''Looking Forward'' not only cleared war criminals Bush and Cheney, but the Banksters, as well.

[Octafish]

"My administration ... is the only thing between you and the pitchforks." -- President Barack Obama, March 27, 2009

On 3 April 2009, Politico bannered innocuously (and deceptively, given the shocking core that was buried here - Obama's statement), "Inside Obama's Bank CEOs Meeting." Eamon Javers reported Obama telling Wall Street's CEOs, inside the White House, "My administration ... is the only thing between you and the pitchforks." (This essentially secret meeting, and the comment itself, had occurred on 27 March 2009, but Javers failed to cite the date, which was indicated only under the accompanying AP wire photo of the CEOs coming out of this publicly unannounced event.) Obama's remark was implicitly analogizing here: he implied that he was protecting these people not from prosecutions for crimes (which he actually was), but instead from angry irrational mobs outside, who were driven by blind hatred (like the lynch mobs were in the Old South). Obama was metaphorically siding here with the plantation owners, not with the slaves; with the KKK, not with their victims. This elite Black was telling them that he would protect them from prosecution. He wasn't going to protect the public - which he here analogized to simply a hate-obsessed mob of bigots.

SOURCE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/obama-finally-lays-his-ca_b_3025743.html

Politico article referenced above: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/20871.html

"We're all in this together." -- Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary

The thirteen bankers, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, were:

Ken Chenault, American Express
Ken Lewis, Bank of America
Robert Kelly, Bank of New York Mellon
Vikram Pandit, Citigroup
John Koskinen, Freddie Mac
Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase
John Mack, Morgan Stanley
Rick Waddell, Northern Trust
James Rohr, PNC
Ronald Logue, State Street
Richard Davis, US Bank
John Stumpf, Wells Fargo

SOURCE: http://13bankers.com/title/

Why do I have a problem with that?

As a Democrat -- in every election since my first, 1976 -- I believe all people are created equal and no one is above the law, including the rich and powerful. For some reason, since Jimmy Carter left office in 1981, they get bailouts and We the People get called to pick up their tab.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Does this mean we have to go through the Administration

with our pitchforks in order to get at the bankers?

[Octafish]

2. The dueling parties of Wall Street have well-paid staff.

DOW Up 153-percent since 2009. Wages up 2-percent.



The lagging line is your sad hourly earnings. They have barely budged since the market bottomed in 2009, while the Dow has skyrocketed 153 percent. Between November 2012 and November 2013, the latest data available, hourly wages for nonsupervisory workers rose just 2.1 percent, just barely ahead of inflation.

SOURCE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/31/stock-market-best-year-1997_n_4524267.html

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. the corpse of a republic

Five centuries ago, Niccolo Machiavelli explained how to undertake a revolution from above without most people even noticing. In his Discourses on Livy, he wrote that one “must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different from the old ones.”


That is, keep the old government structures, even while you make profound changes to the actual system, because the appearances are all that most people will notice.


So today, instead of seeing the corpse of a republic in which we live, we see merely the dead man’s clothing. Those clothes look the same as ever, albeit increasingly worn. We have had a quiet revolution that has not eliminated our Congressional representatives – it’s simply made them largely irrelevant.

As Machiavelli saw in his own time (and as he essentially foretold regarding our own), the dramatic changes to our political institutions have occurred without the people really noticing.

Consider the internationalization of real power in this world, and the lack of institutional means to examine or regulate such power. Our global situation is akin to medieval feudalism, or more simply gangsterism.

The military power of the United States is the primary tool for enforcement and self-enrichment by those with means. Best of all, you don’t have to be an American citizen to influence policies of the U.S. military.

[Octafish]

17. ''...appearances are all that most people will notice.''

A portion of David Talbot's remarks at the Duquesne Conference:

''The younger Dulles saw no separation between his business and the country's business.''

...As young men, the two brothers developed a passion for the game of chess and they would play one another with a single-minded intensity that blocked out everyone and everything around them. They would apply the same fervent gamesmanship to their global law practice and then to the world itself when they took their commanding positions in Washington.

The younger Dulles saw no separation between his business and the country's business. Long before he ran the CIA and toppled governments in Iran and Guatemala, and targeted leaders for assassination in Africa, Latin America and even Europe, Allen Dulles was carrying out similar, clandestine work on behalf of his wealthy corporate clients. In 1932 as a Sullivan & Cromwell fixer, he flew to Colombia at the request of the Mellon family, whose rich oil and mineral fields were in danger of being nationalized, and he helped arrange the election of a Mellon-friendly presidential candidate.

"There's a thin line," he said, "between high finance and the shadowy underworld."

When the Dulles brothers targeted a sovereign nation, they invariably did so by couching their mayhem as part of the global crusade against the spreading evil of communism. But, the leaders they overthrew or murdered were generally reformers, whose only sin was a devotion to improving the lives of their poverty-stricken people. When these foreign leaders moved to nationalize resources owned by U.S. and European corporate empires, they often aroused the lethal instincts of the Dulles Brothers. Because these multinational companies, whether it was United Fruit in Guatemala or the ARAMCO oil consortium in Iran, were also clients of the Dulles Brothers' law firm.

For the Democrats who do notice such things, Dallas and its aftermat officially put them on notice as to which side they should be on: the Money Trumps Peace side.

[Ichingcarpenter]

25. ''.appearances are all that most people will notice.''

that gives me some hope and change.


wink, wink.



I just finished

Big Oil & Their Bankers In The Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families & Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics & Terror Network

and posted some items in Good Reads


http://www.democraticunderground.com/101689211


First comment...... welcome to the Ukraine.... and I add Syria, Libya....etc.

[sabrina 1]

72. Excellent post. I just mentioned the devotion of the Neocons, Ledeen in particular, to Machievellian

theories, Ledeen even wrote a book about his hero, Machievelli.

Lying to the people eg, is 'necessary' and 'noble' in their world.

Remember THIS quote which it is believed, came from Karl Rove himself:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."[2

'All of you' would be us. He has been proven to be correct mainly due to those who will blindly defend and protect 'history's actors' no matter what they do.

If the people were ever to unite against them, instead of bickering (no doubt with their help) among themselves, they would definitely need to 'fear the people' rather than what they have accomplished, causing those people who DO speak out about what they up to, cause the people to fear THEM, see all of our Whistle Blowers eg, and good journalists, and even the people, see OWS, and how quickly they come under attack.

[leftyohiolib]

9. early version of storm troppers gaurding an early version of a death star

[Octafish]

31. Invisible Death Star

Meet the Unseen Bullwhip of the New Slavemasters...

LIBOR

Their Profit is Our Loss

The Dark Heart of the Libor Scandal

by MARK VORPAHL
CounterPunch, August 07, 2012

Though, for most, the London Inter-Bank Offer Rate (Libor) interest rate fixing scandal appears to be distant and far too complex to understand, its potential consequences may be as economically devastating as a world war.

The Libor is used to set payments on $800 trillion worth of financial instruments. It sets the prices that people and corporations pay for loans and receive for savings. Given that the fraud impacted $10 trillion in consumer loans, the Libor scandal will likely leave a long list of previous financial scandals that contributed to the Great Recession look like child’s play.

It also pulls back the curtain on the mechanisms behind the world economy, its anti-social priorities, its willingness to gamble away the future of billions of people, and the government’s collusion in these operations. The Libor scandal reveals that the “invisible hand” Adam Smith spoke of in explaining how a capitalist economy regulates itself has been transformed into the trained hand of a swindler.

SNIP...

Barclays Bank is just the tip of the iceberg. In several countries, 20 big banks are under investigation, including such behemoths as Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, RBS and UBS.

Current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Chairman Ben Bernanke have had to defend the Fed’s response when it first became aware of the fraud in 2008. While Geithner said he was “aggressive” in expressing his concerns, this on-going scandal did not come to light until four years later.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/07/the-dark-heart-of-the-libor-scandal/

Here in Detroit, since 2008, many of my friends have lost their homes. Almost always, their jobs went first.

Now that I think of it, the only ones who've moved up in the world are the ones in the financial services sector -- and not necessarily the honest ones.

[LuvNewcastle]

13. I think we should do whatever works.

Maybe pitchforks are the answer. I think it would be a nice start.

[Jack Rabbit]

20. Why go through the adminstration?

The former chief prosecutor at DOJ who made the decision not to prosecute is now making millions with an infamous Wall Street firm. The Attorney General makes lame excuses to a Senate Committee for not prosecuting Wall Street criminals, seeking only civil actions with relatively light fines. The government isn't working for us. It's been bought by bankers and industrialists.

The administration may as well be not standing between us and the Wall Street criminals. If this is a facade, it's made of papier-mâché. It creates only an illusion of justice because it is only an illusion of a government.

Wall Street banks are not too big to fail. They're too big for their breeches. The banks and industrialists own all three branches of the government and commit mortgage fraud with impunity. It's time for direct action against the criminals. Get your torches and pitchforks and go to the Bastille on Wall Street. Tear it down, brick by brick. Build a better world in its place.

It's time for a mass campaign of civil disobedience directed not at government, but at finance and industry. Organize! Agitate! Don't listen to their propaganda. They say these policies will create jobs. Horsepucky! After thirty years of Reaganomics, there is only one new job for every three unemployed workers. Heckovajob, job creators!

To the so-called job creators and Wall Street criminals: You've thrown us out of work and now rob us of everything we've earned. We're going to shut you down. We're going find ways around your economy, create our own and lock you out of it. We won't pay taxes to support the government you've taken from us. We won't patronize your banks or buy the products, mostly unnecessary, you make with cheap labor in China. We'll even, if necessary, create our our currency and let you keep the dollars that your own acts of "quantitative easing" are undermining as we speak. You can keep it and we'll let you suffer the hyperinflation that today's irresponsible fiscal policies are making. If you get your servile villains in Congress to pass laws against us, we'll ignore them. What part of civil disobedience do you not understand? You are finished!

[Jackpine Radical]

22. Everything you say is correct, but of course

Obama was talking about the gov't being there to protect the banksters from us, not to protect us from them. Any attempt to attack the banksters in any way will bring the government down on the dissidents. When I said "go through" the administration, I wasn't talking about using it. I was talking about going through it with the torches & pitchforks.

[Jack Rabbit]

27. Torches and pitchforks, as you and I both know, is merely a metaphor

It is a metaphor for that that will bring the government down on us. The government will come down on us whenever we go through it and not use it. Of course the government will come down when we go after the banksters because it is the banksters' government, not ours.

I'm more afraid of my children and grandchildren living in a world where working people will not be adequately rewarded for their labor and have industrial and financial aristocrats steal from them as the landed aristocracy stole from our peasant ancestors than I am of being shot or hanged for rising up. I'm sixty-two and living on disability. Koch-snorting bastards like Paul Ryan say my disability payments make me lazy and ought to be cut from the budget. After that, there's not much more they can take from me, like about a third of the years I was allotted, max. If it destroys corporate criminals so we can build a better world, they can have it.

[Jackpine Radical]

33. Of course it's a metaphor. I was following from Obama's use of that metaphor.

I have never seriously advocated violence, but there are ways to bring down a Corporate State without violence.

It will mean that a lot of our heads will get busted, but there's nothing new about that. Gandhi, MLK, the Vietnam antiwar movement, Occupy, etc. But I believe there are limits to what wealth will do. In the coming Collapse of Everything, I don't think the armies and police forces will stay loyal to their masters, especially when their pay buys nothing.

[Jack Rabbit]

36. Most agreed

Soorer or later, all that "quantitative easing" will hit the open market, whereas now it is relatively harmless sitting in bank vaults. But when the banks start using it, can you say "hyperinflation, Wiemar Republic style"?

Let's get organized now. Nothing's going to keep a lid on people power when our money's worthless. That's why I suggest establishing an alternate currency when that happens as a way to bring them down. It's nonviolent on our end, but they will call it counterfeiting. The trick will be to make it better than a hyperinflated dollar. That will hasten the defection of the cops and the troops to our side.

Read the textbook:
Please click here (PDF).
Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy, Fourth ed. (Albert Einstein Institution, 2010)

[Jackpine Radical]

59. I'm glad someone else is aware of Gene Sharp.

Here are 2 in return (unfortunately neither is available free):

Chenoweth & Stephan Why Civil Resistance Works
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Civil-Resistance-Works-Nonviolent-ebook/dp/B005SZEEXQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396103243&sr=1-1&keywords=erica+chenoweth

Though it defies consensus, between 1900 and 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts. Attracting impressive support from citizens that helps separate regimes from their main sources of power, these campaigns have produced remarkable results, even in the contexts of Iran, the Palestinian Territories, the Philippines, and Burma.

Combining statistical analysis with case studies of these specific countries and territories, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephen detail the factors enabling such campaigns to succeed-and, at times, causing them to fail. They find that nonviolent resistance presents fewer obstacles to moral and physical involvement, information and education, and participator commitment. Higher levels of participation then contribute to enhanced resilience, a greater probability of tactical innovation, increased opportunity for civic disruption (and therefore less incentive for the regime to maintain the status quo), and shifts in loyalty among opponents' erstwhile supporters, including members of the military establishment. They find successful nonviolent resistance movements usher in more durable and internally peaceful democracies, which are less likely to regress into civil war. Presenting a rich, evidentiary argument, this book originally and systematically compares violent and nonviolent outcomes in different historical periods and geographical contexts, debunking the myth that violence occurs because of structural and environmental factors and is necessary to achieve certain political goals. Instead, Chenoweth and Stephan find violent insurgency is rarely justifiable on strategic grounds.

I also found this very interesting little online report of an interview with Chenoweth:

http://www.thestreetspirit.org/discovering-the-unexpected-power-of-nonviolence-street-spirit-interview-with-erica-chenoweth-4/

and

Brafman & Beckstrom The Starfish & the Spider
http://www.amazon.com/The-Starfish-Spider-Unstoppable-Organizations/dp/1591841836/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1X5NMGG38CMAY5HBNWYZ

If you cut off a spider?s head, it dies; if you cut off a starfish?s leg it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. Traditional top-down organizations are like spiders, but now starfish organizations are changing the face of business and the world.

What?s the hidden power behind the success of Wikipedia, craigslist, and Skype? What do eBay and General Electric have in common with the abolitionist and women?s rights movements? What fundamental choice put General Motors and Toyota on vastly different paths?

Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom have discovered some unexpected answers, gripping stories, and a tapestry of unlikely connections. The Starfish and the Spider explores what happens when starfish take on spiders and reveals how established companies and institutions, from IBM to Intuit to the U.S. government, are also learning how to incorporate starfish principles to achieve success.

The combination of these 2 books made me start thinking about and appreciating the real genius of the Occupy movement.

[Old Codger]

3. Our entire justice dept.

Along with the senate, the house and the president are guilty of malfeasance in ignoring their oaths of office to uphold both the constitution and laws of our country, the rest of the world has pretty much gone along by not charging bush and cheney with war crimes in the case of an invasion of another country and their so-called "enhanced" interrogation techniques (torture). Their should have been a trial at the Hague regardless of our countries willingness to cooperate.

[CrispyQ]

10. +1. Great post. -nt

[Baitball Blogger]

4. I'm shocked that Obama would take this stance.

A country without accountability for its leaders creates privileged groups.

You want to know what is causing inequality? It's the fact that our leaders are not held responsible when they make decisions that break the law at the same time that it provides profit to certain sects in our society.

Why is there corruption in government? Because that's where the money is.

[rhett o rick]

12. Maybe he doesnt have a choice. He appears to have been given some leeway on social issues

but holds the 1% line for economic policy and policy related to the NSA/CIA/FBI. To think that the 1% doesnt have a strangle hold on our government is naive IMO.

[Jackpine Radical]

23. Absolutely.

Every President since Carter has been in the total thrall of the rich. And even Carter did some destructive deregulatory things. I guess I'd really take it back to Truman & the morphing of the OSS into the CIA, with the Dulles brothers, etc.

[fleabiscuit]

32. Original sin.

Our government was set up to protect the wealthy.

[dflprincess]

45. Carter has been a much better former president

and I sometimes wonder if his actions since leaving the White House have not been an attempt to atone for going along with the Wall Street crowd while he was in office. His interviews with Letterman and Colbert recently have been interesting - not earth shattering but enough to keep me thinking along this line.

Maybe he was afraid of winding up like JFK and didn't have the courage to stand up to them when he was president?

[PowerToThePeople]

5. Game over man, game over....

[bobthedrummer]

21. "We're on the express elevator to hell!" n/t

[jwirr]

7. And the banksters are still at it. There is at least examples of that in our history so it would not

have been something new.

[Octafish]

75. Not "If," but "When?"

From William K. Black:

The administration and its odd bedfellows, the Chamber of Commerce and the ABA, have maximized the perverse incentives that will drive future fraud epidemics, bubbles, and severe recessions. The administration’s embrace of Pratt’s cover up strategy, its breathless self-praise for its own brilliance in resolving the crisis at virtually no cost, its perversion of the accounting rules and the PCA to bail out and make even wealthier the senior officers’ whose frauds drove the current crisis, and both administrations’ failure to prosecute the elite frauds have enraged a broad spectrum of Americans. The Chamber of Commerce and the ABA have rewarded Obama’s tacit support for their dearest dreams with a vicious assault on him. This means that the administration’s banking policies have attained the terrible trifecta: terrible economics, terrible ethics, and terrible politics.

SOURCE: http://my.firedoglake.com/williamblack/2010/11/01/if-obama-thinks-the-response-to-the-sl-debacle-failed-why-is-he-adopting-it/

[G_j]

8. hasn't the statute of limitations now

run out on the banksters?

[LuvNewcastle]

14. I don't think so.

I think they're still doing the things that caused this mess in the first place.

[grahamhgreen]

19. Remember how the passed a law to retroactively protect telecoms from prosecution? Let's do the

opposite for banksters.

[Octafish]

35. Judge Rakoff Virtually Indicts Obama On Non-Prosecution Of Banksters

Eric Zuesse
Huffington Post, 1/15/2013 3:20 pm

On November 12th, Britain's Financial Times headlined, "Top judge criticises DoJ for not holding individuals accountable," and reported that U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff accused the Obama Administration ('the Department of Justice') of "excuses" for not prosecuting banksters. In his speech (linked to in the FT article), Rakoff said that the "Department of Justice ... has offered one or another excuse for not criminally prosecuting them - excuses that, on inspection, appear unconvincing." Rakoff noted that, "the stated opinion of those government entities asked to examine the financial crisis overall is ... fraud was committed." And Judge Rakoff also noted "the increased success that federal prosecutors have had over the past 50 years or so in bringing to justice even the highest level figures who orchestrated mammoth frauds. Thus, in the 1970's, in the aftermath of the 'junk bond' bubble, ... the progenitors of the fraud were all successfully prosecuted, right up to Michael Milken. ... In the 1980's, the so-called savings-and-loan crisis ... resulted in the successful criminal prosecution of more than 800 individuals ... In striking contrast with these past prosecutions, not a single high level executive has been successfully prosecuted in connection with the recent financial crisis, and given the fact that most of the relevant criminal provisions are governed by a five-year statute of limitations, it appears very likely that none will be." Rakoff then explained how the Obama Administration systematically blocked the types of investigations and prosecutions that, in previous decades, had held banksters personally liable and placed them into prison.

Basically, Rakoff set forth an indictment of Barack Obama. Rakoff's reason given for doing this now was that the 5-year statute of limitations is running out; his speech is thus a call for alarm, and possibly even a call for prosecution of the President, if that ever becomes possible. Rakoff is essentially laying out a case for prosecution of Obama as an accessory after-the-fact in aiding and abetting, if not masterminding, a cover-up of the crimes that had caused the 2008 collapse.

What is especially interesting about Rakoff's speech is his description of the tactics that the Obama Administration used in order to achieve this result. Rakoff, who knows very well the laws and precedents in regards to prosecution of executive financial crimes, lays out the methods of diversion from that system that were applied throughout the Obama Administration. He doesn't do this in detail - for example, he doesn't at all mention the role that the Administration's vigorous and successful effort to stop the state attorneys general from moving forward separately to investigate and possibly criminally prosecute these crimes under state laws and to divert those efforts into the omnibus 49-state "settlement" - but the outline he provides is quite clear, and does accurately describe the way the Administration dealt with accountability for the 2008 collapse, which was by blocking accountability for it and by transferring that onto civil penalties against the banks that had carried out these frauds, which is to say: wrist-slap fines against those banks' innocent current stockholders, fines so small anyway as to be inconsequential in comparison to the profits that were gained from these frauds (and from the taxpayers' bailouts sopping up the "toxic assets&quot .

As to the reason why congressional and other Republicans, who rail so vociferously against Obama for "death panels," "fake birth certificate," etc., have not pursued him on this, the reasons go beyond anything that's touched upon in Rakoff's speech, but the George W. Bush Administration had actually begun the system that President Obama has merely continued; and so, any prosecution of Obama would also expose the previous President, who was, of course, a Republican. Consequently, if there is to be any action taken against Obama, it would need to be initiated by Democrats. The Republican Party is complicit in any crimes that the Obama Administration might have perpetrated, because those were conservative crimes - such as protecting from prosecution the criminal elite who brought on and profited from the MBS bubble.

Thus, we have a Republican Party that cannot afford to criticize this President on the basis of the truth, but that is instead constantly coming at him because he isn't sufficiently right-wing to suit their inclinations, and this means that they always need to attack him on the basis of right-wing lies, rather than on the basis of the real truths that stick in their own political craws and that would condemn themselves as well. (This, too, is the reason why Obamacare, which the Heritage Foundation concocted in 1989, and which Romney instituted in Massachussetts, is now a curse to both Parties, neither of which can admit that expanding Medicare to cover all Americans would have been the right thing to do.)

Rakoff's speech presents in outline a strong case against this President, but this is a case that's apparently impossible politically to bring, given that the Republican Party is far right-wing, and that the man who would need to be pursued stands atop the less right-wing of the two existing conservative Parties. Consequently, both of the existing political parties cooperate with this corruption at the very top of the government, which covers up crimes at the very top of the nation's private economy.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/judge-rakoff-virtually-in_b_4275142.html

[Jefferson23]

11. Waitor, check please!

K&R

[FiveGoodMen]

15. Pretty sure that was the whole point of Looking Forward(TM)

AND of the guy who keeps trying to sell it to us.

[DeSwiss]

16. Everyone should get used to this......

...because the lies and deception is deep. And they go back forever. But the truth is coming out no matter what they do to try and stop it.

- It's the time of Lifting the Veil.

K&R

http://vimeo.com/20355767

[gussmith]

62. DeSwiss, Thank you

What a knock out presentation. If only we could get everyone to put away their electronic hallucinations long enough to watch, and listen.

[DeSwiss]

65. De Nada.

- Unfortunately, the TRUTH is too difficult for many to watch. They prefer their truths, and their decisions, pre-packaged and ready to eat for easy digestion.....

[sabrina 1]

82. That's one of the positive things to keep in mind. There seem to be more and more

people willing to risk everything to expose the fraud and corruption despite the attempts to crack down on whistle blowers. And in Europe, an astonishing few leaks, see the leaked tapes of Nuland eg plotting the coup in Ukraine and who the US wants in office as 'their guy'.

And just this week, more tapes from Turkey plotting to stage a 'false flag' attack on its own property in Syria, to instigate an 'incident' that would give NATO an excuse to go into Syria as they did Libya.

They can't seem to stop these exposures. OWS went worldwide, exposing the reality that at last the people are waking up and like them, going global.

Still, they got away with their crimes for far too long, giving them time to insulate themselves from prosecution.

But powerful as they may have made themselves it is no guarantee that they won't suffer the fate of other corrupt criminals before them. All Empires fall in the end. This one isn't any different. I just hope it happens soon before it's too late.

Thanks for the link. I will defnitely watch that.

[grahamhgreen]

18. They put children out on the streets so they could hoard billions they will never use.

[defacto7]

48. They don't need to use it....

They just want it.

[polichick]

24. When the SC appointed Bush. When Bush invaded Iraq. When we were forced to...

bail out the bankers and let Bush & Co. off the hook, the American people refused to fight it.

What will it take?

[colsohlibgal]

26. It's A Joke

Like the great George Carlin said, it's a big effing club and we're not in it.

That said, the happy clappy Obama bots will rationalize this somehow, bet on it. They are dogged in their defense of their guy.

[phleshdef]

28. "They are dogged in their defense of their guy." Because you folks are dogged in your persecution...

... of him. You consistently look for anything you can find to jump on, no matter how much you have to ignore context, political realities or outright misrepresent his stances, comments, actions, etc to do so.

You seem to have no interest in an honest debate. You just want to join the dog pile of over the top, histrionics being ever aimed at Barack Obama, no matter the cost to the quest for fact based arguments.

Meanwhile, the real enemy loves you for it.

[Octafish]

30. ''Meanwhile, the real enemy loves you for it.''

Who would that be? Republicans? Banksters? Warmongers? Domestic Government Spies?

I've been writing about them on DU for a long time in the hope things would change for them, from positions of power to places in prison.

[ReRe]

77. You must be young...

... and I don't in any way hold that against you. "...the real enemy loves you for it." And who might that "real enemy" be?

Why not take a couple of hours today to listen to DeSwiss' link upthread at post #16. Reality is NOT histrionics.

[Logical]

41. good point. nt

[MisterP]

29. wasn't that the whole point? and what are we gonna do? say the President

doesn't hate Wall Street? that's what got me kicked out of the "Safe Zone"

[Octafish]

34. Wish it weren't so, but it's Year Six and there's no Justice for Banksters, even on the horizon.

When given the choice between meeting the expectations of those who voted for him and those who called him a socialist, he went the safe root and did all he can to make himself into the friend of capital. Consider Larry Summers who wanted to go into history as the Fed Chair who made Quanititative Easing easy for the lasting friends he'd make. Some of the crew working feverishly to strengthen the, uh, middle class must think so, as well: Jacob Lew and Penny Pritzker, seeing how their employment record shows them siding with management 99-percent of the time.

A friend of mine with a PhD has devoted his career to making the City of Detroit, specifically, and the world, in general, a better place for those with less -- working in a not-for-profit community group that provides job training for the most in need -- the unskilled, long-term unemployed. When the agency he was with let him go -- from lack of funding -- he and his family lost their home. The banksters didn't even have the deed, it didn't matter.

Another friend of mine lost his brother in Iraq, an Army physician murdered by a fellow soldier who went nuts. For what?

"Angry" is not the word: "revolted" is starting to come close, but that's not it either.

[fleabiscuit]

38. Hey buddy, can you spare a newb a kick and tell him what the "Safe Zone" is? n/t

[Dragonfli]

40. See for yourself, a place where any criticism, no matter how minor

...or true...is cause for banishment, dripping hatred of the critic, and sometimes stalking with the intent to goad into insults and an eventual PPR.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1102

[leftstreet]

37. DURec

[DiverDave]

39. It's simple, really, he was told

that either your with us or against us.
The last one that was against us was JFK, and RFK (add MLK, because he was a threat)

He was threatened, and it aint so bad, he just says "we are looking
forward."

[dflprincess]

46. I was watching "Scandal" last night

There was a scene where the head of "B613" (an organization even shadier than the NSA) tell the president that "they" are in charge and made the decisions and he (the president) it just there to look pretty and make speeches.

Probably as close to the truth as network TV will ever get (though even on the soap opera that is "Scandal" they don't make the tie between this organization and Wall Street).

[OnyxCollie]

42. K&R. nt

[NorthCarolina]

43. Not playing the game can be terminally bad for your health. Besides

they all belong to the same country club.

[blkmusclmachine]

44. When is all that "Change!" scheduled to begin ?!?!

[tclambert]

47. "No one is above the law." Well, you cracked me up with that one.

America officially abandoned that ideal when Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon.

[defacto7]

49. Well, it could be...

a great work of intellectual masterisity, a self sacrificing act of benevolenceness.

Maybe the idea is to push progressives and liberal Dems so far away, piss them off so badly that they finally through subliminal coercion vote their mind instead of voting for the lesser of all evils ushering in a new age of enlightenment.

I think??

[Enthusiast]

50. This is why I have been so angry with the President.

This is why I say I have utter contempt for the President.

Allowing Bush and Cheney to escape prosecution for blatant treason and war crimes was bad enough.

Allowing the financial crimes to go unpunished and even rewarded was too much for me.

The President should have received universal condemnation for this. But, strangely enough, he was not. Where was the media? Same place they were leading up to the Iraq War? Same place they were after the 2000 election fiasco? And dare I say, same place they were after 911?

Where is the President's heart in this? Is he little more than an employee? Or, is he so ideologically in favor of Laissez-faire policy that he considers hoodwinking and cheating tax payers and consumers just a reward for the properly savvy businessman? WTF?

Or, does the President literally have a gun to his head and he is doing his best to put a happy face on the circumstances?

The most common explanation is the Obama DOJ didn't want to damage a fragile economy. But I believe holding these criminals responsible for financial crimes would have actually bolstered the economy.

[Exposethefrauds]

51. By not going after the criminals and even going so far as to

Use the Office of the President to intervene in another countries, Spain’s, investigation into the criminal activities of the Bush administration, is criminal in and of it’s self.

The President NOT going after Bush Co he has in effect become a criminal himself.

I am to the point now that whomever the next President is they need to reach back and prosecute ALL regardless of Party of any and all criminal and illegal activity.

Let the chips fall where they may.

Unless this happens the American Government will continue to slide even faster into fascism and it is not like we can count on the gun nuts to rise up in arms the gutless cowards won’t even rise up with the blatant 4th Amendment violations that have been occurring over the last few years. Of course most of us know the real reasons why most are armed to the teeth anyway and it is not because of fear of the Government that is for damn sure.

If we want change and a better American we need to hold our OWN to a higher standard if we don't we are no better then the TeaHadists.

[GoCubsGo]

54. One problem is that a lot of those financial crimes are not crimes.

There may have been laws at one time, but they've been chipping away at them since the Nixon years. I don't know about all y'all, but I find myself constantly asking, "How is that legal?" Yet, it almost always is, regardless of what the legal monstrosity.

Also, things were left in such a mess that they'll be sorting through things for decades. I suspect they just didn't know where to start, because the rat hole just keeps getting deeper and deeper.

I do think the President had a gun to his head regarding the Iraq war crimes, however. Just one look at the shit the CIA has been pulling, and I have little doubt they've threatened him, and probably his family.

[Enthusiast]

66. No, there were many crimes of fraud. These were even exposed on right wing liars 60 Minutes.

The banks paid fines, inadequate fines in many cases for their role in fraud. These fines prove their guilt.

So, yes, they were crimes. But that is how the President excused the crimes, just like you, by saying they weren't crimes. Clearly he isn't the honest President I thought I voted for.

[GoCubsGo]

67. Yes, there was massive fraud, and some of it was prosecuted.

Yes, the banks paid fines for some of their fraud, and far too little for it. I never said they didn't, nor did I say that they weren't guilty. What they were fined over was just the tip of the iceberg, and much of what has not been prosecuted never will be, because it is completely legal, regardless of how crooked and unethical it is.

If you don't think the President is honest, you are free to feel that way. I don't think it's all that clear, myself. I think his hands have been tied by the law--or lack thereof, and by Congress. It wouldn't surprise me if there's quite a bit of extortion going on by the banking industry, too.

[woo me with science]

52. K&R

[MannyGoldstein]

53. Chelsea Clinton is a wealthy, wealthy woman

What kind of father doesn't want that for their children?

Now you people want to criminalize being a good father?

Sick!

Regards,

TWM

[HughBeaumont]

56. Oh, don't forget JK Rowling wouldn't be able to write books.

Or, you know, Bill Gates, that wonderful charitable arbiter of fairness . . . because if we do anything to him, he and Melinda might be destitute, you know.

[HughBeaumont]

55. Hollingsworth Hound's 'Murica coming to life:

and finally, relating to the topic at hand . . . 2014 AMERICA, courtesy of Your Criminal Class and the Weaklings that "Police" Them:

[Octafish]

70. Hollingsworth Hound and his fellow capitalists control the cash.

The financialization of the American economy

Greta R. Krippner

Abstract:

This paper presents systematic empirical evidence for the financialization of the US economy in the post-1970s period. While numerous researchers have noted the increasing salience of finance, there have been few systematic attempts to consider what this shift means for the nature of the economy, considered broadly. In large part, this omission reflects the considerable methodological difficulties associated with using national economic data to assess the rise of finance as a macro-level phenomenon shaping patterns of accumulation in the US economy. The paper develops two discrete measures of financialization and applies these measures to postwar US economic data in order to determine if, and to what extent, the US economy is becoming financialized. The paper concludes by considering some of the implications of financialization for two areas of ongoing debate in the social sciences: (1) the question of who controls the modern corporation; and (2) the controversy surrounding the extent to which globalization has eroded the autonomy of the state.

From Exit Capitalism:

"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him." -- Leo Tolstoy

...and:

"The global oligopolies that at present dominate the world economy , are fully financialized. Actually we can not speak of a pure "financial sector" (banks, insurance companies, etc.) by one side and a "productive sector" on the other . The global corporatocracy, composed by a few industrial and financial giant oligopolies, control the technology, the natural resources, the finance, the communications, and the information all over the planet." ... " Many analysts talk about an allegedly separated artificial, negative "financial capitalism" and of a supposed positive "real capitalism", creator and producer of real use. But it is the two side of the same coin. The same oligopolies have large industrial corporations and large financial institutions." -- Ravi Bhandari, The Corporatocracy and the Global Crisis

For those new to the subject of the role of finance in the disappearing middle class:

The rape of Detroit: Deindustrialization, financialization and parasitism

By Barry Grey
28 February 2014

The Workers Inquiry into the Bankruptcy of Detroit and the Attack on the DIA & Pensions was held Saturday, February 15 at Wayne State University. The World Socialist Web Site published an initial report on the meeting on February 17. Today we publish an edited version of the report to the Inquiry delivered by Barry Grey, World Socialist Web Site US national editor.


SNIP...

As manufacturing was dismantled and economic activity shifted more and more to financial manipulation, the enrichment of the financial-corporate elite was increasingly separated from the creation of real value through the process of production.
[Click for slide 10]
Here are some indices of the decline of manufacturing in the US in general, and Detroit in particular:

* The United States lost approximately 42,400 factories between 2001 and 2010.
* The United States lost 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010.
* Since 1979, 267 of the 447 auto manufacturing plants in the US have been closed, or 60 percent. Of those that closed, 42 percent shut down between 2004 and 2010.
[Click for slide 11]
* The number of manufacturing jobs in Detroit proper fell from 296,000 in 1950 to 27,000 in 2011.
* In 1960, there were 35 major auto plants in and around Detroit, including the Ford Rouge complex, GM’s Cadillac plant and Dodge Main, employing over 110,000 workers. Today, there are 14, employing less than 22,000 workers.
* Since 1989, auto-related employment in Michigan has declined by 70 percent.
* 61 auto plants, large and small, have been closed in the Detroit metro area since 1979.
* From 2000 to 2008, metro Detroit lost 150,000 jobs due to downsizing in the auto industry.

Corporate America laid waste to industrial cities across the US. The epidemic of plant closures and mass layoffs undermined the financial position of the cities. Mass unemployment and declining population depleted income and sales tax revenues. The shutting of plants and urban decay sapped property tax revenues.

At the same time, both federal and state aid to cities was repeatedly cut.

CONTINUED...

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/28/barr-f28.html

I know you know, HughBeaumont, but it needs restating: The game today -- financialization -- requires capital. Those who have capital, will get ahead simply by having it. Finance makes for a bigger profit margin than manufacturing, so buh-bye factory jobs.

The rest who don't have large sums of capital to invest or deposit, from the Upper Middle Class down through Labor through the unskilled workers to the unemployed and poor, are S.O.L. The former dominant sector, manufacturing, no longer exists as the means of support for a middle class.

Too bad, as making stuff was the means for building lasting wealth -- from new roads, bridges, schools, communities -- to the high wages that made it possible for the workers and middle class to buy what they made -- from cars to homes and all the rest.

[99Forever]

57. This is the...

... The Third Way style of ruling. This exactly why, no Third Way Democrat should EVER hold office again.

[randome]

58. Swallow hard and move on with your life.

To spend all this time lamenting something that you know will never change does a disservice to your own capabilities.

The Serenity Prayer may be something to keep in mind during these troubled times.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Screw the God part (IMO), but the central idea is solid.

Tilt at windmills all you want. Neither the windmill nor the wind care.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

[scarletwoman]

69. Swallow, eh? No thank you, I'd rather spit. (nt)

[Octafish]

71. Telling me to quit is a sign of where you're coming from, randome.

Until the gangsters, warmongers, war criminals and traitors are in prison, I will never give up.

[randome]

78. But you KNOW you won't succeed. So what is the purpose?

This?

Commit to something that makes a difference. Committing to banging your head on the wall does no one any good.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]“If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space.”
Gregory Peck, Mirage (1965)[/center][/font][hr]

[Solly Mack]

73. Victims of America's torture program are still trying to get justice.

Should they also swallow hard and get on with their lives?

[randome]

79. Not at all.

Getting 'justice', however, will never include arresting Bush or Rumsfeld or anyone else. That's simple reality. Obama knows this. He could bang his own head against the wall trying to change this but it isn't going to happen.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen, Anthem (1992)[/center][/font][hr]

[Solly Mack]

80. Then that is what they are being told. Because anything less isn't justice at all.

[grasswire]

81. insidious claptrap nt

[Octafish]

84. randome thinks the Constitution is ''old and outmoded''

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023793016#post9

Don't know where he's coming from, but that's an odd way for a citizen of the United States to feel.

[bobduca]

60. K&R

[bobthedrummer]

61. Kick n/t

[woo me with science]

63. kick for corruption

[raouldukelives]

64. K&R

[Oilwellian]

68. Back to the top

K&R

[woo me with science]

74. kick

[haikugal]

76. Kick!!! Great information.

This is why I continue to come here. Truth to power.

I don't post often and lately it's been unbearable to read the nonsense being posted by the 'purity brigade' because it is the exact same crap, in every way, that I've encountered on right wing forums. I'm convinced it's intentional. An OP with the information and intelligence of this one is the best offense in my view. Depressing as the knowledge is it counters the bullshit.

Thanks to everyone but particularly Octafish…when I read this it gave me hope….I'm not alone.

[Octafish]

83. The Wall Street settlements and the new aristocracy

Andre Damon
wsws.org, 2 April 2014

Last week, Bank of America became the latest major financial institution to announce a multi-billion-dollar settlement with US regulators of charges related to the 2008 financial meltdown. In a settlement worked out with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the bank agreed to pay $5.83 billion in fines and buy back $3.2 billion in mortgage-backed securities from the government-sponsored mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to whom it sold the toxic assets in the run-up to the Wall Street crash. The settlement involves the largest fine levied by a single federal regulator in US history.

The agreement adds to the more than $100 billion in fines that have been levied by US regulators on major American and global banks since the financial crisis, more than half of which has been imposed over the past year.

The record size of the settlements points to the pervasiveness and scale of the criminality of the banks and their top officials. And yet, not a single leading bank executive has been criminally charged.

This is not for lack of evidence. The 2011 reports by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission document in considerable detail the fact that the 2008 crash was triggered by criminal wrongdoing by bank executives. Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said that the committee had found “a financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest and wrongdoing.”

The most egregious crimes by Wall Street and international banks that have led to financial settlements with US regulators include the following:

* Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase and other banks sold mortgage-backed securities they knew to be virtually worthless, helping to trigger the 2008 crash. Even as the banks were selling these securities to investors, they were making huge profits by betting against the same securities, without telling those to whom they were palming off the securities.

* Major US banks, including Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, illegally processed and even forged home mortgage documents in order to more quickly foreclose on the homes of families that had fallen behind on their mortgage payments. The number of people illegally foreclosed on will never be known because the Obama administration put a stop to the tally, but the figure is likely in the millions.

* Nearly all of the major US and international banks manipulated the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), the benchmark global interest rate used to set rates on some $350 trillion in financial assets, including mortgages, credit cards, student loans and bonds. By falsely reporting the interest they paid for loans from other banks, these institutions concealed their losses and increased their profits—at the expense of individual retirees, home and car owners, pension funds and municipalities all over the world.

* Major banks, including JPMorgan and UBS, were key partners in the $65 billion Ponzi scheme operated by Bernard Madoff. Earlier this year, JPMorgan, Madoff’s main banker, agreed to pay $2 billion to settle charges that it knowingly profited from Madoff’s scam. The deal shielded JPMorgan and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, from criminal charges through a “deferred prosecution” provision.

The settlements themselves were worked out between the banks and their regulators so as to have the maximum public relations effect, creating the appearance that the banks were being held accountable while minimizing the financial impact on the companies. The banks write off the fines—many of which are tax deductible—as part of the “cost of doing business.”

Not only have no top bankers been prosecuted, no major US banks have been broken up or nationalized. The big banks have grown even bigger and more powerful and have recovered their previous levels of profitability. Even taking into account the settlements with regulators, the six largest US banks made $76 billion in profits last year, just under the record set in 2006 and eclipsing every other year since 2008.

Wall Street pay, too, has hit record levels. The average bonus payout for Wall Street employees grew by 15 percent in 2013, reaching its highest level since the crash. Last week, both Bank of America and Morgan Stanley announced they were nearly doubling the pay of their respective chief executives for 2013.

SNIP...

The refusal of the government of the United States or that of any other major industrialized country to prosecute the bankers whose illegal operations triggered the crash of 2008 and subsequent global recession, or take any action against the banks that they head, demonstrates that society is once again dominated by a parasitic elite that, like the aristocrats of old, is above the law.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/04/02/pers-a02.html

PS: You are most welcome, haikugal! Please know that as long as there are two of us, we are never alone and we will never give up.