Tag: Federal Reserve

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.

http://www.dallasnews.com/shar…

That is Good News, sort of.

Obama sure looked good last night.

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!”

         -Congressman Ron Paul

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 …

 

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.