supporting it. Doug, first of all, before we go, only about 20 seconds, what does John McCain think we ought to do next?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: He's going to land and you'll hear from him. He's in Iowa right now. Tune in.

SHUSTER: Douglas Holtz-Eakin, economic advisor for the McCain campaign, thanks for coming on.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Incompetence or Machiavellian Planning:

The Bush Administration's Culpability in the Financial Crisis

by Meg White

The timing and urgency of the Bush Administration's call for action from Congress on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to save the financial industry from collapse leaves only two possibilities. Either the White House is criminally incompetent when it comes to the economy, or our current financial status is part of a structured crisis planned as an early October surprise.

We believe that this is part of a structured financial crisis that got out of hand and unraveled too quickly. The great economic unraveling was supposed to happen early during the next administration. Our economy has been held together with bubble gum and strands of thread for several years.

Bush told friends from Texas, visiting the Bushes at the White House, that he intends to leave the next administration with little hope or resources with which to boot the status-quo and begin making long over-due changes in the governance of this country. This country and her people cannot not long endure without major transformation as a country....the grass-roots kind of transformation.

(The thing is; there is going to be change, and very soon. The difference between transformation and cataclysm is consciousness or conscious choice.)

He also told his friends, all of whom returned to Houston with concern for Junior's mental health, or lack thereof, that he was planning to leave the next administration no choice but to stay in Iraq. Sounds like a plan to bomb Iran, eh?

One thing seems sure. The financial meltdown, leaving the federal government in bankruptcy court, is not a mistake by the Bushites. Breaking the financial back of the federal treasury, in order to throw all of those "FDR/Communist 'entitlement' programs" out the window, has long been the goal of the Republican party, not just the ultra-conservative or neoconservative manifestations of it.

Both scenarios are frightening. Moreover, they lead us to the conclusion that the Bush Administration should have no hand in trying to solve this problem. (or any other problem, for that matter. I'm beginning to think that there is no bad news, no matter how bad, that the Bushites can't find a way to that event event into a gold mine for them and/or their pals on Wall Street and, often, their political supporters, plus the added joy of seeing their political rank and file opposition crash and burn. (There own rank and file, caught in the killing fields in Iraq and Afghanistan and the financial meat grinder at home, like most Americans in the poorer end of the spectrum of America's very own caste system, are just collateral damage,. unfortunate and all that, but necessary for the CAUSE.)

There's no doubt that the timing of this forced legislation is fortuitous for the Bush Administration. The passage of this proposal could be the last act of Congress before an election. Lawmakers don't want to look like they're politically stagnated right before their constituents head to the polls, making Congress more likely to go along with the plan.

More political chicken is obviously being played, right when we need bi-partisan sanity, not more D.C. games. Maybe there really is no sanity left in Washington, D.C.. How could there be? They can't even agree on what is real and what is not. Theynot only don't share any of the same opinions, which is expected, but they don't share the same facts, which is not to be expected and can be a sign of a number of things, none of which is good.

While the argument can be made that the meltdown has been approaching for months, it's been clear for weeks that government intervention was needed to stem the tide. Paulson's three-page proposal was presented to Congress a mere five days before their fall recess. The proposal came packaged with wild warnings from the White House about the dire consequences of Congress' inaction.

No bailout for Junior's wealthy pals and there will be Mushroom clouds rising over American cities. That's more or less the message.

An economic collapse is coming. It is only a matter of when, sometime between now and late January. I will be amazed if we make it until Christmas. There is really not a damn thing we can do about it.

Bailouts are not the answer. All this bailout is going to do is just what the others have done; kick the can down the road and make matters worse. As American taxpayers and voters we must be aware of what has been clear to many of us for many years now, that our opinions don't matter to the very people who are now in hysterics and screaming bloody murder that we face hells gates if we don't clean up their mess. It's called extortion. Typical of a protection racket. Forget bailouts, call the RICO squad.

Some have equated this situation to the administration's rush to war. Also, the administration's slowness to fully comprehend or react to impending financial troubles reminds many of the ignored warnings about al-Qaeda before Sept. 11, 2001.

Used car salesmen: you have to hurry, make a decision fast or all will be lost. This administration has no credibility; like the little boy who cried wolf. Of course, this time, they are really in trouble and so are the rest of us, but nothing, least of all bailouts, is going to stop this trainwreck. No more cover-ups, fix-ups (legal and otherwise) or non-answers from on high.

This administration has been running a protection racket since 9/11/01, at the very least. American minds were shocked and awed by the events of 9/11 including the anthrax attacks which followed and nothing has has been the same since. We were hammered with one "orange" alert after another, witnessed increased incidents of terrorism worldwide and, of course, Osama's top ten video hits, hitting the airwaves at the most opportune times for this administration.

It's like the cold war on steroids.

We have been continuously lied to, if not deceived, fear-mongered and whipped into sick, patriotic vengeance-seeking against people who had nothing to do with 9/11.

We have lived through the Bush/Cheney nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue, feeling powerless and hopeless to stop the massive train-wreck we saw coming. Now, our deaf government wants us to believe that while our thoughts and opinions may not be worth much, our money certainly is quite powerful. We can save the world! Of course, we are talking about money we don't have yet and may never have. (Does anyone suddenly feel richer as a result of this last week? I know I don't.)

In any case, there were plenty of people talking about the crisis before this fall. Then New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in February that was remarkably prescient about the looming crisis, ending it with the following warning:

"When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits."

Spitzer testified before Congress on the subject the same day the piece was published. He noted that the Bush Administration actively prohibited state's attorney generals from enforcing their own laws curbing predatory lending. The federal government even went as far as to stop an investigation of discriminatory lending in Spitzer's home state.

Spitzer was not the first, and certainly not the last, to bring attention to the crisis. As far back as 2004, the FBI warned of a coming mortgage crisis. But, as the Los Angeles Times reported last month, when the FBI asked for more resources to fight mortgage fraud, the program got cuts instead.

There's no way to give credit to all the people who warned of this crisis before the meltdown. But let's take a quick look at the man that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) accused of reacting too slowly to the crisis.

On March 22, 2007, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) wrote a letter to Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke and Paulson warning of a "potential coming wave of foreclosures," urging quick action from both the government and the private sector. He concluded the letter with the following:

"There is an opportunity here to bring different interests together in the best interests of American homeowners and the American economy. Please don't let this opportunity pass us by."

Eighteen months later to the day, the government has the gall to prod Congress into acting.

Chaos Capitalism?

And McCain, right before he faulted Obama for not immediately speaking out about the economic crash last week, apparently spoke too soon. He flailed widely for a solution, even irrationally calling for the firing of Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Chris Cox. His actions this week have been denounced as "un-presidential" by conservative stalwarts such as George Will and the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal.

It could be that the Bush Administration had such skewed priorities that they just didn't see the crisis until it was too big to miss. But it's also possible that they were playing the disaster capitalism game so eloquently outlined by author Naomi Klein, who leveled such a charge last week: Let things deteriorate until there is no choice about the matter, and then let government contractors swoop in and save the day at a massive profit.

Oh, they saw it coming!

They set out to cause it.

They simply misjudged the time it would take for them to be "outed," so to speak, as highly irresponsible, greedy, entitled, lustful maniacs who do not live in the same reality as any of us.

No way, no how, McCain!

One of the recurring themes for lawmakers who are analyzing the proposal on the Hill this week is that the Bush Administration has left many questions unanswered. One of the questions we think they should be asking, whether this crisis came from ignorance or a master plan is, "Why should we put you people in charge of fixing this mess?"

Indeed!


A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Meltdown Perpetrators Position Themselves

The Money Party (6):

Meet the new boss - Robin Hood in Reverse U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson WikiCommons

"A Cascade of Ruin"

Michael Collins
"Scoop" Independent News

(Wash. DC) Well, they finally did it. The Money Party exposed the nauseating underbelly of first world finance. It's a cross between a Ponzi scheme and a complex math puzzle, all geared to let those in charge rake off as much money as they can, whenever they can, while they leave us out in the cold. Unfortunately, this time their greed and lack of control has the world poised for a systemic economic meltdown.

The collapse and subsequent government rescue of home mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, stock brokerage Merrill Lynch, investment bank Bear Stearns, and, an insurance company, AIG, are designed to show we're moving away from the brink of disaster to a safer place. "The system is working" to manage what Alan Greenspan is calling a once in a century event.

One thing the system might do while it's working so hard is explain why we're bailing out a stock brokerage and an insurance company? Isn't this about banks? Don't hold your breath. The corporate elite and political misanthropes who caused this are getting ready to put the final nail in the coffin of the United States economy and the livelihood of the vast majority of citizens.

If this happens, they will have achieved their goal: overshadowing nearly all of the domestic resistance to their schemes of perpetual empire and plunder with a financial meltdown that places survival and subsistence as the highest value.

The stock market rallied last Thursday indicating that some felt better. But who were those buying stocks? The same people who bought into the ridiculous schemes perpetrated by the fallen financial giants: Wall Street and the institutional investors who have the biggest stake in the market "recovery." The soon to fail financial institutions are reassuring each other that those in the tank were somehow different, deviant maybe, rather than the first in a long line of failures to come.

How did it start?

The dot.com stock frenzy was clearly over by 2001. Since Wall Street needs constant growth as a fix for its financial Jones, something had to replace tech stocks. That wasn't easy since good companies with solid products don't offer the type of immediate gratification required for those promising high returns to investors.

In a stroke of warped vision, "subprime securities" were created in 1990. Risky home mortgages called subprime loans were bundled together then sold as a premium investment representing an audacity of hype.

Adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) became easily available to hard working people struggling to buy a home, people who hadn't qualified for loans in the past. Nobody mentioned that the way the loan was structured they'd be unable to make payments in a year or two.

The funds of other hard working people who hoped to retire someday were used to purchase stocks based on these risky loans. Nobody bothered to tell them that their funds would go down the drain when those subprime loans started defaulting.

Then guru Greenspan made one of the few decipherable public statements of his career. He told home owners about that great opportunity, adjustable rate mortgages. "American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage," he said. He went on, "traditional fixed-rate mortgage may be an expensive method of financing a home." Alan Greenspan, Feb. 23, 2004

Greenspan endorsed what was already being done and gave it the patina of a smart financial move. Lower those payments. Get that equity line and catch the Wall Street wave by purchasing stocks. We were "rocking in the free world!" Millions got rich on increased home values.

Real estate prices soared and then they did what they always do. They collapsed, in this case, with a giant thud. All that "wealth" acquired through the housing bubble vanished. Just as the economy slowed, many of those hard working people who just wanted a home were greeted with the full cost of their mortgage. Loan defaults soared and then it happened.

Those premium stocks collapsed. Record bankruptcy and default rates will do that to real estate stocks. Premium subprime real estate stocks became plain old subprime real estate stocks, which is what they were to begin with. Subprime loans vanished. The housing market stalled, then crashed, and there was no new scheme to feed the greed of the geniuses who thought up this scam.

Home value and retirement funds are taking a massive beating. It's survival of the fittest for the vast majority.

But the planners and perpetrators of the scheme are doing just fine. The current rulers decided it's time to expand socialism for the rich. In full public view, they're bailing out the people who created and pushed this crazy scheme. How many in the management chain are getting fired? Not many, it seems.

Is this just another example, outrageous as it is, of the super wealthy taking care of each other or is there something even worse lurking in the wings?

What are they hiding?

Each financial entity bailed out so far had major holdings in the very risky financial product called derivatives. Merrill Lynch even bragged about getting the "Risk Magazine" award as "Derivatives House of the Year 2007.

Warren Buffet sees derivatives as a major threat: "The derivatives genie is now well out of the bottle, and these instruments will almost certainly multiply in variety and number until some event makes their toxicity clear." He went on to describe derivatives as "weapons of mass financial destruction." These financial products were valued at $516 trillion dollars in 2007. The value of world economy was $65 trillion that same year.

Overly complex and insider oriented, derivatives are designed to "reduce risk." They are, in fact, the looming mega risk that apparently can't be discussed. If the derivatives market collapses, interlinked major financial institutions around the world are finished. The financial system will have failed.

Analyst and author Michael J. Panzer describes derivatives as clearly as possible:

"-- it is not hard to grasp the basic economics of a garden-variety derivative such as a futures contract. If the market price of wheat goes up between the time a deal is struck and the expiration of the agreement, the buyer wins and the seller loses. That is what is known as a zero-sum game. Nonetheless, whatever a farmer, to use the earlier example, might give up as a result of hedging his output is offset by the reduced uncertainty.

"But it is an altogether different story when it comes to analyzing options, or a portfolio of derivatives, especially those with lots of complicated bells and whistles. In most cases, valuation and risk assessment depend on mathematical formulas and computerized models, with many inputs derived from estimates and past data. That is all well and good if the tools are perfect and the history is complete."

Panzer goes on to point out that the history, data, and assumptions used to analyze value and risk are often sorely wanting. Hence, this pervasive financial product is a risk, in and of itself, due to questionable assumptions.

These products are sold by very aggressive financial services groups based on serene assumptions. For example, the products often don't factor in the impact of recession derivatives. David Amerman made the point in simple terms. If sellers will target home buyers who can't pay loans, we can count on bigger sellers going full tilt to get major commissions on this widely held financial product.

So the financial geniuses have created a market that has no relationship to reality, other than the reality conferred arbitrarily by banks and brokerage houses. Michael J. Panzer explains how something this detached from oversight takes hold:

"In the modern global financial system, where many participants are either unregulated or are monitored by a patchwork of country or sector-specific regulatory overseers, chances are that a derivatives-related catastrophe will see a similar lack of coordination that will produce a far more devastating outcome than if it was a purely domestic affair."

What is the real value of the derivative market? It would be helpful to know that given the reliance of our banking and financial services industry on these financial phantoms. More importantly, for our current circumstance, what happens when enough people realize that there cannot be a value commensurate to the amount claimed?

This teetering derivative market can't be bailed out. There simply isn't enough money. But our rulers think that the banks, insurance companies and stock brokerages heavily indebted and riddled with derivatives can be saved. As Ellen Brown pointed out last Thursday, save them and you stop the full exposure of the derivatives market. You avoid the risk of people finding out that their money and investments are being held by institutions willing to invest in financial products that are, at the least, highly speculative and, at the worst, pure vaporware.

The current risk has triggered the forgotten assumptions in the home mortgage derivatives market like recessions. Here's what's next. "The $62 trillion dollar credit derivatives market is 50 times the size of the subprime mortgage derivatives market, and is indeed larger than the entire global economy." David Amerman

Is it any wonder that we're faced with an economic crisis, one that encompasses the entire economic system?

The Paulson Secretariat

The White House has selected Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson to lead an economic "Charge of the Lite Brigade" to prevent a total economic meltdown. A version of the administration's rescue package is available online. What's missing? There is no requirement for "the bosses" to restrain their behavior, take a pay cut, or suffer any consequences. It might tarnish their self esteem.

But the real treat is the unfettered authority of the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, to obligate citizen debt in order to rescue incompetent banks, brokerages, and other failed institutions. Citizens will pay the bill but have no influence on Paulsen's decisions. Here are two revealing provisions from Bush-Cheney White House proposed legislation:

"Sec. 2 (a) Authority to Purchase.--The Secretary is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States.

"Sec. 8 Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." (Emphasis mine) White House bill,

So here's the plan in summary. You bail out those companies that caused the current crisis based on what one guy wants to do. You don't allow any review of the process of spending $700 billion. And, you let the management and key staff of these companies stay in place to do it all over again.

Tinkering with the bill to provide oversight, input, monitoring misses the point. The bailout is the wrong approach. To begin with, oversight has failed again and again in the financial markets. More importantly, it ignores the next crisis, credit default swaps, and rewards the meltdown perpetrators. Nobody tells the truth about this being the tip of the iceberg. Nobody faces any negative consequences. Most everybody stays in place.

How about somebody in authority coming clean?

When is someone in authority going to tell the truth, lay out the facts, and take responsibility for this mess? Never, unless we make that happen. The mechanisms readied for approval will be sold much like the Patriot Act; steam-rolled due to times of crisis. Those who speak out against another element of tyranny put in place will be ridiculed. Protestors will face the newly outfitted local law enforcement anti terrorism units who are more than willing to arrest anyone who disagrees with the administration, even in heavily Democratic cities like Denver, Minneapolis, and St. Paul.

The perpetrators can position all day long, taking advantage of the citizens through a quiescent White House, Congress, and judiciary.

But the truth will emerge - the country is broke and not because we don't work hard enough, make good products, and provide quality services. We're broke because the greediest people in the world couldn't contain their greed and there was nobody watching them who wasn't benefiting. Now the watchers are desperately trying to make it all go away.

There needs to be an accounting and a correction - and not by the usual suspects.

Here's one way to start with derivatives crisis in major institutions:

"If all the top 25 financial institutions were put into receivership, and (big if) if they all could be liquidated under an agreed legal framework, many of these risky contracts could be allowed to offset each other, and much of the risk eliminated."
Private correspondence, Numerian, The Agonist, Sept. 21, 2008

Permission granted to reproduce this article in whole or in part with attribution of authorship, a link to this article, and acknowledgment of any images.

For more information see:

It's the Derivatives, Stupid! Why Fannie, Freddie and AIG Had to Be Bailed Out by Ellen Brown, Sept. 18, 2008

Letter to my Senator by Numerian, The Agonist, Sept. 21, 2008

The Coming Disaster in the Derivatives Market by Michael Panzer, Nov. 9, 2005

AIG’s Dangerous Collapse & A Credit Derivatives Risk Primer by Daniel R. Ammerman, CFA, Sept. 17, 2008

LEAP/E2020 Summer 2008 Alert – July-December 2008: The world plunges into the heart of the global systemic crisis. Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin, Summer, 2008

Previously in The Money Party Series

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

U.S. Orgy of Debt

Americans borrowed to hilt, then housing bubble burst

By ERIC MARGOLIS


21/09/08 "Toronto Sun" -- - NEW YORK -- The financial panic sweeping the globe is maddeningly complex, but the cause of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s Great Depression is clear.


America has reveled for two decades in an orgy of debt. The U.S. national debt is now twice its net worth. From Wall Street's "masters of the universe" financial powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman, and Morgan Stanley, to the humblest homeowners, America's national motto became "borrow to the hilt and bet."


The traditional regulated banking system was pushed aside by Wall Street's financial titans who created their own money in the form of complex securities and furiously traded these exotic instruments and borrowed recklessly against them with little government regulation or oversight.


As Kevin Phillips points out in his prophetic book, Bad Money, America's primary business became non-productive finance. Manufacturing fell to only 12% of GDP. Wall Street titans grew obscenely rich by simply passing around paper. Inflated or semi-worthless securities increased in bogus value at each stage of the trading process.


Wall Street was allowed to virtually print money and peddle toxic securities around the globe because the big financial houses and heads of hedge funds bought the politicians of both parties.


Equally important, the mammoth financial and housing bubble thus created was hailed by the Bush administration as proof positive of Republican free market philosophy and the true road to prosperity.


More cautious European and Canadian bankers were dismissed by Republican chest thumpers as financial sissies.


This Ponzi scheme worked so long as markets kept rising. When the music stopped - disaster.


It's uncertain how far damage from America's financial equivalent of Hurricane Katrina will spread. Hedge funds, money market funds and automakers could be next. Real estate losses may reach $636 billion by 2012.


All stock market gains of the past 10 years have been wiped out in the most dangerous crash since the 1930s.


The "free market" Republican administration has ended up nationalizing nearly $1 trillion worth of businesses, including the federal mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns, and global insurer AIG. Welcome to Wall Street socialism.


One thing is now clear. When great empires run onto the financial rocks, their power quickly ebbs. France's Sun King, Louis XIV, ended his once glorious rein in near bankruptcy caused by his long, ruinous wars with the British and Dutch. Louis XVI's runaway borrowing to finance the American Revolution helped ignite the French Revolution. The Soviet Union's collapse was caused by spending half its national income on arms, and failure to modernize industry.


Over the past decade, the U.S. foreign debt doubled. Japan and China now hold 47% of the U.S. foreign debt and finance Washington's wars. The addition in recent days of at least $1 trillion in new debt will cause interest rates to rise and the dollar to weaken. Even the U.S. government's AAA credit rating now is in question.


Washington may no longer be able to spend half the globe's defence budgets.


The $12-13 billion a month wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will end up costing $750 billion by December 2008. There will be less cash in Washington's kitty to buy foreign dictators and prop up their regimes, as in the Mideast and Central Asia. Less cash to pay for little wars in Africa.


Less for exotic anti-missile systems and death rays.


America's enormous global power is based as much on its financial might as military muscle. Wall Street has been the vehicle and policeman of America's hegemony. It shaped the destiny of the globe and made many nations subservient to the demands of New York's titan bankers. Wall Street is essential to raising capital for business expansion, but often it resembled New York's ruthless loan sharks: Once you borrowed from them, you never got off the hook.


Americans will have to relearn the hard truth that you can't borrow your way to prosperity.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Mushroom Cloud over Wall Street

By Mike Whitney

"One bank to rule them all;
One bank to bind them..."

21/090/08 "ICH " -- - These are dark times. While you were sleeping the cockroaches were busy about their work, rummaging through the US Constitution, and putting the finishing touches on a scheme to assert absolute power over the nation's financial markets and the country's economic future. Industry representative Henry Paulson has submitted legislation to congress that will finally end the pretense that Bush controls anything more than reading the lines from a 4' by 6' teleprompter situated just inches from his lifeless pupils. Paulson is in charge now, and the coronation is set for sometime early next week. He rose to power in a stealthily-executed Bankster's Coup in which he, and his coterie of dodgy friends, declared martial law on the US economy while elevating himself to supreme leader.

"All Hail Caesar!" The days of the republic are over.

Section 8 of the proposed legislation says it all:

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

Right; "non-reviewable" supremacy.

Congress, of course, is more than eager to abdicate whatever little authority they have left. They're infinitely grateful for their purely ceremonial role, the equivalent of Caligula's horse, albeit, with considerably less dignity. Has even one senator spoken out against this madness, which--according to informal internet polls--is resoundingly rejected by the voters? Does it concern the members of congress at all, that the present financial crisis was brought on by the proliferation and sale of trillions of dollars of mortgage-banked garbage which were fraudulently represented as Triple A rated bonds by the very same people who now claim to need unprecedented and dictatorial powers to fix the problem? Or are they more worried that the steady torrent of contributions which flows from Wall Street to congressional campaign coffers will be inconveniently disrupted if they fail to ratify this latest assault on democratic governance? The House of Representatives is one big steaming dungheap that should be leveled and turned into an amusement park instead of a taxpayer-funded knocking shop. What a pathetic collection of cowards and scumbags.

Bloomberg News:

"The Bush administration sought unchecked power from Congress to buy $700 billion in bad mortgage investments from financial companies in what would be an unprecedented government intrusion into the markets. Through his plan, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson aims to avert a credit freeze that would bring the financial system and the world's largest economy to a standstill. The bill would prevent courts from reviewing actions taken under its authority.

"He's asking for a huge amount of power,'' said Nouriel Roubini an economist at New York University. ``He's saying, `Trust me, I'm going to do it right if you give me absolute control.' This is not a monarchy." (Bloomberg)

The banksters own this country, always have; only now they've decided to strip away the curtain and reveal the ghoulish visage of the puppet-master. It ain't pretty.

Paulson decided that the financial markets needed an emergency trillion dollar face-lift just weeks before his former business partners at G-Sax were dragged off to the chopping block. Was that the reason? Everyone on Wall Street knew that the bulls-eye had already been ripped from Lehman's bloody back and was about to be fastened on Goldman's. Now, it looks like they will escape their day of reckoning due to Paulson's eleventh-hour reprieve. Nice touch, eh?

From the proposed legislation: LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL FOR TREASURY AUTHORITY
TO PURCHASE MORTGAGE-RELATED ASSETS

"(3) designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Government, and they shall perform all such reasonable duties related to this Act as financial agents of the Government as may be required of them."

Market Ticker's Karl Denninger summed this up best:

"This is the de facto nationalization of the entire banking, insurance and related financial system..That's right - every bank and other financial institution in the United States has just become a de-facto organ of the United States Government, if Hank Paulson thinks they should be, and he may order them to do virtually anything that he claims is in furtherance of this act.....The bill gives Paulson the ability to nationalize unlimited amount of private debt and force you and your children to pay for it."

Denninger again:

"The claim is that this is intended to 'promote confidence and stability' in the financial markets.

It will do no such thing. It will instead strike terror into the hearts of investors worldwide who hold any sort of paper, whether it be preferred stock, common stock or debt, in any financial entity that happens to be domiciled in the United States, never mind the potential impact on Treasury yields and the United States sovereign credit rating.

I predict that if this passes it will precipitate the mother and father of all financial panics." (Market Ticker)

Amen. The transformation from a free market to a centralized, Soviet-style economy run by men whose judgment and credibility is already greatly in doubt; does not auger well for the markets or the country. Anyone with a lick of sense would cash in their chips first thing Monday and look for capital's Elysium Fields overseas or as far as possible from the circus sideshow now run by G-Sax ringleader, Colonel Klink.

Paulson's Chicken Little routine might might have soiled a few senatorial undergarments, but let's hope the American people are made of sterner stuff and will reject this charade. The conversation should be shifted from conceding more authority to hucksters in pin-stripes to indictments for securities fraud. Even the most economically-challenged nation ought to be able to afford a few sets of leg-irons and a couple hundred jail cells. That's all it will take. That, and a couple brisk dunks on the waterboard. Glub, glub.

Paulson's plan to revive the banking system by buying up hundreds of billions of dollars of illiquid mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and other equally poisonous debt-instruments; ignores the fact these complex bonds have already been "marked to market" in the recent firesale by Merrill Lynch. Just weeks ago, Merrill sold $31 billion of these CDOs for roughly $.20 on the dollar and provided 75 percent of the financing, which means that the CDOs were really worth approximately $.06 on the dollar. If this is the settlement that Paulson has in mind, than the taxpayer will be well served. But this will not recapitalize the banks balance sheets or mop up the ocean of red ink which is flooding the financial system. No, Paulson intends to hand out lavish treats to his banker buddies, while interest rates soar, pension funds collapse, the housing market crashes, and the dollar does a last, looping swan-dive into a pool of molten lava. Thanks, Hank.

Economist and author Henry Liu summarized the current maneuvering like this: "The Fed is merely trying to inject money to keep prices not supported by fundamentals from falling. It is a prescription for hyperinflation. The only way to keep price of worthless assets high is to lower the value of money. And that appears to be the Fed unspoken strategy."

Indeed. The Fed and Treasury have decided to backstop the entire global financial system (foreign banks can access the Fed's facilities, too!) with paper money which is rapidly losing its value. Watch the greenback tumble tomorrow in currency trading.

Congress is getting steamrolled and the American people are getting snookered. Consumer confidence--already at historic lows--is headed for the wood-chipper feet-first. Something has got to give.

One minute everything is hunky-dory; the subprime meltdown is "contained" and "the fundamentals of our economy are strong".(Paulson) And, less than a week later, congress is forced to surrender their constitutionally-mandated right to oversee spending in order to forestall economic Armageddon. Which is it? Or is the real objective just to keep the country on an emotional teeter-totter long enough for all state-power to be subsumed by the Wall Street Politburo?

No one knows what will happen next. We are in uncharted waters. And no one knows what the political landscape will look like after the dust settles from this outrageous power grab. According to Paulson, things are so dire, the entire nation will be reduced to smoldering rubble and twisted iron. But can we trust him this time after his long litany of lies?

Isn't it about time to send the cockroaches scuttling back to their hideouts and bring in the cleaning crew to hose the whole place down? It sounds like a job for Ralph Nader, a man of vision and unshakable integrity. Give Ralph a badge and let him deploy his Raiders to Wall Street armed with bullwhips and tasers. Let them post a guard in every CEOs and CFOs office and every boardroom on the Street---and if even one decimal is accidentally moved to the right or left on the corporate ledger; clap them in leg-irons and drag them off squealing to Guantanamo. That's how you clean up Wall Street!

Don't let the prospect of a national crisis trick you into giving up your freedom, America. The people behind this scam are the same land sharks and flim-flam men who polluted the global marketplace with their snake oil and toxic sludge. These are the fraudsters who manufactured the crisis to begin with. This is just the latest installment of the Shock Doctrine; engineer a crisis, and then, steal whatever is left behind. Same sh**, different day. Be resolute. Don't budge. Our economic foundations may be crumbling, but or determination is not. This is our country, not Goldman Sach's. The people who destroyed America must be held to account. Their time is coming. Justice first.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.