Whistle Blower Exposes Bank Scandals and Fights for Consumers, Small Business and Taxpayers

Empire, Oligarchy and Democracy

bankingwhistleblower — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:11:51 +0000

By Ralph Nader

The twin swelling heads of Empire and Oligarchy are driving our country into an ever-deepening corporate state, wholly incompatible with democracy and the rule of law.
Once again the New York Times offers its readers the evidence. In its February 25, 2010 issue, two page-one stories confirm this relentless deterioration at the expense of so many innocent people.

The lead story illustrates that the type of massive speculation—casino capitalism, Business Week once called it—in complex derivatives is still going strong and exploiting the weak and powerless who pay the ultimate bill.

Titled “Banks Bet Greece Defaults on Debt They Helped Hide,” the article shocks even readers hardened to tales of greed and abuse of power. Here are the opening paragraphs: “Bets by some of the same banks that helped Greece shroud its mounting debts may actually now be pushing the nation closer to the brink of financial ruin.”

“Echoing the kind of trades that nearly toppled the American Insurance International Group /AIG/, the increasingly popular insurance against the risk of a Greek default is making it harder for Athens to raise the money it needs to pay its bills, according to traders and money managers.”

“These contracts, known as credit-default swaps, effectively let banks and hedge funds wager on the financial equivalent of a four-alarm fire: a default by a company, or in the case of Greece, an entire country. If Greece reneges on its debts, traders who own these swaps stand to profit.”

“It’s like buying fire insurance on your neighbor’s house—you create an incentive to burn down the house,” said Philip Gisdakis, head of credit strategy at UniCredit in Munich.

These credit-default swaps increase the dreaded “systemic risk” that proliferates until it lands on the backs of taxpayers, workers and savers who pay the price. And if Greece goes, Spain or Portugal or Italy may be next and globalization will eventually bring the rapacious effects of mindless speculation to our shores.

Greece got into financial trouble for a variety of reasons, but it was widely reported that Goldman Sachs and other big banks showed them, for generous fees, how to hide the country’s true financial condition. Avarice at work.

Note two points. These derivatives are contracts involving hundreds of billions of dollars and are essentially unregulated. These transactions are also essentially untaxed, unlike Europe’s value added tax on manufacturing, wholesale and retail purchases. The absence of government restraints produces unlimited predation.

As astute investors in the real economy have said, when money for speculation replaces money for investment, the real economy suffers and so do real people. Remember the Wall Street collapse of 2008 and who is paying for the huge Washington bailout…….

The American people must realize that their reckless government and corporate contractors are banking lots of revenge among the occupied regions that may come back to haunt. We have much more to lose by flouting international law than the suicidal terrorists reacting to what they believe is the West’s state terrorism against their people and the West’s historical backing of dictatorships which oppress their own population.

American was not designed for Kings and their runaway military pursuits. How tragic that we have now come to this entrenched imperium so loathed by the founding fathers and so forewarned by George Washington’s enduring farewell address.

Where are “We the People”?

Moderator Comment:

Corporations have taken full advantage of the power of money. Since banks control and create all of our money, they are experts in using it to bribe government officials, pay for powerful lobbyists and manipulate elections. Therefore the electorial process becomes a sham; a revolving door of republican and democrat candidates who are both owned by the same pay masters, the money changers aka the private banking money pimps. Forget the promises, regulations, platforms and the pablum. Follow the money flow to find out who your leaders really serve and where they really stand. Americans need to follow the money and follow the insider trades. The money flows show a consistent and undeniable pattern of pandering to crooked private banks that aim to steal all of our wealth while our heads are turned the other way.

Bank of America Demonstration – Detroit MI on March 25, 2010 at 4:30pm

bankingwhistleblower — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:42:32 +0000

Thursday, 4:30, Demo against Bank of America, 500 Griswold St. Detroit MI – in front of the Guardian Building

They crashed the economy, created the “mortgage crisis”, and looted the taxpayer. Its time for the BANKSTERS to pay. Jobs with Justice and the Metro AFL-CIO are asking you to send these pillaging pirates a message. “Bankers owe American Workers Its time to pay”

Bank of America now resides in the Guardian Building. Detroit’s Guardian Bank Group played a leading role in the Great Depression’s “Banking Crisis”. The Guardian Building has its roots in “corporate crime”. HELP US “CALL THEM OUT”.

WHEN: Thursday, March 25 – 4:30 to 5:30

WHERE: 500 Griswold St. Detroit MI – in front of the Guardian Building

WHO: sponsored by Jobs with Justice and the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO

For more info: Tanise M. Hill
Administrative Assistant to
Saundra L. Williams
President
Metro Detroit AFL-CIO

Protest to Fund Education Instead of Giving Handouts to Banks And Corporations

bankingwhistleblower — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:51:43 +0000

Reader Contribution

March 4 protests coast to coast

Fund education, not banks & war

By Larry Hales

Published Feb 24, 2010 5:53 PM

On March 4 students and workers from all around the country will take action to defend education against increased privatization of pre-kindergarten through 12th grade schools, budget cuts, layoffs, furloughs and tuition increases at college and universities — especially the public institutions.

Workers and students have shouldered the brunt of the capitalist crisis, while bankers and corporations have been given hundreds of billions of dollars of public monies in order to be bailed out of a crisis that was made by the capitalist system, not the masses.

rally and march on Feb. 3. " />

Michigan State University students, workers
rally and march on Feb. 3.

WW photos: Bryan G. Pfeifer

Young people in particular are faced with a grim future — one where well-paying jobs with benefits are becoming scarcer — and where the educational system is being increasingly privatized, teachers’ unions busted and curriculums dumbed down to prepare future generations for the current and emerging social order of worldwide competition for low-wage jobs.

Colleges and universities are getting further out of reach, and those who are able to attend must mortgage away their futures.

It is the current political climate, on top of drastic measures being taken by state governments across the country, that helped give birth to the idea of having a national day of action to defend education.

California students and faculty, teachers and other workers first called for March 4 to be a statewide day of action at their conference on Oct. 24.

California students have taken bold action, occupying a number of universities — University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State, to name only two. The action and energy from California has piqued the interest of many across the country, who began reaching out to California students to make the statewide day of action national.

Both the California Coordinating Committee and activists, students, educators and other workers from across the country released complementary statements agitating for a national day of action on March 4.

The statement from the ad hoc group reads:

“As people throughout the country struggle under the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, public education from pre-K to higher and adult education is threatened by budget cuts, layoffs, privatization, tuition and fee increases, and other attacks. Budget cuts degrade the quality of public education by decreasing student services and increasing class size, while tuition hikes and layoffs force the cost of the recession onto students and teachers and off of the financial institutions that caused the recession in the first place. Non-unionized charter schools threaten to divide, weaken and privatize the public school system and damage teachers’ unions, which are needed now more than ever. More and more students are going deep into debt to finance their education, while high unemployment forces many students and youth to join the military to receive a higher education. And all of the attacks described above have hit working people and people of color the hardest.

“In California, students, teachers, workers, parents, and faculty have taken action against these attacks. They took to the streets in a one-day strike on Sept. 24th, organized strikes and actions across the state during the University of California Board of Regents meeting from Nov. 18 to 20, and have called for a statewide day of action on March 4th. These actions have created a broad mass movement in California, drawing in students from all over the state to create a powerful struggle. As the effects of the economic crisis continue to spread into the education system nationally, it’s time to join our voices with students and workers in California and draw inspiration from their example.

“We support each group or coalition organizing in the manner and for the duration of their choosing. In solidarity with those in California, we the below-signed individuals and organizations call on students, teachers, workers, parents, faculty, and staff across the country to join together on March 4th to Take A Stand For Education!”

Planning for March 4 is underway in Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin, and it will no doubt grow.

Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST) youth group, along with many different student and community groups, socialist parties and unions, has been involved in planning and organizing for what could be a resurgence of a national student movement at a time when workers’ organizations, antiwar and community organizations are becoming enraged at the loss of jobs, imperialist war and plunder, racism and police brutality, attacks against immigrant workers, and the other ills of U.S. capitalist society.

Hales is a leader of FIST, which is a national endorser of March 4.

_______________________________________________

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions is a coalition of grassroots activists and organizations, union and religious leaders, farmers, politicians, and concerned people from across Michigan that formed in the spring of 2008 to fight for the passage of Senate Bill 1306, which would stop all mortgage foreclosures and evictions for two years. Some of our most committed activists have themselves been foreclosed and evicted from their homes and farms.

SB 1306 has been introduced in the current session of the Michigan legislature as SB 29.

We need more home addresses of banking executives

bankingwhistleblower — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:58:14 +0000

The national movement to take back our country from the bankers is growing faster than ever. The next step is to move the protests from the doors of the corporate headquarters’ to the front yards of the sleazy bank executives homes, to the country clubs where they golf and to the public relations events they attend! Although these executives can run, they can not hide. Our freedom and our future is at stake. This is the one issue that unites us all regardless of where we fall on the political spectrum. We need more executive home addresses and more volunteers are also welcome.

Activists please forward your information and requests to bankingwhistleblower@inbox.com

We are expanding our relationships and dialogues with journalist around the country. Don’t forget to get our updated media contacts list! As always don’t forget to enter the codeword in your requests. Thank you all for your hard work and patriotic dedication.

Dirty Money – The book that exposes the banking industry from an insiders perspective

bankingwhistleblower — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:03:42 +0000

After the American public has been economically pillaged, plundered and raped, someone has to take a stand and fight against the biggest con job in history; A grand larceny that will bankrupt our nation, destroy the American standard of living, and mortgage the future of America to foreign powers.

Finally, a voice of reason peels past the layers of greed and deception to expose what is really going on:

What are the Federal Reserve, Treasury Secretary, Goldman Sachs, and other money changers really doing?
What really happened in the secret meetings?
How were the scapegoats set up and the heroes planned?
How were the crises designed and how are the crooked trades arranged?
How are bank CEO’s and executives looting the very companies they manage? What are the techniques and tactics of these corporate cowboys?
What kind of unseemly “recreational” activities do bankers indulge themselves with? You wont be surprised to find out that sleeping with secretaries, extramarital affairs, drug use, co-worker spying, stealing from customers accounts, sexual harassment, fraud, engaging in business with terrorist organizations, aiding terrorism and money launderers, off balance sheet entities, loans to corporate insiders with secretive terms and conditions. And it wouldn’t be complete without outing a couple of “macho homo-phobe” executives who really have sexual preferences that are much different than their public image would suggest.
Find out the whistleblower’s top ten economic predictions for 2010.
Find out how to get involved in a national movement to hold public protests in front of your local bank executive’s home. They can run but they can’t hide from the economic carnage they have caused and their neighbors will know exactly what kind of slime living in their neighborhood.

To reserve your advance copy of the most important book of the decade contact bankingwhistleblower@inbox.com