Coup of the Elites: A Free Pass for Financial Predators

[Octafish]

Peace, at last! The class war is over!



[font size="1"]Conspiratorial Wink by Michael Samuels.[/font size]

Guess who won?

A Free Pass for Financial Predators

Coup of the Elites

by ROBERT HUNZIKER
CounterPunch
June 26, 2012

The American plutocratic revolution is now complete. The proof is: There are no criminal charges for the housing bust and financial meltdown of 2008. Starting with Reagan in the 1980s, as of today the Right has won their decades-long overthrow for complete control of America. An elite corps of wealthy now runs the country. Their bloodless rebellion, a coup d’etat whereby the Left was nullified by a tripartite (bankers, academia, and politicians) cabal’s tour de force, is a sharp contrast to the old-fashioned traditional bloody coup d’etats were accustomed to in South America, e.g., the Chilean September 1973 military coup against President Allende conducted by ultra right wing General Pinochet, who, after bombing the presidential palace, massacred the Left (See: the film Missing, by Costa-Gavras, Universal Pictures, 1982.). Of course, Pinochet’s old-fashioned coup had the advantage of speed and efficiency, completed within hours, whereas America’s bloodless coup took decades to accomplish, but on the other hand, America has not yet condoned military occupation on domestic soil.

SNIP...

As Charles H. Ferguson, winner of the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Inside Job, says, “There is overwhelming evidence of massive criminal behavior” in the 2007-08 real estate bust and financial meltdown, but nobody has been charged with a crime. This, in part, is why he recently published Predator Nation, Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America, Random House, 2012, which book footnotes/documents the virulent combination of unchecked greed and criminal behavior behind the financial collapse of 2008. Ferguson identifies leading bankers, academics, and politicians who collaborated to pillage the American public. The book has been called a “roadmap for prosecution,” naming the culpable, stating the crimes, referencing laws that were broken.

SNIP...

The real mystery is how and why they get away with it when their crimes and/or despicable ethical behavior prove so hideous… and so obvious, and thus, many astute progressive mouths dropped wide open with dismay when President Obama insanely appointed Summers as the Director of the National Economic Council, which only goes to prove what a tight clique exist amongst academia, politicians, and Wall Street whereby bad judgment and/or unethical practices are overlooked in favor of companionship-to-profits.

Nobody has gone to jail and as Ferguson explained in an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, “There is overwhelming evidence of massive criminal behavior.” Ferguson says: “the American people need to take their country back.” He suggests some kind of nationwide movement but without stating specifics. Indeed, the stench of the entire cabal, including academia, politicians, Wall Street, and rating agencies is so loathsomely squalid, and rotten to the core, it would not surprise if perpetrators are dragged into the streets in the middle of the night, stripped naked, tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail, assuming some daring citizens become so fed up with the ‘system’ they take matters into their own hands.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/26/coup-of-the-elites/

What's that system called when the same group that's above the law also happens to be the wealthiest, best-armed, and most politically powerful in the country?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it starts with an "F."

[xchrom]

1. Du rec. Nt

[Octafish]

2. Obama's DOJ And Wall Street: Too Big For Jail?

Peter Schweitzer
Forbes, OpEd
May 7, 2012

EXCERPT...

In November 2009,  President Obama established the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to deal with financial crimes related to the 2008 financial crisis.  As Attorney General Eric Holder,  chairman of the Task Force, explained at the time:  “This Task Force’s mission is not just to hold accountable those who helped bring about the last financial meltdown, but to prevent another meltdown from happening.  We will be relentless in our investigation of corporate and financial wrongdoing,  and will not hesitate to bring charges,  where appropriate,  for criminal misconduct on the part of businesses and business executives.”

None of that happened.   The Task Force is still humming along almost three years later, but its highlighted successes are less “business executives” than ordinary Americans who have had the book thrown at them. From their website:

SNIP...

Why these two levels of justice? Could this disparity simply be a case that the big banks will fight charges more aggressively, thus making criminal prosecutions more difficult?  Maybe.   But it also undoubtedly has something to do with the fact that the top leadership at DOJ is drawn almost exclusively from White Collar Criminal Defense Practices at large firms that represent the very firms that Justice is supposed to be investigating. Covington and Burling,  the firm from which both Attorney General Eric Holder and Associate Attorney General andu head of the criminal division Lanny Breuer hail, has as its current clients Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, ING, Morgan Stanley,  UBS,  and MF Global among others. Other top Justice officials have similar connections through their firms.

White Collar Criminal Defense work has become one of the few revenue bright spots for large firms.   According to a detailed analysis by the Professor Charles D. Weisselberg of UC-Berkeley in the  Arizona Law Review, there is big money to be made because “this area of practice is not susceptible to the same types of cost controls” that apply to other legal work.  In short,  white collar criminal defense work is “enormously lucrative.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/07/obamas-doj-and-wall-street-too-big-for-jail/

[xchrom]

4. +1

[Octafish]

9. You know, William K. Black should be called in to police the place up...

Time to Take Off the Blinders About Obama Taking Off the Gloves

EXCERPT...

It’s been nearly two years since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act.  A year ago, it was indeed “past time” for President Obama “to take off the gloves.”  Today, if anyone still believes that President Obama ever desired to “take off the gloves” it is past time to take off the blinders and see the reality of crony capitalism.  The international competition in laxity in financial regulation continues, but the domestic competition in regulatory laxity is between the Republicans and Democrats.  It was on display at the Senate hearing on JPMorgan’s losses which morphed into an assault on Dodd-Frank and regulation and represented such a nadir in congressional oversight that the American Banker – the trade press – slammed the Senators’ competition in sycophancy towards Jamie Dimon as “obsequious.”

SNIP...

The first action that the NYT was urging the administration to take was to criticize publicly the Republican’s blockage of the appointment of financial regulatory leaders.  (Republican readers: consider for a moment what the Republican Party would have done had a Democratic Senate minority used the filibuster to block the nomination by a Republican President of a Nobel prize winning economist to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve – on the purported grounds that he lacked economic competence.)  The editorial noted that President Obama had selected Martin J. Gruenberg to head the FDIC.  A year later, Gruenberg remains an “acting” head of the FDIC.  Gruenberg is a lawyer and long-time congressional aide to former Senator Sarbanes.  No one seriously thinks he will “take off the gloves” and lead the vital transformations of the banking industry.

The editorial also supported Thomas Curry, Obama’s choice as head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the appointment of Elizabeth Warren to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  President Obama refused to appoint Warren because of industry opposition.  Curry is a lawyer and the rare professional regulator.  He has a long career as a senior state banking regulator for Massachusetts and has served as an FDIC Director since January 2004.  That means, however, that he was in a position of power during the developing crisis – and took no effective action to prevent or limit the crisis.  I know of no evidence that he protested the FDIC’s disastrous MERIT examination system, which crippled FDIC examination or fought publicly to prevent the evisceration of the agency by personnel cuts.  He was in a position of power when the FBI warned in September 2004 that there was an “epidemic” of mortgage fraud that would cause a financial “crisis” if it were not contained.  He was in a position of power when the mortgage industry’s own anti-fraud unit (MARI) warned that liar’s loans were “an open invitation to fraudsters” and had a fraud incidence of 90 percent.  I know of no evidence that he warned of the coming catastrophe and pushed to take emergency action against the raging epidemic of mortgage fraud.

The FDIC regulates smaller banks.  It had the strongest regulatory leader during the crisis (Sheila Bair).  Though she had far more power than Curry, she did not take off the gloves and protect the nation from the fraudulent lenders.  The FDIC has the strongest regulatory tradition.  The OCC, by contrast, regulates the largest (national) banks.  The OCC, the Federal Reserve, and the late Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) all disgraced themselves during the crisis as virulent anti-regulators.  In particular, the OCC viewed financial derivatives with great favor and opposed adoption of the Volcker rule.  The OCC was the most aggressive opponent of state regulation and enforcement against predatory and fraudulent lenders through preemption.  Curry, therefore, faced an exceptionally difficult task if he intended to clean house at the OCC and turn the agency into a leading part of the solution instead of a major contributor to the problem.

CONTINUED...

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/06/time-to-take-off-the-blinders-about-obama-taking-off-the-gloves.html

[xchrom]

12. I agree but it's a pattern of this - and all contemporary admins

To only use certain 'vetted' folks.

Black - sorry to say - falls outside that crew.

[Teamster Jeff]

3. Won't see the "F" word in the MSM

or coup d'etat

[Octafish]

5. ''They'' own Corporate McPravda...

The 20th century, Alex Carey says, is marked by three historic developments: the growth of democracy via the expansion of the franchise, the growth of corporations, and the growth of propaganda to protect corporations from democracy. Carey's unique view of US history goes back to World War I and ends with the Reagan era.

http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/4041

Carey pegged Them, as did DU.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=133897&mesg_id=179972

[Selatius]

6. I've actually referred the United States as a proto-fascist state.

It has the requisite collusion between government and business to necessitate fascism as a term, but at the same time, it has successfully managed to maintain the appearance of a democracy by continuously having elections whereby people choose between two outcomes, usually with some varying degrees of difference. However, the elections are privately run, and the wealthiest are given a competitive advantage over the poor as far as buying politicians. This ensures that enough seats are won by pro-corporate candidates in the Senate to control the legislative agenda, regardless of which party is in power. The key lynchpin to the whole structure is the privately run elections. That is where the rubber meets the road.

[Octafish]

14. Bertram Gross called it ''Friendly Fascism''

You and the great professor reached similar conclusions:

Friendly Fascism - The New Face of Power in America

by Bertram Gross

EXCERPT...

Friendly fascism portrays two conflicting trends in the United States and other countries of the so-called "free world."

The first is a slow and powerful drift toward greater concentration of power and wealth in a repressive Big Business-Big Government partnership. This drift leads down the road toward a new and subtly manipulative form of corporatist serfdom. The phrase "friendly fascism" helps distinguish this possible future from the patently vicious corporatism of classic fascism in the past of Germany, Italy and Japan. It also contrasts with the friendly present of the dependent fascisms propped up by the U.S. government in El Salvador, Haiti, Argentina, Chile, South Korea, the Philippines and elsewhere.

The other is a slower and less powerful tendency for individuals and groups to seek greater participation in decisions affecting themselves and others. This trend goes beyond mere reaction to authoritarianism. It transcends the activities of progressive groups or movements and their use of formal democratic machinery. It is nourished by establishment promises-too often rendered false-of more human rights, civil rights and civil liberties. It is embodied in larger values of community, sharing, cooperation, service to others and basic morality as contrasted with crass materialism and dog-eat-dog competition. It affects power relations in the household, workplace, community, school, church, synagogue, and even the labyrinths of private and public bureaucracies. It could lead toward a truer democracy-and for this reason is bitterly fought...

These contradictory trends are woven fine into the fabric of highly industrialized capitalism. The unfolding logic of friendly fascist corporatism is rooted in "capitalist society's transnational growth and the groping responses to mounting crises in a dwindling capitalist world". Mind management and sophisticated repression become more attractive to would-be oligarchs when too many people try to convert democratic promises into reality. On the other hand, the alternative logic of true democracy is rooted in "humankind's long history of resistance to unjustified privilege" and in spontaneous or organized "reaction (other than fright or apathy) to concentrated power...and inequality, injustice or coercion".

A few years ago too many people closed their eyes to the indicators of the first tendency.

But events soon began to change perceptions.

CONTINUED...

Thank you for understanding what this is about, Selatius. For those new to the subject, it is major.

[PufPuf23]

7. Octafish does not make a bad post. kr nt

[Octafish]

15. Americans Don't Know How Badly We're Getting Screwed by the Top 0.1% Hoarding the Country's Wealth

From the good folks at Alternet:

Americans Don't Realize Just How Badly We're Getting Screwed by the Top 0.1 Percent Hoarding the Country's Wealth

With an unprecedented sum of wealth held within the top one-tenth of one percent of the US population, we now have the most severe inequality of wealth in US history.

By David DeGraw
Amped Status/Alternet.org
August 14, 2011

With an unprecedented sum of wealth, tens of trillions of dollars, held within the top one-tenth of one percent of the US population, we now have the most severe inequality of wealth in US history. Not even the robber barons of the Gilded Age were as greedy as the modern-day economic elite.

SNIP...

The overwhelming majority of the US population is unaware of the vast wealth at hand. An entire generation of unprecedented wealth creation has been concealed from 99 percent of the population for over 35 years. Having never personally experienced this wealth, the average American cannot comprehend what is possible if even a fraction of the money was used for the betterment of society.

Given modern technology and wealth, American citizens should not be living in poverty. The statistics demonstrate that we now live in a neo-feudal society. In comparison to the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of the population, who are sitting on top of tens of trillions of dollars in wealth, we are essentially propagandized peasants.

The fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are struggling to get by, while tens of trillions of dollars are consolidated within a small fraction of the population, is a crime against humanity.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/economy/152010/americans_don%27t_realize_just_how_badly_we%27re_getting_screwed_by_the_top_0.1_percent_hoarding_the_country%27s_wealth

Thank you for the kind words, my Friend. My family sometimes wonders why I do this...

[bvar22]

8. Look to our neighbors in Latin America ...

... for a successful Blue Print for real "Change".
In many Central and South American countries, the 99% have wrested their governments from the hands of the Oligarchs and Fascists.

They have accomplished near bloodless revolutions,
but you won't hear about these successes from the American Media
OR the leadership of either political party.
They will continue to demonize these populist reforms that have reversed the flow of wealth to the 1% in their countries.

[font size=3]"The worst enemy of humanity is U.S. capitalism. That is what provokes uprisings like our own, a rebellion against a system, against a neoliberal model, which is the representation of a savage capitalism. If the entire world doesn't acknowledge this reality, that nation states are not providing even minimally for health, education and nourishment, then each day the most fundamental human rights are being violated."[/font]
----Bolivian Reform President Evo Morales

FDR said much the same thing in 1944 with his Economic Bill of Rights,
so there IS precedent here for this type of "change".
Unfortunately, FDR and THAT Democratic Party are long dead,
so we have some work to do!


When the American Working Class & the American Poor realize WE have MORE in common with each other
than we have in common with our Ruling Elite (1%) and their employees in Washington,
THEN we can have our "change".
As long as our Media and Political Leadership are successful in keeping us divided,
the Status Quo will be maintained.

When you hear a politician demanding a return to the Pre-Reagan Tax Structure, Corporate Regulation, Education, Protection of The Commons, and Trade Policies that built the greatest, wealthiest, and most upwardly mobile Working/Middle Class the World has ever seen,
LISTEN.
THAT guy speaks for YOU.


Pass the word.
Look SOUTH for the Blue Print.
Ask the question, "WHO works for YOU?"
You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.

VIVA Democracy!
I pray we get some here soon.
WE outnumber THEM a hundred thousand to one.


[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

[Selatius]

10. Except for Paraguay. The parliament sacked their center-left president Fernando Lugo.

And their parliament is almost totally dominated by the wealthiest 10% of the population. Vice President Federico Franco is now in charge, and he's pro-corporate.

[bvar22]

16. The situation is far from settled in Paraguay.

"ASUNCION, Paraguay - Ousted Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo branded the country's new government illegitimate on Sunday and called for democracy to be restored as neighboring countries intensified criticism of his sudden impeachment.

Lugo, a leftist former Roman Catholic bishop, said his removal from office was "a parliamentary coup against the will of the people" and said he would back any peaceful effort to restore democracy in the South American nation.

Congress voted overwhelmingly on Friday to remove Lugo from office, saying he had failed in his duty to maintain social order following a bloody land eviction."

<snip>


"In a region scarred by military coups and political upheaval in the 1970s and 1980s, the rapid nature of Lugo's impeachment by an opposition-controlled Congress has drawn strong criticism -- especially from fellow leftists.

A senior Brazilian official said Paraguay would likely be suspended from the regional UNASUR grouping and from Mercosur, which also includes Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay."

http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/25/12393340-fake-government-paraguays-ousted-president-fernando-lugo-defiant-after-coup?lite

The "opposition" is, as you stated, made up of the top 10%
no doubt funded by Bush Family Money/Carlysle Group funds, and the Right Wing here in the USA.
The Bush Family owns a huge piece of land in Paraguay,
and planned to use it as their Escape Hatch if things got too hot for them here.
The election of a Leftist certainly caused them a scare.

The pendulum has swung too far in Latin America.
The Right Wing Death Squad government in Colombia only survives thanks to US
support. The Right Wing Oligarchs of Colombia are the third largest recipient of US Foreign Aid,
and a BRAND NEW "Free Trade" treaty thanks to President Obama.

Isn't it ironic that in a country that boasts about democracy
we have a Foreign Policy (Republicans & Democrats...no difference) that supports coups, and demonizes the emerging populist DEMOCRACIES in Latin America?


You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

[valerief]

11. Who says it's not bloody? Their WARS and POLICIES FACILITATING HOMELESSNESS AND DISEASE

are bloody well bloody.

[riderinthestorm]

13. Wow! Great read. Thanks Octafish for shining lights into dark holes... K&R nt

[Overseas]

17. Sad K&R. Great article.