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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Scale of Wall Street’s Holdings Are ''Unprecedented in U.S. History'': Senate Report
By Pam Martens
Wall Street On Parade, Nov. 25, 2014
Last Thursday, the U.S. Senates Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Carl Levin, released an alarming 396-page report that details how Wall Streets too-big-to-fail banks have quietly, and often stealthily through shell companies, gained ownership of a stunning amount of the nations critical industrial commodities like oil, aluminum, copper, natural gas, and even uranium. The report said the scale of these bank holdings appears to be unprecedented in U.S. history.
Adding to the hubris of the situation, the Wall Street banks own regulator, the Federal Reserve, gave its blessing to this unprecedented and dangerous encroachment by banking interests into industrial commodity ownership and has effectively looked the other way as the banks moved into industrial commerce activities like owning pipelines and power plants.
For more than a century, Federal law has encouraged the separation of banking and commerce. The role of banks has been seen as providing prudent corporate lending to facilitate the growth of commerce, not to compete with it through unfair advantage by having access to cheap capital from the Federal Reserves lending programs. Additionally, the mega banks are holding trillions of dollars in FDIC insured deposits; if they experienced a catastrophic commercial accident through a ruptured pipeline, tanker oil spill, or power plant explosion, it could once again put the taxpayer on the hook for a bailout.
The Levin report addresses the element of catastrophic risk, noting:
While the likelihood of an actual catastrophe remained remote, those activities carried risks that banks normally avoided altogether. Goldman, for example, bought a uranium business that carried the risk of a nuclear incident, as well as open pit coal mines that carried potential risks of methane explosions, mining mishaps, and air and water pollution Morgan Stanley owned and invested in extensive oil storage and transport facilities and a natural gas pipeline company which, together, carried risks of fire, pipeline ruptures, natural gas explosions, and oil spills. JPMorgan bought dozens of power plants whose risks included fire, explosions, and air and water pollution. Throughout most of their history, U.S. banks have not incurred those types of catastrophic event risks.
One would think that the mega banks regulator, the Federal Reserve, would be the first line of defense against this type of dangerous sprawl by banks. According to the Levin Subcommittee report, the Federal Reserve was actually the facilitator of the sprawl by the banks. The report notes:
Without the complementary orders and letters issued by the Federal Reserve, many of those physical commodity activities would not otherwise have been permissible financial activities under federal banking law. By issuing those complementary orders, the Federal Reserve directly facilitated the expansion of financial holding companies into new physical commodity activities.
After the Wall Street financial collapse of 2008, which galvanized the public and Congress to the trillions in taxpayer dollars that was required to shore up the financial system from out of control global casinos masquerading as banks, the Federal Reserve quietly commissioned a study to determine just how sprawling the commodity holdings and operations of the mega banks had become. The study was conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New Yorks Commodities Team. It appears that Senator Levins Subcommittee has only been allowed to see a 2012 Summary Report of that study and the public is not being allowed to see even that. The Levin report makes multiple references to the document, each time noting that it is sealed.
CONTINUED...
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/11/senate-report-scale-of-wall-street-holdings-are-unprecedented-in-u-s-history/
It looks like We the Penured Cannon Fodder are in for it.
NoJusticeNoPeace
(5,018 posts)dumbing down the average citizen into believing that all capitalism is wonderful and any socialism is not.
We deserve this maybe.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)...Banksters who loot the banks get the taxpayers to bail them out -- plus, said same taxpayers get to pick up the tabs for the multi-billion dollar bonuses for the same Banksters.
Meanwhile, it's survival of the economic fittest in the arena of pure capitalism for the rest of the mopes who aren't so fortunate to have chosen their birth circumstances wisely.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)the sharpest possible end of the wedge of capitalism for everyone else.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Just-Us: We the People aren't just the Enemy. We're the real victims in all this.
Orwell, thanks to DUer Are_grits_groceries:
I must say I believe, or fear, that taking the world as a whole these things are on the increase. Hitler, no doubt, will soon disappear, but only at the expense of strengthening (a) Stalin, (b) the Anglo-American millionaires and (c) all sorts of petty führers of the type of de Gaulle.
SOURCE: http://thebea.st/1cwx0bO
Think he'd mean "billionaires" today, inflation and bubbles being what they are and all.
Autumn
(45,120 posts)administration would unseal the report. Oh who the fuck am I kidding.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)The Shocking Redistribution of Wealth in the Past Five Years
by Paul Buchheit
Published on Monday, December 30, 2013 by Common Dreams
Anyone reviewing the data is likely to conclude that there must be some mistake. It doesn't seem possible that one out of twenty American families could each have made a million dollars since Obama became President, while the average American family's net worth has barely recovered. But the evidence comes from numerous reputable sources.
Some conservatives continue to claim that President Obama is unfriendly to business, but the facts show that the richest Americans and the biggest businesses have been the main - perhaps only - beneficiaries of the massive wealth gain over the past five years.
1. $5 Million to Each of the 1%, and $1 Million to Each of the Next 4%
From the end of 2008 to the middle of 2013 total U.S. wealth increased from $47 trillion to $72 trillion. About $16 trillion of that is financial gain (stocks and other financial instruments).
The richest 1% own about 38 percent of stocks, and half of non-stock financial assets. So they've gained at least $6.1 trillion (38 percent of $16 trillion). That's over $5 million for each of 1.2 million households.
The next richest 4%, based on similar calculations, gained about $5.1 trillion. That's over a million dollars for each of their 4.8 million households.
The least wealthy 90% in our country own only 11 percent of all stocks excluding pensions (which are fast disappearing). The frantic recent surge in the stock market has largely bypassed these families.
2. Evidence of Our Growing Wealth Inequality
This first fact is nearly ungraspable: In 2009 the average wealth for almost half of American families was ZERO (their debt exceeded their assets).
In 1983 the families in America's poorer half owned an average of about $15,000. But from 1983 to 1989 median wealth fell from over $70,000 to about $60,000. From 1998 to 2009, fully 80% of American families LOST wealth. They had to borrow to stay afloat.
It seems the disparity couldn't get much worse, but after the recession it did. According to a Pew Research Center study, in the first two years of recovery the mean net worth of households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped by 4%. And then, from 2011 to 2013, the stock market grew by almost 50 percent, with again the great majority of that gain going to the richest 5%.
Today our wealth gap is worse than that of the third world. Out of all developed and undeveloped countries with at least a quarter-million adults, the U.S. has the 4th-highest degree of wealth inequality in the world, trailing only Russia, Ukraine, and Lebanon.
3. Congress' Solution: Take from the Poor
Congress has responded by cutting unemployment benefits and food stamps, along with other 'sequester' targets like Meals on Wheels for seniors and Head Start for preschoolers. The more the super-rich make, the more they seem to believe in the cruel fantasy that the poor are to blame for their own struggles.
President Obama recently proclaimed that inequality "drives everything I do in this office." Indeed it may, but in the wrong direction.
FORUM HOSTS, PLEASE NOTE: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.
Original Article: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/30-0
Autumn
(45,120 posts)the rest of us got fucked. Great article.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)even though it's from 2013.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)will dwarf all previous raids on the National Treasury.
I think it will again be timed for the Presidential electoral season, i.e. 2016. It won't much matter to them which party wins the White House, just as it didn't matter much for their purposes in 2008. The bailout had already been fashioned in meetings between the Bushies and the Obamites before the new Admin took office.
That is to say, it won't matter much to them as long as the winning candidate is on the Approved list. That would include Hillary, Jeb, and a bunch of others. Not Rand Paul, BTW. He's too erratic, too nuts, not a trustworthy part of the gang.
That's why I think that if there is any hope left in the electoral system (a proposition I find highly doubtful), that hope can only be manifested through electing someone who is not complicit in the Big Grab.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.html
If the good Democratic Sen. Notevenrunning or Gov. Neverhearduvvem should get elected, perhaps he or she will tap William K. Black to serve as Secretary of Treasury or Attorney General. Not only is he qualified for either position, he's got the integrity needed to drain the swamp and cage the crocodiles.
Wella
(1,827 posts)They always have the president appoint their friends who will let them keep looting.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)And mad.
Here's who knows where all the Ponies got rounded up for branding: Larry Summers who asks out loud, "What would Goldman think about that? Some of the crew working feverishly to strengthen the vampire's sucking tendril to the middle class also include: Jacob Lew and Penny Pritzker.
Wella
(1,827 posts)And I know I'll catch hell for saying this, but Obama's biggest donor was Goldman Sachs. These are the people Goldman wants in.
CrispyQ
(36,497 posts)I think it will again be timed for the Presidential electoral season, i.e. 2016. It won't much matter to them which party wins the White House, just as it didn't matter much for their purposes in 2008. The bailout had already been fashioned in meetings between the Bushies and the Obamites before the new Admin took office.
And neither party will be completely blamed, just like last time.
I will no longer vote for a party that promises social justice but turns it's back on economic justice. Economic injustice falls hardest on minorities and women, so how can they possibly claim they are for social justice when they don't care if we are secure economically.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Fuck this country.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Amen to that. She is a wholly owned subsidiary of Goldman and the rest of the bank$ter$.
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)Autumn
(45,120 posts)And nothing but disgust for the third way,
TexasMommaWithAHat
(3,212 posts)Well, I believe in a strong, robust economy with strong safety nets, universal healthcare, etc., so I guess a mixed model would better describe what I believe in.
But, yeah, capitalism with STRONG safeguards, rules, and regulations, but the crooks have overrun the country. They gobble up the competition. They control our elections, control our government, control our economy...
How in the crap do we overcome this?
The Banksters control our country and will control the world, too.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)By Maggie McGrath and Antoine Gara
Forbes, Nov. 19, 2014
A two-year investigation conducted by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has accused Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley MS +0.17% and JP Morgan of manipulating commodity prices. In a nearly-400 page report released Wednesday evening, the subcommittee says that these banks have become heavily involved with the commodities markets and increasing risks to financial stability, industry and consumers.
The results of the investigation contain new details about Goldman, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanleys management of aluminum warehouses, details that the Senate committee says raise new questions about whether the banks harmed businesses and consumers and manipulated the markets.
The subcommittee will hold a two-day hearing this week to hear testimonies from bank officials as well as experts and regulators.
Wall Streets massive involvement in physical commodities puts our economy, our manufacturers and the integrity of our markets at risk, senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the subcommittees chairman, said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. Its time to restore the separation between banking and commerce and to prevent Wall Street from using nonpublic information to profit at the expense of industry and consumers.
Added Arizona senator John McCain: Banks have been involved in the trade and ownership of physical commodities for a number of years, but have recently increased their participation in new ways. This subcommittees hearing is an opportunity to examine that involvement, determine whether it gives rise to excessive risk, and identify potential causes for concern that warrant further oversight by Congress and financial regulators.
The 396-page report kicks off with a look at Goldmans activities (and spends more time discussing Goldman than it does the other two), as the subcommittees investigation centered around the Goldman-acquired Detroit-area metal warehouses run by Metro Trade Services International -- the largest U.S. warehouse company certified to store aluminum warranted by the London Metal Exchange. Since Goldman bought Metro in 2010, the Senate committee says that Metro warehouses have accumulated up to 85% of the U.S. LME storage market and the wait to withdraw this metal has increased 15-fold, from 40 days to more than 600 days.
Furthermore, the investigation found that Goldmans warehouse company paid metal owners to strike merry-go-round deals that shuffled metals from building to building without actually shipping aluminum out of the Metro system and that while this was going on, Goldman was involved in massive aluminum trades.
While these are not entirely new claims Goldman was named in a 2013 aluminum antitrust suit the release of the Senates report on Wednesday made public a never-before-seen 2012 Federal Reserve report showing Goldmans commodity operations had an extreme loss scenario that could exceed the banks reserves by $1 to $15 billion.
CONTINUED...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2014/11/19/goldman-morgan-stanley-and-jp-morgan-named-in-commodity-manipulation-investigation/
Thank you for grokking, TexasMommaWithAHat. It's not democracy when only those with money have political power and those with the most money have the most power.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)You can't fix Capitalism by making it a kinder, gentler Capitalism. Economic power is political power, as long as the means of production of our economy is in the hands of the Capitalist Class they will control the political system.
TexasMommaWithAHat
(3,212 posts)Capitalism with social programs works fine in much of Europe.
A mixed economy is best, since people with the highest standards of living live in mixed economies.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)The Stalinist states were/are State Capitalist, not socialist.
TexasMommaWithAHat
(3,212 posts)because it completely goes against human nature. Total socialism requires authoritarianism to make it work.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)TexasMommaWithAHat
(3,212 posts)I don't think so.
I've been reading here for years, and most folks here do seem to support European-style mixed economies.
Pure socialism on a country-wide scale would require force, and that's why it's never been tried on any grand scale.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)The notion that Capitalism fits with "human nature" (whatever that means) goes completely against what we know from anthropology and sociology, that is why the Capitalist Class has brainwashed people to dismiss those fields, while pushing pseudosciences like "evolutionary psychology" that are mainly Capitalist propaganda.
TexasMommaWithAHat
(3,212 posts)also confirm what I believe: that pure socialism "can" work on a small scale. Even then, communes didn't seem to work out too well, did they?
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)so...DUH!
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Now that Congress and the Administration are on the case, though, I feel certain Just-Us is on the way.
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)May she appoint Dr. William K. Black as the next Secretary of the Treasury. He names "Control Fraud" as today's weapon of mass financial destruction.
The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis
by William K. Black
Assoc. Professor, Univ. of Missouri, Kansas City;
Sr. regulator during S&L debacle
February 25, 2009 10:31 AM
As a white-collar criminologist and former financial regulator much of my research studies what causes financial markets to become profoundly dysfunctional. The FBI has been warning of an "epidemic" of mortgage fraud since September 2004. It also reports that lenders initiated 80% of these frauds.1 When the person that controls a seemingly legitimate business or government agency uses it as a "weapon" to defraud we categorize it as a "control fraud" ("The Organization as 'Weapon' in White Collar Crime." Wheeler & Rothman 1982; The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Black 2005). Financial control frauds' "weapon of choice" is accounting. Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime -- combined. Control fraud epidemics can arise when financial deregulation and desupervision and perverse compensation systems create a "criminogenic environment" (Big Money Crime. Calavita, Pontell & Tillman 1997.)
The FBI correctly identified the epidemic of mortgage control fraud at such an early point that the financial crisis could have been averted had the Bush administration acted with even minimal competence. To understand the crisis we have to focus on how the mortgage fraud epidemic produced widespread accounting fraud.
CONTINUED...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/the-two-documents-everyon_b_169813.html
Accounting leaves a paper trail. So. When are the crooks going to jail? Only when someone with INTEGRITY prosecutes them.
It's not a rhetorical question.
As four McCain, he's tight with the buy-partisan Phil Gramm.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Guillotine the top-level management - ALL of them - in public, live on all channels, right there on Wall $treet; put the heads on pikes. Sell their families into slavery in Dubai or Kuwait. Jail everyone else, save for the mailroom people and receptionists, employed by these utterly evil vampire-squid organizations. Repatriate every fucking penny that can be found even if it takes ten years. They mean to enslave the world. It is Them or Us.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Bankers responsible for rigging municipal bonds and bilking billions of dollars from American cities have largely escaped criminal charges. Every day in the U.S., low-level drug dealers get more prison time than these scheming bankers who, while working for GE Capital, allegedly skimmed money from public schools, hospitals, libraries and nursing homes, according to Rolling Stone.
Dominick Carollo, Steven Goldberg and Peter Grimm were dubbed a part of the "modern American mafia," by the magazine's Matt Taibbi, one of the few journalists to consistently cover their trial. Meanwhile, disturbingly uninformed cable media "journalists" defended the bankers, saying they shouldn't be prosecuted for "failure," as if cheating vulnerable Americans were a bad business deal.
"Had the U.S. authorities decided to press criminal charges," Assistant US Attorney General Lanny Breuer told Taibbi. "HSBC [a British bank] would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the U.S., the future of the institution would have been under threat, and the entire banking system would have been destabilized."
Over the course of decades, the nation's bankers transformed into the modern mafiosi. Unfortunately, our modern media changed as well and are no longer equipped to tackle systemic, complex stories.
SOURCE: http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/torture-spying-and-net-neutrality-make-the-annual-list-of-important-stories-ignored-by-the-mainstream-media/Content?oid=4294655
The Agonizer is completely uneffective. Mr. Kyle, your Atomizer, please.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)Never again
Never again
Never again
Never again
Never again
Never again
Never again
Never again
Never again
Never again
Never again...
Rex
(65,616 posts)Pit bulls! Please stop focusing on the plutocracy...it disturbs a few 'beautiful minds' here and we can't have that!
Sparks224
(3 posts)I have become a Single Issue Voter.
The issue is the distribution of wealth. It's the only real political issue there is.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Aren't we still waiting for the "Torture Report" that was promised.
I begin to wonder if the "End the Fed Movement" is not so "Tin Foilish/Alex Jones" after reading this...
Octafish
(55,745 posts)EXCERPT...
After the Wall Street financial collapse of 2008, which galvanized the public and Congress to the trillions in taxpayer dollars that was required to shore up the financial system from out of control global casinos masquerading as banks, the Federal Reserve quietly commissioned a study to determine just how sprawling the commodity holdings and operations of the mega banks had become. The study was conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New Yorks Commodities Team. It appears that Senator Levins Subcommittee has only been allowed to see a 2012 Summary Report of that study and the public is not being allowed to see even that. The Levin report makes multiple references to the document, each time noting that it is sealed.
Why the document is sealed becomes clear from the few tidbits from the study that are shared with the public. Among the 2012 findings are the following:
Morgan Stanley held operating leases on over 100 oil storage tank field(s) with 58 million barrels of storage capacity globally and 18 natural gas storage facilities in US and Europe. Morgan Stanley also had over 100 ships under time charters or voyages for movement of oil product, and was ranked 9th globally in shipping oil distillates in 2009. The company also owned 6 domestic and international power plants.
JPMorgan had a significant global oil storage portfolio (25 (million barrel) capacity)
along with 19 Natural Gas storage facilities on lease. It also reported that JPMorgan had acquired Henry (B)ath metals warehouse (LME certified base metals warehousing/storage worldwide), and that JPMorgans total base metal inventory was as high as $8 (billion) during the first quarter of 2012.
Bank of America had 23 oil storage facilities and 54 natural gas facilities
leased for storage.
Goldman Sachs had four tolling agreements and a wholly-owned subsidiary, Cogentrix, with ownership interests in over 30 power plants; owned Metro Warehouse which controls 84 metal warehouse/storage facilities globally and qualified as a London Metals Exchange storage provider; had acquired a Colombian coal mine valued at $204 million, which had also included associated rail transportation for the coal. The report also found that Goldman Sachs had conducted a uranium trading business that engages in the trading of the underlying commodity.
CONTINUED...
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/11/senate-report-scale-of-wall-street-holdings-are-unprecedented-in-u-s-history/
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Last edited Sun Nov 30, 2014, 05:59 PM - Edit history (1)
Max Keiser's show? He was ranting about some of this month's back and there was a brief article on "Bloomberg Business" at the same time about JP Morgan's Commodities Storage. Then it all became quiet.
Max sounds like a crazy ranter at times and he has an obsession about Jamie Diamon...but he's been correct more often than not in his information about what the Banksters have been up to since the meltdown. And his obsession over Diamon and JP Morgan has turned out to be correct. How many millions in "fines" have they now paid for their criminality?
And Goldman and the rest.
Public just can get interested in it when they see nothing comes of the investigations except "pay the fine and you won't do the time."
It's out of control. And, will probably end badly at some point, once again. But, where will the money come for another bail out?
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)At least the Robber Barons worked to increase the productive and technological power of society in spite of their rapacious exploitation of the working class, THESE fuckers are just parasites, a rentier leisure class no different from owners of the slave-run latifundia of Roman times.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Last edited Mon Dec 1, 2014, 03:15 PM - Edit history (1)
that a certain degree of prosperity has to be spread around. I am reading Milton Mayer's "They Thought They Were Free" - an examination of how ordinary Germans in one town viewed the Hitler regime. They were unanimous is observing that all of their lots improved, materially, in the 1932-1939 pre-WWII era, sometimes very significantly. White South Africans were prosperous in the apartheid era. There was a solid middle-class in both Pinochet's Chile and Mussolini's Italy.
The American plutocrats have something else in mind - a system of purely feudal economics, with themselves and their small coterie of necessary servitors owning everything and the rest of the populace reduced to a state below that of a medieval serf or peon, with a fascist power structure in place to protect them - at ALL costs - from the impoverished Teeming Millions.
There is something new under the sun, after all, and it is goddamn terrifying.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Oddly enough, it was a Paleo-Conservative German math teacher turned historian, Oswald Spengler, who was the first to warn about the destructive power of the modern mass media, saying that the mass media means that modern "democracy" is really the rule of Money.
ReRe
(10,597 posts)... we've turned a corner... in the wrong direction.
Moostache
(9,897 posts)The sad fact is that the banks are the owners and they do not care one bit who is the president or who controls what chamber of the congress or even who sits on the shambles of the supreme court (now essentially relegated to a partisan circus of social policies while completely ignoring everything else).
The entire government is bought and paid for (on the cheap too considering the ROI on spending to own this country - the amount of influence and special favors they receive for campaign cash and cushy careers for the politicians as lobbyists after they leave their "service" is disgusting...it is the equivalent to a prostitute giving out $0.10 sessions). It is the fallacy of the 2 party system and the rest of our rigged electoral college and gerrymandered districting. The people have NO representation. The people are not even a remote consideration in the political end game...they just do not matter. They are collateral damage if anything at all...
The banks are the modern day plantation owners, and everyone else are their slaves - and I do not mean that in a metaphorical sense, it is literally the truth. We are all slaves to their monetary system and there is no alternative available on a national or global scale.
JEB
(4,748 posts)Eventually it will collapse under its own weight taking many of us with it.
City Lights
(25,171 posts)Overseas
(12,121 posts)kentuck
(111,110 posts)Do you personally have any problem with corporate Democrats?
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)as well as allowing them to play ponzi schemes with derivatives & crash the economy, when he repealed Glass Steagall. He wanted to cut Social Security too, but thank god that was squashed.
These are the sad facts~
After Republicans took Congress in 1994, Clinton famously declared that the era of big government is over. He championed deregulation, particularly in telecommunications and finance, which culminated in the repeal of the New Deals Glass-Steagall Act boundaries on banks and the torpedoing of efforts to regulate derivatives.
Clinton did reverse some of President Ronald Reagans top-end tax breaks, but he also lowered capital-gains taxes, and his reforms encouraged the explosion of stock options for high-level executives. He embraced House Speaker Newt Gingrichs welfare repeal and even flirted with carving private accounts out of Social Security.
Clintons trade policy was defined by and for multinational corporations and banks. His major trade accords protected the rights of investors but not workers.
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/06/03/democrats-must-overcome-clinton-nostalgia/
nc4bo
(17,651 posts)And I'd be absolutely 100% behind any Democratic candidate for POTUS that would state there were mistakes made and correction would be made.
JEB
(4,748 posts)when it comes to economic policy the differ by slight degrees. Those that hold the purse strings call the shots.
Initech
(100,097 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Wella
(1,827 posts)And the nation is one big crime victim.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Through their purchased politicians, they are restructuring our government itself to legalize and protect their crimes, and crush any resistance.
They are replacing democracy with fascism.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)I know wall street must be making a killing off the usa economy and now 'owns' more each day.
Even me, with no experience at all with the 'stocks game', on my own made 20% off my tiny bit of stock.
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)make it work for the public, not private bankers
Here's the progressive case:
The United States today finds itself in the midst of a crisis which exists on a multitude of different levels. From the establishment of a culture of constant warfare, increasing environmental degradation, and the devolution into an outright police state, the perils of the current system are easily visible to those with eyes to see...
...The answer to that question is not to simply end the Fed but to nationalize it. Nationalizing the Federal Reserve would not only return Congressional power to its rightful place as guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution and break the power of Wall Street over the monetary policy of the United States, but it would also provide the opportunity to eliminate debt, reduce inflation, improve infrastructure, jumpstart a recovery, and usher in a new era of scientific progress the likes of which the world has never seen.
http://www.progressivegazette.com/2013/12/nationalize-federal-reserve.html
The Public Currency should be a Public Utility
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)JEB
(4,748 posts)vkkv
(3,384 posts)has to end.
librechik
(30,676 posts)lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)Odin2005
(53,521 posts)adirondacker
(2,921 posts)"Extreme poverty in the US (living on less than $2 a day) has doubled since 1996."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025897111#post5
Daylight again, following me to bed
I think about a hundred years ago, how my fathers bled
I think I see a valley, covered with bones in blue
All the brave soldiers that cannot get older been askin' after you
Hear the past a callin', from Ar- -megeddon's side
When everyone's talkin' and noone is listenin', how can we decide?
(Do we) find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down
Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down
(Find the cost of freedom buried in the ground)