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The source of this is apparently an e-mail that’s circulating widely: If you also get a chuckle out of this, that’s a good indication of the truth that lies behind it. ‘Nuf said. Click here for 4 searches of campaign contributions in the Federal Election Commission’s Disclosure Data Search. You might give it a try for your elected official. However, it looks like they’ve got the sponsors’ true identities pretty well buried behind committee names.
Click here to contact your representatives in Washington, D.C.: – Byron |
Posts Tagged ‘Congress’
Who’s Calling the Tunes?
Sunday, May 31st, 2009Who Owns Our Congress?
Saturday, May 9th, 2009|
If you’ve never before heard the truth about the corruption of our decision-making in Washington, D.C., then you now have a very clear statement. As widely reported this week, Senator Dick Durbin, disappointed at the defeat of his bill,
“And the banks – hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created – are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.” What more do we need to understand about corporate America calling the shots in our government? The adage is that money is the root of all evil. Well, corporate campaign contributions are the source of the money that buys the election process.There’s really nothing more to explain. Generations ago, Mark Twain observed:
“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” Today, there is only one party called the Corporatist Party. It has two wings, the Republican Wing and the Democratic Wing. The solution is to ban all contributions to parties and candidates. Until that happens, the corporations will, as Durbin said, “own the place.” Click here to contact your representatives in Washington, D.C.: – Byron |
Fix the Banks!
Saturday, April 25th, 2009|
NEW Rule: All banks are too strong to fail. Global bank losses hit $4.5 TRILLION. $2.7 TRILLION is from loans and assets originating in the United States. The biggest losers are the biggest banks, which the U.S. taxpayer has bailed out with direct infusions of money. The latest plan is to start giving the banks money for their bad loans. Heads they won; now it’s tails, and we lose. And, the U.S. taxpayer has backstopped the FDIC, which simply closes the smaller banks. Just this week, the FDIC closed 4 banks at a cost of $700 Million. In 4 months this year alone, the FDIC has closed 29 banks; last year, 25 banks. Who wants to see failures of this magnitude? And, who wants to keep paying for this disaster? Do you? The American bankers have so mismanaged their business that they threaten the stability of the U.S. The most worn and tiresome phrase is to hear politicians and commentators talk about the big money center banks as being “too big to fail.” So what’s at the core of the problem? The banks just didn’t have the reserves to make it through a downturn and/or to cover the outrageous losses due to speculation with the credit default swaps. Framing the problem is to identify the solution. But, I have not seen a long-term solution proposed. The common-sense solution is thus to require the banks to increase their reserves quarterly and yearly. Slowly perhaps, but surely. Additions to reserves should exceed dividends until the long-term reserve requirement is met. Unless a bank can get stronger, it would be imprudent and unwise for that bank to pay out any dividends at all. (And, forget any stock options, political contributions, etc.) That’s one way to maintain the advantages of a capitalist system. By the way, an alternative would be to break up the big banks so we can let them fail later as small banks. To simply expect the government to rescue banks of any size is to invite nationalization. We can take our choice. The above is the best solution I’ve seen. The heart-breaking observation is that the political leadership hasn’t offered any solution. The silence is deafening. The politicians close their eyes and borrow more money to give to the bankers. What will it take to get the members of Congress to do their job?
Click here to contact your representatives in Washington, D.C.: – Byron
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Who Let This Disaster Happen?
Friday, April 3rd, 2009|
Kevin Phillips, the gifted researcher and author, recently gave new life to an old quote from 1904. That quote is a sharp and accurate observation yet today. The former colonial secretary of Great Britain, Joseph Chamberlain, spoke to British Bankers: “Granted that you are the clearing house of the world, ‘but’ are you entirely beyond anxiety as to the permanence of your great prosperity? . . . Banking is not the creator of our prosperity but the creation of wealth; and if the industrial energy and development which has been going on for so many years in this country were There are two very sharp concepts brought out. First, it is “production” that creates the wealth. The banks are just a service organization, like dry cleaners and casinos. The production, the foundation of the economy, is in mining, farming, manufacturing, and the transport of the products. If the core economic activities are sent abroad, the wealth goes abroad. No banks can replace it. Second, as one economist said recently, banks and the other financial institutions are like the “circulatory system” for the economy. But, as Chamberlain points out, “banking is not the creator of our prosperity.” So, we are back to the issue of 2009. How is it that “banks” brought the United States (and many other countries) to the brink of a global depression? Who let this happen? Click here to contact your representatives in Washington, D.C. Our Elected Officials. – Byron |
Where’s the Financial Fire Prevention?
Sunday, March 29th, 2009|
Secretary of the Treasury Geithner appeared before Congress this week. The advance scoop was that he would be proposing new regulations for the financial industry. What a great idea! You might have said, “It’s about time!” Otherwise, what will prevent another round of crises and meltdowns? But, our hopes were dashed. Geithner simply asked for more authority to take over and bail out an even bigger number of companies. That’s not going to put a stop to the wild speculation that is tantamount to gambling by the financial industry. In the business of fire fighting, it would be far better to prevent the fire than to fight the fire. Geithner reminds me of a fire chief who wants to buy bulldozers to clean up after the buildings have burned. Maybe Secretary Geithner has a prevention program up his sleeve. Maybe it’s too early to judge the executive branch. One can still hope for rules for higher reserve requirements, elimination of naked gambles by bankers and insurance companies, etc. On the other hand, the Congress has been around for years and years. What have they been doing? Your representatives and senators in the U.S. Congress have thousands of people working on their staffs. The Congress has no excuse whatsoever.
Click here to contact your representatives in Washington, D.C.: – Byron |
After The Bonus Uproar, Stay Mad!
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009|
This week’s hullabaloo over the AIG bonuses is an indication that the public is paying attention. However, the public may simply be going after the wrong people. In other words, chasing a red herring instead of attacking the real problem. One can only hope that the anger now turns toward the source of the real problem. The real problem people are the members of Congress. For thirty years, the Congress has gone along with the mentality of the corporate finance community. The mentality said regulations are bad. In fact, it looks as if criminal enterprise is now a part of the definition of free enterprise. Just look the other way and say, “Let the buyer beware.” AIG, and the rest of the financial industry, sold options to their customers which weren’t covered. It’s like selling insurance and hoping that claims wouldn’t come in. Why? Because AIG and the rest didn’t have the money to pay off. And Congress looked the other way. Albert Einstein told us, “Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.” The good news is that Congress doesn’t have to be a genius, nor even very smart, to put back all the financial rules of the New Deal. Most of the legislation was written 75 years ago. The “financial crisis” started last year. Have you seen one effort by Congress to put the honest controls back in the system? Have you heard of one piece of legislation? It seems like we’ve seen lots Here’s what one wise man observed as the problem with Congress. Mark Twain boasted,
Click here to contact your representatives in Washington, D.C.: – Byron |
Madoff Madness
Friday, December 19th, 2008
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What hasn’t been said about the Madoff firm running a $50 Billion Ponzi
First, any investment company of any size must have an outside auditor. The entire “system” failed time and again at every step. For the securities industry, the policing of Madoff is rather like the handling of Hurricane Katrina. Just picture President Bush (or Clinton) saying to the head of the SEC, “Brownie, you’re doing a hell of a job!” That sarcasm and contempt can be directed to all levels, as “Congress people, you do a great job for people like Bernard Madoff!” At the ground level of the system, there is the run-of-the mill policing of a company that should catch shenanigans. That is done by an outside independent and competent accounting firm. They match a random sample of accounts and transactions. They “follow the money.” But, the firm auditing the Madoff firm could not have missed every irregular exception all the time, could they? Wouldn’t you think something would have shown up by the time the first billion went unaccounted for? Well, the audit function failed. (This is not rocket science, is it?) The auditing firm may simply be neither independent nor competent. One reasonable solution would be to require by law that a new audit firm be selected every year or two. And, why not have the SEC give Madoff a choice of 3 randomly selected audit firms?
At the next level, the SEC and NASD are also police. The job can be as
This is definitely not rocket science. Has anyone else come up with this as a solution? If you’ve seen it, please take a moment to post it as a |