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1/28/2012 How I woke up to the untruths of Barack Obama: The President's State of the Union address was as weaselly as any politician's could be.
When I happened to wake up in the middle of the night last Wednesday and caught the BBC World Service’s live relay of President Obama’s State of the Union address to Congress, two passages had me rubbing my eyes in disbelief. The first came when, to applause, the President spoke about the banking crash which coincided with his barnstorming 2008 election campaign. “The house of cards collapsed,” he recalled. “We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn’t afford or understand them.” He excoriated the banks which had “made huge bets and bonuses with other people’s money”, while “regulators looked the other way and didn’t have the authority to stop the bad behaviour”. This, said Obama, “was wrong. It was irresponsible. And it plunged our economy into a crisis that put millions out of work.” I recalled a piece I wrote in this column on January 29, 2009, just after Obama took office. It was headlined: “This is the sub-prime house that Barack Obama built”. As a rising young Chicago politician in 1995, no one campaigned more actively than Mr Obama for an amendment to the US Community Reinvestment Act, legally requiring banks to lend huge sums to millions of poor, mainly black Americans, guaranteed by the two giant mortgage associations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was this Act, above all, which let the US housing bubble blow up, far beyond the point where it was obvious that hundreds of thousands of homeowners would be likely to default. Yet, in 2005, no one more actively opposed moves to halt these reckless guarantees than Senator Obama, who received more donations from Fannie Mae than any other US politician (although Senator Hillary Clinton ran him close).
(London Telegraph)
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posted: 1/29/12                   0       7
#1 
keywords: Alternative Energy, BBC, Baghdad, Barack Obama, Big Oil, Camp Ashraf, Camp Liberty, Carbon Dioxide, Chicago, Climate Change, David Phillips, European Council, Fannie Mae, Financial Crisis, Freddie Mac, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Igor Judge, Iran, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Iraq, Martin Kolber, Military, National Council For Resistance IN Iran, Natural Gas, Nouri Al-maliki, People's Mujahideen Of Iran, Real Estate, Residential Mortgage-backed Securities, Rudy Giuliani, Tehran, Terrorists, US Congress, US Department Of State, United Kingdom, United Nations, United States, Wall Street, White House, Wind Turbines Add New Keyword To Link



1/22/2012 Has Ex Goldman Sachs Staff turned Democrat Campaigner Infiltrated Occupy?
Through the revolving door from Goldman Sachs to the Democrat Party, an experienced campaigner has maneuvered themselves into a position of influence with the Occupation Movement in the nations capitol. Connections with MoveOn.org, and Van Jones’ Rebuild the Dream, seem to be only the tip of the iceberg. For a movement that considers itself not only non-partisan, but anti-partisan, and entirely anathema to the corporate owned political institutions that exist, this should come as a serious blow. Ali Savino was the initiator of Occupy DC’s Research and Policy Development Committee (RPD). This committee is responsible for not only policy development within the Occupy community, but, through the Occupy 2.0 committee, a sub group of RPD, plays a key role in establishing the future direction of the movement. Ms. Savino works for NGP VAN in Washington, DC. Her Linkedin profile states that she works in ‘product design’ at the firm. NGP VAN’s product is political campaigns. Their web site boasts deep ties with the Democrat Party. Their Clients Page states: NGP VAN is honored to power the fundraising, field, and new media activities for many of the leading Democratic and progressive organizations. Our software powers the Obama campaign’s voter contact, volunteer, fundraising and compliance operations in all 50 states. Clients include: ...
(News Junkie Post)
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posted: 1/29/12                   0       8
#2 



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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posted: 11/29/11                   0       6
#3 
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 Add New Keyword To Link



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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posted: 12/14/11                   0       4
#4 



11/14/2011 New Book: Insider Trading Rampant in Congress: Members reap benefits of policy knowledge on Wall Street
In Congress, it’s easy to do the kind of stock trading that “would send the rest of us to prison,” writes Peter Schweizer in a new book on the Hill’s upside-down ethics. Members of Congress are, of course, equipped with insider knowledge about upcoming policy, and they’re able to play the market based on that knowledge, Schweizer asserts. In Throw Them All Out, the author probes the trading activities of a handful of congressional leaders of both parties, and finds evidence of questionable dealings.
(Newser)
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posted: 11/27/11                   0       6
#5 



11/12/2011 The New Progressive Movement
(Opinion) OCCUPY WALL STREET and its allied movements around the country are more than a walk in the park. They are most likely the start of a new era in America. Historians have noted that American politics moves in long swings. We are at the end of the 30-year Reagan era, a period that has culminated in soaring income for the top 1 percent and crushing unemployment or income stagnation for much of the rest. The overarching challenge of the coming years is to restore prosperity and power for the 99 percent. Thirty years ago, a newly elected Ronald Reagan made a fateful judgment: “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Taxes for the rich were slashed, as were outlays on public services and investments as a share of national income. Only the military and a few big transfer programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans’ benefits were exempted from the squeeze. Reagan’s was a fateful misdiagnosis. He completely overlooked the real issue — the rise of global competition in the information age — and fought a bogeyman, the government. Decades on, America pays the price of that misdiagnosis, with a nation singularly unprepared to face the global economic, energy and environmental challenges of our time.
(New York Times)
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posted: 11/27/11                   0       6
#6 



11/10/2011 The Inequality Map
Foreign tourists are coming up to me on the streets and asking, “David, you have so many different kinds of inequality in your country. How can I tell which are socially acceptable and which are not?” Foreign tourists are coming up to me on the streets and asking, “David, you have so many different kinds of inequality in your country. How can I tell which are socially acceptable and which are not?” This is an excellent question. I will provide you with a guide to the American inequality map to help you avoid embarrassment. Academic inequality is socially acceptable. It is perfectly fine to demonstrate that you are in the academic top 1 percent by wearing a Princeton, Harvard or Stanford sweatshirt. Ancestor inequality is not socially acceptable. It is not permissible to go around bragging that your family came over on the Mayflower and that you are descended from generations of Throgmorton-Winthrops who bequeathed a legacy of good breeding and fine manners.
(New York Times)
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posted: 11/27/11                   0       5
#7 



11/9/2011 Occupy Oakland Deposits $20K at ... Wells Fargo: But don't worry, it's only for a little while!
So much for Bank Transfer Day and, you know, railing against Wall Street: Occupy Oakland took its $20,000 straight to Wells Fargo, the fourth-largest bank holding company in the US. The group’s general assembly agreed—just about unanimously—to temporarily put the large donation from Occupy Wall Street into the big bank Monday, the San Francisco Examiner reports. Not surprisingly, the 162-8 vote (16 abstained) led to outrage on Twitter.
(Newser)
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posted: 11/27/11                   0       5
#8 



10/31/2011 The Road Ahead for Occupy Wall Street
To the Editor: Bill Keller misses the point of the Occupy Wall Street movement. An amalgam of issues motivates the millions of people throughout the country who have identified with the effort. Their number includes students in debt for educations that do not lead to employment, homeowners whose property is underwater, individuals whose retirement savings are suddenly at risk, voters who see that those they elect tend to the needs of a constituency of which they are not a part, and people who see that the financial “experts” whose machinations brought down the economy are not held accountable. These are Americans who deserve better than to be piously mocked for their lack of leadership and a constrained agenda. The incestuous liaison between financial power and elected politicians is the issue. Those who are a part of that partnership should take note that if elections don’t count and demonstrations are ignored, the Occupy movement may include civil disobedience or worse.
(New York Times)
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posted: 11/27/11                   0       5
#9 



10/25/2011 DA won't prosecute Occupy Sacramento protesters
Occupy Sacramento protesters' push to continue their amorphous yet spirited around-the-clock campaign against economic inequalities got a powerful assist Monday from an unexpected source. District Attorney Jan Scully announced Monday afternoon that her office would not file state charges against protesters arrested for refusing to disperse from an unlawful assembly after being ordered to do so by law enforcement. Scully's position – that no unlawful assembly occurred – has her office ostensibly siding with the protesters and in direct conflict with the Sacramento Police Department. "They are still in violation and we will continue to make the arrests," said Laura Peck, a police spokeswoman, in response to questions about continued arrests under the state law.
(Sacramento Bee)
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posted: 10/28/11                   0       6
#10 



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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posted: 10/28/11                   0       6
#11 



10/24/2011 New York cops defy order to arrest hundreds of 'Occupy Albany' protesters
Occupy Albany protesters in New York’s capital city received an unexpected ally over the week: The state and local authorities. According to the Albany Times Union, New York state troopers and Albany police did not adhere to a curfew crackdown on protesters urged by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and Albany mayor Gerald Jennings. Mass arrests seemed to be in the cards once Jennings directed officers to enforce the curfew on roughly 700 protesters occupying the city owned park. But as state police joined the local cops, protesters moved past the property line dividing city and state land.
(The Raw Story)
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posted: 10/28/11                   0       5
#12 
keywords: Albany, Albany Times Union, Andrew Cuomo, Financial Crisis, Gerald Jennings, Martial Law, New York, New York City, Occupy Albany, Occupy Wall Street, United States, Wall Street Add New Keyword To Link



10/24/2011 Occupy Sacramento sues the city over First Amendment violations
Occupy Sacramento is filing a lawsuit against the city of Sacramento for violating occupier's First Amendment rights. At a news conference this morning at 10:30 am, lawyers helping Occupy Sacramento announced that they were filing a lawsuit alleging that the city of Sacramento's anti-camping ordinance is violating the First Amendment right to peacefully assemble. Today is day 19 of the occupation that began on October 6th, and so far there have been 75 arrests made simply for remaining in the public park after 11 pm. There have been no arrests for violence, and police have even stated in city council sessions that the occupiers are overwhelmingly peaceful. Thus, it stands to reason that if the occupiers are assembling peacefully, then they have constitutional protections over that assembly. No other law should infringe on this right to assemble.
(Examiner.com)
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posted: 10/28/11                   0       5
#13 



10/21/2011 Occupy-apalooza Strikes a Chord
Thursday night I spoke to a young woman in Brooklyn who was having dinner and planning the next day. Between a morning boot camp workout at the local Y.M.C.A. and an evening meeting with friends for drinks, she was planning her first trek to Zuccotti Park to take part in the Occupy Wall Street protests. “Why?” I asked. “What specifically are you protesting?” I was curious. I hoped that she’d respond with some variation of the umbrella arguments about income inequality, the evils of corporate greed and corruption or removing corporate money from politics. She didn’t. “I don’t know. It’s just cool,” she said. She went on to tell me about how she felt that this was a movement of people with whom she felt some kinship, banding together and making history, and that she wanted to be a part of that in the same way that people from previous generations were part of the civil rights, women’s liberation and antiwar movements.
(New York Times)
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posted: 10/28/11                   0       4
#14 



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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posted: 11/8/11                   0       4
#15 



10/15/2011 In Protest, the Power of Place
THE ever expanding Occupy Wall Street movement, with encampments now not only in Lower Manhattan but also in Washington, London and other cities, proves among other things that no matter how instrumental new media have become in spreading protest these days, nothing replaces people taking to the streets. Another reminder came late last week when the landlord of Zuccotti Park, where the demonstrators in New York City have settled, at the last minute withdrew a request for police assistance in cleaning up the park. This, at least temporarily, averted a confrontation in front of the global media over what protesters regarded as just a pretext to evict them. We tend to underestimate the political power of physical places. Then Tahrir Square comes along. Now it’s Zuccotti Park, until four weeks ago an utterly obscure city-block-size downtown plaza with a few trees and concrete benches, around the corner from ground zero and two blocks north of Wall Street on Broadway. A few hundred people with ponchos and sleeping bags have put it on the map. Kent State, Tiananmen Square, the Berlin Wall: we clearly use locales, edifices, architecture to house our memories and political energy. Politics troubles our consciences. But places haunt our imaginations.
(New York Times)
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posted: 11/27/11                   0       3
#16 



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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posted: 11/27/11                   0       2
#17 



10/1/2011 The ReFund California Pledge
The growing Occupy Wall Street movement has shown that there is another alternative. Corporate profits and taxes on the super-rich, including those who sit on our schools and universities’ boards, could pay for refunding public education. This is why organizations representing millions of students and educators around the state have joined together in calling for a week of action from November 9th through 16th to ReFund Public Education, and are calling upon the UC Regents, the CSU Trustees and other political and corporate leaders to sign the Refund California Pledge.
(ReFund California Coalition)
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posted: 12/14/11                   0       1
#18 



9/30/2011 Occupy Wall Street: Let the co-opting begin
As an assortment of unions voice support and celebrities pop up to cheer them on, the “Occupiers” think themselves to be gaining in a groundswell. Hardly . . . they’re about to be drowned. Since I kvetched about the Occupy Wall Street “disorganizers” ten days ago, much has changed! Yet so much remains the same. Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore, and other left-of-left celebrities have come out to cheer them on. Earlier, the best they could manage was Roseanne Barr! A group of labor unions will be joining in and lending their full support. MoveOn.org, the Coalition for the Homeless, and the Working Families Party are all getting excited. Needless to say, the protesters are pleased. Look at all the attention their cause is getting! And their message is being heard! “Great, they have a message now?”
(Secular News Daily)
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posted: 10/12/11                   0       3
#19 
keywords: Afscme, Alternative Media, American Federation Of Teachers, Campaign Finance Reform, Coalition For The Homeless, Donna Edwards, Education, International Brotherhood Of Electrical Workers, Laborers Union, Michael Moore, Military, Moveon.org, National Education Association, New York City, Nyc General Assembly, Occupy Wall Street, Opensecrets, Police, Roseanne Barr, Seiu, Student Loans, Susan Sarandon, Unions, United States, Van Jones, Wall Street, Working Families Party Add New Keyword To Link



9/1/2011 Testing Occupy Wall Street September 1st
A video story of a peaceful protest test on Wall Street last Thursday Sept.1st, showing that we are living in a police state. Each of us who were detained will return there again, brining friends over. We cary our beliefs and no fears. More and more people will be coming beginning September 17th. Meaningless nonsense charges against us will be dismissed in a court, as it was with one of us, the person who was kept in jail that night and brought to the court the next day. We believe in our constitutional rights for freedom of speech and peaceful demonstrations.
(Occupy Wall Street)
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posted: 10/28/11      
            
0       3
#20 



8/17/2011 Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?
Matt Taibbi: A whistle blower says the agency has illegally destroyed thousands of documents, letting financial crooks off the hook.

Imagine a world in which a man who is repeatedly investigated for a string of serious crimes, but never prosecuted, has his slate wiped clean every time the cops fail to make a case. No more Lifetime channel specials where the murderer is unveiled after police stumble upon past intrigues in some old file – "Hey, chief, didja know this guy had two wives die falling down the stairs?" No more burglary sprees cracked when some sharp cop sees the same name pop up in one too many witness statements. This is a different world, one far friendlier to lawbreakers, where even the suspicion of wrongdoing gets wiped from the record. That, it now appears, is exactly how the Securities and Exchange Commission has been treating the Wall Street criminals who cratered the global economy a few years back. For the past two decades, according to a whistle-blower at the SEC who recently came forward to Congress, the agency has been systematically destroying records of its preliminary investigations once they are closed. By whitewashing the files of some of the nation's worst financial criminals, the SEC has kept an entire generation of federal investigators in the dark about past inquiries into insider trading, fraud and market manipulation against companies like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and AIG. With a few strokes of the keyboard, the evidence gathered during thousands of investigations – "18,000 ... including Madoff," as one high-ranking SEC official put it during a panicked meeting about the destruction – has apparently disappeared forever into the wormhole of history. Under a deal the SEC worked out with the National Archives and Records Administration, all of the agency's records – "including case files relating to preliminary investigations" – are supposed to be maintained for at least 25 years. But the SEC, using history-altering practices that for once actually deserve the overused and usually hysterical term "Orwellian," devised an elaborate and possibly illegal system under which staffers were directed to dispose of the documents from any preliminary inquiry that did not receive approval from senior staff to become a full-blown, formal investigation. Amazingly, the wholesale destruction of the cases – known as MUIs, or "Matters Under Inquiry" – was not something done on the sly, in secret. The enforcement division of the SEC even spelled out the procedure in writing, on the commission's internal website. "After you have closed a MUI that has not become an investigation," the site advised staffers, "you should dispose of any documents obtained in connection with the MUI."
(Rolling Stone)
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posted: 9/14/11                   0       5
#21 
keywords: Adam Storch, American International Group, Andrew Tong, Bank Of America, Bankers Trust, Barry Walters, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, Bill Laufer, Charles Grassley, Christopher Cox, Citigroup, Daniel Indiviglio, Darcy Flynn, Davis Polk, Der Spiegel, Deutsche Bank, Financial Crisis, Gary Aguirre, Gary Lynch, George Orwell, George W Bush, Germany, Goldman Sachs, Harry Markopolos, JP Morgan Chase, Jacqueline Millan, Joel Sauer, John Mack, John Nester, Julie Preuitt, Ken Hall, Laurence Brewer, Lehman Brothers, Linda Chatman Thomsen, Lynn Turner, Mary Schapiro, Morgan Stanley, National Archives And Records Administration, Paul Wester, Pequot Capital, Ping Jiang, Police, R Allen Stanford, Richard Walker, Robert Khuzami, Rolf Breuer, Sac Capital, Seaboard, Securities And Exchange Commission, Stephen Cutler, Texas, The Atlantic, US Congress, University Of Pennsylvania, Untied States, Wall Street, Whistleblowers, William Mclucas, Wilmerhale Add New Keyword To Link



7/31/2011 Quick guide on group dynamics in people's assemblies
This text has been prepared by the Commission for Group Dynamics in Assemblies of the Puerta del Sol Protest Camp (Madrid). It is based on different texts and summaries which reached consensus in the internal Assemblies of this Commission (and which will be made available on the official webs of the 15th May Movement) and from the experiences gained in the General Assemblies held in this Protest Camp up until 31st May 2011. pdf-it, pdf-fr, pdf-es, pdf-en The purpose of this Quick Guide is to facilitate and encourage the development of the different Popular Assemblies which have been created since the beginning of the 15th May Movement. This Quick Guide will be periodically revised and updated. On no account is it to be considered a closed model which cannot be adapted through consensus by any given Assembly. From the Commission for Group Dynamics in Assemblies of the Puerta del Sol Protest Camp we invite our friends and comrades to attend and take part in the meetings, work plans and internal Assemblies of this Commission, which are open to anyone who wants to come to them and actively participate in maintaining, perfecting and developing them.
(Take The Square)
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posted: 10/28/11                   0       1
#22 



7/30/2011 Why Voters Tune Out Democrats
BARACK OBAMA can’t catch a break from the American public on the economy, even though he prevented a depression and saved global capitalism. Perhaps the president finds solace in knowing he’s not alone. During this period of economic crisis and uncertainty, voters are generally turning to conservative and right-wing political parties, most notably in Europe and in Canada. It’s perplexing. When unemployment is high, and the rich are getting richer, you would think that voters of average means would flock to progressives, who are supposed to have their interests in mind — and who historically have delivered for them. During the last half-century or so, when a Democratic president has led the country, people have tended to experience lower unemployment, less inequality and rising income compared with periods of Republican governance. There is a reason, however, that many voters in the developed world are turning away from Democrats, Socialists, liberals and progressives. My vantage point on voter behavior comes through my company, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, and its work for center-left parties globally, starting with Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992. For the last decade, I have worked in partnership with James Carville conducting monthly polls digging into America’s mood and studying how progressives can develop successful electoral strategies. (I am also married to a Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut, Rosa L. DeLauro.)
(New York Times)
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posted: 9/14/11                   0       4
#23 



7/21/2011 The Fed Audit
The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Wall Street reform law passed one year ago this week directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct the study. "As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world," said Sanders. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else." Among the investigation's key findings is that the Fed unilaterally provided trillions of dollars in financial assistance to foreign banks and corporations from South Korea to Scotland, according to the GAO report. "No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president," Sanders said.
(Bernie Sanders)
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posted: 10/28/11                   0       2
#24 



7/1/2011 FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM: Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Policies and Processes for Managing Emergency Assistance (GAO Report to Congressional Addressees)
Why GAO Did This Study

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act directed GAO to conduct a one-time audit of the emergency loan programs and other assistance authorized by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve Board) during the recent financial crisis. This report examines the emergency actions taken by the Federal Reserve Board from December 1, 2007, through July 21, 2010. For each of these actions, where relevant, GAO’s objectives included a review of (1) the basis and purpose for its authorization, as well as accounting and financial reporting internal controls; (2) the use, selection, and payment of vendors; (3) management of conflicts of interest; (4) policies in place to secure loan repayment; and (5) the treatment of program participants. To meet these objectives, GAO reviewed program documentation, analyzed program data, and interviewed officials from the Federal Reserve Board and Reserve Banks (Federal Reserve System).

What GAO Recommends

GAO makes seven recommendations to the Federal Reserve Board to strengthen policies for managing noncompetitive vendor selections, conflicts of interest, risks related to emergency lending, and documentation of emergency program decisions. The Federal Reserve Board agreed that GAO’s recommendations would benefit its response to future crises and agreed to strongly consider how best to respond to them.

What GAO Found

On numerous occasions in 2008 and 2009, the Federal Reserve Board invoked emergency authority under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 to authorize new broad-based programs and financial assistance to individual institutions to stabilize financial markets. Loans outstanding for the emergency programs peaked at more than $1 trillion in late 2008. The Federal Reserve Board directed the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) to implement most of these emergency actions. In a few cases, the Federal Reserve Board authorized a Reserve Bank to lend to a limited liability corporation (LLC) to finance the purchase of assets from a single institution. In 2009 and 2010, FRBNY also executed large-scale purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities to support the housing market. The table below provides an overview of all emergency actions covered by this report. The Reserve Banks’ and LLCs’ financial statements, which include the emergency programs’ accounts and activities, and their related financial reporting internal controls, are audited annually by an independent auditing firm. These independent financial statement audits, as well as other audits and reviews conducted by the Federal Reserve Board, its Inspector General, and the Reserve Banks’ internal audit function, did not report any significant accounting or financial reporting internal control issues concerning the emergency programs. The Reserve Banks, primarily FRBNY, awarded 103 contracts worth $659.4 million from 2008 through 2010 to help carry out their emergency activities. A few contracts accounted for most of the spending on vendor services. For a significant portion of the fees, program recipients reimbursed the Reserve Banks or the fees were paid from program income. The Reserve Banks relied more extensively on vendors for programs that assisted a single institution than for broad-based programs. Most of the contracts, including 8 of the 10 highest-value contracts, were awarded noncompetitively, primarily due to exigent circumstances. These contract awards were consistent with FRBNY’s acquisition policies, but the policies could be improved by providing additional guidance on the use of competition exceptions, such as seeking as much competition as practicable and limiting the duration of noncompetitive contracts to the exigency period. To better ensure that Reserve Banks do not miss opportunities to obtain competition and receive the most favorable terms for services acquired, GAO recommends that they revise their acquisition policies to provide such guidance. FRBNY took steps to manage conflicts of interest for its employees, directors, and program vendors, but opportunities exist to strengthen its conflict policies. In particular, FRBNY expanded its guidance and monitoring for employee conflicts, but new roles assumed by FRBNY and its employees during the crisis gave rise to potential conflicts that were not specifically addressed in the Code of Conduct or other FRBNY policies. For example, FRBNY’s existing restrictions on its employees’ financial interests did not specifically prohibit investments in certain nonbank institutions that received emergency assistance. To manage potential conflicts related to employees’ holdings of such investments, FRBNY relied on provisions in its code that incorporate requirements of a federal criminal conflict of interest statute and its regulations. Given the magnitude of the assistance
(US Government Accountability Office)
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posted: 10/28/11                   0       2
#25 



5/7/2011 Nuclear Agency Is Criticized as Too Close to Its Industry
In the fall of 2007, workers at the Byron nuclear power plant in Illinois were using a wire brush to clean a badly corroded steel pipe — one in a series that circulate cooling water to essential emergency equipment — when something unexpected happened: the brush poked through. The resulting leak caused a 12-day shutdown of the two reactors for repairs. The plant’s owner, the Exelon Corporation, had long known that corrosion was thinning most of these pipes. But rather than fix them, it repeatedly lowered the minimum thickness it deemed safe. By the time the pipe broke, Exelon had declared that pipe walls just three-hundredths of an inch thick — less than one-tenth the original minimum thickness — would be good enough. Though no radioactive material was released, safety experts say that if enough pipes had ruptured during a reactor accident, the result could easily have been a nuclear catastrophe at a plant just 100 miles west of Chicago. Exelon’s risky decisions occurred under the noses of on-site inspectors from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. No documented inspection of the pipes was made by anyone from the N.R.C. for at least the eight years preceding the leak, and the agency also failed to notice that Exelon kept lowering the acceptable standard, according to a subsequent investigation by the commission’s inspector general.
(New York Times)
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posted: 5/9/11                   0       6
#26 



4/17/2011 America's two-class tax system: Records bear out that corporations and the wealthy live by a different set of U.S. rules from everyone else.
Eric Cantor, who has represented a section of Richmond, Va., in Congress since 2001 and now is the House majority leader, appears to want to craft a permanent U.S. tax system that caters exclusively to those at the top. So does Michele Bachmann, the Republican representative from Minnesota, a onetime tax lawyer who hopes to make a run for the White House. Likewise, Tim Pawlenty, the former two-term Republican governor of Minnesota, who also sees himself sitting in the Oval Office. Needless to say, none state their proposals like that. But that's the way their numbers and provisions add up. Like others in Congress and the media, Cantor, Bachmann, and Pawlenty insist that American businesses are paying too much in corporate income tax. They claim the onerous tax burden is killing jobs and forcing companies to move abroad. To reverse the nation's fortunes, they say, all Washington need do is slash the corporate tax rate, thereby reducing the amount of taxes these businesses are forced to pay. What's scary is a growing number of citizens believe them. That means a forecast made years ago by William J. Casey, a wily Republican from another era who liked to dabble in the intelligence world's black arts inside and outside the country, and who helped craft the election of Ronald Reagan, is coming true. After taking office, President Reagan installed Casey as head of the CIA in 1981. After his first staff meeting at the agency, Casey was quoted as saying: "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." One of the more egregious falsehoods being peddled by the corporate tax cutters is that companies doing business in the United States are taxed at an exorbitant rate. Not so. Though the United States has one of the highest statutory rates on the books at 35 percent, the only fair way to measure what companies actually pay is their effective rate

what they ultimately pay after deductions, credits, and assorted write-offs. By that yardstick, companies in the United States consistently pay taxes at rates lower than corporations in Japan and many nations in Europe.
(The Philadelphia Inquirer)
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posted: 4/18/11                   0       3
#27 



4/3/2011 How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs
As the violence spread, billions of dollars of cartel cash began to seep into the global financial system. But a special investigation by the Observer reveals how the increasingly frantic warnings of one London whistleblower were ignored

On 10 April 2006, a DC-9 jet landed in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, on the Gulf of Mexico, as the sun was setting. Mexican soldiers, waiting to intercept it, found 128 cases packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100m. But something else – more important and far-reaching – was discovered in the paper trail behind the purchase of the plane by the Sinaloa narco-trafficking cartel. During a 22-month investigation by agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and others, it emerged that the cocaine smugglers had bought the plane with money they had laundered through one of the biggest banks in the United States: Wachovia, now part of the giant Wells Fargo. The authorities uncovered billions of dollars in wire transfers, traveller's cheques and cash shipments through Mexican exchanges into Wachovia accounts. Wachovia was put under immediate investigation for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering programme. Of special significance was that the period concerned began in 2004, which coincided with the first escalation of violence along the US-Mexico border that ignited the current drugs war. Criminal proceedings were brought against Wachovia, though not against any individual, but the case never came to court. In March 2010, Wachovia settled the biggest action brought under the US bank secrecy act, through the US district court in Miami. Now that the year's "deferred prosecution" has expired, the bank is in effect in the clear. It paid federal authorities $110m in forfeiture, for allowing transactions later proved to be connected to drug smuggling, and incurred a $50m fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship 22 tons of cocaine.
(London Guardian)
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posted: 5/27/11                   0       0
#28 
keywords: Airports, Antonio Maria Costa, Bank Of New York, Brussels, Cayman Islands, Charlotte, Chase And Associates, Ciudad Del Carmen, Cocaine, Colombian Medellín Cartel, Douglas Edwards, Drug Cartels, Drug Enforcement Administration, European Commission, European Union, Federal Reserve, Florida, Gulf Of Mexico, Hermes Forensic Solutions, Hsbc, Internal Revenue Service, Isle Of Man, Jeffrey Sloman, John Dugan, José Luis Marmolejo, London, Martin Woods, Mexico, Miami, North Carolina, Police, Robert Mazur, Russia, Scotland Yard, Sinaloa Cartel, Terrorists, UK Financial Services Authority, UK National Crime Squad, US Department Of Justice, United Kingdom, United Nations, United States, Wachovia, Wall Street, War On Drugs, Washington DC, Wells Fargo, Whistleblowers, World Bank Add New Keyword To Link



3/31/2011 Why is the Federal Reserve Propping Up the Bank of Libya?
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has for months been leading the charge to expose the sweetheart deals the Federal Reserve has worked out for multinational banks and corporations at the same time that working Americans, small businesses, local governments and schools boards struggle to stay afloat financially. Sanders has tried to make the point that it is simply absurd for the Fed to bail out foreign firms and bad banks and to provide them with low-interest loans at the same time that they are reaping massive profits – and at the same time that federal, state and local governments are supposedly broke.
(The Nation)
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posted: 10/28/11                   0       1
#29 



3/1/2011 It's the Inequality, Stupid: Eleven charts that explain everything that's wrong with America.
How Rich Are the Superrich? A huge share of the nation's economic growth over the past 30 years has gone to the top one-hundredth of one percent, who now make an average of $27 million per household. The average income for the bottom 90 percent of us? $31,244.
(Mother Jones)
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posted: 2/28/11                   0       10
#30 



2/16/2011 Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? Financial crooks brought down the world's economy -- but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them
By Matt Taibbi. Over drinks at a bar on a dreary, snowy night in Washington this past month, a former Senate investigator laughed as he polished off his beer. "Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail," he said. "That's your whole story right there. Hell, you don't even have to write the rest of it. Just write that." I put down my notebook. "Just that?" "That's right," he said, signaling to the waitress for the check. "Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail. You can end the piece right there." Nobody goes to jail. This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world's wealth — and nobody went to jail. Nobody, that is, except Bernie Madoff, a flamboyant and pathological celebrity con artist, whose victims happened to be other rich and famous people. This article appears in the March 3, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone. The issue is available now on newsstands and will appear in the online archive February 18. The rest of them, all of them, got off. Not a single executive who ran the companies that cooked up and cashed in on the phony financial boom — an industrywide scam that involved the mass sale of mismarked, fraudulent mortgage-backed securities — has ever been convicted. Their names by now are familiar to even the most casual Middle American news consumer: companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. Most of these firms were directly involved in elaborate fraud and theft. Lehman Brothers hid billions in loans from its investors. Bank of America lied about billions in bonuses. Goldman Sachs failed to tell clients how it put together the born-to-lose toxic mortgage deals it was selling. What's more, many of these companies had corporate chieftains whose actions cost investors billions — from AIG derivatives chief Joe Cassano, who assured investors they would not lose even "one dollar" just months before his unit imploded, to the $263 million in compensation that former Lehman chief Dick "The Gorilla" Fuld conveniently failed to disclose. Yet not one of them has faced time behind bars.

"You put Lloyd Blankfein in pound-me-in-the-ass prison for one six-month term, and all this bullshit would stop, all over Wall Street," says a former congressional aide. "That's all it would take. Just once."
(Rolling Stone)
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posted: 3/12/11                   0       4
#31 
keywords: Al Dunlap, American International Group, Art Samberg, Arthur Tildesley Jr, Bailouts, Bank Of America, Barack Obama, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, Boston, Charles Grassley, Charles Schumer, Citigroup, Columbia University, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Credit Default Swaps, Credit Suisse, Davis Polk & Wardwell, Debevoise & Plimpton, Derek Jeter, Derivatives, Deutsche Bank, Dick Fuld, Dick Walker, Eliot Spitzer, Enron, Eric Dinallo, Fabrice Tourre, Fannie Mae, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Freddie Mac, Gary Aguirre, Gary Crittenden, Gary Lynch, General Electric, George W Bush, Germany, Goldman Sachs, Government Transparency, Heller Financial, Henry Waxman, Hillary Clinton, Hilton Hotels, Immigration, JP Morgan Chase, Jed Rakoff, Joe Cassano, John Mack, Joseph St Denis, Lanny Breuer, Lehman Brothers, Linda Thomsen, Lloyd Blankfein, Lynn Turner, Mary Jo White, Merrill Lynch, Mexico, Morgan Stanley, New York City, New York Stock Exchange, Office Of The Comptroller Of The Currency, Ohio, Oliver Budde, Paul Berger, Philadelphia, Police, Portfolio Magazine, Preet Bharara, Residential Mortgage-backed Securities, Restricted Stock Units, Rite Aid, Robert Khuzami, Robert Morgenthau, Roger Clemens, Rudy Giuliani, Securities And Exchange Commission, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Sunbeam, Switzerland, Terrorists, US Congress, US Department Of Justice, United States, Wall Street, War On Drugs, Worldcom Add New Keyword To Link



2/2/2011 All-Time Record: Wall Street Compensation Hits $135 Billion
Wall Street was on the ropes just 25 months ago. Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros., Bank of America, Wachovia, maybe Morgan Stanley; Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase were wounded. GE could not role over its commercial paper. European banks required cash infusions from our central bank. Just in the wake of a report highlighting Wall Street’s narrow, selfish imbecilities, we are treated to the stunning realization that the captains of the sinking liner are today enjoying the all-time record payoff for surviving with massive transfusions. The payout of $135 billion to employees of Wall Street firms in 2010 is equivalent to the total market value of both Bank of America and Citigroup. Imagine– in two years.
(Forbes)
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posted: 8/1/11                   0       1
#32 



1/19/2011 The Fourth American Revolution
The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation and empire. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II. -- The Fourth Turning -- Strauss & Howe --1997
(The Burning Platform)
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posted: 2/22/11                   0       4
#33 
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1/10/2011 From the archives: Rahm Emanuel, Freddie Mac and the big bucks years
From Rahm Emanuel's profitable stint at mortgage giant and Freddie Mac scandals began during Emanuel's watch by Bob Secter and Andrew Zajac, and The House Rahm Built -- How Chicago's profane, ruthless, savvy operative, remade the Democrats in his image by Naftali Bendavid. Highlights: Before its portfolio of bad loans helped trigger the current housing crisis, mortgage giant Freddie Mac was the focus of a major accounting scandal that led to a management shake-up, huge fines and scalding condemnation of passive directors by a top federal regulator. One of those allegedly asleep-at-the-switch board members was Chicago's Rahm Emanuel-- now chief of staff to President Barack Obama-- who made at least $320,000 for a 14-month stint at Freddie Mac that required little effort.... What is less known, however, is how little he apparently did for his money and how he benefited from the kind of cozy ties between Washington and Wall Street that have fueled the nation's current economic mess.....
(Chicago Tribune)
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posted: 4/2/11                   0       1
#34 



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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posted: 8/1/11                   0       1
#35 



10/2/2010 Third Party Rising
by Thomas Friedman

A friend in the U.S. military sent me an e-mail last week with a quote from the historian Lewis Mumford’s book, “The Condition of Man,” about the development of civilization. Mumford was describing Rome’s decline: “Everyone aimed at security: no one accepted responsibility. What was plainly lacking, long before the barbarian invasions had done their work, long before economic dislocations became serious, was an inner go. Rome’s life was now an imitation of life: a mere holding on. Security was the watchword — as if life knew any other stability than through constant change, or any form of security except through a constant willingness to take risks.” It was one of those history passages that echo so loudly in the present that it sends a shiver down my spine — way, way too close for comfort. I’ve just spent a week in Silicon Valley, talking with technologists from Apple, Twitter, LinkedIn, Intel, Cisco and SRI and can definitively report that this region has not lost its “inner go.” But in talks here and elsewhere I continue to be astounded by the level of disgust with Washington, D.C., and our two-party system — so much so that I am ready to hazard a prediction: Barring a transformation of the Democratic and Republican Parties, there is going to be a serious third party candidate in 2012, with a serious political movement behind him or her — one definitely big enough to impact the election’s outcome.
(New York Times)
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posted: 10/5/10                   0       19
#36 



9/3/2010 Did market manipulation cause Wall Street ‘flash crash?’
The Securities and Exchange Commission is keeping a close eye on a stock market practice that may violate rules against market manipulation, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The practice, called quote stuffing, happens when stock exchanges are flooded and, at times, clogged by huge numbers of buy and sell orders orders that are ultimately cancelled. Regulators are trying to determine if traders are using rapid-fire computerized trading systems to cause the inundation by design, purposefully gumming up the exchanges and giving traders an information advantage on small price movements in stocks. The Journal reported that the SEC is investigating whether quote stuffing may have been one of the causes of the May 6 flash crash, when the Dow briefly plunged 1,000 points in a matter of minutes. To get an idea of the volume of quotes produced by high-speed, computerized trading, consider this: During the day of the flash crash, there were hundreds of times that a single stock had over 1,000 quotes from one exchange in a single second, according to Nanex, a ticker of quotes and trades.
(The Raw Story)
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posted: 10/6/10                   0       3
#37 



7/21/2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
"An Act to promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system, to end "too big to fail", to protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts, to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices, and for other purposes."
(Wikipedia)
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posted: 8/1/11                   0       1
#38 



7/21/2010 Making the economy more just
by Katrina vanden Heuvel

Congress has passed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, but the task of transforming our economy into one of shared and sustainable prosperity has only just begun. Structural reform will come not through the sweep of a single piece of legislation but with new, innovative economic models that better reflect the democratic values of this country. The good news is that some of these transformative ideas are already taking root. Here are five ways to build a more just economy that Americans are experimenting with across the country. The answer is 'B' Corporations are compelled to pursue a single objective: maximize profit. In fact, a company can be sued for following goals that veer from that statutory obligation. That's why Maryland State Sen. Jamie Raskin sponsored the Benefit Corporation legislation that was signed into law this spring. It gives businesses the option to register as a "B corporation," an entity legally obligated to maximize both shareholder value and advance a common public purpose such as cleaner air, open space or affordable housing. The B corporation's stated public goal is vigorously monitored by independent, third-party groups. It's a new business model with social consciousness in its DNA. B corporation legislation has also been passed in Vermont, and it is being considered in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington and Colorado.
(Washington Post)
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posted: 9/27/10                   0       0
#39 



7/17/2010 Professor Elizabeth Warren speaks about the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (Elizabeth Warren)
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posted: 10/3/10      
            
0       1
#40 



7/15/2010 The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking. Here Are the Stats to Prove it
The 22 statistics detailed here prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace. So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough. Here are the statistics to prove it...
(Business Insider)
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posted: 8/18/10                   0       3
#41 



7/13/2010 Obama faces growing credibility crisis
Robert Gibbs, Barack Obama’s chief spokesman, got into hot water this week for daring to speak the truth – that the Democrats could lose control of the House of Representatives in November. But it could be even worse than that. Contrary to pretty much every projection until now, Democratic control of the Senate is also starting to coming into question. While Mr Obama’s approval ratings have continued to fall, and now hover at dangerously close to 40 per cent according an ABC-Washington Post poll published on Tuesday, the fate of his former colleagues in the Senate looks even worse.

“The bottom line here is that Americans don’t believe in President Obama’s leadership,” says Rob Shapiro, another former Clinton official and a supporter of Mr Obama. “He has to find some way between now and November of demonstrating that he is a leader who can command confidence and, short of a 9/11 event or an Oklahoma City bombing, I can’t think of how he could do that.” In private, informal advisors to Mr Obama are almost as negative. According to one, the US public’s loss of confidence in Mr Obama’s leadership is a factor above and beyond their dissatisfaction over the state of the real economy, which continues to slow as last year’s $787bn stimulus starts to run dry. The adviser, who asked to remain anonymous, said the public did not know what Mr Obama really believed. Examples include his lukewarm support last year for a public option in the healthcare bill and his equally lukewarm support today for a Senate bill that would extend unemployment insurance and aid state governments to keep teachers in their jobs.
(Financial Times)
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posted: 7/23/10                   0       12
#42 



6/24/2010 Bond
Hatch Introduce Cyber Security Bill

U.S. Senators Kit Bond (R-MO) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) today introduced legislation to protect our nation from the silent threat that could devastate our country--cyber attacks. “After the failed Christmas Day and Times Square attacks, every American is aware of the threat from a terrorist with a bomb, which could take out a city block or bring down an airplane, but there is a silent threat that could devastate our entire nation--cyber attacks,” said Bond, the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “Our enemies won’t wait for us to do our homework, solve our turf battles, or modernize our laws before using our networks as a deadly weapon; in fact, the attacks have already started. We don’t have another day to waste, and our bill is the best solution to address this threat.”

The legislation Bond and Hatch introduced today, the National Cyber Infrastructure Protection Act of 2010, will put our nation on the right path to securing our networks. The bill is based on three principles: first, Congress must set lanes in the road to protect our nation’s cyber security, but leave flexibility for the private sector and Government to adapt to changing threats. Next, there must be one person who has real authority to coordinate our cyber security efforts across the federal government. The Bond-Hatch bill puts an end to the current authority gap and designates a Senate-confirmed individual, who is accountable to both Congress and the American people and reports directly to the President, to coordinate these efforts. Learning from past Congressional failures, the Senators’ bill gives the new Cyber Director the clout needed to do the job, including clear input into cyber budgets across all federal agencies. Third, the Bond-Hatch bill creates a voluntary, public-private partnership, the Cyber Defense Alliance, to facilitate the flow of information about cyber threats and the latest technologies between the private sector and government. The Senators pointed out that since the private sector is often on the front lines of cyber attacks, encouraging their sharing of information with the government—and the government’s sharing of information with them—will make all our networks more secure.
(Kit Bond)
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posted: 10/13/10                   0       4
#43 



6/24/2010 DISCLOSE Act: House Passes Major Campaign Finance Legislation
The final vote was 219 to 206 in favor of the DISCLOSE Act, with only two Republicans -- Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) and Joseph Cao (R-La.) -- crossing party lines. The bill would provide tough new disclosure rules for groups that invest in the election process. In addition to forcing all 501c4 groups to stand by the ads they sponsor during elections (with the CEO of the organization literally forced to appear in the spot), the law would also require groups that met certain criteria to reveal who was funding their election activity. The latter provision sparked intense pushback from a host of business groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. House Democratic leadership had granted an exemption from that particular element of disclosure for the NRA. But after fierce objection to the carve out, the bill's author, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), expanded the loophole to include other organizations as well. The legislation was pulled from consideration late last week when passage became uncertain. House leadership made impassioned pleas to their colleagues on Thursday morning (see below) before heading to the floor this afternoon to finally vote.
(Huffington Post)
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posted: 8/1/11                   0       1
#44 



6/9/2010 Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool
As BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig was sinking on April 22, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was on the phone with allies in his push for climate legislation, telling them he would soon roll out the Senate climate bill with the support of the utility industry and three oil companies -- including BP, according to the Washington Post.

Expect BP to be public enemy No. 1 in the climate debate. There’s a problem: BP was a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobby dedicated to passing a cap-and-trade bill. As the nation’s largest producer of natural gas, BP saw many ways to profit from climate legislation, notably by persuading Congress to provide subsidies to coal-fired power plants that switched to gas.
(Washington Examiner)
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posted: 6/16/10                   0       23
#45 



6/2/2010 Goldman Sachs sold $250 million of BP stock before spill
Firm's stock sale nearly twice as large as any other institution; Represented 44 percent of total BP investment
(The Raw Story)
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posted: 6/3/10                   0       16
#46 



5/30/2010 Earnings Look Back: Boots & Coots Is Up 0.34% Since Reporting Quarterly Results 22 Days Ago (WEL)
SmarTrend is bullish on shares of Boots & Coots and our subscribers were alerted to Buy on January 04, 2010 at $1.66. The stock has risen 77.7% since the alert was issued.
(Zacks)
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posted: 6/2/10                   0       18
#47 



5/27/2010 Is Europe heading for a meltdown?
This financial crisis is worse than the sub-prime crash of 2008 because the sums are so much bigger and it is governments that are in dire straits. Edmund Conway explains the dangers.
(London Telegraph)
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posted: 5/27/10                   0       18
#48 



5/12/2010 Alan Grayson On The Passage Of The Partial "Audit The Fed" Amendment
But our work isn't quite done. The Senate audit provision isn't as strong as what we passed in the House. The Senate provision has only a one-time audit, whereas what we passed in the House would allow audits going forward. There will be a conference committee that will merge the provisions from the two bills.
(Zero Hedge)
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posted: 5/24/10                   0       19
#49 



5/10/2010 Justice Elena Kagan, and President Larry Summers
Kagan's connections to Summers are interesting. She was a professor there when Summers arrived from his work at Treasury, under Bill Clinton, to deregulate banks and derivatives to get the gambling moving...guaranteed by the taxpayer. As President Summers of Harvard from 2001 to 2006, Kagan thrived. She was made a full professor, then Summers tapped her to be the Dean of Harvard Law. Her pet peeve there was to keep the American military and ROTC off campus because she disputes the "don't ask, don't tell" provisions put in place by Clinton.
(NJ.com)
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posted: 5/26/10                   0       17
#50 




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