“Too big to fail” is bigger than ever!
By louisehartmann
The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is out with its annual report on America’s banking industry – and the numbers are shocking. Currently – only 5 banks control more than half of all the industry’s assets. That’s right – the top 5 banks in America own 52% of all the wealth in the finance sector. To put that in perspective – in 1970 – the top 5 banks controlled only 17% of the industry’s assets. Not only that – the total wealth owned by the top 10 banks in the nation now equals half of America’s total GDP.
These startling numbers have prompted the President of the Dallas Fed – Richard Fisher – to call for the breaking up of the big banks – warning that they’ve become so large they not only threaten the Federal Reserve’s ability to conduct monetary policy – but also “erode faith in American capitalism.” Fisher also called for tough new financial reforms to strengthen the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law. Thanks to three decades of Reaganomic deregulation of Wall Street – we’ve all become slaves to the banksters.
As President Grover Cleveland said in his 1888 State of the Union address to a nation then under the control of the Robber Barons, "Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters." Here we are again. It’s time to break up Wall Street before they crash our economy for a second time in just a few years.
Comments
#2
They broke up AT&T, why can't they break up the big banks???
As long as human greed is allowed to run amok, we are all SCREWED!
#3
Oh yes, we can break them!
If Americans vote in a decent Congress, not too many Republicans and not too many blue-dogs, we can.
America is a free country. We can vote in a Congress that is ready, able and willing to make war on the Wall Street monopolies. These banks actually have the money that lacks in public finances -- just take it back from the banksters. We are the people, we vote in Congress and Government, we have the Federal Police, we have the power to roll it all back by violence. Civilized violence, by appointing the Federal Marshall.
We need a left-wing Congress to do something like that. Not 'Communists', not 'Marxists' -- just common sense American Liberals, which are reasonable, decent Americans!
#4
First, the CEOs outsourced our low-skilled jobs, putting the savings in their pockets. Then they outsourced the high-skilled jobs. Armed with all of these skills and jobs, our CEOs are under threat by the Chinese and Indians realizing that they can cut out the middleman and have their own companies with their own CEOs. "Not to worry," says our CEOs, since they forsaw this and have been moving from manufacturing to finance. They plan to make bazillions with money. No need for employees. No need for factories. It is the ultimate in efficiency.
What happens when the Indians and Chinese create their own banks? "Not to worry," says our bankers, since they forsaw this. "My billions will keep my heirs rich forever."
Yes, indeed. But what about the rest of us? Isn't this just a replay of Spainish, Dutch and English empires?
#5
Has the Sherman Anti-Trust Act been repealed? We don't need the controversial Democratic Dodd-Frank to break up the too-big-to-fail banks. We can use the tried and true Republican legislation: Sherman Anti-Trust. All we need is a President and Attorney General with a stiff spine to institute proceedings against the big five.
#6
The purpose of business as humans have currently constructed is for profit to be made for the owners of that business all businesses are profit driven that is the objective is it not?
So why are we surprised to see history repeating, it will ever do so until we change the model or until we change the beliefs that create the model.According to our society profit is the most important thing,and it stems from the thought that there is not enough to go around and our separation theology.
Yesterdays god has been characterized as a every-man-for- himself kind of god this comes from the idea we are separate from each other and god.
Life is tough on planet earth with at least 3 billion people living in poverty of those around 1.3 billion live in absolute poverty.
This is because we have created an economic system the purpose of which is to generate profit.
The ten ILLUSIONS of humans are Need exists,Failure exists,Disunity exists,Insufficiency exists,Requirement exists,Judgement exists,Conditionality exists,Superiority exists,Ignorance exists.
It is from the dual ILLUSIONS of Insufficiency and Disunity that our economy emerges.The idea that there is NOT ENOUGH of what humans think they need to be happy,and the idea that humans are separate from each other ,forms the basis of our entire economic model.
The New Spirituality will provide us with a new basis for our economy and we will create a new model,the purpose will change from an economy needing to generate profit to one that generates wealth.
Wealth at the moment is defined as possessions and power so the more things you owned the more power you had and the wealthier you were.The old spirituality encouraged humans to have dominion over the earth ,humans have interpreted this to mean domination ,so now you can see the vast problems this has caused.The imagined idea of ownership of or power over,people,places and things that we call asset,s are all part of dominating the earth and each other.
In the days of the NEW SPIRITUALITY wealth will be defined not as possessions and power,but as access and happiness.
There is enough stuff for everyone if we use this stuff rather than have ownership of the stuff of life.
So the answer is to redefine wealth as access and availability and shift from a possession and-power economy to a USE -and-COOPERATION ECONOMY.
remember WE ARE ALL ONE
namaste to all in America the time has come to change the world ,lets all be the change we wish to see,or as Shakespeare said to be or not to be THAT IS THE QUESTION or do humans wish to be at all.?
#7
Say, are you sitting on a bed of nails while typing all this?? I find all your ideas fairly entertaining, but what's all that got to do with the reality in our society? How would your philosophy for example match with questions like "Keystone Pipline or not"? As you perhaps have heard, some people just care for the money they can get out of that pipeline. Others just think of the rising gas prices and obviously feel like cars are more important than people. Others are just concerned or even afraid, because there obviously ARE risks.....
How would you respond to somebody who wants to abolish food stamps? Would you just say: "Well, we're all one, just have a hug"?
We have conflicts in our society, which to deny is really-really very much out of touch.
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Nothing will be done. What has happened with the financial industry is symptomatic of capitalism. It seeks only wealth for the capitalists and all else be damned. From time to time "liberal" capitalists have suggested that the system would or could take care of everyone but that is not the way the system works --- it is a dynamic system for the creation of an abundance of wealth at the top and it is not a social welfare system or a system of charity.