Just Say No! to the Banksters....
By Louise
According to the Washington Post, the Federal Reserve “made record profits in 2009″ while propping up the financial industry and will “return about $45 billion to the U.S. Treasury." Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has asked a U.S. appeals court to block a ruling that for the first time would force the central bank to reveal the secret identities of the financial firms to whom the Fed passed out over $2 trillion as part of the biggest bankster bailout in U.S. history. Bloomberg LP, a division of Bloomberg News, is arguing in court that the public has the right to know about the “unprecedented and highly controversial use” of public money. Banks and the Fed warn that bailed-out lenders may be hurt if the documents are made public, causing a run or a sell-off by investors, although when several of them were revealed back a year ago it didn't affect their share prices. What this is really about is whether or not we're going to allow the Federal Reserve - a private banking corporation that is not Federal and has no reserves, but does control the money supply of our nation - to operate on and with our dollars in complete secrecy. Legislators as disparate as Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich in the house, and Bernie Sanders and Judd Gregg have called for a full audit of the Fed, the first since it was created in 1913. Even better would be for the Treasury Department to buy the fed back from its owners and turn it into a federal institution, so our nation can take back control of our money supply and our economy.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
Images of Thom
Mueller's favorite place to pray (written about in "Prophet's Way"), and the roof of the room where the Last Supper is reputed to have happened.
From Unequal Protection, 2nd Edition:
"Beneath the success and rise of American enterprise is an untold history that is antithetical to every value Americans hold dear. This is a seminal work, a godsend really, a clear message to every citizen about the need to reform our country, laws, and companies."
From Unequal Protection, 2nd Edition:
"If you wonder why and when giant corporations got the power to reign supreme over us, here’s the story."
From The Thom Hartmann Reader:
"In an age rife with media-inspired confusion and political cowardice, we yearn for a decent, caring, deeply human soul whose grasp of the problems confronting us provides a light by which we can make our way through the quagmire of lies, distortions, pandering, and hollow self-puffery that strips the American Dream of its promise. How lucky we are, then, to have access to the wit, wisdom, and willingness of Thom Hartmann, who shares with us here that very light, grown out of his own life experience."
Yes - it's time to call the industry out. It is a falsity that the game they play ever was or is played in an opent free market so their claimed right to independence now - after this crisis - is ridiculous. They didn't make their money in a fair fight - the game has ever been rigged in their favor. They manipulated the administration and congress over a number of years and got any law or regulation passed that worked for their profit seeking, regardless of the danger or dishonesty or dowright stupidity of it. "Oh just trust the professionals to do what they do best," was the Bush adminstration line. Subprive loan backed mortgage securities qualifying for AAA treatment? my rear end! And the OCC who? Oh - yes- those guys no one ever heard of for a hundred years - until the investment banks called on (probably) Cheney and Rove to complain that the states' attorney generals were all getting predatory lending laws passed. Why the nerve of those states! The Bush administration had to figure out how to stop the staes' action - and presto: Why look, the OCC we had all forgotten about! "Gosh you 50 states worth of legislators - what were you ever thinking passing such laws when - ahem - you all should have known only the august OCC has power to regulate. Silly you." Then - of course - after trashing all state predatory lending laws the OCC did exactly.....why nothing! How surprising. Just what the bankers wanted. De-regulate, de-oversight, spin the markets up, take profits as personal income crashing the market, and then take them again riding it up. And manipulate the American public to pay for the bailout/turn-around besides. An opinion published int he WSJ says the bailout was the Americn public acting in their own self interest. I think not. Or if so, only because the bankers were pulling the strings and after ripping everyone off, held a knife to America's throat. It was like they dangled us over a cliff and then said "Hey - fill my bags up with coin or we're both going over." I think in polite company that's called extortion. Buyt then oops - I forgot - there's no polite company here anywhere. Just big money manipulating government - a story as old as the free market itself. Not that there's anything wrong with the free market a little ethical government oversight can't fix. Now, the real question is whether the Financial Crisis Inquiry commission is going to do any hard investigating at all. Will they recommend any significant protective action? Or is it going to be just another "slap the wrist make a great show for the public" display, and then back to business as usual. Human lives and suffering hang by an economic thread in much of the US and moreso the world over. All the terrorist attacks ever all combined won't ammount to even a fraction of the toll inhuman suffering, starvatiohn, violence, sex slavery, etc. ad nauseum, that this banker caused, greed caused, Wall Street caused financial crisis has exacted even already. I'm sure everyone on Wall Street involved sleeps jusf fine at night though, by virtue of their obscene thoughtlessness and gilded Faustian obsessions. "Poor people? What poor people? What has that got to do with anything?"