Know your BFEE: Social Security is a Side Show while Banksters Walk and You Pick Up the Tab

[Octafish]

The great debate about Social Security is vitally important to me and most all the non-millionaires I know. However, its sudden rise to prominence seems to be deflecting discussion of the greater economic reality. First, SS has zero to do with the budget deficit and should not be part of any budget "compromise." Secondly, the real issue that is causing the budget deficit is the simple fact that the super-rich and the corporations they own and control are not paying their fair share, if anything, in taxes.

Here are some things to know and consider:

The nation at the heart of the offshore scandal: Britain

Britain's relationship with its overseas territories means it could – if it wanted – easily tackle offshore global secrecy

James Ball
guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 April 2013

EXCERPT...

But such a stance ignores that one nation in particular has ties to offshore havens everywhere. It's a veritable nexus of offshore influence, related to havens in the Caribbean, and much closer to home. That nation is, of course, the United Kingdom.

The clue is quite often in the name. The British Virgin Islands are perhaps rivalled only by Switzerland as a global capital for the offshore industry, with more than 1m offshore companies registered on the Caribbean island (population 31,900). Plaques for registration agents, solicitors and more line almost every wall of the islands' tiny capital.

The islands are a British Overseas Territory: legally under the jurisdiction of the UK (and with a British governor), but in practice self-governed. Other havens with this UK imprimatur include the Cayman islands, Gibraltar, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Closer to home, the UK wields even more control over the crown dependencies: Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, whose role in legal tax avoidance techniques has been documented time and again for decades.

Even within the UK itself, little is done against tricks of the offshore trade that have been known for decades. In 1999, Sark islander Philip Croshaw was struck off as a UK director for acting as a "nominee" – a sham director who hides a company's real controllers – for thousands of companies in the UK.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/05/offshore-industry-britain

So, why don't they? Seems Big Business and those super-popular High Net Worth Individuals who largely own them are Transnational players who pledge allegiance to their secret numbered bank accounts.

Report: Big business no stranger to offshore tax havens

CBS News
April 3, 2013

As millions of Americans get ready to file with the IRS, some big companies will pay little or no taxes this year - thanks to loopholes in U.S. tax laws. Firms can legally avoid paying taxes on money made in America by shifting profits offshore to countries with minimal or no taxes - places like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

According to a new report from U.S. Public Interest Research Group, 83 of the nation's 100 largest publicly traded corporations take advantage of these so called tax havens, costing the country billions in lost revenue. "Tax dodging is not a victimless offense," says U.S. PIRG analyst Dan Smith. "When companies use accounting gimmicks to move their profits to tax haven shell companies, the rest of us have to pick up the tab."

The consumer group's report, entitled "Picking up the Tab 2013: Average Citizens and Small Businesses Pay the Price for Offshore Tax Havens" estimates "tax haven abuse costs the United States approximately $150 billion in tax revenues every year." That amounts to an average of $1,026 per taxpayer and $3,067 for small businesses, which typically cannot afford to use accounting tricks and may face a competitive disadvantage as a result.

The U.S. PIRG report also notes that Ugland House, a five-story office building in the Cayman Islands, is the registered address for more than 18,000 companies -- yet about half of these firms are U.S. subsidiaries using the location as a post office box.

Top 25 corporate tax dodgers

Among the major corporations cited in the report for using tax havens are:

General Electric: GE has "more money parked offshore than any other U.S. company," with $108 billion and 18 subsidiaries in tax haven countries, according to its most recent SEC filing. Four years between 2002 and 2011, "the company paid no federal income tax while receiving subsidies from the government."

SNIP...

Pfizer: Pfizer is ranked second among U.S. multinational corporations with the most revenue offshore, with 172 subsidiaries and $73 billion in tax haven states, according to its most recent SEC filing. U.S. PIRG's report concludes, "The world's largest drug maker made over 40 percent of its sales in the U.S. between 2010 and 2012, but managed to report no federal taxable income in the U.S. for the past five years."

SNIP...

Microsoft: The software giant "pays its Puerto Rican subsidiary 47 percent of the revenue generated from its American sales, despite the fact that those products were developed and sold in the U.S." According to its most recent SEC filing, Microsoft has five subsidiaries and the third highest amount offshore, $60.8 billion, which is "70% of the company's cash." The report estimates Microsoft "would owe $19.4 billion on that income if it had to pay U.S. tax."

SNIP...

Citigroup: This bank bailed out by U.S. taxpayers in the 2008 financial crisis "ranks eighth for most money sitting offshore," with 20 subsidiaries and $42.6 billion in tax haven countries, according to its most recent SEC filing, "on which it would owe $11.5 billion in taxes."

CONTINUED...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57577914/report-big-business-no-stranger-to-offshore-tax-havens/

Here's a nice summary of where we are and what the prospects are for, pardon the expression, change:

Obama Finally Lays His Cards on the Table

Eric Zuesse
Huffington Post Posted: 04/05/2013 10:53 pm

EXCERPT...

On 16 January 2009, four days before Obama was inaugurated, Michael D. Shear headlined in the Washington Post, "Obama Pledges Entitlement Reform," and he reported about "a wide-ranging 70 minute interview with Washington Post reporters and editors," in which Obama endorsed efforts by Republicans and conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats in the Senate to cut Social Security and Medicare. Progressives were already disturbed at what their friends in Congress were leaking to them about Obama's strong commitment to doing this, and so a few blog posts were issued to ring alarm bells publicly about it. Paul Rosenberg at openleft.com headlined on January 17th (three days before Obama's Inauguration), regarding "Obama's 'Mandate' To Slash Medicare, Medicaid & Social Security," and he presented polls showing that the public not only didn't want to cut any of these programs, but that 74% wanted Medicare and Medicare spending increased, and 62% wanted SS spending increased. Even 65% of self-declared "conservative" Americans wanted the medical programs increased, and 62% of them wanted SS spending increased. To Obama, his plan to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, was an act of political courage. It was his long-term plan, even though the polls showed widespread opposition to it by the public.

Obama has long socialized with top Wall Street and hedge fund executives. He likes their company, and personally identifies with them. He truly respects them. He cannot stand the idea that they would be sent to prison for any crimes. To him, they are good people.

On 3 April 2009, Politico bannered innocuously (and deceptively, given the shocking core that was buried here - Obama's statement), "Inside Obama's Bank CEOs Meeting." Eamon Javers reported Obama telling Wall Street's CEOs, inside the White House, "My administration ... is the only thing between you and the pitchforks." (This essentially secret meeting, and the comment itself, had occurred on 27 March 2009, but Javers failed to cite the date, which was indicated only under the accompanying AP wire photo of the CEOs coming out of this publicly unannounced event.) Obama's remark was implicitly analogizing here: he implied that he was protecting these people not from prosecutions for crimes (which he actually was), but instead from angry irrational mobs outside, who were driven by blind hatred (like the lynch mobs were in the Old South). Obama was metaphorically siding here with the plantation owners, not with the slaves; with the KKK, not with their victims. This elite Black was telling them that he would protect them from prosecution. He wasn't going to protect the public - which he here analogized to simply a hate-obsessed mob of bigots.

The crimes that these elite men had committed had, indeed, crashed the U.S. economy. Shahien Nasiripour, at huffingtonpost, bannered, on 16 May 2011, "Confidential Federal Audits Accuse Five Biggest Mortgage Firms Of Defrauding Taxpayers," and he reported that the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had carried out audits of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Ally Financial, and found, in each case, that they had swindled the Federal Government. "The internal watchdog office at HUD referred its findings to the Department of Justice, which must now decide whether to file charges" under "the False Claims Act, a Civil War-era law crafted as a weapon against firms that swindle the government." All of "the audits conclude that the banks effectively cheated taxpayers by presenting the Federal Housing Administration with false claims: They filed for federal reimbursement on foreclosed homes ... using defective and faulty documents." Yet again - as with Goldman's Lloyd Blankfein, and with Countrywide Financial's Angelo Mozilo, and with the Republican former Senator John Ensign - the Obama "Justice" Department was being challenged to prosecute banksters and conservative politicians. Nearly three years into his Presidency, Obama hadn't pursued even a single one of them.

The men who were in the White House at that secret meeting had made billions by deceiving mortgage-borrowers at one end, and by defrauding investors in mortgage backed securities (MBS) at the other end, taking enormous sales commissions and bonuses for themselves along the way, while they bankrupted their banks, which U.S. taxpayers then bailed out. Obama was telling these people that he would let them get away with it, and that they would keep their loot.

SNIP...

Obama has refused to prosecute even a single one of these "control fraudsters," as criminologist William K. Black calls them. In fact, the prosecutions of all white-collar crimes under the Obama Administration are at a record low, lower even than they were under George W. Bush, who was the previous record-holder for this coddling of the corrupt.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/obama-finally-lays-his-ca_b_3025743.html

So. Seeing how the sheriffs are all, er, indisposed, isn't it time we organize a posse of citizens?

[Cleita]

1. Okay, Octafish. You convinced us.

Now how do we get Obama and Congress convinced? They seem to be deliberately ignoring us. I know I'm not the only person who has written and phoned the White House and our elected representatives and senators. How do we get their attention short of having a senior citizen pour gasoline on themselves and lighting themselves on fire on the steps of Congress every day as long as this is going on?

[Octafish]

3. What Dr. King was going to do: March and Camp Out on the National Mall. EVERYBODY.

Just before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was organizing something that must've scared the heck out of the Have-Mores, the Poor People's Campaign:

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign

ZNet Commentary
January 18, 2005
By Stephen Bezruchka

We all know about Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's. civil rights work and his famous I have a dream speech delivered in Washington in 1963 because of the power of the media to shape what we think. I want to discuss what the mainstream media doesn't cover on Dr. King, his thinking and action in the last few years of his life.

Consider what Reverend King was working on at the time he was assassinated in Memphis in April 4 1968. The United States of America, was at that time committing atrocities in Vietnam similar to those we are doing in Iraq today. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out a year before his death in his Beyond Vietnam speech at Riverside Church in New York. He called the US "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." The Enron's Bechtel's and Haliburton's of that era were not pleased by his efforts. Public opposition could end the free-flowing profits they had enjoyed. Time magazine called his speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi." The Washington Post patronized that "King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."

Dr. King saw that economic segregation was not limited to skin color. The people going off to fight in Vietnam were poor people, whether they were poor blacks or whites. Those of greater means found ways of avoiding service. The administration had declared a war on poverty, but like our never ending war on terrorism, it eventually became a war on the poor. To King our invasion of Vietnam was a war against the poor. He felt Congress demonstrated its "hostility to the poor" -- appropriating "military funds with alacrity and generosity," but providing "poverty funds with miserliness." Sound familiar? To Martin Luther King Jr. the increasing gap between rich and poor at that time was the key battle. He formulated the Poor People's Campaign to culminate in an encampment of 500,000 of the nation's poorest and most alienated citizens who were to erect a tent city near the Washington Memorial in DC in the spring of 1968. They would then lobby their elected officials for legislation to oppose the war on the poor and draft an economic bill of rights. Reader's Digest warned of an "insurrection."

How would the rich and powerful react when faced with the possibility of 500,000 people camping in DC to protest the social and economic injustices that so many Americans were exposed to then? King, a man recognized around the world, and honored with a Nobel Prize now was turning his attention toward poverty. If he were unknown, he could be deemed a terrorist threat to national security and quietly banished to Guantanamo.

With half a million poor people camped on the Mall in DC, the other millions of poor people would act in solidarity, all around the country and the world. To restrain them, the rulers would have to mobilize a large army, but that would be difficult as most troops were over in Vietnam. Other tactics were necessary.

CONTINUED...

http://dazcomment.blogspot.com/2005/01/martin-luther-king-jrs-poor-peoples.html

Not talking vigilante justice, talking about People Power -- what caused the USSR to finally collapse.

[G_j]

5. +1000

[Octafish]

9. Won't have to worry about the room rate.

There's room for everybody. And everybody gets equal treatment.

[WinkyDink]

7. The operative word's being "assassinated." TPTB have their ways.

[Octafish]

12. It's beyond coincidental when it's always the Liberal Leadership that gets killed by lone nuts.

And their opposite numbers from the Have Mores get nothing but an honorable mention in a memo.



"And the conspiracy theorists can say what they will..."

[WinkyDink]

13. Yo, I never saw THAT one.

[Octafish]

67. THIS one is more famous. Most 'professional' journalists are afraid to mention they've seen them.

Something about what happens to their careers, such as they are.



The citizen-journalists on DU were talking about them, though.



Inquisitive. Intelligent. Kind. Brave. Peaceful. Democrats.

[HiPointDem]

11. +1, just say no

[valerief]

16. And get tased or audio blasted. nt

[truebluegreen]

48. Well, the alternative is worse, innit?

Doing nothing?

[valerief]

49. Is it? Injured and starving versus just starving. nt

[truebluegreen]

52. On the other hand, we can apply the principle

that if we don't act, we don't get to complain. If you are willing to simply take whatever TPTB choose to give you, fine.

[valerief]

53. Why can't we complain? It doesn't matter anyway. nt

[ReRe]

23. I swear...

...Cleita, the thought of people self immolating in front of WH and Congress entered my mind just yesterday, Lord forbid. If PO and the Pete Peterson's "Fix the Debt" bunch keeps the pressure up, it wouldn't surprise me if this actually happens.

[Cleita]

25. Me either. Just the fact that any of us are thinking of it at all

shows just how scary the new proposals are to many of us.

[CountAllVotes]

51. the thought occurred to me as well

I said the other day, "That march on the Mall in Washington D.C. by the WWI vets will seem like a small event when the American people find out the reality of this. No American in this country will sit idle and allow the robbing of the American people. It won't stand, not for a minute!".

Never underestimate the American people, never never never. We're an odd lot admittedly but we the people of this country are united for one reason and that is that we all have one thing in common, we are Americans!

[ReRe]

54. "Our society fails if we don't look out for each other."

... I don't know who said it. I seen/heard it somewhere in the last few days (offline) and jotted it down.

You're right. It may be the issue that the entire 99% (whether they call themselves Dems or Repubs) will unite upon. If PO is going to announce this on Wed, there ought to be a ring of citizens around that White House protesting. Making a giant noise that can be heard in the background when he makes his announcement to the Press. Shouting a never ending chant of "Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!"

[CountAllVotes]

55. or better yet ...

IMPEACH IMPEACH IMPEACH IMPEACH!!!!!

and oh yeah, stay the hell OUT OF IRAN!!!!

Their costly wars have been being paid for by everyone in this country like it or not and we wonder where did our money go?

[byeya]

2. Obama's actions are as despicable as they are inexplicable. They are impolitic for one: The vast

majority disapprove.
His actions against the SSA are also against the traditions of the Democratic Party.
Making people who depend on their monthly SS check pay for the excesses and crimes of the bankers and rentier class
is morally indefensible.

[Octafish]

17. It's against the law to steal what the banksters are getting away with.

The U.S. Treasury caper.



[font size="1"]Yeah, see. It was a buy-partisan job, see?[/font size]

Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.

[byeya]

21. LOL and...Ouch!

[malaise]

4. Ding ding we hae a winner

and don't forget it's all noise about North Korea since the leak with the names of the money hidden everywhere.
We need to stay focused on the real shiny object -the criminals and their enablers

[Octafish]

24. Wall Street on the Potomac

Saw on DU just the other day the guy with a Star Wars Super Squirter or some such.



Now, for some information:

Seriously? New York Times Calls Wall Street Front Group "Center-Left"

By William K. Black (2)
April 2, 2013 | New Economic Perspectives

Some lies will not die. As I have demonstrated repeatedly, Third Way is Wall Street on the Potomac. It is funded secretly by Wall Street (it refuses to reveal its donors), it is openly run by Wall Street, and it lobbies endlessly for Wall Street. [font color="red"]Third Way, like every Pete Peterson front group, is dedicated to shredding the safety net as its highest priority and throwing the Nation back into a gratuitous recession through self-destructive austerity.

Third Way (3), like other Pete Peterson (4) front groups, supports (5)privatizing Social Security. That is Wall Street’s greatest dream, for it would increase their revenues by hundreds of billions of dollars. [/font color] Eric Laursen documented Wall Street’s effort to in his recent book (6): “The People’s Pension: The Struggle to Defend Social Security Since Reagan.” Laursen describes the Third Way’s leader as a Pete Peterson protégé. Peterson is a conservative Republican billionaire made wealthy on Wall Street, who has dedicated a billion dollars of his wealth to his assault on the safety net (7).

I showed in these pieces how journalists and Republicans used Third Way’s “false flag” status as a self-described “center-left (8)” organization to add faux credibility to their arguments. The Republicans, for example, used comments by one of Third Way’s founders deriding Elizabeth Warren (9) as the centerpiece of ads trying to defeat Elizabeth Warren in her run for the U.S. Senate. Similarly, the Washington Post’s ultra-deficit hawk, Robert J. Samuelson (10), used Third Way’s support of austerity (11) as faux evidence that even liberals who studied the question realized the need to inflict austerity on the Nation.

[font color="red"]One of my prior articles provides the finance background of every member of Third Way’s governing board – exposing the total dominance by Wall Street and finance. [/font color] My goal was to make it impossible for a journalist who did, even the most perfunctory research, on Third Way to describe it as a “center-left” organization (or any analogous term).

I had not counted on the New York Times failing to clear such a tiny research hurdle. Sadly, on March 20, 2013 the New York Times gave prominent coverage to a study sponsored by Third Way, which the reporter called “a center-left policy research organization” in an article entitled “As Men Lose Economic Ground, Clues in the Family (12).”

SNIP...

David H. Autor, the scholar, that Third Way sponsored to conduct this study, is very far from “center-left.” He self-describes his principal affiliations as “MIT-NBER.” NBER (14) is an exceptionally conservative economics group. Yes, it has several famous “center-left” economists associated with it, but the NBER’s philanthropic funding has come heavily from ultra-far-right organizations.

“Between 1985 and 2001, the (NBER) received $9,963,301 in 73 grants from only four foundations [15]:

John M. Olin Foundation (16), Inc.
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (17)
Scaife Foundations (18) (Sarah Mellon Scaife)
Smith Richardson Foundation (19)”

Each of these foundations is among the most extreme right-wing donor groups in existence.

Autor’s prior work (20) is very far from “center-left.” His best-known causes include warning that Social Security disability payments need to be cut sharply. “The Unsustainable Rise of the Disability Rolls in the United States: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Options.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/economy/seriously-new-york-times-calls-wall-street-front-group-center-left

Scholars and former forensic economists who investigated the S&L scandals of the 80s and 90s are surprised as just about anybody when they discover The New York Times is just another organ of the corrupt Have-Mores.

PS: It's like the pirates and the bankers are on one side and every time a good guy speaks up, he or she quickly discovers they are all alone on the plank.

[Initech]

6. The BFEE: Screwing the poor since the 1920's.

They really are the evil empire. We need to start locking up these criminals.

[Octafish]

27. Dave Lindorff: 'Chase Down Mega-Rich Tax Cheats and Recover the Offshore Trillion$'

It's like they're royalty or something.

NO CUTS! NO TAX INCREASES ON ORDINARY PEOPLE!

Chase Down Mega-Rich Tax Cheats and Recover the Offshore Trillion$

Sat, 04/06/2013 - 09:25
by: Dave Lindorff

Hold everything!

I mean it. Stop talking about cutting school budgets, Social Security benefits, Medicare, Veteran’s pensions. Stop cutting subsidies to transit systems, to foreign aid. Stop cutting unemployment benefits. Stop it all. There can not be any justification for budget cutting while wealthy criminals, corrupt politicians and business executives are hiding what reportedly totals between $29 trillion and $32 trillion in offshore tax havens.

A massive data dump by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), working in conjunction with dozens of news organizations around the globe, has exposed the secret files of over 120,000 dummy offshore companies that have been used for years to hide the wealth -- much of it ill-gotten, all of it tax-dodged -- of the world’s rich and mega-rich.

Before we go further, let’s think about those numbers, which are really mind-boggling.

The US annual federal budget for 2012 was $3.7 trillion. The total US economy, largest in the world by far, was $15.8 trillion in 2012. That federal budget deficit that we hear so much about, which is growing by $1 trillion a year, totals about $16 trillion.

Now by comparison, the Philadelphia school system -- fifth-largest in the country -- is in crisis, with 27 schools being closed down because of a budget shortfall of $304 million. That shortfall (the direct result of tax breaks given to wealthy corporations in the city), is approximately one ten-millionth of a percent of the amount of money criminal politicians and business leaders -- many and probably the vast majority of them, Americans -- are reportedly squirreling away abroad in hidden accounts each year!

The British Virgin Islands: Where the super rich are hiding our money

The total shortfall in the US Social Security system, that is leading a huge number of politicians in Washington, Republican and Democrat, to claim that the sky is falling and that the system will go “bankrupt” in 2036, is $8.6 trillion. Even that huge deficit, caused by the large number of Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1964 reaching retirement age over the next two decades, could be totally erased by simply taking back a quarter of the money illegally shipped abroad by our and other countries’ ruling elites.

Given that the US economy is roughly one quarter of the global economy, we can assume that at least a quarter of the hidden offshore money, or about $8 trillion, belongs to Americans, but in truth, the US legal system is so skewed in favor of the super rich, and the US ruling elite is so incredibly greedy and corrupt, that I’d guess that it’s more likely that half of that dirty money, or about $15-16 trillion, comes from this country.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1668

We're royally screwed because the greedheads and warmongers know that instead of policing their criminality, the US Government is standing guard.

Oh well. At least somebody is sleeping well.

[The Blue Flower]

36. *THIS*

Thanks for posting this one. I recommend that everyone read it.

[lonestarnot]

41. And I believe that herein lies some of the answer.

[Octafish]

44. Not to brag...

...the closing line in the OP from Sept. 21, 2008:

The people who should pay for the bailout aren’t the American people. That distinction should go to the crooks who stole it -- friends of Gramm like John McCain and George Bush and the rest of the Raygunomix crowd of snake-oil salesmen. For them, the Bush administration -- and a good chunk of time since Ronald Reagan -- has not been a disaster. It’s been a cash cow

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4055207

My wonderful wife hates it when I say "I told you so..." Thank you for indulging me, Hermana.

[Initech]

72. I really wonder how they sleep at night.

[LongTomH]

8. The Masters are the ones playing n-dimensional chess

The rule in chess is: Watch the whole board and think n moves ahead. We focus on Social Security, Medicare, minimum wage, healthcare in general, etc, while the Masters and their think tanks (People paid to think by the makers of tanks, in Naomi Klein's wonderful phrase!) think several moves ahead. They've been doing this, at least since the 1960s. We'll keep losing until we can get (as many people as possible) trained to look at the whole board.

Good post, Octafish, and good thread!!!!

[TheKentuckian]

14. Many times love of one tree is the path for caring for the forest.

Maybe some have seen the woods long enough that they scarcely recall their tree but came the same way a long time ago maybe as little more than an infant.

[Octafish]

32. Garry Kasparov vs Deep Blue

Capable of making 200 million calculations per second, the Machine made an accidental sacrifice that blew a fuse in the champ's mind.

http://www.wired.com/playbook/2012/09/deep-blue-computer-bug/

Maybe Stanislaw Lem was right when he postulated humanity is just an embarrassing step in the evolution of cybernetic organisms.

Thank you for the kind words, LongTomH. While we don't have the medua on our side likr a democracy should have, we can amplify the power of truth through the Internet.

What Gandhi said:

"Today machinery merely helps a few to ride on the backs of millions."

[mckara]

10. We Could Fund Generations of Social Security Recipients...

with the $13 trillion we bailed out the banks with in 2008.

[Octafish]

33. The math: $16 T QE + 16 T Offshore + 16 T NatDebt = Good Times

...and big living for the 1-percent of the 1-percent, most especially.

You are absolutely correct, mckara. It could fund Social Security and (guessing) pay every mortgage, send every body to college, provide great jobs for all, and provide universal health care. IMO, that's an investment that would quickly pay for itself through new and increased tax revenues and start to pay big dividends for ALL Americans.

[JDPriestly]

15. Bookmarking.

[Octafish]

40. Lucy Komisar

...was writing about Off-Shoring long before Roger Ailes cashed his first check from Rupert Murdoch.

http://www.thekomisarscoop.com/category/offshore/

Amazing info. Thanks for understanding and standing up to Them and It, JDPriestly.

[Stewland]

18. If this crime does not bring massive social outrage and massive protest I don't know what will

People must come together to stop these thefts of the treasury and the public trust. Obama serves the Man and not the base that worked to elect and support him. He really should be ashamed of using meaningless rhetoric to steal the hearts and minds that truly believed he stood for change we can believe in.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

22. "massive social outrage and massive protest"? Just watch for the latest shiny object.

What's it going to be?

Korea, perhaps?
Iran?
Sandy Hook and "remember the children"?
Some nutty thing that the tea-baggers have done?
Something that Britney Spears or a clone has done?

Take your pick. They've got this down to a science. The shiny object will be there.

[sabrina 1]

31. True, but the people are getting smarter and are not as easily distracted as they used to

be. In the end, people worry more about issues that directly affect them, and SS affects every single American. Either because their parents are dependent on it, relatives on disability, dependent children etc. That is why it is 'the third rail of politics'. Nearly everyone wants to keep that program going.

[Octafish]

56. Shocking news: Wall Street wants Schumer instead of Brown in Banking chair

Definitely, Stewland. Distinguished by how much they go along to get along, our elected representatives can be much more or much less popular than others:

Shocking news: Wall Street wants Schumer instead of Brown in Banking chair

Joan McCarter
Huffington Post April 4, 2013

The idea of Chairman Sherrod Brown at the helm of the Senate Banking Committee is the only thing scarier to Wall Street than Sen. Elizabeth Warren sitting on that committee. For good reason; Brown has made it clear that too big to fail banks are simply just too big to exist. The chairman they want? Sen. Chuck Schumer, but it's not at all clear that that's who they'll get.

Senator Charles Schumer has shown no shortage of ambition. So the New York Democrat’s silence about his possible interest in taking over as chairman of the Banking Committee worries large banks. (...)

“The chairmanship is Schumer’s for the taking but it seems like his aspirations are to be majority leader, and you don’t usually become majority leader by taking over the Senate Banking Committee,” said Jaret Seiberg, senior policy analyst at Washington Research Group, a unit of Guggenheim Securities LLC.

With current chair Tim Johnson retiring, Sen. Jack Reed is next in line, but he's much likelier to want to take the chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee, where he's also next in line to retiring Carl Levin. Senate rules allow a senator to serve as chair on only one committee. Then there's Schumer, and then there's Brown. There's incentive and disincentive for Schumer to take the Banking position. Wall Street is a constituency, and looking out for the big banks in a really prominent position could put him on the wrong side of the Democratic base. The incentives might be fewer; the position is one of the most lucrative in terms of campaign fundraising, but Schumer has no problems raising money, anyway.

Then there's Brown.

Meanwhile, Brown’s office says he’s definitely interested in the post. He could use it to further his efforts to reduce the size of the largest U.S. banks, a push he has made each year since 2010 when he proposed the limits as an amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act.

“The risk that there would be legislation to shrink the six biggest banks would go up dramatically” with Brown as chairman, Seiberg said. “He’s on the record that we haven’t fixed too-big-to-fail and more needs to be done.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/04/1199223/-Schocking-news-Wall-Street-wants-Schumer-instead-of-Brown-in-Banking-nbsp-chair?detail=hide

PS: Very heartened that Sen. Brown puts the fear of Mammon into the so-and-sos. Perhaps they aren't too big to jail after all.

[midnight]

19. Do sheriffs need to be told to do their job or can they do it on their own?

[xtraxritical]

37. I dunno ask Eric Holder.

[Octafish]

71. The Unmentionable Topic - Corporate Crime

Avoiding Corporate Crime

The Unmentionable Topic

by RUSSELL MOKHIBER
CounterPunch April 11, 2013

There’s some extra space in the AP Stylebook now that it’s editors have eliminated the term “illegal immigrant.”

I propose that AP replace it with “corporate crime.”

There’s little question that corporate crime — pollution, corruption, fraud, reckless homicide — inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined.

Yet, it is rarely talked about in the mainstream press.

Corporate Crime Reporter recently completed news search of the term “corporate crime” in all news items since the beginning of the year and came up with 430 mentions.

Fully 90 percent of the mentions are from overseas outlets — predominantly from Australia, Canada and the UK.

We found only 42 mentions by U.S. news outlets — most of them smaller newspapers — like the Record and Clarion in Beaverton, Michigan or the Eagle Tribune in North Andover, Massachusetts — or blogs like the FCPAProfessor, CT Blue or CounterPunch.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/11/the-unmentionable-topic/

PS: Agent Mike, please forward this to Mr. Holder.

[L0oniX]

20. Can't rec this enough! n/t

[Bozita]

43. !

[Octafish]

76. For the cost of Iraq War, we could've built National 100% Renewable Clean Energy Grid.

I kid you not.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/for-the-price-of-the-iraq-war-the-u-s-could-have-a-100-renewable-power-system/5330881

[Bozita]

80. WOW!

[Octafish]

60. ''War and Famine. Peace and Milk.'' -- Somali proverb.

Here's who should be setting the nation's economic policy:

Economists for Peace and Security* works to promote non-military solutions to world challenges, and more broadly to work towards freedom from fear and want for all.

Cost of the Iraq War

EPS Fellow Linda Bilmes spoke to The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace about the economic impact of the Iraq War 10 years later.

Linda Blimes spoke about the costs of the war in Iraq, which she projected to reach [font color="green"]$5 trillion[/font color].?Those projections exceed the original figures in her book The Three Trillion Dollar War, which she co-authored with economist Joseph Stiglitz in 2008. She outlined the various sorts of expenditures, including rising veterans benefits, and criticized the government for lack of proper war accounting.?She theorized that the war triggered Federal Reserve decisions that contributed to the financial crisis of 2008. She responded to questions from the audience.?

“The Trillion Dollar War-And Counting” was part of the program “America’s Second-Longest War: Taking Stock” held by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on the tenth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq.

Watch the video here.

*At least one of the organization's members, James K. Galbraith, was an economic policy advisor on the Obama campaign team, but didn't make the cut when Geithner climbed on board after the election.

[Newest Reality]

26. I have to K&R this one ...

Seems like we may be able to get onto the same page here.

I would suggest that those who are seeing the bigger picture and looking closely at the implications relax and take a deep breath before proceeding into that zone where you start wondering what can be done about it.

It is important to let your own motivation move you into more investigation and avoid being overwhelmed. I assure you, there are many of us who have looked into these kinds of things for a long time and we are still not sure of how to tackle a behemoth like this.

What seems to be the potential answer is to take it as it comes and realize that the more we are united in understanding the more the ground becomes fertile for an almost natural emergence that inspires us to make changes, small or large, that will become accumulative.

Go with the momentum!

[Octafish]

82. William K. Black is the Man.

Dr. Black is a forensic economist who helped put thousands of Savings & Loan crooks behind bars in the 80s and 90s. That Trillion dollar bailout was peanuts compared to the Banksters of '08. He terms the phenomenon"Control Fraud." For some reason, no one from the Bush or Obama administrations have called him back to government service.

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/category/william-k-black

[woo me with science]

28. K&R

[Octafish]

63. London Calling

London's Bankster Parasite Paradise

By James Petras
Oct. 14, 2012

Whenever financial swindlers prosper at the expense of investors or a bank jiggers interest rates to bugger their competitors or tax evaders flee fiscal crises or rent gouging petrol monarchies recycle profits or oligarchs pillage economies and drive millions to drink, drugs and destitution they find a suitable secure sanctuary in London. They are wooed and pursued by big British realtors eager to sell them multi-million dollar estates, trophy properties and landmark mansions.

Pompous and pretentious British academics convince them to send their progeny to six digit private schools, promising them that when they graduate they will be speaking English through their nasal cavities, rolling their r’s and mastering the art of eloquent but vacuous elocution. British governments, Labor, Liberal, and Conservative, in the best and most hypocritical legal traditions, fashion the legal loopholes to attract the biggest and wealthiest parasites of the world.

Crime Wave Sweeps City of London

A veritable crime wave1 has invaded the City of London, where millionaire investment bankers cook the books for billionaire clients and bilk the Treasury to pay their fines and flout the Law. Courses in business ethics are obligatory at Oxford and Cambridge since it has become standard operating procedure for mega-swindlers to plead guilty, to pay a fine and avoid jail and to solemnly promise to never, ever, flout the law… until the next mega-deal.

London has become the center of global financial capital by engaging in long term large scale active collaboration with multi-billion pound drug, arms, people smuggling and sex-slave cartels. The “Brits” specialize in laundering funds from the Mexican, Colombian, Peruvian, Russian, Polish, Czech, Nigerian narco-kings. Albanian white slavers have their ‘private bankers’ at prestigious City banks with a preference for graduates of the London School of Economics. Bi-lingual Greek kleptocrats, lifelong billion dollar tax evaders, fleeing from their pillaged homeland have their favorite real estate brokers, who never engage in any sort of naughty ‘due diligence’ which might uncover improper tax returns. The City Boys with verve and positive initiative, aided and abetted by the hyper-kinetic “Tony” Blair’s open door policy to swindlers and saints of all colors and creeds, welcomed each and every Russian gangster-oligarch-democrat, especially those who paid cash for multi-pound ‘Olde English’ landmark estates’.

The London Sanctuary for the world’s richest plunderers and parasites offers unprecedented services, especially protection from extradition and criminal prosecution at the site of their crimes. Impartial British legal and judicial officials are experts in citing constitutional precedents that, in strict regard for the established legal order, uphold the denial of extradition, denying the legal and justice systems of every pillaged country and the cries of justice of the impoverished Irish, Russians, Greeks and Spaniards.

CONTINUED...

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article37004.html

[Oilwellian]

29. The Three Stooges

WASHINGTON -- New York mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Wednesday that he has joined Campaign to Fix the Debt, a controversial debt-reduction group funded by corporate CEOs and private equity billionaire Peter G. Peterson. Bloomberg, a political independent, will join former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) and former New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg (R) as a national co-chair of the group.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/12/michael-bloomberg-fix-the-debt_n_2286599.html

[Initech]

62. SCOTUS, Congress, and Wall St.

[Babel_17]

30. Wall Street and bankers must feel safe and cozy or Bad Things Will Happen (nt)

[xtraxritical]

57. What's capitalism without "certainty"?

[Mnemosyne]

34. Thank you! nt

[Octafish]

74. Social Security Does Not Add to the Debt

Robert P. Stoker | Jan 30, 2013 05:26 PM EST

Several Congressional Democrats have made claims about the relationship between the Social Security program and the nation's debt that are disputed. Senators Richard Durbin and Jeanne Shaheen and Representatives Xavier Becerra and Hank Johnson have asserted that Social Security has not contributed to the federal debt. Their claims have been labeled false, mostly false, or true, but false by a variety of fact checkers.

I like fact checkers; their work is usually serious, informative, and even-handed. However, in this case, I think the fact checkers have it wrong.

SNIP...

The Congressional Budget Office explains that our nation has two types of debts; those owed to the public and those the government owes itself. Debt to the public is owed to investors who have purchased Treasury securities. Debts the government owes itself are IOUs held by various government trust funds that have had surplus revenues in the past. Of the estimated $16.3 trillion debt the federal government had accumulated by the end of 2012, $11.5 trillion was held by the public and $4.8 trillion was held by various government trusts. The largest trust, the OASDI Trust Fund, had estimated "assets" of $2.7 trillion.

Of course, the idea of a trust fund "asset" is controversial. After all, this is money the government owes itself. I think of it this way. Trust funds are not assets to the federal government because the assets in any given fund are exactly offset by liabilities owed by the Treasury Department; their net value to the federal government is zero. However, the OASDI Trust Fund (for example) is an asset for the Social Security Administration. That is, it represents a legitimate claim on the treasury
backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.

When the Social Security program has a cash deficit (as it does currently), the Social Security Trustees request repayment for some of the Treasury securities (the IOUs) they purchased in the past. As the fact checkers have correctly observed, the Treasury Department must borrow money to finance these payments. However, the new borrowing does not increase total debt because this transaction is more akin to refinancing existing debt than accumulating new debt.

Suppose you owe a $5,000 credit card bill and you take a home equity loan to pay off the credit card debt. You have not changed your total debt; you have refinanced the debt, transferring it from one financial instrument (and one creditor) to another. Much the same can be said about repaying the OASDI Trust Fund. The fund's assets are composed of debts already accounted for as part of the nation's total debt. When the Treasury Department borrows money to pay current Social Security benefits, the debt owed to the Social Security Administration is repaid, refinanced, and transferred to whoever purchases Treasury securities.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/robert-p-stoker/social-security-does-not-_b_2577963.html

PS: You are most welcome, Mnemosyne! We shouldn't even have to be talking about this. Especially during a Democratic administration.

[suffragette]

35. Yep, and the Rich Ricci's of the world keep giving themselves outrageous bonuses while pushing

Austerity for the rest of us.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014430781

As always, great research Octafish.

[Octafish]

38. Speaking of Rich...

From the Guardian:

• US: Offshore clients include Denise Rich, ex-wife of notorious oil trader Marc Rich, who was controversially pardoned by President Clinton on tax evasion charges. She put $144m into the Dry Trust, set up in the Cook Islands.

It is estimated that more than $20tn acquired by wealthy individuals could lie in offshore accounts. The UK-controlled BVI has been the most successful among the mushrooming secrecy havens that cater for them.

http://m.guardiannews.com/uk/2013/apr/03/offshore-secrets-offshore-tax-haven

PS: Thank you for the kind words, suffragette. Thanks also for standing up to Them and It.

[suffragette]

42. This highlights the global nature of what is going on. Obama isn't proposing SS cuts in a vacuum.

He's been bringing this up in the global G8 and G20 meetings for some time now, even to the extent of trying to conflate Social Security with the budget.
And that's where these shared global decisions are made by the like of "leaders" who emerged from Bullingdon Club training and are allied with the global financiers school days constantly push for the structural change of Austerity to redistribute wealth upward.
Just re-posted the Bullingdon pic with captions in malaise's thread on the BBC report on offshoring.

[nineteen50]

39. Most of us pay

state and local sales taxes on most things we buy, but speculative purchases of stocks, bonds and other financial instruments in the United States go untaxed. Tax those sales!

[Octafish]

75. Let's Tax Offshore Wealth

Oustanding suggestion, yours. Financial Transaction Tax has a nice ring to it.

Another nice one would be to tax, if not seize entirely, offshore loot.

-----

On My Mind

Tax Offshore Wealth Sitting In First World Banks

James S. Henry
07.01.10, 09:00 AM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated July 19, 2010

Let's tax offshore privstr wealth.

How can we get the world's wealthiest scoundrels--arms dealers, dictators, drug barons, tax evaders--to help us pay for the soaring costs of deficits, disaster relief, climate change and development? Simple: Levy a modest withholding tax on untaxed private offshore loot.

Many aboveground economies around the world are struggling, but the economic underground is booming. By my estimate, there is $15 trillion to $20 trillion in private wealth sitting offshore in bank accounts, brokerage accounts and hedge fund portfolios, completely untaxed.

Much offshore wealth derives from capital flight and the proceeds of past and present tax evasion. Another source is crime. At least a third comes from developing countries--more than their outstanding net foreign debt.

This wealth is concentrated. Nearly half of it is owned by 91,000 people--0.001% of the world's population. Ninety-five percent is owned by the planet's wealthiest 10 million people.

Let's tax it. The pile of offshore anonymous loot is now large enough so that even a very modest 0.5% wealth tax would yield at least $75 billion a year.

SNIP...

Is it feasible? Yes. The majority of offshore wealth is managed by 50 banks. As of September 2009 these banks accounted for $10.8 trillion of offshore assets--72% of the industry's total. The busiest 10 of them manage 40%.

CONTINUED....

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0719/opinions-taxation-tax-havens-banking-on-my-mind.html

-----

Either way, they stole our Treasury. We want it back.

[timdog44]

45. I find this all to be overwhelming.

There is so much information, and I realize that is the tactic that the bad guys use. Not divide and conquer but overwhelm and confuse. I think you have done a wonderful job of gathering and putting the ducks in a row. I wish I knew what can be done before the coup d grace on the American population. Unless BHO is being more subtle and just plain sneaky, I don't see him being a savior (but I have not given up hope yet). My wife and I are far enough along in our lives, that a lot of this won't affect us, at least too much, but we feel for the up and coming generation(s). What can we do? It is nice to be on this site and be among like thinkers, and feel somewhat comfortable, but we, and I feel good to say we, are a small subset of the American population. A revolution needs to happen and that means massive trauma has to happen. I personally feel helpless. Instruct me, please.

[Octafish]

64. NGU

Never Give Up

I agree about revolution, but it must be peaceful for it to achieve total legitimacy. People Power, like Solidarity can accomplish that.

What RFK said about the ripples: Spread the word among those you trust and help those brainwashed masses see.

-----

Ripple of Hope

"Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation ... It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

— Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966

http://www.rfkmemorial.org/RFK/affirmation2.htm

----

Until then, tell the truth and give 'em hell.

[timdog44]

65. NGU.

Thank you. I will tell the truth and give 'em hell.

[Octafish]

68. RNs NGU

Here's a good, if little known, place for solid info, Maria Galardin's TUC (Time of Useful Consciousness) Radio -- http://www.tucradio.org.

An important example:

Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda
The Attack on Democracy

The 20th century, said Carey, 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 wrote that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. And, in his manuscript, unpublished during his life time, he described that history, going back to World War I and ending with the Reagan era. Carey covers the little known role of the US Chamber of Commerce in the McCarthy witch hunts of post WWII and shows how the continued campaign against "Big Government" plays an important role in bringing Reagan to power.

John Pilger called Carey "a second Orwell", Noam Chomsky dedicated his book, Manufacturing Consent, to him. And even though TUC Radio runs our documentary based on Carey's manuscript at least every two years and draws a huge response each time, Alex Carey is still unknown.

Given today's spotlight on corporations that may change. It is not only the Occupy movement that inspired me to present this program again at this time. By an amazing historic coincidence Bill Moyers and Charlie Cray of Greenpeace have just added the missing chapter to Carey's analysis. Carey's manuscript ends in 1988 when he committed suicide. Moyers and Cray begin with 1971 and bring the corporate propaganda project up to date.

This is a fairly complex production with many voices, historic sound clips, and source material. The program has been used by writers and students of history and propaganda. Alex Carey: Taking the Risk out of Democracy, Corporate Propaganda VS Freedom and Liberty with a foreword by Noam Chomsky was published by the University of Illinois Press in 1995.

SOURCE: http://tucradio.org/new.html

If you find a moment, here's the first part (scroll down at the link for the second part) on Carey.

http://tucradio.org/AlexCarey_ONE.mp3

Helps explain how we got here and what we need to do to move forward, starting with putting the "Public" into Airwaves again.

PS: Having served as the lowliest and disorderliest of orderlies in the ER and OR, I know for a fact that the reason people who go to the hospital get better are nurses. Thank you for all you do and have done to make this a better world. Thank you for everything, timdog44.

[timdog44]

70. Interesting that it always

takes a crisis to get democracy back. Hate the thought of another crisis. My brother says what needs to happen is a depression. Don't like that.

Airwaves have not been public for quite some time and I'm not sure who to blame for that. But deregulation did it. There are no independents out there anymore. Anyway, I listened to the first half hour and have to get back to the second half. Thanks for all the information. I had not heard of tucradio before. Looks interesting.

Your compliments make me blush. I started out in premed, but saw the demeanor of the up and coming doctors and did not want to be associated with that. So, I started out as an orderly in the ER (where I met my wife) and worked full time and went to nursing school at the same time. I was young and full of energy. Ended my career in an OR before a back condition sidelined me. My wife also ended her RN career in an outpatient OR after 45 years of nursing.

Good on you Octafish.

[timdog44]

73. Just an update.

Sorry, I have not gotten back to the second half of the article. That reason I told you about having to stop nursing requires me take a substantial amount of hydrocodone and am not always able to concentrate or think clearly all the time. So I do things in between. But I promise I will follow up.

[grahamhgreen]

46. Not really a side show, though, a main goal of the hoarding class

[Octafish]

58. Absolutely. My point: Conflating Social Security with the Budget helps the Banksters escape justice.

Social Security IS key. In the OP, I want to show how RICH skipping on taxes is the real problem.

If our elected representatives in Washington DC were interested in fixing the deficit and debt problem, they would raise taxes on the wealthy and the corporations they own. Social Security has nothing to do with the national debt, other than helping alleviate it through SS Surplus monies "lent" to the Treasury to finance wars and pick up the slack on all the loopholes for offshored wealth.

Ever since Red Ink Ronnie had his way with Congreff, reducing the corporate profits tax from 50-percent to 28-percent shifted the lion's share of the tax pie onto individuals, the richest of whom saw their rates drop. The idea was that all the money the rich now had would trickle down and create jobs and those jobs would fill up the emptied Treasury.

It never happened. I doubt it ever will. Yet, today, 30 years on, we have a Democratic president telling us we need to follow that script. And on top of the economic injustice, he wants to show his good faith by tossing in Social Security to the debate.

Talk about Robin Hood in Reverse. It took a "left of center" Democratic president to unlock the Lock Box.

[grahamhgreen]

61. And they way that he's pushing this far right agenda without needing too tells me

he is a real corporatist shill.

I spoke to Van Jones a few months back who told Obama was not going to do anything left of center without being pushed hard.

[octoberlib]

78. A couple months ago I emailed an old professor of mine who taught a class

on democracy in college. He's an adviser now for developing nations transitioning to democracy. He told me that he's very, very disturbed about what's going on in the US and other democratic countries. He said there's way too much corporate influence and it has a de-stabilizing effect on the democratic system of government. From the article you posted above I see this is what the corporations want.

[libodem]

47. K&R

[Octafish]

83. The Looting of America

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/04/the-truthseeker-looting-of-america.html

William K. Black and Stephanie Kelton explain the Situation on RT. No US network dares report what they're saying.

[PufPuf23]

50. kr

[Octafish]

84. Big Bank Immunity: When Do We Crack Down on Wall Street?

By Dean Baker
Huffington Post, March 11, 2013

The Wall Street gang must really be partying these days. Profits and bonuses are as high as ever as these super-rich takers were able to use trillions of dollars of below-market government loans to get themselves through the crisis they created. The rest of the country is still struggling with high unemployment, stagnant wages, underwater mortgages and hollowed out retirement accounts, but life is good again on Wall Street.

Their world must have gotten even brighter last week when Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Justice Department may have to restrain its prosecutors in dealing with the big banks because it has to consider the possibility that a prosecution could lead to financial instability. Not only can the big banks count on taxpayer bailouts when they need them; it turns out that they can share profits with drug dealers with impunity. (The case immediately at hand involved money laundered for the Mexican drug cartel.) And who says that times are bad?

It's hard to know where to begin with this one. First off, we should not assume that just because the Justice Department says it is concerned about financial instability that this is the real reason that they are not prosecuting a big bank. There is precedent for being less than honest about such issues.

When Enron was about to collapse in 2002 as its illegal dealings became public, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who was at the time a top Citigroup executive, called a former aide at Treasury. He asked him to intervene with the bond rating agencies to get them to delay downgrading Enron's debt. Citigroup owned several hundred million dollars in Enron debt at the time. If Rubin had gotten this delay Citigroup would have been able to dump much of this debt on suckers before the price collapsed.

The Treasury official refused. When the matter became public, Robert Rubin claimed that he was concerned about instability in financial markets.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/dean-baker/big-bank-immunity-when-do_b_2855547.html

[raouldukelives]

59. K&R nt

[Octafish]

85. Journalists Expose Trove of Hidden Offshore Bank Accounts Around the World (PBS)

Around the world, government officials and individuals use offshore accounts to hide their wealth and evade heavy taxes. Hari Sreenivasan talks to Gerard Ryle, director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, about the findings of a massive cross-border collaborative investigation.

EXCERPT...

HARI SREENIVASAN: So, in this report, you say that it's not just the super-rich and the super-powerful, but it's more pervasive. Explain that.

GERARD RYLE: Well, it was probably the biggest surprise that I found.

I initially thought that the people that you expect to use tax havens are the super-wealthy. But when you look at this world, you find that it's not just the super-wealthy that are using it. It is the sort of moderately wealthy. And it pervades right down through society to doctors, dentists, you know, small-time developers.

They have all discovered this world. And they're all using it.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And you said that it contributes to fraud, tax dodging and enables political corruption. Explain that.

GERARD RYLE: Well, the very secrecy of this world allows you to misuse it.

I mean, this world is, for the most part, you imagine -- we can't prove it -- legitimate. And there's nothing illegal with using, buying an offshore company. There is nothing illegal with setting up a secret bank account. It's only if you don't report that to the authorities if you need to report it where it becomes illegal.

But because it's so secret, I mean, rogue nations can use this. We came across a company that was the front for the Iranian shipping line, you know, which has since been outlawed by the European Union, by the U.S. authorities. You know, so, basically, the way that they use it is because they can get away with anything they want.

CONTINUED...

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june13/accounts_04-05.html

[smirkymonkey]

66. K&R, Thank You!

What an outrage!

[Octafish]

86. ''My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.''

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2009/04/obama-to-banker/

Why is that? Wouldn't the President want to arrest the lawbreakers?

[smirkymonkey]

87. I am getting the feeling that the pitchforks are ready.

This is getting to a crisis point.

[Octafish]

88. When Banksters can steal Trillions and demand Billions in Bonuses...

...even the Teabaggers and Coincidence Theorists will notice.

With 2009 bankster bailout bonus money, Dems could have created 5 million jobs at $30K each

Submitted by lambert on Wed, 02/17/2010 - 9:25pm
David DeGraw in Alternet does the math:

Meanwhile, 2009 was a record-breaking year for Wall Street bonuses, as firms issued $150 billion to their executives. 100% of these bonuses are a direct result of our tax dollars, so if we used this money to create jobs, instead of giving them to a handful of top executives, we could have paid an annual salary of $30,000 to 5 million people.

CONTINUED...

http://www.correntewire.com/2009_bankster_bailout_bonus_money_dems_could_have_created_5_million_jobs_30k_each

My neighbor, a kind and loving soul who worked three jobs to raise and put her ungrateful children through college, said her network of friends agree: Voting them out doesn't seem to change anything, so something big along the order of a revolution is required to fix the problems the nation is facing.

[smirkymonkey]

89. You are so right.

I am afraid that a revolution is what is upon us.

[Hotler]

69. If only millions of Americans had the guts to protest in mass and......

shut this country down for about six months. The cops could do nothing when faced with 2-3 million people on the Washington mall. Once the cops open up on us we would swarm them and knock their dicks in the dirt . It's time to get pissed off fighting mad folks.

[Octafish]

92. Smedley Butler for the 21st Century

Remember how the coup plotters wanted a man on a white horse? Butler listened and turned them all in to the FBI. Today, the guy would likely be working for the FBI.

Spying on First Amendment Activity - State-by-State

ACLU
Download the PDF »

United States law enforcement agencies, from the FBI to local police, have a long history of spying on American citizens and infiltrating or otherwise obstructing political activist groups. Political spying was rampant during the Cold War under the FBI's COINTELPRO, the CIA's Operation Chaos, and other program. 

SNIP...
For example, in 2009, at least four troubling Fusion Center reports have come to light:

• The Virginia Fusion Center's Homegrown Terrorism Document:
http://www.infowars.com/media/vafusioncenterterrorassessment.pdf

• The Texas Fusion Center's Prevention Awareness Bulletin:
http://www.privacylives.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/texasfusion_021909.pdf

• The Missouri Fusion Center's Document on the Modern Militia Movement:
http://www.privacylives.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/miacreport_022009.pdf

• The Massachusetts Fusion Center's “Commonwealth Fusion Center's Standard Operating Procedures”
http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/spyfiles/ma_14furtherinformation_attach_guidelinesforinvestigationsinvolvingfirstamendactivity.pdf

CONTINUED...

http://www.aclu.org/maps/spying-first-amendment-activity-state-state

IMO, my Friend: No violence needed, just Leadership.

For those new to Smedley Butler:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6150066

[CrazyOrangeCat]

77. Bookmarked

K&R

[Octafish]

93. How Ayn Rand Seduced Generations of Young Men and Helped Make the U.S. Into a Selfish, Greedy Nation

EXCERPT...

In 1966, Ronald Reagan wrote in a personal letter, “Am an admirer of Ayn Rand.” Today, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) credits Rand for inspiring him to go into politics, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) calls Atlas Shrugged his “foundation book.” Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) says Ayn Rand had a major influence on him, and his son Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is an even bigger fan. A short list of other Rand fans includes Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; Christopher Cox, chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission in George W. Bush’s second administration; and former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford.

SNIP...

Politics—capitalism. While Rand often disparaged Soviet totalitarian collectivism, she had little to say about corporate totalitarian collectivism, as she conveniently neglected the reality that giant U.S. corporations, like the Soviet Union, do not exactly celebrate individualism, freedom, or courage. Rand was clever and hypocritical enough to know that you don’t get rich in the United States talking about compliance and conformity within corporate America. Rather, Rand gave lectures titled: “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business.” So, young careerist corporatists could embrace Rand’s self-styled “radical capitalism” and feel radical — radical without risk.

SOURCE: http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/153454/How_Ayn_Rand_Seduced_Generations_of_Young_Men_and_Helped_Make_the_U.S._Into_a_Selfish%2C_Greedy_Nation/

Proper conservatives, that lot of greedheads, wot?

[riderinthestorm]

79. They've "borrowed" $3 Trillion from Soc Sec to shore up their tax cuts

and they do NOT want to pay it back.

So they are going after the chained CPI in order to make sure its never paid back with higher taxes. Chained CPI which can be modified and changed once its implemented in order to keep them from EVER having to pay that sum back.


"In fact, there is an even bigger lie concealed by the fiscal scolds and ignored by witless media, too. Again and again, self-righteous critics have portrayed Social Security as the profligate monster borrowing from the Treasury and sucking the life out of federal government. Guess what? It's the other way around. The federal government borrows from Social Security. The Treasury has been borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund for 30 years, and the debt to Social Security beneficiaries now totals nearly $3 trillion. The day is approaching when that money will be needed for its original purpose: paying Social Security benefits to the working people who contributed to the fund.

That is the real crisis that makes the financial barons and their media collaborators so anxious to cut Social Security benefits. They would like to get out of repaying the debt—that is, giving the money back to the people who earned it. The only way to do this is cut the benefits—over and over again. Count on it. If the president and Congress succeed in this malicious scheme, they will come back again and again to cut more and more. If the politicians join this sordid conspiracy, voters should come after them with pitchforks and torches."

The whole thing: http://www.thenation.com/blog/173771/will-voters-forgive-obama-cutting-social-security

[Octafish]

95. Pete Peterson, the President's friend

Pay Back the Money Borrowed From Social Security

Sen. Don Riegle and
Lori Hansen Riegle
Apr 05, 2011 04:02 PM EDT


Throughout its 75 year history, Social Security has provided critical economic security to millions of retirees, families, children and the disabled. Social Security is paid for by the dedicated contributioans of workers and their employers, has administrative costs of less than one percent, and since it cannot borrow to fund its operations, Social Security does not contribute to the deficit. No wonder that Americans from all walks of life consistently and overwhelmingly support our nation's most successful social insurance program -- a level of support that is not achieved by other governmental programs.

Social Security currently has a $2.6 trillion surplus which has been building up since the 1983 amendments and is intended to help absorb the retirement of the baby boomers. This surplus is invested in US Treasury securities that are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. According to the Social Security Trustees 2010 report, Social Security can pay full benefits until 2037, at which time, if nothing were done to strengthen its financing, Social Security would still be able to pay about 78 percent of benefits. This quarter of a century means there is time to strengthen its financing without cutting benefits for future beneficiaries. The American people will insist that Congress do what is needed for the program to pay full benefits and protect these benefits they were promised and have earned.

Social Security Opponents Use Fear to Manipulate Debate

Opponents of Social Security have been working for many years to tell a much different story about Social Security in order to influence how the media and Washington decision makers view it. One example of this is Wall Street insider Pete Peterson who has dedicated $1 billion of his Wall Street fortune to the destruction of Social Security as we know it. Peterson is joined in his efforts by other wealthy special interests that have much to gain if Social Security is cut or eliminated.

Despite the overwhelming public support for Social Security and the critical retirement, survivors and disability insurance it provides to millions of Americans, Peterson and his Wall Street friends want to reduce Social Security's protections and force average working Americans to put their future retirement, life and disability security in the hands of Wall Street -- the same crowd that nearly caused a collapse of our economy and pushed the country into the Great Recession.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/sen-don-riegle/post_1901_b_845106.html

PS: Thanks for the heads up. Thay is solid anslysis thay should be sen by every voter.

[woo me with science]

81. Let's not lose this one. K&R

[Octafish]

97. Congress votes to eliminate key element of inside trading law

Washington (CNN) – The U.S. House on Friday eliminated a key requirement of the insider trading law for most federal employees, passing legislation exempting these workers, including congressional staff, from a rule scheduled to take effect next week that mandated online posting of financial transactions.

Aides to lawmakers insisted the changes were needed to avoid potential security risks to federal employees by revealing personal information.

The House vote followed similar action by the Senate Thursday. The votes were done with little notice and came at a time when most people were paying attention to the Senate’s work on high profile issues like guns and immigration.

One advocacy group pushing for greater government transparency blasted the move, saying it “guts” the law.

“Not only does the change undermine the intent of the original bill to ensure government insiders are not profiting from non-public information, it sets an extraordinarily dangerous precedent suggesting that any risks stem not from information being public but from public information being online,” Lisa Rosenberg of the Sunlight Foundation wrote in a statement,

This isn’t the first time the new insider trading law, called the STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act has been caught up in controversy.

CONTINUED...

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/12/congress-votes-to-eliminate-key-requirement-of-insider-trading-law/

[Jasana]

90. This is a great post. K&R nt

[Octafish]

94. The Origins of the Overclass

By Steve Kangas

THE ORIGINS OF THE OVERCLASS

by Steve Kangas

The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

SNIP...

How did this alliance start? The CIA has always recruited the nation’s elite: millionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers, members of the national news media, and Ivy League scholars. During World War II, General "Wild Bill" Donovan became chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Donovan recruited so exclusively from the nation’s rich and powerful that members eventually came to joke that "OSS" stood for "Oh, so social!"

SNIP...

Historically, the CIA and society’s elite have been one and the same people. This means that their interests and goals are one and the same as well. Perhaps the most frequent description of the intelligence community is the "old boy network," where members socialize, talk shop, conduct business and tap each other for favors well outside the formal halls of government.

CONTINUED...

http://www.american-buddha.com/illum.originsofoverclass.htm

Capitalism's Invisible Army also employs a very generous amount of nepotism to keep the old lines in service. It's a legacy thing.

PS: Thanks, Jasana. A national news media with integrity soul work to light a fire under the Ownership Class and their servants in government. Instead, they protect tje privileged.

[Avalux]

91. I love you Octafish. Excellent post.

The unfortunate truth is that our leaders - save a few - are not acting in, or interested in acting in - our best interest. There is a great machinery that maintains the status quo; calling, writing, and campaiging for Democrats is not the way to break it.

I agree we must organize a posse of citizens. There is a problem with that though; until the screw are really turned, people will not move from their tvs or miss work to protest. Too complacent and lulled by shiny objects.

I'm very afraid the powers that be have "we the people" between a rock and a hard place, paralyzed while we watch them steal what is ours.

[Octafish]

98. Obama Signs Bill Gutting Transparency Provisions in Insider Trading Law

President Obama has signed into law a measure critics say guts key transparency provisions from a law designed to combat insider trading by members of Congress. The new bill repeals a requirement in the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act that high-level federal officials disclose financial information online. But, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, it also removes requirements for the searchable and electronic filing of information related to potential conflicts of interest by the president, vice president, Congress and other officials. On its website OpenSecrets.org, the Center wrote: "Without the provisions, the STOCK act is made toothless. Insider trading by members of Congress and federal employees is still prohibited, but the ability of watchdog groups to verify that Congress is following its own rules is severely limited because these records could still be filed on paper — an unacceptably outdated practice that limits the public’s access."

SOURCE: http://m.democracynow.org/headlines/2013/4/16/34203

Weird how this didn't get any play on the television screen.

PS: Thank you, Avalux! The feeling is mutual. We're getting closer to the day, because we've got the truth and the law on our side.

[woo me with science]

96. kick

[Octafish]

99. What's Larry Summers got against full employment, anyway?

Last edited Wed Apr 17, 2013, 12:38 PM - Edit history (1)

EXCLUSIVE: The Memo that Larry Summers Didn’t Want Obama to See

BY NOAM SCHEIBER
The New Republic, Feb. 22, 2012

For the past three years, Washington journalists and politicos have obsessed over a 57-page memo that Barack Obama’s incoming economic team prepared for him in late 2008. The document has achieved such totemic status for good reason: It decisively shaped the Obama administration’s initial response to the economic crisis. The memo outlined the president-elect’s options for dealing with the teetering banks, the cash-strapped automakers, and the country’s tidal wave of foreclosures. Above all, the memo laid out options for a massive stimulus package—the mix of tax cuts and government spending designed to end the recession and boost employment. The economic team presented the contents of the memo to Obama at his transition headquarters on December 16, 2008, at which point they collectively settled on a proposed stimulus of nearly $800 billion.

Last month, my friend and former colleague, Ryan Lizza, wrote a much-discussed piece in The New Yorker based on a copy of this and several other previously-unpublished memos. The piece and the corresponding memo described the stimulus options that Obama’s team—including Larry Summers, his top economic adviser, and Christy Romer, soon to be his chief White House economist—ultimately sent him. The options ranged from about $550 billion to just under $900 billion.

Intriguingly, Lizza also noted that Romer “was frustrated that she wasn’t allowed to present an even larger option,” suggesting that while the memo he obtained may have been the end of the story, it was far from the whole story.

Now, based on reporting I’ve done for my forthcoming book on the Obama administration, I can fill in a major gap in the narrative—an earlier version of the same memo that includes Romer’s larger option. (A source provided the memo on the condition that he not be named.) In this version of the memo, Romer calculated that it would take an eye-popping $1.7-to-$1.8 trillion to fill the entire hole in the economy—the “output gap,” in economist-speak. “An ambitious goal would be to eliminate the output gap by 2011–Q1 [the first quarter of 2011], returning the economy to full employment by that date,” she wrote. “To achieve that magnitude of effective stimulus using a feasible combination of spending, taxes and transfers to states and localities would require package costing about $1.8 trillion over two years.” Alas, these words never made it into the memo the president saw.

By clicking on the graphic below, you can examine the relevant section of Romer’s version of the memo alongside the final version that Lizza recently published. What’s striking is that the two versions are very similar, except that the paragraph in which Romer makes the case for $1.7-to-$1.8 trillion has simply vanished.



What happened? When Romer showed Summers her $1.7-to-$1.8 trillion figure late the week before the memo was due, he dismissed it as impractical. So Romer spent the next day or two coming up with a reasonable compromise: $1.2 trillion. In a revised document that she sent Summers over the weekend, she included the $1.2 trillion figure, along with two more limited options: about $600 billion and about $850 billion.

CONTINUED...

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/100961/memo-Larry-Summers-Obama