Matt Taibbi and Yves Smith: How the Wall Street Mafia Holds America -- and the World -- Hostage

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/156010/matt_taibbi_and_yves_smith%3A_how_the_wall_street_mafia_holds_america_--_and_the_world_--_hostage/

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Rolling Stone editor Matt Taibbi and Yves Smith, creator of the finance and economics blog Naked Capitalism, join Bill to discuss the folly and corruption of both banks and government, and how that tag-team leaves deep wounds in our democracy. Taibbi's latest piece is "The Scam Wall Street Learned from the Mafia." Smith is the author of "ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism."

***SNIP

Welcome to both of you.

Yves Smith: Thanks so much.

Matt Taibbi: Thank you.

Bill Moyers: So in this particular case, what is JPMorgan's sin? That's the question Representative David Schweikert raised on the day of the hearing. He asked, "What sin has JPMorgan committed other than being big enough to lose billions of their own money in a quarter and still turn a $4 billion profit?" Want to take a stab at answering?

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, sure. Their sin wasn't the loss. The sin was in being a too-big-to-fail company where we can't afford to have them go under. Why are we there in the first place? If this was a company that, if it went out of business, it wouldn't affect our lives personally and wouldn't have major ramification for the economy, we wouldn't be holding hearings in the Senate and the Congress.

We would say, fine, they lost so much, a bunch of money. Too bad for them. But that's not the case. As we saw in 2008, when these companies go down, we all end up paying for it. You know, we ended up financing of, what, five, six, seven trillion dollar bailout in 2008. And if a company like JPMorgan Chase goes under, there will certainly be some sort of federal action, which is why we have to know about it. We have to know what goes on when they have unexpected two, three billion dollar losses that affects all of us.

Yves Smith: They were guilty of gaming the system. And the way that they've done it is this unit was using depositor money and yet taking very large bets.

And in this unit, all the other banks similarly have similar units in their treasury department, and the purpose of these portfolios is supposed to be to have liquid assets in case there's a run on the bank.

[marmar]

1. Doesn't leave you with much hope that anything's going to change.

k/r

[Bohunk68]

2. Almost 0900

and the Matt Taibbi haters haven't shown up yet. Must still be asleep.

[truth2power]

3. Matt Taibbi is one of the few truth-tellers left. Sadly,

all the levers of power in this country have been corrupted.

Wall Street is an organized criminal enterprise, and no one...I repeat, NO ONE, in government cares to do anything about it because they are ALL complicit.

Hobson's choice in November.

[rhett o rick]

4. If you have your savings "invested" in Wall Street, you are helping them rule. nm

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, xchrom.