We Speak on PBS Newshour About Why No Bank Executives Have Gone to Jail. The cynic in me has to note that PBS Newshour decided to cover the issue of why no banksters have gone to jail on what has to be one of their lowest traffic days of the year. And I have a sneaking suspicion I got the call to go on the show because it was not exactly easy to find people willing to be taped late in the afternoon on the day before Thanksgiving (they did have to go to the trouble not only of arranging for a studio in Alabama, but also finding a makeup person, since I’m not in the habit of taking my TV warpaint with me when I travel).
I hope you like this segment. PBS prefers a format which keeps the guests from interacting directly. On the one hand, they do allow each speaker to make fairly long, uninterrupted comments, which is refreshing (at least on American TV). But on the other hand, the lack of back and forth can allow speakers to talk past each other and also tends to reduce the vigor and incisiveness of the remarks. The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins - An Excerpt. Excerpts from THE PAYOFF: WHY WALL STREET ALWAYS WINS, By Jeff Connaughton The Blob In January 2009, Ted Kaufman was sworn in as a U.S. Senator, filling Joe Biden’s seat and saying immediately he wouldn’t run two years later in the special election. Kaufman never had to raise money to become a Senator or to stay there longer.
For two years, he fought for average investors. THE PAYOFF: Why Wall Street Always Wins, written by Jeff Connaughton (Kaufman's chief of staff), tells how Kaufman and he took on Wall Street in Washington and had to fight “The Blob.” The Blob (it’s really called that) refers to the government entities that regulate the finance industry—like the Banking Committee, Treasury Department, and SEC—and the army of Wall Street representatives and lobbyists that continuously surrounds and permeates them. Indeed, a good way to maximize your family income in DC is to specialize in financial issues and marry someone in The Blob. Actually, marrying The Blob isn’t even necessary. Bill Black: The Vampire Squid Morphs into Jilted Valley Girl.
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives. Matt Taibbi famously dubbed Goldman “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
Taibbi knew his metaphor worked a deep injustice on Vampyroteuthis infernalis, a small animal that feeds on carrion and excrement (I will let the reader explore the metaphorical possibilities). Goldman Sachs’ leaders were always secretly flattered by Taibbi’s metaphor. They like being thought of as hyper-aggressive and intimidating. Saying that an investment banker’s goal is to make money is to state the obvious and causes no embarrassment. The news flash is that Goldman Sachs has revealed her new, softer side. Ms. As soon as Ms. I learned about Ms. Hell hath no fury like a maiden scorned. See, Obama “screwed” Ms. John Reed on Big Banks' Power and Influence. BILL MOYERS: Welcome to our third episode about the powerful players in high places who rewrote the rules of American politics and the economy. You can read all about it in this book: Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class.
If you missed the first two programs, you can see them on our new website, BillMoyers.com. The first is with Winner-Take-All authors Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson; the second with David Stockman and Gretchen Morgenson on “crony capitalism.” In this edition, we’ll look at a seminal moment when Wall Street and Washington stacked the deck against the rest of us. Remember, this is the political equivalent of a crime story, a mystery. How is it that our economy stopped working for the broad majority of Americans? Well it didn’t happen by accident. The richest of the rich was Citigroup, at one time the world’s largest financial institution. Nicely, thank you. BILL MOYERS: You got that, I’m sure. JOHN REED: Yeah. Bank Fraud Prosecution Continues to Drop under Obama.
Lobbying Spending Database Commercial Banks, 2011. NOTE: All lobbying expenditures on this page come from the Senate Office of Public Records. Data for the most recent year was downloaded on January 27, 2014. Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics. For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center.