Category: #OccupyWallStreet

You can hear them squeal from here

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Verizon-logo-big

Their stocks took a nosedive yesterday, too. It warms the heart:

America’s major telecoms and cable companies and business groups came out fighting on Monday after Barack Obama called for tough new regulations for broadband that would protect net neutrality, saying they were “stunned” by the president’s proposals.

The president called for new regulations to protect “net neutrality” – the principle that all traffic on the internet should be treated equally. His move came as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) finalises a new set of proposals for regulation after the old rules were overturned by a series of court defeats at the hands of cable and telecom companies.

In response, Republican senator Ted Cruz went so far as to call Obama’s proposal for regulating the web “Obamacare for the internet”, saying on Twitter “the internet should not operate at the speed of government.”

The powerful National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA), which represents cable companies including Comcast and Time Warner said it was “stunned” by the president’s proposals.

Daily Bernie

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Link:

BLITZER: Let me just ask you, I want to get your quick reaction to what we heard from speaker of the House, John Boehner. He was very blunt. He said if the president goes ahead and, through executive action, unilaterally, without going through Congress, tries to change the status of illegal immigrants here in the United States, that will be very dangerous, he’ll poison the well. And it’s as simple as that. He says the president better not even think about doing that. Your reaction?

SANDERS: Well, my reaction is the people of this country overwhelmingly want to see the minimum wage raised. Is the Republican Party going to do what the American people want? The American people do not want more tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations. Is the Republican Party going to poison the well by going forward, at a time of massive wealth and income equality, giving more tax breaks to people who don’t need the tax breaks? Boehner is talking about a political attack on the president.

BLITZER: Will you support the president if he goes around Congress and takes that executive action to change the status of illegal immigrants?

SANDERS: Look, what I support is Congress and the president doing everything they can to address the serious problems facing the American people. Immigration is one of those issues. In the Senate, we passed a bipartisan bill. The House did nothing. Let’s do something together. That’s the preferable route. Most importantly, let’s not turn our backs on the middle class of this country and ignore the enormous economic problems they are facing. Let’s not simply work for the rich and big campaign contributors who control the United States Congress. If we can do that and respond to the needs and the pain of the American people, you know what, I think you’ll suddenly find that Congress is regarded more favorably than is currently the case.

Meet the new boss

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Same as the old boss:

What can we expect from the new Republican-controlled Congress? Many people will likely be surprised at the high level of cooperation between Obama and the Republicans, who have much in common. Most likely, a quick bi-partisan consensus will be reached on continuing and expanding the wars in the Middle East, with the ultimate and insane goal of toppling the Syrian and Iranian governments.

A new consensus will be reached regarding the U.S. economy, as both parties will “work together” to lower the U.S. corporate tax rate and give other “incentives” to the corporations and rich investors to actually invest their money in something productive other than their Wall Street gambling.

Obama and the Republicans will continue to work on their bi-partisan public school agenda, which aims to privatize the public schools through charters schools, an idea first proposed by the Reagan administration.

And while Republicans moan about Obamacare, they agree with its central feature, that “the market” should determine who gets health care and of what quality, based on what you can afford. The Republicans will loudly crow about this or that aspect of Obamacare they want eliminated, but the central logic is bi-partisan.

Ironically, as Obama continues to act in favor of the very wealthy, the Republican-controlled congress will give the president a chance to regain his lost popularity among Democrats. The Republicans are likely to use their control of the House and Senate to put forward legislation to appease their Christian fundamentalist base, targeting either abortions, immigrants, homosexuals, etc.
Continue reading “Meet the new boss” →

Another slap on the wrist

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Retail Bank of America

Of course! We wouldn’t want to send the wrong message, would we?

Bank of America is nearing a deal with federal regulators to settle an investigation into the bank’s suspected manipulation of the currency market, the latest sign that Wall Street is bracing for another crackdown on its misbehavior.

Bank of America disclosed the development on Thursday in a news release, saying that it had increased its legal costs to deal with the currency market investigation. Although the bank did not name the regulators, people briefed on the investigation identified the agencies as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve

In the news release, Bank of America said it recently had “advanced discussions” with the regulators about a potential settlement, forcing the bank to increase its legal reserves to pay for the expected fine. A settlement is not final, the people briefed on the matter said.

The increased legal bill resulted in a $400 million charge that cut into the earnings that Bank of America reported for the third quarter a few weeks ago. The charge resulted in the bank reporting a loss of $232 million, or 4 cents a share, in the quarter.

Bank of America becomes the latest bank ensnared in the foreign exchange investigation to retroactively increase its expected legal costs — and lower its earnings — after reporting third-quarter results last month. Banks are required to set aside legal reserves once they have a clear picture of the costs they are likely to pay in a potential settlement.

H/t Immigration Attorney April Cockerham.

Bombshell: JPMorgan Chase witness breaks her gag order

~ susie ~ 5 Comments

alayne

I’ve said it before: Rolling Stone is the only major publication digging into these stories. If you can afford it, buy a subscription. And now Matt Taibbi is back with a huge bombshell of a story: The main witness in the JPMorgan Chase settlement is breaking her gag order!

She tried to stay quiet, she really did. But after eight years of keeping a heavy secret, the day came when Alayne Fleischmann couldn’t take it anymore.

“It was like watching an old lady get mugged on the street,” she says. “I thought, ‘I can’t sit by any longer.'”

Fleischmann is a tall, thin, quick-witted securities lawyer in her late thirties, with long blond hair, pale-blue eyes and an infectious sense of humor that has survived some very tough times. She’s had to struggle to find work despite some striking skills and qualifications, a common symptom of a not-so-common condition called being a whistle-blower.

Fleischmann is the central witness in one of the biggest cases of white-collar crime in American history, possessing secrets that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon late last year paid $9 billion (not $13 billion as regularly reported – more on that later) to keep the public from hearing.

Back in 2006, as a deal manager at the gigantic bank, Fleischmann first witnessed, then tried to stop, what she describes as “massive criminal securities fraud” in the bank’s mortgage operations.

Thanks to a confidentiality agreement, she’s kept her mouth shut since then. “My closest family and friends don’t know what I’ve been living with,” she says. “Even my brother will only find out for the first time when he sees this interview.”

Six years after the crisis that cratered the global economy, it’s not exactly news that the country’s biggest banks stole on a grand scale. That’s why the more important part of Fleischmann’s story is in the pains Chase and the Justice Department took to silence her.

She was blocked at every turn: by asleep-on-the-job regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission, by a court system that allowed Chase to use its billions to bury her evidence, and, finally, by officials like outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, the chief architect of the crazily elaborate government policy of surrender, secrecy and cover-up. “Every time I had a chance to talk, something always got in the way,” Fleischmann says.

This past year she watched as Holder’s Justice Department struck a series of historic settlement deals with Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America. The root bargain in these deals was cash for secrecy. The banks paid big fines, without trials or even judges – only secret negotiations that typically ended with the public shown nothing but vague, quasi-official papers called “statements of facts,” which were conveniently devoid of anything like actual facts.

And now, with Holder about to leave office and his Justice Department reportedly wrapping up its final settlements, the state is effectively putting the finishing touches on what will amount to a sweeping, industrywide effort to bury the facts of a whole generation of Wall Street corruption. “I could be sued into bankruptcy,” she says. “I could lose my license to practice law. I could lose everything. But if we don’t start speaking up, then this really is all we’re going to get: the biggest financial cover-up in history.”

Bernie Sanders on looming oligarchy

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

MY GOODMAN: [This is] Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, on this day after. That’s right. Last night, Tuesday night, during Democracy Now!’s five-hour special broadcast, Juan González and I spoke with Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, just as it started to become clear from early election results that the Senate was clearly going to be controlled by Republicans.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: What I do know is that if in fact the Republicans carry the Senate and control the Congress, as they may, I think it will be a disaster for the middle-class and working families of this country. And we’re just going to have to figure out how we can fight back as effectively as we can.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what do you see as the options for—in case that does turn out to be the result tonight, what do you see the options in terms of how President Obama can move forward any kind of a Democratic or progressive agenda in the remaining two years?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I think it’s quite far-fetched to believe that he can move forward a progressive agenda. I think the immediate effort will be to stop to have more tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations, which the Republicans will certainly bring forward. I think under the guise of, quote-unquote, “entitlement reform,” they will be making efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare. They’ll go after Medicaid. They’ll go after education. They’ll go after nutrition. They’ll probably want to increase funding for the military. And my guess is, with all of the money from the Koch brothers coming in and the other fossil fuel industries, they’ll continue to ignore scientific evidence about climate change. So, I think we’re going to be more of a defensive mode trying to prevent bad things than having illusions at this point about doing good things.

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Sanders, your state has struggled with your Obamacare website. It has caused a very major issue particularly in Vermont, because of the quest by Governor Shumlin and many others to make Vermont the first single-payer state. Can you talk about the significance of this and what it will mean?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, it’s obviously a negative. I mean, I am a strong advocate of a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system. I think if you want to provide quality care to all people in a cost-effective way, that is the approach you have got to go. Clearly, it is not a good thing for a state government, or in fact federal government, not to be able to run a website which is accountable and works well for people. So, that’s a negative. But I hope very much that despite that, we’ll go forward and be the first state in the country to pass a single payer.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, one argument that even Governor Shumlin has used is that, you know, Obamacare is complicated—

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: —and that that is not the ultimate answer. And this, the downing of your website, proves this.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Look, what you need—the American healthcare system is enormously complicated. And when you have a system that is complicated, it becomes very, very expensive,
and we end up spending approximately 30 percent of every healthcare dollar in the administration and profiteering and everything else. Clearly, in my view, and I think the view of a whole lot of Americans, healthcare should be a right. We should fund it through public funding in a progressive way, and people should be able to go to the doctor they want in the hospital they want. And it turns out that in our country we spend—and people don’t understand this—we spend almost twice as much per person on healthcare as do the people of any other nation, precisely because it is a complicated, bureaucratic, confusing and profit-oriented system.

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Sanders, the issue of the minimum wage, in all the states that it is being introduced, the ballot initiative being voted on in Alaska, in Arkansas, in Nebraska, in South Dakota, even if they’re Republican states, it is overwhelmingly, two, three to one, being voted for. What message does this send to your Democratic colleagues?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, Amy, that’s an excellent point, and it’s a very important point. And it’s not just the minimum wage. On economic issues, whether it’s raising the minimum wage, whether it’s pay equity for women workers, whether it’s investing in rebuilding our infrastructure and creating millions of decent-paying jobs, whether it is making college education affordable and ending this burden of student indebtedness that so many young people have, guess what. The vast majority of the people want change.
Continue reading “Bernie Sanders on looming oligarchy” →

What really went wrong

~ susie ~ 6 Comments

Democratic pollsters talk to Greg Sargent:

The exit polls show that candidates like Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan, Bruce Braley and Mark Udall lost by anywhere from large to truly massive margins among non-college whites and older voters. That’s also true of theoverall national electorate. You should treat these exit polls with a grain of salt, but the pollsters I spoke to agree that this gets at a fundamental problem Democrats face.

These pollsters argued that this was above all the result of a failure to connect with these voters’ economic concerns. At the root of these concerns, Mellman says, are stagnating wages and the failure of the recovery’s gains to achieve wider, more equitable distribution. Democrats campaigned on a range of economic issues — the minimum wage, pay equity, student loan affordability, expanded pre-kindergarten education — but these didn’t cut through people’s economic anxieties, because they didn’t believe government can successfully address them.

“People are deeply suspicious that government can deliver on these problems,” Mellman says, in a reference to the voter groups that continue to elude Democrats. “And they are not wrong. We’ve been promising that government can be a tool to improve people’s economic situation for decades, and by and large, it hasn’t happened.”

Republicans were able to capitalize on the failure of Democrats to connect economically, in large part because of Obama’s unpopularity in these states, which helped ensure that the Democratic Party owned people’s economic anxieties.

“Republicans were exceptionally successful in nationalizing the election in most places, and on focusing voters’ anger and anxiety on Obama,” pollster Geoff Garin, who polled in the Iowa race, told me. “Voters were particularly inclined to punish whoever is running things. Democrats owned the status quo in voters’ minds.”

This dynamic fed into the broader Republican strategy of seizing on every crisis that came along to sow doubts about Obama’s — and government’s — competence. Pollster Andrew Maxfield, who polled in the Arkansas and Alaska Senate races, says Republicans successfully made the case that government just wasn’t working for people — economically or otherwise.

“This election — like 2006 — was in large part about accountability,” Maxfield says. “It became a referendum on perceived government incompetence. ISIS, Ebola, and the border fit squarely in there but it wasn’t exclusively about competence. It was also about who government is working for economically. Linking specific Democrats to Obama became a catch-all for that broader case.”

Ultimately, stressing individual issues such as the minimum wage hike and pay equity wasn’t enough to get past that — even if they are quite popular — because these voters want to hear a more comprehensive message about how Democrats would move the economy forward. Pollster Celinda Lake, who polled on multiple races, says the broader failure to articulate this — from the President on down — led these voters to opt instead for vague promises of a change in direction.

“We have a huge problem: People do not think the recovery has affected them, and this is particularly true of blue collar white voters,” Lake said. “What is the Democratic economic platform for guaranteeing a chance at prosperity for everyone? Voters can’t articulate it. In the absence of that, you vote for change.”

“Our number one imperative for 2016,” Lake concluded, “is to articulate a clear economic vision to get this country going again.”

Wait, what? We need white working class voters and a strong economic message? Whoever would have guessed it?

H/t Defense Attorney Terry Eaton.

Overview

~ susie ~ 6 Comments

Man on the street

I’m too tired to really get into the numbers yet, but here’s what I can say: We lost some races, but they were all squeakers. Which means, no matter how the Repugs will try to spin it, that they don’t exactly have a mandate. They will act as if they do, but I imagine they’re going to have to put the brakes on at least a little.

But the Dems have a problem. Notice how, even in the states where the Republicans took the governor’s mansion AND the Senate seats, they passed minimum wage increases? You’d almost think that, if the Dems had run campaigns as Democrats, they’d have won a lot more of these races!

And honestly, I’m so sick of progressives acting like we’re not in a deep economic hole. I don’t care what the GDP is, or the Dow, or the unemployment rate. People are hurting. They have shitty jobs that pay a lot less and uncertain futures. You can’t sell them this bullshit, it’s insulting!

It’s gotten a lot worse in my neighborhood – hell, the entire city. Every time I stop at a light, there’s someone with a sign and a coffee can, begging for money. I’ve never seen it this bad. And Democrats want to brag about the GDP? They got what they deserved.

I can’t see it happening here

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

People would just shrug, I think:

Tens of thousands of protesters have marched through the Hungarian capital Budapest against plans to tax internet use in the biggest anti-government demonstration for years.

Huge crowds gathered in the capital’s main squares and there were smaller rallies in six other cities.

The government has drafted a law which would levy a fee on each gigabyte of internet data transferred.

The EU has condemned it as a bad idea that could threaten political freedom.

Protests began in Hungary on Sunday, when demonstrators hurled old computer parts at the Budapest headquarters of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling Fidesz party.

Under the proposals, internet providers would be made to pay 150 forints (£0.40; €0.50; $0.60) per gigabyte of data traffic.

The fee is one of a series of measures proposed by the government to bring down the budget deficit.

The ruling Fidesz party has tried to stem the anger by proposing a 700-forint cap on the tax for individuals and 5,000 forints for businesses.

But opponents believe the tax reflects the increasingly authoritarian style of Mr Orban.