TENAC, THE ELECTION & CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS

TAX UPCOMING BANK BONUSES, PROJECTED AT A HALF MILLION, REWARDS FOR ECONOMIC DECIMATION

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Written by Jim McGrath Tuesday, 12 January 2010 17:23

Representative Kucinich(D- Ohio) has introduced a bill to tax the upcoming big banks' bonuses. The tax is a good idea, as are clawbacks. The MOVE YOUR MONEY CAMPAIGN, helping the American people transfer their deposits from these despots to community banks unreliant on bailouts, and any steep bonus tax, should be the first moves to restore sanity and reason to finance.

 

WE HAVE EVERY REASON TO TAKE THESE STEPS. WHY?  Talking Points Memo article by M. J. Rosenberg (see link below) notes that THE AVERAGE GOLDMAN SACHS EMPLOYEE BONUS IS PROJECTED AT MORE THAN A COOL HALF MILLION.  THIS KIND OF LARGESS IS DUE TO OUR TAX DOLLARS, not virtuoso performance.

 

MUCH WORSE, and to add insult to injury, WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE, when we stop allowing them accounting practices that hide their losses (I believe they can currently keep toxic assets and other losses off their book), VIRTUALLY ALL THEIR PERFORMANCE WILL PROVE FAILURE, MUCH LESS WORTHY OF BONUSES!

 

THEIR ONLY POWER OVER US: THe THREAT THEIR FAILURE WILL BRING US ALL DOWN.  THAT IS HOLDING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND THE WORLD HOSTAGE TO THEIR PURSUIT OF PROFIT AT GREAT PAIN TO EVERYONE ELSE.  BUT ULTIMATELY, we should break them up in an orderly manner, so as not to bring the whole system down.

 

Everyone knows by now that, very insidiously, they have intertwoven their CDOs and other explosive debt instruments all around the world, in ways that it may be virtually impossible to unravel. One reporter noted that it took three hours for the fastest computers available to slice and dice one CDO for distribution. 

 

Difficult yes, but we must do it, lest we be captive for the rest of our lifetimes to a few large banks.  Click to see more details from The Talking Points Memo, at: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/10/democrats_should_tax_the_hell_out_of_the_upcoming/index.php

FINANCIAL INQUIRY COMMISSION BRINGS BANKS' ADMISSIONS THAT TOO BIG TO FAIL IS OUR NEW PARADIGM, WITH BONUSES FOR FAILURE, NO LESS!

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Written by Jim McGrath Wednesday, 13 January 2010 21:55

GOLDMAN SACHS' CEO ESSENTIALLY ADMITS "TOO BIG TO FAIL" IS THE NEW PARADIGM, SHOWING THEY HAVE US HOSTAGE AND THEY KNOW IT!  They have hidden their toxic debt instruments so cleverly, intertwined them so intricately, so inscrutably, around the globe, that we must do something. We have only to see the decimation of villages in faraway countries, in own municipalities bonds and in our pension funds, to begin to fathom the tentacles.  See the video below, of Goldman Sach's chief executive acknowledging that too big to fail is a new reality we all must cope with.  WITH BONUSES FOR THIS CLEVER WORK NO LESS! As Huffington Post reporters Nasiripour and McCarthy write:

 

"If there was any doubt that Wall Street thinks the government will step in to save "too big to fail" firms, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein dispelled it on Wednesday morning.

In response to a question about whether the federal government would prevent one of his three counterparts at today's hearing -- Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley -- from failing, Blankfein essentially said that the government would in fact step in.

"I think tomorrow in the context of this environment, at some level the government would intervene." "Because of the fragility of the system," Blankfein said, the government would be forced to step in.

In other words, 'too big to fail' is real. And Wall Street knows it.

Blankfein qualified his answer by stating that perhaps the government wouldn't have stepped in a year and a half ago, nor would they perhaps step in a year from now."

See story and video at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/13/financial-crisis-commissi_n_421461.html

IN FRONT OF THE FINANCIAL INQUIRY COMMISSION, BANKERS SAID WE'RE SORRY.   BUT WE'RE SORRY, TOO.  GIVE US BACK OUR PENSIONS, SAVINGS, MUNICIPAL SERVICES, ETC., ETC., TANKING DUE TO YOUR ABDICATION OF FIDUCIARY LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY, NAY, HEADLONG PURSUIT OF GREED AT OUR EXPENSE. As Chairman of the Financial Inquiry Committee observed, their investment practices were like selling cars with bad brakes and then taking out insurance policies against them, thinking they would fail. AND FOR DO THOSE RESPONSIBLE GET BONUSES?

Sorry doesn't cut it; we think that the big banks ought to put their money where their apologies are. Congress, too, by taxing and clawing back these monies obtained by fraud under the guise of financial innovation, and by taxing these bonuses, rewarded really for at best, poor performance, and at worst, ill-gotten gain. 

UNTIL A WAY OUT, ALL AGREE: NO BONUSES FOR TAKING DOWN THE SYSTEM, AND Too-Big-to-Fail HAS GOT TO GO! I say BREAK THEM UP OR RISK A REPEAT!

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Written by Jim McGrath Thursday, 14 January 2010 14:08

FOR STARTERS, Republicans and Democrats, anyone with sense, and anyone that doesn't work on Wall Street or have a vested interest in promoting our ruin, agree: the too-big-to-fail way of running business doesn't merit bonuses, it merits firing.  And this is what would have happened, had the government not stepped in for fear of utter global collapse. Financial Inquiry Chairman Angelides aptly likened it to selling a car with bad brakes and then taking out an insurance policy on the buyer.

 

As The New York Times reported, in comments after committee hearings by John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition:

 

"the banks should be held more accountable for what they sell...

 

... If the leaders of Wall Street did not consider the possibility of housing prices dropping in their own stress tests and due diligence,"  he added, "if they did not know that the F.B.I. had been raising red flags about mortgage fraud since 2004, and if they did not know that high-cost, no-doc, interest-only loans were being made right and left to anyone, then their spirited defense of their employees falls flat."

 

Based on what we heard today,'  he added, 'they should be firing people, not giving them bonuses.'

 

For a summary account of the bank practices, see The New York Times article, "Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It and Won." at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/business/24trading.html?_r=1&ref=business

 

BUT WHAT SEEMS VASTLY UNREPORTED, AS USUAL, IS NOT WHAT HAS HAPPENED, BUT THE UNDERLYING, CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS: Most mainstream media doesn't broadcast widely that the banks are really insolvent, as they continue to report essentially false profits, the government providing billions in loans and letting them keep toxic and other bad assets off their books, in favor of sleight-of-hand accounting to hide their true financial state.  All ostensibly to prevent another panic, when everyone sees the emperor has no clothes. Then, everyone will run. Run with their money out the door, run on the banks, and run for the financial hills.

 

A THREE STEP SOLUTION:

ONE- The Too-Big to Fail Tax as a start will help, more than simply a levy, it is touted as a method to reduce their size, thereby making them small enough to fail without wreaking havoc on everyone.

 

TWO - Then, claw back their bonuses and salaries for what is really failure disguised as success with the help of bailouts and loans and bogus accounting.

 

LASTLY, break them up in a manner that will not demolish the entire global economic system infected with their toxic assets and leveraged-to-the-hilt derivatives, default swaps and other "innovations" intertwined so intricately as to make global ruin a can of worms that must be undone.  BUT UNDO IT WE MUST!

 

BUT MANY REMAIN OSTRICHLIKE -- ESSENTIALLY LETTING THE BANKS BRING US TO A WORSE CRISIS,  BY BECOMING EVEN BIGGER, MORE OF A THREAT, AND CONTINUING SIMILAR AND WORSE RISKY PRACTICES -- as though no crisis took place! (For more on what is really happening, see Robert Reich's expose at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/why-obama-must-take-on-wa_b_422071.html

OUR CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE BANKS CONTINUES: BIG BANK USA - CRIME BUT NO PUNISHMENT, PART II

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Written by Jim McGrath Thursday, 14 January 2010 15:05

The Bible says there is a time for everything under the sun -- a time also to look at reasons for our economic and fiscal meltdowns, and bring justice to the pirates responsible. The president has labored mightily to save the bankers from themselves, even as did FDR, and has been repaid by their continued refusal to make loans to the American people and by more outrageous bonuses to themselves subsidized by "bailout" funds. Big Bank USA has "bailed out" on assisting the economic recovery in general and the American people in particular. Executives at Goldman Sachs, for instance, are getting so much gold, their sacks "runneth over". We think "tough justice" is critical not only for recovery but for defusing the toxic anger of the American people.

The great French novelist, Honore de Balzac, said: "Behind every great fortune lies a great crime!" We believe that there are many great crimes behind the fortunes looted from the American people by the Wall Street and Big Bank buccaneers. We are reminded of the Holocaust, where all that killing went on and "nobody knew anything." In the midst of this financial holocaust, untold numbers made a financial "killing" at the enormous expense of all yet "nobody is to blame." The big boys on Wall Street and in Big Bank USA know where the money went and how it got there, and need to pay it back. A kid with an ounce of marijuana on him can easily end up in D.C. jail. A tenant one month behind in rent can be tossed out onto the street. Do we continue to keep two sets of books when it comes to justice in this country? Is this more "Equal Justice Under Law"?

The fleecing of America must not remain an unknown story where a new class of "robber barons" gets away scot free while the rest of us pay through the nose for grand larceny and greed on an epic scale. There are many big players trying to pick up the pieces in this economic catastrophe, including the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Missing in action in this fiscal crime wave, however, are the Attorney General and the Justice Department. BANK LAW ENFORCEMENT NOW!