OMNI:
What
we believe to be he case, what we think should be the case, and what is
actually the case.
http://utrend.tv/v/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely-wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact/
My blog: The War Department and Peace Heroes
http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/
Newsletters:
http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/
Index:
http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/
See Class,
Corporate Personhood, Corporations, Economics, Globalization, Go Not to Jail,
Greed, Inequality, Information Control, Lobbying, Marx, Military Industrial
Complex, Monopoly, Occupy, Rapacity, Regulation, Secrecy, Socialism, Too Big To
Fail, US Economic Imperialism, Working Class, and related newsletters.
A Call to
the People by George Monbiot:
From: Robert McAfee <robertjmca1@gmail.com>
Date: September 19, 2013,
5:36:29 AM CDT
To: Robert McAfee <robertjmca1@gmail.com>
After
more than a quarter of a century of environmental campaigning I’ve come to see
that the only thing that really works is public mobilisation: the electorate
putting so much pressure on governments that they are obliged to take a stand
against powerful interests. It doesn’t matter what weapons governments use to
confront these interests: what counts is their willingness to use them. A
system which undermines public involvement, boosts the power of the financial
markets and reduces love and passion and delight to a column of figures is
unlikely to enhance the protection of the natural world.
Nos. 9,
10, 11, 12 at end.
Contents #13
Dick,
Moyers & Co.: Victims of US Capitalism in
Scheer, Predatory Takeover, The Great Stickup
Taibbi, Big
Banks Price-Fixing
Dick,
Warrior Capitalism
Taibbi,
Everything Rigged
Leech,
Capitalism Genocidal, Rev. by Sethness
Richard
Wolff
Kroll,
2012 Elections and Billionaires
Remedies
Gibson,
Public Banking
Contents #14
Leibovich:
US Capitalism
Cox: The
Market as God
Moyers:
Freeland, Taibbi, Income Inequality
Birdsell: Poverty of Working Poor
Ockert: SNAP Handouts Help Short-term
GLOBAL
Hedges: Global US Capitalism, World’s Elites vs.
World’s Poor
Trainor: And Climate Change, 180 Degree Turn Needed
Now
Bennett:
Faulkner: Over-accumulation of Capitalism:
Defenders of a Modified Capitalism
Admati and
Hellwig: Changing the Banking System
Haque:
Changing the Economic System
Strong and
Mackey: Conscious Capitalists Can Solve World’s Problems
Welch:
Positive Vision Needed
Contents #15 Nov. 22, 2013 (11
essays)
DEREGULATION/MONEY
COUP AND DESTRUCTION OF DEMOCRACY
Frontline,
JPMorgan Fined $13 Billion, the Price of Business as Usual
Hedges (2
essays on disintegrating
Moyers
& Company: Interview of Heather
Gerken and Joyce Appleby
Moyers
& Co., Interview of Gretchen Morgenson, Author of Reckless Endangerment
Nichols
and McChesney, Dollarocracy
Gotesdiener, A Dream Foreclosed: Black
NEW
SUSTAINABLE, ECONOMICALLY JUST, DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM
Senator
Sanders, Morally and Economically Sound Budget
Speth, Manifesto for a New Economy
Appleby,
Libertarian View of Flexible Capitalism
Brown,
Costa Rican (and North Dakotan!) Public Banking
Contents #16,
US “Free”-Market, Unregulated Greed
Parramore,
Ayn Rand
Video
Documentary, Frontline, “To Catch a
Trader”
Dick:
Michael
Klare: Carbon Dioxide Increasing
Building a New Economic System
Pierce, Economic
Bill of Rights Needed vs. Corporations
Chomsky,
An Economic System for the Common Good
Weissmann,
A Different Federal Reserve
Hedges,
Public Banks, the
Bradbery,
Adequate Regulatory Oversight
Stephenson
and Miodema, Volker Rule One Step
The
People’s Ally, Public Citizen
Staggenborg,
Pledge to Amend, Anti-Corruption Act Petition
US
“FREE”-MARKET, UNREGULATED CAPITALISM
Ayn Rand Destroys CEO's Empire
Lynn Parramore, AlterNet, Reader Supported News, Dec. 10,
2013.
Parramore writes: "Lampert created a business model
predicated on the notion that the invisible hand of the market would magically
drive stellar results. With his belief in economic fairy tales, he managed to
kill the goose that laid his own golden egg."
GOOGLE
SEARCH, PBS, FRONTLINE, Martin Smith, “To Catch a Trader” Documentary, Jan.
6, 2014, Page One
1.
Video: "To Catch a Trader"
Preview | Watch ... - PBS
Video
video.pbs.org/video/2365136973
FRONTLINE
correspondent Martin Smith goes inside the dramatic hunt that uncovered the
biggest insider trading scandal in U.S. history,
drawing on ...
2.
To Catch a Trader |
FRONTLINE | PBS
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/to-catch-a-trader/
To Catch
a Trader ... In a
never-before-published video, hedge fund titan Steven A. Cohen, whose firm this week pleaded
guilty to securities fraud, describes ...
3.
Video: "To Catch a Trader"
Preview | Watch FRONTLINE ... - KERA
www.kera.org/index.php?banner_id=861
Jan 7, 2014 - FRONTLINE
correspondent Martin Smith goes inside the dramatic hunt that uncovered the
biggest insider trading scandal in
4.
Frontline To Catch A Trader | WTTW
Chicago - Daily Schedule
schedule.wttw.com/episodes/281564/Frontline/To-Catch-A-Trader/
From small-time options trader to King of Wall Street hedge fund
managers, ... SAC Capital, and other Wall Street
characters with never-before-seen video and ...
5.
"To Catch a Trader" PBS
Frontline Video Preview,
Jan 7th, 2014 ...
www.stockjocknroll.com/pbs7jan/
3 days ago - FRONTLINE
Coming January 7th – correspondent Martin Smith goes inside the dramatic hunt
that uncovered the biggest insider trading ...
6.
"To Catch a Trader" Preview
| Watch Frontline PBS Full Episodes ...
www.thirteen.org/programs/.../to-catch-a-trader-previe...
Dec
12, 2013
... scandal
in
7.
To Catch A Trader |
Frontline | Wisconsin Public Television
wptschedule.org/episodes/44839735/Frontline/To-Catch-A-Trader/
To Catch
A Trader. Billionaire Steven A. Cohen and the largest insider trading
scandal in
8.
Frontline: To Catch A Trader » TV
Programs on Iowa Public Television
www.iptv.org › Programs › Frontline
That's how the CDC describes a frightening new threat
spreading... 02:00. FRONTLINE | Preview "Hunting the Nightmare
Bacteria" | PBS Play Video ...
9.
FRONTLINE | Preview "To Catch A Trader" | PBS - YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I4823bx0So
21
hours ago - Uploaded by PBS
This video is unavailable. Alert icon. You need
Adobe Flash Player to watch this video. Download it from
Adobe.
10.
Frontline: To Catch a Trader Episode
Online | DIRECTV
www.directv.com › DIRECTV
Everywhere › TV Shows › Frontline
Watch Frontline (To Catch a Trader) on DIRECTV. An
ongoing seven-year investigation into insider trading includes a profile of
Steven A. Cohen and his ...
Why Aren’t Big Bankers in Jail?
By Janine Jackson.
EXTRA! (Jan. 2014).
“The man in charge of a bank that engaged
in massive mortgage fraud [Jamie Dimon] chatted with a corporate media host
(CNBC Squawk on the Street, 7/12/13) about the fact that virtually none of
those who enriched themselves while eviscerating the life savings of many
blameless people, derailing the US economy along the way, have faced criminal
prosecution: Jim Cramer: Shouldn't they have indicted somebody who actually did
bad things in banking? JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon: I think if someone did
something wrong, they should go to jail. Cramer: Well, who did? Who went to
jail? Dimon: One of the great things about
Michael
T. Klare | Peak Oil Is Dead, Long Live Peak Oil!
Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch, 09 January 14 PM, Reader Supported News
Klare writes: "As the year begins, we know more about
what's in our future with somewhat greater certainty and, generally speaking,
as record amounts of carbon dioxide continue to pour into the atmosphere, we’re
doing remarkably little about it."
READ MORE
Building a New Economic System
WE
NEED A BILL OF RIGHTS THAT PROTECTS THE PEOPLE NOT ONLY FROM THE GOVERNMENT BUT
FROM THE CORPORATIONS [The UN’s Universal Declaration of
Human Rights helps, but The Earth Charter is better. –Dick]
The Tyranny of the Brand
What good is a Bill of Rights if it protects us
(increasingly thinly) against government, but subcontracts the job of abridging
those rights to every other institution that affects our lives and well-being?
s the day went on, I heard
an unfortunate number of progressive friends address the issue of the
suspension of the crackerfamilias with the flat assertion that the First
Amendment doesn't apply to corporations and that therefore, A&E was within
its rights to suspend the guy. (Which, as Steve M. points out, isn't really a suspension but rather that the crackerfamilias is
sort of banned from A&E world HQ while his program is on hiatus, which many
of the show's fans likely believe is a form of hernia.) I do not deny the basic
legal correctness of this point, but I do wonder if progressives should be
quite so blithe about it.
The Bill Of Rights is supposed
to be durable and universal. Now, though, in our schools and in our workplaces,
it has taken a severe beating. Regularly scheduled drug testing without cause
eviscerates the protections of the Fourth And Fifth Amendments. Just this week,
Senator Professor Warren proposed a bill that would decouple credit checks from
the application process, which at least is a step toward reasserting a right to
privacy. To say that, well, Phil Robertson doesn't have a First Amendment right
to a TV show is only to make half an argument. What good is a Bill of Rights if
it protects us (increasingly thinly) against government, but subcontracts the
job of abridging those rights to every other institution that affects our lives
and well-being? As it happens, I had disciplinary action taken against me at
the last newspaper I worked for because of things I had written on the
Esquire.com Politics blog prior to coming to work here full time. When I asked
my immediate supervisor why this happened, he replied, "My primary
obligation is to the company." (I looked down to make sure I wasn't
wearing a nametag with the word Wal Mart on it.) If I showed you the official
letter of reprimand, you wouldn't believe that it actually was written by
anyone who worked for a newspaper in any capacity except hawking it from a
steam grate. They were within their rights to do what they did, but if you
believe in civil liberties, you have to start wondering how truncated those
liberties are in daily life.
And my
favorite left-wing
left-winger passes
along another story from
within this rapidly expanding gray area.
According
to the new policy,
"improper use of social media" includes any "communication
through social media that":
"ii. when made pursuant to (i.e. in furtherance of) the
employee's official duties, is contrary to the best interest of the
university"; "iv. subject to the balancing analysis required by the
following paragraph, impairs discipline by superiors or harmony among
co-workers, has a detrimental impact on close working relationships for which
personal loyalty and confidence are necessary, impedes the performance of the
speaker's official duties, interferes with the regular operation of the
university, or otherwise adversely affects the university's ability to
efficiently provide services. "In determining whether the employee's
communication constitutes an improper use of social media under paragraph (iv),
the chief executive officer shall balance the interest of the university in
promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its
employees against the employee's right as a citizen to speak on matters of
public concern, and may consider the employee's position within the university
and whether the employee used or publicized the university name, brands,
website, official title or school/department/college or otherwise created the
appearance of the communication being endorsed, approved or connected to the
university in a manner that discredits the university. The chief executive
officer may also consider whether the communication was made during the
employee's working hours or the communication was transmitted utilizing
university systems or equipment. This policy on improper use of social media
shall apply prospectively from its date of adoption by the
Does your job own your civil
liberties when you're off the clock? Does it own your thoughts, expressed
freely, when you're home? Are we saying that the government can't abridge your
constitutional rights, but that The Brand can? If you answer instantly, "yes,"
think again about what you're saying, and about the kind of country in which
you want to live.
Noam Chomsky, How Can We Escape the
Curse of Economic Exploitation? Noam
Chomsky, AlterNet, 09 January 14, Reader Supported News
Chomsky writes: "Concern for the common good should impel
us to find ways to cultivate human development in its richest diversity."
READ MORE
Steve
Weissman, Learning to Love the Federal Reserve.
Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News , 09 January 14,
Weissman writes: "At the risk of being tarred and
feathered, let me suggest that a very different Federal Reserve could become an
indispensable tool for extending politically conscious, democratic control to
the nation's economy."
READ MORE
Contribute to RSNBecome a Fan of RSN on FacebookFollow RSN on Twitter
NEED FOR PUBLIC
OVERSIGHT AND SAFEGUARDS
Standing Up to
Corporate Power
April3
You’d think the financial
crash in 2008 would have taught us some lessons. But apparently, we haven’t
learned. Despite the fact that deregulation – which allowed the big banks and
financial institutions to operate without oversight – contributed to the near
collapse of the economy just a few years ago, we still haven’t instituted the
safeguards needed to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
“Reality Check: The Forgotten Lessons of Deregulation
and Unsung Successes of Sensible Safeguards,” a
book released today at an event at Public Citizen, provides an in-depth look at
how deregulation derailed the economy and puts forth a series of case studies
that counter allegations made against public protections in recent years. The
book is by our own Taylor Lincoln, research director of Public Citizen’s
Congress Watch program.
Watch
video of the discussion moderated by Public Citizen’s Taylor Lincoln (pictured)
at the reception for the release of the new book, “Reality Check.”
“Four years ago, hardly
anybody disputed that the housing bubble and financial crisis cried out for
better regulation, but that lesson was soon forgotten,” said Lincoln. “We hope
that our book will provoke a more thoughtful debate moving forward.”
“Reality Check” chronicles
the damage caused by insufficient oversight of mortgage lending, financial
derivatives, commodities and residential electricity services. The book
illustrates that even the bailed-out mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac, which were often incorrectly portrayed as government agencies, succumbed
because of a shortage of government oversight.
“Reality Check” also debunks
myths that have flourished in recent years about how safeguards work.
Today’s symposium at our Washington, D.C., headquarters featured
a discussion with Neil Barofsky, a federal prosecutor who was chosen to serve
as the special inspector general overseeing the $700 billion Troubled Asset
Relief Program; Brooksley Born, former chairperson of the Commodity Futures
Trading Commission; and former U.S. Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), who was
instrumental in creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (You can watch a video of the event here.)
The discussion was lively
and fascinating, and the speakers were surprisingly candid about the challenges
of crusading against powerful Wall Street interests. For instance, Barofsky
recounted how he was told that it wouldn’t be in the best interest of his
long-term career to be too hard on the banks. The solution Barofsky and others
advocate: breaking up the big banks.
Want to get the book? You can order it for your Kindle via
Amazon by going tohttp://www.amazon.com/Reality-Check-ebook/dp/B00C11TJY4.
Or you can download individual chapters at http://www.citizen.org/reality-check-lessons-of-deregulation-successes-of-safeguards-ebook.
Contrary to claims that new
rules are written by civil servants with little oversight, the book provides
case studies illustrating that federal agencies are among the most regulated
entities in the United States. Agency obligations have slowed the rulemaking
process to a crawl.
For instance, the book
recounts a 12-year saga surrounding the effort to complete a much-needed and
uncontroversial update to a rule on the operation of cranes. More broadly, the
book documents that delays in completing workplace rules concerning
well-understood hazards have resulted in tens of thousands of avoidable
illnesses and injuries.
Members of Congress often
accuse agencies of handing down rules willy-nilly without oversight. But the
rulemaking process has become so cumbersome that agencies fail to meet
deadlines set by Congress nearly 80 percent of the time.
Meanwhile, the allegations
surrounding public safeguards have kept many in the public arena from
understanding that such rules tend to be well-crafted. A series of case studies
in the book shows that regulations have a remarkable track record of success.
Not only do rules tend to exceed their public protection objectives, they often
do so at a fraction of predicted costs and to the benefit of industries that
earlier fought mightily to stop them.
Finally, the book revisits
the oft-recited trope that regulations are responsible for “killing jobs.”
Numerous studies have found that new public safeguards have a beneficial effect
on employment. Meanwhile, surveys have consistently found that small businesses
rate regulations low on their list of concerns when contemplating whether to
hire new employees.
“Reality Check” is available on Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Check-ebook/dp/B00C11TJY4.
Individual chapters can be downloaded by going tohttp://www.citizen.org/reality-check-lessons-of-deregulation-successes-of-safeguards-ebook.
The event can be viewed at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/30825643.
Angela Bradbery is director of
communications for Public Citizen.
Overthrow the Speculators
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From TRUTHDIG
Posted on Dec 29, 2013
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AP/Richard Drew |
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Traders work at the Goldman Sachs posts on
the floor of the |
By Chris
Hedges
Money, as Karl Marx lamented, plays the largest part in
determining the course of history. Once speculators are able to concentrate
wealth into their hands they have, throughout history, emasculated government,
turned the press into lap dogs and courtiers, corrupted the courts and hollowed
out public institutions, including universities, to justify their looting and
greed. Today’s speculators have created grotesque financial mechanisms, from
usurious interest rates on loans to legalized accounting fraud, to plunge the
masses into crippling forms of debt peonage. They steal staggering sums of
public funds, such as the $85 billion of mortgage-backed securities and bonds,
many of them toxic, that they unload each month on the Federal Reserve in
return for cash. And when the public attempts to finance public-works projects
they extract billions of dollars through wildly inflated interest rates.
Speculators at megabanks or investment firms such as Goldman Sachs
are not, in a strict sense, capitalists. They do not make money from the means
of production. Rather, they ignore or rewrite the law—ostensibly put in place
to protect the vulnerable from the powerful—to steal from everyone, including
their shareholders. They are parasites. They feed off the carcass of industrial
capitalism. They produce nothing. They make nothing. They just manipulate
money. Speculation in the 17th century was a crime. Speculators were hanged.
We can wrest back
control of our economy, and finally our political system, from corporate
speculators only by building local movements that decentralize economic power
through the creation of hundreds of publicly owned state, county and city
banks.
The establishment of city, regional and state banks, such as the state public bank in North Dakota, permits
localities to invest money in community projects rather than hand it to
speculators. It keeps property and sales taxes, along with payrolls for public
employees and pension funds, from lining the pockets of speculators such as Jamie
Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein. Money, instead of
engorging the bank accounts of the few, is leveraged to fund schools, restore
infrastructure, sustain systems of mass transit and develop energy
self-reliance.
The Public
Banking Institute, founded by Ellen
Brown, the author of “Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our
Money System and How We Can Break Free,” Marc
Armstrong and
other grass-roots activists are attempting to build a system of public banks.
States such as
“The debate about
public or private control of the monetary system has been going on for hundreds
of years,” Armstrong, the executive director of the Public Banking Institute,
said when I reached him by phone. “The American Revolution had everything to do
with who controlled our economic destiny. The money supply is central to that
control.
“When a public bank such as the bank in North Dakota funds
infrastructure projects the interest costs, which [otherwise] are often 50
percent or more of a project, in essence fall to zero because the interest is
returned to same people who own the bank and paid the interest in the first
place,” said Armstrong, who previously worked for IBM Finance. “[Americans
typically] hold labor costs under a microscope, but ... don’t hold interest
costs under a microscope.
The Bank of North Dakota, the vision of socialists from a century
ago, has been in operation for 90 years. It offers the state’s farmers and
businesses low interest rates on loans. After floods
destroyed much of
1 2 NEXT PAGE >>> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/overthrow_the_speculators_20131229
SEC Votes to Adopt Volcker Rule to Ban Proprietary Trading
Emily Stephenson and Douwe Miedema, Reuters, Reader Supported News, Dec. 10,
2013
Stephenson and Miedema report: "U.S.
regulators toughened key sections of the Volcker rule's crackdown on Wall
Street's risky trades on Tuesday as
they finalized one of the harshest reforms after the credit meltdown."
READ
MORE
[But “harshest”? Harsh?
Have any of the reforms been harsh?
Even altogether have they been adequate to end the corruption and
boom-bust fluctuations at the injurious heart of the market system? Other essays in this newsletter suggest
not. –Dick]
Some bank regulation finally
passed
http://www.occupydemocrats.com/volcker-rule-approvedwall-street-cries/
"On
Tuesday, December 10, 2013, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
along with 4 other agencies passed the Volcker Rule,
while a 5th agency has stated it will also pass the rule, but behind closed
doors. The Volcker Rule is a huge win for President Obama in regards to
financial reform, fundamentally changing the way banks on Wall Street operate
and severely limit the relationship between commercial and investment banks.
More
specifically, the new law separates investment banking, private equity and
proprietary trading (hedge fund) sections of financial institutions from their
consumer lending arms.
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The future of the amendment
movement is here
Rick Staggenborg
[staggenborg4senate@hotmail.com]
Rick Staggenborg
[staggenborg4senate@hotmail.com]
Tuesday, January
28, 2014 4:35 PM
There
is great news regarding the move to end corporate rule in the
This
pledge strategy is essentially what Represent US has been pushing to get reform
legislation passed by planning a campaign to call for pledges of support of
congressional candidates for the Anti-Corruption
Act.
Now
RepresentUS has teamed up with Free Speech for People to launch a joint
petition calling for BOTH the Act and an amendment. This is a significant
breakthrough and the timing is fantastic! We are organizing in
http://www.soldiersforpeaceinternational.org/p/pledge-to-amend-campaign.html
If we
successfully build a movement in Oregon that mobilizes people to attend
campaign events and make the issue prominent, I fully expect the strategy to be
adopted by other groups working on the issue and go national in time to affect
the 2012 elections.
Please
help by signing and sharing this petition.
https://represent.us/action/united-against-corruption/
Rick
In
solidarity for peace and justice,
Rick Staggenborg, MD
Board President, Take Back America for the People
Founder, Soldiers For Peace International
http://www.soldiersforpeaceinternational.org/2011/01/asymmetrical-warfare.html
Coos Bay, OR
541-21
Contents #9 Nov. 12, 2012
Hedrick
Smith, Who Stole the American Dream?
To
Schneiderman: Prosecute or Resign
Taibbi,
Why Government Doesn’t
Barofsky, Bailout on TARP
Nader:
Where Were the Whistleblowers?
Freeland, Plutocrats
Reich,
Book on US Capitalism
Reich,
Interviewed About US Capitalism
Survey: Confidence in Capitalism Declines
Wolf: Global Financial Fraud
Looking
Back at Capitalist Greed, PBS: Remember
the Triangle Fire
Contents #10
Ha-Joon
Chang, About Capitalism
Gibney
Video:
Hacker and
Pierson: Winner-Take-All Politics
Bybee, War
on Wages
Foster and
McChesney, Monopoly-Finance Capital
Pollin,
Full Employment
Wenz,
Progressive Taxation
Mondiot,
Unregulated Capitalism and Climate Change
Williams,
Socialism
Contents #11
Taibbi,
Lies about Bailout
Ad Busters
on US Capitalism
Ad Busters
on Canadian Capitalism
Moyers & Co. Programs
Richard
Wolff’s Books
Jim
Wallis, Serving the Common Good
Contents #12
Animated
Film on Nature of Capitalism
Connaughton,
Moyers
Interviews Sheila Bair and Richard Wolff March 22
Stagnation
Tunnel
People and Economic Collapse
Dauvergne
and Lister, Corporate Takeover of
Sustainability
Smil, What
We Have Taken from Nature
Blinder,
Cause and Cure of Economic Crisis
Leopold,
World of Top Hedge-Fund Managers
Garson,
How the 99% Lives in the Recession
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