Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker wants to prohibit commercial banks from some high-risk trades, saying that this should be an essential component of broader financial regulations and would cut back on institutions deemed “too big to fail.”

That’s seems eminently reasonable to us and we are glad to see Paul Volcker brought to the front of the regulatory battle.

President Obama has embraced Volcker’s idea to prohibit large financial companies that have both commercial and investment functions, such as Goldman Sachs, from engaging in speculative trading.

Large banks have already said that they oppose the idea. Do you blame them? These guys had the best deal around, since mobsters built Las Vegas and they don’t want to give any of that up.

Volcker said commercial banks, whose deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation,  should not be allowed to engage in speculation that does not benefit their commercial customers.

The ban would distinguish between commercial and investment banks – a separation that had existed until 1999 when Congress, Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and President Bill Clinton repealed major provisions of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act.

This wasn’t exactly the beginning of the wild ride on Wall Street, but most likely the beginning of the mortgage derivative schemes, the irresponsible lending practices and so forth – all leading to our present economic quagmire.

It appears that Paul Volcker has the right idea – to roll back some of the deregulatory schemes, which have turned the financial mills into legalized gambling houses.

One thing we wonder about, though… Why wasn’t he allowed to speak publicly before Scott Brown won the Massachusetts senatorial race?

Technorati Tags: banks, gambling, las vegas, regulations, Volcker, wall street

Many of you must have heard by now that the Senate finance committee passed its version of health care reform legislation. The bill would expand coverage without increasing the deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office, in part by taxing the most expensive health insurance plans, the so-called “Cadillac plans.”

The problem is that many of those plans, despite requiring fairly high premiums from both employees and of employers are really not that great at all. The Senate finance committee’s thinking is not along the lines of quality coverage, but rather along the actual cost of the plan.

There is a big difference between the $40,000-a-year plan offered to Goldman Sachs CEOs, with no co-payments, no deductibles, few limits on how much you can spend, and no need for prior authorization, before you get treated and other, run-of-the-mill “Cadillac plans” offered to average government, or corporate employees.

Many not so fancy plans, which also qualify as “Cadillacs” under the finance committee’s definition are so defined because the term refers to total cost – and not a particular set of benefits – and many factors, like for example the state you live in, the size of your company, and the makeup of that company’s work force, which can affect costs.

Premiums tend to be significantly higher in some states. The employer/employee contribution also varies by state. In addition, the smaller the business, the fewer employees who participate, the less leverage the organization has to negotiate lower premiums. And if the workers have an average age of, say, 55, their premiums are going to be a lot higher than if the average is 24.

As it stands, there should be considerably more emphasis on improving the coverage of existing health insurance plans, rather than just emphasizing the total cost. There is no doubt that the cost of health care in the United States has gone through the roof a long time ago and that issue needs to be urgently addressed, rather than only worrying whether the reform is going to increase our already skyrocketing deficit. Just think about the trillions of dollars doled out to banks and other financial conglomerates. That seemed to be quite painless to those who are now worrying about increasing our deficit. Couldn’t we have used that money to improve our health insurance system and our crumbling infrastructure, rather than bailing out the fat cats, who have actually caused the financial disaster?

If we are to truly reform the U.S. health care insurance system, along with the health care itself, the main points of the so-called reform should be: how to reduce the exorbitant costs of both the care and the insurance, to improve the quality of often substandard care (unless you are willing and able to pay for the very best care available) and to broaden, rather than reduce the coverage that the health plans offer.

Providing health care insurance to the uninsured is a noble quest, to be sure, but to further penalize others, who are ‘covered”, but who do pay their premiums, their ever-rising co-pays and who’s “Cadillac” plans do not offer coverage for such common procedures such as dental care in general, specifically root canals, crowns and necessary oral surgery is the wrong way to go about it.

We have strongly supported the reform of U.S. health care system as a whole for some time now, but taxing the people, already penalized by the inadequacies of some of our health insurance plans, including some of the “Cadillac” ones, seems more like an idea of still another bean counter, rather than a true reformer.

Let’s get this done now and lets get it done right!

Technorati Tags: banks, cadillac, financial institutions, Health care, health insurance, plans, reform, taxing

The answer is rather simple and concise:  Not even close.

We realize that the U.S., along with most of the countries of the world is struggling with the after effects of getting the worldwide finances looted during the past 25, or so years. We are still trying to dig ourselves out from under Alan Greenspan’s legacy at the Federal Reserve and the incredibly dumb and in fact criminal lack of oversight of Wall Street and the banks.

We also realize that the present administration has not started both of the “elective” wars that we are now waging overseas, and that it hasn’t arrested the hundreds of more, or less, or not at all guilty terrorism suspects, still languishing in the Guantanamo prison among other places.

The point is that despite earlier promises, we still have as many soldiers in Iraq, as we did under Bush and that we have increased our deployment in Afghanistan. Also, nobody seems to want any of the Guantanamo prisoners. We don’t believe there should be any discussion in the matter and that the solution to that particular dilemma is rather simple: send the long-suffering and often innocent prisoners to live in and get the titles to the houses and the properties of the neocons and send the latter to Guantanamo, along with many of the bankers and Wall Street thieves.

What? You don’t like that idea? What could possibly be more just under the circumstances? Building a long stretch of gallows on the National Mall?

Getting back to the financial issues. There is no doubt that the first huge bailouts, or whatever the heck they call the multi-billion-dollar giveaways started at the end of the Bush 43 presidency. Most of the money asked for and given to AIG and other financial conglomerates by Hank Paulson – a well-known Walls Street insider – is still unaccounted for. The question is why did the Obama administration hire guys like Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner, who along with Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan were an integral part of the plan to loot our treasury and allow the bankers and Wall Street to run roughshod over everybody else? These are the very same guys who allowed the so-called Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 to pass at the end of Clinton’s presidency. Despite earlier moves, the most obvious of which was the actual founding of the Federal Reserve and the subsequent loosening of the regulatory reins by the George W. Bush people, the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 was the most serious and glaring act committed against our financial well being.

Now that with the addition of Al Franken the Democrats have finally achieved the coveted filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, can we really expect some long-awaited and long-overdue reforms to get enacted? Don’t hold your breath. The thousands of lobbyists, representing all kinds of special interests are swarming all over Capitol Hill, often dwarfing our elected representatives and their staffs, not only by sheer numbers, but also with money, favors and special deals. After all, we are not only talking about reforming health care, or enacting a truly meaningful climate legislation, but also about the main event, which is really a fight about preserving and if possible increasing corporate profits. And that of course is the real name of the game, as it always has been.

It doesn’t really matter that the majority of Americans want a public health plan in addition to the private ones and that most are truly concerned about the state of the environment. Most politicians do not really represent the rank and file citizens, or the country at large, but rather corporate interests. The situation is no different in the case of many government agencies, which despite popular perception are less concerned with protecting our interests, health and safety, but largely act in the corporate interest.

Going back to the Federal Reserve, which has failed abominably, particularly in the last 25 years to perform its main and most important mission, namely, to protect the public against the banking system. Just as in the case of the other agencies, unfortunately one cannot expect the Fed to fulfill its officially stated mission, if it is in reality a front for the banking industry. In fact, according to many experts, the Federal Reserve was the principal cause of the financial disaster that we have experienced and giving it even more oversight power seems by far more dangerous and foolhardy than playing Russian roulette. Doing so is simply another example of rewarding failure, just as the government has rewarded the banks with the bailouts for their failure.

It is therefore regrettable that President Obama has gone along with the advice of his flock of financial advisers and although we hope that by some as yet unknown miracle things will work out somehow, many feel that the president, along with the rest of the country may actually have cause to regret taking that road.

The economic recovery will not happen any time soon, despite the predictions of forecasters in the government and other places. What the financial “gurus” are touting is a recovery, but the bailouts will not really create that at all and the economy is not going to magically spring back to life as they keep telling us. They are simply propping up the industry, which has actually caused the disaster.

The drop in employment, productivity, wages and consumption might slow down a bit, but it is going to be a long time, before the economy actually recovers. And it is probably the hope of the industry insiders that by that time the public might actually be fooled into believing that the trillions of dollars doled out to the financial industry had the desired effect, when in fact it is simply another chapter in the unprecedented looting of our national financial resources.

In other words, it appears that the Democrats are just as proficient at looting the U.S. treasury as the Republicans, but that is frankly no surprise at all.

Technorati Tags: Bailouts, banks, democrats, Economy, federal reserve, greenspan, looting, majority, republicans, summers, wall street

During his campaign Barack Obama promised change, transparency and accountability. Most of us embraced that promise, remembering how the Bush White House was operating and how often Vice President Dick Cheney was “in an undisclosed location”. It is also hard not recall how the Patriot Act was shoved up our collective asses, before hardly anyone had any chance of even reading the hundreds of pages of which the act consists. Some say that members of Congress were given “about five minutes” to read it, before it was voted on.

How could any legislator worth his salt even consider voting on a very serious piece of legislation, without actually reading it? Lets not forget that many of those, who have obediently voted for the Patriot Act are still members of Congress. How can that be tolerated?

That was during the supposed “emergency” caused by the events of 9/11. The latest no-read vote was held because of the economic “emergency”.

The $787-billion “stimulus” plan was signed, after being negotiated largely in closed -door sessions, with only a very limited number of physical copies available. Lawmakers had less than 24 hours to review the over 1,000-page bill before the vote was taken – hardly enough time to read a bill with such critical implications for our economy.

The “stimulus” bill is full of convoluted and almost impenetrable language -including more than 100 uses of one form or another of the word ”except.”

In short: there are the haves and the have-nots. The billionaires and millionaires are the haves and that qualifies them to be the puppet masters – with the rest of us playing the role of puppets.

Just because some non-tax paying “expert” says that the government is the one and only entity, which can bailout the haves, doesn’t make it a fact. But facts and reality do not of course have anything to do with it. They have the control not only over the money supply and printing of it and we, the puppets can only bitch about it and pay our taxes to the Federal Reserve, which will be more than happy to loan the money back to the government at the interest rate of their choice.

And so it goes, except now in much larger, and in fact unprecedented amounts – larger than probably almost any expenditure that the U.S. has made during its entire history – even when it is adjusted for inflation.

Let’s not forget the earlier “bailout” payments to Wall Street and the banks and the planned additional $2 trillion, or even larger “helping hand” that Secretary of the Treasury Geithner has mentioned not that long ago.

Long live transparency, accountability and the democratic system!

And for those with a lot of time o their hands, we offer the full, after-the-fact text of the House Stimulus bill.

Technorati Tags: bailout, banks, change, federal reserve, obama, stimulus, transparency, washington

The U.S. Federal Reserve, also called the U.S. Central Bank only seems to appear in the news, when it lowers, or raises the banking interest rates.

But what is this institution in reality? Even though most people assume that the Fed is another U.S. Government agency, the reality is that the Federal Reserve is a privately owned bank with 10 private members. At this point the citizens of the United States owe these people at least $10 trillion.

And who might you ask are these 10 private members? Here’s the list:

Rothschild Bank of London

Warburg Bank of Hamburg

Rothschild Bank of Berlin

Lehman Brothers of New York

Lazard Brothers of Paris

Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York

Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy

Goldman, Sachs of New York

Warburg Bank of Amsterdam

Chase Manhattan Bank of New York

All are by a strange (?) coincidence owned by the Rothschilds.

A central bank existed in England as far back as 1694. The Rothschilds completely dominate the banking system. It is estimated their wealth goes into the trillions.

Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild boasted at one time:

“I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.”

Well, baron, it appears that it isn’t just the British money supply. Is it?

How did it happen that the Federal Reserve got weaseled into the U.S. financial system? As it turns out it is really quite simple.

The idea came about at a meeting on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia in 1910. The bankers in this country, especially J.P. Morgan, created a currency panic in 1907 in order to get the American people to accept the idea of a central bank and in 1913 that idea has become a reality.

The American people pay hundreds of billions of dollars per year to the much-hated IRS, which is the collection agency for the Federal Reserve.

In 1916, three years after he was duped to allow the creation of the Federal Reserve President Woodrow Wilson was saying:

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world-no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small amount of dominant men.”

There are also many statements uttered by earlier presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and others on the subject of having a central bank. Not surprisingly, every one of them was very much against creating such a parasitic institution.

Maybe it is time not to create hugely expensive bailouts (who are we bailing out with our money, anyway?), or equally huge “stimulus” packages, but re-evaluate our dependence on the Federal Reserve and it’s affiliates.

Much more extensive information on the reality of how the U.S. Central Bank operates can be found elsewhere and you should look up this information on your own, if you are interested. The myriad and numerous details would be beyond the scope of this short article.

In the meantime, you might be interested in viewing this longish, but very informative video and draw your own conclusions:

Technorati Tags: banks, control, federal reserve, foe, foreign, friend, jp Morgan, loans