One 77-year-old’s search for the truth: 9/11, election fraud, illegal wars, Wall Street criminality, a stolen nuke, the neocon wars, control of the U.S. government by global corporations, the unjustified assault on Social Security, media complicity, and the "Great Recession" about to become the second Great Depression. "The most important truths are hidden from us by the powerful few who strive to steal the American dream by keeping We the People in the dark."
For the past 40 years, the financial and political elite of this
country have rigged the tax code to redistribute wealth and income to
some of the richest and most powerful people in this country. The
result: we are moving rapidly toward an oligarchic form of society in
which the top 1 percent is doing phenomenally well, the middle class
continues to decline and 40 million Americans are living in poverty.
And it will probably not surprise you to learn that just as our tax
code benefits the wealthiest people in this country, it also benefits
some of the largest and most profitable corporations in the world with a
myriad of tax breaks, deductions, credits and other loopholes. As a
result, one out of five large profitable corporations today pays nothing
in federal taxes.
The current Republican “tax cut” bill, paid for by the Koch brothers
and other billionaire campaign contributors, continues the push to make
the rich richer at the expense of everyone else. It would raise taxes on
middle class families making $75,000 a year or less and would throw 13
million Americans off of health insurance. And it would do all of these
things to provide permanent tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and
profitable corporations that ship American jobs to China while moving
their American profits to the Cayman Islands.
But let's be clear. This legislation goes well beyond taxes. Its
ultimate goal is to radically transform American society and the role
that government plays in the lives of the working families of our
country. This legislation will increase the deficit by at least $1.5
trillion over ten years. Mark my words. If passed, the Republicans will
then rediscover the "deficit crisis," and push aggressively for massive
cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education – higher
education in particular – nutrition, affordable housing and more. They
will seek to undo every major piece of legislation passed in the last 80
years designed to help working families, the elderly, the children, the
sick and the poor.
This is the
Republican plan. Huge tax breaks for the rich and powerful. Massive cuts
to life and death programs for the middle class and working families of
our country.
This is not moral. This is not what the American people want.
This is not what our country and our pledge for "liberty and justice for
all" is supposed to be about.
That is why I am going on the road this week to talk directly
to working people in Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania about this
disastrous piece of legislation. If we stand together – black, white,
Latino, Asian American, Native American, male and female, young and old,
gay and straight – we can defeat this horrific bill. But I need you to
make your voice heard as well. We need to stand together.
Today in America, more than 40 million Americans, including 20 percent
of all children, live in poverty. Many in extreme poverty. Almost 28
million Americans have no health insurance. Millions of bright kids
can’t afford to go to college without facing a lifetime of debt. Seniors
and disabled veterans are struggling to stay alive on inadequate Social
Security checks.
Despite all of that pain, the greed of the billionaire class in this
country knows no limits. No. We will not allow them to take away from
those in need in order to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the
very rich.
Here’s a radical
idea for my colleagues in the Republican Party: instead of just
listening to the rich and powerful few in this country, maybe just maybe
Congress should listen to the majority of the American people who want a
fair tax system.
Maybe just maybe corporate tax reform should start by preventing
profitable companies from sheltering profits in tax haven countries like
the Cayman Islands.
Here is something you may not know:
A 2008 Government Accountability Office report found that 83 of the
Fortune 100 companies use at least one offshore tax scheme to lower
their taxes. A 2016 study found that one of every five large, profitable
corporations paid no federal income taxes at all in 2012.
The practice of stashing profits in places like the Cayman Islands has
become so absurd that one single, five-story office building there is
now the official legal “home” to more than 18,000 corporations! Our tax
code has essentially legalized tax dodging for large corporations.
We must stop this bill. We must stop the Republicans from moving this country into an oligarchy.
And that starts with all of us standing up, fighting back and making
our voices heard. Three weeks ago progressives from coast to coast ran
for office at the local and state level – and they won. We have to
continue that progress and build on that momentum.
Brothers and sisters. We must do exactly the opposite of what Trump is
attempting to do. He wants to divide us up by the color of our skin, our
gender, our religion, our sexual orientation or our country of origin.
He wants us fighting with each other while Wall Street and the
billionaire class laugh all the way to the bank.
Our job is to bring our people together around an agenda that creates
an economy and government that works for all, not just the 1 percent.
Defeating this terrible piece of legislation will be an important step
forward.
This bill is a moral abomination. I hope you’ll add your name if you agree.
Happy Independents Day – July 4, 2013 By Michael Collins, on July 4th, 2013Original Here We’ve had many years of celebrating Independence so this year, let’s include a recognition of the outstanding tradition of political independents that provide so much to this country. Here are some key independents from my perspective. Suggest your own in the replies. Have a great 4th!!!
Mark Twain
There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive’s new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land. . .
True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned against the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a Shadow from an enemy that hadn’t it to sell; we have robbed a trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandit’s work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched America’s honor and blackened her face before the world. . .
And as for a flag for the Philippine Province, it is easily managed. We can have a special one–our States do it: we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones. Mark Twain, 1901
Eugene V. Debs
In this country, the most favored beneath the bending skies, we have vast areas of the richest and most fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth, and millions of eager workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child, and if there are still vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from youth to old age, until at last death comes to their rescue and lulls these hapless victims to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty: it cannot be charged to nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we live that ought to be abolished not only in the interest of the toiling masses but in the higher interest of all humanity.
I believe, Your Honor, in common with all Socialists, that this nation ought to own and control its own industries. I believe, as all Socialists do, that all things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned, that industry, the basis of our social life, instead of being the private property of a few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of all. Eugene V. Debs, September, 1918
General Smedley Butler
War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. General Smedley Butler, USMC, 1933
Malcolm X
When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won’t do to get it, or what he doesn’t believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn’t believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire . . . or preserve his freedom. Malcolm X
Cesar Chavez
Those who attack our union often say, ‘It’s not really a union. It’s something else: A social movement. A civil rights movement. It’s something dangerous.’
They’re half right. The United Farm Workers is first and foremost a union. A union like any other. A union that either produces for its members on the bread and butter issues or doesn’t survive. But the UFW has always been something more than a union –although it’s never been dangerous if you believe in the Bill of Rights.
The UFW was the beginning! We attacked that historical source of shame and infamy that our people in this country lived with. We attacked that injustice, not by complaining; not by seeking hand-outs; not by becoming soldiers in the War on Poverty. ≈
Sojourner Truth, abolitionist, women’s rights activist
You have been having our rights so long, that you think, like a slave-holder, that you own us. I know that it is hard for one who has held the reins for so long to give up; it cuts like a knife. It will feel all the better when it closes up again.
Frederick Douglas, abolitionist
Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
Henry Wallace FDR’s Sec. of Ag. and Vice President, and presidential candidate
Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.
They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.
Bernie Sanders
In my view, the President of the United States of America needs to stand with the American people and say to the Republican leadership that enough is enough. No, we will not balance the budget on the backs of working families, the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor, who have already sacrificed enough in terms of lost jobs, lost wages, lost homes, and lost pensions. Yes, we will demand that millionaires and billionaires and the largest corporations in America contribute to deficit reduction as a matter of shared sacrifice. Yes, we will reduce unnecessary and wasteful spending at the Pentagon. And, no we will not be blackmailed once again by the Republican leadership in Washington, who are threatening to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States government for the first time in our nation’s history unless they get everything they want – See more at: http://vtdigger.org/2011/06/28/bernie-sanders-senate/#sthash.Iwl2P6q2.dpuf. Bernie Sanders, Senate Speech, June 28, 2011
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 - See more at: http://agonist.org/happy-independents-day-july-4-2013/#sthash.w0Lgtskv.dpuf
Will California Attorney General Kamala
Harris hang tough in her new lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, the first
to target individual bankers accused of defrauding the public? If so, it
would be the first time in five years that executives at a major bank
have personally paid a price for their misdeeds.
Weekend at Jamie’s
Recent revelations have shown the world that JPMorgan Chase comes as
close as any institution in America to embodying all that is corrupt,
contemptible, and criminal about today’s megabanks. This is gratifying,
at least on a personal level, since that was not a popular assessment
when we first started writing about JPM and CEO Jamie Dimon a few years
back. In those days Dimon was help up as the “good banker” by the president
and the press. His institution was considered well-managed and ethical
by some of the more shallow members of the popular press, despite the
plethora of scandals and crimes like the Alabama bribery case. Since then we’ve had a variety of Chase revelations: the “Burger King kids”
details behind its massive foreclosure fraud; its confessed criminal
mistreatment of active duty military personnel; its deeds in fraudulently propping up a failed mortgage lender (it was like a financial Weekend at Bernie’s);
and (speaking of “Bernies”) its negligence (at best) in the handling of
the fraudulent Madoff accounts, which should have triggered all sorts
of red-flag warnings.
Now there’s the London Whale scandal and what appears to be a subsequent case of investor deception. The bank wound up paying a staggering $16 billion in fines and settlements over a four-year period, more than 12 percent of its net income during that time.
The Scandal of Our Time
An ethically healthy society would never have lionized a CEO like
Jamie Dimon or an institution like JPMorgan Chase. That’s why we’ve
called it “the scandal of our time.”
What explains Dimon’s inability to stem the lawbreaking and correct his
organization’s broken ethical system? The most generous interpretation
is that he’s an incompetent manager — so incompetent that, even after
numerous suits, revelations, and settlements, “Jamie didn’t know“ about all the illegal and unethical behavior that continued unabated in his institution.
Jamie Dimon
Needless to say, there are more plausible explanations. And yet, in those cases where the bank has been called to account
with fines and settlements, it has been shareholders and not the
wrongdoing bankers themselves,who have paid cost. Ironically, that even
happens when the shareholders themselves are the ones who were
defrauded. That’s why we say that bank fraud is the only crime on Earth
in which the victims make restitution on behalf of the wrongdoers. Is this ugly pattern finally changing?
Meet the Does
Blogger and finance expert Yves Smith thinks so. California Attorney General Kamala Harris is suing JPMorgan Chase and individual bankers (named
as “Does 1 through 100″) for “commit(ting) debt collection abuses”
against Chase credit card holders, “flooding California’s courts with…
collection lawsuits based on patently insufficient evidence.” The Harris suit calls on the Court to assess $2,500 against each
defendant for each violation of “Business and Professions Code section
17200,” and an additional $2,500 penalty for each violation perpetrated
against a senior citizen or disabled person. That may not sound like a lot of money for a banker but, as Smith points out,
there are more than 100,000 potential violations. Smith writes: “If
(Harris) can get the individuals who were supervising the robosigning
operations (better yet, the C level execs ultimately responsible) and
the complicit law firms, she might bankrupt some well-placed people.
This could be extremely entertaining.” Indeed. In fact, I’ll buy the popcorn.
Walking the Walk
From Yves Smith:
“Now Harris has been widely depicted as
an opportunist. But she’s kicking up more dirt on the banking front
right now than any other official … This case has enough headline value
that Harris might go a few rounds before settling. JP Morgan is known
for throwing vast amounts of lawyers at opponents to bury them in legal
costs and busywork, so this case, sadly, is unlikely to go to trial. But
if she can get the goods on the right sort of DOES, she might make some
individuals pay in a serious way, which would have far more deterrent
effect.
Adds Smith: “If nothing else, we should applaud what she’s so far and press her to keep going.” I generally agree with all of the above. But some of us have been
burned by even the most cautious cheerleading for seemingly promising
Wall Street investigations and lawsuits. That’s especially been true
when the actions in question are being conducted by elected officials
with any sort of connection to the Obama White House, an institution
which has become synonymous with efforts to protect bankers and restrict
their punishment to the merely symbolic. Attorney General Harris is considered close to the president. She’s
undoubtedly being either cajoled or pressured (or both) to cave on this
issue.
Reaching Out
So I’m going to emphasize the words “press her” in Smith’s last
sentence. If Harris is determined to see this through, her suit is
potentially the kind of sea change in banker law enforcement we’ve been
waiting for. But that means she’ll need emphatic expressions of support
to strengthen her resolve (and to explain to the Administration why she
can’t and won’t back down). And if this is merely another publicity stunt, she needs to know that
a choreographed cave-in will be very poorly received by her
constituents.
Harris therefore deserves strong
expressions of support, along with statements that citizens expect her
to see this action through — at least far enough to ensure that the
malefactors involved pay some personal penalty for their misdeeds.
(Contact information for Kamala Harris, Attorney General for the State of California, can be found here.)
RJ Eskow
Republished from Huffington Post with the author’s permission. Saturday, 11 May 2013
Senator Bernie Sanders is interviewed by a Reuters reporter, 11/28/06. (photo: Reuters)
The Road to Oligarchy
By Bernie Sanders, Reader Supported News
26 July 2012
The Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on
the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights held a hearing Tuesday
on “Taking Back Our Democracy: Responding to Citizens United and the
Rise of Super PACs” Here is Sen. Bernie Sanders’ testimony:
r.
Chairman, thank you for convening a hearing on the monumentally
important issue of “Taking Back Our Democracy.” Unfortunately, that
title exactly describes the challenge facing us today.
The history of this country has been the drive toward a
more and more inclusive democracy—a democracy which would fulfill
Abraham Lincoln’s beautiful phraseology at Gettysburg in which he
described America as a nation “of the people by the people for the
people.”
We all know American democracy has not always lived up
to this ideal. When this country was founded, only white male property
owners over age 21 could vote. But people fought to change that and we
became a more inclusive democracy. After the Civil War, we amended the
Constitution to allow non-white men to vote. We became a more inclusive
democracy. In 1920, after years of struggle and against enormous
opposition, we finally ratified the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote. We became a more inclusive democracy.
In 1965, under the leadership of Martin Luther King,
Jr. and others, the great civil rights movement finally succeeded in
outlawing racism at the ballot box and LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act. We became a more inclusive democracy.
One year after that, the Supreme Court ruled that the
poll tax was unconstitutional, that people could not be denied the right
to vote because they were low-income. We became a more inclusive
democracy. In 1971, young people throughout the country said; “we are
being drafted to go to Vietnam and get killed, but we don’t even have
the right to vote.” The voting age was lowered to 18. We became a more
inclusive democracy.
The democratic foundations of our country and this
movement toward a more inclusive democracy are now facing the most
severe attacks, both economically and politically, that we have seen in
the modern history of our country. Tragically, as I say this advisedly,
we are well on our way to seeing our great country move toward an
oligarchic form of government – where virtually all economic and
political power rest with a handful of very wealthy families. This is a
trend we must reverse.
Economically, the United States today has, by far, the
most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on
earth and that inequality is worse today in America than at any time
since the late 1920s.
Today, the wealthiest 400 individuals own more wealth than the bottom half of America - 150 million people.
Today, one family, the Walton family of
Wal-Mart fame, with $89 billion, own more wealth than the bottom 40
percent of America. One family owns more wealth than the bottom 40
percent.
Today, the top one percent own 40
percent of all wealth, while the bottom sixty percent owns less than 2
percent. Incredibly, the bottom 40 percent of all Americans own just
3/10 of one percent of the wealth of the country.
That is what is going on economically in this country.
A handful of billionaires own a significant part of the wealth of
America and have enormous control over our economy. What the Supreme
Court did in Citizens United is to say to these same billionaires: “You
own and control the economy, you own Wall Street, you own the coal
companies, you own the oil companies. Now, for a very small percentage
of your wealth, we’re going to give you the opportunity to own the
United States government.” That is the essence of what Citizens United
is all about – and that’s why it must be overturned.
Let’s be clear. Why should we be surprised that one
family, worth $50 billion, is prepared to spend $400 million in this
election to protect their interests? That’s a small investment for them
and a good investment. But it is not only the Koch brothers.
There are at least 23 billionaire families
who have contributed a minimum of $250,000 each into the political
process up to now during this campaign; my guess is that number is
really much greater because many of these contributions are made in
secret. In other words, not content to own our economy, the one percent
want to own our government as well.
The constitutional amendment that Congressman Ted Deutch and I have introduced states the following:
· For-profit corporations are not people, and are not entitled to any rights under the Constitution.
· For-profit corporations are entities of the
states, and are subject to regulation by the legislatures of the states,
so long as the regulations do not limit the freedom of the press.
· For-profit corporations are prohibited from making contributions or expenditures in political campaigns.
· Congress and the states have the right to
regulate and limit all political expenditures and contributions,
including those made by a candidate.
I’m proud to say the American people are making their
voices heard on this issue—they are telling us loud and clear it is time
to reverse the trend. Six states, including my home state of Vermont,
have passed resolutions asking us to pass a constitutional amendment to
overturn Citizens United. More than 200 local governments have
done the same, including many in Vermont. I’m proud to sponsor one such
amendment. My colleagues here, Mr. Baucus, Mr. Udall, and Ms. Edwards,
all have good amendments, and I thank them for their hard work on this
issue.
To read the list of billionaire families donating at least $250,000 to campaigns, click here.
To read more about Sanders’ Saving American Democracy Amendment, click here.
WASHINGTON,
June 27 - "The American people are angry," Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a major
Senate floor speech today. They
are angry that the middle class is collapsing because of the Wall Street-caused
recession, they are angry that unemployment is sky high, that 50 million people
lack health insurance, and that working families can't afford college for their
kids. Meanwhile, the wealthy and the largest corporations are doing
phenomenally well and now billionaires and their congressional friends want to
balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick and the
poor."
Sanders
described an American economy which has more wealth and income inequality than
at any time since the 1920s. Today, he said, "the wealthiest 400 individuals
own more wealth than the bottom half of America - 150 million people. Today,
the six heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune own more wealth than the bottom 30
percent. Today, the top one percent own 40 percent of all wealth, while the
bottom sixty percent owns less than 2 percent. Incredibly, the bottom 40
percent of all Americans own just 0.3 percent of the wealth of the country."
Sanders listed
a set of key priorities that includes creating jobs to repair America's
crumbling infrastructure, providing health care for all Americans,
strengthening Social Security, blocking cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and
making the wealthy and profitable corporations pay their fair share to reduce
the deficit.
"Americans
want an economy that works for the middle class and working families and not
just for the rich," Sanders said. "They want everybody in this country to have
health care as a right. They want to protect Social Security, Medicare, and
Medicaid. They want to move away from these gross inequalities in income and
wealth," Sanders said.
People are
furious, the senator added, that Congress provided a $700 billion Wall Street
bailout while millions of hard working Americans lost their jobs, their homes
and their life's savings as a result of the greed, recklessness and illegal
behavior on Wall Street.
"The same
politicians who were yelling and screaming about how important and how
appropriate it was for our government to bail out the crooks on Wall Street,
are nowhere to be heard when it comes to having government help average
Americans," Sanders said.
The Supreme
Court, Sanders said, has erected a major obstacle to achieving many of those
objectives. Its disastrous 2010 ruling in Citizens United and Monday's decision
in a case from Montana expanding that ruling has opened the floodgates for the
super-rich and profitable corporations spend virtually unlimited sums to
influence elections.
"If you're
getting bored by just owning coal companies and casinos and manufacturing
plants, you now have the opportunity to own the United States government,"
Sanders said. He cited the Koch brothers with their energy and manufacturing
fortune and Las Vegas casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson as examples of wealthy
individuals attempting to defeat candidates who are representing working
families.
ore
than $4 trillion in near zero-interest Federal Reserve loans and other
financial assistance went to the banks and businesses of at least 18
current and former Federal Reserve regional bank directors in the
aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse, according to Government
Accountability Office records made public for the first time today by
Sen. Bernie Sanders.
On the eve of Senate testimony by JPMorgan Chase CEO
Jamie Dimon, Sanders (I-Vt.) released the detailed findings on Dimon
and other Fed board members whose banks and businesses benefited from
Fed actions.
A Sanders provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act required the Government Accountability Office
to investigate potential conflicts of interest. The Oct. 19, 2011
report by the non-partisan investigative arm of Congress laid out the
findings, but did not name names. Sanders today released the names.
"This report reveals the inherent conflicts of
interest that exist at the Federal Reserve. At a time when small
businesses could not get affordable loans to create jobs, the Fed was
providing trillions in secret loans to some of the largest banks and
corporations in America that were well represented on the boards of the
Federal Reserve Banks. These conflicts must end," Sanders said.
The GAO study found that allowing members of the
banking industry to both elect and serve on the Federal Reserve's board
of directors creates "an appearance of a conflict of interest" and
poses "reputational risks" to the Federal Reserve System.
In Dimon's case, JPMorgan received some $391 billion
of the $4 trillion in emergency Fed funds at the same time his bank was
used by the Fed as a clearinghouse for emergency lending programs. In
March of 2008, the Fed provided JPMorgan with $29 billion in financing
to acquire Bear Stearns. Dimon also got the Fed to provide JPMorgan
Chase with an 18-month exemption from risk-based leverage and capital
requirements. And he convinced the Fed to take risky mortgage-related
assets off of Bear Stearns balance sheet before JP Morgan Chase acquired
the troubled investment bank.
Another high-profile conflict involved Stephen
Friedman, the former chairman of the New York Fed's board of directors.
Late in 2008, the New York Fed approved an application from Goldman
Sachs to become a bank holding company giving it access to cheap loans
from the Federal Reserve. During that period, Friedman sat on the
Goldman Sachs board. He also owned Goldman stock, something that was
prohibited by Federal Reserve conflict of interest regulations.
Although it was not publicly disclosed at the time, Friedman received a
waiver from the Fed's conflict of interest rules in late 2008.
Unbeknownst to the Fed, Friedman continued to purchase shares in
Goldman from November 2008 through January of 2009, according to the
GAO.
In another case, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt
was a New York Fed board member at the same time GE helped create a
Commercial Paper Funding Facility during the financial crisis. The Fed
later provided $16 billion in financing to GE under this emergency
lending program.
Sanders on May 22 introduced legislation to prohibit banking industry and business executives from serving as directors of the 12 Federal Reserve regional banks.
To read a report summarizing the new GAO information, click here.
Jamie Dimon Is Not Alone
During the financial crisis, at least 18 former and
current directors from Federal Reserve Banks worked in banks and
corporations that collectively received over $4 trillion in low-interest
loans from the Federal Reserve.
US Senator Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) Washington, DC June 12, 2012
Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, has served on
the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since
2007. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with
$391 billion in total financial assistance. JP Morgan Chase was also
used by the Fed as a clearinghouse for the Fed's emergency lending
programs.
In March of 2008, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase
with $29 billion in financing to acquire Bear Stearns. During the
financial crisis, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with an 18-month
exemption from risk-based leverage and capital requirements. The Fed
also agreed to take risky mortgage-related assets off of Bear Stearns
balance sheet before JP Morgan Chase acquired this troubled investment
bank.
Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, served on the New York
Fed's Board of Directors from 2006-2011. General Electric received $16
billion in low-interest financing from the Federal Reserve’s Commercial
Paper Funding Facility during this time period.
Stephen Friedman. In 2008, the New York Fed approved an application
from Goldman Sachs to become a bank holding company giving it access to
cheap Fed loans. During the same period, Friedman, who was chairman of
the New York Fed at the time, sat on the Goldman Sachs board of
directors and owned Goldman stock, something the Fed’s rules prohibited.
He received a waiver in late 2008 that was not made public. After
Friedman received the waiver, he continued to purchase stock in Goldman
from November 2008 through January of 2009 unbeknownst to the Fed,
according to the GAO. During the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs
received $814 billion in total financial assistance from the Fed.
Sanford Weill, the former CEO of Citigroup, served on the Fed's
Board of Directors in New York in 2006. During the financial crisis,
Citigroup received over $2.5 trillion in total financial assistance from
the Fed.
Richard Fuld, Jr, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers, served on the
Fed's Board of Directors in New York from 2006 to 2008. During the
financial crisis, the Fed provided $183 billion in total financial
assistance to Lehman before it collapsed.
James M. Wells, the Chairman and CEO of SunTrust Banks, has served
on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta since
2008. During the financial crisis, SunTrust received $7.5 billion in
total financial assistance from the Fed.
Richard Carrion, the head of Popular Inc. in Puerto Rico, has served
on the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since
2008. Popular received $1.2 billion in total financing from the Fed's
Term Auction Facility during the financial crisis.
James Smith, the Chairman and CEO of Webster Bank, served on the
Federal Reserve's Board of Directors in Boston from 2008-2010. Webster
Bank received $550 million in total financing from the Federal Reserve's
Term Auction Facility during the financial crisis.
Ted Cecala, the former Chairman and CEO of Wilmington Trust, served
on the Fed's Board of Directors in Philadelphia from 2008-2010.
Wilmington Trust received $3.2 billion in total financial assistance
from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.
Robert Jones, the President and CEO of Old National Bancorp, has
served on the Fed's Board of Directors in St. Louis since 2008. Old
National Bancorp received a total of $550 million in low-interest loans
from the Federal Reserve's Term Auction Facility during the financial
crisis.
James Rohr, the Chairman and CEO of PNC Financial Services Group,
served on the Fed's Board of Directors in Cleveland from 2008-2010. PNC
received $6.5 billion in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve
during the financial crisis.
George Fisk, the CEO of LegacyTexas Group, was a director at the
Dallas Federal Reserve in 2009. During the financial crisis, his firm
received a $5 million low-interest loan from the Federal Reserve's Term
Auction Facility.
Dennis Kuester, the former CEO of Marshall & Ilsley, served as a
board director on the Chicago Federal Reserve from 2007-2008. During
the financial crisis, his bank received over $21 billion in low-interest
loans from the Fed.
George Jones, Jr., the CEO of Texas Capital Bank, has served as a
board director at the Dallas Federal Reserve since 2009. During the
financial crisis, his bank received $2.3 billion in total financing from
the Fed's Term Auction Facility.
Douglas Morrison, was the Chief Financial Officer at CitiBank in
Sioux Falls, South Dakota, while he served as a board director at the
Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank in 2006. During the financial crisis,
CitiBank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota received over $21 billion in total
financing from the Federal Reserve.
L. Phillip Humann, the former CEO of SunTrust Banks, served on the
Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta from
2006-2008. During the financial crisis, SunTrust received $7.5 billion
in total financial assistance from the Fed.
Henry Meyer, III, the former CEO of KeyCorp, served on the Board of
Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland from 2006-2007.
During the financial crisis, KeyBank (owned by KeyCorp) received over
$40 billion in total financing from the Federal Reserve.
Ronald Logue, the former CEO of State Street Corporation, served as a
board member of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank from 2006-2007. During
the financial crisis, State Street Corporation received a total of $42
billion in financing from the Federal Reserve.
Blogger's Note: Conservative visitors to my blog may have correctly sensed my liberal leanings. If this is a concern, please scroll down and watch the video featuring Ron Paul -- a Republican candidate in the 2008 Presidential primaries. And if you do scroll down this far, I suggest that you also watch Dylan Ratigan's interview on MSNBC with guest Chris Whalen (leanings unknown to me) from Institutional Risk Analytics.
The Wall Street Pentagon Papers: Biggest Scam In World History Exposed - Are The Federal Reserve’s Crimes Too Big To Comprehend?
What if the greatest scam ever perpetrated was blatantly exposed, and the US media didn’t cover it? Does that mean the scam could keep going? That’s what we are about to find out.
I understand the importance of the new WikiLeaks documents. However, we must not let them distract us from the new information the Federal Reserve was forced to release. Even if WikiLeaks reveals documents from inside a large American bank, as huge as that could be, it will most likely pale in comparison to what we just found out from the one-time peek we got into the inner-workings of the Federal Reserve. This is the Wall Street equivalent of the Pentagon Papers.
I’ve written many reports detailing the crimes of Wall Street during this crisis. The level of fraud, from top to bottom, has been staggering. The lack of accountability and the complete disregard for the rule of law have made me and many of my colleagues extremely cynical and jaded when it comes to new evidence to pile on top of the mountain that we have already gathered. But we must not let our cynicism cloud our vision on the details within this new information.
Just when I thought the banksters couldn’t possibly shock me anymore… they did.
We were finally granted the honor and privilege of finding out the specifics, a limited one-time Federal Reserve view, of a secret taxpayer funded “backdoor bailout” by a small group of unelected bankers. This data release reveals “emergency lending programs” that doled out $12.3 TRILLION in taxpayer money - $3.3 trillion in liquidity, $9 trillion in “other financial arrangements.”
Wait, what? Did you say $12.3 TRILLION tax dollars were thrown around in secrecy by unelected bankers… and Congress didn’t know any of the details?
Yes. The Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves. The original copy of the Constitution spontaneously burst into flames. The ghost of Tom Paine went running, stark raving mad screaming through the halls of Congress.
The Federal Reserve was secretly throwing around our money in unprecedented fashion, and it wasn’t just to the usual suspects like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, etc.; it was to the entire Global Banking Cartel. To central banks throughout the world: Australia, Denmark, Japan, Mexico, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, England… To the Fed’s foreign primary dealers like Credit Suisse (Switzerland), Deutsche Bank (Germany), Royal Bank of Scotland (U.K.), Barclays (U.K.), BNP Paribas (France)… All their Ponzi players were “gifted.” All the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations got their cut.
Talk about the ransacking and burning of Rome! Sayonara American middle class…
If you still had any question as to whether or not the United States is now the world’s preeminent banana republic, the final verdict was just delivered and the decision was unanimous. The ayes have it.
Any fairytale notions that we are living in a nation built on the rule of law and of the global economy being based on free market principles has now been exposed as just that, a fairytale. This moment is equivalent to everyone in Vatican City being told, by the Pope, that God is dead.
I’ve been arguing for years that the market is rigged and that the major Wall Street firms are elaborate Ponzi schemes, as have many other people who built their beliefs on rational thought, reasoned logic and evidence. We already came to this conclusion by doing the research and connecting the dots. But now, even our strongest skeptics and the most ardent Wall Street supporters have it all laid out in front of them, on FEDERAL RESERVE SPREADSHEETS.
Even the Financial Times, which named Lloyd Blankfein its 2009 person of the year, reacted by reporting this: “The initial reactions were shock at the breadth of lending, particularly to foreign firms. But the details paint a bleaker and even more disturbing picture.”
Yes, the emperor doesn’t have any clothes. God is, indeed, dead. But, for the moment at least, the illusion continues to hold power. How is this possible?
To start with, as always, the US television “news” media (propaganda) networks just glossed over the whole thing - nothing to see here, just move along, back after a message from our sponsors… Other than that obvious reason, I’ve come to the realization that the Federal Reserve’s crimes are so big, so huge in scale, it is very hard for people to even wrap their head around it and comprehend what has happened here.
Think about it. In just this one peek we got at its operations, we learned that the Fed doled out $12.3 trillion in near-zero interest loans, without Congressional input.
The audacity and absurdity of it all is mind boggling…
Based on many conversations I’ve had with people, it seems that the average person doesn’t comprehend how much a trillion dollars is, let alone 12.3 trillion. You might as well just say 12.3 gazillion, because people don’t grasp a number that large, nor do they understand what would be possible if that money was used in other ways.
Can you imagine what we could do to restructure society with $12.3 trillion? Think about that…
People also can’t grasp the colossal crime committed because they keep hearing the word “loans.” People think of the loans they get. You borrow money, you pay it back with interest, no big deal.
That’s not what happened here. The Fed doled out $12.3 trillion in near-zero interest loans, using the American people as collateral, demanding nothing in return, other than a bunch of toxic assets in some cases.
They only gave this money to a select group of insiders, at a time when very few had any money because all these same insiders and speculators crashed the system.
Do you get that? The very people most responsible for crashing the system, were then rewarded with trillions of our dollars. This gave that select group of insiders unlimited power to seize control of assets and have unprecedented leverage over almost everything within their economies - crony capitalism on steroids.
This was a hostile world takeover orchestrated through economic attacks by a very small group of unelected global bankers. They paralyzed the system, then were given the power to recreate it according to their own desires. No free market, no democracy of any kind. All done in secrecy. In the process, they gave themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses and impoverished tens of millions of people - they have put into motion a system that will inevitably collapse again and utterly destroy the very existence of what is left of an economic middle class.
That is not hyperbole. That is what happened.
We are talking about trillions of dollars secretly pumped into global banks, handpicked by a small select group of bankers themselves. All for the benefit of those bankers, and at the expense of everyone else. People can’t even comprehend what that means and the severe consequences that it entails, which we have only just begun to experience.
Let me sum it up for you: The American Dream is O-V-E-R.
Welcome to the neo-feudal-fascist state.
People throughout the world who keep using the dollar are either A) Part of the scam; B) Oblivious to reality; C) Believe that US military power will be able to maintain the value of an otherwise worthless currency; D) All of the above.
No matter which way you look at it, we are all in serious trouble!
If you are an elected official, (I know at least 17 of you subscribe to my newsletter) and you believe in the oath you took upon taking office, you must immediately demand a full audit of the Federal Reserve and have Ben Bernanke and the entire Federal Reserve Board detained. If you are not going to do that, you deserve to have the words “Irrelevant Puppet” tattooed across your forehead.
Yes, those are obviously strong words, but they are the truth.
The Global Banking Cartel has now been so blatantly exposed, you cannot possibly get away with pretending that we live in a nation of law based on the Constitution. The jig is up.
It’s been over two years now; does anyone still seriously not understand why we are in this crisis? Our economy has been looted and burnt to the ground due to the strategic, deliberate decisions made by a small group of unelected global bankers at the Federal Reserve. Do people really not get the connection here? I mean, H.E.L.L.O. Our country is run by an unelected Global Banking Cartel.
I am constantly haunted by a quote from Harry Overstreet, who wrote the following in his 1925 groundbreaking study Influencing Human Behavior: “Giving people the facts as a strategy of influence” has been a failure, “an enterprise fraught with a surprising amount of disappointment.”
This crisis overwhelmingly proves Overstreet’s thesis to be true. Nonetheless, we solider on…
Here’s a roundup of reports on this BernankeLeaks:
Prepare to enter the theater of the absurd…
I’ll start with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont). He was the senator who Bernanke blew off when he was asked for information on this heist during a congressional hearing. Sanders fought to get the amendment written into the financial “reform” bill that gave us this one-time peek into the Fed’s secret operations. (Remember, remember the 6th of May, HFT, flash crash and terrorism. “Hey, David, Homeland Security is on the phone! They want to ask you questions about some NYSE SLP program.”)
In an article entitled, “A Real Jaw-Dropper at the Federal Reserve,” Senator Sanders reveals some of the details:
At a Senate Budget Committee hearing in 2009, I asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to tell the American people the names of the financial institutions that received an unprecedented backdoor bailout from the Federal Reserve, how much they received, and the exact terms of this assistance. He refused. A year and a half later… we have begun to lift the veil of secrecy at the Fed…
After years of stonewalling by the Fed, the American people are finally learning the incredible and jaw-dropping details of the Fed’s multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street and corporate America….
We have learned that the $700 billion Wall Street bailout… turned out to be pocket change compared to the trillions and trillions of dollars in near-zero interest loans and other financial arrangements the Federal Reserve doled out to every major financial institution in this country.…
Perhaps most surprising is the huge sum that went to bail out foreign private banks and corporations including two European megabanks — Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse — which were the largest beneficiaries of the Fed’s purchase of mortgage-backed securities….
Has the Federal Reserve of the United States become the central bank of the world?… [read Global Banking Cartel]
What this disclosure tells us, among many other things, is that despite this huge taxpayer bailout, the Fed did not make the appropriate demands on these institutions necessary to rebuild our economy and protect the needs of ordinary Americans….
What we are seeing is the incredible power of a small number of people who have incredible conflicts of interest getting incredible help from the taxpayers of this country while ignoring the needs of the people. [read more]
In an article entitled, “The Fed Lied About Wall Street,” Zach Carter sums it up this way:
The Federal Reserve audit is full of frightening revelations about U.S. economic policy and those who implement it… By denying the solvency crisis, major bank executives who had run their companies into the ground were allowed to keep their jobs, and shareholders who had placed bad bets on their firms were allowed to collect government largesse, as bloated bonuses began paying out soon after.
But the banks themselves still faced a capital shortage, and were only kept above those critical capital thresholds because federal regulators were willing to look the other way, letting banks account for obvious losses as if they were profitable assets.
So based on the Fed audit data, it’s hard to conclude that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was telling the truth when he told Congress on March 3, 2009, that there were no zombie banks in the United States.
“I don’t think that any major U.S. bank is currently a zombie institution,” Bernanke said.
As Bernanke spoke those words banks had been pledging junk bonds as collateral under Fed facilities for several months…
This is the heart of today’s foreclosure fraud crisis. Banks are foreclosing on untold numbers of families who have never missed a payment, because rushing to foreclosure generates lucrative fees for the banks, whatever the costs to families and investors. This is, in fact, far worse than what Paul Krugman predicted. Not only are zombie banks failing to support the economy, they are actively sabotaging it with fraud in order to make up for their capital shortages. Meanwhile, regulators are aggressively looking the other way.
The Fed had to fix liquidity in 2008. That was its job. But as major banks went insolvent, the Fed and Treasury had a responsibility to fix that solvency issue—even though that meant requiring shareholders and executives to live up to losses. Instead, as the Fed audit tells us, policymakers knowingly ignored the real problem, pushing losses onto the American middle class in the process.” [read more]
Even the Financial Times is jumping ship:
Sunlight Shows Cracks in Fed’s Rescue Story
It took two years, a hard-fought lawsuit, and an act of Congress, but finally… the Federal Reserve disclosed the details of its financial crisis lending programs. The initial reactions were shock at the breadth of lending, particularly to foreign firms. But the details paint a bleaker, earlier, and even more disturbing picture…. An even more troubling conclusion from the data is that… it is now apparent that the Fed took on far more risk, on less favorable terms, than most people have realized. [read more]
In true Fed fashion, they didn’t even fully comply with Congress. In a report entitled, “Fed Withholds Collateral Data for $885 Billion in Financial-Crisis Loans,” Bloomberg puts some icing on the cake:
For three of the Fed’s six emergency facilities, the central bank released information on groups of collateral it accepted by asset type and rating, without specifying individual securities. Among them was the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, created in March 2008 to provide loans to brokers as Bear Stearns Cos. collapsed.
“This is a half-step,” said former Atlanta Fed research director Robert Eisenbeis, chief monetary economist at Cumberland Advisors Inc. in Sarasota, Florida. “If you were going to audit the facilities, then would this enable you to do an audit? The answer is ‘No,’ you would have to go in and look at the individual amounts of collateral and how it was broken down to do that. And that is the spirit of what the requirements were in Dodd-Frank.” [read more]
Here’s the only person on US TV “news” who actually covers and understands any of this, enter Dylan Ratigan, with his guest Chris Whalen from Institutional Risk Analytics. This quote from Whalen sums it up well: “The folks at the Fed have become so corrupt, so captured by the banking industry… the Fed is there to support the speculators and they let the real economy go to hell.”
The Progressive’s Matthew Rothschild has a good quote: “The financial bailout was a giant boondoggle, undemocratic and kleptocratic to its core.”
Matt Stoller on NewDeal 2.0:
End This Fed
The Fed, and specifically the people who run it, are responsible for declining wages, for de-industrialization, for bubbles, and for the systemic corruption of American capital markets. The new financial blogosphere destroyed the Fed’s mythic stature…. With a loss of legitimacy comes a lack of public trust and a vulnerability to any form of critic. The Fed is now less respected than the IRS…. Liberals should stop their love affair with conservative technocratic myths of monetary independence, and cease seeing this Federal Reserve as a legitimate actor. At the very least, we need to begin noticing that these people do in fact run the country, and should not. [read more]
In case anyone is confused into believing that this is just another right vs. left partisan issue, enter Fox Business host Judge Andrew Napolitano with his guest Republican Congressman Ron Paul, who is, of course, a longtime leading Fed critic. Paul hopes to see some Wikileaks on the Federal Reserve:
The Sunlight Foundation shines a light on Bank of America and the Federal Reserve’s brother money manager BlackRock:
Federal Reserve Loan Program Allowed Bank of America to Benefit Twice
Bank of America was one of several banks that was able to play both sides of a Federal Reserve program launched during the 2008 financial crisis. While Bank of America was selling its assets to firms obtaining loans through the Fed program, the investment firm BlackRock—partially owned by Bank of America—was potentially turning a profit by using those loans to buy assets similar to those sold by Bank of America. [read more]
Gretchen Morgenson at the New York Times jumps into the act:
So That’s Where the Money Went
How the truth shines through when you shed a little light on a subject….
All of the emergency lending data released by the Fed are highly revealing, but why weren’t they made public much earlier? That’s a question that Walker F. Todd, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, is asking.
Mr. Todd, a former assistant general counsel and research officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, said details about the Fed’s vast and various programs should have been available before the Dodd-Frank regulatory reform law was even written.
“The Fed’s current set of powers and the shape of the Dodd-Frank bill over all might have looked quite different if this information had been made public during the debate on the bill,” he said. “Had these tables been out there, I think Congress would have either said no to emergency lending authority or if you get it, it’s going to be a much lower number — half a trillion dollars in the aggregate.” [read more]
Welcome to the “global pawnshop:”
The Fed Operates as a “global pawnshop:” $9 trillion to 18 financial institutions
What the report shows is that the Fed operated as a global pawnshop taking in practically anything the banks had for collateral. What is even more disturbing is that the Federal Reserve did not enact any punitive charges to these borrowers so you had banks like Goldman Sachs utilizing the crisis to siphon off cheap collateral. The Fed is quick to point out that “taxpayers were fully protected” but mention little of the destruction they have caused to the US dollar. This is a hidden cost to Americans and it also didn’t help that they were the fuel that set off the biggest global housing bubble ever witnessed by humanity. [read more]
“No strings attached.” Financial reporter Barry Grey unleashes the truth:
Fed report lifts lid on Great Bank Heist of 2008-2009
The banks and corporations that benefited were not even obliged to provide an account of what they did with the money. The entire purpose of the operation was to use public funds to cover the gambling losses of the American financial aristocracy, and create the conditions for the financiers and speculators to make even more money.
All of the 21,000 transactions cited in the Fed documents―released under a provision included, over the Fed’s objections, in this year’s financial regulatory overhaul bill―were carried out in secret. The unelected central bank operated without any congressional mandate or oversight.
The documents shed light on the greatest plundering of social resources in history. It was carried out under both the Republican Bush and Democratic Obama administrations. Those who organized the looting of the public treasury were long-time Wall Street insiders: men like Bush’s treasury secretary and former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson and the then-president of the New York Federal Reserve, Timothy Geithner….
The Fed documents show that the US central bank enabled banks and corporations to offload their bad debts onto the Fed’s balance sheet. Now, in order to prevent a collapse of the dollar and a default by the US government, the American people are being told they must sacrifice to reduce the national debt and budget deficit.
But as the vast sums make clear, the “sacrifice” being demanded of working people means their impoverishment―wage-cutting, mass unemployment, cuts in health care, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.
The very scale of the Fed bailout points to the scale of the financial crash and the criminality that fostered it…. The entire US capitalist economy rested on a huge Ponzi scheme that was bound to collapse…
The banks were able to take the cheap cash from the Fed and lend it back to the government at double and quadruple the interest rates they were initially charged―pocketing many billions in the process….
The ongoing saga of the looting of the economy by the financial elite puts the lie to the endless claims that “there is no money” for jobs, housing, education or health care. The ruling class is awash in money. [read more]
Here’s an old Jim Rogers interview from two years ago when this whole thing was originally going down:
Here are two videos that I made last year, with an assist from Alan Grayson and Dylan Ratigan:
And on a final note, you may as well rock out to this new song while Rome burns…
Ben Shalom Bernanke is wanted for violating the United States Constitution, committing acts of financial terrorism and crimes against humanity. As a leading member of the Global Banking Cartel, he is considered a highly dangerous enemy combatant. Citizens of the United States hereby demand that he be properly detained under the laws and customs of war.
r.
Chairman, thank you for convening a hearing on the monumentally
important issue of “Taking Back Our Democracy.” Unfortunately, that
title exactly describes the challenge facing us today.
