Monday, March 11, 2013

ELIZABETH WARREN, COSTCO AND SOME OTHER RARE GOOD NEWS MIXED IN WITH THE USUAL HEAP OF BAD

There is nothing more shocking than having a politician run on specific promises and then, once elected into office, do exactly what they said they would do right away. Elizabeth Warren has done just that when she grilled regulators like the SEC and the CMTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission ) and others during a hearing from the Senate Banking Committee
about why companies like HSBC got a free pass for crimes that would have sent a lesser individual to death row. This is from the actual transcript from Boston.com:

"The question I really want to ask is about how tough you are — about how much leverage you really have,” Warren said. “Tell me a little bit about the last few times you’ve taken the biggest financial institutions on Wall Street all the way to trial.”

Anybody?”

Crickets.

“If a party is unwilling to go to trial — either because they’re too timid or they lack resources — the consequence is they have a lot less leverage,” Warren said. “If [banks] can break the law and drag in billions in profits and then turn around and settle paying out of those profits, they don’t have that much incentive to follow the law.”

The institutions I supervise . . . we’ve actually had a fair number of consent orders,” Comptroller of the Currency Tom Curry said, referring to out-of-court settlements. “We do not have to bring people to trial.”

“I appreciate that you say you do not have to bring people to trial,” Warren countered. “My question is when did you bring them to trial?”
 
At another point, Elisse Walter, chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, defended her agency, saying, “We look at the distinction between what we can get if we go to trial and what we can get if we don’t.”
 
Warren interrupted her: “I appreciate that. That’s what everybody does. The question I’m really asking is, can you identify when you last took the Wall Street banks to trial?”
 
“I will have to get back to you with the specific information,” replied Walter, her arms crossed.
“There are district attorneys and US attorneys who are out there every day squeezing ordinary citizens on very thin grounds and taking them to trial in order to make an example,” she said.
 
As for taking on banks, she added, “I’m really concerned ‘too big to fail’ has become ‘too big for trial.’ That just seems wrong to me.”
 
Here, here. Here was Eric Holder had to say in response:

I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy

Are you kidding me? This is the guy running the Justice Department? Was Barney Fife too busy? The banks are getting special treatment where they are above the law, while the rest of us have to worry about spending a life sentence for having a garden in the wrong spot. According to Bloomberg.com, the ten biggest banks receive an $83 billion subsidy every year in taxpayer dollars; money they don't even need.

Banks have become too big to fail, too big to jail, too big to derail. That is not acceptable and if we don't start demanding more from our leaders we will be a slave labor force for real. Thank God we have people like Elizabeth Warren out there actually fighting for us for once. Few others seem to be.

Another hero this week is Costco owner, Craig Jelinek, who has become the first major CEO to champion for raising the minimum wage. His workers already enjoy better pay and benefits than just about any other big box store, including Best Buy and Target so raising the rate won't really affect him. But business savvy isn't the only reason for his support but the knowledge that by giving more people money to buy things with, stimulates the economy better than tax breaks and austerity measures, also known as the Ford Principle. Jelinek would like to see the wage even higher than the proposed rate, a rare show of sanity in an increasingly stupid world.

Of course the idiots and the gullible say this will throw the whole world off it's axis, neverminding the fact that there is zero evidence that this would ever be the case. The minimum wage was twice as high in the 50's and 60's, when a livable wage was available and prices weren't exploding in costs. You cannot raise prices when no one has money or else your product will not sell. There is not a profitable company in this country that can't afford higher wages right now and not raise prices. The people at the top of the ladder and some corporate profits will go first, with no change to the company stock. The only reason this hasn't been done is simple greed which is rampant right now.

The last of the people I would like to commend are the increasing number of firearms companies that are refusing to sell to government agencies in areas where gun bans are cropping up. The blue states have terrible gun laws being rammed through, the same as the anti-abortion nonsense being used in red states like Arkansas. Can we please stop with the social garbage and deal with more important things like jobs?

Here is a link to a list of companies that will no longer sell to federal or state governments:

http://www.thepoliceloophole.com/

That is one long list. And it's getting longer every day. This is patriotic to it's core and I for one salute people who say "I'd rather starve than give money to some douchebag taking away my rights." Bravo. We need more people to stand up for things like this.

Amidst the good news here though is word that North Korea had trashed the armistice agreement with the US, meaning, if true, we are technically back in war with them. Not that I expect anything to happen anytime soon as the North Koreans are well known for spectacular temper tantrums that go on forever. And the fact that any attack on South Korea or the US with any non conventional weapon would be sheer suicide, makes me even less worried. Something tells me, if we attack the Korean peninsula with good reason, China will do nothing in response. They may even help at that point. North Korea has never been closer to failing. Let's hope it does and soon as reports of human atrocities in their death camps have been getting worse, as if that was possible considering the hell on the Earth those poor people have to suffer through.

A new pope comes, perhaps the last one. Spring is arriving after a brutal winter which wasn't that cold but had lots of snow. And Evil Dead, the remake, is supposed to be the best horror movie in years. Considering that Diablo Cody worked on the screenplay, color me very surprised. There is hope in our future. Let's not squander it.



1 comment:

  1. Meanwhile she is just another warmongering Yankee Puritan or did you miss it?

    You people are something else. All of you are nothing but Sad Sack Statist and as long as you are in charge war is just hunky dory with ya.

    I hope Iran fucking nukes The shit out of the District of Columbia and takes with it all you Yankee Puritan Statists with it.

    ReplyDelete