Occupy Wall Street: Washington Still Doesn't Get It - Matt Taibbi/RollingStone

Occupy Wall Street: Washington Still Doesn't Get It
Matt Taibbi - RollingStone
POSTED: OCTOBER 21, 8:25 AM ET

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I'll have more coming out about this in a few days, but there have been two disgusting developments in the realm of plutocratic intervention on behalf of Wall Street that everyone protesting should take note of. The fact that both of the following things took place in the middle of the full fever of OWS, when everyone is supposedly trying to placate anti-banker sentiment and Obama and the DCCC are supposedly pledging support of the protesters, shows how completely bankrupt this system is and how necessary street-level protests have become. Popular uprising is probably the only move left to stop developments like the following:

1) Bank of America is shifting a huge collection of Merrill Lynch derivatives contracts onto its own federally-insured balance sheet. This move of risky instruments off the uninsured Merrill balance sheet onto the commercial bank's balance sheet was done to prevent Bank of America's creditors from attacking the firm with collateral calls and other sorties. Essentially, an irresponsible debtor, B of A, is keeping a loan shark from breaking his legs by getting his rich parents to co-sign his loan. The parents in this metaphor would be the FDIC. The FDIC naturally is not pleased with this development, but the Fed, the supreme banking regulator, is apparently encouraging this move. Here's how Bloomberg characterized this move:



<And...>

2) Barack Obama is apparently expressing willingness to junk big chunks of Sarbanes-Oxley in exchange for support for his jobs program. Business leaders are balking at creating new jobs unless Obama makes compliance with S-O voluntary for all firms valued at under $1 billion. Here's how to translate this move: companies are saying they can't attract investment unless they can hide their financials from investors. So the CEOs and gazillionaires on Obama's Jobs Council want the politically-vulnerable president to give them license to cook the books in exchange for support for his jobs program. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:



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More: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/occupy-wall-street-washington-still-doesnt-get-it-20111021

:mad:

:kick:

he tells it like it is. K/R

now if it wasn't for reading what he's written - even from other authors, Matt's laid a foundation that makes a lot of other articles make sense

when my Rolling Stone is delivered.

Taibbi tells bad stuff.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/my-advice-to-the-occupy-wall-street-protesters-20111012">My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters

1. Break up the monopolies.

2. Pay for your own bailouts.

3. No public money for private lobbying.

4. Tax hedge-fund gamblers.

5. Change the way bankers get paid.

And, the unnumbered # 6:

To quote the immortal political philosopher Matt Damon from Rounders, "The key to No Limit poker is to put a man to a decision for all his chips." The only reason the Lloyd Blankfeins and Jamie Dimons of the world survive is that they're never forced, by the media or anyone else, to put all their cards on the table. ...


Read 'em and cheer !

(1) they're never forced to put all of their cards on the table; and
(2) they've never been forced to cover their losses. It appears someone else always bears the financial brunt of their bad gambling decisions.

Or...tax bonuses for Financial Firms at 90%...then bonus away pigs, bonus away!

who the fuck knew Whats next? I know!! Lets burn some books and then we can work on getting only approved news from our government. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

...sickening stuff - but pretty good film; great acting but a little slow.

The very fact that the people have entered the streets in the OWS movement makes clear

that they KNOW that the "2-party-duopoly" is over -- no more pretense that the Dem party

is working for them!


This movement is also making clear that capitalism is over -- though we have yet to bury it!!


What BOA is doing can only be done because of Congress covering them --

Also keep in mind that we've had almost 100 banks this year "fail" while under "FED supervision"

due to being "critically undercapitalized" -- !! This is not only a highly quesitonable hierachy

for elites running our economy, it is a criminal one!

Think also there is a dual purpose in trying to bankrupt the FDIC --- the other motive being

that the funds of citizens in these banks wouldn't proeprly be covered -- except perhaps at

very minimal amounts in future -- making theft and embezzelment even easier than it was during

the Reagan years!



Sarbannes-Oxley


Obama seems to be a willing victim of repeated RW/Repug and Wall St. blackmail?


Think the truest statement in this article is "the polically vulnerable president" -- but the

response we need to that reality is a challenger from the left -- !!!


"All you're going to do is have more fraud. The ultimate losers are going to be investors," said Jeff Klink, a former federal prosecutor whose Gateway Center firm helps clients prevent and detect fraud.

Agree -- and you don't have to be much of a thinker to understand that -- so what's Obama doing?

Are we pretending that he doesn't know that? ROFL



Most of all never assume that there is an end to the greed and evil of either

Wall Street, Imperialists, Warmongers, Capitalists, or Elites --

or those who have SOLD THEMSELVES to them!!




More: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/occ...

because it's good for you!

He is going to be so disillusioned.

I really did laugh out loud.

Please have a GREAT day!

Tiabbi reaches a greater audience with the introduction of the story. Kudos to him.

Because their eyes, ears, and noses have been stuffed with campaign contributions from companies responsible for the financial crisis.

and we can accept his decision. or not.



that's what i've learned this week from OWS and Taibbi.

on another plutocratic intervention in the works for Wall Street, courtesy of Politico:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/66668.html
(It helps explain the corporate tax holiday that big corporations have spent millions lobbying for, and will apparently get)

Here is a link to another story explaining the sweetness of Citigroup's $285 million settlement with the SEC last week, which apparently grants immunity from further investigation and/or prosecution. It appears in ProPublica:
http://www.propublica.org/article/did-citi-get-a-sweet-deal-banks-says-sec-settlement-on-one-cdo-clears-it-on

Why would the President betray the trust that MILLIONS of American voters placed in him?

Taibbi, you must be lying, Obama would never do such a thing! He would never betray that trust, oh, wait.

This HUGE transfer of MASSIVE risk to taxpayers by BofA and the Fed turning a blind eye -- all the
while right under the noses of OWS -- and almost NO one seems to notice or care very much. Granted there
were a few articles by a few journalists who were paying attention; but OWS itself did not galvanize and
mobilize around this to bring protest to a fever pitch in front of their nearest biggest NYC BofA offices

:shrug: This is a HUGE unwitting gift or opportunity being handed to them by Wall St. itself.
Maybe someone down at OWS will pick up a Rolling Stone soon. One can hope.

THANK YOU MATT TAIBBI AND THE ROLLING STONE!!!! MAYBE NOW OWS WILL HEAR THE MESSAGE AND MOBILIZE IN
A FOCUSED WAY ON THIS PENDING (IS IT STILL PENDING?) STINK-TO-HIGH-HEAVENS DEAL THAT'S GOING DOWN
RIGHT UNDER THEIR PROTESTING NOSES.

OWS CAN MAKE NOISE ABOUT THIS MORE EFFECTIVELY THAN ALMOST ANYONE AT THIS POINT, IT'S A PERFECT STORM.

WHAT DOES OWS WANT? => EVERYONE WANTS TO KNOW.

PS - My apologies, for my keyboard seemed only capable of caps and/or bold on this particular issue.

I read your posts.

But Matt Taibbi has a large audience and I think the word is slowly leaking out.

I think OWS was not pushing this because there are so many deals like this in the works that this one may have gotten hidden.

There is just such massive corruption and fraud in our corporate controlled, Wall Street funded federal government, that some of the horrors are missed.

I never thought it would get this awful under Obama. I really thought he would at least cleaned up the executive branch. Instead the executive branch seems to be just as corrupt as it was under bush, maybe more.

Sabotage and Lying.

Their only products.

They are recruiting more 1%'er and bailing out the rich. Mike Le (R-Utah) is cosponsor:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203752604576641421449460968.html?KEYWORDS=schumer+visa

Thanks for the thread, WillyT.

the George Clooney character's speeches, not to the fact he lets himself be blackmailed.

The Coming Derivatives Crisis That Could Destroy The Entire Global Financial System

Most people have no idea that Wall Street has become a gigantic financial casino. The big Wall Street banks are making tens of billions of dollars a year in the derivatives market, and nobody in the financial community wants the party to end.

The word "derivatives" sounds complicated and technical, but understanding them is really not that hard. A derivative is essentially a fancy way of saying that a bet has been made. Originally, these bets were designed to hedge risk, but today the derivatives market has mushroomed into a mountain of speculation unlike anything the world has ever seen before. Estimates of the notional value of the worldwide derivatives market go from $600 trillion all the way up to $1.5 quadrillion.

Keep in mind that the GDP of the entire world is only somewhere in the neighborhood of $65 trillion. The danger to the global financial system posed by derivatives is so great that Warren Buffet once called them http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2817995.stm">"financial weapons of mass destruction". For now, the financial powers that be are trying to keep the casino rolling, but it is inevitable that at some point this entire mess is going to come crashing down. When it does, we are going to be facing a derivatives crisis that really could destroy the entire global financial system.

more...

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/coming-derivatives-crisis-could-destroy-entire-global-financial-system