Will White Collar Crime Be A Campaign Issue In 2020?

"Trump," Samantha Bee explained on her most recent show, "is a sleazy con man who's been specializing in rich guy crime since the disco era. But law enforcement has always backed off or let him go with a slam on the wrist. There were his acts of racial discrimination, his fishy real estate deals, his bullshit university, his swindling of people who worked for him, and his violations of labor law, anti-trust law, gaming law, self-dealing law, anti-money laundering regulations of the Cuban Embargo... Those laws don't mean anything unless criminals who launder money, drain peoples' life savings and kill motorists are... afraid of jail time." Bernie would agree. In fact, what we need in the White House is someone who takes a hard line of criminals, not a criminal.

Bernie Sanders agreed with former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that corporate executives should have gone to jail for the illegal behavior which caused the financial crisis in 2008.

Bernanke: "Everything that went wrong or was illegal was done by some individual, not by an abstract firm...There should have been more accountability at the individual level."

Bernie couldn't have agreed more: "It is an outrage that not one major Wall Street executive has gone to jail for causing the near collapse of the economy. The failure to prosecute the crooks on Wall Street for their illegal and reckless behavior is a clear indictment of our broken criminal justice system. It is an obscenity that people in this country are getting arrested at near record rates for smoking marijuana, but not one Wall Street CEO has been prosecuted for triggering the Great Recession in 2008. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, homes, life savings and ability to send their kids to college because of the greed on Wall Street. We can no longer tolerate a criminal justice system that treats Wall Street executives as too big to jail when their actions have ruined the lives of so many Americans. I wish Ben Bernanke would have understood that when he was chairman of the Federal Reserve."

Bernie 2020 by Nancy Ohanian

A few days ago, Bob Sheer, in a piece on Carmen Segarra's new book, Noncompliant: A Lone Whistleblower Exposes the Giants of Wall Street, wrote that few consequential policy decisions "have proven as consequential as the demise of Glass-Steagall. Signed into law as the U.S.A. Banking Act of 1933, the legislation had been crucial to safeguarding the financial industry in the wake of the Great Depression. But with its repeal in 1999, the barriers separating commercial and investment banking collapsed, creating the preconditions for an economic crisis from whose shadow we have yet to emerge." Segarra," he wrote, "chronicles the recklessness of institutions like Goldman Sachs and the stunning lengths the United States government went to to accommodate them, even as they authored one of the worst crashes in our nation’s history."

“Noncompliant” explores one of the darkest chapters in modern American history, but with a crook and unabashed narcissist occupying the Oval Office, its lessons are proving remarkably timely. “We live in a culture where we reward bad behavior, we worship bad behavior, and it’s something that needs to stop,” she cautions. “Changing the regulatory culture on [a] U.S. governmental level is something that’s going to take a decade, maybe two. And we need to start now, before things get worse.”

...[I]f a system can be corrupted, people that are allowed to grab hold of power will corrupt it–insofar and only for so long as we allow those people to have the ability and the power to corrupt it. So ultimately, talking about more or less rules, or different rules, is productive only to a point. Because ultimately what we’re talking about here is the haphazard, slap on the wrist, failure to truly enforce the rules and regulations equitably across the system. And that creates the imbalances that you see, for example, in Goldman Sachs, and that you see in the system in general. One of the things that happened as a result of Glass-Steagall coming down was that a lot of the investment bankers were allowed to take over the commercial banks. And those investment bankers knew nothing about banking, and Goldman is a great example of that. I mean, when I arrived three years in after the financial crisis, what was one of the things that was very shocking to me was going into meeting after meeting with Goldman senior management and hearing them lie, doublespeak, and most shockingly of all, insist that they didn’t have to comply with the law. And that is a problem. Because a bank that doesn’t believe, or management at a bank that doesn’t believe they have to comply with the law-- you bet they are not supervising their employees correctly, and they’re not incentivizing employees correctly in terms of how to do their job. So their behavior is injecting enormous risk into the system.

...The world depends in large part on the American banking system to work. And for it to work, there are these rules, and these rules are there to create trust in the system and to create smooth processes in the system, so that money can be moved and the economy can continue to grow. If the world can no longer trust the American banking system because Americans cannot be trusted to regulate it, they are going to move away from the American banking system. They are going to move away from the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. And then we are going to find ourselves in the situation that a lot of countries that are not governed by reserve currencies find themselves occasionally, from time to time, whenever they have a crisis. You know, we’re talking about countries in Latin America; we’re talking about countries in Africa; we’re talking about countries in Asia. I hope the book will inspire people to really take a look around and realize, you know, the American consumer, the American worker, is incredibly powerful. You know, these banks cannot survive without our money. We don’t have to wait for the government to keep failing us; we don’t have to wait for the judiciary to keep failing us; we don’t have to wait for lawyers to keep failing us. We choose who we work for. We choose where we keep our money. We can choose to protest. We can choose to call our pension funds and tell them, I want you to stop doing business with Goldman Sachs. It’s what we do on a daily basis. When we stand up and we say, I am not going to be banking with these people-- they will listen. It’s like, they control all of these other checks and balances that were put in place in terms of the government to stop them. So now it’s up to us as a people to actually do something about this.

...[W]e have to stop rewarding bad behavior, that’s an example of what I’m talking about. It’s like, we have a culture where we reward people for their bad behavior. And in the Fed it is a systemic problem. And it is a problem that comes from the top down. And when I was at the Fed, Ben Bernanke was head of the Fed; Bill Dudley, as you pointed out, was the head of the New York Fed; and Sarah Dahlgren was his head of supervision. This is a very small world. We’re not talking about a lot of people; the culture is top-down, and everybody there just does what these people say, because if they don’t they’re afraid they’re going to lose their jobs. So from their perspective, they have nothing to lose, because they have a bunch of workers that are going to do as they say. And they will do what is in their best corporate interests. I mean, you have Bill Dudley, who was allowed to hold on to a lot of his investments that predated his arrival at the Fed and were held at Goldman Sachs. And you know, when you have somebody who’s not forced to really work for the government–as in divesting themselves of their own conflicts and truly taking taxpayer money and doing their job–then you can’t expect a good result to come from that. Again, we rewarded bad behavior. And that’s why I think, you know, the key here is really about taking a really good look at our daily lives and seeing, who are we rewarding on a regular basis? And we need to stop rewarding that bad behavior.

Who Has Bad Judgment?-- Wall Street Version

Zach Carter is one of Huff Po's most perceptive reporters and yesterday he warned his readers that while we were all distracted by the clown show Trump had finally delivered one on big campaign promise-- not for his voters, of course, but for his Wall Street donors-- he pretty much gutted Dodd-Frank. "Trump," he reminded us, "campaigned on conflicting promises about big banks. One minute, he was going to stick it to the corrupt financial insiders who had wrecked the middle class. The next, he’d vow to liberate our benevolent princes of capital from crushing regulations Obama had cruelly imposed." Pushed by the traditional GOP swamp creatures all around him-- from Pence, Ryan, Priebus and Hensarling to Mnuchin, Ross and Cohn-- the Trump Regime has been all about deregulation.

Last week, a council of top regulators quietly met to discuss the future of the Volcker rule-- the most important structural change Obama established for the financial system. A few days later, a freshly installed Trump official went further, threatening to defang the rule “unilaterally” by “reinterpreting” its entire purpose.

The rule is basically dead, Keefe Bruyette & Woods analyst Brian Gardner wrote in a note to clients last Monday: “Examiners can start giving banks the benefit of the doubt regarding compliance with Volcker almost immediately.”

The Volcker rule was conceived as an update to the Depression-era Glass-Steagall law, which banned traditional banks from engaging in risky, high-stakes securities ventures, which became the domain of investment banks, hedge funds and other firms that didn’t rely on federal support. Until its repeal in the 1990s, Glass-Steagall put an end to many conflicts of interest that had plagued banking during the Roaring Twenties, and prevented government subsidies from flowing into speculative securities schemes, which made it harder for big crazy asset bubbles to accumulate.

Glass-Steagall was as powerful as a sledgehammer, but only slightly more precise. The Volcker rule tried to draw a finer distinction. Instead of banning banks from the securities business outright, it only barred proprietary trading. Banks were no longer allowed to make reckless bets for their own accounts, but other types of trading to help clients meet legitimate market needs would be permitted. Done right, the Volcker rule would have been a technocratic improvement on Glass-Steagall, providing all the benefits of its New Deal predecessor without its costs.

It reflected the broader approach Obama and congressional Democrats took with Wall Street reform, treating the financial crisis as a mechanical malfunction best corrected by expert regulators who could write specific rules for nuanced situations. The economic system, they believed, could not be properly repaired with blunt instruments or lines in the sand.

Twenty-first-century banking is indeed a nasty thicket of money and numbers. But the financial crisis was more than a technocratic breakdown. It was an abuse of power. And the 2010 Dodd-Frank law didn’t really try to reshape the political dynamic between Wall Street and Washington. A handful of financial titans retained control over multitrillion-dollar institutions tasked with socially essential functions. They were not prosecuted for fraud, they continued to lobby both Congress and federal agencies with ferocity, and their firms continued to provide lucrative jobs for political operatives from both parties. Against this mountain, Obama set the willpower of individual regulators.

It didn’t work. Consider the Volcker rule, which ran into trouble almost immediately. “One of the world’s largest banking firms” enlisted the Podesta Group-- a lobbying powerhouse founded by Democratic power brokers John and Tony Podesta-- to water down the rule in Congress. The Podesta Group still boasts about the effort on its website, under “Wins.”

“The client’s desired language on the ‘Volcker Rule’ was passed into law,” reads the page, titled “Challenging Wall Street Reform To Defend Jobs.” The lobbying barrage continued at the regulatory agencies, whose final version of the rule stretched to 300 pages of loopholes, exemptions and special considerations. Bank lobbyists succeeded in delaying the implementation of key elements of Volcker for years. Now the beast is being put out of its misery by Trump appointees with close ties to the financial industry, demonstrating that Wall Street’s political clout remains as strong as ever. Volcker’s destroyers will include former bank lawyer Keith Noreika, along with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, a Goldman Sachs alum, and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton, who served as Goldman’s bailout attorney.

A similar fate will soon follow for the derivatives regulations and other rules written during the Obama years. Even capital requirements, the simplest and last line of defense against bad bank behavior, are under assault following the resignation of Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo. We will never know if Obama’s tweaks and adjustments would have prevented or ameliorated another financial crisis. Today, big banks are bigger than they were before the crash, and are returning to pre-crash levels of oversight. The potential for financial turmoil under an erratic president is just as strong as the potential for foreign policy dislocation.

The one element of Dodd-Frank that will likely survive the Trump presidency is also the only aspect that seriously restructured the power relationship between government and finance. The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is important not because it involves a host of complicated new rules-- stealing from customers was illegal before, during and after the crisis-- but because it changes the way these protections are enforced. Prior to Obama, consumer banking products were regulated by five different agencies that competed with each other for “assessment” fees paid by the banks they regulated. This gave banks political power over their regulators-- an agency that was too tough on consumer protection risked losing its banks, and the funding they brought, to another regulator.

Obama scrapped this regime in favor of a single consumer finance overseer, the CFPB, and charged lifelong consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren with setting up the agency and hiring critical personnel. This established a new power center in Washington capable of challenging not only big banks, but also broken bureaucracy. When Obama’s Education Department turned a blind eye to student loan abuses, the CFPB took action. It has returned over $11 billion in ill-gotten bank gains to customers since its inception.

So the next meltdown probably won’t be caused by consumer fraud. Other than that, we’re pretty screwed.

As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the corrupt nest of thieves headed by Texas crook Jeb Hensarling-- the House Financial Services Committee-- has almost been entirely bought off by the banksters. Millions and millions of dollars in bribes have gone to corrupt Republicans like Hensarling ($7,372,690), Ed Royce ($6,931,797), Steve Stivers ($4,192,037), Patrick McHenry ($3,949,286), Peter King ($2,761,274), Sean Duffy ($2,376,646) and Blaine Luetkemeyer ($2,371,565) and to corrupt Democrats on the committee as well-- Jim Himes ($5,545,212), Gregory Meeks ($3,120,688), DavidScott ($2,770,894), Charlie Crist ($2,474,349), John Delaney ($2,100,202) and Kyrsten Sinema ($1,662,043).

There's no doubt the House is going to pass the legislation the bank lobbyists have written for Hensarling, destroying as many consumer protections as they can, especially the CFPB. But even McConnell admits that the greed and avarice of the banksters and the bribed House members won't get the legislation through the Senate for Señor Trumpanzee to sign. McConnell told Bloomberg News "I’d love to do something about Dodd-Frank, particularly with regard to community banks but that would require Democratic involvement. I’m not optimistic... So far, my impression is the Democrats on the banking committee believe that Dodd-Frank is something akin to the Ten Commandments."

Despite McConnell’s remarks, helping community lenders hasn’t been the main sticking point in negotiations between Republicans and Democrats. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, the banking panel’s top Democrat, has said he supports relaxing rules for the smallest banks. But Democrats have been vocal in resisting any changes to Dodd-Frank that they say will aid Wall Street, such as scrapping Volcker Rule trading restrictions and weakening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

On Tuesday, Brown pushed back on McConnell’s contention that Democrats are blocking efforts for a bipartisan compromise.

“The Senate Republican leader seems to have forgotten the harm Wall Street’s greed and reckless behavior caused to millions of working families and taxpayers,” Brown said in a statement. “If this were really about community banks, we might have come to an agreement years ago. Republicans are once again using them as leverage to help a rogue’s gallery of special interests.”

[Senate Banking Committee chair Mike] Crapo has previously said efforts to revise Dodd-Frank would be slow as most major bills require 60 votes to pass the Senate, and Republicans hold just 52 seats. The House is moving faster, with that chamber’s Financial Services Committee approving legislation earlier this month that would alter many of the law’s key provisions. House Speaker Paul Ryan has said he wants the legislation to move to a floor vote as soon as possible.

Absent action by Congress, McConnell said rolling back Dodd-Frank will fall to the Trump administration. After a slow start, President Donald Trump has made progress in recent weeks in filling the agencies that oversee Wall Street with his own appointees.

Trump, who has called Dodd-Frank a “disaster” that has made it difficult for businesses to get loans, signed an executive order in February requiring regulators to examine financial rules. The Treasury Department is scheduled to issue a report on the findings next month, kicking off what the administration has promised will be a broad rewrite of regulations implemented under Dodd-Frank.

Unless the situation in Congress changes, we will be “stuck with whatever the administration thinks it can do on its own to modify the impact of Dodd-Frank,” McConnell said.

The Candidates And Technology

With a nearly impenetrable wall of opposition from a socially irresponsible corporate media, obsessed with the ratings numbers the Trump Freak Show brings in, and with the inclination to rally around the establishment-- from MSNBC's Chris Matthews' non-stop promotion of Hillary over Bernie to the NY Times obvious willingness to bed-down with their pals at the Clinton campaign-- yesterday wasn't a great day for Bernie's campaign. No one expected wins in Florida or North Carolina, but Ohio's steep loss (56.5- 42.8%) wasn't encouraging. Almost have the delegates have been allocated now. 50.53% to go-- and, hopefully, Bernie will fight her for every last one of them.

Any TV news talk about Hillary's Theranos fundraiser hosted by the spectacularly failed company's CEO and Hillary's daughter Chelsea? None that I saw. "One of Clinton’s primary liabilities in her race against Bernie Sanders is the perception that she is overly friendly with corrupt corporate interests. So it's pretty bizarre that she has decided to have a (reportedly) corrupt corporation host her next big fund-raiser. And it’s only one of several unforced errors the campaign has made since last Friday; not on TV= never happened.

A few weeks ago Bloomberg reporter Sasha Issenberg noted that behind Bernie's political revolution there is a meticulously engineered grassroots network whose organizational roots go right back to the methods and strategies of the Howard Dean campaign... but without the fatal pitfalls.

Sunday Micah Sifry, writing for The Nation reported on how Bernie's campaign is reinventing the use of technology in politics and-- again-- it's all about grassroots organizing (rather than data). "Ever since the Bernie Sanders campaign gathered more than 100,000 supporters in 3,500 events on one night in July 2015," he wrote, "it’s been clear that the senator from Vermont was building a massive base for his upstart push for the presidency. By the end of the year, it had generated more than 2.5 million contributions to his campaign, topping the 2.1 million tallied at the same point by incumbent President Barack Obama during his re-election bid. That juggernaut has continued to expand, with another 2.5 million contributions since the beginning of 2016." Smart phones, social networking through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are helping to generate massive amounts of online engagement outside traditional campaign structures... Sanders has about 165 Facebook pages with 7.3 million likes, and nearly 200 Facebook groups with more than 358,000 members; Clinton’s numbers are roughly half that. The question for campaigns today: how to rapidly absorb and deploy the energy of volunteers as effectively as possible."

Monday, Sam Thielman reported that tech activists who analyzed each presidential candidate's platform as well as their debate stands and stump speeches see Bernie's tech-savvy campaign as the best hope in affecting citizens’ digital lives... while Trump's, predictably enough, is the most dismal.

The issues at hand are pressing: censorship, industry consolidation and mass surveillance are among policy positions Free Press opposes. The group is in favor of net neutrality, strong encryption, inexpensive internet access and local broadband competition.

Trump hasn’t weighed in at all on complex policy topics like cable provider consolidation or public programs to enable internet access, but everywhere he has offered comment, it’s been to the disappointment of Free Press analysts. He is generally against reforming the Patriot Act, in favor of censorship, opposed to Apple’s appeal of the FBI’s order to weaken iPhone security and has seemed to believe that net neutrality would "target conservative media."

But simple ignorance is a problem that crosses party lines, said Karr, and it’s an acute one in a country where net neutrality and anti-surveillance activism have crossed those lines as well. “We think that there’s a constituency out there, what we call the internet voter, that has already demonstrated his or her passion on this issue,” Karr said.

“More than 10 million people got involved protesting the Pipa [the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act] and Sopa [the Stop Online Piracy Act] legislation,” he said.

“The candidates by and large haven’t caught up with this new constituency.”

The encryption issue notwithstanding, Sanders is the major exception; Hillary Clinton got low marks on surveillance and censorship, though she is still preferable to all her Republican opponents, according to the group. “You’re going to hear all of the usual complaints, you know, freedom of speech, etc,” she is quoted as saying on the topic of censorship. “But if we truly are in a war ... we’ve got to shut off their means of communicating.”

There are scattered exceptions across the Republican spectrum: Cruz was one of just four U.S. senators to support the rollback of surveillance measures in the Patriot Act, and Rubio backed legislation to expand internet access.

But overall, Karr said, he thought the Republican refusal to break ranks on tech policy was far out of step with the electorate. “Senators Cruz and Rubio both added their names to a bill that would rescind the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality ruling, but they tend to ignore polling data that shows that net neutrality has broad bipartisan support,” Karr said. “In fact, a majority of people who identify as Republican voters say they support the principles of net neutrality.

“There’s a difference between what these politicians are saying and what their voting base believes.”

We Already Know Exactly What The Republicans Plan To Do To The Economy. Bernie Has A Different Idea

Today, The Economist took a helpful look at the American tax system-- short version: "American taxes are a mess"-- and at the Republican candidates' proposals to reform the system. The conclusion is that all of the GOP tax proposals are exorbitant. The Republican plans are not achievable. All propose to lower the top rate, currently 39.6% (Bush to 28%, Herr Trumpf, the most costly and ridiculous of all the proposals, to 25%; Cruz wants to institute a 10% flat tax and a 16% national sales tax) and all would cripple the government and, eventually, the economy. None of their proposals address rising inequality-- unless making it worse is "addressing" it.

Bernie Sanders is the independent candidate, unbeholden for his career to Wall Street and the American oligarchy. A few hours ago he laid out another crucial piece of the economic program that informs and motivates his career and campaign. He used New York City as a backdrop to lay out his plans for Wall Street. He introduced his vision with a litany of facts that most people who follow him are aware of, but which many Americans have never heard, explaining that Americans are starting to better understand that "something is profoundly wrong when, in our country today, the top one-tenth of 1 percent own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent and when the 20 richest people own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans-- half of our population. They know that the system is rigged when the average person is working longer hours for lower wages, while 58 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent. They also know that a handful of people on Wall Street have extraordinary power over the economic and political life of our country. As most people know, in the 1990s and later, the financial interests spent billions of dollars in lobbying and campaign contributions to force through Congress the deregulation of Wall Street, the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and the weakening of consumer protection laws in states. They spent this money in order to get the government off their backs and to show the American people what they could do with that new-won freedom. Well, they sure showed the American people. In 2008, the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street nearly destroyed the U.S. and global economy. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, their homes and their life savings." The Republicans all seem to have forgotten this-- and hope the voters have as well. Hillary pays it lip service but, considering who is paying for her campaign, its convenient for her to take it easy in this area. Bernie has other plans.

While Wall Street received the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world with no strings attached, the American middle class continues to disappear, poverty is increasing and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider. And Wall Street executives still receive huge compensation packages as if the financial crisis they created never happened.

Greed, fraud, dishonesty and arrogance, these are the words that best describe the reality of Wall Street today.

So, to those on Wall Street who may be listening today, let me be very clear. Greed is not good. In fact, the greed of Wall Street and corporate America is destroying the fabric of our nation. And, here is a New Year’s Resolution that I will keep if elected president. If you do not end your greed, we will end it for you.

We will no longer tolerate an economy and a political system that has been rigged by Wall Street to benefit the wealthiest Americans in this country at the expense of everyone else.

While President Obama deserves credit for improving this economy after the Wall Street crash, the reality is that a lot of unfinished business remains to be done.

Our goal must be to create a financial system and an economy that works for all Americans, not just a handful of billionaires.

That means we have got to end, once and for all, the scheme that is nothing more than a free insurance policy for Wall Street, the policy of “too big to fail.”

We need a banking system that is part of the productive economy-- making loans at affordable rates to small- and medium-sized businesses so that we create decent-paying jobs. Wall Street cannot continue to be an island unto itself, gambling trillions in risky financial instruments, making huge profits and assured that, if their schemes fail, the taxpayers will be there to bail them out.

In 2008, the taxpayers of this country bailed out Wall Street because we were told they were “too big to fail.” Yet, today, 3 out of the 4 largest financial institutions (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo) are nearly 80 percent bigger than before we bailed them out. Incredibly, the six largest banks in this country issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards and more than 35 percent of all mortgages. They control more than 95 percent of all financial derivatives and hold more than 40 percent of all bank deposits. Their assets are equivalent to nearly 60 percent of our GDP. Enough is enough.

If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. When it comes to Wall Street reform that must be our bottom line. This is true not just from a risk perspective and the fear of another bailout. It is also true from the reality that a handful of huge financial institutions simply have too much economic and political power over this country.

If Teddy Roosevelt, the Republican trust-buster, were alive today, he would say “break ‘em up.” And he would be right.

And, here’s how I will accomplish that.

Within the first 100 days of my administration, I will require the secretary of the Treasury Department to establish a “Too-Big-to Fail” list of commercial banks, shadow banks and insurance companies whose failure would pose a catastrophic risk to the United States economy without a taxpayer bailout.

Within one year, my administration will break these institutions up so that they no longer pose a grave threat to the economy as authorized under Section 121 of the Dodd-Frank Act.

And, I will fight to reinstate a 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act to clearly separate commercial banking, investment banking and insurance services. Let’s be clear: this legislation, introduced by my colleague Senator Elizabeth Warren, aims at the heart of the shadow banking system.

In my view, Senator Warren, is right. Dodd-Frank should have broken up Citigroup and other “too- big-to-fail” banks into pieces. And that’s exactly what we need to do. And that’s what I commit to do as president.

Now, my opponent, Secretary Clinton says that Glass-Steagall would not have prevented the financial crisis because shadow banks like AIG and Lehman Brothers, not big commercial banks, were the real culprits.

Secretary Clinton is wrong.

Shadow banks did gamble recklessly, but where did that money come from? It came from the federally-insured bank deposits of big commercial banks-- something that would have been banned under the Glass-Steagall Act.

Let’s not forget: President Franklin Roosevelt signed this bill into law precisely to prevent Wall Street speculators from causing another Great Depression. And, it worked for more than five decades until Wall Street watered it down under President Reagan and killed it under President Clinton.

And, let’s not kid ourselves. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department didn’t just bail out shadow banks. As a result of an amendment that I offered to audit the emergency lending activities of the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis, we learned that the Fed provided more than $16 trillion in short-term, low-interest loans to every major financial institution in the country including Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, not to mention large corporations, foreign banks, and foreign central banks throughout the world.

Secretary Clinton says we just need to impose a few more fees and regulations on the financial industry. I disagree.

As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has said and I quote: “Giant Wall Street banks continue to threaten the wellbeing of millions of Americans, but what to do? Bernie Sanders says break them up and resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act that once separated investment from commercial banking. Hillary Clinton says charge them a bit more and oversee them more carefully … Hillary Clinton’s proposals would only invite more dilution and finagle. The only way to contain the Street’s excesses is with reforms so big, bold, and public they can’t be watered down-- busting up the biggest banks and resurrecting Glass-Steagall.”

Secretary Reich is right. Real Wall Street reform means breaking up the big banks and re-establishing firewalls that separates risk taking from traditional banking.

My opponent says that, as a senator, she told bankers to “cut it out” and end their destructive behavior. But, in my view, establishment politicians are the ones who need to “cut it out.” The reality is that Congress doesn’t regulate Wall Street. Wall Street, its lobbyists and their billions of dollars regulate Congress. We must change that reality, and as president I will.

It is no secret that millions of Americans have become disillusioned with our political process. They don’t vote. They don’t believe much of what comes out of Washington. They don’t think anyone is there representing their interests. In my view, one of the reasons for that deep disillusionment is the widespread understanding that our criminal justice system is broken and grossly unfair-- and that we do not have equal justice under the law. The average American sees kids being arrested and sometimes even jailed for possessing marijuana or other minor crimes. But when it comes to Wall Street executives, some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country, whose illegal behavior caused pain and suffering for millions-- somehow nothing happens to them. No police record. No jail time. No justice.

We live in a country today that has an economy that is rigged, a campaign finance system which is corrupt and a criminal justice system which, too often, does not dispense justice.

Not one major Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for causing the near collapse of our entire economy.

That will change under my administration. “Equal Justice Under Law” will not just be words engraved on the entrance of the Supreme Court. It will be the standard that applies to Wall Street and all Americans.

It seems like almost every few weeks we read about one giant financial institution after another being fined or reaching settlements for their reckless, unfair and deceptive activities.

Some people believe that this is an aberration: that we have an honest financial system in which, every now and then, major financial institutions do something wrong and get caught. In my view, the evidence suggests that would be an incorrect analysis.

The reality is that fraud is the business model on Wall Street. It is not the exception to the rule. It is the rule. And in a weak regulatory climate the likelihood is that Wall Street gets away with a lot more illegal behavior than we know of.

How many times have we heard the myth that what Wall Street did may have been wrong but it wasn’t illegal?

Let me help shatter that myth today.

Since 2009, major financial institutions in this country have been fined $204 billion. $204 billion. And that takes place in a weak regulatory climate.

Here are just a few examples of when major banks were caught doing illegal activity.

In August 2014, Bank of America settled a case with the Department of Justice for more than $16 billion on charges that the bank misled investors about the riskiness of mortgage-backed securities it sold in the run-up to the crisis.

In November of 2013, JP Morgan settled a case for $13 billion with the Department of Justice and the Federal Housing Finance Agency over charges the bank knowingly sold securities made up of low-quality mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

In June of 2014, BNP Paribas was sentenced to five years’ probation and was ordered to pay $8.9 billion in penalties by a U.S. District Judge in Manhattan after this bank pled guilty to charges of violating sanctions by conducting business in Sudan, Iran and Cuba.

...And, when I say that the business model of Wall Street is fraud that is not just Bernie Sanders talking. That is what financial executives told the University of Notre Dame in a study on the ethics of the financial services industry last year.

According to this study, 51 percent of Wall Street executives making more than $500,000 a year found it likely that their competitors have engaged in unethical or illegal activity in order to gain an edge in the market.

More than one-third of financial executives have either witnessed or have firsthand knowledge of wrongdoing in the workplace.

Nearly one in five financial service professionals believe they must engage in illegal or unethical activity to be successful.

Twenty-five percent of financial executives have signed or been asked to sign a confidentiality agreement that would prohibit reporting illegal or unethical activities to the authorities.

Here’s what one banker from Barclays said in 2010, when he was caught trying to price-fix the $5 trillion-per-day currency market: “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.”

Here’s what an analyst from Standard & Poors said in 2008, “Let’s hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters.”

This country can no longer afford to tolerate the culture of fraud and corruption on Wall Street.

Under my administration, Wall Street CEOs will no longer receive a get-out-of jail free card. Big banks will not be too big to fail. Big bankers will not be too big to jail.

As president, I will nominate and appoint people with a track record of standing up to power, rather than those who have made millions defending Wall Street CEOs. Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks will not be represented in my administration.

And, if we are serious about reforming our financial system, we have got to establish a tax on Wall Street speculators. We have got to discourage reckless gambling on Wall Street and encourage productive investments in the job-creating economy.

We will use the revenue from this tax to make public colleges and universities tuition free. During the financial crisis, the middle class of this country bailed out Wall Street. Now, it’s Wall Street’s turn to help the middle class.

We cannot have a safe and sound financial system if we cannot trust the credit agencies to accurately rate financial products. And, the only way we can restore that trust is to make sure credit rating agencies cannot make a profit from Wall Street.

Investors would not have bought the risky mortgage backed derivatives that led to the Great Recession if credit agencies did not give these worthless financial products triple-A ratings-- ratings that they knew were bogus.

And, the reason these risky financial schemes were given such favorable ratings is simple. Wall Street paid for them.

Under my administration, we will turn for-profit credit rating agencies into non-profit institutions, independent from Wall Street. No longer will Wall Street be able to pick and choose which credit agency will rate their products.

If we are going to create a financial system that works for all Americans, we have got to stop financial institutions from ripping off the American people by charging sky-high interest rates and outrageous fees.

In my view, it is unacceptable that Americans are paying a $4 or $5 fee each time they go to the ATM.

It is unacceptable that millions of Americans are paying credit card interest rates of 20 or 30 percent.

The Bible has a term for this practice. It’s called usury. And in The Divine Comedy, Dante reserved a special place in the Seventh Circle of Hell for those who charged people usurious interest rates.

Today, we don’t need the hellfire and the pitch forks, we don’t need the rivers of boiling blood, but we do need a national usury law.

Today, we need to cap interest rates on credit cards and consumer loans at 15 percent.

In 1980, Congress passed legislation to require credit unions to cap interest rates on their loans at no more than 15 percent. And, that law has worked well. Unlike big banks, credit unions did not receive a huge bailout from the taxpayers of this country. It is time to extend this cap to every lender in America.

We must also cap ATM fees at $2.00. People should not have to pay a 10 percent fee for withdrawing $40 of their own money out of an ATM.

Big banks need to stop acting like loan sharks and start acting like responsible lenders.

We also need to give Americans affordable banking options.

The reality is that, unbelievably, millions of low-income Americans live in communities where there are no normal banking services. Today, if you live in a low-income community and you need to cash a check or get a loan to pay for a car repair or a medical emergency, where do you go?

You go to a payday lender who could charge an interest rate of over 300 percent and trap you into a vicious cycle of debt. That is unacceptable.

We need to stop payday lenders from ripping off millions of Americans. Post offices exist in almost every community in our country. One important way to provide decent banking opportunities for low income communities is to allow the U.S. postal Service to engage in basic banking services, and that’s what I will fight for.

Further, we need to structurally reform the Federal Reserve to make it a more democratic institution responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans, not just the billionaires on Wall Street.

When Wall Street was on the verge of collapse, the Federal Reserve acted with a fierce sense of urgency to save the financial system. We need the Fed to act with the same boldness to combat unemployment and low wages.

Further, we need to structurally reform the Federal Reserve to make it a more democratic institution responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans, not just the billionaires on Wall Street.

In my view, it is unacceptable that the Federal Reserve has been hijacked by the very bankers it is in charge of regulating. I think the American people would be shocked to learn that Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, served on the board of the New York Fed at the same time that his bank received a $391 billion bailout from the Federal Reserve. That is a clear conflict of interest that I would ban as president. When I am elected, the foxes will no longer be guarding the henhouse at the Fed. Under my administration, banking industry executives will no longer be allowed to serve on the Fed’s boards and handpick its members and staff.

Further, the Fed should stop paying financial institutions interest to keep money out of the economy and parked at the Fed. Incredibly, the excess reserves of financial institutions that are sitting in the Federal Reserve has grown from less than $2 billion in 2008 to $2.4 trillion today. That is absurd.

Instead of paying banks interest on these reserves, the Fed should charge them a fee that could be used to provide affordable loans to small businesses to create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Finally, let me tell you what no other candidate will tell you. No president, not Bernie Sanders or anyone else, can effectively address the economic crises facing the working families of this country alone. The truth is that Wall Street, corporate America, the corporate media and wealthy campaign donors are just too powerful.

What this campaign is about is building a political movement which revitalizes American democracy, which brings millions of people together-- black and white, Latino, Asian-American, Native American-- young and old, men and women, gay and straight, native born and immigrant, people of all religions.

Yes. Wall Street has enormous economic and political power. Yes. Wall Street makes huge campaign contributions, they have thousands of lobbyists and they provide very generous speaking fees to those who go before them.

Yes. They have an endless supply of money. But we have something they don’t have. And that is that when millions of working families stand together, demanding fundamental changes in our financial system, we have the power to bring about that change.

Yes, we can make our economy work for all Americans, not just a handful of wealthy speculators. And, now more than ever, that is exactly what we must do.

And so my message to you today is straightforward: If elected president, I will rein in Wall Street so they can’t crash our economy again.

Will they like me? No. Will they begin to play by the rules if I’m president? You better believe it.

Thank you and I look forward to working with the most powerful force in our great nation, not the Barons of Wall Street but the people our government was created to serve.

As Paul Krugman said yesterday in his NY Times column, Elections Have Consequences. He made the case that Clinton isn't as bad as the Republicans. Does anyone not know that already? She is better than any of them. But in terms of real progressive change, there really is only Bernie. Clinton is the candidate of the status quo. The Republicans are all reactionaries and Bernie is the progressive. That simple.

[T]he 2012 election didn’t just allow progressives to achieve some important goals. It also gave them an opportunity to show that achieving these goals is feasible. No, asking the rich to pay somewhat more in taxes while helping the less fortunate won’t destroy the economy.

So now we’re heading for another presidential election. And once again the stakes are high. Whoever the Republicans nominate will be committed to destroying Obamacare and slashing taxes on the wealthy-- in fact, the current G.O.P. tax-cut plans make the Bush cuts look puny. Whoever the Democrats nominate will, first and foremost, be committed to defending the achievements of the past seven years.

The bottom line is that presidential elections matter, a lot, even if the people on the ballot aren’t as fiery as you might like. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

If you'd like to help Bernie become the next president and bend the arc of history towards working families and away from the elites, you can contribute to his greatest-ever grassroots campaign here-- or by tapping the thermometer.

 

Hillary Doesn't Understand That The Business Model Of Her Wall Street Allies Is Fraud

Hillary Clinton has solicited and gobbled up immense amounts of money from Wall Street banksters. I doubt they give her so much because of her bubbly personality. The times I met her she struck me as a real uptight cold fish. But since she first ran for the U.S. Senator in 2000, the Financial Sector has ponied up $36,846,987 to support her political career. So far her presidential campaign has taken in $5,587,345 from the banksters. All the Wall Street criminals who should be behind bars are among her top donors, from Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Chase to Bank of America and the lobbyists and lawyers who work for them. So when I saw the OpEd her campaign gave to the NY Times Monday, I had to laugh. Her campaign has so far been a pathetic effort to try to appropriate as much of Bernie's platform as she can, while dingier best to hide her own neoconservative record (and intentions). How I'd Rein In Wall Street is a sad testament to a politician who will say anything to grasp power. Somehow, I don't think any of her bankster buddies are regretting the millions they've spent on her, even if she uses Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren framing to appeal to Democratic voters. "Seven years ago" she recounts, "the financial crisis sent our economy into a tailspin. Over five million people lost their homes. Nearly nine million lost their jobs. Nearly $13 trillion in household wealth was wiped out." No mention of banksters who were never punished for their misdeeds or for the immense sums they made on the way up and on the way down. "Republicans, both in Congress and on the campaign trail, are dead-set on rolling back critical financial protections," she rails, weakly. Yes, Republicans are-- but virtually every Democrat, from Jim Himes, Patrick Murphy and Joe Crowley to Sean Patrick Maloney, John Delaney and Gregory Meeks, who is helping the GOP with that has endorsed her campaign. And even establishment, Wall Street-owned-and-operated Republicans are threatening to vote for her if Trumpf is the GOP nominee.

Right now, Republicans in Congress are working to attach damaging deregulation riders to the must-pass spending bill. They’re attempting to defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They want to roll back common-sense efforts to prevent conflicts of interest by financial managers. And they’re trying to undo constraints on risk at some of the largest and most complex financial institutions.

President Obama and congressional Democrats should do everything they can to stop these efforts. But it’s not enough simply to protect the progress we have made. As president, I would not only veto any legislation that would weaken financial reform, but I would also fight for tough new rules, stronger enforcement and more accountability that go well beyond Dodd-Frank.

But not Glass-Steagall. Some of her ideas are good ones and pretty standard fare for Democrats, certainly millions of times better than anything any of the Republicans are offereing-- so again, are we looking for the lesser-of-two-evils again? Even in a primary, even when polls show Bernie more electable in a general election?

My plan also goes beyond the biggest banks to include the whole financial sector. Some have urged the return of a Depression-era rule called Glass-Steagall, which separated traditional banking from investment banking. But many of the firms that contributed to the crash in 2008, like A.I.G. and Lehman Brothers, weren’t traditional banks, so Glass-Steagall wouldn’t have limited their reckless behavior. Nor would restoring Glass-Steagall help contain other parts of the “shadow banking” sector, including certain activities of hedge funds, investment banks and other non-bank institutions. My plan would strengthen oversight of these activities, too-- increasing leverage and liquidity requirements for broker-dealers and imposing strict margin requirements on the kinds of short-term borrowing that also played a major role in spurring the financial crisis. We need to tackle excessive risk wherever it lurks, not just in the banks.

Last July Elizabeth Warren and John McCain reintroduced the bill Hillary and her Wall Street allies oppose with such unmitigated furor, the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act of 2015, which would prohibit commercial banks insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from acting as or affiliating with investment banks. Cosponsors are Angus King (I-ME), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA). The House version, H.R. 3052, was introduced by Michael Capuano (D-MA) with co-sponsors Katherine Clarke (D-MA), Walter Jones (R-NC), Ted Yoho (R-FL), Paul Tonko (D-NY) and Jim McDermott (D-WA). Robert Reich explained to Democracy Now listeners why Clinton and her Wall Street contributors are just plane wrong.



Hillary ended with more platitudes meant to reassure low-info Democrats that she's almost as good as Bernie:

Republicans may have decided to forget about the financial crisis that caused so much devastation-- but I haven’t. The proper role of Wall Street is to help Main Street grow and prosper. When our financial sector works the right way, it helps families buy their first homes, entrepreneurs start and grow small businesses and hardworking Americans save for retirement. Rather than pursuing the kind of high-stakes speculation that devastated our economy before, Wall Street should focus on building an economy that creates good-paying jobs, rising incomes and sound investments so that more families can achieve the security of a middle-class life.

If you'd like to see Bernie beat Hillary and the rest of the dangerous Wall Street-backed candidates, please consider contributing to his grassroots campaign here.

As Usual, Conservatives Want The Election To Be About Anything But Economic Policies

Demagoguery, particularly when it comes to stirring up war fever, xenophobia and naked bigotry, have been tried and true methods conservatives use to get voters to think about something other than the economic agenda that's enslaving them and their families. It works well. Republicans and conservative Democrats would much prefer to demonize a tiny, pathetic handful of Syrian refugees than discuss... oh, say... reinstating Glass Steagall or raising the minimum wage or reforming a tax system that allows the wealthiest-- who just happen to be the funders of the politicians' SuperPACs-- to get away without paying their fair share of taxes. Funny how that works.

Tuesday the Roosevelt Institute's Richard Kirsch looked at why the Democrats have been largely unable to wipe the Republicans off the face of the electoral map despite the GOP economic agenda. "The failure of Democrats," he explained, "to tell a bigger story about the economy is a major reason that, while voters largely agree with Democrats on specific issues like raising the minimum wage, limiting prescription drug prices, or regulating Wall Street, they still cast their votes for Republicans who champion lower taxes and deregulation of business as the key to economic growth. Polling consistently shows that the Republican economic message does well with a majority of voters. Democrats regularly challenge Republican economic policies on grounds of fairness but fail to provide an explanation of how to move the economy forward and create prosperity. Fairness is not enough for voters worried about losing jobs or how the economy is going to provide economic opportunity for their children." At the last Democratic debate, Bernie did that with a great degree of success. The Establishment Democrat in the race... well, she's better than a Republican, but Republicans don't see it that way.

When Sanders was asked about whether a $15 minimum wage would cause job loss, he made both the moral and the economic case for raising the minimum wage to $15 “over the next few years.”

The moral argument is compelling, and it’s where most Americans start. As Sanders said, “It is not a radical idea to say that if somebody works 40 hours a week that person should not be living in poverty. It is not a radical idea to say that a single mom should be earning enough money to take care of her kids.”

But when their moral values are challenged by the job-killing argument, many people begin to worry that policies that raise costs for business could backfire. Which is why Sanders explained, “When we put money into the hands of working people they’re gonna go out for our goods. They’re gonna go out for our services. And they are gonna create jobs in doing that. That is the kind of economy I believe [in], put money in the hands of working people, raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour.”

...Unfortunately, we did not hear such clarity from Hillary Clinton, who offered the tepid statement that raising the minimum wage “doesn’t result in job loss.”

Clinton is known as a policy wonk, but that’s not what we need from a president. Her husband, known as “the great explainer,” has the gift of translating public policy into simple concepts that get people nodding their heads in agreement. This ability marks the great presidential communicators, FDR and Reagan being the leading examples.

The idea that people with good, family-sustaining jobs boost the economy is one of those simple ideas that get people’s heads nodding. It’s one we need the next Democratic candidate for president to believe, and then to explain to the country.

Explaining why reinstating Glass-Steagall, as all progressives want to do and which is adamantly opposed by Wall Street and the politicians they own-- basically all the Republicans, all the New Dems and, of course, Hillary Clinton-- is not as simple, although Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown and Bernie have all done a decent job at it. Tuesday, Richard Eskow enumerated the reasons why Hillary and the Republicans are wrong on Glass-Steagall and why Bernie and Elizabeth Warren are correct. Glass-Steagall 101 and 102... take it away Proffesor Eskow...

1. Too-big-to-fail banks are bigger, riskier and more ungovernable than ever

America’s largest banking institutions are even larger now than they were before the 2008 financial crisis. The nation’s six largest banks issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards and more than a third of all mortgages. They control 95 percent of all derivatives and hold more than 40 percent of all U.S. bank deposits.

Simon Johnson, former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, points out that Glass-Steagall is needed as part of a broad effort to make these banks “simpler and more transparent.” Johnson also observes that:

“In the run-up to the 2008 crisis, the largest U.S. banks had around 4% equity relative to their assets. This was not enough to withstand the storm … Now, under the most generous possible calculation, the surviving megabanks have on average about 5% equity … that is, they are 95% financed with debt.”

As Johnson makes clear, these banks continue to pose a grave risk to the economy. He also notes that they have continued to engage in sanctions violations and money laundering-- behavior that suggests that they are still out of control.

2. The argument that the absence of Glass-Steagall didn’t cause the 2008 financial crisis is wrong.

Hillary Clinton told the Des Moines Register that “a lot of what caused the risk that led to the collapse came from institutions that were not big banks.” This is part of a longstanding pattern, in which she largely absolves the big banks from culpability for the 2008 crisis while emphasizing “shadow banking” in her own Wall Street plan.

Secretary Clinton returned to that theme during Saturday’s debate, pointing an accusing finger at non-bank entities like AIG and Lehman Brothers while giving a pass to Wall Street’s biggest banks for their role in the crisis.

Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s former labor secretary, summarized the anti-Glass-Steagall argument as follows (without naming Hillary Clinton specifically):

“To this day some Wall Street apologists argue Glass-Steagall wouldn’t have prevented the 2008 crisis because the real culprits were nonbanks like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns.”

He follows that with a one-word response: “Baloney.”

Reich makes an important point: Yes, “shadow banks” like AIG and Lehman, which largely function outside the normal bank regulatory system, are a major problem. But the 2008 financial crisis became a systemic threat specifically because too-big-to-fail banks were underwriting the risky bets these companies made. And why were the big banks able to do that?

Because Glass-Steagall had been repealed.

3. Repeal of Glass-Steagall has not worked as promised.

Given the risks associated with the repeal of Glass-Steagall, what about the benefits? Turns out there aren’t many.

We were told that repealing Glass-Steagall would lead to more efficiency and lower costs, but neither of these promises has come true. No less an expert than John Reed, former CEO of Citigroup, now says those claims were wrong. Reed wrote in a recent op-ed (behind a firewall) that “there are very few cost efficiencies that come from the merger of functions-- indeed, there may be none at all.”

In fact, says Reed, it is possible that this combination of functions actually makes banking services more expensive.

4. The repeal of Glass-Steagall is further corrupting the culture of banking-- if such a thing is possible.

Sanders was right when he said on Saturday night that “the business model of Wall Street is fraud.” The traditional practice of what Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) calls “boring” banking-- opening savings accounts, reviewing loans and providing other customer services-- has largely been supplanted by high-risk gambling and the aggressive hustling of dubious investments to unwary clients.

The level of fraud unearthed since the 2008 crisis is nothing short of breathtaking. (The fact that no senior banking executive has gone to prison for that fraud is, if anything, even more breathtaking.) How did that happen?

Citigroup’s Reed wrote that the repeal of Glass-Steagall led to the “very serious” problem of “mixing incompatible cultures”-- which, he said, “makes the entire banking industry more fragile.” He discussed the relationship-based, sociable culture of traditional banking, emphasizing its incompatibility with the risk-seeking, “short termist” mentality of investment bankers who seek “immediate rewards.”

Reed makes a very important point-- although he’s being overly kind about it. Yes, traditional bankers tend to be risk-averse and customer-focused. That’s very different from the high-stakes gambling mentality of investment banking.

But what Reed fails to note-- or is too polite to mention-- is the extent to which today’s culture of investment banking is predicated on outright fraud. That’s reflected in polling of the banking community itself, as well as in the industry’s appalling record of documented illegality. It is this mentality, which is present in banks from the “C” suite on down, which has given rise to Wall Street’s tsunami of misdeeds.

This greed-driven fraud mentality is like a virus, consuming too-big-to-fail banks even as they exert ever-greater control over our economy-- and our political system.

5. Too-big-to-fail banks are a threat to our democracy.

These megabanks aren’t just a “systemic threat” to our economy. Through their enormous wealth, and because of the ruthlessness with which they’re willing to wield their influence, they are also a systemic threat to democracy itself.

That threat can be seen in the workings of last year’s Congress, which saw the successful insertion of a lobbyist-drafted “Citigroup amendment” into a last-minute budget bill.

It can be seen in a political climate where the Republican head of a congressional committee can say that “Washington and the regulators are here to serve the banks.”

It can be seen in Wall Street political contributions that flow to powerful and familiar names, Republican or Democratic.

Banks have acquired too much power. They must be broken up vertically (by line of business) and horizontally (by size), even as their corrupting influence over our government is ended through a system of fundamental election reform.

In today’s environment, reinstating Glass-Steagall is not just the right policy-- although it is certainly that. It’s also an excellent litmus test for politicians who say they’re willing to take on Wall Street.

Hillary says she'll take on Wall Street but if you believe that, you might as well believe Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell will too. All three of them are being paid off by the say crooked banksters. The woman on the right of the screen is Elizabeth Warren. The woman on the left of the screen is not exactly Hillary Clinton. And the gentleman on the left of the screen a bit later on is just a garden variety CNBC bankster shill.



You can help Bernie and the congressional candidates who have endorsed him on this page. And, if you can, you should. Because otherwise... there can be no good outcome in 2016... unless you're a greedy, selfish multimillionaire.