Do you ever have one of those moments of pause and say to yourself, what have they done!
This was my reaction to a Washington Post article, Banks 'Too Big to Fail' Have Grown Even Bigger.
The worst actors of the financial crisis, those who should have gone down in the flames they set themselves, who were rescued by our government, are now beyond belief mega financial oligarchs, limiting consumer choice and making a mockery of the phrase moral hazard:
WaPo Author Cho:
J.P. Morgan Chase, an amalgam of some of Wall Street's most storied institutions, now holds more than $1 of every $10 on deposit in this country. So does Bank of America, scarred by its acquisition of Merrill Lynch and partly government-owned as a result of the crisis, as does Wells Fargo, the biggest West Coast bank. Those three banks, plus government-rescued and -owned Citigroup, now issue one of every two mortgages and about two of every three credit cards, federal data show.
In the last quarter, the top four banks raised fees related to deposits by an average of 8 percent, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Striving to stay competitive, smaller banks lowered their fees by an average of 12 percent.
I hope every American reads this, pulls their money out of these banks and transfers their card balances to smaller banks and credit unions.
Large banks with more than $100 billion in assets are borrowing at interest rates 0.34 percentage points lower than the rest of the industry.
You know how these banks tightened their grip around the American economy and consumer? Well, Uncle Sam gave them the money and bent every last regulation to do it!
Meanwhile the FDIC raised the number of troubled banks to 416. You know, the ones that were deemed too small not to fail.
Nothing like supporting the financial oligarchy
This is what we are left w/ very little competition. If policy makers, particularly the Obama Administration, don't want to offend the oligarchy then hopefully the somewhat independent new head of DOJ Anti-Trust Division will do something. I hope.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
I saw this
and thought "disaster capitalism". It's akin to saying there is a crisis in operating systems....therefore Microsoft will be subsidized and anyone using Linux will be penalized and oh yes, we're sure Linux has Microsoft patents so we're going to shut them down, crisis over.
The Bandits Own the Bank
So Bernanke will have a few tough days of posturing by the senate panel, offer some platitudes, and evade Shelby's tough questions, then go on to confirmation. Issues such as these should be a major focus of confirmation hearings, but only if there is the will to do something about it.
Frank T.
Frank T.
FDIC press release is a good read
Is here. I suggest reading it, it's loaded with graphs and data...
reads more like an in depth article/blog post than a press release, loaded with information.
There is also this article which has more graphs, data.
Potentially extrapolating out some of the charts, data from the press release and writing up a blog post is in order.
The biggest thing is > 25% of all banks are not profitable right now.
What was that about 1930 and anybody who notices any similarities is just some psycho doom & gloom "novice"?
Simon Johnson calls it "Shock Doctrine"
Myself I sure have been looking at these latest statistics of the financial oligarchy strengthened an increase of a stratified society, the "haves and the have nots", and have been implying and thinking "I get it, the entire financial meltdown scare tactic was simply a financial oligarchy takeover"...
but Simon Johnson in this post is coming out with it much more strongly.
It's a great read and he is also trying to define a "two track" economy to further describe why a few financial elites are "green shoots" while the rest of the nation is "salted and barren" on the state of the economy.
We have a lot people saying the same things
in slightly different ways but it comes down to this:
Income inequality + Financialization + Globalization = Destruction of Middle Class
I know, Robert, you are a math geek (and purist) but this equation (I hope) simplifies things for people and policy makers.
Just kidding about the purist thing.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Who in Washington - policy makers - get it?
Who understands what is happening - that are current economic model is broken and needs systematic changes?
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
oh, that list is probably pretty short
I'd say Byron Dorgan, Bernie Sanders, looks like Alan Grayson sure smells a rat and is digging around, Kaptur, probably Defazio...
I think Barney Frank actually is getting a lot of this...
but he's a little more conservative in reality on how to handle the solution, maybe a little more Political..
but that sure beats what that committee was up to two years ago.
The Senate seems to be in the weeds (or should we say in the pockets).
These topics are also extremely difficult. You pretty much have to start studying the details and making blanket statements in absolutes out of frustration won't cut it.
But the details and evidence is there
I believe it is a matter of boiling it down to [sadly] soundbites or catch phrases for things to sink in.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
devil is always in details
Sound bytes without facts, specifics, very detailed policy changes are just noise in the machine.
That's the problem with the media stream, parsing out the gems is tough....and it is beyond belief bad on cable news...misinformation, miscategorization of issues into sound bytes...
That's how large corporate lobbyist public relations teams get their agenda through....
So, if one cannot point out specifics and why they are a problem...one cannot get those specifics changed.
But sound bytes w/facts. We have them.
I believe the challenge is translating those facts and detailed policy changes down to sound bytes. We got to play the game until we are in a position to change the rules.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Another thing
Right-wingers have done an excellent job of using their 'think-tanks' to push policy. There are a few very good left-wing or even left leaning 'think tanks' that are not being fully utilized.
Oops, I showed my partisan nature.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
policy, specifics, legislation
I'm convinced....although EP supports differing conclusions, that the "cliff diving" problems of the economy are over.
So we are going from those "OMG the world is collapsing" types of headline topics to things that are much less attention grabbing, but very relevant....i.e. we're moving into the economic situation where ongoing malaise, or what I like to call the long slow slide down of the middle class economy isn't so dramatic so it doesn't get much attention.
Plus Congress is in recess.
So, right now would be a very good time to go through either legislation that is buried in committee that is good and needed (there are the usual trade bills which of course are getting buried in committee) or policy recommendations that make a hell of a lot of sense, but of course also get ignored...
and sum up some of those bills.
I think you can do a "sound byte" headline attention grabber but in the body of the post, go into very specific details on why a policy change is needed.
For example, a histogram of all of the mergers and acquistions which paid out huge bonuses but actually hurt the overall corporate bottom line for say at least a year.
Trade data is a research project but there are economist reports/papers around as well as raw data to show we are just losing our economic ass to China.
We will have the green shoots rah, rah team point to ISM as well as industrial production and so on moving up...
but they will not scale and compare those numbers to...before NAFTA or before the China PNTR and show just how large a percentage of U.S. manufacturing moved offshore or went of of business...
you get the idea...
We've been seeing it....things like TARP is making money...
well, so far....of the banks who never needed the money in the first place....
so i.e. do not look at the concept from the beginning and was it even necessary...what was that money even used for (acquisitions) and in truth, how much is at risk....
We're getting spin on either a slope or a small result as being sort of this "yeah, rah, it's all good, now will people just go home and we will go on as usual" even though as usual got us to this point last Sept.
if we get +GDP numbers....then it will be....don't even look at the government spending involved and what it was spent on, i.e. it is pushing for sustainable growth...
it's just like the unemployment numbers, they will focus on "decline" instead of the raw numbers being beyond belief 500k+ in initial claims.
You'll see cheer leading for housing....minus the fact comparing prices, everything to 2006 or so is comparing to a bubble, which in terms of affordability plus building economic growth that isn't sustainable....
i.e. "re-inflate the bubble" is not a good idea...
so EP is a community blog right so I'm making topic suggestions if you want to push specifics...
this is all possible via EP.