Who owns our Government?...The Wall St Coup D 'Etat

[debbierlus]

The most revealing political quote of the last year came, in my view, from the second-highest ranking Democratic Senator, Dick Durbin, who told a local radio station in April: "And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." The best Congressional floor speech of the last year on the financial crisis was this extraordinarily piercing five-minute revelation from Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio on the Wall Street bailout and how the Congress is subservient to their dictates. And the single most insightful article on the financial crisis was written by former IMF Chief Economist and current MIT Professor Simon Johnson in the May, 2009 issue of The Atlantic, when he argued that "the finance industry has effectively captured our government" and detailed how the U.S. has become very similar to failed emerging-market nations in both its political and economic culture.

All of that came together last night on Bill Moyers' Journal program, as Johnson and Kaptur together discussed the stranglehold which the financial industry exerts over the federal government and how that has produced a jobless recovery in which the only apparent beneficiaries are the bankers and other financial elites who caused the financial crisis in the first place. The discussion began with reference to this Associated Press article from last week, which examined Timothy Geithner's calenders, obtained through a FOIA request. Those documents show that Geithner spends an amazing amount of time on the telephone with the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Citibank and JP Morgan: "Goldman, Citi and JPMorgan can get Geithner on the phone several times a day if necessary, giving them an unmatched opportunity to influence policy." Other than the President, virtually everyone else -- including leading members of Congress -- are forced to leave messages. Kaptur and Johnson begin by discussing what that signifies in terms of the ongoing financial crisis and how government works.


More and a partial transcript of Moyer's Upcoming Program on the failure of the government to solve the economic crisis:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/10/government/index.html

[debbierlus]

1. I will post the Moyer videos in the political video section

As soon as I find them....

[malaise]

3. They're here

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html

[leftstreet]

2. "a jobless recovery" says it all right there

K&R

Do you have a link to a video of Kaptur's 5 minute floor speech?

[SOS]

4. The Congress is a Wall Street appendage

For the past 28 years, Washington has been no more than a rubber stamp for Wall Street demands.

Glass Steagall? Gone
Bucket shops banned in 1907? Legalized!
SEC enforcement? None.
Consumer protection? Socialism!
Derivatives regulated? Hell no.
Trillions in bail out money? No problem!
Cap credit card interest rates? Socialism!
Allow mortgage restructuring in bankruptcy? No!
Allow debit card bounce opt-out? Not yet, we're pretending to work on it!
Minor credit card reform? Coming in 2010, after you've been raised to 28%.
The bankruptcy "reform" of 2005? Passed!

This is state monopoly capitalism in full bloom.

The good news is that state monopoly capitalism is the last stage of capitalism before the final collapse.
Simon Johnson is correct.
The insane greed of the Wall Street thieves, along with their bribed Congress, ensures another (much worse) collapse is coming.

In the words of Peter Schiff, who predicted the housing collapse: "You think it's bad that your house is worth nothing? Wait until your money is worth nothing."

[SpiralHawk]

5. Well worth watching

the k and the r