Why Is Obama NOT Listening?

Bank of America is about to transfer trillions of toxic derivative dollars onto the Fed. Hasn't this White House learned anything after the AIG rip-off? Have we not had enough of credit default swaps being covered by the taxpayers creating a national security risk.

BofA Said to Split Regulators Over Moving Merrill Derivatives to Bank Unit

By Bob Ivry, Hugh Son and Christine Harper - Oct 18, 2011

Bank of America Corp. (BAC), hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. disagree over the transfers, which are being requested by counterparties, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The Fed has signaled that it favors moving the derivatives to give relief to the bank holding company, while the FDIC, which would have to pay off depositors in the event of a bank failure, is objecting, said the people. The bank doesn’t believe regulatory approval is needed, said people with knowledge of its position.

Three years after taxpayers rescued some of the biggest U.S. lenders, regulators are grappling with how to protect FDIC- insured bank accounts from risks generated by investment-banking operations. Bank of America, which got a $45 billion bailout during the financial crisis, had $1.04 trillion in deposits as of midyear, ranking it second among U.S. firms.

“The concern is that there is always an enormous temptation to dump the losers on the insured institution,” said William Black, professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a former bank regulator. “We should have fairly tight restrictions on that.”

Accommodating Clients

Jerry Dubrowski, a spokesman for Charlotte, North Carolina- based Bank of America, declined to comment on the transfers or the firm’s discussions with regulators. The company “continues to accommodate the needs of our clients through each of our multiple trading entities, including Bank of America NA,” he said in an e-mailed statement, referring to the company’s deposit-taking unit.

Barbara Hagenbaugh, a Fed spokeswoman, said she couldn’t discuss supervision of specific institutions. Greg Hernandez, an FDIC spokesman, declined to comment.

Bank of America posted a $6.2 billion third-quarter profit today, compared with a loss of $7.3 billion a year earlier, as credit quality improved and the firm booked one-time accounting gains. The lender rose 7.3 percent to $6.47 at 1:54 p.m. in New York trading, making it the day’s best performer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Credit-default swaps on Bank of America eased 10 basis points to a mid-price of 380 as of 11:49 a.m. in New York, according to broker Phoenix Partners Group.

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Bank of America’s long-term credit ratings Sept. 21, cutting both the holding company and the retail bank two notches apiece. The holding company fell to Baa1, the third-lowest investment-grade rank, from A2, while the retail bank declined to A2 from Aa3.

Moody’s Downgrade

The Moody’s downgrade spurred some of Merrill’s partners to ask that contracts be moved to the retail unit, which has a higher credit rating, according to people familiar with the transactions. Transferring derivatives also can help the parent company minimize the collateral it must post on contracts and the potential costs to terminate trades after Moody’s decision, said a person familiar with the matter.

Bank of America estimated in an August regulatory filing that a two-level downgrade by all ratings companies would have required that it post $3.3 billion in additional collateral and termination payments, based on over-the-counter derivatives and other trading agreements as of June 30. The figure doesn’t include possible collateral payments due to “variable interest entities,” which the firm is evaluating, it said in the filing.

Dubrowski declined to comment on collateral or termination payments after the downgrade.

‘Be Prepared’

Bank of America’s rating is now four grades below the one Moody’s assigned to JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), the biggest U.S. bank by deposits at midyear, and a level below the rating given to Citigroup Inc. (C), the third-biggest. Bank of America is the only U.S. lender that lacks a rating of A3 or higher among the five firms listed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as having the biggest derivatives books.

“We had worked very hard over the course of the last nine months to be prepared to the extent that we did receive a downgrade, and feel very good about the way that we’ve minimized the potential impact” Bank of America Chief Financial Officer Bruce Thompson said in a conference call today with analysts. “Since the downgrade, we have not seen any change in our global excess liquidity sources.”

Derivatives are financial instruments used to hedge risks or for speculation. They’re derived from stocks, bonds, loans, currencies and commodities, or linked to specific events such as changes in the weather or interest rates.

Dodd-Frank Rules

Keeping such deals separate from FDIC-insured savings has been a cornerstone of U.S. regulation for decades, including last year’s Dodd-Frank overhaul of Wall Street regulation.

The legislation gave the FDIC, which liquidates failing banks, expanded powers to dismantle large financial institutions in danger of failing. The agency can borrow from the Treasury Department to finance the biggest lenders’ operations to stem bank runs. It’s required to recoup taxpayer money used during the resolution process through fees on the largest firms.

Bank of America benefited from two injections of U.S. bailout funds during the financial crisis. The first, in 2008, included $15 billion for the bank and $10 billion for Merrill, which the bank had agreed to buy. The second round of $20 billion came in January 2009 after Merrill’s losses in its final quarter as an independent firm surpassed $15 billion, raising doubts about the bank’s stability if the takeover proceeded. The U.S. also offered to guarantee $118 billion of assets held by the combined company, mostly at Merrill. The company repaid federal bailout funds in 2009 with interest.

‘The Normal Course’

Bank of America’s holding company -- the parent of both the retail bank and the Merrill Lynch securities unit -- held almost $75 trillion of derivatives at the end of June, according to data compiled by the OCC. About $53 trillion, or 71 percent, were within Bank of America NA, according to the data, which represent the notional values of the trades.

That compares with JPMorgan’s deposit-taking entity, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, which contained 99 percent of the New York-based firm’s $79 trillion of notional derivatives, the OCC data show.

The moves by Bank of America are part of “the normal course of dealings that we’ve had with counterparties since Merrill Lynch and BofA came together,” Thompson said today.

‘Created a Firewall’

Moving derivatives contracts between units of a bank holding company is limited under Section 23A of the Federal Reserve Act, which is designed to prevent a lender’s affiliates from benefiting from its federal subsidy and to protect the bank from excessive risk originating at the non-bank affiliate, said Saule T. Omarova, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law.

“Congress doesn’t want a bank’s FDIC insurance and access to the Fed discount window to somehow benefit an affiliate, so they created a firewall,” Omarova said. The discount window has been open to banks as the lender of last resort since 1914.

As a general rule, as long as transactions involve high- quality assets and don’t exceed certain quantitative limitations, they should be allowed under the Federal Reserve Act, Omarova said.

In 2009, the Fed granted Section 23A exemptions to the banking arms of Ally Financial Inc., HSBC Holdings Plc, Fifth Third Bancorp, ING Groep NV, General Electric Co., Northern Trust Corp., CIT Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., among others, according to letters posted on the Fed’s website.

The central bank terminated exemptions last year for retail-banking units of JPMorgan, Citigroup, Barclays Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland Plc and Deutsche Bank AG. The Fed also ended an exemption for Bank of America in March 2010 and in September of that year approved a new one.

Section 23A “is among the most important tools that U.S. bank regulators have to protect the safety and soundness of U.S. banks,” Scott Alvarez, the Fed’s general counsel, told Congress in March 2008.

To contact the reporters on this story: Bob Ivry in New York at bivry@bloomberg.net; Hugh Son in New York at hson1@bloomberg.net; Christine Harper in New York atcharper@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gary Putka at gputka@bloomberg.net; David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net.

Max Keiser speaks about the situation the banks are in.

"This week Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, talk about the European penny drops as more banks need more bailouts while the public debt clock ticks up to $40 trillion. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser interviews Michael Betancourt about the threat that Occupy Wall Street presents to our modern form of capitalism that relies on ignorance and passivity in the population in order to operate schemes of fraud and bubbles."

The Nation's Rigged Corporate Capitalism Syndicate

Over the past couple weeks, I have been on the road visiting Washington, DC, as the TeaParty was gathering, and to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where one would think that all is well in the worldwide economy.

Toronto’s downtown, as well as in the suburbs, development is booming. In center city, the place is filled with commercial development. Condos and hotels are going up everywhere. It is amazing! The streets are filled with people walking and restaurants are busy in spite of the costs. It is my guess that even in Toronto, there are the haves and have mores. In center city, condo prices are unbelievable. $3 million might be a starting figure placed on units in these luxurious buildings.

Once arriving back home, we have now witnessed a massive oil spill filling the Gulf of Mexico outside Louisiana contaminating the fish supply, polluting the waters and endangering the oyster beds in the wetlands, and marshes where sea water is filtered by fresh river water. BP is just another elite corporate predator. It appears that negligence may likely be the cause of the explosion as a result of Halliburton’s shoddy workmanship in their subcontracted cement work.

Halliburton, BP, Goldman Sachs, Massey Energy, Exxon, Lehman Brothers, and the list can go on and on are the nation’s elite corporate predators. They, and others, are this nation’s oligarchs buying influence, laws, rules, and Congresspersons, as well as air time over the public airwaves spewing their propagandistic messages to gullible viewers for the sole purpose of meeting their profit agenda, in order for those unearned giant bonuses to paid out to their Corporobots. None of these elite corporate predators care about anything other than profits and personal financial enrichment. Profits must be made at the expense of the nation’s national security, the environment, families, and the lives of workers, as well as the health of the economy. There is nothing honorable, or respectful among these dangerous CEOs who are engaged in what Stacy Herbert, the analyst on the (Max) Keiser Report, calls Rigged Corporate Capitalism.

Let’s review some of this nation’s disasters, minus 9-11, caused by the Rigged Predatory Capitalist Elite.

Citgo refinery oil spill, July 2006, Louisiana.

PEPCO Chalk Point generating station in Maryland, April, 2000, caused by a ruptured pipeline.

North Cape Oil Spill, January 1996, grounded barge in southern Rhode Island spilled 828,000 gallons of oil.

The Argo Merchant ship ran aground near Nantucket Island , Mass., breaking apart spilling 7.7 million gallons of oil.

Union Oil’s offshore platform, Santa Monica, CA, January 1969, blowout spilling 4 million gallons of oil.

C.P. Baker drilling barge, June 1964, Louisiana, 22 dead workers, the rest injured, blowout caused and explosion and fire.

Brooklyn, NY, the Greenport refineries numbering over 50, had a 30 million gallon oil spill.

Exxon Valdez, 1989, Prince William Sound, Alaska, 11 million gallons spilled.

Port Arthur, Texas, January 2000, 450,000 gallons spilled due a collision.

Massey Energy, March 2010 at the Upper Branch Mine, West Virginia, 25 dead workers.

Sago Mine disaster, February 2006, Anker West Virginia Mining Company, one survivor, 12 dead workers.

CONSOL Energy explosion at the Farmington Mine, in 1968, West Virginia, 78 dead workers.

Massey Energy, October 2000, 300 gallons of mercury, and arsenic laced coal slurry flooded land, polluted rivers, and destroyed parts of eastern Kentucky, and West Virginia, all resulted from a large reservoir broke. The toxic waste made it’s way to the Ohio River.

Monsanto, for nearly 40 years, until 2003, dumped toxic waste (PCBs) into West Anniston Creek, Alabama, as well as dumped millions of pounds into open landfill pits.

In Picher Oklahoma lies a dead town resulting from massive piles of lead laced mine waste, which covered 25,000 acres poisoning people and land. Acid laced mine water destroyed Tar Creek. Eagle-Picher were mine operators until 1970. Lead iron ore and zinc were mined.

Three Mile Island nuclear accident, 1979, dumping 13 million curies of radioactive gases into the air. Located in PA. Operated by Metropolitan Edison Company.

Love Canal, located near Niagara Falls, saw 21,000 tons of industrial wasted dumped in 1952 by Hooker Chemical.

W.R. Grace Plant, in Libby, Montana, spewed tremolite aspestos smoke from their factory into the air killing over 200 people.

In Kingston, Tennessee, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Fossil Plant released a billion gallons of coal toxic sludge waste as a result of a wall breaking loose pouring the poison into 300 acres of surrounding land—arsenic, lead and mercury.

In addition, we have Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Wells Fargo, Countrywide, and others that have taken down the nation’s financial system resulting from possibly illegal, if not extremely immoral activities surrounding mortgage securities, Credit default swaps, interest rate swaps, collateral debt obligations, structured Investment Vehicles, all driving our economy over a cliff.

These are Rigged Financial Predatory Capitalist Elites.

Another Interesting Bit:

It was reported by Karl Denninger in his Market-ticker.denninger.net site, a couple weeks ago, that the Fed monetized, in just one day, and without notifying Congress, $400B! Where did it go? Did it go to bailout Europe and/or Greece, as Mr. Denninger hypothesized? Has it gone outside the United States? Has $400B worth of US government bonds suddenly been dumped on the world market and Bernanke used it to quietly mop them up with his funny money?  Read more here.

Congress did not authorize any worldwide bailouts, as they did when President Bush went to the legislature, with the corporate investment banking mobster field marshals threatened the country and world that a huge Chicken Little-sky-will-fall-Depression-style seismic quake will occur unless the biggest zombie banks are handed over $700B of US cash. You all remember. So where has the $400B gone?

China did sell off around $80B in US Treasuries recently.

See link for the Federal Reserve chart showing the spike in monetization.

On another note, Mr. Michael Whitney has been writing, on Counterpunch.org, about the eventual Chinese Reminbi revaluation, no doubt, upward. Here is what Mr. Whitney wrote, (“The Looming Trade War With China”), quoting Mr. Chen, (extracted from Washington Post, [Chen] China’s commerce minister: U.S. has the most to lose in a trade war”) “If the United States does decide to impose tariffs on China, American companies operating in China, which account for more than 60 percent of China’s exports to the United States, would surely be hurt the most. ‘In the end, America is the one that needs to adjust’”. Chen continued, “One reason why a revaluation would be dangerous for China, is that profit margins for Chinese exporters are tiny—ranging from 1.7 to two percentage points.”

So who are these US multinational companies operating in China over the last 30+ years that have left the American working unemployed or underemployed so they can export their cheap “Made In China” stuff to these same abandoned workers? Who are these companies making up 60% of China’s export market? These huge goliaths that have enjoyed a low valued Reminbi pegged to the dollar, and not floating as it should be?

As Mr. Whitney suggests, these companies, no doubt, encouraged the Chinese central bank, a government controlled central bank, to keep their currency valued low so their products sell much cheaper than what a US competitor could sell domestically. Would you say this is an act of piracy? A consumer product hijacking? A purposeful and deliberate action to destroy the US economy? An act of the highest national security breech? Where is the Justice department in all of this? Could this be economic warfare performed by a large number of ex-patriot manufacturing companies who want to be labeled as “multi-nationals”: corporations without a homeland, but mobile, floating corporate “vessels” landing their factories and corporate offices on the shores of countries offering the greatest gifts in the form of dirt cheap workers, minimal-to-no workplace rules and regulations, no unions, cheap exchange rates, and malleable central banks and governments?

These are just three of the many companies with such famous names as:

• GE
• Microsoft
• Nike

It is near impossible to freely get the names of the biggest US multinational corporations producing in China. The US-China Chamber of Commerce does not freely reveal their membership.

And then there is Sarah Palin:

Also, we have Sarah Palin, the corporate-paid shill, no doubt, bribed away from finishing her term as Alaska’s governor, in order to be given a multi-million dollar book deal with a guarantee that no copies would need to be sold to the public because what wasn’t sold would be bought up by her corporate sponsors and given away, riding her bus giving TeaParty speeches. Her key points are hard to understand. She criticizes President Obama, as this blog often does, over such trigger-points as guns, religion, freedoms, taxes, and her ‘drill-baby-drill’ mantra.

What she fails to tell her Kool-Aid guzzling crowds is that nearly half this nation’s taxpayers paid absolutely NO, and I mean NO, taxes for 2009!!! That means that most, if not nearly all, her supporters paid NO taxes this tax year. And, 47% of the American people actually received money back from government because they qualified for specific rebates.

Have we ever heard her say that of the 278 largest corporations, over 80 of them paid absolutely no taxes, or got money back! No. Palin is silent on this point. Nor has she spoken up about who these top corporations pay LESS federal income tax than working people.

Also, I have not heard President Obama ever say that he wants to take her guns, or anyone else’s guns away from their homes. I have not heard him threaten to keep Sarah, or anyone else for that matter, from praying with witch doctors that preach the killing of African village women that are threatening to the male power structures, in Palin’s Wasilla church, or prevent her or anyone else from their laying-of-hands ceremonies, or any other religious practices.

I guess you could say that Sarah Palin is a propagandist inciting fear and anger just for the sake of it.

Back in 1933, when FDR was president, he had a resistive, regressive Supreme Court majority, and Congress decrying that his move toward his New Deal was fascist, or communist, and would destroy the country. As today, the same Regressive Republican Party and Supreme Court is doing the same thing in regards to reform. The court recently allowed US corporations to have the same rights as a person, therefore, these multi-billion dollar lobby handouts used to bribe Congresspersons to craft legislation in the corporate image, are said to be able to do what individual people can do----lobby their Congressperson. So, the Supreme Court has said that that their lobbying practices are equal to your personal letter to your legislator. What Kool-Aid have they been drinking?

The very same practices of support for the corporate oligarchs that went on during FDR’s presidency: decrying fear and anger against reform is going on, once again, by many inside the Republican Party, and by TeaPartiers attached at the hip to the oligarchs, or to the elite corporate predators.

We don’t hear from the Republicans encouraging the president to follow in Teddy Roosevelt’s footsteps and break up the TBTF banking corporate predators just as he did to JPMorgan, and Standard Oil Company. We don’t hear such a rallying cry at the TeaParty rallies. It did not occur in Washington, DC at the time I was there.

The movement would have much greater strength if they focused on the elites who have been part of the Rigged Corporate Capitalist’s Oligarchy Syndicate. But the money-masters behind this Syndicate also fund the TeaParty Movement through their financial pipeline connected to lobbyists, such as Dick Armey (Freedom Works).

But instead, this Oligarchy Syndicate does its best to keep wages down, un and underemployment at its current levels, the value of the dollar as low as possible, the Fed’s lending policy at near zero percent so the Oligarchy Syndicate can gamble on Wall Street at the expense of the real economy, Congress fully engaged in their agenda, and the working people borrowing to fuel their lifestyles.

This is new American Way---to sell off the American Dream.

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com