Government by Goldman Sachs

[Octafish]

32. Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown are taking the allegations most seriously.

And that is a good thing, tazkcmo.

Secret Recordings Inside The Federal Reserve Prompt Elizabeth Warren To Call For Investigation

BY ALAN PYKE
ThinkProgress, POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 28, 2014 AT 2:03 PM

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) want to investigate the Federal Reserve’s relationships with the banks it oversees after the release of taped conversations between managers and a former bank examiner at the Fed.

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On Friday, Warren said the recordings require action from Capitol Hill. “Congress must hold oversight hearings on the disturbing issues raised by today’s whistleblower report when it returns in November, because it’s our job to make sure our financial regulators are doing their jobs,” she said in a statement. “When regulators care more about protecting big banks from accountability than they do about protecting the American people from risky and illegal behavior on Wall Street, it threatens our whole economy.”

Brown, who serves on the Senate Banking Committee with Warren, backed her request in a statement of his own. “These allegations deserve a full and thorough investigation, and American taxpayers deserve regulators who will fight each day on their behalf,” the Ohio senator and frequent financial industry critic said.

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Regulatory capture is just one example of the many abstract cultural forces on Wall Street that create an environment where financial misdeeds can flourish, imperiling the real economy that employs everyone else in the business of making and selling goods and services. Surveys of industry insiders have repeatedly found worrying evidence of ethical lapses among people in the financial business, including outright disregard for the law. A quarter of those surveyed in 2013 said that they would knowingly break the law for financial gain. That number jumped to 38 percent for respondents who have worked in finance for less than a decade. The same survey also found that women are twice as likely to fear retaliation for whistleblowing as men.

Wall Street culture holds immense power over the world’s economic fortunes. The products that firms were creating and trading and gambling on in the run-up to the financial crisis were widely understood to be unrealistic, according to white collar crime expert William Black, but there was a cultural understanding that everybody was going to get rich if they kept up the charade. Black and other experts use the acronym “IBGYBG” — I’ll Be Gone, You’ll Be Gone — to describe the dominant mentality among the highly skilled and technically savvy financial professionals who got rich trading pieces of paper that later proved to be valueless. These critics argue that Wall Street professionals knew they’d be able to cash out big bonuses and walk away before the crisis hit.

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http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/09/28/3573141/segarra-recordings-elizabeth-warren-hearing/

Do not despair for as long as two people give a damn, democracy lives.