Bombshell: Plutocrats Brazenly Collude to Hurt State Economies and Screw Working People

[applegrove]

Bombshell: Plutocrats Brazenly Collude to Hurt State Economies and Screw Working People

By Lynn Parramore, AlterNet at TruthOut

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/17917-bombshell-plutocrats-brazenly-collude-to-hurt-state-economies-and-screw-working-people

"SNIP.............................


Illinois has real problems. However, Fahner desperately hopes the public will not catch on to the fact that states are having difficulty paying out pensions because of the lack of revenue caused by a Wall Street-driven financial crisis and the deep recession it set off, regressive taxes, and the myriad bond scams financiers have already inflicted on states, cities, towns, and municipalities which have triggered funding crises for pensions and other programs. (See "How Wall Street Fraudsters Plunder Public Finances, And 5 Ways to Fight Back.&quot

Fahner has tried a number of dirty tricks to attack pensions in his career. But his most recent admission is absolutely breathtaking in its brazenness: He boasted of working to scam the Illinois bond rating.

During Fahner’s talk to the Union League Club, an unidentified person in the audience suggested that pressuring credit agencies to rig the state bond ratings in order to attack pensions might be a jolly good idea. Fahner gleefully replied that he had already thought about that — and his group has tried it.


Audience member: “Maybe sometimes you gotta be irresponsible to be responsible. If a political solution really doesn’t produce a favorable outcome, maybe you really need a market solution. And a market solution, I don’t mean bankruptcy, I mean actually talking down the state rating even further so the state’s bonds essentially become below investment grade. And it drives up the borrowing cost to the state and all of us to a significant level enough that you really feel the public pressure…”

Fahner: “The Civic Committee, not me, but me and some of the people that make up the Civic Committee… did meet with and call – in one case in person – and a couple of calls to Moody’s and Fitch and Standard & Poors, and say, How in the hell can you guys do this?"



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[KT2000]

1. why would this not be a RICO

case? Conspiracy to defraud.

[rhett o rick]

2. OH oh, you said conspiracy, off to the dungeon you go. nm

[truedelphi]

3. because if we start going all RICO-ish on these Big Boys,

it would entangle far too many of those now in office, on both sides of the aisle.

Geithner did some major RICO style maneuvers, back when he was the head of the NY Federal Reserve. (Circa Autumn 2008)

[matthews]

7. Like what? What should I google? I don't know anything about this. Thx. nt

[Mojorabbit]

9. Good question. nt

[Cha]

4. mahalo applegrove

[applegrove]

6. Bonjour from Lowertown in Ottawa Cha.

[Rain Mcloud]

5. We knew about this for years,it is no bombshell

we were just waiting for the equivalent of Romney's 47% video to surface.
Need i say that this needs to go viral?

[libodem]

8. Go figure?

[Scurrilous]

10. K & R