Break the Power of Big Money
Published on Sunday, July 22, 2012 by Eric Margolis - by Eric Margolis
Jamaica’s Port Royal used to be called the wickedest city on earth. During the 1600’s, it was a favorite lair for pirates, buccaneers like Henry Morgan, cutthroats, and assorted criminals.
To paraphrase Somerset Maugham’s wonderful quip about Monaco, “a sunny place for shady people.”
In 1692, a massive earthquake plunged most of this tropical Sodom and 2,000 of its inhabitants into the sea. God’s punishments cried preachers.
London’s financial center, the City of London, is the modern version of Port Royal. Every sort of financial chicanery, malfeasance, and systemic fraud has infested Britain’s wild west banking sector. Each day brings new outrages: collusion, LIBOR rate rigging, share manipulation, gouging clients, and reckless gambling.
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The big five US banks that were allowed to grow into Leviathans by corrupted regulators and government cronies and now control 40% of all deposits in the United States. They are all far too big to fail; and, it increasingly appears, too big to manage or supervise properly. The same applies to British Banks.
Second, America’s finance industry spent $3.7 billion from 1999 to 2008 lobbying and donating to Congress. Results were spectacular: bank’s abilities to loan were vastly increased, capitol reserves reduced, inspection almost ended. In this fevered atmosphere of casino capitalism, banking and finance – paper passing – became America’s leading industry.
rest of the article at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/07/22-2
