What "Occupy Wall Street"--and America--is all about

We need to get Alan Grayson back in Congress, to join Sen. Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich.

Noted economist Joseph Stiglitz on the "Occupy Wall Street" protests

"You are right to be indignant. The fact is the system is not working right. It is not right that we have so many people without jobs when we have so many needs that we have to fulfill. It’s not right that we are throwing people out of their houses when we have so many homeless people. Our financial markets have an important role to play. They’re supposed to allocate capital, manage risks. But they misallocated capital, and they created risk. We are bearing the cost of their misdeeds. There’s a system where we’ve socialized losses and privatized gains. That’s not capitalism; that’s not a market economy. That’s a distorted economy, and if we continue with that, we won’t succeed in growing, and we won’t succeed in creating a just society." --Joseph Stiglitz, Economist to the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters. Links: http://dangerousintersection.org/2011/10/06/economist-joseph-stiglitz-speaks-to-the-wall-street-occupiers/; http://www.kansascity.com/2011/10/09/3196907/hundreds-march-in-kc-occupy-movement.html#storylink=omni_popular

And you're angry at THIS president and his administration?

I don't care who you are, whether you're a Conservative, a Republican, an independent, Tea Party member, Libertarian, whomever, if you're in any way angry at this president and his administration for what you see as going into "Socialism" and "big government" and a social-welfare state, honey, you have another think coming.

Yes, come with me now as we once again look back on that last administration and what they and the Fed did for big business, specifically the big banks in this country and around the world.  Let's put this current administration into perspective.

That last administration, via Mr. Bernanke and now former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson did with our government--and our money.

They gave the following low-interest loans to the following companies, and in these amounts:

Goldman Sachs received nearly $600 billion; 

Morgan Stanley received nearly $2 trillion; 

Citigroup received $1.8 trillion; 

Bear Stearns, received nearly $1 trillion, 

Merrill Lynch, received some $1.5 trillion in short term loans from the Fed.

From Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent, VT) today at The Huffington Post:

We also learned that the Fed's multi-trillion bailout was not limited to Wall Street and big banks, but that some of the largest corporations in this country also received a very substantial bailout. Among those are General Electric, McDonald's, Caterpillar, Harley Davidson, Toyota and Verizon.

Perhaps most surprising is the huge sum that went to bail out foreign private banks and corporations including two European megabanks -- Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse -- which were the largest beneficiaries of the Fed's purchase of mortgage-backed securities.

Deutsche Bank, a German lender, sold the Fed more than $290 billion worth of mortgage securities. Credit Suisse, a Swiss bank, sold the Fed more than $287 billion in mortgage bonds.

Senator Sanders asks a very pertinent question:  Has the Federal Reserve of the United States become the central bank of the world?

Mind you, that last administration kept all this quiet and totally out of the public's knowledge until only recently because Sen. Sanders had to put into law a provision, asking for a breakdown of just what exactly was given to whom but for all the complainers and haters out there, of this administration, I ask you--where was your outrage back when the ultra-white and very-privileged George W. Bush and Co. were spending like drunken sailors and starting pre-emptive and illegal wars, all in our name?

If you're going to be raising hell about something, you ought to be raising it about the guy who gave over the candy store to the rich fatcats, not the guy who is, now, trying to stand up for the everybody else in the country and not the wealthiest top tier.

You knuckleheads.

Link to original post:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/a-real-jaw-dropper-at-the_b_791091.html

Important article

I haven't thought about or read anything in, of or from Rolling Stone Magazine since, what? I was a in my late teens?

I've moved on.

Reading about "rock and roll" was absolutely NOT a priority in any way. Heck no.

But recently, this past week, I became aware of the cover story by Matt Taibbi about Goldman Sachs and I knew I just had to read it.

You should, too.

Everyone should read this thing.

If you don't know that Goldman Sachs and its employees have been running the financial side of our government for some time, then you don't know Hank Paulson.

You really owe it to yourself and, no kidding, your country, to go to the Rolling Stone Magazine's site and read this article. Besides being a bit like a civics lesson, it can be and is much more. It's fascinating, for sure.

Today, too, the RS article is even more topical and relevant since G-S announced a whopping $3.4 billion turn-around profit within the last 24 hours.

Check this out from the PBS online news source:

"The bank's rebound is likely to assuage concerns that Wall Street remains hobbled by the credit crunch. The better-than-expected earnings report may set the tone for other big banks' earnings reports due in the days to come, including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo."

Here's the good part:

"But questions are also being raised about how Goldman was able to so quickly return to profits even as it enjoyed a multi-billion dollar cushion from the U.S. government. On Monday, the Financial Times reported that Goldman executives sold nearly $700 million of stock during an eight-month period following the collapse of rival Lehman Brothers last September. Most of the sales, the newspaper reported, occurred during the period the bank had a $10 billion federal lifeline."

Questions indeed. But they'll never be asked or answered, let's not kid ourselves. This and the last administrations in Washington are far too complicit with Goldman to really do much about them.

One good, short, important quote from the R. Stones arcticle, I think: "organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy."

Translated: we're screwed.

But knowledge is power so let's get some more knowledge and then vote accordingly and not put up with certain crap that's been going on for too long.

You can find the article here:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29127316/the_great_american_bubble_machine/1

Link to PBS article here:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/business/july-dec09/goldmansachs_07-14.html

What The New York Times thinks, anyway

In today's New York Times, it seems very clear what they, at least, think should happen.

First, they covered John Thain's fleecing of his company and the American people, when he was at the head of Merrill Lynch. You probably heard about this guy--he had his private bathroom done for $1.2 million dollars, for starters and then gave away billions of dollars of bonuses, for God's sake, just before Bank of America bought them and just before B of A had to get billions of dollars of your and my tax money to cover all their lossed, these included.

Let it be said now and into the future and in the American history books that John Thain is and was a thief and scumbag.

Second, the Times had an editorial by Paul Krugman, saying we need, as a country, to nationalize banks in the country and the sooner the better.

Third, there was an editorial column saying the same thing.

Finally, there is a fourth separate article pointing out how Sweden's advice to the US in the financial mess we're in would be to, repeat after me--nationalize the banks--or some of them, anyway.

So it's pretty clear what some people and groups in the US think we should be doing.

It will likely happen, too, for a few reasons:

1) It will be called "nationalizing" the banks, not socialism;

2) It will be stated that it's intended to be temporary and finally

3) We're in one hell of an ugly financial crisis and our government leaders don't know what else to do, other than also borrow and hand out trillions of dollars of money.

The banks and their leaders were incredibly irresponsible and greedy, which is why we're in this mess, and that's what the John Thain piggery makes so clear.

One thing is for sure--we need a quick return to good, strong, clear and complete regulation of our banking system, now and forever.

Are we done yet?

Could we now, once and for all, put to rest the ridiculous, short-sighted and irresponsible idea that the banking industry in the United States doesn't have to be regulated by government?

Please?

That same deregulation of banking in the US allowed for the huge scale of unsupportable, irresponsible loans to people who should never have had them and couldn't afford them in the first place. While it got these institutions absurd, large and, again, unsupportable short-term benefits and false profits, it has brought about the largest collapse of the international banking system since the Great Depression. This is no longer debatable.

The government, while we do want it small, efficient and responsible, is extremely important for its role as watchdog, particularly against corruption within corporations and multinational corporations.

We are now paying the price for not having scrutinized our banking sector. Indeed, the world is paying this price, really, due to the collapse in confidence of the credit markets.

Can we agree that government has its role in the world and move on?