Robert Scheer: Congress Still Puts Out for Wall Street

[marmar]

from truthdig:


Congress Still Puts Out for Wall Street

Posted on May 27, 2013
By Robert Scheer


What does it take to make a Wall Street banker squirm with shame? Not content with having swindled tens of millions of Americans out of their homes and life savings, the very bankers who caused the biggest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression are now subverting government regulations designed to prevent comparable disasters in the future.

Top of the list of those responsible are the hustlers at Citigroup, once the world’s largest financial conglomerate, and a leading practitioner of the sordid behavior that caused the housing meltdown. Indeed, Citigroup was allowed to form as a merger of the investment banking of Travelers and the federal insured commercial banking of Citicorp only because lobbyists for those institutions successfully engineered the reversal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall law that had banned such combinations.

Then when the new monster banks moved to exploit the subprime housing market with all sorts of financial gimmicks, their lobbyists succeeded in freeing all such trading in so called derivatives from any significant regulation.

The banks were so successful in marketing those often toxic assets that the federal government had to step in when the bubble burst and save Citigroup from bankruptcy, with a direct infusion of $45 billion in taxpayer funds and a guarantee of more than $300 billion of Citigroup’s bad paper. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/congress_still_puts_out_for_wall_street_20130527/

[xchrom]

1. du rec.

[WillyT]

2. K & R !!!

[Dustlawyer]

3. +1,000. COMPLETE CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM (CCFR) is the only way to fix this!

Almost all must go except people like Elizabeth Warren! We need to get our Representative government back and end our system of legalized bribery! We get so distracted because we cannot see the forest for the trees. We play their game of fighting Republicans on a variety of issues when the fix is already in! We ignore the signs and gripe about "Spineless Democrats" as if Democrats have congenitally weaker spines instead of saying they were bought off and we were sold out! If OWS wants to really revive they need to stop fighting a thousand different battles and focus on the one fight that will fix them all! Corrupt politicians are the root cause of almost all of our problems in Washington. An honest politician going to Washington has no chance to stay unless they already have a reputation and national backing like Senator Warren. They are told take the money and play ball, or refuse and we will primary you with more money than God to your opponent!
CCFR is the only way to wrest power away from the Banks, other corporations, and the 1%. They will fight like hell but I know that many of you are ready for battle. People from both parties should support this so please spread the word! Don't believe the Harlem Globetrotters vs. The Washington Generals is a real game, that is what they have done with politics. They have polarized us to root for these parties like a sports team and ignore or overlook our teams penalties/fouls while they rip us off for their short term gains and we end up paying for it all! Who is with me?