Posted by TRB in on Wednesday May 18, 2011 - 10:05 am (1 week, 1 day ago)
The whole castle is about to come down on our bank boys. Just yesterday, the Huffington Post exposed 5 big banks for allgedly swindling the U.S. government. The banks are Bank of America, Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial. Further, New York's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman has promised to investigate at least three of NYC's large banks for misinforming investors of the real worth of various financial instruments.
A goverment audit of the five large banks mentioned above showed that they were cheating the taxpayer through various scams centered around government-backed mortgages, It is a practice called "Fraudclosure," and it is more out of hand in the U.S. than in any other nation in the world. The banks, using taxpayers funds have kept families in their homes knowing full well they would throw them out on specific days months later. It was an attempt to squeeze as much cash as they could out of everyone's misery.
There is a corrupt relationship between American banking and government officials and institutions that was given a shot in the arm last year when the current Supreme Court, which lacks credibility in almost every area of judiprudence, decided to give money freedom of speech, or at least to put money in the same constitutional catagory as free speech. That almost criminal ruling meant banks and other corporate entities and even wealthy individuals, could give as much of this paper "free speech" to politicians as they wanted. In other words, they could buy them.
That is when the elected officials in this government stopped representing the people, and began instead to represent the banks and mortgage companies, oil companies, anyone with more money than the average American taxpayer is able to curry favor with Washington for the right amount of money. In this way, the U.S., mostly as a result of a ruling from an inept Suprme Court, has at least temporarily lost its status as a representative democracy in favor of a pay for favors system of government.
There was only one problem with this. Sooner or later someone was going to come along, ignore the bribes and go after the criminals. This man appeared in New York City last week. His name is Eric Schneiderman. Unlike Eric Holder, the federal AG, who is most likely being paid off in some fashion or orher, NYC's new AG is going to turn up the heat.
He has expressed a desire to see first hand how some of the scams in financial instuments - selling nothing for something - works. He is especially interested in looking at the schemes run by the banks, with the government covering for them, that have destroyed pension funds across America and have also created the mortgage crisis. This in turn is responsible for the building and construction slump. Out of that emerged the first true signs of the present unemployment disaster. In truth, the U.S. government has allowed the commercial banking system to steal the silverware.
The banks have crashed the economy, and they have done nothing to fix what they broke. The commercial banks for years follwing the Gresat Depression were not allowed to gamble on Wall Street. This was a hedge against another such Depression. Sure one was possible, but with the commercial banks not allowed to trade in financial instruments and mortgages on Wall Street, our savings, bank investments and mortgaes were seen as safer and less prone to damage by Depression.
But it has happened again. The banks were let back on Wall Street (Congress repealed the Glass-Stengel Act keeping them off) and they almost immediately invented more games to play with money. And they were games. Betting money that such and such a mortgage will fail in its third year?
For example, if you won, you won part of the mortgage payments. If you lost, you had to pay a certain percentage of the mortgage payments. The borrower would still have to pay the mortgage every month. But the bank that won the bet would receive two mortgage payments. One from the "player" on Wall Street and one from the actual owner of the house.
Then they invented a game called "bundling." When you "bundle" you repackages hundreds, sometimes thousands of bad mortgage loans, ones you know are going to fail, and you "securitize" them. By this I mean you lie about them, telling prospective buyers like 401ks and pension funds that your bundle of bad mortgages is really a bundle of good mortgaes. In this way you destory the 401k or pension fund that falls for this scam. Many did.
On the "Fraudclosure" front the banks were given authority by Obama, who already knew they were the source of the foreclosure problem, to run a new multibillion dollar program that was supposed to be designed to help the homeowner. It just made things worse for the homeowner and the bail-out money went to the banks.
In 2008 there were 2.3 million foreclosures in the U.S.
In 2009 there were 2.6 million
In 2010 there were 2.9 million.
In 2011 there are already over three million.
So what do these numbers tell us about the President's so called foreclosure bail out program? First that it didn't work. Second, that he was a fool to allow the banks to run it.
Making matters worse some members of the administration and many members of Congress continue to tell outright lies about the economy that are repeated by the news media as fact, when none are supported by any evidence. In fact, all known evidence points to their being lies. The most blatant three are:
Lie Number One: If we slash spending it will create more jobs. This is what I call an evident lie. So obvious is this lie that someone believing it has to either stop or start taking some medicine. It costs money to make jobs. You do not get there by slashing costs.
Lie Number Two: If we cut spending without raising taxes that will be favorable to the overall tax rate. This is what people who don't want to pay tell you. We can get this done for nothing without raising taxes. That is the bareface lie of the wealthy deadbeat.
Lie Number Three: If we allow the Bush taxcuts to run out, that will destory the economy. On this one you simply have to ask yourself this. If more revenue is created by halting the Bush tax cuts how is that going to be anything but good for the economy?
Tax cuts never create jobs. Never. Demand creates jobs. Small business, large business and new business also doesn't create jobs.
Demand creates jobs. It is the only thing that creates jobs. Consumer demand creates jobs. Americans have to remember that. It is the most basic economic rule. Demand creates jobs.
Where is that demand going to come from in a nation that is in the middle of a long phase of de-industrialization? We don't make anything that someone might demand. And our demand of goods from other nations does not create jobs in this nation.
We have to keep in mind that the the banks are directly responsible for our deficit crisis. They created the housing bubble, they created the phony financial instruments that raided so many 401ks and pension funds, then they were bailed out using tax money from U.S. citizens of average or less than average income.
Taxes were not raised on the super wealthy to help pay for the banks crimes. Instead, the U. S. government, who is in bed with the banks, gave them funds from the less wealthy. Funds generations of us will have to pay back in the form of tax increases.
At the same time the government is looking for even more ways to steal from the average American while continuing a no-tax plan for the super wealthy. Now Congress is arguing about how much money they can take from programs to help feed America's poor children, how to make Medicaid more expensive for the mostly poor elderly, how to cut back on government entitlements for the disabled or injured in battle.
America has to take back control of this government while we still have anything that looks like a democracy - even from a distance. If it cannot create jobs, or an environment where the demand for jobs would exist, what good is it? And if it only represents monied interests, then how can it be called our government?
About the Attorney General
New York State Attorney General
Eric T. Schneiderman
Eric T. Schneiderman
In his first weeks in office, Attorney General Schneiderman launched a new "Taxpayer Protection Bureau" to root out fraud and return money illegally stolen from New York taxpayers at no additional cost to the state. He has also bolstered the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, which has already recovered tens of millions of dollars for taxpayers on his watch. As part of his effort to crack down on corruption and restore the public’s trust in government, Schneiderman launched a groundbreaking initiative expanding his office’s authority to investigate public corruption involving taxpayer funds by partnering with the state Comptroller. In addition, the Attorney General is appointing public integrity officers in every region of the state to give New Yorkers a place to go to report complaints of government corruption without the fear of local politics influencing the outcome.
Since taking office, Attorney General Schneiderman has repeatedly stood up to powerful interests on behalf of New Yorkers. The Attorney General has taken a leading role in the national fight for a fair mortgage settlement for homeowners that holds banks accountable for their role in the foreclosure crisis; launched a thorough review of AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile for potential anti-competitive impacts on consumers and businesses statewide; sued federal regulators to force an environmental impact review of proposed gas drilling in the Delaware River Basin; and challenged the Indian Point nuclear power plant’s practices related to high-level radioactive waste storage, earthquake preparedness and fire safety, among his many early acts.
Attorney General Schneiderman has also kept our streets safe by shutting down the largest heroin operation in Buffalo history – a statewide drug trafficking pipeline from New York City to Western New York; and busting an international auto theft ring that involved car dealership employees forging keys to steal more than $10 million worth of luxury cars.
As the state’s top law enforcement officer, Attorney General Schneiderman brings with him a wealth of experience, in both the public and private sectors. Before becoming Attorney General, Schneiderman was praised as a leading reformer in the State Senate by numerous editorial pages and good government organizations. Among his many legislative accomplishments, Schneiderman passed sweeping ethics reforms, chaired the committee to expel a corrupt senator for the first time in modern history, and passed the toughest law in the nation to root out fraud against taxpayers.
The Attorney General previously spent 15 years in private practice as an attorney, and later as a partner at the firm of Kirkpatrick and Lockhart, where he handled complex litigation. He was also a public interest lawyer for many years, representing taxpayers in historic lawsuits against the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), tenants trying to evict drug dealers from their buildings, and women seeking access to health clinics.
Attorney General Schneiderman graduated from Amherst College in 1977 and Harvard Law School in 1982. He is the proud father of a daughter, Catherine.
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