"Yes We Can!" Is Harder Than Obama Realizes

Welcome back to the Big Apple Mr. President. I hope your flight up the coast was a quick and uneventful one, for the reason you came might just be as unnoticed at the end of this fiscal reform we are being promised. Heaven knows this country needs help in saving ourselves from the vicious corporatists that currently run things on Wall Street and it's appendage within the Beltway.

Now in the moment, on this day, many people are making a big deal about the President's speech at the storied Cooper Union. However, if the President actually believes that Wall Street is going to work with him and Congress to reform the system, then this speech will amount to nothing for the great majority of us that want to take back power from the titans of the financial services industry.

Here's a few snippets from the speech via Huff Post:

"Ultimately, there is no dividing line between Main Street and Wall Street. We rise or we fall together as one nation. So I urge you to join me -- to join those who are seeking to pass these commonsense reforms," according to Obama's prepared remarks for a speech in New York City. "And I urge you to do so not only because it is in the interests of your industry, but because it is in the interests of our country."

See Mr. President, the people you are trying to address do not care about their country, nor do they care about their industry. The only concern the majority of elites on Wall Street is to get as rich as possible at all costs. Perhaps you forgot about what happened at Lehman Brothers? Or maybe you didn't learn your lesson on bipartisanship and conciliation during the prolonged battle over health care reform?

The Huffington Post article linked above draws the perfect contrast in this situation. Looking at what F.D.R. did in the 1930s is above and beyond Obama's shtick in 2010. Franklin Delano Roosevelt by and large did what it took to rein in the financial abuses that brought about the Great Depression. Obama's effectiveness at cleaning up the abuses seen in the last thirty years starting with Reagan is yet to be seen.

Now I agreed with Obama in 2008 that we needed change, and that "Yes We Can" make it happen. Yet, no matter how good your slogans are, it takes political will, strength and fortitude to make things happen in Washington and on Wall Street. The best reforms possible are going to be pushed back upon with the greatest ferocity by those that it seeks to place limits on. However, if Obama seeks to work with Citibanks, Wells Fargos and Bank of Americas then not only will the President look foolish when he either passes a tempered and weak reform bill or fails to pass a bill entirely.

So Mr. President, I hope you enjoy the great media hoopla surrounding you here in the city today. Just remember that it won't amount to a hill of beans if the big bankers running things now continue their pillaging of our country, even after a cooperative "reform" bill is passed.

Newsflash: Congressman Sees Money's Role In Politics

Yes, it is shocking, unbelievable and horrific all rolled into one. Congress is controlled by the onslaught of money, especially from those that have so much of it, the banks. O.K. so it has been going on for decades (and a couple of centuries) and it really isn't news. The only difference as of late is how much more influence banks have and the lengths they go to satisfy their greed. With more than eighteen years in Congress, Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) knows what is going on, and has vowed to do something about it.

From RawStory:

“The banks run the place,” Peterson told the New York Times in Monday’s editions. “I will tell you what the problem is — they give three times more money than the next biggest group. It’s huge the amount of money they put into politics.”

Peterson has introduced a bill to regulate derivatives trading — the pesky financial instruments that nearly brought down the US financial system. Derivatives involve writing insurance on various complex financial transactions, such as providing insurance to investors in the event of massive defaults on home mortgages.

But he says that Republicans have watered down his bill. He wants derivatives trading to take place on public exchanges — much like the New York Stock Exchange — rather than through private clearinghouses, which are managed by banks.

So in the end, nothing much is going to come from this. It was a good idea, but there were simply too many competing interests and the Republicans (and probably some conservative Dems) that tinkered with the bill so it does next to nothing.

Hey Paul Krugman!

Paul Krugman has a column today about how concerned he is about Tim Geithner's latest plan to bailout the banks by recycling old Bush fiscal policies. Perhaps he should listen to this guy, and take over at Treasury so that we get a more progressive fiscal policy from the Obama Administration.

Twenty Banks Have Gone Down This Year

We all know bad economic times are fully upon us and unfortunately it is just beginning. When Paul Krugman says stuff like this, it isn't a good sign. When twenty banks fail in less than a year, that is bad news. The latest victim to fall is the Community Bank of Georgia.

From ABC News:

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of the bank, located in Loganville, Ga. It had $681 million in assets and $611.4 million in deposits as of Oct. 17.

The FDIC said all the bank's deposits and about $84.4 million of its assets will be acquired by Bank of Essex, of Tappahannock, Va. Its four branches will reopen Monday as offices of Bank of Essex.

The agency said depositors of The Community Bank will continue to have full access to their deposits.

The FDIC estimated that the resolution of The Community Bank will cost the federal deposit insurance fund between $200 million and $240 million.

Thankfully the FDIC can help customers from their bank's bad practices, but we all share the burden because the money ultimately comes from the taxpayers. Nearly a quarter of a billion dollars can go to a lot of good programs or pay down our debt. Instead it is spent to fix the damage of banks that got too greedy and made themselves collapse. Oh the billions trillions we must spend to get us out of this hole!

The Fed Offers More Corporate Welfare To Fat Cat Bankers

Just as New York is gearing up to screw the middle class in these hard financial times, the Federal Government is making the rough patch much smoother for those in the upper class corporate world. The $30 billion dollars provided by the Fed to finance the JP Morgan-Bear Stearns deal outraged many this past week (even motivating hundreds to protest their offices), but imagine how much more ticked off average Americans will be when they hear that the $30 billion in corporate welfare was just the start of this financial insanity.

From RawStory:

The Federal Reserve announced Friday it will auction another $100 billion in April to cash-strapped banks as it continues to combat the effects of a credit crisis.

The central bank said it would make $50 billion available at each of two auctions, on April 7 and April 21.

Through the end of March, the Fed has provided $260 billion in short-term loans to commercial banks through the innovative auction process. It also has employed Depression-era provisions to provide money to investment banks.

Billions upon billions are being "loaned" from the government (meaning us, the taxpayers) to giant corporations with CEOs that make millions upon millions. How exactly is this fair? I'm sorry, the Reagan "trickle-down" theory is no longer viable in a reasoned debate, it has long since been discredited. This action is strictly meant to help the rich stay rich while the vast majority of us is kept down.

Never, ever, let a Republican tell you they aren't in favor of a welfare system, ever. They are lying through their teeth.

Its Nice To Be A Bank

Wouldn't you love to walk into a bank and get an interest rate that is agreeable to you? No fuss, warm handshakes and no car-dealership-esque treatment. Does that sound like what you expect when walking into bank x,y or z...perhaps FannieMae or CountryWide for your home? Well yeah, that doesn't happen for regular people, but it does happen for the banks themselves.

From Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Banks in the United States have been quietly borrowing "massive amounts" from the U.S. Federal Reserve in recent weeks, using a new measure the Fed introduced two months ago to help ease the credit crunch, according to a report on the web site of The Financial Times.

The newspaper said the use of the Fed's Term Auction Facility (TAF), which allows banks to borrow at relatively attractive rates against a wide range of their assets, saw borrowing of nearly $50 billion of one-month funds from the Fed by mid-February.

The Financial Times said the move has sparked unease among some analysts about the stress developing in opaque corners of the U.S. banking system and the banks' growing reliance on indirect forms of government support.

O.K. well most of us are generally looking to borrow 0.00001 percent of that for a home or add another 0 to that number for a car. Still, the fact that they get to hit our government up for cash while we can't pay for a national health care system and our treasury goes deeper into debt. It isn't right that we bailout industries that have cast tough times upon themselves through greed and illegitimate (or should be illegitimate) behavior. Perhaps after January 20th of next year raping America wholesale will be considered criminal again.