Lack of Trust

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYiqKAH9KmA&feature=player_embedded#!

the last chance for the justice system – the only thing which stands between criminals on Wall Street and pitchforks

Mainstream economist Nouriel Roubini said recently:

Nobody has gone to jail since the financial crisis. The banks, they do things that are illegal and at best they slap on them a fine. If some people end up in jail, maybe that will teach a lesson to somebody. Or somebody hanging in the streets.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair – currently employed as a senior adviser to JP Morgan – said today:

We must not start thinking that society will be better off “if we hang 20 bankers at the end of the street” .

Where’s all of this coming from?

The American government’s top official in charge of the bank bailouts writes:

Americans should lose faith in their government. They should deplore the captured politicians and regulators who distributed tax dollars to the banks without insisting that they be accountable. The American people should be revolted by a financial system that rewards failure and protects those who drove it to the point of collapse and will undoubtedly do so again.

Only with this appropriate and justified rage can we hope for the type of reform that will one day break our system free from the corrupting grasp of the megabanks.

Economics professor Randall Wray writes today:

Thieves … took over the whole economy and the political system lock, stock, and barrel. They didn’t just blow up finance, they oversaw the swiftest transfer of wealth to the very top the world has ever seen. They screwed workers out of their jobs, they screwed homeowners out of their houses, they screwed retirees out of their pensions, and they screwed municipalities out of their revenues and assets.

Financiers are forcing schools, parks, pools, fire departments, senior citizen centers, and libraries to shut down. They are forcing national governments to auction off their cultural heritage to the highest bidder. Everything must go in firesales at prices rigged by twenty-something traders at the biggest and most corrupt institutions the world has ever known.

***

I see two scenarios playing out. In the first, we allow Wall Street to carry on its merry way, as the foreclosure crisis continues and Wall Street steals all homes, packaging them into bundles to be sold for pennies on the dollar to hedge funds. All wealth will be redistributed to the top 1% who will become modern day feudal lords with the other 99% living at their pleasure on huge feudal estates.

***

That is the default scenario—the outcome that will emerge in the absence of action.

In the second, the 99% occupy, shut down, and obliterate Wall Street.

Economics professor Michael Hudson agrees … saying that the banks are trying to make us all serfs.

Top economists say that fraud caused the Great Depression and the current financial crisis, and that the economy will never recover until fraud is prosecuted.

Leading experts say that fraud is not only widespread, it is actually the business model adopted by the giant banks. See this, this, this, this, this and this.

Indeed, the big banks – with the help of the government – have basically become criminal enterprises. And yet the Bush and Obama administrations have made it official policy not to prosecute fraud.

Economics professor Steve Keen says:

“This is the biggest transfer of wealth in history”, as the giant banks have handed their toxic debts from fraudulent activities to the countries and their people.

Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz said in 2009 that Geithner’s toxic asset plan “amounts to robbery of the American people”.

That’s why people are so mad at bankers.

I noted 7 years ago:

I am NOT calling for the overthrow of the government. In fact, I am calling for the reinstatement of our government. I am calling for an end to lawless dictatorship and a return to the rule of law. Rather than trying to subvert the constitution, I am calling for its enforcement.

***

The best way to avoid all types of revolution would be for the government to start following the rule of law. I passionately hope it will do so.

The fact that even Tony Blair and Nouriel Roubini are talking about hanging bankers shows that this is the last chance for the justice system – the only thing which stands between criminals on Wall Street and pitchforks – to work.
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-07-24/tony-blair-don%E2%80%99t-hang-bankers

Apollyon Rising 2012

In his 1913 book The New Freedom, President Woodrow Wilson (1913 to 1921) stated:
"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men´s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."
Dr. Thomas Woodrow Wilson (28 December 1856 -- 3 February 1924)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyQGy12FU5c&feature=related

Birgitta Jonsdottir - Financial & Political Update from Iceland

Birgitta Jonsdottir is a member of the Althing, the Icelandic parliament. Her district is the Reykjavík South Constituency. She was elected to the Icelandic parliament in April 2009 on behalf of a movement aiming for democratic reform beyond party politics of left and right, called "The Movement." Birgitta is a poet and has been an activist and a spokesperson for various groups, such as Wikileaks and Saving Iceland. She also acts as a spokeswoman for the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative. She returns to discuss the misconceptions surrounding the alleged debt forgiveness in Iceland. We'll address truth vs. rumor regarding the economy and democracy in Iceland. Ever since the Icesave dispute in 2008, Iceland's economy has been in shambles. In the recent year or so, it has somewhat managed to get back on its feet. Jonsdottir says Iceland's aspirations of joining the EU are low considering the shape the Eurozone is in. Birgitta argues that although some things have improved in Iceland, many from the "Icelandic financial mafia" are still in high corporate and political positions in Iceland. We also discuss what is true when it comes to how the citizens of Iceland participated in writing their new constitution, online.
http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/2012/07/RIR-120722.php

Matt Taibbi: Libor Rate-Fixing Scandal "Biggest Insider Trading You Could Ever Imagine"

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi joins us to discuss the pattern of systemic corruption by 16 banks accused of rigging a key global interest rate used in contracts worth trillions of dollars. The London Interbank Offered Rate, known as Libor, is the average interest rate at which banks can borrow from each other. Some analysts say it defines the cost of money. Barclays was recently fined $453 million for rigging Libor, and a number of other banks are under investigation. "Ordinary people actually suffered when Libor was manipulated downward, mainly because local governments, municipal governments tended to lose money," Taibbi says. "Even the tiniest manipulation downward, when you’re talking about a thing of this scale, would result in tens of trillions of dollars of losses. ... The banks weren’t doing this just to make themselves look healthier, they were also doing this just to make money. They were trading against this information in what essentially was the biggest kind of insider trading you could possibly imagine." Taibbi is author of the book "Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History."
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/7/19/matt_taibbi_libor_rate_fixing_scandal

CrossTalk: Libor or Lie-more?

What will be the implications of the Libor scandal? Will anybody get into prison for the wrongdoing? What message does it send to the authorities? Should there be more regulation, or can banks regulate themselves? CrossTalking with Richard Wellings and William Black.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qxz4jQC_GM&feature=player_embedded#!