The Man the Banks Fear Most, The American Prospect/ Huffington Post

[Stuart G]

http://prospect.org/article/man-banks-fear-most

The Man the Banks Fear Most
Harold Meyerson

April 23, 2012


Wall Street's gone largely unpunished for its role in 
wrecking the economy—until New York Attorney General 
Eric Schneiderman came along.




In February 2011, one month after he’d been sworn in as New York state’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman sat down with the staff attorney who’d been delegated to track the negotiations that the 50 state attorneys general and the Obama administration were conducting with five of the country’s biggest banks. A few months earlier, the story had broken that the banks had been “robo-signing” thousands of notices foreclosing on homes. Instead of assessing how far behind in their payments the homeowners had fallen or seeking to modify the terms of their mortgages, the banks had employed junior staffers, some hired right off the street, to sign hundreds of foreclosure documents daily, though the banks’ title to many of the properties was uncertain. Even when the banks’ claims to ownership were clear, robo-signing violated numerous state laws requiring due diligence before a bank can foreclose on a home.

The scandal had prompted a number of banks—Bank of America most prominently—to suspend their foreclosures for a while. The Justice Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the state attorneys general had initiated talks with Bank of America, as well as JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Ally Financial to arrive at a settlement for these abuses. As the only state law-enforcement official with direct jurisdiction over Wall Street, Schneiderman had been named to the committee the attorneys general had established to negotiate with the banks. He asked his aide how the talks were going.

“I was told it was being handled,” he says. The administration, his aide informed him, had proposed that the banks come up with $20 billion for aggrieved homeowners and former homeowners. Schneiderman wasn’t satisfied. What documents, he asked, had been subpoenaed? None, he was told. Who’d been called in to testify? Nobody, he was told. Most important, what did the banks want in return for paying the penalty? The aide responded that the issue had never been raised. Schneiderman was shocked.

[freshwest]

1. May he finish the job Spitzer started.

[annabanana]

2. (and stay out of small planes) . . . . . . . n/t

[freshwest]

3. That too, sad to say.

[yurbud]

4. the single greatest achievement of Occupy Wall Street was getting people to see Wall St

as the masters and government as the slave.

We need a similar epiphany about the relationship between big business and crime (and not just the white collar kind). From drug money laundering to hiring death squads to uppity natives in oil rich countries, if average people knew the extent corporations went to to make a profit, comments about being careful about whether to fly in small planes would seem less crackpot and more obvious.

I have often wondered if there's a course MBA's take that helps them decide whether to run a particular business legally or as a criminal enterprise. You can certainly see the calculus with recreational drugs. The additional cost of skullduggery are outweighed by potential product liability if they were legal.

[freshwest]

5. The website Bush Body Count was the last decade's history of it, here's the cached version:

http://stewwebb.com/Murder%20Bush%20Body%20Count%20Part%201.html

http://www.freewebs.com/bushdeathlist/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6103916

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=760891&mesg_id=761129

That kind of thing gives one nightmares. And yes, there have been articles written of people being taught how to break the laws. The ENRON debacle was law-breaking by people who not only knew they were doing it, but reveled in it.

The film Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room did a dramatic presentation of real life events that were tape recorded. These guys were cheering on and laughing at the thought of old ladies dying in the heat of a California heat wave because they couldn't pay the bills that had been rigged, and the bankrupting of smaller power companies.

Because they knew exactly what they were doing, in Libertarian, Randian fashion. They were joyfully eliminating the 'parasites' and enriching themselves, who they still term the 'producers.'

This is who is running the House of Representatives right now, but we are being fed a lot of emotional button pushing issues, instead of confronting the fact that these bastards are doing wholesale slaughter without a shot being fired, and they still aren't about to stop. I consider this bunch to be much worse than Bush or any of the people on those websites.

Because they are now making the laws so how can it be called criminal under law?

We know in our hearts it's wrong to starve and kill people, to reduce their lives to nothing more than undressed carcasses for the use of others, but it's all under the curtain of think tank produced ideology and media spin. Like what Lee Atwater predicted for the southern strategy for the GOP, and they haven't stopped using that method:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater

Lots of white collar terminology to cover the actions, but as Nader said a decade ago, 'In the end, it's all just lying, cheating and stealing.'

Sounds criminal to me.

We're just having a hard time finding an authority to use to say it's criminal because the liberal system of mitigating wrongdoing by the upper class has been 'starved' as a beast by the Nordquists and Roves.

Most of us are secularists, don't have the Biblical verses that under-girded the abolitionists and civil rights movements under our hood to pull out and tell these people they're wrong. And they have twisted any meaning of compassion, integrity, the love of life under their doublespeak and business speak:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak

The problem with the journey of finding the names and theories, often leads straight into the viper pits of conspiracy theorists. For them, Obama is a Marxist, the Communists run the Democratic Party, and the whole shebang. We are looking to pervert their youth and steal their guns, daughters, and wives.

We can still look at that but we have to remember the intent and the money behind the voices, even if our ears are itching to learn some esoteric truth. I think we have enough problems to deal with in terms of these 'in your face,' killers.

All knowledge is useful to refine one's mind, even if it is later rejected. So long as one has a clear moral compass, it can be used well.

[tex-wyo-dem]

7. I can't disagree with you on anything in your post...

What we are dealing with are criminal robber-baron megalomaniacs, a wealthy class that will do ANYTHING to enrich themselves including destroy people, countries and the planet's environment. Nothing escapes their massive egos and they truly believe that they are chosen ones.

These characters have existed throughout history. The only solace is that their egos get the better of them and they eventually fall, every time.

I hope that one day greed will be seen for the destructive force that it is replaced by our true nature of compassion, kindness and love.

[freshwest]

8. +1,000...'replaced by our true nature of compassion, kindness and love..'

[bvar22]

6. Stay out of samll planes,

AND, beware of Honey Traps.