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| 11/27/2011 |
Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion Banks worldwide earned an estimated $13 billion by taking advantage of below-market rates on emergency U.S. Federal Reserve loans from August 2007 through April 2010. Roll over the bars below to explore details for each. To compare results with banks' net income or losses for the same timeframes, click the corresponding button. Worldwide total is the sum for 190 firms with available data; those banks lost a combined $21.6 billion. The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing. The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue. (Bloomberg) | |||
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keywords: American Bankers Association, Ancel Martinez, Andrea Priest, Anil Kashyap, Anthony Coley, Bailouts, Bank Of America, Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Basel, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke, Berkeley, Bloomberg Lp, Brad Miller, Byron Dorgan, California, Center For Economic And Policy Research, Center For Responsive Politics, Charlotte, Citigroup, Clearing House Association, Countrywide Financial, Dallas, David Jones, Dean Baker, Dodd-frank Wall Street Reform Act, Dow Jones, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Financial Services Forum, Financial Stability Oversight Council, Gary Stern, George Mason University, George W Bush, Gerald Hanweck, Glass-steagall Act, Goldman Sachs, Government Transparency, Graham Fisher & CO, Henry Paulson, Howard Opinsky, Jamie Dimon, Jerry Dubrowski, John Dearie, Jon Diat, Joshua Rosner, Jpmorgan Chase, Judd Gregg, Kenneth Lewis, Lehman Brothers, Mark Lake, Merrill Lynch, Minneapolis, Morgan Stanley, Neil Barofsky, New York, New York City, New York University, Nobel Prize, North Carolina, Occupy Boston, Occupy California, Occupy Oakland, Occupy Seattle, Occupy Wall Street, Oliver Williamson, Phillip Swagel, Police, Realtytrac, Richard Fisher, Richard Shelby, Scott Alvarez, Sherrill Shaffer, Sherrod Brown, Switzerland, Tea Party, Ted Kaufman, Timothy Geithner, US Bureau Of Labor Statistics, US Congress, US Department Of The Treasury, US Freedom Of Information Act, US Supreme Court, United States, University Of California, University Of Chicago, University Of Maryland, University Of Wyoming, Vikram Pandit, Viral Acharya, Wachovia, Wall Street, Washington DC, Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo, William English
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| 11/25/2011 |
The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy: The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park. But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that "New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers" covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding. Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that "It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk." (London Guardian) | |||
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keywords: Alternative Media, Australia, Berkeley, Bill Clinton, Brandon Watts, California, Campaign Finance Reform, Chris Hayes, Citizens United, Davis, Delaware, Derivatives, Egypt, European Union, Financial Crisis, Freedom Of Information Act, Glass-steagall Act, Great Depression, Iraq, Martha Stewart, NBC, Naomi Wolf, National Union Of Journalists, New York, New York City, New York Times, Newt Gingrich, Oakland, Occupy Together, Occupy Uc Davis, Occupy Wall Street, Pepper Spray, Peter King, Police, Robert Hass, Saturday Night Live, Tahrir Square, Tea Party, US Congress, US Department Of Homeland Security, US Supreme Court, Uc Davis, United States, Wall Street, Washingtonsblog.com, White House, Wonkette, Zuccotti Park
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| 10/25/2011 |
Reckless Endangerment: Totally Corrupt America Last March I reviewed Matt Taibbi’s important book Griftopia, an entertaining account of the through-going financial fraud that gave us the financial crisis. http://www.vdare.com/print/13156 Taibbi shows that the US “superpower” can match any third world backwater in the magnitude of greed and fraud that is endemic in business and government. I would not be surprised if Taibbi’s book motivated the more aware participants of Occupy Wall Street. Taibbi’s Griftopia was published last year. This year Henry Holt publishers have provided us with Gretchen Morgenson and Joshur Rosner’s Reckless Endangerment. Morgenson and Rosner tell the story again, but with less drama and provocation. Possibly, it might be more acceptable to those gullible Americans who wrap themselves in the flag and refuse to believe that their country could ever knowingly do anything that is wrong. I am not suggesting that Morgenson and Rosner pull their punches. To the contrary, the authors deliver enough knockouts to be contenders with Taibbi as world champions in exposing the reckless fraud that the US financial sector and its regulators now epitomize. (Paul Craig Roberts) | |||
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keywords: Alan Greenspan, Brooksley Born, Derivatives, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, George Stigler, Georgia, Glass-steagall Act, Goldman Sachs, Gretchen Morgenson, Henry Holt, Joshur Rosner, Martial Law, Matt Taibbi, Moody's And Fitch, New York City, Occupy Wall Street, Paul Craig Roberts, Phil Gramm, Residential Mortgage-backed Securities, Roy E Barnes, Securities And Exchange Commission, Standard & Poor's, US Congress, US Department Of Treasury, Ubs, United States, University Of Chicago, Wall Street, William J Brennan Jr
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| 10/17/2011 |
Why Occupy Wall Street Is Bigger Than Left vs. Right (Matt Taibbi) I was surprised, amused and annoyed all at once when I found out yesterday that some moron-provocateur linked to notorious right-wing cybergoon Andrew Breitbart had infiltrated a series of private e-mail lists – including one that I have been participating in – and was using them to run an exposé on the supposed behind-the-scenes marionetting of the OWS movement by the liberal media. According to various web reports, what happened was that a private "cyber-security researcher" named Thomas Ryan somehow accessed a series of email threads between various individuals and dumped them all on BigGovernment.com, Breitbart's site. Gawker is also reporting that Ryan forwarded some of these emails to the FBI and the NYPD. I have no idea whether those email exchanges are the same as the ones I was involved with. But what is clear is that some private email exchanges between myself and a number of other people – mostly financial journalists and activists who know each other from having covered the crisis from the same angle in the last three years, people like Barry Ritholz, Dylan Ratigan, former regulator William Black, Glenn Greenwald and myself – ended up being made public. (Rolling Stone) | |||
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keywords: Alternative Media, Andrew Breitbart, Bailouts, Bank Of America, Barack Obama, Barry Ritholz, Bill Moyers, Citigroup, Dylan Ratigan, Federal Bureau Of Investigation, Financial Crisis, Gawker, Glass-steagall Act, Glenn Greenwald, Goldman Sachs, Internet, Matt Taibbi, Moveon.org, Msnbc, New York City, Noam Chomsky, Occupy Wall Street, Police, Rolling Stone, Rush Limbaugh, Tea Party, Thomas Ryan, US Congress, United States, Wall Street, Washington DC, William Black
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| 10/11/2011 |
How politicians can kick the Wall Street habit So, protesters are occupying Wall Street and downtown banking districts in scores of other cities. Many Democratic politicos have endorsed the movement’s spirit and goals. Now what? The pols are in no position to enact any further left-populist reforms — laws that create, say, a financial transaction tax, or that make it easier for employees to form unions — so long as Republicans control the House and have veto power in the Senate. For that matter, the Democrats couldn’t even get those bills enacted when they controlled both houses of Congress. So what, besides affirming their solidarity with the demonstrators, can they do? (Washington Post) | |||
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keywords: Bailouts, Barack Obama, Campaign Finance Reform, Center For Responsive Politics, Citigroup, Commodities Futures Modernization Act, Derivatives, Financial Crisis, Glass-steagall Act, Grover Norquist, Moveon.org, Occupy Wall Street, US Congress, Unions, United States, Wall Street
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| 1/1/2011 |
Late-2000s financial crisis The Great Recession (often called the Credit Crunch or the Global Financial Crisis) is considered by many economists to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.[1] It resulted in the collapse of large financial institutions, the bailout of banks by national governments, and downturns in stock markets around the world. In many areas, the housing market has also suffered, resulting in numerous evictions, foreclosures and prolonged vacancies. It contributed to the failure of key businesses, declines in consumer wealth estimated in the trillions of U.S. dollars, and a significant decline in economic activity, leading to a severe global economic recession in 2008.[2] The financial crisis was triggered by a liquidity shortfall in the United States banking system in 2008.[3] The collapse of the U.S. housing bubble, which peaked in 2007, caused the values of securities tied to U.S. real estate pricing to plummet, damaging financial institutions globally.[4] Questions regarding bank solvency, declines in credit availability and damaged investor confidence had an impact on global stock markets, where securities suffered large losses during 2008 and early 2009. Economies worldwide slowed during this period, as credit tightened and international trade declined.[5] Governments and central banks responded with unprecedented fiscal stimulus, monetary policy expansion and institutional bailouts. Although there have been aftershocks, the financial crisis itself ended sometime between late-2008 and mid-2009.[6][7][8] While many causes for the financial crisis have been suggested, with varying weight assigned by experts,[9] the United States Senate issuing the Levin–Coburn Report found “that the crisis was not a natural disaster, but the result of high risk, complex financial products; undisclosed conflicts of interest; and the failure of regulators, the credit rating agencies, and the market itself to rein in the excesses of Wall Street.”[10][11] Critics argued that credit rating agencies and investors failed to accurately price the risk involved with mortgage-related financial products, and that governments did not adjust their regulatory practices to address 21st-century financial markets.[12] The repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 effectively removed the separation that previously existed between Wall Street investment banks and depository banks. There is some debate as to what role the repeal of Glass–Steagall had on the late 2000s financial crisis.[13] In response to the financial crisis, both market-based and regulatory solutions have been implemented or are under consideration.[14] (Wikipedia) | |||
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| 4/20/2010 |
Goldman Sachs: Master of the Universe The status applies to all Wall Street giants, none, however, the equal of Goldman, the Grand Master. Like the fabled comic book Superman hero, it's: * faster than its competitors, thanks to its proprietary software ability to front run markets (illegal, but no matter); * more powerful than the government it controls; and * able to leap past competitors, given its special status. (Baltimore Chronicle) | |||
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keywords: Alaska, Asset-backed Securities, Bernie Madoff, Bill Clinton, California, Collateralized Debt Obligation, Credit Default Swaps, Dan Jester, Ed Liddy, Edward Forst, Enron, Exxon Valdez, Fabrice Tourre, Fannie Mae, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Freddie Mac, Gene Sperling, George Herbert Walker, George W Bush, Glass-steagall Act, Goldman Sachs, Great Depression, Greece, Gus Levy, Henry Paulson, J Arons & CO, Jeffrey Reuben III, John Kenneth Galbraith, John Paulson, John Thain, John Weinberg, Joshua Bolten, Kendrick Wilson III, Lloyd Blankfein, Lower Cook Inlet, Mark Patterson, Mary Schapiro, Merrill Lynch, National Association Of Securities Dealers, Neel Kashkari, New Jersey, Prince William Sound, Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act, Rajat Gupta, Residential Mortgage-backed Securities, Robert Hormats, Robert K Steel, Robert Rubin, Robert Zoellick, Securities And Exchange Commission, Sidney Weinberg, Stephen Friedman, Steven Shafran, Timothy Geithner, US Congress, US Department Of Justice, US Department Of State, US Department Of The Treasury, US Supreme Court, United States, Wall Street
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| 1/1/2010 |
Robert Rubin Economic record and the 2008 global financial crisis Rubin's assistance to Citigroup's lobbying efforts were successful in getting the Glass-Steagall Act repealed in October 1999. (Wikipedia) | |||
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keywords: Alan Greenspan, Alexander Hamilton, Arthur Levitt Jr, Bill Clinton, Brooksley Born, Chuck Hagel, Citigroup, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Derivatives, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, Glass-steagall Act, Residential Mortgage-backed Securities, Robert Rubin, Securities And Exchange Commission, US Department Of The Treasury, United States
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| 8/20/2009 |
Larry Flynt: Common Sense 2009 The American government -- which we once called our government -- has been taken over by Wall Street, the mega-corporations and the super-rich (Huffington Post) | |||
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| 5/6/2009 |
Naomi Klein, columnist for The Nation, author of "The Shock Doctrine", and joins Rachel Maddow to analyze the financial sector bailouts as "disaster capitalism" (MSNBC) | |||
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| 10/8/2008 | Global financial crisis: does the world need a new banking 'policeman'? With war raging across the globe in July 1944, ministers from all 44 Allied nations met at the imposing Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to thrash out a set of rules that would govern world finance once Hitler was defeated (London Telegraph) | |||
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keywords: Adolf Hitler, Bretton Woods, Financial Crisis, Franklin D Roosevelt, Germany, Glass-steagall Act, Gordon Brown, Great Depression, Greece, International Monetary Fund, John Maynard Keynes, New Hampshire, Peter Mandelson, Republic Of Ireland, United Kingdom, United States, Wall Street, Winston Churchill, World Bank
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| 9/23/2008 |
NO To The Paulson-Bernanke Derivatives Scam Bailout Bail Out the American People, Not Wall Street! An Economic Recovery Strategy for Protectionists, Dirigists, Mercantilists, and Populists (Webster G. Tarpley) | |||
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keywords: Alan Greenspan, Andrew Jackson, Arthur Burns, Bailouts, Bank Of America, Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke, Bill Clinton, Bretton Woods, Chris Dodd, Citigroup, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, David Rockefeller, Derivatives, Fannie Mae, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, France, Franklin D Roosevelt, Freddie Mac, General Motors, George Shultz, George Soros, George W Bush, Glass-steagall Act, Goldman Sachs, Great Depression, Harry Reid, Henry Kissinger, Henry Paulson, Herbert Hoover, Hillary Clinton, Huey Long, Intercontinental Exchange, Jacques Chirac, John Mccain, JP Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Milton Friedman, Morgan Stanley, Nancy Pelosi, Newt Gingrich, Richard Nixon, Robert Rubin, Russia, Securities And Exchange Commission, Social Security, United States, US Congress, US Constitution, US Department Of The Treasury, Wachovia, Wall Street, Woodrow Wilson, Zbigniew Brzezinski
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| 3/21/2008 |
Democrats are darlings of Wall St: Some fear donations will soften attitudes on financial regulation Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who are running for president as economic populists, are benefiting handsomely from Wall Street donations, easily surpassing Republican John McCain in campaign contributions from the troubled financial services sector. It is part of a broader fundraising shift toward Democrats, compared to past campaigns when Republicans were the favorites of Wall Street. Some Democrats worry that the influx of money will make their candidates less willing to call for increased regulation of financial markets, which have been in turmoil after a wave of foreclosures on sub-prime mortgages. These concerned Democrats argue that their candidates, and presumptive Republican nominee McCain, should be willing to push for financial institutions to accept more government regulation -- in exchange for likely future bailouts, such as the recent deal the Federal Reserve orchestrated for JPMorgan Chase & Co. to take over Bear Stearns Cos. (Los Angeles Times) | |||
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keywords: Al Gore, Ameriquest, Bailouts, Barack Obama, Bear Stearns, Campaign Finance Reform, Center For Responsive Politics, Charles Prince, Citigroup, Countrywide, Economic Policy Institute, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, George W Bush, Glass-steagall Act, Hillary Clinton, JP Morgan Chase, Jared Bernstein, John Kerry, John Mccain, Mark Penn, Massie Ritsch, Merrill Lynch, New York, Residential Mortgage-backed Securities, Robert Rubin, Stanley O'neal, US Congress, US Department Of The Treasury, United States, Wall Street, White House
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| 8/8/2001 |
Project 80s: The CFR's Program For "Controlled Disintegration" “A controlled disintegration in the world economy is a legitimate object for the 1980s… it was not by chance that starting the week of Oct. 6-12, 1979, Volcker began raising interest rates, by raising the federal funds rate and increasing certain categories of reserve requirements for commercial banks. He kept pushing rates upward, until, by December 1980, the prime lending rate of U.S. commercial banks reached 21.5%.” (NewsWithViews.com) | |||
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keywords: Alan Greenspan, California, Council On Foreign Relations, Cyrus Vance, Eugenics, Executive Intelligence Review, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, Germany, Glass-steagall Act, Globalization, Health Care, Hg Wells, International Monetary Fund, Jimmy Carter, Joseph Goebbels, National Security Study Memorandum 200, Nazi, Paul Volcker, Richard Freeman, Trilateral Commission, United Kingdom, United Nations, United States, W Michael Blumenthal, Weapons Of Mass Destruction, World Bank, World War II, Zbigniew Brzezinski
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| 2/11/1988 |
G.A.O. Urges Caution on a Glass-Steagall Repeal The G.A.O. report makes no specific recommendation on whether Congress should repeal the 55-year-old law. Congress is holding hearings on whether to repeal part or all of the act. Among the issues is whether to give banks new powers to underwrite securities, as well as whether to recommend that the Securities and Exchange Commission regulate all securities operations of banks. (New York Times) | |||
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keywords: American Bankers Association, Charles Bowsher, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, Glass-steagall Act, Robert Dugger, Securities And Exchange Commission, US Congress, US Government Accountability Office, United States
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