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Bernie Sanders Calls Federal Reserve "Socialism for the Rich" After $16 Trillion Secret Bail-Outs...
A little history for those wondering why the Banksters almost walked away blaming "the poor for buying big houses they couldn't afford" at the top of their lungs without anyone noticing their red hands.
Bernie Sanders Calls Federal Reserve "Socialism for the Rich" After $16 Trillion Secret Bail-Outs, Including Foreign Banks.
By Ralph Lopez, War Is a Crime | News Analysis
Truth-Out, Monday, 30 July 2012 14:27
After 89 Democrats in the House voted in a victory for bipartisanship for HR 459 to audit the Federal Reserve, some jaw-dropping numbers are emerging as a result of a partial audit conducted this year. It is no surprise that the news is dropping with a dull thud in the media. That's why you should get your news from the Internet and sites like this.
Senator Bernie Sanders at his official website reports:
The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Wall Street reform law passed one year ago this week directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct the study. "As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world," said Sanders. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."
Despite the wording of the Sanders press release the audit was not "top-to-bottom," with many areas excluded. HR 459 would remedy this.
The consortium of private banks collectively known as the Federal Reserve found itself in the crosshairs of Occupy Wall Street last fall. Created in 1913, the Fed holds a monopoly on the creation of the currency, which it lends to the US Treasury at interest, or to other banks.
Blogger Pierre Joris of the Department of English at SUNY Albany gleaned from the report:
"The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest. Why the Federal Reserve had never been public about this or even informed the United States Congress about the $16 trillion dollar bailout is obvious — the American public would have been outraged to find out that the Federal Reserve bailed out foreign banks while Americans were struggling to find jobs."
CONTINUED w/links, sources...
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/10609-bernie-sanders-calls-federal-reserve-socialism-for-the-rich-after-16-trillion-secret-bail-outs-including-foreign-banks
One of those foreign financial institutions the US taxpayer bailed out, by the way, is Swiss bank UBS.
PS: If the Congress and Bush and Obama administrations had followed Bernie Sanders' lead, the Banksters would be in jail, not spending bonus money on yachts, cars and dope.
47 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Like it was an accident.
Or sumpin', right?
Obama’s Foreclosure Relief Program Was Designed to Help Bankers, Not Homeowners
by David Dayen
Bill Moyers & Co., February 14, 2015 / The American Prosepect Winter 2015
EXCERPT...
Politicians, economists and commentators are debating the causes of the rise in inequality of income and wealth. But one primary cause is beyond debate: the housing collapse, and the government’s failure to remedy the aftermath. According to economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the bottom 90 percent of Americans saw one-third of their wealth wiped out between 2007 and 2009, and there has been no recovery since. This makes sense, as a great deal of the wealth held by the middle and working classes, particularly among African-Americans and Hispanics, is in home equity, much of which evaporated after the bubble popped. The effects have been most severe in poor and working-class neighborhoods, where waves of foreclosure drove down property values, even on sound, well-financed homes. Absent a change in policy, Saez and Zucman warn, “all the gains in wealth democratization achieved during the New Deal and the postwar decades could be lost.”
President Obama will carry several legacies into his final two years in office: a long-sought health care reform, a fiscal stimulus that limited the impact of the Great Recession, a rapid civil rights advance for gay and lesbian Americans. But if Obama owns those triumphs, he must also own this tragedy: the dispossession of at least 5.2 million US homeowner families, the explosion of inequality, and the largest ruination of middle-class wealth in nearly a century. Though some policy failures can be blamed on Republican obstruction, it was within Obama’s power to remedy this one — to ensure that a foreclosure crisis now in its eighth year would actually end, with relief for homeowners to rebuild wealth, and to preserve Americans’ faith that their government will aid them in times of economic struggle.
Faced with numerous options to limit the foreclosure damage, the administration settled on a policy called HAMP, the Home Affordable Modification Program, which was entirely voluntary. Under HAMP, mortgage companies were given financial inducements to modify loans for at-risk borrowers, but the companies alone, not the government, made the decisions on whom to aid and whom to cast off.
In the end, HAMP helped only about one million homeowners in five years, when 10 million were at risk. The program arguably created more foreclosures than it stopped, as it put homeowners through a maze of deception designed mainly to maximize mortgage industry profits. More about how HAMP worked, or didn’t, in a moment.
HAMP cannot be justified by the usual Obama-era logic, that it represented the best possible outcome in a captured Washington with Republican obstruction and supermajority hurdles. Before Obama’s election, Congress specifically authorized the executive branch, through the $700 billion bank bailout known as TARP, to “prevent avoidable foreclosures.” And Congress pointedly left the details up to the next president. Swing senators like Olympia Snowe (Maine), Ben Nelson (Nebraska) and Susan Collins (Maine) played no role in HAMP’s design. It was entirely a product of the administration’s economic team, working with the financial industry, so it represents the purest indication of how they prioritized the health of financial institutions over the lives of homeowners.
CONTINUED...
http://billmoyers.com/2015/02/14/needless-default/
Incredibly sad for us Democrats pull-out quote: [font color="green"]“It’s a terrible irony. This man who represents so much to people of color has presided over more wealth destruction of people of color than anyone in American history.”[/font color]
"It’s complicated, and we’re going to make sure whatever we do is done in a deliberative fashion." -- George W Bush, Oct. 3, 2008
Washington's Blog provides details n links:
The Government Lied When It Said It Only Bailed Out Healthy Banks … 12 of the 13 Big Banks Were Going Bust
Posted on January 11, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog
The Government’s Entire Strategy Was to Cover Up the Truth
We noted in 2011 that the Geithner, Bernanke and Paulson lied about the health of the big banks in pitching bailouts to Congress and the American people:
The big banks were all insolvent during the 1980s.
And they all became insolvent again in 2008. See this and this (busted link at WB).
The bailouts were certainly rammed down our throats under false pretenses.
But here’s the more important point. Paulson and Bernanke falsely stated that the big banks receiving Tarp money were healthy, when they were not. They were insolvent.
Tim Geithner falsely stated that the banks passed some time of an objective stress test but they did not. They were insolvent.
CONTINUED...
Without DU and a relatively few people around the Internet, most people would never hear about ANY of this stuff. For some reason, it hasn't been on America's television screens.
Washington's Blog provides details n links:
The Government Lied When It Said It Only Bailed Out Healthy Banks … 12 of the 13 Big Banks Were Going Bust
Posted on January 11, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog
The Government’s Entire Strategy Was to Cover Up the Truth
We noted in 2011 that the Geithner, Bernanke and Paulson lied about the health of the big banks in pitching bailouts to Congress and the American people:
The big banks were all insolvent during the 1980s.
And they all became insolvent again in 2008. See this and this (busted link at WB).
The bailouts were certainly rammed down our throats under false pretenses.
But here’s the more important point. Paulson and Bernanke falsely stated that the big banks receiving Tarp money were healthy, when they were not. They were insolvent.
Tim Geithner falsely stated that the banks passed some time of an objective stress test but they did not. They were insolvent.
CONTINUED...
Without DU and a relatively few people around the Internet, most people would never hear about ANY of this stuff. For some reason, it hasn't been on America's television screens.
"And so the saying in the savings and loan industry is true again: Holder was chasing mice while lions roam the campsite."
The guy is known around the world as a forensic economist, having put hundreds if not thousands of Savings & Loans crooks behind bars for their roles in the S&L looting of the late 80s and early 90s. "Control Fraud" by the CEOs and COOs and their underlings on behalf of themsleves and their connected cronies in the Mafia, CIA and Who's Who of big bucks across the nation. The S&L looting was, until 2008, the greatest rip off of all time.
After Eric Holder Resigns, A Look at His Record on Bank Prosecutions
Former financial regulator Bill Black says Holder's legacy on "too big to fail" is "too big to jail"
The Real News - October 3, 14, 2014
EXCERPT...
PERIES: So what raced through your mind as you heard the news this morning about Eric Holder's resignation?
BLACK: Well, I'll focus on the areas I know about. And in your introduction, the war on whistleblowers will be the most relevant part, along, of course, with the complete strategic failure, the greatest strategic failure in the history of the Department of Justice, which I once worked at, against elite white-collar crime epidemics.
And so Eric Holder has surprised me. I always predicted that he would at least find one token case to prosecute some bank senior executive for crimes that led to the creation of the financial crisis and the global Great Recession.
PERIES: Why did it surprise you, Bill?
BLACK: Well, he's actually going to leave without even a token conviction, or even a token effort at convicting. So, in baseball terms, he struck out every time, batting 0.000, but he actually never took a swing. So he was called out on strikes looking, as we would say in baseball. And I couldn't believe that he would leave without at least having one attempted prosecution against these folks. So he hasn't done the most--he never did the most elementary things required to succeed. He never reestablished the criminal referral process, which is from the banking regulatory agencies, who are the only ones who are going to do widescale criminal referrals against bank CEOs, because, of course, banks won't make criminal referrals against their own CEOs. Holder could have reestablished that criminal referral process in a single email on the first day in office to his counterparts in the banking regulatory agencies, and he's going to leave never having attempted to do so.
On top of that, if you're not going to have criminal referrals from the agencies, the only other conceivable way that you're going to learn about elite criminal misconduct of this kind is through whistleblowers. And as you mentioned, this administration, and Eric Holder in particular, are known for the viciousness of their war against whistleblowers. What the public doesn't know--and it doesn't know because of Eric Holder--is that in the three biggest cases involving banks--again, none of them, not a single prosecution of the elite bankers that drove this crisis--all three of those cases, against Citicorp, against JPMorgan, and against Bank of America, were made possible by whistleblowers. Eric Holder was the czar at the Department of Justice press conferences in each of these three cases, and he and the Justice Department officials, the senior Justice Department officials, at those press conferences, never mentioned the role of the whistleblowers--never praised the whistleblowers and never used those press conferences as a forum for asking whistleblowers to come forward. And so your viewers should take a look at the Frontline special on this, where the Frontline producers made clear that as soon as word got out that they were investigating the area, dozens of whistleblowers came forward, and each of them had the same story: the Department of Justice had never contacted them.
So, instead of going after the big guys--by the way, they didn't go after the small CEOs either. I keep talking about elite CEOs, for obvious reasons: they cause far greater damage. But there are all these CEOs of the not very big mortgage banks who are not prestigious, who are not politically powerful, and Eric Holder refused to prosecute them as well. What did he do instead? Well, he prosecuted several hundred mice. And so the saying in the savings and loan industry is true again: Holder was chasing mice while lions roam the campsite.
And most disgraceful of all, the official position of the Justice Department and the FBI, as I've written and quoted from their annual reports on mortgage fraud, is that mortgage fraud is largely supposedly an ethnic crime, with particular disfavored ethnic groups, like Russian Americans. This is (A) not true and (B) an obscenity, for the Department of Justice in particular, which is, after all, charged with preventing this kind of discrimination. Not only is the Justice Department and the FBI spreading this absolute lie about ethnic guilt, but they're following through, and they are disproportionately prosecuting folks of disfavored minorities. And that is a particular evil and disgusting thing that will be on the tombstone of Eric Holder when historians write about him.
CONTINUED...
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12433
And to think some may still wonder why We the People deserve austerity. Thankfully a few have noticed it's not what we deserve.
The guy is known around the world as a forensic economist, having put hundreds if not thousands of Savings & Loans crooks behind bars for their roles in the S&L looting of the late 80s and early 90s. "Control Fraud" by the CEOs and COOs and their underlings on behalf of themsleves and their connected cronies in the Mafia, CIA and Who's Who of big bucks across the nation. The S&L looting was, until 2008, the greatest rip off of all time.
After Eric Holder Resigns, A Look at His Record on Bank Prosecutions
Former financial regulator Bill Black says Holder's legacy on "too big to fail" is "too big to jail"
The Real News - October 3, 14, 2014
EXCERPT...
PERIES: So what raced through your mind as you heard the news this morning about Eric Holder's resignation?
BLACK: Well, I'll focus on the areas I know about. And in your introduction, the war on whistleblowers will be the most relevant part, along, of course, with the complete strategic failure, the greatest strategic failure in the history of the Department of Justice, which I once worked at, against elite white-collar crime epidemics.
And so Eric Holder has surprised me. I always predicted that he would at least find one token case to prosecute some bank senior executive for crimes that led to the creation of the financial crisis and the global Great Recession.
PERIES: Why did it surprise you, Bill?
BLACK: Well, he's actually going to leave without even a token conviction, or even a token effort at convicting. So, in baseball terms, he struck out every time, batting 0.000, but he actually never took a swing. So he was called out on strikes looking, as we would say in baseball. And I couldn't believe that he would leave without at least having one attempted prosecution against these folks. So he hasn't done the most--he never did the most elementary things required to succeed. He never reestablished the criminal referral process, which is from the banking regulatory agencies, who are the only ones who are going to do widescale criminal referrals against bank CEOs, because, of course, banks won't make criminal referrals against their own CEOs. Holder could have reestablished that criminal referral process in a single email on the first day in office to his counterparts in the banking regulatory agencies, and he's going to leave never having attempted to do so.
On top of that, if you're not going to have criminal referrals from the agencies, the only other conceivable way that you're going to learn about elite criminal misconduct of this kind is through whistleblowers. And as you mentioned, this administration, and Eric Holder in particular, are known for the viciousness of their war against whistleblowers. What the public doesn't know--and it doesn't know because of Eric Holder--is that in the three biggest cases involving banks--again, none of them, not a single prosecution of the elite bankers that drove this crisis--all three of those cases, against Citicorp, against JPMorgan, and against Bank of America, were made possible by whistleblowers. Eric Holder was the czar at the Department of Justice press conferences in each of these three cases, and he and the Justice Department officials, the senior Justice Department officials, at those press conferences, never mentioned the role of the whistleblowers--never praised the whistleblowers and never used those press conferences as a forum for asking whistleblowers to come forward. And so your viewers should take a look at the Frontline special on this, where the Frontline producers made clear that as soon as word got out that they were investigating the area, dozens of whistleblowers came forward, and each of them had the same story: the Department of Justice had never contacted them.
So, instead of going after the big guys--by the way, they didn't go after the small CEOs either. I keep talking about elite CEOs, for obvious reasons: they cause far greater damage. But there are all these CEOs of the not very big mortgage banks who are not prestigious, who are not politically powerful, and Eric Holder refused to prosecute them as well. What did he do instead? Well, he prosecuted several hundred mice. And so the saying in the savings and loan industry is true again: Holder was chasing mice while lions roam the campsite.
And most disgraceful of all, the official position of the Justice Department and the FBI, as I've written and quoted from their annual reports on mortgage fraud, is that mortgage fraud is largely supposedly an ethnic crime, with particular disfavored ethnic groups, like Russian Americans. This is (A) not true and (B) an obscenity, for the Department of Justice in particular, which is, after all, charged with preventing this kind of discrimination. Not only is the Justice Department and the FBI spreading this absolute lie about ethnic guilt, but they're following through, and they are disproportionately prosecuting folks of disfavored minorities. And that is a particular evil and disgusting thing that will be on the tombstone of Eric Holder when historians write about him.
CONTINUED...
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12433
And to think some may still wonder why We the People deserve austerity. Thankfully a few have noticed it's not what we deserve.
We depended on the federal government to protect our investments, not fritter them away.
Surely our responsible media will be on it.
In her book, It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street, Nomi Prins uncovers the hush-hush programs and crunches the hidden numbers to calculate the shocking actual size of the bailout: $14.4 trillion and counting.
Thanks for your good works, Octafish. 
