Today's output from Blogistan Polytechnic Institute’s state-of-the-art HEMMED (High-Energy Meta Mojo Elucidation Detector) machine is the sound of an unvoiced linguolabial trill (or raspberry) from Wall Street America to the rest of us.
I saw this cool video from the White House web site the other day. A clear and simple explanation of the financial crisis. How it happened, what the result was.
Especially pertinent is the discussion about mortgages, what the banksters did with your money and how your homeownership was affected. Here are the links to some text: Top 10 Things You May Not Know About the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the ADHD version) and Wall Street Reform (with more "words").
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Ah, how nice. Waxing poetic about no more Too Big To Fail ... ::screeching brakes:: ... what's this? There is no more Too Big to Fail? Banks cannot get so big that for them to fail crashes the whole economy?
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The video is very cute but I am not sure that part is completely true. The serious TBTF pieces of financial reform were filibustered into oblivion by the republicans and the tone-deaf Democrats in the Senate. Maybe there was a "we sure hope like heck they don't get big enough to take down the economy but we do not have the courage to include that as a requirement" (WSHLHTDGBETTDTEBWDNHTCTITAAR for "short" --- just like their wishful thinking is "wise").
"Too big too fail" is obviously not the same as "smart enough to avoid looking like total jerks" ... by taking our money and using it to firm up their bottom line so they can start giving out obscene bonuses to themselves....instead of loaning money to businesses: what used to be the business of banks. From Senator Bernie Sanders(who sends me emails...thanks, Bern!):
Wall Street banks, investment banks, hedge funds and other financial firms are set to pay $144 billion in compensation and benefits this year, a 4 percent increase from the record-breaking $139 billion paid out in 2009, according to the survey by The Wall Street Journal.
"Wall Street caused the economic disaster that led to the loss of more than 8 million American jobs. At a time when the middle class is disappearing due to the greed and recklessness on Wall Street, it is unconscionable that big banks are rewarding the same executives that caused the worst financial crisis since the 1930s with record-breaking pay packages," Sanders said. "Instead of doling out huge bonuses, Wall Street should be investing much of this money into the job-creating productive economy. These Wall Street executives would not have jobs today if working-class taxpayers did not bail them out.
"Something is profoundly wrong" Sanders added, "when nearly 40 percent of all profits produced by our economy go to financial services while the manufacturing base that once made the American middle class the envy of the world is collapsing."
The pay packages for the financiers whose greed and recklessness caused the worst recession since the 1930s provides fresh evidence that the system still needs radical reform, according to Sanders. "They have done enough damage," he said
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Senator Sanders plans to reintroduce his "Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act" that would require the Treasury Department to break up the "commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds and insurance companies that have grown so large that a failure would have a catastrophic effect on the financial system or the U.S. economy without substantial government assistance".
I do not suggest holding your breath waiting for this legislation to become law. To begin with, there is still a chance that Democrats will lose Congress after the 2010 midterm elections. If you think that the Tea Party GOP has any interest in law-making, you have been in a deep sleep...or a trance.
Even though the Tea Party is running on a platform of less government and punishing their own members of Congress who voted for the bank bailout, they do not have any interest in actual "laws" that would "change the way banks do business" or to "fix things". Had enough scare quotes yet?
GOP control of Congress won't just be scare quotes...it will be scare reality.
Here is some scary reality to give you a taste:
Three out of the four largest banks in America (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo) are now larger than before the bailout. The four largest banks in America have assets equal to more than 50 percent of the entire annual U.S. gross domestic product
Repetition is a helpful memory tool, especially with a tough lesson: Three out of the four largest banks in America are now larger than before the bailout.
Their risky behavior and our need to bail them out resulted in the Great Recession. Their risky behavior has not really stopped if they are doling out the kind of bonuses that we are reading about and if they are getting bigger.
And now we are finding that the banks profits are threatened by the foreclosure crisis and that we should not be mean to the banksters because it could "affect their bottom lines".
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Chief Bankster from one of the now-bigger-than-before-the-bailout banks JP Morgan Chase Jamie Dimon wants to continue with the foreclosures:
Dimon promised that there was "almost no chance we made a mistake" with foreclosures. "We think we should continue and get done and make sure we do the right things for the consumers, the investors and the country. So it obviously will increase our cost a little bit and maybe we’ll have to pay penalties eventually to some of the attorneys general but we really think we should just continue."
You see, we, the middle class, are Too Small To Care About (TSTCA if you are keeping track -- the TS part of that you have probably already seen once or twice in your life when you complained about something not being fair).
Since there is "almost no chance" that a bank could make a mistake with your foreclosure and we see right there in Mr. Dimon's statement that the investors of JP Morgan Chase are Very Important, you just need to suck it up and live with the fact that you might no longer have a place to live. Because maybe you were the victim of this guy:
In early September, an employee of GMAC Mortgage admitted he had signed as many as 10,000 affidavits, required in 23 states to proceed with foreclosure, a month. The affidavits attested that the employee had personal knowledge of homeowners’ financials before the bank foreclosed.
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We have been told by Eric Cantor that "people have to take responsibility for themselves"...you know, like knowing that some guy in Pennsylvania may have been signing fraudulent affidavits related to your property. Darn you for not being Omniscient, blasted homeowner!
So the Too Big to Fail banks have gotten bigger and the ranks of the Too Small to Care About have swelled.
And somehow in UpsideDownWorld™ (formerly "America - Land of Opportunity™) the Tea Party Republicans are poised to be rewarded for their past failures by another chance to finish the job of destroying the middle class. And the even scarier news? The only thing they will have learned is that their colleagues who voted for TARP lost their jobs so this time around...no TARP...and instead of a Great Recession...we will have a Great Depression 2.0.
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Happy Thursday Friday to everyone or, if this is too depressing, at least have some fist bumps!
The BPI Campus Progressive agenda:
- People matter more than profits.
- The earth is our home, not our trash can.
- We need good government for both #1 and #2.
Crossposted from Blogistan Polytechnic Institute (BPICampus.com)
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