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Saturday, October 24, 2009

The Militarization Of Our Own Police

The G-20 in Pittsburgh, during September, was an eye-opener for many locals, as well as followers of the event. For the city of Pittsburgh, the disturbing takeover by police and military forces has since passed not unlike a go-around with a painful gallstone.

But the reality is that there are other locations around the country experiencing the impact of Martial Law exercises and their local police department’s spending government funds on brand new riot gear, armored assault vehicles, and other pieces of equipment designed for war and the occupation of a community, city or county. The terrorism industry has now taken hold in the United States. Even former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who served under George W. Bush, has warned us of the potential to overspend on the anti-terrorism industry, or terrorism industry depending on how you look at it.

During an interview on Oklahoma television, while on a speaking tour, he told the reporter that the United States has many other very important ways to spend its money. He said that we must be careful to have balance in our national spending, and appropriate domestic funds on what is needed to be safe and nothing more.

Former President Eisenhower expressed a similar point during his term as president. As a former general, he warned the nation of the military industrial complex and the dangers of becoming too consumed with such a build up. Today, the United States spends one-third of it budget on the military industrial complex.

Maybe it was no surprise to the 1200 residents of Troy, Tennessee, on September 30, 2009, when 150 soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 5th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, and the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade out of nearby Fort Campbell conducted a full scale air assault training operation in preparation for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010. Maybe I am an alarmist, but after witnessing what Martial Law could look like, such training exercises that went on without concern in Troy could easily be exercises in the occupation of an American city, as well.

It appears that on the same date as the training in Troy, a small rural town with no police force, known as Hardin, Montana, was occupied by a private para-military force, which went under the name of the “American Police Force”. This private police force, with a Serbia-like logo attached to their black Mercedes SUVs, and commanded by an ex-felon, paraded around town scaring the bajeebers out of the local residents. One of the town officials had arranged for an un-contracted agreement with the APF before they decided to move into town and guard/ occupy an empty prison facility. In addition, they also decided to become the de-facto police force for this town.

It sure sounded like an old western movie when a band of bad boy cowboys take over a quiet, unassuming little one eyed place in the road trying to mind its own business. When the United States begins to see private para-military forces getting contracts on native soil, I believe we all need to take notice.

So, what is the fear? Why do local municipalities, counties, and cities have to request federal government funds to purchase equipment that would more likely be used in a militarized zone, or to combat terrorism? Is this nation hiding terrorists in Oakland, California, or Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, or in Marin County, California, or Sacramento, California, and need to be supplied with front line combat gear provided through the Department of Homeland Security? The HLS department has passed out $465.2 million in stimulus money for armor plated assault vehicles, LRAD machines, training exercises, gas masks, bomb-mitigation vehicles, surveillance devices, new digital radios, ammunition, a 44-foot fast-response boat with a kitchenette and mount capable of holding an M60 machine gun, Segway scooters for bomb squads, outfitted with all-terrain tires, oversized fenders, and trailer hitches, computer-aided dispatch equipment, hazmat response vehicles, surveillance gear, portable radios, respirators and much more stuff a lot of which will never be used and likely collect dust and turn into junk. Why?

Now we ask what is happening to America? It has entered into a new paradigm and it does not look good. There are tent cities popping up all over this country. People who were once homeowners and renters, with jobs, and spending money are now living in their cars, in storm sewers (Las Vegas), and empty buildings. There are now 1 in 50 school aged children living outside of a permanent home. Nearly 47 million Americans are uninsured, and it is projected that by next year there will be 52 million uninsured. And then, there are the 16-25 million underinsured. These people just might go bankrupt because of medical bills piling up, or because their health care provider refuses to pay. 62% of all bankruptcies were from those with health insurance. The Commonwealth Fund had reported that nearly two-thirds of US adults, around 116 million people, struggled to pay medical bills, or went without health care because it cost too much, or were uninsured for a time, or were just underinsured.

Are these the people that our law enforcement will use their new Homeland Security “toys” on once they get angry enough to protest their government’s Treasury theft? We all have to wonder, and, possibly worry, as well. As Pittburghers recently witnessed, these weapons were used upon citizens protesting just this economic theft and the G-20 nations, many of which were complicit in the economic principles called neo-liberalism.

This blogger has been writing about the $23 trillion transfer of Treasury wealth and monetized by the Federal Reserve to backstop the small handful of huge financial-banking institutions that caused this economic disaster resulting in nearly 20% of the under-unemployment of our work force, and losses of half of America’s retirement savings wealth, or $2T, because they engaged in securities fraud and fabricated derivatives with no real capital to support them. Yet they have been bailed out (over $3T), and now, were about to pay billions of dollars in bonuses to keep their fraudsters from moving on until those at MSNBC, such as Dylan Ratigan, got really, really mad about this economic theft by the financial-banking crime syndicate bosses and seemed to have woken up President Obama from his deep sleep regarding this massive disrespect of all hard working Americans.

Now, Michael Moore has just written in his list of ‘What Not To Do’ suggesting Americans get their money out of the hands of Wall Street and, especially, away from the largest investment banking syndicate bosses. He is now saying what this blogger was saying months ago. Get out of Wall Street and put your money in local, neighborhood banks.

This economic collapse could have saved the Treasury most of the bailout money and the backstopping monetization scheme by just buying up the collapsed Wall Street investment banks that came to Hank Paulson, Congress and LittleBoyBush, at the time. Their street worth was less than $300B. Had Congress said to them, either you go out and find your own bailout funding, or we buy you out based upon your real worth, which wasn’t much. But no. The oligarchs won out. They succeeded in the socialization of their losses and the privatization of the winnings. The congresspersons needed to bailout the bankstas, so they could get some of that back in the form of campaign contributions.

So what does this all mean? It means that these large investment banks are still sitting on trillions of dollars of toxic mortgage debt, which has thus far not been written off. Just listen to Professor Elizabeth Warren, chair of the TARP Oversight Committee, and she will explain it further. Basically, the banks have been allowed to steal government money in order to gamble on Wall Street fattening up their balance sheets for a time in the future, maybe next year, when the dollar will be devalued so much that all that toxic mortgage debt could easily been written off at its lowest nominal value allowing the bailed out investment banks to return to profitability at the expense of the taxpayers. When the dollar devalues to that point, wages will fall, as well. More foreclosures, and unemployment will likely occur, and corporations and businesses will fold. Empty commercial buildings will dot the landscape of our communities. Yet the investment banks will be saved!!!!

They will be hated, too. Americans might just get angry, and hit the streets in mass demonstrations. At that point, all the Homeland Security toys and their keepers will be out in force holding them back with all their might. The tanks, assault weapons and vehicles, police in riot gear, and more might be seen occupying more and more communities.

Paralleling this scenario might be the Federal Reserve raising interest rates on the bonds once the banks are saved because Bada Bing Bernanke might be finding that foreign central banks, and sovereign wealth funds dumping low return treasury bills and bonds as a result of the dollar’s value tanking to be just too scary. A raise in bond interest rates could trigger inflation even more, as the Fed would try and re-attract foreign currency buyers back into the dollar. With wages very low, and people struggling to stay solvent, inflation would empty their skinny wallets even more. And, without new jobs to come on line, foreclosures, and shrinking spending will be the norm.

We experienced collapsing consumer credit by $19B, in July. August added another $12B to that collapse. This turns into a 5.8% annual rate drop in consumer credit. Who can borrow? Who wants to borrow? As consumer credit tightens due to rising unemployment, there are fewer credit-worthy people available to take on the risk. This will further collapse the demand for credit and deepen the recession.

The dollar is being shed by foreign central banks. More nations are buying euros and yen, the highest percentage in any previous quarter.

President Obama has been perpetuating the myth that “a dollar of capital in a [huge bailed out Wall Street] bank can actually result in eight to ten dollars of loans to families and businesses. In order for the $1 trillion that the Fed has lavished on banks to produce a faster pace of economic growth, [an unprecedented number of] indebted households and businesses would have to take on an additional $8-10 trillion [of new] debt. Indebtedness would become a way of life. That seems to be the plan.” (Cockeyed Economics, Alan Nasser, October 9-11, 2009, Counterpunch.org)

The Average American household is too tapped out to even consider further indebtedness, especially since the banking oligarchs offered no “Shared Sacrifice” which President Obama has asked from all of us.

Found in the article “Cockeyed Economics” is the US Census Bureau’s Consumer Income Report of August 2008. It stated that real median household income was $50,233. Now for those households headed by married couples, have a median income of $72,785. If they own a home costing $169,000, it is very likely with all their yearly expenses, they have nearly zero savings at the end of a year. That means that with an unexpected expense or two or three, they have a zero balance at the end of the year. There is no savings. They might actually go negative. There would be no financial college support for their kids.

It appears that President Obama is stuck in a neo-liberal frame of mind. A form of laizzez-faire economic capitalism, which has shown to have failed and been the cause of this collapse. He actually seems to believe that by dropping wages resembling those of competing third world nations, the US will recreate the boom years of 1949-74. He does not seem to understand, as pointed out by Mr. Nasser, that it took decades to build a strong and vibrant, domestically consuming and exporting manufacturing sector. It has taken decades to destroy it. Therefore, it will take decades, again, to rebuild it into something viable. This is the Obama view of recovery.

What this means is further suffering Americans. A very eroded standard of living and our children never being able to have a life others had once joyfully experienced.

President Obama’s priorities are more with the financial-banking crime syndicate and making them fully solvent so they can once more sell wildly profitable exotic and toxic derivatives, which have basically dried up since the collapse of our economy, as well as perpetuate the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, than with those living and working on the corner of Main and Side Street.

It has been revealed that the fuel costs to America by just the U.S Marines in Afghanistan comes to $320 MILLION per DAY. That sure would buy a lot of recovery to working Americans. It costs the U.S Marines $400 per gallon of gas to fill their gas tanks. Is this what we need to be doing during this economic code red national security crisis?

It appears that the U.S government has armed the domestic police forces close to the level of what is found in combat theaters. Our government has militarized our neighborhood cops and is training them to see the public as a possible enemy. Why? Because the United States is devolving into a third world country. It is in decline in nearly every possible way. The corporate oligarchs have taken power by "over-lording" the White House, trying to control a great many congresspersons, and influencing the final outcome of our laws in order to suit their corporate agendas.

This is the new American Paradigm. And, this may be only the beginning. But we can do something to possible change the direction. One major directional change would be to pull all your money away from the hands of Wall Street, otherwise, they have it for their own use.

A new American Paradigm has been cooking in the crock-pot for 30 years, and now it has boiled over. The question is—what comes next?

thanks for reading, jerry

16 comments:

SPECTRE of Deflation said...

Jerry, here's a follow up to the Rep. Towns changing of the locks. Karl D. has the story. He's been told he's on the Enemy List. How very Nixonique:

BOOM! (Friends Of Angelo)
It's about damn time:

Bank of America Corp Reportedly Congressman Towns issuing subpoena to Countrywide Financial in mortgage probe
- Congressman Towns says he has requested information from Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Citigroup, and GMAC; is prepared to issue subpoenas to other banks in mortgage probe if they don't comply

(Source: Via Rebeltrader off wires)

Remember that this is the same Congressman Towns:

After GOP members of the House oversight committee shot footage for a "campaign style video" in the committee room, Democrats responded by changing the lock on a private door leading in from the Republican suite of offices.

Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) ordered the lock changed after complaining that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) used an unauthorized camera inside the hearing room during a recess. Issa set the footage to "Hit the Road, Jack" and accused Democrats of avoiding a vote to authorize subpoenas in the Countrywide sweetheart mortgage program.

That was just two days ago.

Looks like Congressman Towns has capitulated - Darrell Issa wins this one both on the facts and in the court of public opinion.

Remember, President Obama promised us "open government" and "accountability", along with five days for everyone to read every bill he was sent before he signed it.

Those were all lies, you know....



As I pointed out on September 23rd, even the name of the program, "Friends of Angelo", strongly implied special privilege.

Do you think we'll get an honest look at the program this time - and Congressional complicity both with it and participation in it? I doubt it, but this is what we can all agree, I believe, is "a good start."

PS: If I'm really on the White House "enemies" list, as was sent to an associate from an "anonymous" source, then bully for me. I stand with such notable folk as Glenn Beck and Fox News. Long live investigative journalism and The First Amendment, whether the government likes it or not!

SPECTRE of Deflation said...

7 Lies In Two Minutes from President Barry Obama,and another 14 Americans are dead in Poppystan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UErR7i2onW0&feature=player_embedded,

SPECTRE of Deflation said...

Jerry, how's this for a loan shark rate? :>)! By way of Mish:

First Premier Banks Offers Card With 79.9 Percent Rate

Please consider No, You're Reading That Right

Gordon Hageman couldn’t believe the credit card offer he got in the mail.

"My first thought, it was a mistake," Hageman said.

The wine distributor called the number on the offer, gave them the offer code and verified his information. Sure enough, it was right: the pre-approved credit card came with a 79.9 percent APR.

Yes, 79.9 percent.

The offer is for a Premier card from First Premier Bank, which is based in South Dakota. On its Web site, First Premier says it is the country's 10th largest issuer of Visa and MasterCard credit cards. The site also says it "focuses on individuals who have less than perfect credit but are actually still creditworthy."

According to information on the South Dakota Legislative Web site, there is "no maximum or usury restriction." In other words, the individual bank can set its own interest rate limits.

Several calls made to First Premier for a comment were not returned.

SPECTRE of Deflation said...

Jerry, as I have said many times, it's all about the poppy just as it was in Vietnam.

NY Times: Afghan Opium Kingpin On CIA Payroll

But exposé serves as little more than a whitewash because it fails to mention decades-long U.S. agenda to support lucrative Golden Crescent drug trade



Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, October 28, 2009

A bombshell article in today’s edition of the New York Times lifts the lid on how the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a suspected kingpin of the country’s booming opium trade, has been on the CIA payroll for the past eight years. However, the article serves as little more than a whitewash because it fails to address the fact that one of the primary reasons behind the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was the agenda to reinstate the Golden Crescent drug trade.

“The agency pays (Ahmed Wali) Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home,” reports the Times.

An October 2008 report from the Times reveals how, after security forces discovered a huge tractor-trailer full of heroin outside Kandahar in 2004, “Before long, the commander, Habibullah Jan, received a telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs.”

In 2006, following the discovery of another cache of heroin, “United States investigators told other American officials that they had discovered links between the drug shipment and a bodyguard believed to be an intermediary for Ahmed Wali Karzai.”

The Times article out today also discusses how the CIA uses Karzai as a go-between between the Americans and the Taliban. He is also directly implicated in the manufacturing of phony ballots and polling stations that were attributed to the President’s disputed election victory.

“If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” the American officer said of Mr. Karzai. “Our assumption is that he’s benefiting from the drug trade.”

Officials quoted by The Times described Karzai as a Mafia-like figure who expanded his influence over the drug trade with the aid of U.S. efforts to eliminate his competitors.

The Afghan opium trade has exploded since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, following a lull after the Taliban had imposed a crackdown. According to the U.N., the drug trade is now worth $65 billion. Afghanistan produces 92 per cent of the world’s opium, with the equivalent of 3,500 tonnes leaving the country each year. Other figures put the number far higher, at around 6,100 tonnes a year.

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)



The New York Times exposé pins the blame on Karzai, but fails to explain that one of the primary reasons behind the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was the United States’ agenda to restore, not eradicate, the drug trade.
(SNIP)

http://www.prisonplanet.com/ny-times-afghan-opium-kingpin-on-cia-payroll.html

SPECTRE of Deflation said...

Jerry, as people toss around numbers on derivatives, here's an article that makes very clear what is really at stake. $1.4 QUADRILLION DOLLARS. Man are we screwed or what?

Global Exposure in Financial Derivatives Surpasses One Quadrillion Dollars (Update)
July 21, 2009, 3:32PM


When I posted the lowest responsibly sourced figure for global exposure in financial derivatives, $592 trillion, published May 19, 2009 by the Bank of International Settlements, all sorts of hoodoo apologists for Obama, Geithner, Summers, and Goldman Sachs crawled out the woodwork to claim that this figure is ridiculously exaggerated, there's really nothing to worry about, it's just a few bucks, and so on.

All the same hoodoos unfailingly claimed that it's stupid to consider worst-case scenarios when you calculate risk, because...

They have learned absolutely nothing from the ongoing financial meltdown which annihilated some of the oldest and largest investment banks in the world, and plunged the global economy into an almost vertical downturn.

So, since even the lowest reasonable figure for global exposure in financial derivatives attracts so much obfuscation and denial, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and offer up a much larger and probably more accurate estimate, which also includes the huge market in off-the-books derivatives, instead of only considering the OTC market upon which the previous calculation by the Bank of International Settlements was based, and that estimate is...

$1.4 quadrillion.

That's more than one million piles of money, with a billion dollars in each pile.

In previous posts I also considered the total exposure of the federal government from various programs designed to bail out the banking establishment, $23.7 trillion, which was calculated by Special Treasury Department Inspector General Neil Barofsky, one of the very few watchdogs charged with overseeing Geithner/Paulson/Summer's infinite generosity to the banks, and why should we believe a mere inspector general, when we can rely on unsourced estimates from right-wing hoodoos?

So in the interests of complete fairness, balance, impartiality, and pandering to ignorant hoodoos who insist on nothing but sunshine in the news, I am also offering up a much smaller figure for the total bailout exposure of the federal government, extracted from the most reputable of the many sunshine blogs selling all-is-well scenarios all over the internet, and that low-ball estimate for federal exposure is... $13.9 trillion.

Added to those figures are $4.4 trillion in other possible Treasury programs, and $2.3 trillion in F.D.I.C. guarantees of deposits. The final $7.2 trillion comes mostly from various mortgage-related programs.
"Possible Treasury programs!"

"Various mortgage-related programs!"

And that's really just about all anybody knows about them, except for Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, and Goldman Sachs, because the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve don't have to tell you anything, and they don't even have to disclose much to inspectors-general like Neil Barofsky, who says...
(SNIP)

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/rutabaga_ridgepole/2009/07/global-exposure-in-financial-d.php?ref=reccafe

SPECTRE of Deflation said...

What happens when govt. sticks it's nose where it does not belong? $24 THOUSAND DOLLARS for every vehicle sold in the Clunkers Program. I can't wait for the savings from healthcare reform. Pure bullshit, as they won't touch prescription drugs which is an area that would help everyone NOW...not some future savings...right Fing NOW!

The efficiency of the Post Office,
The sustainability of Social Security and the compassion of the IRS.

Get ready Amerika as they are coming to fuc...I mean help you!!

Edmunds: Cash for Clunkers Cost Taxpayers $24,000 Per Vehicle Sold


DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
The government's "Cash for Clunkers" program may have only added 125,000 vehicle sales, according to Edmunds.com, which said the rest of the units sold would have happened regardless of the program.


In total, the car-shopping Web site said about 690,000 vehicles were sold during the program. Edmunds.com said that based on the actual sales gained from the program, the Cash for Clunkers program cost taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle sold.


"Our research indicates that without the Cash for Clunkers program, many customers would not have traded in an old vehicle when making a new purchase," said Edmunds.com senior analyst David Tompkins. "That may give some credence to the environmental claims, but unfortunately the economic claims have been rendered quite weak."


Edmunds.com Chief Executive Jeremy Anwyl noted that while sales are up in October from September, growth would have been even better without the program. He said that suggests the auto industry's recovery is gaining momentum.


Sales surged in late July and most of August as the program was in effect, giving certain new-car buyers up to $4,500 in rebates if they traded in a gas-guzzler. But U.S. auto sales slid in September absent clunker-related deals. Other countries still have so-called scrappage programs in effect.


-By John Kell, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2480; john.kell@dowjones.com

muralsigns said...

Hello Spectre,

You must have been enjoying Indian Summer in your area, since you had not posted anything for a few days, until today. :)

The ultimate derivative debt of $1.4 Quadrillion, which was $592 Trillion, or so, back in the summer, and posted on the Bank of International Settlement's website sure continues to be a rumbling tsunami in the sea of international investments.

Such liabilities appear to ignored by the media and even the likes of Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC. I wonder if the powers that be "got to him"?

The Cash For Clunkers was a true waste when, as you said, prescription drugs is a burden for everyone in the country. Most of us are making due with our own clunkers.

There are real problems brewing, Spectre, as you are so astutely aware. Pensions, State budgets, and more fly under the radar for most who speak about how the recession has leveled off for now.

Our last VBLOG entry on the blogspot was our interview with our Canadian radio host friend located on Vancouver Island.

jerry

SPECTRE of Deflation said...

Jerry, here's a snip of a post from Sept. at Calculated Risk regarding the first time home buyers credit. The cost to us (TAXPAYER) per home sold amounts to between $43,000 - $60,000 per home sold. Man, is that money well spent or what? We only have 18.8 MILLION more homes to go if we could get the builders to stop building. This is the govt. that will lead us to the promised land on healthcare? I think not!

From David Streitfeld at the NY Times: Fight Looming on Tax Break to Buy Houses

When Congress passed an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers last winter, it was intended as a dose of shock therapy during a crisis. Now the question is becoming whether the housing market can function without it.

As many as 40 percent of all home buyers this year will qualify for the credit. It is on track to cost the government $15 billion, more than twice the amount that was projected when Congress passed the stimulus bill in February.
Streitfeld discusses some of the proponents of extending and expanding the tax credit (like the NAR), and some of the opponents (most economists on the right and left).
Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research called the credit “a questionable redistributive policy” from renters to home buyers, but said that he used it himself when he bought a house.

He wrote on his blog: “Thank you very much, suckers!”
Mark Zandi at Economy.com supports extending and expanding the tax credit because he believes the housing market is still in serious trouble:
"The risks of not doing something like this are too great,” [Zandi] said. “I don’t think the coast is clear.”
But if we actually look at the numbers, this is a poor choice for a second stimulus package. The NAR recently reported:
NAR estimates that about 1.8 to 2.0 million first-time buyers will take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit this year, with approximately 350,000 additional sales that would not have taken place without the credit.
You can calculate the new $15 billion projection; 1.9 million times $8,000.

But this only resulted in 350,000 additional sales. Divide $15 billion by 350 thousand, and the program cost is about $43,000 per additional buyer. Very expensive.

Now the National Association of Home Builders estimates that expanding and extending the credit through 2010 would generate 500,000 additional sales at a cost of about $30 billion. So this is approximately $60,000 per additional house sold. And I think the cost will be much higher.
(SNIP)

muralsigns said...

Hi Spectre,

The new homeowner plan is to allow a homeowner whose home is valued no more than $250,000 to receive around $6500 to keep them from walking away from the existing mortgage. What the heck is going on? This would be a giveaway to the mortgage bankstas who would see the home which would otherwise end up in foreclosure and on their "list" of empty homes and adding to the already 12 month backlog away from the junk heap. It would also push home prices down instead of upward.

jerry

SPECTRE of Deflation said...

Jerry, here's Karl D. getting religion on just how much the American people will take until a breaking point is reached. The MSM is finally waking up.

Is The Press Waking Up?
In a piece in The Dallas Observer, James Lieber opines:

Where did our wealth go? How do we claw it back? And when are we going to punish the culprits?

Heh, my refrain being sounded in the "mainstream media": Where are the cops?

He also calls out President Obama and the usual litany of campaign lies, including:

The Obama video portrayed John McCain as Keating's stooge and likened the S&L crash to the 2008 Wall Street meltdown, except that the current crisis is global and its bad guys are bigger and badder. Today's corporate villains were flashed on the screen, among them AIG, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The opening narrator was Bill Black, a Ph.D. criminologist and former lead lawyer at the Office of Thrift Supervision who helped steer the brilliant federal effort that cleaned up the S&L industry and won more than 1,000 felony convictions of senior insiders while recovering millions of their ill-gotten dollars.

Those watching the compelling attack ad (still online) had every reason to believe that Obama's approach would be just as hard-edged and that felon-busting G-men would rout the crooks and recover our money.

This was not to be.

Yep. In point of fact President Obama immediately post-election installed people who were personally responsible for the mess and were either complicit in or blind to the looting that happened during President Bush's Presidency, including Geithner, Shapiro, Summers and more.


Of course the looting has continued since, and in fact has picked up pace, since the "honest buck" is rather hard to make in a lending environment with no qualified and willing borrowers!

We've also got this:

So, where is the justice in the current crisis? Why have there been so few prosecutions and only feeble attempts, at best, to claw the money back? One reason may be that, in such infamous cases as the Lehman Brothers collapse and Bank of America's absorption of Merrill Lynch, the Fed and the Treasury were intimately involved with the financial elite's deal making at the time. It's difficult to prosecute others for securities fraud if you condoned the deals to begin with.

Ah, recognition of reality! In the mainstream press no less. Congratulations. Better late than never!

More important, the nation's new top prosecutor, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, has a history of preferring that deviant corporations be held to no more than a "voluntary cooperation" system in which they investigate themselves privately.

Under the "Holder Memo," which he wrote in 1999 as deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, bad-boy executives and their corporations who turn over evidence to the government qualify for lenient sentences and fines and, sometimes, for settlements without even indictments. The consequences of their crimes often amount to only the cost of doing business.



Oh, it gets better....

Black vents particular ire at Tim Geithner, who, as New York Fed chair, fiddled while Wall Street imploded; Henry Paulson (and Geithner again), who, as Treasury secretaries, refused to enforce a key banking law; and Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, who, as Fed chairs, were supposed to regulate banks, especially the renegade mortgage units. The two Fed chairs closed their eyes to excess and continued to blow easy money into the bubble.

The key statute that the Treasury flouted under Paulson and Geithner is the Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) law. Congress passed it in the wake of the S&L scandal in 1991, and the first President Bush signed it. It's probably the best, fairest and clearest piece of financial legislation since the New Deal.
(SNIP)

http://market-ticker.org/archives/1556-Is-The-Press-Waking-Up.html

SPECTRE of Deflation said...

Jerry, under FHA you only need a 3.5% down payment, and with the credit of $8,000 you have exactly 0(ZERO) skin in the game once again. The best part is that you can extract way more than the down payment from the credit. You can have a much larger mortgage than the purchase price of the house, so long as the comps allow, which allows you to get money at closing.

If you buy a house for $150,000, you would need $5250 as your downstroke. The buyer thinks a vacation would be nice after buying the house, so he asks for a mortgage of $170,000 which only increases his downstroke to $5950. Now the buyer has $20,000 in his pocket with some change left over on the credit.

This is the best our govt. leadership can come up with? The very same crap that got us here in the first place? Now they want to expand the program to move up buyers as you mentioned. This will be something to watch...but at a distance as this shit will blow sky high coming up.

muralsigns said...

Hi Spectre,

You are so correct. Nothing will change. President Obama is not interested in seeking indictments nor pursuing any sort of honest and real investigations that lead up to the economic theft. The facts are already out there. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone has clearly written about this Wall Street theft and the naked short selling that was orchestrated by the large banking oligarchs to take down Lehman and Bear Stearns.

America will likely see some critical economic meltdowns in the next or following year. But, by then, it will be past the 11th hour. It will be an emerging police state, at that point because so many Americans will be desperate and suffering.

The people will elect a tyrant-like president, or a really brave American to demand from Congress swift and crushing actions against the liars and thieves.

Read this: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30481512/wall_streets_naked_swindle

jerry

SPECTRE of Deflation said...

Jerry, here's an interesting read regarding Poppystan:

Occupiers involved in drug trade: Afghan minister


http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=110130&sectionid=351020403

SPECTRE of Deflation said...

Jerry, the little guy doesn't stand a chance:

Monday, November 2, 2009
WATT’S MOVE TO DESTROY FED AUDIT RAISES CORRUPTION QUESTIONS

Mel Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, laid down the battle lines by eliminating measures meant to encourage transparency from the Federal Reserve. In a move that critics called dubious and dishonest, Watt destroyed a bill intended to bring more financial disclosure from the Federal Reserve.
The legislation had been intended to bring greater accountability to the Fed, by calling for an audit of its books in order to determine taxpayer dollars were being spent wisely. The move by Watt to destroy the bill surprised many congressional onlookers, who were left scratching their heads as to why any elected official would participate in an apparent coverup of the Fed’s financial status, with some calling it deceitful and corrupt.
U.S. Representative Ron Paul, the creator and sponsor of the legislation, said Watt had ‘gutted’ the bill and decried the partisan motivations behind it. Many saw the move as a gift to the international finance industry, who allegedly had questionable transactions with the Fed and do not wish to make such matters public.
Others speculated that Watt relinquished to pressure of a more local nature. His district is home to the national headquarters of the Bank of America, one of the largest banks in the United States and big financial backers of current U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama.

SPECTRE of Deflation said...

Jerry, this is exactly what I'm worried about concerning Govt. run healthcare. Canada doesn't have the answer to our woes:

ABC's John Stossel Destroys/Pulverizes/Crushes Obama's anti-American 'Health Care' Plan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9GMKK_fWKg

muralsigns said...

SPECTRE,

I don't buy into Stossel's assessment. We don't wait? We have to wait for care. In Canada, my family has never had to wait for health care services. And, there are not small communities in the US that have to drive hours just to go to a clinic.

Stossel is just an alarmist.

jerry