Dallas Fed chief calls for breakup of 'too big to fail' banks in New York speech BRENDAN CASE, The Dallas Morning News - March 4, 2010
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher traveled to New York to trumpet a message he's told Texas audiences before: Banks that are too big to fail are too big to exist in the first place.
Speaking Wednesday at the Council on Foreign Relations, Fisher said big, systemically important banks should be dismantled before regulators have to deal with another crisis like the one that nearly brought down Wall Street and the rest of the U.S. financial system in late 2008.
"The dangers posed by too-big-to-fail banks are too great," he said.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and others have said Congress should pass a law giving regulators "resolution authority" to close down failing financial companies.
He was poised, articulate, even more forceful than aloof at various times. He sure seemed like he really cared. I certaintly wouldn't mind getting the chance to talk with him. He seems like such a well intentioned guy.
The only problem is Obama outright lied in several places, and his wonderful rhetoric is in great conflict with his actual governing decisions and priorities. For example:
1. Obama assured us again that he was "Ending the Iraq War". First he said that he would have all our "combat" troops out by August. Then a few sentences later he claimed that "all our troops" (unqualified) would be out of Iraq. But the reality is that this is the man who brought back George W. Bush's outgoing War Secretary, Robert Gates (CIA-IRAN-CONTRA crook) to run his War Policies. Gates and Obama and Hillary Clinton (also a WarHawk) are all in agreement that at least 50,000 troops will remain permanently in Iraq, and of course, the 17 unwelcome U.S. Military Bases will also be there permanently. The private contractors Halliburton and Blackwater (which operates under another name now), will all continue to remain as well. Obama's claim to end the Iraq War in August 2010 has about as much validity as his claim to end Guantanimo within 1 year. The crooked Oil Contracts, the Corporations, the Military Bases, the huge multi-hundred million dollar U.S. Embassy, and at least 50,000 troops to protect all of that -- ain't going nowhere.
Whether the people that are stuck there are classified as being "combat" troops or not, is hardly relevant. The War and the Foreign Occupation has not ended, is not ending, and will not end. The vow to end the Iraq War is another empty promise from President Obama, and until and unless he stops listening and empowering the likes of Robert Gates - no meaningful change to this corrupt War policy will truthfully occur. We have over 1.5 million dead Iraqis, over 2 million Iraqi refugees, over 5,500 dead Americans, over 75,000 wounded or disabled Americans, and have wasted of some 3-Trillion of the taxpayers dollars. Clearly our Foreign Policy does far more damage to our own Country (as well as to the World) then anything any terrorist could ever dream up. Obama's patty-cake policy on confronting the tragedy of the U.S. Iraq intervention is sadly insufficient.
Moreover, he is expanding our excessive American Militarism and violence to the far corners of the Earth even more by tripling the troop exposure in Afghanistan, starting War with Pakistan, killing civilians with cowardly CIA-run, unmanned Drones equiped with Hellfire bombs, threatening Iran, Yemen, and Venezuela (via Columbia). He has embraced the illegitmate Bush-era policies of detaining people with no charges, and no rights. And he has kept torture sites such as Bagram, Gitmo, and Abu Grahib open for business, while additionally directly outsourcing human torture through the disgraceful secret program of CIA renditions to Foreign prisons. And let us never forget that the Obama Military budget far exceeds any of the Miltary budgets submitted under Bush & Cheney. While the words sounded good, the governing remains a shameful tragedy, and a bankrupt wasteland of corruption and unnecessary human carnage, and bloodshed.
2. Obama also spoke about the plight of the middle-class and winning their trust. He said: "To close that credibility gap we must take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; and to give our people the government they deserve." It is hard to take him seriously however when his administration has empowered and promoted the very special interests that were responsible for the Financial meltdown, such as Timothy Giethner, Lawerence Summers, Ben Bernanke, and unabashed GOP-Lite Corporatists like Rahm Emanuel. If Obama wants to help the middle-class, why are the crooked Banking/WallStreet elites hand chosen by him to run his policies? Why does he want to give the Federal Reserve even more power, instead of audit them?
University of Newcastle economist Bill Mitchell ("Professor of Economics" in a University system where Professor means something far more than just "university teacher") addresses the disconnect between Ben Bernanke's economic universe and the real world in The Great Moderation myth. This is one of his (typically) long blog posts with the (normal) very high signal to noise ratio combined with (typical) substantial amount of detailed economic discussion which may be off-putting to those with poor tolerance for economic discussion.
However, in his post, he has two diagrams which perfectly capture an important element of the disconnect between Bernanke's world and the real world.
So, two diagrams and a handful of paragraphs on why Bernie Sanders is quite right: we need somebody different from Bernanke as Fed Chairman.
source of image is the linked to piece by Bernie Sanders in the Guardian's Comment is Free
"There's been a coup - have you heard? It's the CIA coup.
The CIA runs everything! They run the military .. They're the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on these Countries...It's not even the Military that does it. The CIA runs this. ...And, of course, the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve.
And yet, think of the harm they have done since they were established since World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They're in businesses, they're in drug businesses, and they take out dictators......We need to take out the CIA!"
Wall Street is sick. And its illness is Unchecked Greed. ... The bug is call OPM.
Their fever has risen so dangerously high, that the Wizards of Wall Street, the Captains of Industry, for the most part see your assets as their "playing chips".
Your Money, is their Bread and Butter.
Exploiting and Levering OPM (Other People's Money) is the key to their Extreme Wealth.
This contagion on Wall Street has reached such a point, that one of those "Captains of Industry" has been speaking out against it. He has been working to "right the ship" of speculative, reckless investing, using our OPM, as the collateral.
Jack C. Bogle, founder and CEO of the Vanguard Group, is one of those "old school" investors -- you know, that we should be "investing in a better future", NOT just a "better bank account".
Jack has listed the symptoms of this wide spread illness -- NOW if only we could find some "Doctors" wise enough to quarantine the Damage ...
The Damage unregulated greed has done ... before they try to "go for broke" AGAIN ...
The Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, says: "the reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there." [7][8] Stiglitz explains his position:
Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, is often cited as arguing for the "invisible hand" and free markets: firms, in the pursuit of profits, are led, as if by an invisible hand, to do what is best for the world. But unlike his followers, Adam Smith was aware of some of the limitations of free markets, and research since then has further clarified why free markets, by themselves, often do not lead to what is best. As I put it in my new book, Making Globalization Work, the reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there.
...
Saturday Night Live did an interesting satire sketch last week, that raises the bar of its political humor to "The Daily Show" level and beyond.
Underneath this sophisticated satire, is the inconvenient truth that the once great United States is now on its knees at the mercy of begging for loans from Communist China, that it can never repay, in order prevent itself from having to formally declare Bankruptcy. And even as it does this (driving itself even further in debt in the process), all this never ending sea of Trillions of dollars in debt, which has exploded beyond anything before ever imaginable due to 10 years of multiple illegal, endless Wars & Foreign Occupations, has only resulted in a situation where the U.S. Dollar has steadily become virtually worthless.
If you DON'T Study, DON'T play by the Rules, and DON'T CARE who is hurt by your careless actions -- would you expect an "all expenses paid" Scholarship? ... or record Bonuses? ... or more free Mad Money than you know what to do with?
Hardly!
Yet that is exactly what the reckless Wall Street Bankers got -- HUGE Rewards -- FOR BEHAVING BADLY!
In some circles, this is call Co-dependency and "Enabling" ...
In America we call it "Too Big to Fail".
Well Alan Grayson and Ron Paul, are about expose this Trillion Dollar "reward for failure" system, for what it is ...
Rep. Alan Grayson on the Fed Bailing Out Big Banks:
"You Don't Give Scholarships to Kids Who Fail"
Back in late September, Alan Grayson (Big D-FL08) grilled Federal Reserve General Counsel Scott Alvarez on whether or not the Federal Reserve has manipulated the stock and futures market. Since this hasn't been diaried and Sunday is a slow news day, I thought it would be fun to watch Alan Grayson in action in a bit of a flashback.
(UPDATE: Unfortunately and oddly, the video is no longer working for some strange reason. Good thing I transcribed it when I did. I am looking for another version of the same vide, so hang in there until I can find it
As the total vacuum of any principled leadership from President Obama has now produced the inevitable directionless, anti-consumer, Insurance Monopoly boondoggle fraud, now masquerading in Congress as "reform", it is time to reflect upon just who Obama's friends really are and have been all along, and what his uninspiring charade of a Presidency is really all about.
The only thing Alan Grayson should Apologize for ...
was not having the Fed's Price List
for their services!
(imo)
Perhaps Grayson can be excused, since "The Fed" does favors for its clients, far from the scrutiny of prying eyes ... giving away Billions to their good ole Buddies, both Foreign and Domestic, without so much as a Receipt or and IOU exchanging hands ...
It's easy to see how this shady activity just might get "mis-construed":
Alan Grayson: Which Foreigners got the Fed's 500 Billion?
Just watch the video after reading the contents of this link by Matt Taibbi. I've lifted a paragraph from Mr. Taibbi so you have a better understanding of exactly what you're watching.
I have personal experience with... well, let's call it the unique personality of Alan Grayson. In his capacity as an attorney he once basically threatened to have me dismembered and have my body parts dumped in a tin canister and fired into the center of a burning supernova. And that's actually underselling the real language he used. We were having a disagreement about the use of information given to me by a certain source in a story about military contracting, and in the middle of what had been a normal contentious argument between two sane adults, dude suddenly assumed this crazy monster-voice and just went medieval on me. He was roaring into the telephone about how he was going to crush me, how I was going to wish I had never messed with him, how I didn't know who the hell I was dealing with, and so on. One phrase I remember in particular was, "I am going to strip the bark off of you!" It came totally out of the blue and it was like being on the telephone with a metamorphosing werewolf - the whole performance genuinely freaked me out. I may even have peed a little, I can't remember.
Now, ask yourselves this: are you or are you not glad that this guy seems to be on our side?
I just realized what has been nagging at the back of my mind about the creepy demeanor of Treasury Secretary Geithner. He has the affectless expression of a hitman, but he is a special kind of hitman. Like John Perkins, the author of "Confessions of an Economic Hitman," Geithner was hand-picked for his willingness to execute the instructions of a powerful elite - no matter what the consequences for ordinary citizens.
Consider Geithner's career progression. Wikipedia gives us the key early dates:
Nobody in the press pays any attention to Geithner's early years, but these were the years in which he became a made man in the service of the US Plutocracy. In 1985, when he joined Kissinger and Associates, Henry Kissinger's reputation had been badly discredited by reports of his involvement in numerous ugly international plots of the Nixon administration, including the bombing and destabilization of Cambodia, the murder of Allende in Chile, and dirty dealings backing the Argentine dictatorship. Ask yourself what kind of well-informed Dartmouth graduate would join Kissinger Associates. The answer is an aspiring hitman.
Like Perkins, Geithner's ambition knew no moral bounds, and he was determined to make himself useful to the wealthy and powerful. Having established his bona fides at Kissinger Associates, he rose rapidly in Government "service," with the backing of Kissinger-connected godfathers and patrons, and always accumulating greater influence in preserving the wealth of the people who run the world. As president of the NY Fed, he was at the center of decisions that transferred huge amounts of taxpayer wealth into the hands of failing banks and financial firms. As Treasury Secretary, he continues to protect the strong against the weak and the wealthy against the poor. He has been a safe pair of hands for the Plutocracy, and for this loyal service he will be richly rewarded.
Tim Geithner was not made Treasury Secretary by President Obama. He was installed by America's permanent government: the Plutocracy.
President Obama has re-nominated Ben Bernanke to sit as Chairman of the Federal Reserve for another four-year term, following glowing praises of Bernanke's supposed financial genius in most of the media for his handling of the current economic crisis, while Obama himself has suggested that Bernanke helped save the US from another Great Depression.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech to the Jackson Hole symposium, delivered on Friday, has already been dubbed a "we saved the world" declaration by some commentators.
In fairness to Bernanke, nowhere in his remarks does he make such a grandiloquent claim, unlike British Prime Minister Brown, who did just that last December in the U.K. parliament.
However, underlying Bernanke's narrative of events is the U.S. central bank's conviction that the panic that hit global markets last fall was a kind of act of God, a phenomenon that was "collectively irrational", and which the Fed contained by its policy of "lending freely against sound collateral."
Is this fair, or does Bernanke's speech signify that U.S. policymakers have understood nothing and learned nothing?
[snip]
Bernanke asserts in the final paragraph of his speech that "we have avoided the worst". He may be right, but I wouldn't bet on it. I'm more inclined to agree with Willem Buiter, who wrote recently in the Financial Times that "[t]he US Treasury, the Congress, the Fed and the other financial regulators have, through their behaviour since August 2007, confirmed and re-inforced the incentives for excessive risk taking by crossborder banks and any other financial institution deemed too systemically important to fail. The groundwork for the next financial boom and bust cycle, worse than what we are just emerging from, has been put in place."
So exactly whose world has Bernanke "saved", if anyones?
March on Washington
University of Newcastle economist Bill Mitchell ("Professor of Economics" in a University system where Professor means something far more than just "university teacher") addresses the disconnect between Ben Bernanke's economic universe and the real world in 
