The Little Engine That Could

Posted: November 1, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: #Occupy and We are the 99 percent!, Banksters, commercial banking, Corporate Crime, Global Financial Crisis, income inequality, U.S. Economy | 10 Comments

There’s a fascinating story that’s been brewing right under the radar that is beginning to sprout legs.  And I hope continues and receives a larger audience.  It’s the battle between Goldman Sachs [and by association the other TBTF’s] and the Lower East Side People’s Credit Union in NYC.  Why?  Because it’s the perfect metaphor for what’s been going on in the US since deregulation turned our financial system into an iron-fisted bully.

Occupy Wall St. [OWS] as everyone recalls was ignored at first, ridiculed and dismissed, and now has become a fixture and swirl point of political discussion.  Conversations are changing.  People are beginning to pay attention in both positive and negative ways.  OWS started to receive donations from across the country because many Americans are simply fed up with what they see as the gross corruption of money and power on our political system.

And so the Movement that was doomed at the start, who railed against the Big Banks suddenly found itself [by some accounts] with over $300,000.  What to do?  They needed a bank.  And where did they go?  To the Lower East Side People’s Credit Union, servicing the City’s low income citizens, primarily Latinos.  The People’s Credit Union decided to hold an honorary benefit for their generous depositor, the Occupy group.

And then . . . Boom!

Goldman Sachs had a near hissy fit.  Why?  Because Goldman had given People’s Credit $5000. This was not a gift, not a donation of goodwill but a drop of cash they are required under the TARP agreement to give through the Community Reinvestment Act [CRA].  They are legally required to give this money out to the community under the original deal.  But Goldman in their infinite wisdom and with hackles up over any mention of OWS has decided to use this required reinvestment as a hammer to exert their will. Goldman Sachs has demanded their $5000 back.  And also, I would suggest, they wish to set an example: You play it our way or you don’t play at all.  It’s been reported the heat has been turned up with a nasty message to People’s:

“You will never get a dime from another bank again.”

Democracy Now has been following this story. A reporter by the name of Greg Palast has done the investigative work from the start and has tried to get Goldman Sachs to give their side of the story.  Quelle surprise!  No response.  I encourage you to watch the clip from Democracy Now.  If it doesn’t get your blood boiling then I want to know what mega-tranquilizers you’re on.

This is what Occupy is all about.  This is what must change.

Can Banksters be Shamed–or at Least Influenced–by Public Opinion?

Posted: November 1, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: #Occupy and We are the 99 percent!, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , | 11 Comments

It sure looks that way. From the Wall Street Journal:

Bank of America Corp. is dropping its plan to charge customers $5 a month for making purchases with their debit cards, a person familiar with the situation said.

The move is a dramatic retreat following decisions by several rivals in recent days to drop customer tests of the new fees. SunTrust Banks Inc. and Regions Financial Corp. also said Monday that they will stop charging customers for debit-card transactions.

Bank of America decided against the fees due to negative customer feedback on the plan and the moves by rivals, which left the Charlotte, N.C., lender as the only big bank planning to levy the fee on some customers next year.

According to Bloomberg, BofA CEO David Darnell claims the bank just “listened” to customers.

“We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks and recognize their concern with our proposed debit usage fee,” David Darnell, co-chief operating officer, said in a statement from the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender today. “As a result, we are not currently charging the fee and will not be moving forward with any additional plans to do so.”

Darnell wants us to believe that he had no clue that customers would be angry at being charged for accessing their own money. But actually, he apparently paid more attention to what his competitors were doing.

Bank of America reversed course after competitors including Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), the No. 2 debit-card issuer, decided not to charge similar fees. Atlanta-based SunTrust Banks Inc. (STI) and Regions Financial Corp., based in Birmingham, Alabama, said yesterday they will eliminate their check-card fees after customers rebelled.

At least it’s a small win for the 99%. And I’m sure the banks were paying close attention to the Occupy Movement too, even if they’ll never admit it.

The Marvel Of Coincidence

Posted: October 31, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: #Occupy and We are the 99 percent!, Banksters, House of Representatives, legislation, net-neutrality, the blogosphere, the internet | 5 Comments

Days after the shocking crackdown of Occupy Oakland members, a police action that resulted in serious head trauma to Marine Vet Scott Olsen, Google revealed US law enforcement requests, January through June 2011, to ban videos showing police brutality and/or allegedly defaming law enforcement officials.  These requests were subsequently rejected by Google.  From the Google’s released Transparency Report:

Observations on Content Removal Requests

  • We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove. Separately, we received requests from a different local law enforcement agency for removal of videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. We did not comply with those requests, which we have categorized in this Report as defamation requests.

Had we not had access to the recent You Tube videos from Oakland, we would have been left in a ‘he said/she said’ predicament with no way of knowing how extreme the Oakland police were on the night of October 25 [unless, of course, you were an eye witness] or left to the mercy of the sadly slanted reports in the mainstream media. Traditional press outlets first ignored, and then quickly wrote off the OWS protests as lame complaints, coming from of a bunch of spoiled brats.  There is little acknowledgement of the Movement’s growing support or the very real anger and disgust of the American public. The discontent is not difficult to categorize–corruption, malfeasance, and collusion of Government and Wall St. at the expense of ordinary people.

Add another ‘strange’ coincidence, this one noted at Cannonfire, header reading: “Ain’t That A Coinky-Dink.”

Joe Cannon tapped a brief blog piece indicating the weird, spectacular confluence of events: that ABC and CBS, both stations providing live feed to the October 25th night’s proceedings, just happened to require helicopter refueling at the precise moment the police prepared their attack on the protesters. And so, the major stations had no film footage of the actual melee.

Astounding, yes?  Btw, this story was picked up and circulated around the Web, but I fail to recall the astonishing coincidence being reported by the MSM. I mean we get stories about the face of Jesus revealed on tacos, pistachios and ancient shrouds.  But this?  Nada.  Inquiring minds might ask—Why?

Fortunately, we did have those videos taken by on-the-ground witnesses.  We even have first hand accounts, the vast majority of which are like this one. Unflattering, to say the least.

But the magic of coincidence seems to come in bundles and bunches. In this case it’s the magic number 3 [although there certainly may be more lurking out there].

On Wednesday, October 26th the Protect IP [intellectual property] Bill S. 968 was released from the House without any appreciable changes that had been noted in the initial Senate version—vague language, broad application, all in the name of protecting copyright infringement.  In addition, a companion piece of legislation Stop On-Line Privacy Act [SOPA] also coming out of the House would require internet providers to ‘disappear’ certain websites, effectively blacklisting domains, all under the aegis of IP protection.  Even better, service providers would be required to ‘monitor’ and police their users’ activity.

From Open Congress the following Summary appears:

Open Congress Summary

“This bill would establish a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department determines to be “dedicated to infringing activities.” The DOJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against any site they deem to have “only limited purpose or use other than infringement,” and the DOJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site. It would also make unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty up to five years in prison. This bill combines two separate Senate bills – S. 958 and S.978, the Commercial Felony Streaming Act — into one big House bill.”

What could go wrong?

And what an amazing coincidence that Congress, a body that has been paralyzed, unable to pass any legislation for the benefit of the American public, has suddenly, so expeditiously gotten its act together to push through Blacklisting legislation that curtails and restricts Internet use.  Not only that, but this legislation coincides with the precise moment that Americans around the country have gathered in our streets, courtyards, and before a variety of City Halls to give voice to public grievances, and ‘coincidentally’ effects the source from which we [the general public] primarily learn about these protests and view subsequent video.

Coincidence upon tumbling coincidence.  I am gobsmacked, I tell you. Color me worried. And just a tad suspicious, too.  What about you?

The Clash of the Titans: Ideology vs. History

Posted: October 29, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: #Occupy and We are the 99 percent!, academia, Banksters, Corporate Crime, Economy, financial institutions, Global Financial Crisis | 19 Comments

Thursday night I caught an amazing piece of political dialogue on the Anderson Cooper show between Peter Schiff and Cornell West. What an odd pairing!

Peter Schiff, as many will recall, ran an unsuccessful Connecticut senatorial primary bid in 2010.  He’s described as an adherent of the Austrian School of Economics, from the same branch Ron Paul falls: libertarian, believer in free market fundamentalism–unchain capitalism and all things will fall from Heaven.  Schiff is currently the CEO of Euro-Pacific Capital, Inc. and Euro-Pacific Precious Metals.   

In contrast, Cornell West is an academic, sometimes referred to as a ‘public intellectual,’ a professor at Princeton where he teaches from the Center for African American Studies and the Department of Religion.  He has been a consistent voice for the underclass, the working poor and speaks to the effects of race, gender and class in American society.

Though both men have engaged the Occupy Wall St. [OWS] movement, their approaches could not be more different.  Peter Schiff went to Zuccotti Park with a sign–I am the 1%–presumably to start a conversation with the protesters.  Hummmm.  Mr. Schiff’s definition of ‘conversing’ must be different than mine.  From the clip below?  I’d use the word confrontation.

Cornell West on the other hand has been arrested twice during the Occupy encampment—once in DC before the Supreme Court protesting the Citizens United decision, where corporate political funding was equated with free speech, using the precedent that corporations = personhood.  A decision, I might add that I and many others view as horrifically destructive, only adding to the problem of money swamping our electoral process.  Dr. West was arrested for the terrifying crime of holding a sign [a no-no on the steps of Supreme Court] which read: Poverty is the Greatest Violence of All.  On a second occasion, Dr. West was arrested in Harlem for marching with other Occupy members in front of the 28th Precinct, protesting the NYPD’s practice of ‘stop and frisk,’ which allows police to search citizens at will, a procedure that involves primarily people of color.  Reportedly 600,000 stops were made in 2010, with 7% of those stops resulting in arrests.

So, we have two men, both educated, articulate and successful, both engaging OWS from 180 degree positions. Peter Schiff takes the view that unfettered capitalism will save the world as opposed to West’s humanistic viewpoint that unregulated capitalism has brought the world to its knees and threatens to scrap the very safety nets and programs that allow people to better themselves [education, for instance] and escape the violent confines that poverty and hopelessness exact.  

We can argue these principles till the cows come home but a debater makes a serious mistake when they rewrite history to support their ideology, willfully fabricating, tweaking the facts to make their points more relevant and sound.

Peter Schiff, to his shame, pulled out all the old tricks like a fumbling magician who has no talent for sleight of hand. He like so many others who deify free market fundamentalism come off sounding remarkably reasonable, even simpatico with many of the concerns of average Americans.  But they always slip up, only to expose the trickster; those disappearing cards are simply stuck up their sleeves.

In  Zuccotti Park, Schiff claims he pays ‘almost 50% of his income in taxes’ under the current tax system.  50%.  No one in the top 1% pays anything close to 50% in personal income tax and if they did then their accountant deserves to be marched to the wall and executed, toute suite. The rich have all sorts of tax breaks, exemptions, loopholes and shelters that average working people can only dream of.  The claim is sheer nonsense by those who, in their heart of hearts, don’t wish to pay any tax at all.  The same is true of claiming they want to return to the ‘golden’ 1950s when things were on an upswing and America was the most productive nation in the world [as Schiff remarks, as if it were a 1000 years ago].  And the top marginal tax rate was?   91%.

Yes, records were actually kept in the 1950s and we can look up false statements!  Maybe Schiff really meant the roaring mid-20s to 1931 were the rate was 25%, and then BOOM!  Depression time.

I must say I enjoyed the explanation of Wall St. greed as a by-product of Government manipulation.  This is a turn on that old Flip Wilson skit line, But . . . But . . .The Devil Made Me Do it.

In addition, there is the sweet comment—“The regulation we want is the market.  Markets regulate themselves.”  This makes a great sound byte but is nothing more than the same garbage philosophy that brought us to this moment of economic woe, something that even Alan Greenspan, former Fed chairman finally admitted in hound-dog fashion: Did. Not. Work.

But Schiff’s greatest leap into fantasy is saved for the CNN segment I initially mentioned, where he claims that capitalism, free-market capitalism alone led to changes in the workplace: Child Labor Laws, Worker’s Safety laws, the 40-hour work week [see at the 8 minute mark].

I give Cornell West props for not coming through the screen with that claim. I guess Schiff never heard of the Radium Girls, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the Battle of Blair Mountain or the entire Labor Movement for that matter. The unregulated capitalists of that long ago era were not willing to give an inch, let alone provide workers with anything amounting to change.  Justice was wrenched out through struggle, protest, suffering and deprivation. Justice was long in coming but come it did.

West’s suggestion that he and Schiff need to sit down over coffee and cognac is way too easy and polite.  West would be advised to bring a straight jacket in Peter Schiff’s size for safety purposes. Or march him to church to beg forgiveness for fibbing [also known as spreading disinformation] to the public.

There’s a quote attributed to the late Daniel Moynihan:

“You’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.”

In the Clash of the Titans, history always wins.

Thursday Reads

Posted: October 27, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: #Occupy and We are the 99 percent!, Catfood Commission, Super Committee | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 27 Comments

Good Morning!

It’s amazing what kind of nonsense the right wing can come up with when their interests and myths are threatened.  Here’s the latest Faux News canard about Occupy.  It’s an ACORN plot!  If any one believes that, I have a few bridges across the Mississippi I’d like to sell them.  The Crescent City Connection even comes with tolls!!

How can a group that folded 19 months ago secretly conspire to bolster Occupy protests? Apparently, “sources tell” Fox News that people who used to work for ACORN have now taken on roles helping organize Occupy protests. In fact, Fox News reports that the former director of New York ACORN and his aides are now working for New York Communities for Change (NYCC), which is turn supporting demonstrations.

I’m not sure why this would be especially interesting if true — if folks who used to be involved with one group then started playing a role with another, who cares? — but as it turns out, a spokesperson for Occupy Wall Street said the NYCC isn’t playing a role in the protests anyway. But don’t worry, Fox News’ unnamed “source” said the group really is up to secret misdeeds, adding, “And yes, we’re still ACORN, there is a still a national ACORN.”

It’s safe to assume that Fox News has reliable contacts among progressive activist organizations, right? There’s bound to be plenty of former ACORN staffers and Occupy activists eager to dish to the Republicans’ cable news outlet, right?

Please. It’s really no wonder at all why Fox News’ audience ends up believing so much nonsense.

They do believe the nonsense, which makes Fox News watchers very dangerous in the voting booth.

Dems on the Super Committee are offering up Medicaid and other ‘entitlements’ in order to get tax increases from Republicans.  It didn’t work, but you have to wonder exactly what all they’re willing to put on the table.

Republicans have pressured supercommittee members to reject any deficit-reduction deal that raises taxes — including stimulus spending for the economy would almost certainly be a non-starter for most in the party.

Democrats have said from the beginning that the supercommittee should produce a “jobs plan” that includes “investments” to help the economy.

The supercommittee is charged with devising a plan that will cut at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years from annual deficits, but deep divisions exist on the panel over whether to raise taxes and cut entitlements to meet that goal.

The members met again Wednesday afternoon and Democrats were looking to see if the GOP would present an alternative path to the grand bargain.

You may recall that the grand bargain was the giveaway President Obama offered to Boehner last summer during the debt ceiling talks.  More details are available at this WAPO link.

The panel has floundered since meetings began in September. If the supercommittee fails to reach agreement to trim borrowing by at least $1.2 trillion through 2021, automatic spending cuts of an equal amount would be triggered in January 2013. These cuts would strike especially hard at the Pentagon, an outcome that Republicans are eager to avoid.

Ralph B posted this tidbit downthread last night.  Chelsea Clinton is said to be considering a congressional run.

Clinton has been approached by “the right people” in the New York Democratic Party, according to one source in Albany. While no decision has been made, Clinton is said to be “actively considering” a Congressional run from New York State in 2012.

Chelsea Clinton, 31, is the only child of former U.S. President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The discussions of running Chelsea Clinton for a house seat grew out of the redistricting plans currently underway in the New York State legislature in Albany.

The plan is to identify an open seat for Clinton in or around New York City where she currently resides with her husband, Marc Mezvinsky. While no specific district has been determined, New York City and Westchester are said to be the focus with New York’s 18th District considered a strong possibility. The 18th encompasses much of Westchester County, just south of where her parents have maintained a home for the past 12 years.

The Daily Beast reports that Herman Cain was delinquent in paying taxes in 2006.  Additionally, he fought paying the bill.

According to court documents obtained by The Beast, Cain and his wife, Gloria, were served in February 2008 with a tax lien totaling $8,558.46 for unpaid income taxes and penalty due for the 2006 calendar year.

Gordon said Cain had filed with the IRS and won a six-month reprieve in paying his 2006 federal taxes as he was undergoing his treatment for stage four lymphoma and believed that filing should also have bought him time with the state of Georgia. “In Georgia, a taxpayer can submit a copy of his federal extension to request an extension of state income taxes,” Gordon said.

But instead, the state sent a notice of overdue taxes in October 2007, and then proceeded with the tax lien four months later, he said.

Cain’s accountant fought the Georgia Department of Revenue on behalf of his client well into 2008 and the two sides finally settled the matter in November 2008. A court formally withdrew the state tax lien on Dec. 8, 2008, court records show.

Gordon said the campaign was researching the exact date on which Cain made the payment to extinguish the lien

Robert Reich thinks that Wall Street is still out of control.

Dodd-Frank is rife with so many loopholes and exemptions that the largest Wall Street banks – larger by far then they were before the bailout – are back to many of their old tricks.

It’s impossible to know, for example, the exposure of the Street to European banks in danger of going under. To stay afloat, Europe’s banks will be forced to sell mountains of assets – among them, derivatives originating on the Street – and may have to reneg on or delay some repayments on loans from Wall Street banks.

The Street says it’s not worried because these assets are insured. But remember AIG? The fact Morgan Stanley and other big U.S. banks are taking a beating in the market suggests investors don’t believe the Street. This itself proves financial reform hasn’t gone far enough.

If you want more evidence, consider the fancy footwork by Bank of America in recent days. Hit by a credit downgrade last month, BofA just moved its riskiest derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a retail subsidiary flush with insured deposits. That unit has a higher credit rating because the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (that is, you and me and other taxpayers) are backing the deposits. Result: BofA improves its bottom line at the expense of American taxpayers.

Wasn’t this supposed to be illegal? Keeping risky assets away from insured deposits had been a key principle of U.S. regulation for decades before the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

The so-called “Volcker rule” was supposed to remedy that. But under pressure of Wall Street’s lobbyists, the rule – as officially proposed last week – has morphed into almost 300 pages of regulatory mumbo-jumbo, riddled with exemptions and loopholes.

It would have been far simpler simply to ban proprietary trading from the jump. Why should banks ever be permitted to use peoples’ bank deposits – insured by the federal government – to place risky bets on the banks’ own behalf? Bring back Glass-Steagall.

The EU announced a Debt Accord late last night which caused a rally in both Asian stocks and the Euro.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 0.9 percent to 120.25 as of 11 a.m. in Tokyo, set for the highest close since Sept. 9. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures added 0.8 percent. The 17- nation euro climbed 0.5 percent to $1.3979 and rose 0.3 percent to 106.26 yen. Treasury 10-year notes erased earlier gains. Copper, zinc and lead jumped more than 1.4 percent in London and crude climbed 1.9 percent in New York.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the euro region’s bailout fund will be leveraged by four to five times, and investors have agreed to a voluntary writedown of 50 percent on Greek debt. Sarkozy plans to call Chinese leader Hu Jintao today to discuss contributions from the Asian nation to a fund European leaders may set up to fight the crisis, a person familiar with the matter said.

The news of a deal is “certainly mildly positive news for markets,” Adarsh Sinha, head of strategy for Group of 10 foreign exchange at Bank of America, said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Hong Kong. “We have got a plan out but a lot of the details aren’t in place.”

CNN announced the details late last night.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Greek bondholders voluntarily agreed to write down the value of Greek bonds by 50%, which translates to €100 billion and will reduce the nation’s debt load to 120% from 150%.

Sarkozy said the leaders agreed to boost the firepower of the EU bailout fund, known as the European Financial Stability Facility, “by four or five fold.” He added that officials have negotiated additional funding from the International Monetary Fund.

The writedowns were one of three inter-related problems political leaders must solve to devise a comprehensive solution to Europe’s debt crisis. They must also determine how to leverage a government-backed bailout fund and stabilize the banking sector.

EU leaders had pledged to resolve these issues Wednesday at their summit in Brussels. But given the bondholders’ resistance, it was unclear until the early hours of Thursday if the leaders would be able to follow through.

Earlier, the European Council issued a statement saying heads of state had agreed to raise capital requirements for banks vulnerable to losses on euro-area government bonds.

Under the terms outlined by EU officials, banks would be required to sharply increase core capital levels to 9% to create a buffer against potential losses. The amount to be raised would be determined after accounting for declines in the value of euro-area government bonds, including debt issued by Greece.

Based on market rates in September, banks will need to raise a total of €106 billion to meet the new targets, according to the European Banking Authority.

So, that’s the headlines that have grabbed my attention today.  What’s on your blogging and reading list today?

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