Finance & Development, June 2011 - Making Friends. Finance & Development, June 2011, Vol. 48, No. 2 Deniz Igan and Prachi Mishra PDF version A strong connection exists between financial industry lobbying and favorable financial legislation AT THE END OF 2007—as markets grappled with the early stages of what would become the worst financial crisis in the post–World War II era and a severe recession seized the U.S. economy—The Wall Street Journal reported that two of the largest mortgage lenders in the United States had spent millions of dollars on political donations, campaign contributions, and lobbying activities from 2002 through 2006 (Simpson, 2007).
Ameriquest Mortgage and Countrywide Financial fought anti-predatory-lending legislation in Georgia and New Jersey and fended off similar laws in other states and at the federal level, according to the Journal. Lobbying and legislation Questions about the role of regulation and other government activity in financial crises are not new. Finding the facts We gathered the following information: Full Report: The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America | Amped Status. By David DeGraw, AmpedStatus Report This report was originally released as a six-part series. The first part was published on February 15, 2010. The last part was published on February 27, 2010. ——-I: Casualties of Economic Terrorism, Surveying the Damage——-II: The Rise of the Economic Elite——-III: Exposing Our Enemy: Meet the Economic Elite——-IV: The Financial Coup d’Etat ——-V: Overcoming the Divide and Conquer Strategy——-VI: How to Fight Back and Win: Common Ground Issues That Must Be Won “The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist,but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous effortson the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictionsand unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight.”– Michael Lind, To Have and to Have Not It’s time for 99% of Americans to mobilize and aggressively move on common sense political reforms.
I: Casualties of Economic Terrorism, Surveying the Damage Mass Unemployment. I.O.U.S.A.: Byte-Sized - The 30 Minute Version. BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | James Kwak and Simon Johnson Pt 1 | PBS. Financial Regulation Bill: Federal Reserve Wins Greater Role in Overhaul. Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows: David Reilly. The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter.
After this week’s congressional hearing into the bailout of American International Group Inc., you have to wonder if those folks are crazy after all. Wednesday’s hearing described a secretive group deploying billions of dollars to favored banks, operating with little oversight by the public or elected officials. We’re talking about the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose role as the most influential part of the federal-reserve system -- apart from the matter of AIG’s bailout -- deserves further congressional scrutiny.
The New York Fed is in the hot seat for its decision in November 2008 to buy out, for about $30 billion, insurance contracts AIG sold on toxic debt securities to banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank AG, among others. Saving the System. Elizabeth Warren Uncovered What the Govt. Did to 'Rescue' AIG, and It Ain't Pretty | Economy. August 9, 2010 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. The government’s $182 billion bailout of insurance giant AIG should be seen as the Rosetta Stone for understanding the financial crisis and its costly aftermath. Three governmental investigative bodies have now pored through the AIG wreckage and turned up disturbing facts—the House Committee on Oversight and Reform; the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which will make its report at year’s end; and the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP), which issued its report on AIG in June.
The five-member COP, chaired by Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, has produced the most devastating and comprehensive account so far. The report concludes that the Federal Reserve Board’s intimate relations with the leading powers of Wall Street—the same banks that benefited most from the government’s massive bailout—influenced its strategic decisions on AIG. Vous quittez Facebook... | Facebook. Vous quittez Facebook. Panel Discussion on SEC v. Goldman Sachs | University of Chicago Law School. Presenting The Wall Of Worry: The 50 Ugliest Facts About The US eCONomy | zero hedge. Income Inequality: A Deeper Look « Modeled Behavior. Via Andrew Sullivan Lane Kentworthy charts US income disparity Its impressive that the income for the Top 1% races off while the income for the middle and lower class is squished towards the bottom.
I was concerned, however, that this chart might be somewhat misleading because even if the various income classes had the same growth rate – not suggesting they did, just saying – the increases for the Top 1% would dwarf everyone else, since they started from a higher baseline. I tried plotting the income growth as common logs A similar though, perhaps, less shocking looking story. There is growth, albeit mild in the middle and lower classes, and stronger more robust growth among the Top 1%.
If your used to common logs then you can see that the Top 1% moved from being about an order of magnitude above the middle class to about one and half orders. However, you still don’t get a good sense of the trajectory. This is significantly faster than real growth of US GDP. More analysis to come. Like this: SJbOq. Elizabeth Warren: My Mission Is to Restore America's Great Middle Class | Economy. August 1, 2010 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email.
Editor's note: The following is a speech delivered by Elizabeth Warren at Netroots Nation 2010. Check out AlterNet'spetition at Change.org urging President Obama to appoint Warren to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. My grandmother, when she was a teenager, drove a wagon in the land rush that settled Oklahoma. Her mother was dead, and her little brothers and sisters were in the back of the wagon. You see, my grandmother was born into the world of boom and bust, boom and bust, as it had been from 1794 until the Great Depression. The first one, FDIC insurance, made it safe to put money in banks. Now, my grandmother, when she died in 1970 at the age of 94, had been part of that.
Another thing happened in that period of time, and that is the foundations of middle-class America began to erode. Now, anyone here can figure out what happens next. They didn't say that. " + soundfiledesc + " Highlights: Bernanke's testimony to financial crisis panel. Broadcast Yourself. The History of the House of Rothschild - By Andrew Hitchcock. Edmond James de Rothschild is very angry about this and states.. "I created the Yishuv, I alone. Therefore no men, neither colonists nor organisations have the right to interfere in my plans. " The Rothschild banking house in Frankfurt, Germany, M. A. von Rothschild und Söhne, closes as there is no male Rothschild heir to take it on. 1902: Philippe de Rothschild born. 1905: A group of Rothschild backed Zionist Jews led by Georgi Apollonovich Gapon attempt to overthrow the Tsar in Russia in a Communist Coup.
The Jewish Encyclopaedia (Vol. 2, p.497) states.. 1906: The Rothschilds claim that due to growing instability in the region and increasing competition from Rockefeller (the Rockefeller family are Rothschild descendants through a female bloodline) owned Standard Oil, this is why they sell their Caspian and Black Sea Petroleum Company to Royal Dutch and Shell. Jacob Schiff 1909: Jacob Schiff founds the National Advancement for the Association of the Coloured People (NAACP). Woodrow Wilson.