Sold Out: How Washington and Wall Street Betrayed America

[Mari333]

I am reading it now.

http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/reports/sold_out.pdf

[mike_c]

1. wow! that is a massive, comprehensive report! K&R....

I'm going to read it later today, but a quick scan suggests that it is very comprehensive.

[Mari333]

2. Im posting it all over the place

needs to be seen far and wide.

truthout has a good analysis of it today

http://www.truthout.org/050809J?n

[Blue_Tires]

3. kick for later

[HughBeaumont]

5. For later this evening.

I couldn't read a 231 page doc during work hours.

[lumpy]

4. Hear hear. The dogs of Wall St. treasonous bastards.

v

[robinlynne]

6. kick for weekend reading.

[ixion]

7. here's a snip...and html link

It’s not like our elected leaders in Washington
had no warning: The California
energy crisis in 2000, and the subsequent
collapse of Enron — at the time unprecedented
— was an early warning that the
nation’s system of laws and regulations was
inadequate to meet the conniving and trickery
of the financial industry. The California
crisis turned out to be a foreshock of the
financial catastrophe that our country is in
today. It began with the deregulation of
electricity prices by the state legislature.
Greased with millions in campaign contributions
from Wall Street and the energy industry,
the legislation was approved on a bipartisan
basis without a dissenting vote.


Once deregulation took effect, Wall
Street began trading electricity and the
private energy companies boosted prices
through the roof. Within a few weeks, the
utility companies — unable because of a
loophole in the law to pass through the
higher prices to consumers — simply
stopped paying for the power. Blackouts
ensued. At the time, Californians were
chastised for having caused the shortages
through “over-consumption.” But the energy
shortages were orchestrated by Wall Street
rating firms, investment banks and energy
companies, in order to force California’s
taxpayers to bail out the utility companies.


http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/soldoutreport.htm

[defendandprotect]

22. Unregulated Capitalism is merely organized crime -- they all know that -- !!

[Joanne98]

8. WOW THANKS!! Snippet>>>>>

12 Key Policy Decisions Led to Cataclysm

Financial deregulation led directly to the current economic meltdown. For the last three decades, government regulators, Congress and the executive branch, on a bipartisan basis, steadily eroded the regulatory system that restrained the financial sector from acting on its own worst tendencies. "Sold Out" details a dozen key steps to financial meltdown, revealing how industry pressure led to these deregulatory moves and their consequences:

1. In 1999, Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which had prohibited the merger of commercial banking and investment banking.
Regulatory rules permitted off-balance sheet accounting -- tricks that enabled banks to hide their liabilities.
The Clinton administration blocked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from regulating financial derivatives -- which became the basis for massive speculation.
Congress in 2000 prohibited regulation of financial derivatives when it passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.
The Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004 adopted a voluntary regulation scheme for investment banks that enabled them to incur much higher levels of debt.
Rules adopted by global regulators at the behest of the financial industry would enable commercial banks to determine their own capital reserve requirements, based on their internal "risk-assessment models."
Federal regulators refused to block widespread predatory lending practices earlier in this decade, failing to either issue appropriate regulations or even enforce existing ones.
Federal bank regulators claimed the power to supersede state consumer protection laws that could have diminished predatory lending and other abusive practices.
Federal rules prevent victims of abusive loans from suing firms that bought their loans from the banks that issued the original loan.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac expanded beyond their traditional scope of business and entered the subprime market, ultimately costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
The abandonment of antitrust and related regulatory principles enabled the creation of too-big-to-fail megabanks, which engaged in much riskier practices than smaller banks.
Beset by conflicts of interest, private credit rating companies incorrectly assessed the quality of mortgage-backed securities; a 2006 law handcuffed the SEC from properly regulating the firms.
Financial Sector Political Money and 3000 Lobbyists Dictated Washington Policy

During the period 1998-2008:

Commercial banks spent more than $154 million on campaign contributions, while investing $363 million in officially registered lobbying:
Accounting firms spent $68 million on campaign contributions and $115 million on lobbying;
Insurance companies donated more than $218 million and spent more than $1.1 billion on lobbying;
Securities firms invested more than $504 million in campaign contributions, and an additional $576 million in lobbying. Included in this total: private equity firms contributed $56 million to federal candidates and spent $33 million on lobbying; and hedge funds spent $32 million on campaign contributions (about half in the 2008 election cycle).
The betrayal was bipartisan: about 55 percent of the political donations went to Republicans and 45 percent to Democrats, primarily reflecting the balance of power over the decade. Democrats took just more than half of the financial sector's 2008 election cycle contributions.

The financial sector buttressed its political strength by placing Wall Street expatriates in top regulatory positions, including the post of Treasury Secretary held by two former Goldman Sachs chairs, Robert Rubin and Henry Paulson.

Financial firms employed a legion of lobbyists, maintaining nearly 3,000 separate lobbyists in 2007 alone.

These companies drew heavily from government in choosing their lobbyists. Surveying 20 leading financial firms, "Sold Out" finds 142 of the lobbyists they employed from 1998-2008 were previously high-ranking officials or employees in the Executive Branch or Congress.

http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/soldoutreport.htm

[Karenina]

9. Thanx, Joanne! K&R!

[Fireweed247]

10. K&R

Thanks for posting this everywhere!! :applause:

[Mari333]

11. kicking for the afternoon crowd

[Land Shark]

12. kick and a quick comment about where this all seems headed:

US ownership of common stock, not for purposes of "socialism" in these sense of Faux news but to align the interests of the government with those of the big banks and other corporations, building in a huge disincentive for reform (it will greatly damage the stock position of the government)

[glitch]

25. Excellent summary in one sentence. K & R to the OP.

Fascism for a New American Century.

[Hotler]

13. Kicking! eom.

[Wednesdays]

14. K&R

:kick:

[scarletwoman]

15. k&r -- too much to take in tonight, but I definitely want to read it.

Thanks much for posting this! :yourock:

sw

[JimWis]

16. K&R - thanks for the link.

[pam4water]

17. Another kick for later.

[MagickMuffin]

18. It is obvious why Campaign Finance Reform WILL NEVER EVER come up for a VOTE

When Newt decided to offer his "Contract With (ON) America" to get government out of "American's Lives" that was code word for getting government out of Corporations Lives. I know for a fact I didn't receive any less government intrusion in my life. The "War on Drugs" amped up along with our FOURTH AMENDMENT being taken away, welfare decreased, no wage increases for the middle class, and other personal liberties stripped away.

Corporations contribute mass amounts of money to buy their influence, Lobbyist (5 for each member of Congress) write the LAWS and Congress passes them. Don't expect anything to change. Our GOVERNMENT BELONGS TO THE CORPORATIONS. We only matter to the Congress critters at ELECTION TIME. Other than that they DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU OR ME!

:cry:

[glitch]

26. Likewise for Voting System Reform. nt

[pleah]

19. K&R

[UpInArms]

20. here's an excerpt for those wondering if you want to read the whole report (recommended)

The report, prepared by Essential Information and the Consumer Education Foundation, details step-by-step many of the events that led to the financial debacle. Here are the “highlights” of our economic downfall:

• Beginning in 1983 with the Reagan Administration, the U.S. government acquiesced in accounting rules adopted by the financial industry that allowed banks and other corporations to take money-losing assets off their balance sheets in order to hide them from investors and the public.

• Between 1998 and 2000, Congress and the Clinton Administration repeatedly blocked efforts to regulate Industry “financial derivatives” — including the mortgage-related credit default swaps that became the basis of trillions of dollars in speculation.

• In 1999, Congress repealed the Depression-era law that barred banks from offering investment and insurance services, and vice versa, enabling these firms to engage in speculation by investing money from checking and savings accounts into financial “derivatives” and other schemes understood by only a handful of individuals.

• Taking advantage of historically low interest rates in the early part of this decade, shady mortgage brokers and bankers began offering mortgages on egregious terms to purchasers who were not qualified. When these predatory lending practices were brought to the attention of federal agencies, they refused to take serious action. Worse, when states stepped into the vacuum by passing laws requiring protections against dirty loans, the Bush Administration went to court to invalidate those reforms, on the ground that the inaction of federal agencies superseded state laws.

• The financial industry’s friends in Congress made sure that those who speculate in mortgages would not be legally liable for fraud or other illegalities that occurred when the mortgage was made.

• Egged on by Wall Street, two government-sponsored corporations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, started buying large numbers of subprime loans from private banks as well as packages of mortgages known as “mortgage-backed securities.”

• In 2004, the top cop on the Wall Street beat in Washington — the Securities and Exchange Commission — now operating under the radical deregulatory ideology of the
Bush Administration, authorized investment banks to decide for themselves how much money they were required to set aside as rainy day reserves.

Some firms then entered into $40 worth of speculative trading for every $1 they held.

• With the compensation of CEOs increasingly tied to the value of the firm’s total assets, a tidal wave of mergers and acquisitions in the financial world — 11,500 between 1980 and 2005 — led to the predominance of just a relative handful banks in the U.S. financial system.

Successive administrations failed to enforce antitrust laws to block these mergers. The result: less competition, higher fees and charges for consumers, and a financial system vulnerable to collapse if any single one of the banks ran into trouble.

• Investors and even government authorities relied on private “credit rating” firms to review corporate balance sheets and proposed investments and report to potential investors about their quality and safety.

But the credit rating companies had a grave conflict of interest: they are paid by the financial firms to issue the ratings. Not surprisingly, they gave the highest ratings to the investments issued by the firms that paid them, even as it became clear that the ratings were inflated and the companies were in precarious condition.

The financial lobby made sure that regulation of the credit ratings firms would not solve these problems.

None of these milestones on the road to economic ruin were kept secret. The dangers posed by unregulated, greed-driven financial speculation were readily apparent to any astute observer of the financial system. But few of those entrusted with the responsibility to police the marketplace were willing to do so. And as the report explains, those officials in government who dared to propose stronger protections for investors and consumers consistently met with hostility and defeat. The power of the Money Industry overcame all opposition, on a bipartisan basis.

[xiamiam]

21. turns my stomach..i hate to admit it..obama is the top recipient of the banks contributions...

why do i not want to believe that the reasons the banks/wall street continue to get away with middle class murder has anything to do with this?...it would be so much easier if the top recipient was an easy to hate republican...damn..

[PADemD]

23. The executive summary is only 7 pages

http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/reports/executive_summary.pdf

[PufPuf23]

24. Good read, fast to print out too. Thanks nt

[WestSeattle2]

27. ..."Our enemies of today are the forces of

privilege and greed within our own borders.” - President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jackson Day Dinner Address, January 8, 1936

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15256


To any unbiased individual, the actions taken by Wall Street and Washington D.C. power brokers over the last few years, would be construed as an attempt, and a successful one at that, to cause intentional harm, with malice and the conscious intent of inflicting financial harm to the populace of the United States, and in fact, to the global investing class. If the United States does not prosecute these individuals, surely a sovereign court somewhere in this world will pursue civil and criminal prosecutions. It does seem that for a country built on laws, that the United States is not currently capable of, or willing, to impose justice on the ruling or financial classes.

For destroying the lives, dreams, and life savings of millions of people, the death penalty would not be excessive.

[xiamiam]

29. disgusting...im one of those millions and i am enraged..feel helpless since NO ONE has got our back

i had hope...i really did...but after reading this, most of which has already been discussed here..except i just didnt get the part about the contributions to obama..i havent been able to understand why he didnt back the cramdown...or why geithner?...i have a sinking feeling..much like i did when they were debating torture on national tv...or when i realized i lived in the same country with a bunch of sheep who believe anything on fox...

[WestSeattle2]

30. We have a government bought and paid for by Wall Street....

and you're absolutely correct, no one has our back. The only thing that matters to most, not all, of those in power is transferring money from our pockets to the pockets of those at the top of the pyramid.

Unbridled greed and unchecked power is destroying this country.

Brought to you by Goldman Sachs.

[Greyhound]

28. K&R

Got a copy for reading when I have the time.

Thank you.
:kick: & R

[KG]

31. Thank Gawd It Passed!

:eyes:

[Mari333]

32. the more I read, the angrier I get

I have to read the damned thing in small spurts. my blood pressure cant take it.

[sattahipdeep]

33. Everybody seems to forget

But Krongard exhibited the requisite secretiveness when asked
to explain his interest in intelligence and how he came to land
a job in Tenet's inner circle. If you go back to the CIA's origins
during World War II in the Office of Strategic Services, he
explained, "the whole OSS was really nothing but Wall Street
bankers and lawyers."

The empire’s operatives exposed
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2652.shtml

A power player with shadowy objectives
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=183603&mesg_id=183603