Tag: Financial Regulation

Corporate Death Penalty

Think back to the 2008 collapse of the economic structure….it was the banks that lead the way and yet they were not punished for killing so many pensions….at best there was a slap on wrist and they promise not to do it again…..and if you will notice they are doing it again,

It is time for the government to bring the pain to these lousy players in our economy.

Bring back a corporate death penalty……

Let’s begin with a SCOTUS dissenting opinion from 1935…..

“The prevalence of the corporation in America has led men of this generation to act, at times, as if the privilege of doing business in corporate form were inherent in the citizen, and has led them to accept the evils attendant upon the free and unrestricted use of the corporate mechanism as if these evils were the inescapable price of civilized life, and, hence to be borne with resignation.

“Throughout the greater part of our history, a different view prevailed.

“Although the value of this instrumentality in commerce and industry was fully recognized, incorporation for business was commonly denied long after it had been freely granted for religious, educational, and charitable purposes.

“It was denied because of fear. Fear of encroachment upon the liberties and opportunities of the individual. Fear of the subjection of labor to capital. Fear of monopoly. Fear that the absorption of capital by corporations, and their perpetual life, might bring evils similar to those which attended mortmain [immortality]. There was a sense of some insidious menace inherent in large aggregations of capital, particularly when held by corporations.”

—U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, 1933 dissent in Liggett v. Lee

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/08/its-time-bring-back-corporate-death-penalty

The limp wrist attempt to make corporations, especially the banks, was quickly pushed aside as soon as another corporate titan comes to power….time to make any penalties permanent…..time for the government to work for the people and not just the corporations.

This may be wishful thinking but I do feel the country is starting to realize just how bad corporations are acting and want accountability for their CRIMES.

2020 could be the beginning of the revolution to get the greed and corruption out of our society, especially from the corporations.

But first we must VOTE!

A Ticking Time Bomb

Surely the myopic population of this country can remember back to 2008, right?  I know it is a stretch for most so-called conservs to think back that far….

2008?  Mindless drones that was the year of the Wall Street meltdown lead by the illegal practices of our biggest banks….does it ring any bells in that thick skull now?

Guess what?  The Trumpian bullshit is about to set the wheels of yet another meltdown in motion…..

The Senate passed bipartisan legislation Wednesday designed to ease bank rules that were enacted to prevent a relapse of the 2008 financial crisis that caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs and homes. The Senate voted 67-31 for a bill from Republican Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho that would dial back portions of the law known as Dodd-Frank, the AP reports. The legislation would increase the threshold at which banks are considered so big and plugged into the financial grid that if one were to fail it would cause major havoc. Those banks are subject to stricter capital and planning requirements.

“The bill provides much-needed relief from the Dodd-Frank Act for thousands of community banks and credit unions, and will spur lending and economic growth without creating risks to the financial system,” the White House said in a statement after the vote. Republicans unanimously supported the bill, while Democrats splintered into two camps. One included several senators from rural states who worked out the compromise with Crapo. The other, led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, said the bill catered too much to the banks that contributed to the financial crisis and would increase the likelihood of future taxpayer bailouts. (President Trump complained that Dodd-Frank made it hard for friends to borrow money.)

It is amazing how when Repubs are in charge they kill regulation and then things go to shit and a Dem usually has to clean up their economic messes…..looks like that trend will not end with this president…who is still dick deep in the financial world and I am guessing that this will benefit him and his buds on Wall Street.

This is why Democrats have a problem with message…..

Bought and paid for by Wall Street…..TRAITORS!

Nail The “Robber Barons”!

Thanx to Clinton and his DLC a/holes we are stuck in this vicious cycle of banks dictating to the society……..the repeal of Glass-Steagall made it possible for banks to gamble with others money and not face any charges for their complicity in the fraudulent practices of a few big banks in the schemes……

Oh yeah the Obama admin passed a reform bill and some toothless regulations to make us think that we are safe to return to the “markets”……I disagree….I believe that this will happen again and the banks will be more covert in their operations…..but at least the present admin is trying to do something….JP Morgan has been hit with a little fine and Bank Of America as well….but they continue their fraudulent practices……

The FDIC has tried to change stuff………

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp sued 16 of the world’s largest banks on Friday, accusing them of cheating dozens of other now defunct banks by manipulating the Libor interest rate.

The global financial institutions broke certain swaps contracts they had entered into with the now-closed banks, by separately colluding to rig the Libor rate to which the contracts were tied, the FDIC said.

They have also been sued by investors and others who claim they lost money due to the manipulation. A federal judge last March dismissed many of those claims that were based on antitrust law, but has yet to rule on cases that rely on the “breach of contract” theory used by the FDIC.

The lawsuit also accused the British Bankers’ Association, the U.K. trade organization that during the period at issue administered Libor, of participating in the scheme.

The BBA had said it independently monitored the banks’ Libor submissions, and represented that Libor was a “transparent” benchmark, even though it knew those statements were false, the FDIC said. A representative of the BBA declined comment.

The banks named as defendants include Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings PLC, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC.

Other defendants in the lawsuit are Rabobank, Lloyds Banking Group plc, Societe Generale, Norinchukin Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ and WestLB AG.

Everybody wants me to be responsible for the stuff I do then corporations, who are people now, should be held to the standard that the rest of us are held……..if they commit a crime it is time for jail time and total restitution.

Can Y’all Hear Me Now?

I have been one of those people that have been blaming Clinton and his Boyz and banks for the economic crisis we are in now…..some say it is NOT justified…..but I say….WAKE UP!

In a recent report from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission the findings just add to my disgust with what politicians allowed to happen to our country…..

“The crisis was the result of human action and inaction, not of Mother Nature or models gone haywire,” the report said.

“The captains of finance and the public stewards of our financial system ignored warnings and failed to question, understand and manage evolving risks within a system essential to the well-being of the American public.

The damning report criticised the extent of the financial deregulation overseen by the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan.

It concluded that the crisis was caused by a number of factors:

  • Failures in financial regulation, including the Federal Reserve’s failure “to stem the tide of toxic mortgages”
  • A breakdown in corporate governance that led to “reckless” actions and excessive risk taking by financial institutions
  • Households taking on too much debt
  • A lack of understanding of the financial system on behalf of policymakers
  • Fundamental breaches in accountability and ethics “at all levels”.

It added that “collapsing mortgage-lending standards” and the packaging-up of mortgage-related debt into investment vehicles “lit and spread the flame of contagion”.

Points one and two were covered by Glass-Steagall aand the last one was a screw up by the people that were in Washington…..

And then there is a very predictable reaction to the report…….Only the six Democrat members of the 10-strong commission, set up in May 2009, endorsed the report’s findings.  Kinda like saying …”it is not our fault”….where is the responsibility?  Oh sorry….that pertains to us humans…not our politicians……some of the causes according to the dissenting GOPers…..

The GOP report said: “All these factors were supplemented by government policies … that subsidized homeownership but created hidden costs to taxpayers and the economy. Elected officials of both parties pushed housing subsidies too far.”

CREDIT BUBBLE. A credit bubble caused by global capital flows into the United States and Europe from China and other developing nations reduced interest rates and encouraged risky lending. “U.S. monetary policy may have contributed to the credit bubble but did not cause it,” says the dissent.

HOUSING BUBBLE. A housing bubble emerged that was caused by “many factors,” including population growth in “Sand States” such as Arizona, Florida, Nevada and California.

SUBPRIME LENDING. Subprime mortgage lending exploded and was often deceptive and confusing, fueled by cheap credit. Leading lenders were Countrywide, Washington Mutual, Ameriquest and HSBC Financial. This amplified the housing bubble.

And I have a flash for y’all….it will happen again…..the reform that the prez is so proud of has NOT addressed the problems that were the cause of our financial grief…….keep in mind….I WILL say…”I Told You So”……

Take Me To Your Leader

The one semi-bright part of the new Fin Reg is the creation of a consumer protection division…..you may not be aware of it because when the Law was signed by Obama there was a pissing contest going on about the USDA employee and what she said or did not say…so the bill was signed in a bit of obscurity.

There is already a bunch of discussion about who should lead this institution…..I have a personal opinion and it would be Elizabeth Warren who currently is head of the Congressional Oversight Committee……why would she be a good choice…..

Liberals say the choice to run the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is obvious: Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard University law professor who first proposed an office to protect ordinary borrowers and savers in a journal article three years ago. She’s spent years battling banks that gouge their customers.  (USA Today)

The Harvard Law School professor was one of the founding writers of CreditSlips, a blog that’s “a discussion on credit, finance and bankruptcy.” Her posts ended shortly after she headed to Washington in the fall of 2008 to head the Congressional Oversight Panel, monitoring TARP.

“Bullshit — Professionally Speaking” on Jan 7, 2009, Warren weighed in on a piece of academic contract law writing called “Bullshit Promises” that focused on misleading contract language. (The paper, of course, was a reference to Harry Frankfurt’s 2005 book, “On Bullshit.”) “I don’t get to post very often right now, but sometimes I can put on my academic robes and talk about a new piece of scholarship,” Warren wrote. “And what better thing to talk about when wearing academic robes than bullshit?”  (WSJ)  (I threw this one in just because I like her way of thinking)

This is one of the reasons I like Warren….she is a NO nonsense person that has NO problem telling like it really is….good or bad.  There are those that worry about her impending nomination because of her zeal for transparency….they seem to think that she would possibly make it harder for working people to get credit….I think it is just BS…we need a person that is NOT afraid to go out and tell the truth about the situation…we already have enough yes men in Washington…I say give the reins of the agency and let her do what she does best……find real answers to real problems…..

Hoorah! We Have FinReg!

Well….sort of…..it is very very close…..

In the beginning there were these gamblers who made lots of money….but then they held a gun to their own heads and pulled the trigger….too bad it was a squirt gun……then they approached the government and made the case for if they went down the toilet they would take the whole economy with them…there gambling debts were quickly covered and the taxpayer got kicked in the ass…..by then the US Congress was up in arms at the way the people were treated (good political kabuki)  with fake concern as make up and the vow that something like this would never happen again and they set off to make legislation of prevention…..they worked and they worked (about 3 days a week for months) until they had the perfect bill on financial regulation…..

Now the rest of the story…….

The Obama administration’s proposal to ban banks from proprietary trading, nicknamed the Volcker rule after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, was softened by Senate negotiators.

Banks will be allowed to invest in private-equity and hedge funds, though they will be limited to providing no more than 3 percent of the fund’s capital. Banks also can’t invest more than 3 percent of their Tier 1 capital.

The change alters language in a bill the Senate approved in May, which would have barred banks from sponsoring or investing in private-equity and hedge funds. Lawmakers offered the modification to appease Senator Scott Brown, a Massachusetts Republican who was concerned the ban would harm Boston-based State Street Corp. He was one of four Republicans to break party ranks and vote for the Senate bill.

The legislation defines proprietary trading as engaging as a principal for a trading account of a bank or non-bank financial company supervised by the Fed “in any transaction to purchase or sell, or otherwise acquire or dispose of, any security, any derivative, any contract of sale of a commodity for future delivery, any option on any such security, derivative or contract, or any other security or financial instrument” that regulators designate through rule-writing.

Negotiators also agreed to give regulators less say than previously proposed to define a ban on proprietary trading. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, backed a change offered by Democratic Senators Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Carl Levin of Michigan that “more clearly defines the limits on proprietary trading” by writing the ban into the legislation. The earlier Senate bill would have let regulators write it.

Still does not seem to eliminate the Too Big Too Fail, and gambling is still allowed with taxpayer money, just to mention the ones that I personally think were a necessity for any reform bill…..and personally I am sick of the bullsh*t saying that it is not perfect but it is step in the right direction…..I know and you will soon know that that is just political speak….meaning they have done all they WILL do to reform the financial sector…..

So my friends, grab your ass with both hands….this WILL happen again!…..and I will be the first to say  “I TOLD YOU SO!”

In The Beginning………

Daily Agitator

In the beginning there was a massive amount of anger leveled at the Wall Street banks that took the US to the brink of collapse……..so much anger that the Congress set about to stop the gambling on the taxpayer’s dime…..regulation and oversight was the call of the day…..it showed promise….it showed that the Congress got the idea and started acting on behalf of the people……that was in the beginning….now it is something way less than the original intent…..

When the Senate bank reform legislation passed in May, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said it sent the message to Wall Street that they can no longer “recklessly gamble away other people’s money.” The bill told Main Street, “you no longer have to fear that your savings, your retirement or your home are at the mercy of greedy gamblers in big banks. And it says to them, ‘never again will you be asked to bail out those big banks when they lose their risky bets,’ “

The bill the Senate passed did protect the taxpayers from reckless gambling by the big banks, largely due to the last-minute inclusion of strong derivatives reforms authored by Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Arkansas). So why is it that Senate and House leadership are now busy behind these scenes trying to kill the best provisions in their own banking reform legislation?

Behind the scenes, Senate Banking Chair Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) and House Financial Services Chair Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) have made it clear they are not fans of Lincoln’s proposal. Neither is the U.S. Treasury Department. Treasury official Michael Barr has been running around telling anyone who will listen that these derivatives rules were not part of the administration’s four “core objectives” for financial reform.

But opponents of strong derivatives reform have a big problem. They can’t just yank it out of the bill with an outcry from consumer advocates and reform groups like Americans for Financial Reform, who have been working hard on the issue. So they have cooked up a new scheme. They will replace the Lincoln language with the strengthened version of the Volcker Rule offered (but never voted on) by Senators Merkley (D- Oregon) and Levin (D-Michigan). They want to convince everyone that a strengthened Volcker Rule takes care of all the issues raised by Lincoln.

In case you are not sure what the Volcker rule is…let me help….The Volcker Rule deals importantly, but narrowly, with derivatives trading for a bank’s own account. This is called “propriety trading,” and banks would be barred from trading any financial instrument (mortgage-backed securities and stocks, as well as derivatives) for their own as opposed to a customer’s account. Merkley-Levin would make this reform a statutory ban rather than leaving it to the discretion of regulators and would further crack down on Goldman-style conflict of interest trading. But big banks would still be allowed to deal and trade on behalf of their clients and their derivatives business would still be backed by the taxpayer guarantee.

Watch the slight of hand by the Congress…the bill that is the final version will be far from the regulation needed to prevent the economy from collapsing again….with the Congress being paid by the banks to water any reform down….we can look ahead ten years or so and see all this economic woes occurring again…….Politicians need to think about that when they are so concerned about our children’s future…….

Banksters Find New Life

Daily Agitator

The collapse of the American economy in 2008 , all eyes were focused on the derivative trading markets, where these banksters gamble and if they lose they stick the taxpayer with the bill and if they win they keep all the profit…..good gig if you can get it…..

But now with everyone watching the Banksters a new trick is being employed……(from moneymorning.com)

Well, here’s the secret: They’ve found a new way to skim more of the cream off the top of U.S. economic activity. It’s called “High-Frequency Trading” (HFT).

High-frequency trading uses the speed of supercomputers to trade faster than a human trader ever could. Human owners of the supercomputers program them to take advantage of information milliseconds faster than other computers, and whole seconds faster than ordinary human traders.  This is not a minor development; HFTs now represent about 70% of the trading volume in the U.S. equity market.

HFT computer servers are able to beat other computers because they are located at the exchanges. They take crucial advantage of the finite speed of light and switching systems to front-run the market. They also gain information on orders and market movements more quickly than the market as a whole. They operate not only on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), but also on the electronic trading exchanges such as the NYSE hybrid market.

Predatory algorithmic traders take advantage of the institutional computers that chop up large orders into many small ones. They make the institutional trader that wants to buy bid up the price of shares by fooling its computer, placing small buy orders that they withdraw. Eventually the “predatory algo” shorts the stock at the higher price it has reached, making the institution pay up for its shares.

The bottom line for us ordinary market participants is that insiders are using computers to game the system, extracting billions of dollars from the rest of the market. While it is illegal to trade on insider knowledge about company financials, these people are trading on insider knowledge about market order flow. That’s how Goldman Sachs and the other biggest houses make so much from trading. By doing so they are rent-seeking, not providing value to the market.

See….did not take these thieves long to find a way to replace all the profits they would losing with government money intervention…these a/holes learned nothing from their past practices or the anger of the American people…the taxpayer is NOT ever protected from these predators and the fragile economy is being gamed….AGAIN!

As long as the system is based on GREED…we will always be at the mercy of these criminals….when will we ever learn?  ( a rhetorical question)

Revisionism–It’s The Government’s Fault

Daily Agitator

From the VOMITORIUM

We have all heard the rumblings from the Right…..the government is at fault….does not matter what we were talking about…it is always the government’s fault.  It never fails someone will accuse the government of something and then there will be hundreds jumping on the bandwagon….right now it is the oil spill in the news and yes, you have it, it is the government’s fault…..

As usual I was watching the early morning news and came across CNBC’s famous Maria Barto……whatever her name is…and this morning while the panel was discussing the oil spill she said that it was like the finanacial crisis…the government’s fault…because there were no less than 400 agerncies involved in the regulation of the financial sector…this was her example…..and she tied it to the agencies that oversee the drilling stuff…she made a point to emphasize that less regulation was better somehow…..

It struck me that she was for no regulation and uncontrollable greed….yes!  I said GREED!…..in the financial sector and in the oil industry.  I mean this kinda irritated me….because capitlaism has become a dis organized operation that enoronously rewards price fixers, exploiters, con artists, gamblers, stock manipulators and in general most forms of corruption…..it has created a class of thieves with NO policemen.

I will, in sorts, agree with Maria and agree that she is a spokesperson for this class and a cheerleader of uncontrollable greed……and IMO she is probably the best person to be the spokesperson for the Banksters (bankers + gangsters…a term popular in the 1930’s).

Like I said, I agree with her, somewhat…..it is the government’s fault……Why?…I knew you would ask that…..the government was moronic to trust the industry, whether it be financial or oil, to do the right thing and play fair…that is the first mistake of the government…..2nd mistake was allowing Clinton and his Gang to repeal Glass-Steagall….3rd mistake was a treasury department with its head up its butt and lastly and the most important mistake was the American people for putting their blind trust in a group of NO CLASS people to represent them in Washington.

This returns me to Maria…..she, like ALL other journalist, have an agenda and that agenda is one of hegemonic control……l know…huh?  Anything done to promote and control the system and the media is our hegemonic control….and Maria is doing her part to further the agenda that the government is too large and in being so is at fault.  If you think I am wrong then just listen to the questions that the pundits ask the guests on their shows….they are all leading questions and the answer will be used to continue this control.  So the theory is if you say something is so long enough and often enough…it will be believed.

Watch the boob tube and especially the news….pundit after pundit will come forward and make this claim or that and after a significant amount of time a poll is taken and the results will show whether the mind control has taken or if further indoctrination is needed.  And the American people are perfect subjects for this type of control.