Screw the Banks and Investment Firms

littleflower · Post by **littleflower** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:18 am

i am all for posting here ...

and i always at least look at your posts, cowboyangel, because i love your avatar ... what is it? who is the artist?

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 8:51 am

Waddya mean avatar? That is me! The inner me!

I did post a pic in the face to go with your whatever thread.

ygmir · Post by **ygmir** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 8:12 pm

[youtube][/youtube]

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:27 pm

ygmir! Way ta go! Neat! I Love It!!

ygmir · Post by **ygmir** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:32 pm

I'm not such a super "politico" but, it seems we are sliding towards fascism, if, I understand the definition correctly............
Or is it socailism where the gov. starts to take over private business and such?

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:00 am

neither. It's called "plutocracy"- rule by the wealthy elite.

Geithner Update - Bend Over and Say, â€œUncle Samâ€

ygmir · Post by **ygmir** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 5:58 am

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 6:52 pm

The Bad Bank Really Is Bad!!

anybody care to analyze or pick this apart?

Dandelion Salad

by Michael Hudson
ICH
March 27, 2009 â€œCounterpunchâ€œ

Newspaper reports seem surprised at how high banks are bidding for the junk mortgages that Treasury Secretary Geithner is now bidding for, having mobilized the FDIC and Fed to transfer yet more public funds to the banks. Bank stocks are soaring â€“ thereby bidding up the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as if the â€œfinancial industryâ€

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 7:02 pm

More Wisdom From the Man Who Brought Us Seat Belts and The Death of the PINTO

Paying for the Deficit by Ralph Nader
Posted on March 27, 2009 by dandelionsalad

Dandelion Salad

by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
March 27, 2009

Where is the revenue coming from to help reduce the tidal waves of red ink during the massive deficit spending by Washington to bolster Wall Street greed, stimulate the economy and rescue homeowners?

The scale of federal deficit is witnessed by the new frequency with which the dollar word â€œtrillionsâ€

littleflower · Post by **littleflower** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:14 am

unfortunately, some problems have only bad solutions. some may sound better than others, but no matter what, they cause pain, and the people who make the decisions are blamed for that pain ... sometimes, they are blamed even more than the people who caused the problem in the first place.

there are always people who claim that their solution would have caused less, or even no pain. but they can never prove it.

and no, i am not being a sheep. i just know that i don't want to be the person making these decisions.

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 11:34 am

I'm not calling you a sheep LF. We're all in this together. There is an exploitative class out there who represent a scant but extremely wealthy sector of the population. Their greed and unregulated excesses are the primary cause of the financial troubles.

littleflower · Post by **littleflower** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 11:55 am

but this has always been true, CBA ... and every attempt to change it has just resulted in a different gang of wealthy power-hungry greedy people at the top ... and a diminished middle class.

i seriously doubt that obama would be president if that power elite were as powerful as you suggest. his background and connections just don't fit.

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 5:17 pm

littleflower wrote:but this has always been true, CBA ... and every attempt to change it has just resulted in a different gang of wealthy power-hungry greedy people at the top ... and a diminished middle class.

i seriously doubt that obama would be president if that power elite were as powerful as you suggest. his background and connections just don't fit.

Gosh, you get prettier all the time LF. Nice avatar.

Actually Obama WAS put in place by that class. His biggest contributors were Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Chase. More. Those groups gave Obama more money than to McCain! Go figure that one baby. Also, Geithner helped Paulson engineer the first bailout and Geithner was the Fed Reserve Pres of the NY Bank. Larry Summers, also on the Obama team was the deregulation King during the Clinton years. What's different this time around, is these creepazoids are being exposed by a vast internet blogging campaign which this venerable nasty crazy Burning Man site is part of.

We just need to energize massive street actions in creative non-violent ways. Wanna be part of it? It's fun too!

ygmir · Post by **ygmir** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 5:32 pm

*runs to shed out back, looking for sickle, pitchfork, and, torch*

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 5:45 pm

Not too far off Bro :) I was thinking of dressing like the grim reaper and giving out Paul Craig Robert essays on how to reform the economy at the old defunct Pacific Stock Exchange on Pine St. in San Fran.

ygmir · Post by **ygmir** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 5:58 pm

littleflower · Post by **littleflower** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:35 pm

forget the grim reaper, cowboyangel ... dress up as the real you! you'll get more chicks ...

my usual answer ... it's NEVER that simple.

regulation if great, if it stops corruption and doesn't inhibit business... but there is a balance. you assume that all, or most, executives are greedy crooks, and that is unfair.

i see it like i see guns ... make 'em illegal, and only the criminals will have them. the truth is, a clever crook will always find a way to steal.

after the enron mess, they passed the sarbanes-oxley act ... i had a friend, a left-leaning, academically-inclined CPA who studied the law, and told me how good it was, how it would stop those greedy bastards from stealing. the week before, a CFO i know told me how to get around the law. not only that, but the CFO told me that his controller could do exactly what he said, and my friend probably would not catch him ... it's nearly impossible to keep track of every dollar on a multi-billion dollar balance sheet, and he would go to jail for not preventing the theft. great, eh? how would you like to be in those shoes?

do you really believe that a bunch of bureaucrats in washington and their academic advisor buddies understand the complexities involved in actually running a business? are they trustworthy themselves?

as for the money people preferring obama ... there are a great many filthy rich business people who are democrats. why, who knows? nothing is so simple as good-guys, bad-guys. perhaps you have seen too many 50's westerns ...

ygmir · Post by **ygmir** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:45 pm

It's impossible to see to many 50's westerns........

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:09 pm

it's not only regulation but enforcement and the justice department has been just as anemic as congress. True about laws, moral corruption is rampant and that takes another kind of reform...LIKE good people finding the courage in themselves to do the right thing...it spreads when we invite that kind of bravery into the public story through art, news social actions....

I still like the idea of the grim reaper costume and burning fake 20, 10 5 buck bills...as I smoke a Romeo E Julietta

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:22 pm

...and my hat's off to Boots and Saddles, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Sugarfoot, Have Gun Will Travel, Wagon Train, Yancy Derringer, Maverick, Wild Wild West, Johnny Yuma , The Rebel (Nick Adams yeah!) RawHide ( Clint!) , Branded, The Rifleman (Chuck Connors) The Lone Ranger, Cisco Kid, Daniel Boone, Little House on the Prairie , The Big Valley, Wyatt Erp (Brave Courageous and Bold) The Roy Rogers Show, Wells Fargo, Hec Ramsey, ( Richard Boone great part) Batt Masterson, F Troop (shit, that too)

They don't call me Cowboyangel for nothin, now put that gun down nice and slowly like and walk away from the table.

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:32 pm

They shoulda given Lee Van Cleef his own TV show. That's good, it's bad and it's Ugly

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:35 pm

Yeah, there ain't quite nothin like Lee!

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 12:40 am

What we really need- Greider's 7 Points. Listen Carefully!

Trust Your Guts
By William Greider

March 28, 2009

A reassuring new story line is emanating from our leaders. I heard Representative Barney Frank, chair of the House Banking Committee, explain it. Then I read the same line in a Washington Post news story. That tells me people in high places are selling it. Dynamic capitalism, they explain, invents ways to create greater wealth, but sometimes it goes a little too far. Then government has to step in to correct things. This need typically occurs every generation or so, all in a day's work. The Obama administration is proposing "sweeping" new regulatory laws so that capitalism can continue its good works.

The story makes disturbing current events sound practically normal. But what are the storytellers leaving out? They aren't saying that this financial catastrophe was not merely an inevitable development of history but a man-made disaster. Greedheads on Wall Street did their part, but so did Washington. The reason we need new rules is that a generation of Democrats and Republicans systematically repealed or gutted the old ones--the regulatory controls enacted eighty years ago to remedy the last breakdown of capitalism (better known as the Great Depression).

The White House executed a nifty two-step this week to re-educate the public and deflect anger. On Tuesday Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner relaunched the massive bailout of banking and finance. Knowing how unpopular this is with the people at large, Geithner followed on Thursday with his "sweeping" plans to re-regulate the bankers and financiers. Whenever official plans are called "sweeping," it indicates that they really, really mean it this time.

Most Americans are not financial experts. It's very difficult, nearly impossible, for normal mortals to sort through the dense policy talk and conflicting opinions to figure out if the rhetoric of reform is real. Confusion is widespread in the land. Most Americans want to believe this president is leading us out of the swamp, but how can they know? I say, trust your gut feelings. They are as reliable as the learned experts.

Many Americans want to believe because they think that returning to "normal" means their decimated 401(k) accounts might somehow recover the 30-40 percent that disappeared during the past year. If it takes monster bank bailouts to restore stock-market prices, let's have bailouts. Good luck with that. The Dow has regained 21 percent in two weeks of rallies, but I remind friends that steep, short bursts in the stock market do not foretell the future of the economy. Banks may be relieved of their losses without changing the general economic outlook. After the crash of 1929, there were occasional stock rallies, followed by fierce bears. It took twenty-five years (until 1954) for the Dow to regain its old peak. Another way to assess the Obama plan for reform is ask: who likes it? The verdict was swift and sure after Geithner's twin announcements. Wall Street likes it. The blueprint for regulatory reforms was applauded by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association; the American Insurance Association; and the Private Equity Council, the trade group for the major private funds that will get public money and backup insurance to buy the banking system's rotten assets. This could be born-again patriotism. Or it could be the animal appetites of financiers smelling gorgeous opportunity for returns.

This may be one of those moments where people can find some guidance from their moral convictions. They do not need to know all the details to ask simple questions. Does the outline of what's happening to rescue major financial institutions seem morally wrong? Or is it justified by the larger necessities of the national predicament? Is the government insufficiently tough in demanding reciprocal commitments from the beneficiaries? Should Washington pursue larger structural changes in the banking system?

Trying to imagine alternatives to the bankers-first bailouts is a good place to start. What follows are suggestions I produced at the request of young people organizing demonstrations around the country for April 11. They call themselves A New Way Forward. I hope they light lots of bonfires.

This rough outline leaves out lots of particular regulatory issues, but the core goal of reform is to create a banking and financial system that serves the society and the economy, not the other way around. Everything being done to rescue and restore the old order gets in the way of creating something truly new and valuable for the future. Those of us throwing logs in the path of the bailouts are dismissed as naysayers or worse, but the financial titans are trying to foreclose just solutions by stampeding Congress and the president to adopt ill-considered ideas.

If Wall Street gets its way, the "reforms" may further consolidate power and ratify a corporate state--a grotesque hybrid that combines the worst aspects of socialism and capitalism. The reform ideas announced by Geithner would plant the seeds by creating a "systemic risk" regulator, presumably the Federal Reserve, to oversee the largest, most politically adept banks and financial firms that qualify as "too big to fail." Capitalism, with its inherent tendency toward monopoly, would have the means to monopolize democracy (see my recent Washington Post article.)

My new book, Come Home, America, asks people to enunciate their versions of "patriotic realism." That is the essence of an alternative vision: deconcentrate power, liberate people and smaller enterprises, workers and middle managers and investors, to help shape the country's future from many different perspectives. This is how democracy was supposed to work. It can again.

Some points I recommend people consider:

1. Euthanasia for insolvent banks. Transferring their losses to the public will not restore the trillions in capital the bankers helped destroy. It would merely relieve the banks, their creditors and shareholders of the pain. Government must take control of the system to supervise a just unwinding of the mess--whether we call it nationalization or something else. Handing out money and leaving bankers in control of how it's spent is nutty and morally wrong. People everywhere understand this. Only Washington seems oblivious to the irrationality of what it is attempting.

2. The Federal Reserve must be democratized and effectively stripped of its peculiar antidemocratic status as an unaccountable island of power within the government. A new federal agency--accountable to Congress and the president--can be refashioned from the working parts of the Fed. Call it a central bank or something else, but its governing power must not rest with heavyweight bankers on the board of directors at the twelve regional banks. (To understand why, consider that the New York Federal Reserve Bank was headed until recently by Geithner.)

3. The reformed Fed would be confined to conducting monetary policy and stripped of its regulatory functions. A different section of the Treasury or a new free-standing regulatory agency can assume responsibility for regulation and be armed with strong antitrust laws and other rules to ensure that "too big to fail" institutions are redefined as "too big to save."

4. The federal law against usury can be restored to halt predatory lending. Persistent violators would not be fined with trivial penalties, as they are now, but stripped of their government protections and subsidies--that is, doomed.

5. A new banking system--smaller and more diverse and responsible to the public interest--can fill the hole left by the demise of major banks like Citigroup. Vast public resources should be devoted to creating this system, not to saving the mastodons. Public banks (like the North Dakota State Bank) and nonprofit savings and lending cooperatives can also serve as an important cross-check on private commercial banking--a competitive model that offers credit on nonusurious terms and keeps the big boys honest.

6. Once the Federal Reserve is domesticated in a democratic fashion, then it can be reformed to assume broad supervision of the nonbank financial firms in the "shadow banking system"--hedge funds, private equity firms, pension funds, mutual funds, insurance companies. (For more on this, see my recent Nation article, "Fixing the Fed.")

7. Our first political challenge is to disturb business as usual in Washington and prevent Congress from taking hasty action to adopt Wall Street's "reform" agenda. Congress is rattled by the exploding popular anger and listening nervously. The people need to speak louder--loud enough for the president to hear.

Post by **Elderberry** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 11:30 am

WOW--how old are you anyway? That sure is a by-gone era. How did we ever exist in a time when doing good and high moral standards were the norm? (Not to mention belts and the ability to read and speak with proper grammar and cell phones, facebook or texting.)

Come on--get with the program--this is the 21st century for goodness sakes.

JK

cowboyangel wrote:...and my hat's off to Boots and Saddles, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Sugarfoot, Have Gun Will Travel, Wagon Train, Yancy Derringer, Maverick, Wild Wild West, Johnny Yuma , The Rebel (Nick Adams yeah!) RawHide ( Clint!) , Branded, The Rifleman (Chuck Connors) The Lone Ranger, Cisco Kid, Daniel Boone, Little House on the Prairie , The Big Valley, Wyatt Erp (Brave Courageous and Bold) The Roy Rogers Show, Wells Fargo, Hec Ramsey, ( Richard Boone great part) Batt Masterson, F Troop (shit, that too)

They don't call me Cowboyangel for nothin, now put that gun down nice and slowly like and walk away from the table.

littleflower · Post by **littleflower** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 1:19 pm

cowboyangel wrote:Not too far off Bro I was thinking of dressing like the grim reaper and giving out Paul Craig Robert essays on how to reform the economy at the old defunct Pacific Stock Exchange on Pine St. in San Fran.

if you decide to do it next thursday or friday, i would love to play a consumerist bitch who gets reaped!! i'll wear my kitty-kat coat. meow...

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 4:55 pm

Great! I was thinking about changing the location to JP Morgan Chase in the 500 block of Market at 1st. I'd love to have you help LF. You know.....the press will be there and we'll get photographed and become famous for 15 seconds, but I've been there and done that. You can hold the scythe..... if you're not toooo scared.....

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 5:16 pm

Tiny Tim of Kissinger Associates is draining US dry Folks. STOP HIM.

It's getting to the point where I'm sorry Obama got in. Nothing like a liberal-looking shill for the bankers to conclude their multi-generational rape of the American People. So the White house "asks" for the resignation of GM's Rick Wagoner, presumably for "mismanagement"....why the bejebus fuck didn't they demand the resignation of the CEOs of Bof A, AIG, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, etc etc etc for same damn thing? Explain that Mr. President Change, will ya?

Geithnerâ€™s Hog-wallow: the US Treasuryâ€™s Cash Giveaway Bonanza by Mike Whitney
Posted on March 29, 2009 by dandelionsalad

Dandelion Salad

by Mike Whitney
Global Research, March 28, 2009

Thereâ€™s depressing news this week that the big banks are up to their old shenanigans again. This time theyâ€™ve zeroed in on Geithnerâ€™s cash giveaway bonanza, the â€œPublic Private Investment Partnershipâ€

Post by **Elderberry** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 5:32 pm

I think we need some weed control for the Dandelions!

JK

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 5:38 pm

yeah...and that would be a liitle roundup from your personal incubator?

littleflower · Post by **littleflower** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:30 pm

cowboyangel wrote:Great! I was thinking about changing the location to JP Morgan Chase in the 500 block of Market at 1st. I'd love to have you help LF. You know.....the press will be there and we'll get photographed and become famous for 15 seconds, but I've been there and done that. You can hold the scythe..... if you're not toooo scared.....

ooooh, i would love to touch your scythe!!!! although ... i must say, i prefer straight blades to curved ones ....

i'm surprised that they let you wander about the city with such a dangerous weapon.