President Obama and the “Dons” of Wall Street

President Obama ran a campaign that appears to have been based upon a platform of delusional ideologies. He thought he was the "somebody" that was spoken about in the speeches, back in the 1970s, advocating Black Power--"I am somebody!" He told us he was that somebody who could bring change to America. He told the voters that he was the person who could fulfill the empty pots with hopes and dreams that would grow into something worth being proud of once again.

Instead, he entered the presidency backwards; his back to the people who elected him, while facing the kleptocrats and oligarchs that ushered him into the Oval Office with their checkbooks.

President Obama has done nothing for the economy but erode it. He continues to bring along worker bees groomed by the corrupt queens running the financial and corporate super-hives. They continue to empower those entities that have destroyed the economy.

Obama has only a few more chips available stashed in the bottom of his pocket to lay down on the economic recovery crap table, which appears to have been spent while his stack rapidly dwindled within the last 7 months. One of the few chips left hidden in his satchel is for the public option health care program. If lost, the people lose and Obama has damaged his credibility. He may have nothing else to offer. The incompetent and self-destructive GOP are fully aware of Obama's weaknesses and his inability to wield his power because he has allowed his wayward ship to take on way too much toxic- Goldman Sachs-water, as well as his inability to steer his shipmates who make up the cowardly Democratic congress. Even his Blue DogShit Coalition has gone traitor on him by supporting the smoke and mirrors idea of health care coops, which in the long run, would not bring down customer premium or drug costs.

The toxic Talibanistas inside the Republican Party are calling the public option Obama’s Waterloo. Excuse me, but have not these Republicans been engaged in a war against working Americans for the last 30 years? Have they not had the best government health care programs money can buy, while many in America go without or have paid for inadequate healthcare plans with their hard earned stagnant and dwindling wages? Who do they think they are, anyway? These greedy congresspersons have taken in millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the health care insurance industry. They do not help their constituents with smart legislation, but only take from them greasing their palms along the way as they meet and greet their highly paid corporate lobbyists, many of whom went through the government’s revolving door: corporate-to-government-back-to-corporate, and back through the revolving door over and over again. The GOP gathered up their toxic steam under Little Boy Bush but, eventually, began to gag from their own poison when the Democrats took over as a majority party.

The war against working Americans has been funded through a crime syndicate. Crime syndicates, over time, can become institutions. The Mafia crime syndicate has become an institution in Italy, and elsewhere. The Russian crime syndicate, too, has become an institution basically running the Russian economic system and occupying government positions. The Afghanistan poppy crop has been ruled over by a drug crime syndicate spreading its finished product, heroin, all over the world, and, as a result, supplying themselves with dangerous weapons. So, why would anyone believe there could be stability in Afghanistan? Or, Pakistan for that matter.

Crime syndicates can become institutions, and that has occurred especially under the administrations of the GOP, and accepted by the Democrats, along the way with only a few demonstrating resistance. The nation’s largest financial banking and investment institutions have evolved into an economic crime syndicate.

As with drug crime family syndicates, they operate covertly and in secret. This same secrecy is how the “too big to fail” financial institutions have become filthy rich and extremely powerful and influential. They gained super secrecy when Republican Senator Phil Gramm championed the law that allowed these financial-investment banking institutions to perform complicated and fraudulent derivative sales from inside secret “shadow banking” facilities. The law that made it illegal to regulate or supervise these transactions was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 1999 (CFMA), passed under Clinton and fully throttled by Little Boy Bush. A loud outcry of opposition was heard by Brooksley Born, who, at the time, was the Commodity Future Trading Commission Chair between 1996-1999, but was push aside.

Larry Summers, who worked for Robert Rubin as his undersecretary of the Treasury and later, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, and then, became Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton, and has since become President Obama’s Director of the White House’s National Economic Council, was also on the staff of Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors. For all those years, he did not believe in regulation and supported the sea change the CFMA of 1999 ushered in.

Now, Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, testified before Congress proclaiming that any congressional action that would lead to the auditing of the Federal Reserve would amount to a take over of the Fed by Congress! I guess he forgot that it was Congress that passed the law that created the Federal Reserve in the first place. He went on to shout out in his quiet demeanor that such an action would be destructive to the economy if they were able to get inside the Federal Reserve’s books and shine a light upon their blanket of crimes, secrets and shenanigans.

For President Obama to even consider out loud making Bernanke the super-regulator of the financial industry further indicates where our commander-in-chief has positioned himself in relation to the financial crime syndicate. It would be like giving a private assassin the keys to the nation’s super computing network.

Tim Geithner was given the key position inside the Obama administration after being fully embedded within the financial crime syndicate. He is now the Secretary of the Treasury. Geithner, while working as Chair of the New York Federal Reserve under Little Boy Bush, Hank Paulson (former Secretary of the Treasury under Little Boy Bush), and Bernanke were instrumental in the secretive backroom deal that pressed JPMorgan Chase into purchasing Bear Stearns. Here are the people super connected to the financial banking institutions working secretly inside the government, away from the scrutiny of Congress using government funds to arrange a sweetheart bank buyout deal in order to save Bear Stearns from bankruptcy, while giving taxpayer monies to JPMorgan Chase in order to actually do the buyout. If this isn’t a Nanny Super Rich Welfare State, then what is?

At the time of this deal, Tim Geithner was the chairman of the New York Federal Reserve. He was supposed to be regulating these New York financial institutions, but failed to do so. He was present at this backroom deal, along with Jamie Dixon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, who just so happened to be on the board of the New York Federal Reserve. Could JPMorgan Chase been chosen for this deal because of his relationship with the Federal Reserve board, Geithner and others inside the government? This was totally an inside deal using taxpayer monies, all done in secret, on a weekend, with no one in Congress knowing what was going down.

The whole illusion that there is a free market was thrown out the window, as well as a possible illegal action. This is like the president of a college, such as Yale or Harvard, being asked by a major benefactor who gives the college any amount of money when asked, to “award” a degree to his son or daughter without them ever attending a single class. The deal goes down and all the records are forged to show that the privileged kid got a bought and paid for degree. A fraud is a fraud.

This all sounds like an episode of Tony Soprano trying to make a deal with another local crime family syndicate using the Godfather-Don Corleone as the “mediator”.

President Obama cannot seem to get enough financial crime syndicate worker bees to join his team. His most recent “ranch hand” is a Goldman Sachs Vice Chairman, Robert Hormats, picked to be the State Department’s undersecretary for economic, energy and agricultural affairs, if confirmed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be pleased because now she has a Goldman Sachs financial insider to do her economic crime syndicate bidding directly with foreign nation states and countries. This is the way it works! The investment banking institutions get government positions whereby they can move legitimately within foreign countries, in this case through the State Department, arranging government deals giving the investment banking crime bosses full knowledge, as well as access, to what is going on.

This is like Tony Soprano having an insider inside the government telling him when a shipment of semi-automatic weapons will be dropped off at the dock, and that there will be a 10 minute window when there will be no one around protecting the shipment.

To further legitimize the fact that the investment banking financial crime syndicate really exists and I am not just exaggerating this fact, we have the special inspector general, Neil Barofsky, for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) concerned that the U.S. taxpayers will be liable for as much as $23.7 trillion stacked up by Geithner and Bernanke ready to be handed out like burgers at the Carhops drive through windows. He is also looking into 35 criminal and civil investigations.

Just as we had Al Capone, and other gangsters run roughshod and terrorize our streets and citizens, we now have something similar terrorizing our economic system, which had been sanctioned by the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. It appears that the bank robbers now occupy the bank! Geithner, Bernanke and the “Dons” of Wall Street are controlling the financial banking institutions and have now broken into the Treasury, without resistance from President Obama, or Congress, and have taken over all the office suites.

Mr. Barofsky has decided to open 35 criminal and civil investigations related to the fraud, misconduct, corruption, cover-ups, and lies perpetuated by those operating from within the financial-banking crime syndicate institutions.

Even the Republicans inside the House Oversight Committee now know that Geithner’s Treasury is engaged in secrecy and has pulled the cover over any type of transparency whenever asked by the senior inspector general of the TARP, as well as Congress to turn over documents that might expose wrongdoing.

To add insult to injury upon the taxpayers who funded these bailouts, Geithner has allowed the investment banks that sold "warrants", or common stock, to the Treasury in exchange for bailout funds, to buy them back for a fraction of what they are worth. The taxpayers did not even get back the principal investment. Geithner allowed these thieving banks to buy back their common stock warrants for less than what we bought them for! Sweet deal. We do them a favor and rescue their incompetent butts, and in exchange Geithner does not even ask for the principal back, let alone some interest to boot. This is further proof showing how Geithner is continuously favoring these "Dons" of Wall Street instead of the American people he is working for.

Here are the facts. The State Street warrants, which were worth $92 million at fair market value, were bought back for only $60 million. BBandT warrants had a fair market value of $114 million, but were bought back for $67 million. And then there is U.S. Bancorp. They bought back their warrants for $139 million, when the paper was worth $260 million.

The U.S. taxpayers cannot even get their loans paid back. They have to take less. As the Treasury sees their revenues decline as a result of the economic collapse, and they have to borrow more and more money from China, they won't even ask for the loans to be paid back in full? President Obama should be ashamed of himself for allowing the taxpayers to get fleeced.

There can be no economic recovery of this nation when we have such criminal activity operating within the White House, Federal Reserve, and the investment-banking Wall Street institutions. The paper economy is no substitute for the real manufacturing economy. Until this is dramatically changed and the criminals prosecuted, there will be no recovery, but only stagnation, or even further erosion of it.

Thanks for reading, jerry