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Too Big to Fail is Too Big
In a September 22, 2008 interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, Senator Bernie Sanders famously said that if a bank "is too big to fail, it probably is too big to exist." That should be a watchword slogan of any effort to fix the financial system. Major responsibility for the financial collapse rests with the deregulation process that allowed for the consolidation of banking power in the hands of Wall Street. Reversing that process should be an immediate priority.
Before Wall Street there was Main Street
I recall the time when banks were community institutions that were limited by law to being single outlet community service organizations. It was called unitary banking. Each bank was rooted in and expected to serve the needs of its community. Deregulation unleashed a wave of consolidation through mergers and acquisitions that shifted the focus from serving Main Street to making as much money as possible for Wall Street. To have a financial system that works, we must reverse the deregulation process and restore the concept of community banking. Nothing less is going to solve the problem.
Wall Street holds government hostage
In a March 8, 2009 CBS Sixty Minutes interview with Sheila Blair, head of the FDIC, it was noted that when one of the smaller banks fails, it is taken over by the FDIC. The depositors are protected by the FDIC. The owners, however, lose everything.
In the interview with Blair, which comes toward the end of the segment documenting the FDIC take over of a small failed bank, she notes that the FDIC doesn't have the jurisdiction to take over the large Wall Street financial conglomerates that bear the major responsibility for the financial collapse. As the moderator points out, the owners and managers of the small banks are left with nothing. The big banks get government bailouts.
Of the latter Blair says, "Going forward, I think we need to really review the size of these institutions and whether we should do something about that, frankly... I think that may be something that Congress needs to think about... I think taxpayers rightfully should ask that if an institution has become so large that there is no alternative except for the taxpayers to provide support, should we allow so many institutions to exceed that kind of threshold?"
It is encouraging that this question is being raised by a top government official in the financial sector as it is exactly what Congress needs to address. Unfortunately, the FDIC is not acting on the advice of its own head. Rather than breaking up the bank it took over in Chicago and selling each of its five branches individually to local investors to operate as local community banks, the FDIC quickly sold the whole operation to a larger regional bank, moving in exactly the opposite direction from that Blair is herself suggesting. Of course moving toward greater consolidation under a bigger established bank is a lot easier for the FDIC than selling individual banks to individual investor groups that may have very little banking experience. Moving to deconcentration and decentralization takes serious effort.
Bailout now, solutions later
The need to break up big banks also came up in a March 15, 2009 episode of Sixty Minutes in what is billed as the first ever media interview with a Federal Reserve chairman. In this interview Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke discusses the Fed's functions and its response to the financial crisis.
In Part I. Bernanke makes explicit reference to a trillion dollars the Federal Reserve has loaned to troubled banks at a near zero interest rate in the hope they will use it to get credit flowing again. He explains that the Fed essentially printed the money simply by entering numbers into the Federal Reserve accounts of the assisted banks. This is essentially giving the private banks that created the crisis free use of a trillion dollars. There is no mention in the interview about who received the money, how it is being used, what rules apply, or whether there is any oversight.
Bernanke argues that given the emergency, the Fed must give priority to getting money flowing through the banking system by pouring in money. He mentions a need to implement new regulatory measures and force the break up of the big banks, but calls for doing so after the system is stabilized.
In Part II, the 60 minutes moderator asks Bernanke: "How do we prevent this from occurring another time?" Bernanke responds: "Well, tougher regulation of large firms. It includes having a set of laws that allows us to wind down a large, internationally active firm, without the adverse impacts on the markets that a disorderly bankruptcy would have. It includes possibly having a systemic regulator. A regulator that has some responsibility to look at the system as a whole."
Restructure first
At first glance, Bernanke's plan for stability first and restructuring later sounds sensible and responsible. It is, however, technically and politically naive. You can't fill a bucket with no bottom. Wall Street institutions have already demonstrated that they can divert bailout money to private ends with no evident public benefit as fast as government can pour it in.
Assume for the sake of argument that the Federal Reserve is successful and the big banks do open the flow of credit to productive ends. Will Wall Street reform follow?
Not likely. The pressure will be off and Wall Street interests will be in full voice shouting: "The system is working. Interference by government is an unwarranted socialist intrusion on the market and private interests. It will have terrible consequences for the economy." Politicians who depend on Wall Street political donations will fold their reform tent, and Wall Street will get on with creating the next financial bubble in a build up to the next crash.
Wall Street will continue to play out its extortion racket so long as the public is willing to put up with the bail out first, reform latter capitulation of the Federal Reserve and the FDIC. There must be a strong and immediate public demand to restructure first.
The government needs to take over the big banks now, as many leading economists are advocating. Sorting out the tainted assets after the banks are nationalized will be a great deal easier and cheaper.
Once cleaned up, government should sell the banks to private investors, but not to Wall Street predators to run into the ground again. Break them up and sell the pieces to local investors to operate as community banks, mutual savings and loan associations, and credit unions within a strict regulatory framework that restores the concept of individual local banks devoted to meeting the financial service needs of their communities. Never again should any private bank be accountable only to Wall Street or be too big to fail.
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Show AllIt is encouraging that this line of thinking is starating to gain momentum. The people are fuming mad. Despite the propaganda on the MSM, most people are well aware that they have been screwed by Wall St. and sold out by Washington.
This line of thinking is not gaining ANY momentum in the Obama Administration. Tim Geithner recently said "large financial firms (banks and insurance) need to be more closely supervised", thereby implying that Wall Street's too big to fail paradigm is here to stay.
The pharmaceutical industry is now jumping on the bandwagon. We now read of another big new pharma merger each week that will assure that the merged firms will be too big to fail and will also qualify for never ending enhanced corporate welfare.
Of course it's not going to.
The Obama administration is all Wall Street.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7886780711843120756&ei=yO_BSee2M6S2qAPIpszbAQ&q=obamma+myth&hl=en
Check them all out: all members of the Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, and Council on Foreign Relations. All Wall Street, all in the interests of the private bankers that own the Federal Reserve, that control this country, that is behind and profit from all the wars, that engineered the financial crisis, and that continues to enslave the people.
No presidency has been more in the hands of Wall Street than the Obama presidency.
Obama is a bigger con man than Clinton and a bigger liar and thief than Bush ever could be. Yet the American public is so stupid and gullible, they think he walks on water. There will come a time when the American public will wake up, and this presidency will go down as a worse failure than the Bush presidency. His agenda is not that of the people but of the banks. That's why he is reversing every promise he made for change and for peace. That's why he is now 100% behind extraordinary rendition, torture, wiretapping, and imprisoning people indefinitely without being charged. Liar, liar, liar. Yet he's still Malcolm X and MLK to the gullible.
if people were truly "fuming mad" there would be 5 million or so marching on washington. until that happens, nothing will change.
Where are the millions of people who showed up in DC on that freezing inauguration day? Until they return to DC and set up camp in front of the white house, Obama will continue to pander to Wall St.
People are fuming mad but willing to give Obama an opportunity to implement the "change" he promised during his campaign.
As more jobs, homes and health insurance coverage are lost while the vipers continue to reward themselves, people will either storm Capitol Hill or they will walk away from their liabilities. Credit Card debt alone in this country excedes $2 Trillion.
As analysts have pointed out: "By effectively transferring the risks underlying the credit crisis to governments, sovereign risk becomes the focal point for credit uncertainty.....On the road to recovery, now paved with sovereign risk."
Does anyone believe that China will continue to throw money at a country that can't pay its debts?
Yes, people are fuming and becoming well aware of the heists that are taking place in broad daylight.
As Darryl Schoon said in one of his articles: "Governments are using taxpayer money and future taxpayer obligations to bail out banks, a solution designed to perpetrate the bankers system of credit and debt, not to solve the problem or to fix its cause.....Their fraud is becoming apparent because their game of credit and debt is collapsing and the system is being questioned as never before."
“Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the grace of the Eternal God, will rout you out.” – President Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was one of many former presidents who warned us of the predatory nature of the banking system. Global citizens are now realizing the extent of the fraud, now that the system is collapsing and their hard-earned dollars are propping up the perpetrators.
There has been much discussion about resurrecting FDR to right the economy.
When it comes to breaking up outfits that are too big to fail we need to resurrect TR. For breaking up trusts (monopolies that were too big too fail), Teddy Roosevelt was kicked out of the Republican Party in 1908, the Democrats wouldn't take him in, so he formed the Bull Moose party, campaigned for president in 1912, during which he was shot by a Wall Street goon (injured but not killed).
Yes! We need another "Trust Buster" like Teddy Roosevelt.
Korten sez: "(Bernanke) mentions a need to implement new regulatory measures and force the break up of the big banks, but calls for doing so after the system is stabilized."
***
I imagine this will look somewhat like the 'regulatory measures' placed on balloon flight after the Hindenburg was 'stabilized'.
I imagine this will look somewhat like the 'regulatory measures' placed on balloon flight after the Hindenburg was 'stabilized'.
lmao
I love it...
Not that it will happen or even be considered, but each step needs to happen at once and immediately:
One - we need to nationalize, eliminate, neuter (or all options) the Federal Reserve; they are not accountable, not responsive, not transparent and not a solution to any problem unless you are one of the financial giants - who own them and whom they serve.
Two - nationalize any and all banks that cannot pass a stress test; clean their assets and sell the healthy banks to private investors
Three - declare null and void every single credit default swap owned by anyone; no more taxpayer money to pay off the winners of these legal but immoral bets
Four - pass regulations to oversee financial institutions, separate commercial and investment banks; separate insurance from investment banks; limited the size and scope of all banks and financial institutions
Five - remove from office, any Congressman or Senator who helped create this legal mess (public campaign financing, term limits - not grandfathered, forced free airtime for real debates)
They hate us because of our freedom! Right, and I have this bridge....
We never hear about "diseconomy of scale" whereby institutions get too big to succeed.
I learned yesterday from wikipedia that there is only 137 billion in gold in "Deep Storage" at Ft Knox.
That is the total amount of gold of the US government!
The Federal Reserve Bank in NY has 160 billion in its underground vault, but the USA does not own the gold in NYC.
We are just keeping it free of charge for the European Banks as a "courtesy" and the exact amounts for each are not known because of Swiss banking secrecy law.
Cheers
There are entire sets of false dichotomies coming home to roost
- the idea that it is possible for taxes to be used for foreign military adventure and that to not do so will compromise the safety, health and stability of civilian society
- that the corporate golem structure actually has a place in civil society and we cannot live without it
- that corporate leadership is more important than the labor that produces and that labor cannot benefit unless the corporation benefits
- that it is possible to have a media oligarchy predicated on scientific research for the purpose of maximizing access to the emotional basis of loyalty and that such a structure is good for civil society because it does not know what is in its own good
- that all and more of the above can be perpetually extrapolated without any risk to the common resource base of the planet and that common sense, community and faith are 'quaint' rather than fundamental necessity
These reflect the devolution of mimetic violence where a premise is asserted that nature is inanimate, does not change with over exploitation and pollution. That human populations are expendable and have no diversifying value, only commerce has diversification value - and then only under duress.
Meet the mind of solipsistic monoculture. Check on the massive monoculture and hyper activity of infrastructure construction in developing countries and the scale of monetary resources being poured into them - where does the money go?
Then look at human rights reports about those developing countries.
I highly recommend readers read David's new book: "AGENDA FOR A NEW ECONOMY."
This was published less than 8 weeks ago and it is an excellent overview of the problem (phantom wealth created by Wall Street speculators) and how to fix it (return to Main Street, local, sustainable, responsible business).
Through my church here in Portland, Oregon, we had a 4-week study group session where about 30 of us went through the book together and had breakout sessions to talk in smaller groups. THIS was extremely helpful at understanding this crisis that effects so many. Listening to MSM and the echo chamber will disempower you.
Sitting here and writing on Common Dreams does little. Empower yourselves. Get the book and read it with a group of people. The solution as David points out is by widening the discussion, telling our stories and changing the Wall Street myth that they somehow create wealth.
Brian Setzler, MBA, CPA
http://GreenCPA.blogspot.com
David Korten is 100 percent on target here. We need to look at ways to break up the near monopolies of Wall Street. Why? The is a much greater risk of a few huge corporations making bad decisions, like AIG, and engage in unethical conduct in route to collapsing the world economy.
It is sickening to here these executives and their Republican apologists in congress cite free market capitalism and the market takes care of itself. They are trying to quote Adam Smith the Scottish economist that first came up with this theory. However, Adam Smith was the first to warn us against "merchant cartels" that would form and manipulate markets. I have absolutely no doubt that Smith would be totally appalled with the sheer size of AIG.
Monopolies eliminate real competition, so it is sacrilege to cite free market capitalism. The hard lesson to be learned here is when corporations and the market are not regulated, the merry band of sociopathic greedy weasels will attack and exploit the situation and the public. These SOB's fall far short of the high ethical standards Adam Smith advocated.
The concentration of banking wealth & power is immense. There are about 8300 FDIC insured banks in the U.S., having about 86,000 branches. The current top 4 banks have approximately 57% of all U.S. banking assets and deposits. No wonder these 4 are "too big to fail".
Corporate charters were once either accepted or rejected by elected representatives based upon community needs. Community service was written into these charters, and the first corporations in the U.S. were things like hospitals and universities. Then came the railroads (the first military/industrial projects requiring government socialism - i.e. land grants, or better known as seizures under 'eminent domain') and with them came the fallacious arguments that corporations should be treated as people under the law, when in fact they are property. The civil war settled the issue over whether people could be 'property'. Or so we thought. 1873 Southern Pacific Railroad vs. Santa Clara County, in spite of the words of the Judge overseeing the case, set the precedent giving corporations the rights of people to litigate under the U.S. Constitution. Since then 90% of all cases fought under the 14th amendment (written to protect freed slaves from discrimination) have been corporate cases.
Then came anti-trust legislation designed to protect the U.S. and her communities from business enterprises growing so large that they threatened the government. Monopoly was dangerous to the democratic process and measures to protect civil society were taken. These restrictions have been emasculated utterly for the last thirty years.
People argue that Socialism is strictly government ownership of the means of production, as if it were exactly the same as Stalin's or Mao's communism. Yet we have always had no trouble 'socializing' certain things like national defense, law enforcement, education, sanitation, and the building and maintenance of roads. Once our currency was public property - inflated or deflated by a vote by elected representatives, without interest or debt - as the needs of the nation dictated. Can anyone imagine what it would be like if we were all responsible for defending ourselves from criminal persons or organizations without the help of law enforcement? If such were the case then there would be absolutely no justification for the existence of government at all. Is there really any question about whether or not we should allow the existence of financial institutions whose success or failure could threaten the republic? Is there any question whether Americans should own any resource or institution which requires bailing out by taxpayers? If not, then 'personal responsibility' should rule, and these banks should fail. We need antitrust laws enforced, and this includes media as well as banking. Capitalist monopoly always leads to fascism. It is a threat to our republic. It is time to socialize the banking industry, take back our currency, and return corporations to the status of property whose primary reason for existence is public service to the nation that gave them life. "Limited Liability" has no place in a nation that believes in personal responsibility.
Good point! The Civil War was fought, in part, to settle the question of whether people could be considered property. The answer was a ragged but resounding "no".
Yet a decade later, the judicial system considered the reverse policy: Can property be people?
Having learned exactly nothing from recent history, they quietly settled on another incorrect and appallingly wrong-headed answer-- what proved to be a resounding "yes"!
Amerikan jurisprudence marches on!
· Yr Obd't Servant
The problem is not about too big or too little. The problem is that these kind of articles just continue the mainstream discourse. The writer won't get out of the box and see that it is the system that is broke and needs to be fixed. He wastes time with irrelevant topics and always rehashes old stuff. Instead he should be talking about the fact that we have but one political party in America and that the DEMS and REPUBES are branches of that party. Instead, He should be writing about the war that is being waged against the American middle-class. Writing about H1B visas which are like bullets from a gun. Everyone issued kills a job that an American could have had. He should be writing about the outsourcing of jobs from America to countries with lower wages. All of these are examples of how the middle-class is being weakened because of the actions of our political leaders. It’s a war but most of the middle-class doesn’t even know it. That’s the biggest problem.
Hoa binh
Hooray for someone that understands where the real problem is. Don't need to worry about loaning money if people don't have jobs, they won't be borrowing.
The Middle Class is learning fast.....now that Nancy Pelosi has described them as un-American for insisting that their jobs be protected and they not be burdened with the cost of non-citizens. And our President apparently feels the same.
Yeah "unamerican" -- you remember the House UnAmerican Activities Committee -- fascism at its finest.
Frankly davethered Pelosi and Reid are reminding a bit of McCarthy and his ilk.
I agree w/you since1492. I think it is by getting these messages out to as many people as possible -- they may think you're crazy at first, after all this is not what they are hearing from the mainsteam press -- but after awhile they think "you know, you just might be on to something." Hopefully, they will then want to become involved in fighting for change, forcing the plutocratic government to respond to the interests of the people, stopping the wars being waged against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, stopping the support of the murderous Israeli war machine and putting an end to the class war being waged on all of us here at home. All of us must become part of the solution and stop waiting for big daddy Obama or any other leader to save us 'cause it ain't gonna happen!
Even as we talk about "too big to fail" for financial companies, our Congress is allowing drug companies to consolidate and get even bigger. It seems we have a blind and deaf Congress (and people).
You're right, congress is indeed, "blind and deaf" and will not respond to the needs of the many. All of us,("people" as you say) recognize that things are amiss in not only this country but the world and that something must be done. Our so-called leaders that "we" -- certainly not me -- continue to put our faith in, to handle these matters (economic crises, wars etc) are simply not going to do so, they created the problems. All of us must become involved in helping to solve these problems through the sharing of information with one another, getting alternative points of view, challenging authority, organizing from the bottom up, etc. It is going to be a long struggle but power lies in our hands and not our sacred leaders. So let's all stop waiting for some savior and recognize that only we can save ourselves from this mess. As John Lennon once sang "there ain't no jesus gonna come from the sky..." From the song I FOUND OUT by John Lennon 1970.
davethered sez: "... congress is indeed, "blind and deaf" and will not respond to the needs of the many."
***
No, its members respond to those responsible for keeping them in office. If you merely add several more zeros to your campaign contribution, I believe you'll find the way clear to get a fair hearing from them.
I can barely get my head around the concept of a billion, but trillions? "This is essentially giving the private banks that created the crisis free use of a trillion dollars". Cost of Iraq invasion occupation, three trillion. National debt, 11 trillion. Does anyone really know what hose figures mean? They might as well be talking about infinity, making it up as they go, print a few more trillion and throw a few billion here, there, everywhere. Doesn't matter, it's just numbers and dollars, abstractions.
But isn't there a danger that when abstractions get so meaningless they are no longer relevant. And when no longer relevant, void of value and function, doesn't the entire charade collapse?
"This is essentially giving the private banks that created the crisis free use of a trillion dollars"
Friend....they are not going to use it, they are going to park it in the Fed and draw interest on it. Wonder how much Banks have on deposit at the Fed now? 700 Billion? More?
Wonder if any of the banks that took bailout money have deposits there?
Is it just me or are these authors getting their titles WRONG WRONG WRONG. Instead of saying "too big to fail", shouldn't they reframe it for what it really is, "too big to succeed" ?
And why are we begging government to take over the banks when they're already spoonfeeding Wall $treet ?
Something's not adding up here or maybe I'm getting too old to keep up.
JWVerez, you're actually correct. I don't think a lot of these authors carefully write the articles out the way they used to. It would be nice if CD wouldn't dump a million redundant articles day after day but instead have it in a not so repeating manner. This would certainly cut down on the negativity on this site.
Progressive taxation can't work as long as the rich make the rules.
A direct democratically established Wealth Cap would.
"Once cleaned up, government should sell the banks to private investors, but not to Wall Street predators to run into the ground again. Break them up and sell the pieces to local investors to operate as community banks, mutual savings and loan associations, and credit unions within a strict regulatory framework that restores the concept of individual local banks devoted to meeting the financial service needs of their communities. Never again should any private bank be accountable only to Wall Street or be too big to fail."
Instead of the government selling the banks to private investors, why not put them in the hands of We the People by issuing equal non-transferable shares of stock in the banks to every American adult? Let the people hire our management and decide who to hire and fire at shareholder's online meetings. And give us a chance to recoup our losses with equal dividends for us if and when these banks become profitable. We bought them. They belong to us. Why give them to politicians to give away?
The idea of community banks is timely but it's not new. Our species benefited from localism even before its evolution from other species. Korten might frame this society's problem in the simplest way: the elites' class war on people. This way the people can focus on the problem instead of the glut of symptoms. As a symptom, the banking crisis is actually much more complex than Korten reveals. Over the past decade or so, there has been much more going on than high rolling at casino royale. Across Main St. USA, there was actually a huge glut of small town bank construction. At one point a friend of mine in the rural midwest ran upon hard times with his small independent business and went to work in construction. I asked him what exactly they were building. Banks and churches. In many midwestern small towns sit today a new bank branch on every corner next to the "golden arches". They obviously do not need all those bank branches, and yet there they are, another symptom of the elites promoting mindless economic growth against the public interests. If we emphasize the elites' general contempt/war on the public interests, then we see the connection between the bank glut and casino royale and all the rest of the symptoms. The solution seems to be changing around the K-12 curriculum to make room for a serious civics lesson, to train the kids to do their civic duty: Ostracize the elites from the society.
Flying River seems an appropriate counterpoint here
http://www.riosvoadores.com.br/show_projeto.php?id_media=973
According to data, the flying river in the Amazon (fast being cut down) can reach evaporation/respiration rates of 3,200 cubic meters per second.
This exceeds flow of the Rio Sao Francisco (2,800m3/sec) and 27 times greater than the Rio Tiete (116m3/sec).
"This gives an idea of the of the power of the flying river. That flow is equivalent to 115 days of average consumption in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo. Gerard Moss explains.
Just another beautiful reminder of the scope of Pachamama being messed with. Awesome in power and beauty - more subtle than the wind. A bit beyond the conceptual capacity of WS.
The President and Congress are giving away all the good cards without getting anything in return. The tax system remains the same benefiting the rich, the public has no control to go along with ownership interests in bailed out corporations, there is no movement on reforming the banking system through needed legislation, and the amount of money used to assist in job creation is less than one tenth of the money given to financial institutions in money or guarantees. Do Congress or the American People really believe that reform can be achieved after the store has been given away? Hail No ! Yet, the people do nothing!
On PBS recently, interviewer Charlie Rose asked Treasury Secretary Geithner if the O. Administration's reforms would include future laws/regs designed to prevent banks and other financial institutions from becoming 'too big to fail.'
Throughout the 1 hr interview, there was virtually no in-depth discussion of the US financial system's extensively rigged, structurally anti-democratic nature --this single query being the most 'radical' question Rose saw fit to ask and press Geithner on.
Yet even to this simple question Geithner evaded any direct answer, choosing instead to repeat claptrap about giving the faltering institutions as much taxpayer money as the 'situation requires,' including buying-out their toxic assets, etc.
If only someone like Nader or Korten had been in Rose's place...!
A useless wish, I suppose.
Korten is right about about "too big to fail" being too big, but he's wrong when he says deregulation is the problem. The problem is regulation, period. The sooner we get rid of the federal government's money monopoly, the better. When all the banking the regulations are gone and there's no mandated fiat currency, any group of people with assets will be able to start up a bank. There will be genuine competition in the banking system instead of the monopoly capitalist enterprises that we currently have. Workers will be able to take out no-interest loans and buy out their bosses, tenants will be able to buy out their landlords and so on.
Check out Kevin Carson's essay "The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand." It explains how government intervention is always used to distort the market in favor of the elite.
"When all the banking the regulations are gone and there's no mandated fiat currency, any group of people with assets will be able to start up a bank."
...and later become a monopoly, too big to fail.
Right, because having the Fed constantly pumping billions of worthless fiat into banks has nothing to do with the proliferation of unsound, concentrated banking. And because the government doesn't use banking charters and other regulations to prevent sound banks from forming and competing with the gargantuan, privileged banks, allowing them to give out loans with high interest rates. [/sarcasm]
The Political machinery has been producing political puppets for at least some
fifty years. We now have "yes men",and those who "go along to get along", and
all that other clap-trap. It was in 1975 that Congressman Wright Patman warned us that the Banking industry was taking over the government. The Bailout proves my point. Obama is simply to young and inexperienced and just another fancy talking
over-educated Ivy Leaguer. By his appointments you shall know him.
Bubba Clinton and the Bush Family outsourced our industrial base to China using
fancy terms like, "The New World Order", Privatization, Nafta, WTO, Free Trade,
and the list goes on. All these fancy terms that people do not understand in what
has become a movement by the established order to enslave us into a third world country. The Order has broken the unions, and raided the Social Security Fund to
promote their wars and help destroy our industrial base.
We need another million-man march on Washinton DC to protest what they have done to the country. We are in a major depression and it will get a lot worse before
it gets better. We produce Nothing and we cannot sell {Nothing}.
Hello
We are TheTribe2009, our mission is to eliminate pain and suffering in the world.
Currently we have two projects in development, the Citizen’s Initiative and Citizen’s Central.
The Citizen’s Initiative is a prototype for citizen development of laws and legislations that are directly
submitted to the President and appropriate congresspersons and Senators for enactment.
Citizen’s Central is a depository of demographic information for every citizen in the country.
Citizen Central is near initiation, what’s needed is the physical creation of its infrastructure.
The development of Citizen’s Central is of obvious benefit to the government, NGO’s, businesses, etc.
Since C.C. is citizen owned the government would be willing to fund the project.
Citizen’s Initiative is set to go, all the field work is complete. The platform of laws and legislation that are being offered has been determined by citizens to be implemented immediately. What remains to be done is for the citizens of the country to approve or disapprove .Provisions have been incorporated into the format presented so that if something in not approve compromise is possible.
The resources available are a few laptops and web- addresses.
Citizen’s Initiative is time sensitive because it pertains to legislation that has recently been enacted, and is scheduled to be enacted in the near future.
What we are trying to do is engage the citizen’s of the country to actively participate in creating progressive
democracy. The tools exist, thanks to all of you, for this type of dynamic democracy to manifest.
There are many revelations that developed from the process of getting citizens to personally create a platform.
The methods used to create the platform and the contents of the platform will be discussed prior to creating the infrastructue or later if you actually get a chance to vote on it.
Thank You
Frank Tarantino from : The Tribe 2009
PART TWO FOLLOWS. WE HAD 100 PEOPLE IN TWENTY FIVE CARS VISIT EVERY STATE
FROM WEST TO EAST. THEN BACK AGAIN FROM EAST TO WEST TO REFINE THE DATA WE COLLECTED
WE GOT SOME AMAZING PROPOSALS FROM PEOPLE. THAT INFORMATION AS WELL THE SPECIFIC LAWS WAITING TO BE INACTED FROM THESE PEOPLE WILL BLOW YOUR MIND.
WHAT GOOD IS IT, IF WE DON'T HAVE THE TOOLS TO PRESENT IT.
WE HAVE LOVE ,WE HAVE COMPASSION, WE HAVE INTELECT WE DON'T HAVE MONEY.
IF WE SOLD CITIZENS CENTRAL,WE WOULD BE MILLIONAIRES
WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO STORE 350,000,000 DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILES
THE CITIZEN INIT. NEEDS TO STORE A MINAMUN OF 1,000,000 NAMES.
WE DON'T HAVE TIME TO WASTE. THE LONGER WE WAIT THE MORE TRILLIONS WILL BE
GONE FROM OUR NATIONAL TREASURE,WITH NO ONE HAVING A CLUE WHERE THE MONEY WENT WHEN THE DUST SETTLES.
There will be an e-mail arriving in two or three days. It will come from thetribe2009@live .com
The content of the e-mail is a citizen’s initiative, reflecting issues the citizens of this country want the current Administration to implement immediately.
It will also include the development of citizens central which will be a central web site documenting the demographics of every person in the country. The web site will be accessible to all citizens all the time. I am sure we all understand what can be done with this information.
Admiral Poindexter had a similar idea; he wanted everything, with the government controlling all the data. Well this information is owned by the citizens of this country.
The methodology used in determining what the citizens of the country want will be included.
However the methodology will be a moot point, when all the citizens have a chance to agree or disagree with what is presented.
Obviously this kind of direct citizen involvement in establishing laws and directing policy, with the President and both houses of congress implementing the citizens’ laws and policy, has never been done before. Lobbyists and money will no longer dictate public policies.
If the President and/or congress can’t or won’t implement citizen’s directives then they can be recalled
and their position filled with a person that will represent their respective citizen’s wishes.
The I.T. requirements are:
For Citizen Central –we need a system that can accommodate three hundred fifty million people
A method of communicating to that number of people
A method for collecting that communication from the people and storing all of it
Creating a demographic questionnaire that will collect all the required variables
A software program that can organize and collate the data.
Personal information such as names, addresses, social security numbers, will be immediately dis-associated with the given data and only re-associated when there is a reason. For example a person with a disability, or someone out of a job, would be temporarily re-associated with the data and contacted if a new benefit was created for this specific group, then dis -associated again.
So giving personal information is optional, but is recommended for getting resources to the people that need or could use them. Everyone will have access to the data but no personal information will be accessible.
The only new technology needed would be a system of integrating the internet, cell phones, and television so that people with limited wide-band access would be able to use one of the three instruments available for communication.
An example, a person with a cell phone or regular phone could use the television to view the questionnaire then toggle the phone for inputting the data.
At least 95% of the people in the country have at least one of these devices, and provisions made for the other 5% so that they could participate.
The infrastructure for the citizen’s initiative would mimic that of citizen central.
The data needed to be collected would be a citizen’s name, zip code, and whether a person votes yes or no for the initiative. If a person voted no on an issue, would they be willing to compromise
This information will tell us who voted how they voted, and what district they come from. The appropriate congressperson and senator would know what the citizens of their district wanted and implement their wishes.
A person does not have to be a registered voter to participate. People that are homeless can use a shelter for an address.
That’s it; paragraphs have been added to the semi-original of the document to reach a broader group of people. I’m tired and its time to get this out into the airwaves.
I think you all can appreciate what will be needed if we collectively connect, a simple web-site will not do it.
I want to thank all of you who contributed in every which way, to make a better world, including me I hope.
From All Of Us To All Of you With Love
If the banks are nationalized, the government will become the owner of the banks’ good and bad assets and it will have to assume the banks’ contractual obligations towards their creditors, investors, and account holders. In particular, any contractual guarantees given by the banks to the owners of now-worthless risky “innovative” financial vaporware will become de facto contractual obligations of the government towards these owners.
They say that nationalization will "wipe the shareholders", etc., etc., but there is no nationalization law prescribing anything like that. On the contrary, nationalizing the banks will allow congress demoblicans to protect their billionaire friends while uttering all kinds of pompous declarations about the government’s “solemn duty to honor” the “contractual commitments” that the “glorious 2009 act of nationalization” entailed, as otherwise “the markets will lose all confidence in the USA government”, bla bla bla.
Indeed, if we ignore small-fry investors, pension funds etc., the owners of worthless financial vaporware who truly matter to demoblicans are greedy domestic and foreign billionaires who invested in the financial vaporware with full knowledge of its risks. These billionaires will lose humongous amounts of money and hence will lose much, if not most, of their economic and political power, if the “financial system” is not “saved” by the taxpayers.
That’s why the billionaires have mobilized from very early on a mighty armada of bribed economists, journalists, and politicians and ordered them to call wolf about the cataclysms that will ensue if the “financial system” fails. “Saving the financial system” is indeed the obfuscating phrase invented by these bribed economists, journalists, and politicians to try saving this neo-feudal class of billionaires that is “essential“ to what “America stands for” and to “how things should be after we help them out”, as the “radical” Paul Krugman has put it in print repeatedly.
As you may remember, in the middle ages whenever the feudal class created a mess they rescued themselves for the “sake of the country” by taxing the hell out of the serfs and the bourgeois, but now with “the triumph of liberty” all of that has changed… yeah right!
But there is no need to save the billionaires, regardless of how much money they have given to bribed economists, journalists, and politicians; and regardless of whether the flow of bribes may stop if the billionaires fail for good.
The banks should be allowed to go through an orderly bankruptcy that preserve their real-economy presence and protect the savings of their non-reckless customers and investors up to say 200k per account and up to say 1 million total net worth per person (IRS-declared), where a sliding scale could be used that reflect how "aggressive" the interest-gathering strategy chosen by each account holder was and the extent to which the account holder chose risky “lucrative” financial-speculation products over investments in actual production. The necessary paper trail is available…
One should fire everybody in the *failed* banks' upper management (because they failed, duh!) except for whistle blowers and those essential to day-to-day operations, for those managing customer accounts, and for those having expertise in evaluating loans applications by companies that produce actual goods, be they trinkets, essential insurance products, etc.
Social criteria like protecting pensions could also be used by simply dividing the amount invested by each pension by the number of people the pension represents in order to determine what the pension can get in terms of protection and for which individual accounts (since pension-holders who chose especially reckless financial-speculation products should be protected less).
So it’s not time to nationalize the losses of this self-anointed neo-feudal class of billionaires masters of the universe. Rather, it’s time to shut down their failed banks, let the greediest investors bite the dust, claw back any bailout money given so far to them and the banks, and use this and more money to jump start directly the flow of credit into the economy after “nationalizing” (hiring back!) the banks’ existing experts in locating, evaluating, financing, and following-through worthy entrepreneurial ventures in real production and giving them new institutional backing and responsibilities.
This crisis must teach harsh lessons to the most reckless of investors and bankers, and spare those investors and bankers who tried the hardest to stay away from the greedy madness of the last 30 years, even if only for moral reasons.