Kentucky Bankers Association Hates Sen. Elizabeth Warren, As Well They Should

Because she's on to the motherfuckers and she's going to put a stop to their criminal enterprise.

Digby:

Here is an excellent profile of Elizabeth Warren in today's LA Times. Seems she's causing quite a bit of agitation among the financial elites. I couldn't be more delighted:

The attention Warren is drawing — video clips of her first Banking Committee hearing went viral on YouTube — could catapult her even further. Some liberals have begun touting her as a potential 2016 presidential candidate.

"She has maximized the influence and attention that a freshman senator can get," said Jaret Seiberg, a senior policy analyst with financial services firm Guggenheim Partners. "Now, when we look at issues of too-big-to-fail and of consumer protection, people want to know what Elizabeth Warren has to say."

The fast start by Warren, one of the few politicians to embrace the Occupy Wall Street movement, has confirmed the fears of some in the financial industry that she wouldn't hesitate to criticize them from her new, higher-profile position.

Warren's sharp rhetoric is "certainly harmful to our industry," said Ballard Cassady, president of the Kentucky Bankers Assn.

Oh, boo fucking hoo. The poor put-upon bankers and master of the universe just cannot get a break. Well, except for their ill-gotten billions, but other than that it's been just hell.

I am hearing lots of "questions" from establishment liberals about Warren's aggressive style being unhelpful because it's ginning up populist resentment (and lord knows, we can't have that!) My answer to that is, "yeah, whatever." The centrist Democrat experiment in "market liberalism" and appeasement politics has been shown to be an epic failure. We are on the verge of losing the American middle class and have succeeded in growing poverty. Well done, all around.

It's time to change direction and Warren is one of the few who both personally understands the issues and the politics of this new era. If that doesn't go down well among many of those who have invested their lives in the idea that left populism is dirty (or even that straight-up liberalism is a big fat political loser) well, too bad. As far as I'm concerned, she is the future. Get on board or get out of the way.

Arrogant Motherfuckers

Yes, of course I'm talking about that most arrogant subset of the rich: Wall Street banksters.

Digby:

Thank you Bernie

.... for saying it:

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein came to Capitol Hill this week to call for cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. As Congress and the White House are negotiating a year-end deficit deal, Blankfein sought to “lower people’s expectations” about their retirement and health care. He spoke with all the sympathy for someone struggling to get by on $14,000-a-year retirement that you’d expect from a Wall Street banker paid $16 million last year.

“Think about the arrogance of these guys on Wall Street who were bailed out by the middle class of this country when their greed and recklessness nearly destroyed the financial system and now they come to Capitol Hill to lecture Congress and the American people about the need to cut programs for working families,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a Senate floor speech.

How to Kill an Iconic American Company and Put the Blame on Workers

If the details of how a bunch of corporate moochers murdered Hostess Brands don't expose the lie of the owners as "job creators" once and for all, nothing will.

karoli at Crooks and Liars:

Via Daily Kos, a story that reads like a horror movie script. First, there is the "accounting error":

When I received my first paycheck from then Interstate Bakeries in 1999 it had a memo stapled to it. The memo announced that Wonder had just had the most productive quarter in baking history. It stated that the health of the company and brand had never been better. The break room was buzzing with excitement because our contract was soon to be up for renegotiation and this would surely mean smooth sailing. A few weeks later we got the 'oops' letter. Turns out it was all an 'accounting' error and the company was failing miserably.

Conveniently though, CEO Charles Sullivan and the board managed to sell their stock before word got out about the bad news. No jail time of course. In fact, Sullivan was brought back as a consultant after his resignation. Enron happened a few years later and at the bakery we were amazed how much attention they got compared to us.

Then there was the paycheck cut:

In 2005 it was another contract year and this time there was no way out of concessions. The Union negotiated a deal that would save the company $150 million a year in labor. It was a tough internal battle to get people to vote for it. We turned it down twice. Finally the Union told us it was in our best interest and something had to give. So many of us, including myself, changed our votes and took the offer. Remember that next time you see CEO Rayburn on tv stating that we haven't sacrificed for this company. The company then emerged from bankruptcy. In 2005 before concessions I made $48,000, last year I made $34,000. My pay changed dramatically but at least I was still contributing to my self-funded pension.

Yes, and when that deal was done Hostess was also under new management. Ripplewood Holdings and GE Capital Corporation had a 50 percent stake in Hostess. Harvey Golub, former American Express and AIG chairman, was the "management" arm of Ripplewood beginning in 2007. And look what happened next.

In July of 2011 we received a letter from the company. It said that the $3+ per hour that we as a Union contribute to the pension was going to be 'borrowed' by the company until they could be profitable again. Then they would pay it all back. The Union was notified of this the same time and method as the individual members. No contact from the company to the Union on a national level.
This money will never be paid back. The company filed for bankruptcy and the judge ruled that the $3+ per hour was a debt the company couldn't repay. The Union continued to work despite this theft of our self-funded pension contributions for over a year. I consider this money stolen. No other word in the English language describes what they have done to this money.

Yes, well. The timing on that is a little weird, because Hostess Brands turned over their pension plans to the PBGC back in 2010. The effect of it is essentially as the writer describes: Their contribution to the pension plans is lost to them. They will receive their PBGC earned benefit under a formula that allows their employer and equity fund owner to profit much at the expense of employees' pensions.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. As equity funds have taken more and more control of companies, they have also robbed more and more employees of a living wage, their pensions, and more. One need only point to how bankruptcy laws were rewritten to understand how Hostess investors managed to make a killing and protect their investment at the expense of their employees, who paid for it with their hard-earned dollars.

There ought to be a law against that.

There ought to be a law against all of it - all the perfectly legal financial and other corporate crimes that kill companies, ruin families, destroy communities and steal trillions of dollars from the American Common Wealth to fatten obscenely wealthy anti-Americans.

If it doesn't contribute to the common good, it's a crime.

Want to Restore the Economy? Arrest the Bankers.

Worked like a charm in Iceland

While bankers were being bailed out elsewhere, Iceland arrested theirs. Now Iceland’s economy is recovering faster than the EU and the United States.

Watch the video.  It's not too late to start cuffing the motherfuckers. And confiscating all their money.

But when you do the opposite - when you let bankers skate and hand them the keys to the treasury, then punish the workers who are the bankers' victims by slashing spending - aka austerity - you get Greece and Spain.

 

Down with Tyranny, citing Paul Krugman:

For the past two years, the Greek story has, as one recent paper on economic policy put it, been "interpreted as a parable of the risks of fiscal profligacy." Not a day goes by without some politician or pundit intoning, with the air of a man conveying great wisdom, that we must slash government spending right away or find ourselves turning into Greece, Greece I tell you.Just to take one recent example, when Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, delivered the Republican reply to the State of the Union address, he insisted that "we're only a short distance behind Greece, Spain and other European countries now facing economic catastrophe."

By the way, apparently nobody told him that Spain had low government debt and a budget surplus on the eve of the crisis; it's in trouble thanks to private-sector, not public-sector, excess. But what Greek experience actually shows is that while running deficits in good times can get you in trouble -- which is indeed the story for Greece, although not for Spain -- trying to eliminate deficits once you're already in trouble is a recipe for depression.These days, austerity-induced depressions are visible all around Europe's periphery. Greece is the worst case, with unemployment soaring to 20 percent even as public services, including health care, collapse. But Ireland, which has done everything the austerity crowd wanted, is in terrible shape too, with unemployment near 15 percent and real GDP down by double digits. Portugal and Spain are in similarly dire straits.

So if their is a case to be made to America, it's this. Austerity sucks in times of recession. Don't believe me? Just look at the facts. And ask yourself this. Where is the proof that austerity has worked since the financial crisis hit? You can't find any except through empty words coming out of Germany or conservative hacks like Prime Minister Cameron.

Cameron indicated that Britain's programme of spending cuts, initially planned to take five years, could last until 2020."This is a period for all countries, not just in Europe, but I think you will see it in America too, where we have to deal with our deficits and we have to have sustainable debts. I can't see any time soon when ... the pressure will be off,"

When the Conservative/Liberal Democratic coalition took power in 2010, it introduced an austerity programme of increased spending cuts and tax increases that was intended to finish by 2015.The programme was extended to 2017 late last year, however, and is expected to save the government about 110 billion pounds in total.

His solution is an endless austerity which attacks the people he's supposed to be trying to help. And by the way, it's really not austerity itself that is extending Europe's problems, it's those that prescribe it as a remedy that are killing the economy.

Krugman finishes with this:

So it is time to stop invoking Greece as a cautionary tale about the dangers of deficits; from an American point of view, Greece should instead be seen as a cautionary tale about the dangers of trying to reduce deficits too quickly, while the economy is still deeply depressed. (And yes, despite some better news lately, our economy is still deeply depressed.)

The truth is that if you want to know who is really trying to turn the United States into Greece, it's not those urging more stimulus for our still-depressed economy; it's the people demanding that we emulate Greek-style austerity even though we don't face Greek-style borrowing constraints, and thereby plunge ourselves into a Greek-style depression.

Krugman's too professional to say it, so I will: every analpundit, politician and conservative economist who's flogging austerity, deficit reduction and "entitlement reform" has been proven dead wrong about the economy over and over again. Whereas Krugman has been dead-on right every time since sounding the alarm about the repeal of Glass-Steagall 13 years ago.

They didn't give him the Nobel Prize for nothing.

Wall Street Cheated

Recently one of the cable snooz shows interviewed some Occupy protesters and asked one woman didn't she want to be one of the one percent herself. She gave a long answer that wasn't really wrong or inappropriate, but neither was it concise. How about this next time:

"The one percenters get there only by cheating. I don't cheat and don't tolerate those who do."

Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone reminds us the real problem is not that capitalism sucks or is incompatible with Democracy but that Wall Street refuses to play by the rules.

When you take into consideration all the theft and fraud and market manipulation and other evil shit Wall Street bankers have been guilty of in the last ten-fifteen years, you have to have balls like church bells to trot out a propaganda line that says the protesters are just jealous of their hard-earned money.

Think about it: there have always been rich and poor people in America, so if this is about jealousy, why the protests now? The idea that masses of people suddenly discovered a deep-seated animus/envy toward the rich – after keeping it strategically hidden for decades – is crazy.

Where was all that class hatred in the Reagan years, when openly dumping on the poor became fashionable? Where was it in the last two decades, when unions disappeared and CEO pay relative to median incomes started to triple and quadruple?

The answer is, it was never there. If anything, just the opposite has been true. Americans for the most part love the rich, even the obnoxious rich. And in recent years, the harder things got, the more we've obsessed over the wealth dream. As unemployment skyrocketed, people tuned in in droves to gawk at Evrémonde-heiresses like Paris Hilton, or watch bullies like Donald Trump fire people on TV.

Moreover, the worse the economy got, the more being a millionaire or a billionaire somehow became a qualification for high office, as people flocked to voting booths to support politicians with names like Bloomberg and Rockefeller and Corzine, names that to voters symbolized success and expertise at a time when few people seemed to have answers. At last count, there were 245 millionaires in congress, including 66 in the Senate.

And we hate the rich? Come on. Success is the national religion, and almost everyone is a believer. Americans love winners. But that's just the problem. These guys on Wall Street are not winning – they're cheating. And as much as we love the self-made success story, we hate the cheater that much more.

In this country, we cheer for people who hit their own home runs – not shortcut-chasing juicers like Bonds and McGwire, Blankfein and Dimon.

That's why it's so obnoxious when people say the protesters are just sore losers who are jealous of these smart guys in suits who beat them at the game of life. This isn't disappointment at having lost. It's anger because those other guys didn't really win. And people now want the score overturned.

All weekend I was thinking about this “jealousy” question, and I just kept coming back to all the different ways the game is rigged. People aren't jealous and they don’t want privileges. They just want a level playing field, and they want Wall Street to give up its cheat codes, things like:

SNIP

These inequities are what drive the OWS protests. People don't want handouts. It's not a class uprising and they don't want civil war -- they want just the opposite. They want everyone to live in the same country, and live by the same rules. It's amazing that some people think that that's asking a lot.

Read the whole thing.

Other ways the one percenters cheat are inheriting money, exploiting labor, stealing natural resources, hiding profits overseas to avoid taxes, buying tax breaks and subsidies from Congress, grabbing windfalls from IPOs and golden parachutes, and generally acting as if they are above the law.

I'd say less than one percent of the one percenters got there by dint of their own effort. It's interesting that many of those who did - Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, George Soros - are conspicuously generous with their money in donating substantial sums to charitable causes.

The rest of the rich are cheaters.

Banks Dumping Toxic Assets on Public

Used to be you had to be an unscrupulous hauler of hazardous chemical waste to be caught dumping poison on public property.

Now all you have to be is a giant unregulated bank with too much bad debt on the books.

Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars:

And this is why we've been screaming about regulating derivatives! I kind of think that the Occupy movement is going to have something to say about this corporate sleight of hand that came to light earlier this week. Do they really think we're going to look the other way and let them stick us with a $74 trillion bill -- just to let good old "too big to fail" Bank of America off the hook? I don't think so:

If you have any doubt that Bank of America is in trouble, this development should settle it. I’m late to this important story broken [...] by Bob Ivry of Bloomberg, but both Bill Black (who I interviewed just now) and I see this as a desperate (or at the very best, remarkably inept) move by Bank of America’s management.

The short form via Bloomberg:

Bank of America Corp. (BAC), hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation…

Bank of America’s holding company — the parent of both the retail bank and the Merrill Lynch securities unit — held almost $75 trillion of derivatives at the end of June, according to data compiled by the OCC. About $53 trillion, or 71 percent, were within Bank of America NA, according to the data, which represent the notional values of the trades.

That compares with JPMorgan’s deposit-taking entity, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, which contained 99 percent of the New York-based firm’s $79 trillion of notional derivatives, the OCC data show.

Now you would expect this move to be driven by adverse selection, that it, that BofA would move its WORST derivatives, that is, the ones that were riskiest or otherwise had high collateral posting requirements, to the sub. Bill Black confirmed that even though the details were sketchy, this is precisely what took place.

And remember, as we have indicated, there are some “derivatives” that should be eliminated, period. We’ve written repeatedly about credit default swaps, which have virtually no legitimate economic uses (no one was complaining about the illiquidity of corporate bonds prior to the introduction of CDS; this was not a perceived need among investors). They are an inherently defective product, since there is no way to margin adequately for “jump to default” risk and have the product be viable economically. CDS are systematically underpriced insurance, with insurers guaranteed to go bust periodically, as AIG and the monolines demonstrated.
The reason that commentators like Chris Whalen were relatively sanguine about Bank of America likely becoming insolvent as a result of eventual mortgage and other litigation losses is that it would be a holding company bankruptcy. The operating units, most importantly, the banks, would not be affected and could be spun out to a new entity or sold. Shareholders would be wiped out and holding company creditors (most important, bondholders) would take a hit by having their debt haircut and partly converted to equity.

This changes the picture completely. This move reflects either criminal incompetence or abject corruption by the Fed. Even though I’ve expressed my doubts as to whether Dodd Frank resolutions will work, dumping derivatives into depositaries pretty much guarantees a Dodd Frank resolution will fail. Remember the effect of the 2005 bankruptcy law revisions: derivatives counterparties are first in line, they get to grab assets first and leave everyone else to scramble for crumbs. So this move amounts to a direct transfer from derivatives counterparties of Merrill to the taxpayer, via the FDIC, which would have to make depositors whole after derivatives counterparties grabbed collateral. It’s well nigh impossible to have an orderly wind down in this scenario. You have a derivatives counterparty land grab and an abrupt insolvency. Lehman failed over a weekend after JP Morgan grabbed collateral.

But it’s even worse than that. During the savings & loan crisis, the FDIC did not have enough indeposit insurance receipts to pay for the Resolution Trust Corporation wind-down vehicle. It had to get more funding from Congress. This move paves the way for another TARP-style shakedown of taxpayers, this time to save depositors. No Congressman would dare vote against that. This move is Machiavellian, and just plain evil.

Don't be silly! This is just one of our precious zillionaire job-creators creating jobs.

Financiers Double Down on Greed

Many years ago, back when banks and Wall Street were tightly regulated and their profits were large but not obscene, Molly Ivins wrote: "Bankers have hearts the size of carroway seeds, and bankers as a group are dumb."

Deregulation and the ensuing astronomical profits have made them even more stupid.

Jim Hightower on Wall Street's enduring cluelessness:

Astonishingly, some Wall Streeters continue to be clueless about what the Occupy Wall Street movement is protesting. Yoo-hoo, Streeters: Note that the movement's name has the term "Wall Street" in it.

While there is a plethora of particular issues being raised by the protesters -- from the corrupting power of corporate money in our elections to the demise of middle-class wages -- the unifying theme is that each one adds to the rising tide of economic inequality that's enriching the most privileged few by knocking down America's workaday majority. And, Mr. and Ms. Streeter, guess who is the most powerful perpetrators of this greed-fueled disparity: Yes, you.

Perhaps an example would help you grasp the obvious. Even as the protest was spreading in mid-October to hundreds of cities, tone-deaf executives at Bank of America announced three moves:

One, to goose up their own extravagant pay, they're socking financially stressed debit-card users with a new $5 a month fee.

Second, they're dumping 30,000 of the bank's worker bees onto America's already swollen unemployment rolls. Goodbye, and good luck finding another job.

Third, two top executives who are departing the bank are being handed golden parachutes totaling $11 million.

In the midst of this, Steve Bartlett opened his mouth. A former Congress-critter who was promoted to be Wall Street's top Washington lobbyist, he is a perfect symbol of the infuriating corrupt coziness between financial elites and lawmakers. Yet Bartlett blithely says, "We (don't) see ourselves as the target (of the protests)."

After all, he explains, Wall Street "has to be well capitalized and well financed for the economy to recover."

Golly, Steve, I think we capitalized you extremely well. What part of the public's multitrillion-dollar bailout of the Street's elite did you not see? We the People see every glaring dime of it. And we also see that rather than helping our economy recover, you're now lobbying Congress to kill Wall Street reforms so banksters can grab even more at our expense.

Yet the most befuddled Wall Streeter of all is -- big surprise -- the richest guy.

In assessing the spreading public protest against the rampaging greed of today's corporate and financial elite, John Paulson turns out to be as confused as a goat on Astroturf. Oh, he gets it that the people's anger is directed at hedge fund profiteers like him, but he claims that riff-raff like us are simply confused on the virtue of accumulated wealth.

While it's true that he raked in nearly $5 billion in personal pay last year (the largest single haul in Wall Street history), and while it's true that his riches flow not from advances to benefit humanity, but from rigged Wall Street casino games, he asserts that it's the amassing of wealth itself that serves the public good.

It's unfair, Paulson scolds, that protesters demonstrated in front of his 28,000-square-foot, $15 million mansion on New York's Upper East Side, targeting him as an exemplar of plutocratic excess. Don't they know that billionaires like him pay taxes, "providing huge benefits to everyone in our city?" Besides, he points out that he's not merely a billionaire, but one of those "job creators," as Republican leaders prefer to call corporate chieftains these days.

Paulson brags that his hedge fund "has created over 100 high-paying jobs in New York City since its formation." Wow -- 100 jobs in a city of over 8 million people. Thanks, John, our economy wouldn't be the same without you!

When it comes down to it, all that the Paulson-clique really wants is a little love -- a small show of gratitude for all that the richest 1 percent is doing for us 99 percent of Americans by making themselves ever-richer.

"Instead of vilifying our most successful businesses," he wrote recently in a plaintive press release, "we should be supporting them and encouraging them."

See, protesters, you're gonna make John cry. You should be ashamed -- except that he does have $15 billion in net worth to dry those tears.

"This is Why They Hate You and Want You to Die"

From Rumproast:

I was seriously tempted to drag “This is Why They Hate You and Want You to Die” by The Reformed Broker (A.K.A. Joshua M. Brown) over here in its entirety. But dude deserves mad page hits for this masterpiece, so here’s a few snippets:

You want to know why everyone in this country hates you and wants you dead, you big stupid fucking bank?

Here’s why, pay attention:

(Reuters) – Bank of America Corp will pay $11 million to ousted executives Joe Price and Sallie Krawcheck, a large payout at a time when banks face protests over pay but smaller than the eight-figure packages some executives received before the financial crisis.

[...]

Elevenmilliondollars? What the hell world are you inhabiting? Eleven million dollars for two departing executives because things didn’t work out?

[...]

The ordinary American is not a class warrior or a woe-is-me whiner coveting the rewards of others - the ordinary American simply believes that extraordinary rewards should go to those who do extraordinary things, not to paper-pushing failures at parasite banks.

Go. Read it all.

Yes, read it all and pass it on.

Hatred of the banks, the bankers, the finance industry, the hedge fund managers, all the Wall Street Masters of the Universe is not just justified and reasonable; it is proof of mental health.

"Where's Your $50,000?"

Political Email of the Week:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that our Government has handed out $16 trillion to the banks.

Let me repeat that, in case you didn’t hear me the first time. The GAO says that our Government HAS HANDED OUT $16 TRILLION TO THE BANKS.

That little gem appears on Page 131 of GAO Report No. GAO-11-696. A report issued two months ago. A report that somehow seems to have eluded the attention of virtually every network, every major newspaper, and every news show.

How much is $16 trillion? That is an amount equal to more than $50,000 for every man, woman and child in America. That’s more than every penny that every American earns in a year. That’s an amount equal to almost a third of our national net worth -- the value of every home, car, personal belonging, business, bank account, stock, bond, piece of land, book, tree, chandelier, and everything else anyone owns in America. That’s an amount greater than our entire national debt, accumulated over the course of two centuries.

A $16 trillion stack of dollar bills would reach all the way to the Moon. And back.
Twice.

That’s enough to pay for Saturday mail delivery. For the next 5,000 years.
All of that money went from you and me to the banks. And we got nothing. Not even a toaster.

I have been patiently waiting to see whether this disclosure would provoke some kind of reaction. Answer: nope. Everyone seems much more interested in discussing whether or not they like the cut of Perry’s jib.

Whatever a jib may be.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to be writing more about this. But right now, I wanted to keep this really simple. Just give folks something to talk about when they’re standing next to the coffee maker.

The Government gave $16 trillion to the banks. And nobody else is talking about it.
Think about it. Think about what that means.

Courage,

Alan Grayson

Alan Grayson is running to reclaim his congressional seat from Taliban Dan. Grayson is one of the few Democratic candidates who are Really Liberal enough to be endorsed by Blue America.

Here's to the Crazy Ones

Here's to the Crazy Ones

Here’s to the crazy ones. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. - Apple's 1984 commercial "Think Different"

Still think Occupy is dumb, embarassing and/or and counter-productive? Go down to one and see for yourself. Might surprise you.

That's what this former Obama campaign consultant did:

My first reaction to Occupy Wall Street was a sigh. Is the left in this country so anemic, I thought to myself, that we need a Canadian magazine to tell us to protest? It bothered me that the usual suspects—the dreadlocked, bandannaed bongo drummers—were the ones who answered the call and set up first camp in Zuccotti Park. Why couldn't some clean-cut, American-flag wavers—folks who wouldn't immediately, viscerally alienate mainstream America—be the ones who occupied Wall Street? Why did it have to be those people? I was angry at them; I was actually rooting for them to pack up and go home. I thought they would embarrass the left and further alienate the mainstream from the cause pragmatic progressives like me care about: getting money out of our politics and creating a more equitable society.

And then, like many pragmatic progressives, I watched them persist, I saw the unions join them, I saw nondreaded folks—and even some folks in suits—march along side them, and my attitude changed. Yesterday, I decided to attend the march from New York's City Hall to Wall Street.

I intended to be more of an observer than joiner, but on the train ride, it was hard to keep my reporter's hat on. I saw a group of older women, professors at the City University of New York, who were talking about the march, and I asked one of them if they were heading to Wall Street.

"We are! What about you?" she excitedly replied.

"That's where I'm heading too."

She turned to her colleagues and said, "Look at this guy: He looks like he works on Wall Street [I was coming from a meeting and wearing a blue blazer], but he's coming to the march too!"

A guy with a black hoodie and a chain wallet who looked like he might be an anarchist got on at the next stop; the woman ask him if he was heading to the march, and when he replied affirmatively, she pointed at me and said, "He's going to Wall Street too!" The guy must have thought I was going to work, because he glowered at me and said, "I hate people who work on Wall Street." The woman replied, "No, he's with us!" and I felt an undeniable surge of solidarity.

But the crowd disappoints him. It's full of nuts and freaks and one-issue cranks - everybody that the "respectable left" blames for the rise of the reichwing.

When I got home, I heard that Steve Jobs passed away. I was much more upset about his death than I expected to be. I'm not sure why but I immediately went on YouTube and looked up the "Think Different" commercial. My younger, more radical self hated the ad for exploiting Martin Luther King Jr. to sell computers, but I was moved this time around. "Here's to the crazy ones," the narrator reads, "…the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."

I thought about the drugged-out dude with the banjo: one of the crazy ones. And the dude with the upside-down flag and the one with the severed head and the anti-fracking obsessive and the people jonesing for a confrontation with the cops: all crazy ones. Crazy ones who sparked the first mass outpouring of left-wing activism in years, who have finally provided a visible counter to the free-market fanaticism of the tea party. Crazy ones who have reignited a conversation about class in America.

The pragmatic progressives like me didn't start this movement. We thought about the long-term impact for the left and the short-term electoral optics for Democrats. When the economy collapsed, we were quiet, the tea party spoke up, and the rage the country felt was directed toward government, not Wall Street. In short, we were afraid.

Thankfully, the crazy ones weren't.

And in spite of all I saw that I didn't like, there were clear signs that the movement is maturing, getting more organized, coalescing around a message: "We Are the 99 Percent." Like the protesters in Tahrir, there are clean-up crews keeping Zuccotti as spiffy as possible. Organizers are even enforcing message discipline by urging supporters on Twitter to shorten protest-related hashtags from #OccupyWallSt to #OWS.

Perhaps it's a natural evolution, but it also seems likely that the movement is changing because the seasoned organizers and pragmatists are working alongside the radical idealists who were there from the start.

The only reason those pragmatists are there is because the crazy ones took the first steps.

Find your nearest Occupy protest here. Go down there, talk to the crazies and make up your own mind. Bet you'll end up thanking them, if not joining them.

Declaration of Independence from Wall Street

Occupy Lexington is in its fifth day, and Occupy Louisville begins tomorrow. Barefoot and Progressive has the details.

The Rude Pundit sees the anti-corporate movement taking off:

No matter if it was intentional or not, the mass arrest of 700 of the Occupy Wall Street protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City on Saturday was a brilliant PR move, and it legitimized the snowballing activism as the beginning of a real movement. The media coverage has increased exponentially. For instance, NPR, which had been ignoring the protest, is now doing regular reports. The New York Times has had front page coverage.

The arrest of hundreds of peaceful marchers is proof that the demonstrations are having an effect. The NYPD, under the urging of the Bloomberg administration, no doubt, took a gamble, hoping that they could end the occupation once and for all. Instead, it ended up having the reverse effect, as the arrests and pepper-spraying the week before had, giving the protests more traction, more participants, and more power.

Wear those arrests as badges of honor, good provocateurs of the plaza. As Big Bill Haywood, the leader of the Industrial Workers of the World, said when he was imprisoned in Chicago in 1917, "A prison cell is the heritage we gain for the blood and lives our forefathers gave; they fought for religious freedom and left us with minds free from superstitious cant and dogma; they waged war for political justice; they carried on the struggle against chattel-slavery - these were the titanic battles that were fought, bringing us to the threshold of all wars - the class war - in which we are enlisted as workers." Now, Big Bill was given to hyperbole, but his point was that if you're gonna fuck with the powerful, the powerful are gonna try to fuck you up. But that the chance to battle should be inspirational, not dispiriting.

Remember, this is still the very, very beginning. Maybe, just maybe, as more actions happen, as unions get involved, as more arrests happen, as the tipping point of inevitable violence by authorities occurs, maybe we on the left can stop being such little bitches about the protests and unify behind them.

Later this week: Um, so what the fuck are we unifying behind?

David Atkins "thereisnospoon" at Hullabaloo can answer that:

The official list of grievances of the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. *

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

There are those who will argue that this list is far too broad and inclusive for a specifically anti-Wall Street protest. While those critiques are understandable from a certain point of view, they miss the point of airing a set of grievances. Goals, which should be specific to dealing with the financial sector if they are to have a chance of fulfillment, are not the same as grievances. This list is powerful, not least because it addresses the myriad ways in which big business and the financial sector are destroying society, piece by piece. In terms of raising consciousness, it is important for the average person to realize that anger with Wall Street is about much more than bailouts, income inequality and massive bonuses. It's about the way the relentless pursuit of the next quarter's profits at the expense of all else warps the social fabric of a democracy.

The General Assembly in this well-considered document has hearkened back to a much older and more florid declaration that similarly began with a statement of principles and a list of grievances.

It is an important beginning. The General Assembly has lit the match. Now it's up to America at large to understand what is at stake, and turn a protest into a revolution.

If the needless arrest of 700 protesters yesterday, including small children doesn't inflame passion to help take our democracy back, it's hard to know what will.

Meanwhile, the anti-democratic Koch fortress is starting to show cracks. David Dayen at Firedoglake:

Bloomberg, the news organization for patchouli-burning, Birkenstock-wearing hippies everywhere, has a long story alleging that Koch Industries traded with Iran, paid bribes to win contracts, stole oil, and engaged in “violations of criminal law,” according to the company’s own internal documents.

SNIP

The article is hard to summarize because there are so many charges; so just go read it. If you want to know why we’re seeing a wave of protests against corporatism in this country, I would offer this article as Exhibit A.

Join the Occupation in your town.

Draw the Line Now: No TARP 2

Yeah, yeah, TARP saved the economy, yeah, yeah, TARP is being paid back and the government may actually make a profit on it, yeah, yeah, anti-TARP is a teabagger masturbation aid, yeah yeah.

Here's what matters: the crash of Lehman and AIG in September 2008 presented a huge, once-in-a-millenium chance to completely redesign the American financial system. To put it at the service of Main Street, instead of the other way around.

And we blew it.

So when Zandar's worst nightmares come true...

[UPDATE] CNBC is reporting that Bank of America has voluntarily stopped foreclosures in all 50 states. It's all coming unglued here, folks. Expect the other banks to follow suit and then of course when their stocks crater, it'll be TARP 2: Economic Boogaloo.

Count on it.

[UPDATE 2] CNBC also reporting PNC Bank is halting foreclosures in 23 states. Dominos are falling if the regional banks are getting involved.

... I say Bring. It. On.

You want another bailout motherfuckers? OK, here's the deal: Your new Master, God, and Person With Her Foot on Your Neck is Elizabeth Warren. You work for her. She will tell you exactly how you are going to be laboring - at minimum wage with no benefits and no overtime - to restore the American Middle Class to its peak of strength 40 years ago. You will also bring American Manufacturing back to life with massive investment in renewable energy and public transportation and reanimate Main Street with easy credit that favors genuinely small and family-owned businesses.

And you will do it all with a fucking smile on your faces, dammit. Now, pee in this cup and get back to your cubicle.

(Zandar has a good, simple explanation of how we got here, and what we can do to avoid catastrophe.)

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic....

Not Even Remotely Close to Good Enough

Zandar rejects Citigroup's pathetic attempt at an apology for destroying the economy.

Former Citigroup execs went before Congress today to apologize.

Charles O. Prince III, Citigroup’s former chairman and chief executive, apologized for the billions of dollars of losses that caused the company he helped build to nearly collapse. The bank required three government rescues and some $45 billion in taxpayer aid.

“I’m sorry the financial crisis has had such a devastating impact for our country,” Mr. Prince told the commission. “I’m sorry about the millions of people, average Americans, who lost their homes. And I’m sorry that our management team, starting with me, like so many others could not see the unprecedented market collapse that lay before us.”

Robert E. Rubin, an influential Citigroup board member and adviser, also showed some contritionbut stopped short of accepting personal responsibility for the bank’s woes.

“We all bear responsibility for not recognizing this, and I deeply regret that,” Mr. Rubin said.

Apology not accepted, gentlemen. Return our trillions, give the thousands of American families who have lost their homes, give us our 8 million lost jobs back, and make sure this never happens again.

That's for starters. You're sorry? Screw you. You and people like you ruined countless American lives, homes, jobs, families, communities and companies through your ignorance and greed. How many millions were in your golden parachute there, boys?

You couldn't see the collapse coming because you were blinded by sheer greed.

We want our country back, thanks. Pay up.

I'll just add my demand that these assholes, starting with Rubin and continuing with Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, serve actual prison terms. In a SuperMax. With the other terrorists.

Stick It to the Big Banks: Move Your Money

They've already got billions of our tax dollars; you don't have to give them your business, too.

Move your money to a place where it will help your local community, and send a message to the big boys at the same time.

Peter Rothberg at the Nation has the details:

As national banks soak up bailout dollars, cut lending, and exploit overdraft fees, a number of Americans have decided to move their money to local banks.

Community banks typically eschew predatory tactics, take far less risk in how they manage their money, are more closely connected to the people and businesses in their area, and are more inclined to make prudent loans they know will get paid back. Many of them are nonetheless struggling. The government policy of protecting just the "Too Big to Fail" institutions is badly hurting the small banks, which are having a much harder time competing in the financial marketplace. As a result, a system which was already dangerously concentrated at the top has only become more so.

To help reinvigorate the local banking sector, economist Robert Johnson, columnist Arianna Huffington and filmmaker Eugene Jarecki recently hatched a new proposal that allows anyone with a bank account to channel their anger over the Wall Street bailout.

Watch this video by Jarecki, then go to www.moveyourmoney.info to learn more about how easy it is to move your money away from the banking giants and what a difference that switch could make.



The idea behind "Move Your Money" is simple, as Huffington and Johnson explained in a recent post: If enough people who have money in one of the big four banks move it into smaller, more local, more traditional community banks, then collectively we, the people, will have taken a big step toward re-rigging the financial system so it becomes again the productive, stable engine for growth it's meant to be.

JP Morgan/Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America may be "too big to fail" -- but they are not too big to feel the impact of hundreds of thousands of people taking action to change a broken financial and political system.

This year make a resolution to move your money away from the big banks that got us into the current financial crisis. Thanks to the informed volunteer services of a group called Institutional Risk Analytics (IRA), you can get a listing of the most sound community banks near you. (IRA lists only banks that, according government data, get a grade of "B" or better.) Find a local bank near you.

I'd just add that if you can, choose a credit union. Credit unions have members, not owners or shareholders, and operate for the benefit of those members, not Wall Street.

Now This is Bipartisanship We Can Believe In

Zandar succeeds in distracting us from health care deform:

Newsweek is reporting that tomorrow, Sens. John McCain and Maria Cantwell will introduce a bill to reinstate Glass-Steagall.

More than a year after the election, the Arizona Republican is looking to repair that reputation by joining up with Democratic firebrand Maria Cantwell to propose something that will be anathema to both Wall Street and the Obama administration. According to two congressional sources, the two maverick senators want to reinstate Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era law that forced the separation of regular commercial banking from Wall Street investment banking. The senators' proposal echoes a failed amendment introduced in the House last week by Rep. Maurice Hinchey of New York.

The Senate prospects for the success of the McCain-Cantwell bill—which the two plan to announce together on Wednesday morning—seem bleak at best. But McCain and Cantwell join a still small but not insignificant insurgency of chronic doubters, including former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, who say not nearly enough is being done to change Wall Street and, in particular, to address the "too big to fail" problem. The issue is one of the few in Washington that can unite the left and right sides of the political spectrum. Democrats like Cantwell deplore Wall Street's outsize role in the real economy and its lobbying influence, and conservatives such as McCain are appalled at the way the market system has been undermined—some would say rigged—by the power of the big banks.

Bankers and regulators, Volcker said earlier this month, "have not come anywhere close to responding with necessary vigor" to the crisis. He wants to ban federally guaranteed commercial banks from risky trading in derivatives and other arcane instruments that could precipitate another huge bailout some day. That too is a proposal no one who currently controls the levers of power in Washington is considering. But among those who now support Volcker is Arthur Levitt Jr., the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. "I tend to be in the Volcker camp in saying banks should either be investment banks or take deposits and make loans," Levitt told me in an interview this week.

You guys have no idea how much it grinds my gears to blog this, but I hope McCain kicks Obama's ass on this one. I mean it has no chance to pass and we need to have this done, on the other hand McCain knows this and this will put the Dems and Obama on record as against real regulation.

Then again, given McCain's 180 on climate change, McCain will push this just as long as he can benefit from it (where Cantwell really does want to see this pass).

Still, seeing Glass-Steagall reinstated would certainly show the banksters who the boss is.

I'll just add that right now I'm all in favor of anything and everything that exposes in the most publicly humiliating way possible the cowardice, mendacity and corporate ownership of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress.

Turn the Bailout Shit into Campaign Reform Salad

Could the blatant greed-a-thon of the Wall Street "bailout" finally spur the switch to fully public campaign financing?

Gregg Easterbrook reveals how giveaways to special interest groups force taxpayers to fund those interests' campaign donations to politicians. So we already have indirect public financing of campaigns, only at far, far greater cost than if we just directly funded campaigns.

Why do members of the national legislature give away your money as fast as it can be borrowed? Because they want campaign donations. Polls show Americans don't like the idea of public funding for House and Senate elections, because it seems like a giveaway. But the public already funds congressional elections, just in an incredibly overpriced, inefficient way.

Members of the House and Senate give away billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks to special-interest groups, in order to get back thousands of dollars in campaign donations. The $150 billion or so in sweetheart handouts in the bailout legislation will probably result in several million additional dollars given to House and Senate members as campaign donations. It would be far, far cheaper for taxpayers just to fund congressional campaigns!

Suppose the public funded each House race at $1 million (435 races every second year) split between the parties, and each Senate race at $5 million split (roughly 34 races every second year), then banned campaign contributions. (Skip whether the Supreme Court would allow the latter, this is a thought experiment.) The cost would be about $600 million every second year, when there are national elections. That's peanuts compared to the amounts House and Senate incumbents give away to PAC-backed lobbies in order to inspire campaign donations. Federal financing of House and Senate races would save the public tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Get That Alcoholic Another Drink

That U.S. Senate - what a hoot!

It's looking at an out-of-control drunk behind the wheel of the economy, careening down the street mowing down pedestrians left and right and what does it do?

Offer it free drinks for life!

Seriously. Fix the unbound greed on Wall Street with - tax cuts!
I've got a better idea - tar and feathering.

Too much? OK, here's a real solution that doesn't reward criminals.

Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio says, correctly, that the problem with the Democratic speaker's bailout measure, which the House rejected by a 228-205 vote – with progressive Democrats joining fiscally conservative Republicans to say "no" – is that it "is still built on the Paulson-Bush premise."

DeFazio, a Democratic dissenter, says that the bill Pelosi tried to get the House to back Monday demands that taxpayers take on too much of the risk which creating openings for Wall Streeters to pocket millions (perhaps billions) in federal dollars. While the Pelosi plan may put some limits on so-called golden parachutes, it still allows for what DeFazio describes as "camouflage parachutes"--hidden payouts to the corporate CEOs who created the crisis.

"We can do better," says DeFazio. "We should start again on a new package."

That's exactly what the Oregon populist is doing with a new proposal, the "No BAILOUTS Act" (Bringing Accountability, Increased Liquidity, Oversight, and Upholding Taxpayer Security). Introduced Tuesday with co-sponsorship from some of the most outspoken critics of the Paulson machinations – including Ohio Democrat Marcy Kaptur, a leader of the anti-bailout movement in Congress – the measure would impose a securities tax equivalent to one quarter of one percent of profits and empower the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to deal more effectively with bank failures.

SNIP

Say Congress spends $700 billion of taxpayer money on the loan purchase proposal. What do we do next? If, however, we implement the program suggested above, we will have $700 billion of dry powder we can put to work in targeted tax incentives if needed to get the economy moving again.

The banks do not need taxpayers to carry their loans. They need proper accounting and regulatory policies that will give them time to work through their problems.

DeFazio, Kaptur and their allies essentially agree. So, too, does the powerful Service Employees International Union, which has endorsed DeFazio's proposal.

"We finally have a plan that will restore confidence in the financial markets without writing a blank check to the same Wall Street banks and CEOs who got us into this mess," said SEIU President Andy Stern. "This is an important, short-term solution that protects taxpayers and their savings accounts. To revive the economy over the long-term, we must address rising unemployment, stagnant wages, the healthcare crisis, and a tax system that is tilted in favor of the wealthy."

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Bailout Snark Roundup

Berkley economist Brad DeLong has an idea:

This Republican Party needs to be burned, razed to the ground, and the furrows sown with salt...

Commenter Steve Jones reminds us:

...and don't forget to urinate on the ashes.

Princeton economist and NTY columnist Paul Krugman predicted today's failure on Friday:

And after the way the Bushies and their allies double-crossed the Democrats again and again in the aftermath of 9/11 — demand national unity, then accuse you of being soft on terrorists anyway — there's no way Pelosi and Reid will do the responsible but unpopular thing unless the Republicans agree to share ownership.

So what we now have is non-functional government in the face of a major crisis, because Congress includes a quorum of crazies and nobody trusts the White House an inch.

As a friend said last night, we've become a banana republic with nukes.

And finally, Barney Frank calls the repug whiny-ass titty babies out for the whiny-ass titty babies they are:



Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Too True for Satire

From Christopher Hayes at The Nation:

I almost missed this email because it was diverted to my spam folder. But apparently Paulson is sending this around:

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

(UPDATE: I didn't write this. It was sent to me by a friend and is making the rounds)

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

TMQ on the Bailout

Gregg Easterbrook, writing as Tuesday Morning Quarterback, nails the absurdity of the proposed Wall Street bailout.

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! Last week, TMQ asked why no one was paying attention to the fact that the national debt ceiling was quietly raised by $800 billion during the summer. Well, toss that column: The White House just asked the national debt ceiling be raised another $700 billion, for the proposed financial-sector bailout. If that happens, in 2008 alone, $1.5 trillion will have been added to the national debt: every penny borrowed from your children and their children. Stated in today's dollars, in 1979 the entire national debt was $1.5 trillion. George W. Bush and Congress have in a single year added an amount equal to the entire national debt one generation ago. And the year's not over!

It took the United States 209 years, from the founding of the republic till 1998, to compile the first $5 trillion in national debt. In the decade since, $6 trillion in debt has been added. This means the United States has borrowed more money in the past decade than in all our previous history combined. Almost all the borrowing has been under the direction of George W. Bush -- at this point Bush makes Kenneth Lay seem like a paragon of fiscal caution. Democrats deserve ample blame, too. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leaders of the Senate and House, have never met a bailout they didn't like: Harry and Nancy just can't wait to spend your children's money. Six trillion dollars borrowed in a single decade and $1.5 trillion borrowed in 2008 alone. Charles Ponzi would be embarrassed.

Easterbrook says much more in tightly-controlled, fact-based populist outrage. Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at Watching Those We Chose.