Beast of the Year 2012: Paul Ryan

The votes are in, and The Konformist readers have spoken. Paul Ryan is your choice for the 2012 Beast of the Year - a choice that is well deserved.

Perhaps the biggest news story of the last year - if not of the last four years - is just how scary crazy the entire GOP has gone in the age of Obama.  And no figure has been more important in the Republican Party to the right-wing movement than Paul Ryan, currently their VP nominee in this year's election.  His 2012 federal budget plan would abolish korporate income taxes, estate taxes, taxes on capital gains, dividends and interest, and heavily reduce tax rates on the wealthy while ruthlessly cutting social programs, partially privatizing part of Social Security to Wall Street and fully privatizing Medicare.  Some would call this "Ayn Rand on Crack" (which may be an unfair smear of Ms. Rand, who was at least a gifted writer) yet all but four Republicans in the the HOR and five in the Senate voting for it.

Runner-Up: Brian Moynihan

In the unlikely event that Ryan can no longer fill his duties as Beast of the Year, Brian Moynihan is ready to take over the crown. Rest assured the BOTY trophy is in good hands either way, as Mr. Moynihan has had great Beastly practice as CEO of Bank of America.

In any case, we salute you, Paul Ryan and Brian Moynihan.  Congratulations, and keep up the great work, dudes!!!

What Past Presidents Thought About Big Banks

Stephen D. Foster Jr.
June 3, 2012
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/06/03/what-past-presidents-thought-about-big-banks

The Occupy Wall Street protesters have been standing against the big banks for a few months now. They are protesting the greed, irresponsibility, and fraud that banks like Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase commit on a daily basis. The big banks of Wall Street caused an economic collapse. As a result of that collapse, Americans suffered job losses and money losses while the banks got a bail out on the taxpayer’s dime. Not one banker has been arrested for stealing billions of dollars from the American people.

Throughout American history, big banks have sought to fleece the people and control government. They have a caused economic turmoil, social injustice, war, hunger, and crises too numerous to mention, all because of greed and a lust for absolute power. Many American Presidents have risen to challenge them and hold them accountable for their actions. So which Presidents would cheer on Occupy Wall Street? What did past Presidents think about big banks? I’ll let the quotes speak for themselves.

1. “Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.”
~John Adams

2. “The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.”
~Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1803.

3. “History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.” ~James Madison

4. “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 are a den of vipers and thieves.”
~Andrew Jackson, 1834, on closing the Second Bank of the United States

5. “I have two great enemies, the southern army in front of me and the financial institutions, in the rear. Of the two, the one in the rear is the greatest enemy….. I see in the future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of the war.”
~Abraham Lincoln

6. “Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce… And when you realise that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.”
~James Garfield (assassinated within weeks of release of this statement during first year of his Presidency in 1881)

7. “Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.”
~Theodore Roosevelt, April 19, 1906

8. “A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world– no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.”
~Woodrow Wilson

9. “We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace-business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hatred for me – and I welcome their hatred. I should like to have it said of my first administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second administration that in it these forces met their master.”
?~Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Speech at Madison Square Garden

10. “All problems, depressions, wars, disasters, assassinations, all of them were planned, caused, instigated, and implemented by the International Bankers and their attempt to establish a central bank in every country in the world, which they have now done, thanks to corrupt politicians who have been bought and paid for. This is all you need to know about the history of the world.”
~John F. Kennedy

For more than a decade now, banks have brought this country to near economic ruin. They have successfully lobbied to repeal key regulations that have prevented them from employing the harmful tactics they use to fleece the American people in the name of profit. The big banks bet against America and then expect taxpayers to bail them out when they fail. They then gamble with that money and pay their executives millions. It’s wrong and should not be tolerated. The above Presidents knew how dangerous and harmful big private banks can be. Presidents like Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt fought hard against the “den of vipers,” and the “invisible government,” and FDR had finally put the banks in their place during his own Presidency. These Presidents would most certainly stand with the Occupy protesters and would fiercely call for breaking up and regulating the big banks. The banks have grown powerful and corrupt once again and it will take another great President to rein them in. The question is, who will be that great President?

Seven Day Plan to Hold Wall Street Accountable

A Seven Day Plan to Finally Hold Wall Street Accountable
New evidence points to illegal behavior. Prosecution is the only way to keep that behavior from continuing.
Bruce Judson
Monday, 03/19/2012
http://www.newdeal20.org/2012/03/19/a-seven-day-plan-to-finally-hold-wall-street-accountable-74581

It’s now a near certainty that Wall Street executives committed felonies.

The recently released audits of robo-mortgage activities by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) details shocking behavior at the five banks constituting the Federal Housing Administration’s largest mortgage servicers. At Wells Fargo, management quashed a midlevel manager’s study of the foreclosure process as negative results began to emerge, and it gave an individual whose last job had been in a pizza restaurant the title of “vice-president of loan documentation” to facilitate robo-mortgage signing. Bank of America evaluated employees on the volume of foreclosure affidavits produced. JP Morgan Chase gave individuals titles such as “vice-president of Chase Home” where “the titles were given by Chase for the sole purpose of allowing individuals to sign documents and came with no other duties or authority.” Citigroup and Ally similarly engaged in seemingly illegal practices.

Under federal law, the knowing filing of a false affidavit with the court is a felony offense of perjury, punishable by a prison term of up to five years. An individual violates laws against perjury whether he or she personally appears in court and swears to a false statement or provides the court with a false affidavit. Individual states have their own perjury laws, which were undoubtedly violated as well. The HUD report also suggests that individual banks may be guilty of obstruction of justice and the criminal violation of the False Claims Act for filing insurance claims without following HUD requirements.

Since the start of the financial crisis, federal and state officials have been struggling to change Wall Street behavior. To date, every effort has failed miserably, and the weak enforcement provisions of the robo-mortgage settlement are unlikely to meaningfully change this dynamic. Government officials have also relied, with a very few exceptions, entirely on civil enforcement when criminal laws appear to have been egregiously violated.

The greatest moral hazard now confronting the nation is what appears to be increasingly brazen criminal activity by financial industry executives. With each decision not to prosecute, Wall Street executives justifiably conclude that they are immune to the rules. As a result, it appears that Wall Street criminal activity is increasing in frequency and severity, as opposed to the reverse. The activities surrounding the collapse of MF Global are one example.

So what can be done about it? We can change the behavior in the financial service industry for a full generation in just seven days. This plan may seem to be tongue and cheek, but it hearkens back to a similar action in the era of the Great Depression. In the final months of Herbert Hoover’s presidency, the Senate Banking Committee began an investigation into the causes of the Great Crash of 1929, and a young prosecutor named Ferdinand Pecora was appointed as Chief Counsel. Subsequently, the Roosevelt administration conveyed to Pecora that “the prosecution of an outstanding violator of the banking law would be the most salutary action that could be taken at this time. The feeling is that if the people become convinced that the big violators are to be punished, it will be helpful in restoring confidence.” Ultimately, this investigation, which came to be known as the Pecora Commission, led to the indictment of one of America’s most prominent financiers; demonstrated widespread self-dealing in the financial sector; and, as noted by historian Alan Brinkley, generated “broad popular support” for Roosevelt’s reform agenda, including the creation of the SEC and the Glass-Steagall Act.

My seven day plan is based on a simple premise: When criminal laws are egregiously violated, the guilty parties should face appropriate punishment. Here’s the plan:

Day One: Read the HUD Inspector General’s reports and the public records of past mortgage foreclosure cases from across the nation.

Day Two: Meet with the team at the Office of the Inspector General at HUD that prepared the audits. Obtain the names of all the bank officials, lawyers, and notaries whose behavior, as cited in the audit reports or otherwise known to the investigators, represent clear and unquestionable criminal violations. Add to this list other individuals who have similarly demonstrated or testified to behavior unquestionably constituting criminal acts, as indicated by the public records of the mortgage foreclosure cases reviewed in day one.

Day Three: Indict all of the individuals on the list compiled on day two.

Day Four: Indict banks and financial institutions on criminal charges where criminal behavior by employees (as demonstrated by day three indictments) appears to be endemic. The Justice Department guidelines for prosecuting firms include: (1) the pervasiveness of such activity, (2) the compliance procedures in place, (3) attempts by the corporation to end bad behavior, and (4) cooperation with federal investigators. In 2008, the Justice Department adopted a policy of accepting “deferred prosecutions,” involving agreements to change corporate behavior without damaging innocent third parties through prosecution.

Corporations receive the benefits of “legal persons,” as demonstrated by Citizens United. But they must also bear the responsibilities of these privileges. A reading of the HUD reports, and other public records, suggests several banks should clearly be prosecuted.

Day 5: Discuss plea bargains with indicted lower-level officials in return for cooperating in investigations of higher-level officials.

Day 6: Consider plea bargains with indicted banks, which require the removal of all remaining officers and directors who were serving when egregious criminal activity occurred, as well as senior officials who were in a position to exercise appropriate supervisory responsibility but chose to look the other way.

Day 7: Indict any senior Wall Street officials implicated by new cooperative testimony resulting from activities on day five. Adopt and announce a policy that future criminal violations will be prosecuted in a similar fashion.

What is particularly disturbing is that a look at the evidence already in the public domain (much less what investigators already know) shows that none of the actions discussed above are entirely absurd. The purpose of prosecution not simply punishment. It acts to deter further illegal activity and to restore public confidence in our system of governance. The nation desperately needs both of these benefits today.

Moreover, these ongoing, almost certainly criminal activities are ultimately dangerous threats to our economy, the success of capitalism, and our democracy. In his column on MF Global, Joe Nocera noted that “customers need to be able to trust” the laws protecting their money. “Otherwise, the markets can’t function.”

Today, as in the era of FDR, we must send a message to the financial community that illegal behavior will not be tolerated. By prosecuting blatant felonies now, we will deter future misbehavior and begin the process of recreating a fair society where equal justice prevails.

Bruce Judson is Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute and a former Senior Faculty Fellow at the Yale School of Management.

10 Biggest Banks Could Lose $185 Billion In Deposits Next Year

10 Biggest Banks Could Lose $185 Billion In Deposits Next Year As Customers Move Their Money Pat Garofalo on Nov 21, 2011
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/11/21/373191/banks-185-billion-deposits-loss

During “Bank Transfer Day” earlier this month, 40,000 Americans moved their money from the nation’s biggest banks to credit unions, voicing their distaste with the action’s of America’s financial behemoths. About 650,000 Americans joined credit unions in October, which is more people than in all of 2010 combined. According to cg42, a consulting firm that does work for the biggest banks, “the nation’s 10 biggest banks could stand to lose as much as $185 billion in deposits in the next year due to customer defections.” Of the banks, “Bank of America is the most vulnerable and could lose up to 10% of its customers and $42 billion in consumer deposits in the next year.”

Big Banks Plead with Customers Not to Move Their Money

November 9, 2011
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/11/big-banks-plead-with-customers-not-to-move-their-money.html

Yes, The Big Banks DO Care If We Move Our Money
650,000 customers moved $4.5 billion dollars out of the big banks and into smaller banks and credit unions in the last month.

But there is a myth making the rounds that the big banks don’t really care if we move our money. For example, one line of reasoning is that no matter how many people move their money, the Fed and Treasury will just bail out the giants again.

But many anecdotes show that the too big to fails do, in fact, care.

Initially, of course, if the big banks really didn’t care, they wouldn’t have prevented protesters from closing their accounts.

NBC notes that – in response to inquiries regarding how many people have moved their money – Bank of America refused to provide figures, and instead sent the following defensive email:

“Bank of America continues to be a great place for customers to manage their everyday finances and achieve their savings goals,” [Colleen Haggerty, a spokeswoman for Bank of America's Southern California operations] said in an email. “We offer customers more choice and convenience, including industry-leading fraud protection, access to thousands of banking centers and ATMs, and the best online and mobile banking, which allow customers to bank on their terms 24/7.”

A writer noted at Daily Kos:

At Wells Fargo, my sister walked up to the teller and politely asked to close her account. The teller said, “No problem.” She pulled up her account and saw the balance and told her that due to the amount she had to speak with the branch manager. The branch manager came out. He was probably 30 years old and was very arrogant. He asked my sister why she wanted to close her account and my sister told him she thought Wells Fargo was part of the problem with the economy. He went thru some talking points about why she shouldn’t move her money, but my sister didn’t back down. When he asked her where she was going she told him that she would be banking at the North Carolina State Employees Credit Union. She isn’t a state employee, but anyone can join if you are related to a state employee. It turns out her husband is. Anyway, the bankster told her “You’ll be back. Credit unions can’t provide the services you need.” We’ll see about that. She withdrew over $200k from Wells Fargo.

Next we went to Bank of America. I closed my last account with hardly any questions asked. Of course, I had taken most of my money out so there wasn’t much left to take. My sister on the other hand had a large balance in multiple accounts. They actually refused to cut her a check for the full amounts. They only gave her 1/3 of her money and told her she’d have to come back to withdraw the rest. They claimed they were only allowed to make checks for a certain amount, and that they had no authority to cut additional checks on the same day. Stupid BofA. She had her check in hand and politely told off the branch manager when he told her she had to come back another day or two to withdraw the rest.

At BofA, we weren’t the only ones closing accounts. There was a line of people. Most had small accounts because they weren’t even being challenged, but she actually had to wait in line to speak with a branch manager.

At SunTrust, the branch manager went off his rocker. He just kept asking her “is there anything I can do or anything I can say to change your mind?” He asked probably twenty times. He even offered to have the market executive meet with her and hear out her concerns. She told him she wasn’t interested. He really looked nervous about it.


And a writer at Daily Bail pointed out:

I went in, asked to speak with a banker and was seated in an office. When the young associate came in and asked the purpose of my visit, I handed her my ATM card and requested that she tell me the balance. When she did, I then asked for a cashiers check in that amount. That’s when things got wonky. She froze, stumbled over her words and asked why I needed that amount (It was not a small sum). This gave me an opportunity to explain that although I personally would not be affected by their new fees I know plenty of friends and family that would feel the pain. In solidarity with them, I wished to close the account and move on. She unwittingly suggested that if I just use my debit card once a month then there would be no fee. That was good for a belly laugh from me, then I again requested the balance to be issued to me in the form of a cashier’s check. She then told me that there would be a $10 fee for this service. Another laugh. I guess it didn’t sink in when I told her that I was fee adverse. There was an easy work-around anyway – I requested the cash. That finished my time with this associate banker as the amount I was requesting was “well past” her daily limit for withdrawals. I asked if there would be an issue with securing the cash and she said “I honestly don’t know if we have that here” and walked out to get the branch manager.

The manager was pleasant enough and very direct. After introducing herself she flat out asked “What can we do to change your mind?” “We don’t want to see you go” she emphasized. This opened a door for me to further explain my decision to leave the bank and why I was doing it. Amazingly, it did not fall on deaf ears. She indicated that understood where I was coming from and actually showed genuine surprise at some of the facts I provided her about the less than consumer friendly policies and machinations of her employer. She did make some feeble counter-arguments and repeatedly asked me if I would change my mind (with a hint of desperation!). I stood firm and by the end of our conversation she asked if I would be willing to put it all in writing so she could send it up the chain.

She shared that management is nervous, they are seeing money leaking out of the bank and realize that they have made mistakes…. They are also aware of the growing momentum behind the November 5th move your money movement.


Management is aware that people are angry (how could they not be!) and have put an ear to the ground.

Hundreds of similar stories are being told all over America.

Even though the government may keep throwing money at the dinosaurs, the Basel regulations do have some capital requirements, and so the big banks need to bring in some actual deposits to fund their casino gambling.

Moreover, if too many depositors leave, the illusion that the big banks are serving the American public will be burst, and a critical mass of consciousness will occur, so that the banks’ questioned control over the American political and financial systems will start to be questioned.

So moving our money is an effective step towards reclaiming America.

Foreclosure firm has Halloween party dressed as depressed homeowners

Andrew Jones
Saturday, October 29, 2011
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/29/foreclosure-firm-has-halloween-party-dressed-as-sad-homeowners

Based on their Halloween costumes from last year, it would not be surprising if employees from foreclosure firm giant Steven J. Baum dressed up this year as homeowners who’ve lost their property thanks to firms like them.

In a column from The New York Times Joe Nocera, a former employee of the Baum firm revealed that his former co-workers did indeed dress as downtrodden individuals with signs representing their depressed state. The ex-Baum employee, who Nocera kept anonymous, told the Times reporter that she wanted to show how the firm had a “cavalier attitude” towards foreclosing people’s homes.

After getting word of Nocera’s story, the firm vehemently defended itself, saying the column was “another attempt by The New York Times to attack our firm and our work.”

The Baum firm represents virtually all the prominent mortgage lending Wall Street giants, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

Support Cheri Honkala, Occupy Candidate for Sheriff of Philadelphia

Running on Platform of No Foreclosures, No Evictions
Webster G. Tarpley Ph.D.
October 27, 2011
http://tarpley.net/2011/10/27/cheri-honkala-for-sheriff-of-philadelphia

I urge support for Cheri Honkala, who is running for Sheriff of Philadelphia on a platform of no evictions and no foreclosures. Cheri Honkala may be the only Occupy candidate in the United States, and her example deserves to be imitated wherever possible. An experienced activist, Cheri is running on the Green Party ticket against a Republican and a Democrat, neither of whom has matched her pledge to protect American working people from the outrageous thievery of the banksters. Cheri knows the drama of homelessness first hand: she and her nine-year-old son became homeless and were forced to take refuge in an empty home owned by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, where she was arrested. Cheri Honkala regards housing as an inalienable human right, which places her firmly in the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Economic Bill Of Rights of January 1944. She has also called for permanent solutions to the homelessness crisis through the construction of low-cost, affordable housing.

As Sheriff of Philadelphia, Cheri is pledged to refuse to throw any family out of their homes, nor will she honor or issue any writ to that effect. She is a critic of the totalitarian Patriot Act and an advocate of the free exercise of Constitutional rights, including the economic rights implicit in the general welfare clause. She will also refuse to cooperate with the racist witch-hunts of the ICE, which has continued under Obama to conduct raids, separate families, and deport immigrant workers.

Philadelphia Needs a People’s Sheriff, Not a Robo-Sheriff for the Banksters

Cheri Honkala’s campaign is a model and paradigm for what activists should be doing all across the United States. She is showing how campaigns for elected office can cooperate with the mass strike movement more generally. Bank of America and other zombie banks have notoriously used robo-signers, bribed robo-judges, and corrupt robo-cops to steal people’s homes. As People’s Sheriff of Philadelphia, Cheri Honkala will provide a lesson in how local governments can be used to assert justice against tyranny. Philadelphia needs a People’s Sheriff, not a Robo-Sheriff in the service of Bank of America.

Cheri is not foundation funded and needs contributions now to get out the vote on November 8. For more information, please go to cherihonkala.com or call 215-923-3747.

Bank of America Axes Debit Fee

They called it the fee that went too far.

For the past month, consumers have been railing against a new Bank of America charge requiring customers to pay $5 a month to use their debit cards for purchases. More than 300,000 people signed an online petition to stop the planned fee. More than 21,000 people pledged to close their Bank of America checking accounts. One cable news anchor cut up her card on the air.

It was a classic David-and-Goliath fight, fueled by the growing populist outrage against the nation’s financial system. On Tuesday, the little guy won: Bank of America announced that it was abandoning the fee...

Full Article:
Bank of America scraps debit card fee after consumer backlash
Ylan Q. Mui
November 1, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/bank-of-american-drops-debit-card-fee/2011/11/01/gIQADvugcM_story.html

Ten Reasons Not to Bank On (or With) Bank of America

Nomi Prins, Truthout
Thursday 27 October 2011
http://truth-out.org/ten-reasons-not-bank-or-bank-america/1319648479

Charging customers for a debit card is just one reason not to bank at BoA. Recent Occupy Santa Cruz Bank of America incident illustrates how sensitive B of A is to protest. This "too big to fail" bank may collapse like a house made of junk bonds and become a taxpayer burden. Here are a few other reasons why you shouldn't bank with them.

There is no shortage of hatred for the biggest banks. Indeed, the Occupy Wall Street movement is leading a national revolution against these Byzantine, powerful Goliaths for the economic devastation they have caused. This makes it difficult to choose the worst of the bunch. That said, a strong case can be made that Bank of America deserves the title of the nation's most despised bank.

Here are ten reasons to take your money out of Bank of America - and park it at a credit union or community bank near you. (And yes, that may be near impossible if you have a mortgage with them, as refinancing away from any big bank nowadays is a nightmare.)

1. B of A rejects the right of customers to protest. When two Occupy Santa Cruz protesters in California marched into a local Bank of America to close their accounts, the response was, "You cannot be a protester and a customer at the same time," followed by a threat to call the police if the women didn't leave. (The attending officer later reiterated the bank manager's message.) Meanwhile, the fact that Bank of America charges a fee for closing an account prompted Rep. Brad Miller (D-North Carolina), who resides in Bank of America's headquarters state, to introduce a bill to protect customers from such fees.

2. To recoup ongoing losses from its stupendously dumb acquisitions of Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch, B of A pillages its customers. Thus, despite massive public outrage, the $5 debit usage fee for customers with less than a $5,000 balance and no mortgage with the bank will begin in 2012. B of A was the first large bank to confirm it would charge this fee, which is the highest in current discourse among the banks.

On October 18, Consumers Union wrote a letter to B of A chief Brian Moynihan asking him to reconsider this fee, which impacts poorer clients disproportionately. The letter summed it up nicely: "Consumers should not be required to pay a costly fee that appears to be arbitrary and designed to generate income to make up for Bank of America's bad business decisions rather than covering the costs of providing debit card services." Banks collect 24 cents from retailers for each customer swipe, much more than the median 8 cents it costs a bank to process the purchase. Senator Dick Durbin's (D-Illinois) response was to urge customers: "Vote with your feet. Get the heck out of that bank."

3. B of A's other fees are just as bad. According to its last annual report, the bank has 29.3 million active online subscribers who paid over $300 billion worth of bills in 2010. In May, B of A raised its checking account fees, which included e-banking, to $12, in line with JP Morgan Chase's decision to do the same, up from $8.95 per month. In June, it started a $35 overdraft fee, even on overdrafts of one cent. Next year, it will incorporate basic checking with a new "essentials'' account structure that makes monthly fees unavoidable, that will not include free bill pay, and that has a mandatory $6 minimum fee.

Last Monday, Bank of America was charged (along with JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo) with colluding with the two major credit card companies, Visa and MasterCard, to keep ATM fees high; in other words, they were charged with "price-fixing," in direct opposition to antitrust laws. This is the third of three such suits filed recently, each seeking class action status.

4. Bank of America takes gross advantage of the military.

It is the official bank of the US military and has branches by or on many bases, which provides the firm with another locus of extortion. B of A can entice military personnel to take out loans at usurious rates. Personal loans made to soldiers for a few thousand dollars can actually keep them indebted for the rest of their lives.

Last May, Bank of America paid $22 million to settle charges of improperly foreclosing on active-duty troops. The firm spun these foreclosures as being Countrywide's fault for having started them before becoming part of B of A.

5. Bank of America is officially rated the biggest, scariest bank. Its stock price also fared the worst of the group of banks (which also included Citigroup and Wells Fargo) when Moody's Investors Service downgraded it on September 21.

B of A's long-term holding company (parent bank) rating was chopped two notches to Baa1 from A2, and its retail bank rating was cut two notches from A2 to Aa3, placing B of A four notches below rival JP Morgan Chase and one below Citigroup, the third-largest US bank. Its bank holding company has the lowest rating among the top five banks with the largest derivatives positions.

This caused great fear for investors involved in derivatives trades with the Merrill Lynch division, prompting them to request trades be moved to the part of the bank with the better rating - the retail part with the insured (peoples') deposits. That way, B of A doesn't have to pony up as much collateral to back the trades, as it would in a subsidiary with a lower rating. The Fed was recklessly happy to approve, despite the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC) misgiving about having to insure more risk, even if it can borrow from the US Treasury to do so. Meanwhile, Bank of America's stock price got so crushed that Warren Buffett scooped up a $5 billion preferred stock deal, effectively betting that the government won't let this big bank go bust.

6. B of A's derivatives position keeps rising. The total amount of derivatives in the FDIC-insured portion of B of A as of mid-year was $53.7 trillion, up 10 percent from $48.9 trillion the prior year, and up nearly 35 percent from its pre-fall crisis level of $40 trillion (the Merrill Lynch securities division holds $22 trillion in addition.) The bank has $5 trillion of credit derivatives, nearly double its $2.7 trillion pre-Merrill amount. In addition, because of its inherent zombie status and rating downgrades, the cost of insuring B of A against a possible default continues to rise in the credit derivatives market - a pattern that American International group (AIG) once followed.

7. Bank of America got the most AIG money of the big depositor banks. By virtue of having acquired Merrill Lynch's AIG-related portfolio, B of A got to keep approximately $12 billion worth of federal AIG backing, too. It also received more government subsidies than any other mega-bank except Citigroup. Its stimulus package included an initial Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) helping of $15 billion for the bank and $10 billion for Merrill, plus a second helping of $20 billion in January 2009 after it became clear that Merrill's losses had spiked to $15 billion - in order to ensure the takeover from hell went through and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and then-Merrill Lynch executive John Thain could pat themselves on the back for saving the world. The government guaranteed $118 billion in assets, mostly Merrill's, in the new merged firm. With the benefit of the Fed's nearly 0 percent money policy, and a depositor base to plunder, B of A repaid that aid.

In terms of overall federal subsidies (including TARP), Bank of America was second only to Citigroup ($230 billion compared to $415 billion). None of that got in the way of former B of A CEO Ken Lewis' personal take, a $63 million retirement plan, in addition to the $63 million he scored during the three years before his departure.

8. Bank of America leads the big bank fraud lawsuit settlement tally. So far, it has racked up the largest settlement, $8.5 billion in June, to settle claims related to $100 billion worth of Countrywide-spun mortgage securities backed by faulty loans, with bigwig investors like Pimco, BlackRock, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

B of A is also being sued by state and federal regulators for questionable foreclosure practices and a union benefits plan for hiding foreclosure problems that impacted its share price. It is one of 17 major US financial institutions being sued by the Federal Housing Finance Agency for billions of dollars of mortgage-securities-related losses that may require B of A to potentially repurchase $50 billion worth of allegedly fraudulent securities. Earlier this year, B of A settled for $3 billion regarding bad loans that they had repackaged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as agreed to a $624 million settlement in a securities fraud class-action suit filed by New York Sate and City pension fund regarding Countrywide stock losses. Then there's AIG's August lawsuit, in which AIG wants $10 billion in damages for mortgage-related securities it bought and against which it claims B of A committed securities fraud.

That's a lot of pain for a Federal Reserve-approved $4.1 billion acquisition. Meanwhile, since the settlement didn't lead to a financial restatement, under the supremely elastic (read: useless) Dodd-Frank Act, executives get to keep their related bonuses.

9. Even after lawsuits, B of A would still rather please investors than customers. Investors that won money in the $8.5 billion settlement were upset that B of A was continuing to service loans, instead of foreclosing on them more quickly. Now, B of A had a nasty incentive to kick people out of homes faster, rather than work with them to refinance or restructure mortgages. Two months later, their foreclosure process has, in fact, sped up.
Bank of America foreclosure notices are surging again following a slight robo-signing- related slowdown, meaning they are now sending out a greater increase in default notices (90-day overdue loans) than other banks. The bank has $30 billion in residential mortgage loans in default, which will become foreclosures for thousands of families.

10. Bank of America, despite having been buoyed up by the government, did not pay taxes, and, given its glorious ineptness, will be laying off 30,000 workers. Not only did the bank pay no federal taxes for 2010 (or 2009) by making use of its posted pre-tax loss of $5.4 billion, it actually cited a tax benefit of $1 billion. Meanwhile, it has announced plans to cut up to 30,000 jobs over the next few years as part of its plan to save $5 billion, ostensibly due to the settlements it's paying for engaging in upper-management-approved fraud.

Finally, consider the two reasons that any of this list is possible. One is the Glass-Steagall Act repeal, which enables banks to comingle straight costumer business with reckless securities creation and trading. The second reason is coddling by a Fed that finances and approves every bad move. B of A is the poster child for a Glass-Steagall repeal gone wrong. Lewis pulled in a slew of other banks under the B of A umbrella, making it - at one time - the country's largest bank, including the infamous Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch. Now it has $2.26 trillion in total assets and $1.8 trillion assets in insured subsidiaries, $1.2 trillion of customer deposits ($1.066 trillion in the United States) and about $804 billion in FDIC-insured deposits - all part of the giant, risk-laden mess that is B of A.

Without being broken up via a new, strong Glass-Steagall Act, when banks need to find ways to make money, they resort to extorting it from their sitting ducks, er - customers. Meanwhile, that's where credit unions, which are not-for-profits owned by their members and not by outside shareholders, come in. They generally don't engage in crazy derivatives trades, or charge unnecessary fees for holding your money or for letting you pay bills with it, or for online banking. In terms of personal attention, among other economic reasons, the credit and smaller community banks are a much better bet.

Newsflash: Banks Out to Screw Customers

From the NYT:

Bank of America, the nation’s biggest bank, said on Thursday that it planned to start charging customers a $5 monthly fee when they used their debit cards for purchases. It was just one of several new charges expected to hit consumers as new regulations crimp banks’ profits.

Wells Fargo and Chase are testing $3 monthly debit card fees. Regions Financial, based in Birmingham, Ala., plans to start charging a $4 fee next month, while SunTrust, another regional powerhouse, is charging a $5 fee.

The round of new charges stems from a rule, which takes effect on Saturday, that limits the fees that banks can levy on merchants every time a consumer uses a debit card to make a purchase. The rule, known as the Durbin amendment, after its sponsor Senator Richard J. Durbin, is a crucial part of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law.

Until now, the fees have been 44 cents a transaction, on average. The Federal Reserve in June agreed to cut the fees to a maximum of about 24 cents. While the fee amounts to pennies per swipe, it rapidly adds up across millions of transactions. The new limit is expected to cost the banks about $6.6 billion in revenue a year, beginning in 2012, according to Javelin Strategy and Research. That comes on top of another loss, of $5.6 billion, from new rules restricting overdraft fees, which went into effect in July 2010.

And even though retailer groups had argued that lower fees were important to keep prices in check, consumers were not likely to see substantial savings. In fact, they are simply going to end up paying from a different pot of money.

Or as Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, put it after passage last year of the Dodd-Frank Act, “If you’re a restaurant and you can’t charge for the soda, you’re going to charge more for the burger.”

Chase is now charging customers for a paper statement. It also, like many other banks, scrapped its debit card rewards program. And customers that Chase inherited from Washington Mutual no longer enjoy free checking accounts.

The bank is also exploring a number of other fee increases, including for online banking, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Bank of America’s debit fee is steeper than most of its competitors’, reflecting the broader challenges the bank is facing after the financial crisis. The bank has introduced an online-only account that charges customers for doing business at a local branch. It also plans to apply its new debit card fees to anyone who uses the card to make recurring payments like gym fees or cable bills.

Citibank is one of the few that said it would not introduce a charge for debit card use. “We have talked to customers and they have made it abundantly clear that ‘if you charge me to use my debit card, I would find that very irritating,’ ” said Stephen Troutner, head of Citi’s banking products. Still, the bank has made it more difficult to qualify for free checking, among other moves.

Earlier this year, Wells Fargo estimated that the Durbin rules would cost the bank $250 million in revenue every quarter. It hopes to make up half that gap with a variety of new products and customer fees, including the monthly debit card fee of $3. The change is part of a “pilot program” the bank will begin on Oct. 14 in five states across the country, including Washington and Georgia. As of Saturday, the bank will discontinue its debit card rewards program.

Meanwhile, HSBC said that it recently increased an A.T.M. fee — to $2.50 from $2 — for certain customers when they used a competitor’s A.T.M. It also recently introduced a debit transaction fee of 35 cents, though the first eight transactions are free.

And at TDBank, customers will now have to pay $2 for using A.T.M.’s outside their network.

“Durbin essentially moves the cost of debit away from merchants, and now it’s more focused on consumers,” said Beth Robertson, director of payments research at Javelin. “There are all sort of things happening where banks are saying, where can we put fees in place for our service to generate revenue or how can we reduce our costs?”

Over the last few years, consumers have increasingly shifted their spending to debit cards from credit cards, in large part to curb their spending. But some analysts predicted that the new fees could prompt consumers to return to credit cards — a more lucrative alternative for the banks...

Banks to Make Customers Pay Fee for Using Debit Cards
TARA SIEGEL BERNARD and BEN PROTESS
September 29, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/business/banks-to-make-customers-pay-debit-card-fee.html

Illegal Foreclosure Epidemic

Robo-signing foreclosure paperwork is a federal crime, but no bank or banker has even been charged.
Jim Hightower
August 15, 2011
http://www.otherwords.org/articles/illegal_foreclosure_epidemic

Two-year-olds often go running around the house too wildly and crash into something. They get an "ouchie" and fall down crying, but they learn from it.

That's the virtue of the "ouchie" that Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and other big financiers got last year when they ran into the law after racing wildly through home foreclosure paperwork. They were caught falsifying thousands of documents and taking illegal shortcuts that were causing innocent families to lose their homes. They had to pay fines, make restitution, suspend foreclosures, and pledge to clean up their act. But at least they learned their lesson.

Oh, wait — these aren't two-year-olds. They are wily bankers, and the only lesson they ever seem to learn is that shortcuts can be profitable — as long as you don't get caught. But once again they've been caught rushing through foreclosures, using the same old scam called "robo-signing."

To foreclose on someone's home, an authorized bank employee must sign the foreclosure document, swearing that the facts in it are true. But that requires hiring people to review each case. To avoid that cost, they take an illegal shortcut by signing the name of someone who has not read the document and might not even exist.

In one Massachusetts county, for example, the signature of "Linda Green" has recently appeared on some 1,300 foreclosures. Curiously, her signature was written in many different styles, and she had many different titles. Also, there's no Linda Green presently working in the mortgage banking company involved. Meanwhile, state officials say that robo-signing is, once again, "an epidemic" all across the country.

It's a federal crime to do this, yet no bank or banker has even been charged. Until we put a CEO in jail, the banking barons will never learn their lesson.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He's also editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown.

New York Attorney General Accuses Bank Of New York Mellon Of Fraud

New York Attorney General Accuses Bank Of New York Mellon Of Fraud, Moves To Block Bank Of America's Mortgage Deal
Shahien Nasiripour
shahien@huffingtonpost.com
8/4/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/04/new-york-attorney-general_n_919008.html

WASHINGTON -- New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman asked a state judge to reject a proposed $8.5 billion settlement agreement over soured loans between Bank of America and a group of investors, claiming in court documents that a separate bank representing the investors committed fraud for failing to ensure that the mortgage securities were created in accordance with state law and for failing to act in the investors' best interest.

Bank of New York Mellon, the trustee representing the investors, "knowingly, repeatedly, and consistently" misled investors into thinking that the mortgage bonds were created properly, Schneiderman said in court documents. BNY Mellon also put its own interests before those of the investors it's supposed to represent, he said.

BNY Mellon, the 11th-largest U.S. bank by assets and one of the nation's largest trustees, stands accused of "repeated fraud and illegality," according to court filings, which alleges that the abuses "were repeated literally hundreds of times."

In short, Countrywide Financial, the lender purchased by BofA in 2008, failed to properly assemble loan documents needed for the creation of mortgage securities, and BNY Mellon effectively looked the other way, which "apparently triggered widespread fraud," Schneiderman said in court documents.

BNY Mellon should have known the mortgage securities were improperly created because the evidence was "abundant," Schneiderman asserted, citing the bank's own documents, news coverage of "foreclosure fraud" and foreclosure actions brought on the bank's behalf.

Schneiderman also accused Bank of America of fabricating the missing documents when it came to foreclosing on homeowners who defaulted on their mortgages.

There are "serious questions about the fairness and adequacy" of the proposed settlement agreement, Schneiderman said in court documents.

Spokesmen for Bank of America and BNY Mellon didn't immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

The action throws a significant wrench into the accord, threatening Bank of America, the largest U.S. bank by assets, with billions of dollars in additional losses if the $8.5 billion deal with some of the world's largest investors is ultimately rejected.

It also opens up new worries for BofA, the nation's largest handler of home loans, as the company could be faced with the prospect of having New York's top legal officer determining that untold billions of dollars' worth of mortgages turned into securities by Countrywide, the nation's largest mortgage company when purchased by Bank of America during the credit crisis, aren't really securities at all due to failures in the security-creating process.

Schneiderman's actions also threaten Bank of New York Mellon, the trustee for those mortgage bonds, with unknown losses, as his office may determine that the firm didn't properly assemble and maintain critical loan documents necessary for mortgage instruments to become securities per New York state law. In his office's court filing, Schneiderman is asking to comb through additional mortgage documents to see if the rot he claims to have discovered is more widespread.

New York's top law enforcement officer has waged an aggressive campaign in trying to root out Wall Street wrongdoing during the housing bubble. Experts and federal bailout watchdogs have questioned whether lenders and other firms took the necessary steps when bundling home loans into securities. Sloppy practices were common, some analysts assert.

"If mortgages were not properly transferred in the securitization process, then mortgage-backed securities would in fact not be backed by any mortgages whatsoever," Adam J. Levitin, a bankruptcy expert and professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told a congressional panel last November. Levitin said the problem could "cloud title to nearly every property in the United States" and could lead to trillions of dollars in losses.

In a New Jersey bankruptcy case last year, a Bank of America executive, Linda DeMartini, testified that Countrywide routinely did not convey crucial documents for loans sold to investors.

Schneiderman's action in the proposed BofA settlement is an extension of his investigation into Bank of America's mortgage securitization practices. The probe, first reported by The Huffington Post in June, is part of a larger inquiry that is scrutinizing whether mortgage companies and Wall Street firms took the necessary steps under New York state law when creating mortgage-backed securities, people with direct knowledge of the investigation said at the time.

Bank of America is seeking to end a months-long probe by state attorneys general and federal agencies into its mortgage and foreclosure practices. It's been in advanced negotiations with the government agencies, offering billions of dollars in mortgage aid for strapped homeowners in return for a release from liability for a host of alleged mortgage-related violations, The Huffington Post first reported on Tuesday.

Schneiderman's Thursday court filing objecting to Bank of America's proposed settlement with mortgage investors is a result of his office's investigation into mortgage irregularities. It's the kind of probe that could be stopped if his office agreed to such a release as is being contemplated for Bank of America in the state and federal settlement talks.

In court documents, Schneiderman is demanding that his agency be allowed to further examine loan documents to ensure the securities were properly created. New York's top law enforcement officer is using the Martin Act, a powerful state law that gives prosecutors broad powers to investigate fraud.

As trustee, BNY Mellon is charged with ensuring that companies involved in the mortgage-securitization chain properly assembled the needed documents to transform a bundle of home loans into a mortgage bond.

As the agent representing investors in those bonds, BNY Mellon owes them a fiduciary duty -- a legal obligation to act in their best interest.

The proposed settlement Schneiderman is seeking to disrupt involves claims from 22 institutional investors that had demanded Bank of America repurchase home loans packaged into 530 mortgage trusts with a original loan balance of $424 billion. The proposed $8.5 billion payout represents less than 4 cents on the dollar of the current unpaid balance, or about $220 billion.

The settlement offer, if approved by a New York state judge, would apply to all other investors in the trusts, extinguishing similar claims. In court filings, some of the other investors have already demanded the judge reject the proposed settlement agreement.

Schneiderman demanded that BNY Mellon compensate investors for its "fraudulent and deceptive acts."

B of A Signs HUD Pact Over Mortgage Abuse

Kate Berry and Jeff Horwitz
AUG 4, 2011
http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/176_151/stevens-fha-bank-of-america-gaither-hud-mortgage-settlement-1040918-1.html

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has reached a settlement with Bank of America that releases the company from liability for failing to adequately provide alternatives to foreclosure on 57,000 delinquent government-insured mortgages.

The agreement, a draft of which was obtained by American Banker, was previously undisclosed. It has been forged on a separate but parallel track from continuing settlement talks between Bank of America, state attorneys general and other regulators over alleged mortgage origination and servicing failures.

B of A's pact with HUD requires it to waive a minimum of $10 million in unpaid mortgage payments and vet each of the 57,000 delinquent borrowers for a possible loan modification, short sale or other foreclosure alternative.

"Our total costs for the program will be multiples of that" $10 million minimum, B of A spokesman Dan Frahm said. The deal calls for measures to "ensure these customers have every opportunity to stay in their homes," he added.

After such outreach, the settlement paves the way for B of A to foreclose on homes that borrowers could not afford even after a mortgage modification and those that have been left vacant by owners.

In forging the agreement, HUD decided to forgo steep monetary damages or admissions of error from the bank.

Instead, it pushed for the lender to implement steps that in most cases it was supposed to have already taken under the terms of its FHA-guaranteed loans, with the apparent aim of minimizing foreclosures and related insurance claims.

"We took the borrowers into account first," said HUD general counsel Helen Kanovsky. "We think that that's really the best thing for the FHA [insurance] fund as well."

The agreement is HUD's first involving settlement of claims in which a servicer failed to offer loss mitigation to borrowers. It does not, however, prevent HUD from seeking damages from B of A for unrelated origination and servicing failures.

"We fought for as narrow a [legal] release as possible and as much money as possible," Kanovsky said.

Under HUD's standard terms, borrowers must be less than 12 months delinquent to qualify for loan modifications. With the B of A settlement, the minimum of $10 million the bank agreed to pay will go to covering past-due arrearages and giving borrowers who are more than a year behind the possibility of qualifying for foreclosure alternatives.

The agreement was signed July 11 by B of A senior vice president Robert Gaither, who directed queries to a company spokesman.

All of the 57,000 borrowers covered by the agreement are 12 to 24 months delinquent. They account for only 4% of the total 1.5 million FHA loans that B of A services but a substantial portion of the company's seriously delinquent loans. B of A holds $19.8 billion in FHA-insured loans that are 90 days or more delinquent, and another $3.1 billion in FHA loans 31 to 89 days delinquent, the bank said in its second-quarter earnings release.

Under its terms with HUD, B of A will have to pay an independent monitor to review its modification work and report to HUD. It is also obligated to seek borrowers through database searches, letters, phone queries and visits to properties. Borrowers who fail to qualify for loan modifications, will receive from B of A $4,000 for a short sale and $7,500 for a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.

The deal reflects the high levels of financial uncertainty surrounding such negotiations. In May, B of A agreed to pay $20 million, or double the minimum for the latest settlement, for improperly foreclosing on a relatively few 160 homes of military service members.

The settlement is "not a lot of money for the potential losses that the federal government may have to make good on," said Diane Thompson, an attorney for the National Consumer Law Center.

The minimum $10 million payment of borrowers' arrearages is unlikely to defray the FHA's losses on foreclosures, she said.

But if Bank of America is "able to identify the loans, and if people are still in the homes, and if they waive payments over past 12 months, then that's more valuable than a big fine for Bank of America," Thompson said. "But there are a lot of ifs there."

The largest banks hold billions of dollars of delinquent FHA loans on their balance sheets for which they have not yet filed claims. This may be because of concerns that they may have violated stringent HUD servicer requirements and could be held liable for treble damages related to false claims. One sticking point in settling such claims is that the FHA requires all servicers to have employees conduct face-to-face interviews with FHA borrowers once they become 60 days delinquent, a procedure most servicers either did not undertake or cannot document.

As part of the deal HUD has also agreed to pay any mortgage insurance claims and waive any pending administrative actions against B of A, its officers, directors or employees "in connection with servicing or loss mitigation deficiencies." The only exclusion is for allegations involving improper transfers of titles.

B of A also has agreed not to claim expenses on any FHA insurance claims for taxes, liens or property preservation incurred from November 2010 through July 2011.

Homeowners Bring Sheriff's Deputies To BofA To Collect Unpaid Debt

Homeowners Bring Sheriff's Deputies To Bank Of America Branch To Collect Unpaid Debt

Chris Morran on June 3, 2011
http://consumerist.com/2011/06/bank-of-america-customers-show-up-with-sheriff-to-collect-debt-from-bank.html

Earlier today, in a move not terribly dissimilar to the Philadelphia homeowner who attempted to "foreclose" on Wells Fargo, a Florida couple showed up at a Bank of America branch with two sheriff's deputies, ready to claim office assets to satisfy an unpaid debt.

The couple had been the defendants in a foreclosure lawsuit filed by BofA, at least until the bank realized it had made a mistake and dropped the suit. That's when the couple began the Sisyphean ordeal of trying to recoup the $2,534 in legal fees they were owed by the bank.

They tell News-Press.com that they made numerous attempts to contact the bank, even sending a registered letter to BofA's general counsel. When all that failed, it was time to bring in the sheriff.

"I don't know of any other way way we could have done it," their lawyer says.

Before the deputies could get around to claiming the bank's furniture for the couple, the branch manager interceded and claims to have cut a check that satisfies the debt.

Were you there when they crucified Rod Blagojevich?

http://www.shout.net/~bigred/cn.html

(Melchizedek Communique, MC042211) Were you there when they crucified Rod Blagojevich?

Potential jurors are being questioned for the second trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, also known as "Blago." With unlimited funds, federal hounds have barked ceaselessly on the trail of the increasingly impoverished Blagojevich. No longer can Blago afford the legal fire-power he had at his first trial. The federal hounds and their allies in the news media sniff blood and are salivating in anticipation.

In the early morning of Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2008, Blago had been arrested. It had been only the day before that Blago had defied the Bank of America and championed the cause of workers at Republic Windows. The then-Governor had ordered that Illinois government cease doing business with Bank of America. It is unclear why the feds chose to stage a dramatic pre-dawn raid and arrest of the Illinois Governor: Why not just wait until Blago was at work? Why did the feds instead upset the two young daughters of Rod Blagojevich when they burst into his home with needless theatrics?

Among the names which won increased publicity in connection with the Blago case is John Harris, the Governor's chief of staff. Pressure was put on Harris to testify against Blago. A Sword of Damocles hangs over the head of Harris -- Cooperate, or else! Did that same sort of pressure have anything to do with the tragic death of Chris Kelly, adviser and fundraiser for Rod Blagojevich? "Christopher Kelly died after taking an overdose of pain medications, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office." [1]

Another name, that of State Senator Jimmy DeLeo, a personal friend of Blago, is a "power-behind-the-power" in Illinois, according to Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass. [2]

What does Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. know? He had met with Blago the day before the Governor's dramatic pre-dawn arrest. [3]

Chicago, notices Blago in his book, The Governor, is strangely organized as if it is a Catholic Archdiocese. The Mayor's office and City Hall are like the Cardinal's residence in this perception. But now, with Rahm Emanuel shoehorned in as the next Mayor of Chicago, what does this mean for the Chicago "Archdiocese"? (Nothing is meant here, per se, against Rahm Emanuel, who is Jewish. But rather unease about Emanuel's being selected mayor privately in the smoke-filled rooms instead of by the rough-and-tumble of the democratic process is here expressed.)

In the Archdiocesal politics of Chicago, Rod Blagojevich is of Serbian nationality, and is thereby linked to the Greek Orthodox Church. In both World War I and World War II Serbia was a staunch ally of the United States. Siding with the Nazis was Catholic Croatia. And yet, during the 1990s Yugoslavian wars, the Greek Orthodox Serbs were the "bad guys" and the Catholic Croatians were relatively condoned!

Chicago politics and its political organizations "are very much like old feudal organizations from medieval Europe." Among the feudal chieftains is Richard Mell, the father of Patti Blagojevich, wife of Blago. Richard Mell holds great power in Chicago as a "ward boss." [3]

Another Illinois chieftain is Michael Madigan, Illinois State House Speaker. All the other state representatives have tiny operating budgets and must come crawling to Madigan for funds. Sighs Madigan with a twinkle in his eye, "They are always after me lucky charms." And, in fact, Michael Madigan resembles the Lucky Charms leprechaun.

Before he was Governor, Blago ran for Congress. Back then, he was introduced to Tony Rezko. One day Tony Rezko took Blago to a law office and introduced him to a young lawyer named Barack Obama. David Axelrod, later a senior adviser in the Obama White House, helped Blago find a chief of staff when Blago was elected to Congress. "David [Axelrod] was my media consultant in that race for Congress," confides Blago in his book, The Governor. While in Congress, Blago had a close working relationship with Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. When Blago left Congress, Rahm Emanuel came in to fill the vacated congressional seat. Emanuel managed to raise "a boatload of money" for his congressional campaign, notes Blago. One wonders, since Rahm Emanuel is a dual citizen of Israel and the United States, whether any of the "boatload" came in via the Mossad.

These and other jellyfish swim just beneath the surface of "Rod Blagojevich Part 2" now beginning. But Blago is about tapped out of lawyer money, unlike the feds who can just print all they need. And so the odds do not favor the former Governor at this point. The news media have already long-since placed a crown of thorns on Blago's head. The judge, James B. Zagel, like Pontius Pilate, has washed his hands.

By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back..." [4]

But "where today the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands." [4]

------- Notes -------
[1] "Chris Kelly suicide: Medical examiner says former Blagojevich adviser overdosed on pain medications",Chicago Tribune archives, Nov. 10, 2009
[2] "Stage is set for heads to roll, cash to roll in", by John Kass. Chicago Tribune, Jan. 15, 2009
[3] The Governor, by Rod Blagojevich. Beverly Hills, CA: Phoenix Books, 2009
[4] "The Present Crisis", by James Russell Lowell

Another Inside Job

PAUL KRUGMAN
March 13, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/opinion/14krugman.html

Count me among those who were glad to see the documentary “Inside Job” win an Oscar. The film reminded us that the financial crisis of 2008, whose aftereffects are still blighting the lives of millions of Americans, didn’t just happen — it was made possible by bad behavior on the part of bankers, regulators and, yes, economists.

What the film didn’t point out, however, is that the crisis has spawned a whole new set of abuses, many of them illegal as well as immoral. And leading political figures are, at long last, showing some outrage. Unfortunately, this outrage is directed, not at banking abuses, but at those trying to hold banks accountable for these abuses.

The immediate flashpoint is a proposed settlement between state attorneys general and the mortgage servicing industry. That settlement is a “shakedown,” says Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama. The money banks would be required to allot to mortgage modification would be “extorted,” declares The Wall Street Journal. And the bankers themselves warn that any action against them would place economic recovery at risk.

All of which goes to confirm that the rich are different from you and me: when they break the law, it’s the prosecutors who find themselves on trial.

To get an idea of what we’re talking about here, look at the complaint filed by Nevada’s attorney general against Bank of America. The complaint charges the bank with luring families into its loan-modification program — supposedly to help them keep their homes — under false pretenses; with giving false information about the program’s requirements (for example, telling them that they had to default on their mortgages before receiving a modification); with stringing families along with promises of action, then “sending foreclosure notices, scheduling auction dates, and even selling consumers’ homes while they waited for decisions”; and, in general, with exploiting the program to enrich itself at those families’ expense.

The end result, the complaint charges, was that “many Nevada consumers continued to make mortgage payments they could not afford, running through their savings, their retirement funds, or their children’s education funds. Additionally, due to Bank of America’s misleading assurances, consumers deferred short-sales and passed on other attempts to mitigate their losses. And they waited anxiously, month after month, calling Bank of America and submitting their paperwork again and again, not knowing whether or when they would lose their homes.”

Still, things like this only happen to losers who can’t keep up their mortgage payments, right? Wrong. Recently Dana Milbank, the Washington Post columnist, wrote about his own experience: a routine mortgage refinance with Citibank somehow turned into a nightmare of misquoted rates, improper interest charges, and frozen bank accounts. And all the evidence suggests that Mr. Milbank’s experience wasn’t unusual.

Notice, by the way, that we’re not talking about the business practices of fly-by-night operators; we’re talking about two of our three largest financial companies, with roughly $2 trillion each in assets. Yet politicians would have you believe that any attempt to get these abusive banking giants to make modest restitution is a “shakedown.” The only real question is whether the proposed settlement lets them off far too lightly.

What about the argument that placing any demand on the banks would endanger the recovery? There’s a lot to be said about that argument, none of it good. But let me emphasize two points.

First, the proposed settlement only calls for loan modifications that would produce a greater “net present value” than foreclosure — that is, for offering deals that are in the interest of both homeowners and investors. The outrageous truth is that in many cases banks are blocking such mutually beneficial deals, so that they can continue to extract fees. How could ending this highway robbery be bad for the economy?

Second, the biggest obstacle to recovery isn’t the financial condition of major banks, which were bailed out once and are now profiting from the widespread perception that they’ll be bailed out again if anything goes wrong. It is, instead, the overhang of household debt combined with paralysis in the housing market. Getting banks to clear up mortgage debts — instead of stringing families along to extract a few more dollars — would help, not hurt, the economy.

In the days and weeks ahead, we’ll see pro-banker politicians denounce the proposed settlement, asserting that it’s all about defending the rule of law. But what they’re actually defending is the exact opposite — a system in which only the little people have to obey the law, while the rich, and bankers especially, can cheat and defraud without consequences.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on March 14, 2011, on page A25 of the New York edition.

A Real Jaw Dropper at the Federal Reserve

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/a-real-jaw-dropper-at-the_b_791091.html

Sen. Bernie Sanders
Independent U.S. Senator from Vermont
December 2, 2010
A Real Jaw Dropper at the Federal Reserve

At a Senate Budget Committee hearing in 2009, I asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to tell the American people the names of the financial institutions that received an unprecedented backdoor bailout from the Federal Reserve, how much they received, and the exact terms of this assistance. He refused. A year and a half later, as a result of an amendment that I was able to include in the Wall Street reform bill, we have begun to lift the veil of secrecy at the Fed, and the American people now have this information.

It is unfortunate that it took this long, and it is a shame that the biggest banks in America and Mr. Bernanke fought to keep this secret from the American public every step of the way. But, the details on this bailout are now on the Federal Reserve's website, and this is a major victory for the American taxpayer and for transparency in government.

Importantly, my amendment also required the Government Accountability Office to conduct a top-to-bottom audit of all of the emergency lending the Fed provided during the financial crisis to be completed on July 21, 2011, which will take a hard look at all of the potential conflicts of interest that took place with respect to this bailout. So, in many respects, details that the Fed was forced to divulge on Wednesday about the $3.3 trillion in emergency loans that until now were totally kept from public scrutiny, marked the beginning, not the end, of lifting the veil of secrecy at the Fed.

After years of stonewalling by the Fed, the American people are finally learning the incredible and jaw-dropping details of the Fed's multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street and corporate America. As a result of this disclosure, other members of Congress and I will be taking a very extensive look at all aspects of how the Federal Reserve functions and how we can make our financial institutions more responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans and small businesses.

What have we learned so far from the disclosure of more than 21,000 transactions? We have learned that the $700 billion Wall Street bailout signed into law by President George W. Bush turned out to be pocket change compared to the trillions and trillions of dollars in near-zero interest loans and other financial arrangements the Federal Reserve doled out to every major financial institution in this country. Among those are Goldman Sachs, which received nearly $600 billion; Morgan Stanley, which received nearly $2 trillion; Citigroup, which received $1.8 trillion; Bear Stearns, which received nearly $1 trillion, and Merrill Lynch, which received some $1.5 trillion in short term loans from the Fed.

We also learned that the Fed's multi-trillion bailout was not limited to Wall Street and big banks, but that some of the largest corporations in this country also received a very substantial bailout. Among those are General Electric, McDonald's, Caterpillar, Harley Davidson, Toyota and Verizon.

Perhaps most surprising is the huge sum that went to bail out foreign private banks and corporations including two European megabanks -- Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse -- which were the largest beneficiaries of the Fed's purchase of mortgage-backed securities.

Deutsche Bank, a German lender, sold the Fed more than $290 billion worth of mortgage securities. Credit Suisse, a Swiss bank, sold the Fed more than $287 billion in mortgage bonds.

Has the Federal Reserve of the United States become the central bank of the world?

The Fed said that this bailout was necessary to prevent the world economy from going over a cliff. But three years after the start of the recession, millions of Americans remain unemployed and have lost their homes, life savings and ability to send their kids to college. Meanwhile, big banks and corporations have returned to making huge profits and paying their executives record-breaking compensation packages as if the financial crisis they started never happened.

What this disclosure tells us, among many other things, is that despite this huge taxpayer bailout, the Fed did not make the appropriate demands on these institutions necessary to rebuild our economy and protect the needs of ordinary Americans.

For example, at a time when big banks have nearly a trillion dollars in excess reserves parked at the Fed, the Fed did not require these institutions to increase lending to small- and medium-sized businesses as a condition of the bailout.

At a time when large corporations are more profitable than ever, the Fed did not demand that corporations that received this backdoor bailout create jobs and expand the economy once they returned to profitability.

I intend to investigate whether these secret Fed loans, in some cases, turned out to be direct corporate welfare to big banks that used these loans not to reinvest in the economy but rather to lend back to the federal government at a higher rate of interest by purchasing Treasury Securities. Instead of using this money to reinvest in the productive economy, I suspect a large portion of these near-zero interest loans were used to buy Treasury Securities at a higher interest rate providing free money to some of the largest financial institutions in this country. That is something that we have got to closely examine.

At a time when Wall Street executives are now making more money than before the financial crisis, how many big banks that paid back TARP funds in 2009 to avoid limits on executive compensation received no-strings-attached loans from the Federal Reserve?

At a time when millions of Americans are paying outrageously high credit card interest rates, why didn't the Fed require credit card issuers to lower interest rates as a condition of the bailout?

The four largest banks in this country (Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup) issue half of all mortgages in this country. We now know that these banks received hundreds of billions from the Fed. How many Americans could have remained in their homes, if the Fed required these bailed-out banks to reduce mortgage payments as a condition of receiving these secret loans?

We have begun to lift the veil of secrecy at one of most important agencies in our government. What we are seeing is the incredible power of a small number of people who have incredible conflicts of interest getting incredible help from the taxpayers of this country while ignoring the needs of the people.

Repossession hell: 6 extremely 'wrongful' foreclosures

http://theweek.com/article/index/200795/repossession-hell-6-extremely-wrongful-foreclosures

Repossession hell: 6 extremely 'wrongful' foreclosures
Jason Grodensky says the Bank of America repossessed his Fort Lauderdale house — even though he'd never even taken out a mortgage. His story isn't the first of its kind
September 24, 2010

Home foreclosures: The opposite of the American dream.

An understandably flummoxed Florida man says he had his home taken from him by the Bank of America, even though he owned it outright and never had a mortgage on it. Jason Grodensky and his father bought the Fort Lauderdale bungalow on short sale last December, paying for it with cash. In July, Grodensky was shocked to learn that the house was in foreclosure and that the title had been transferred to a government-backed lender. The BoA has reportedly acknowledged the error and will correct it at their expense. But Grodensky nightmare is not that uncommon: Mark Wiedner, a Florida foreclosure defense attorney, says foreclosure mistakes "happen all the time." Here are five more wrongful repossession horror stories:

Wedding dress and all?

Last December, Nilly Mauck, 31, says she came home to find her décor brutally simplified. Mauck claims contractors assigned to repossess condo No. 1156 mistakenly carted off all the furnishing and possessions in No. 1157 — her Las Vegas apartment of two years — everything from immigration records to her wedding dress. Though she's demanded "$100,000 to $200,000" in compensation, the realtor has offered only $5,000. Mauck has said she's seeking legal advice and learning "to live with the clothes on her back."

Bye bye birdie

In 2009, Angela Iannelli, a Pittsburgh homeowner came home to find that Bank of America's contractors had foreclosed on her home, despite the fact that she was on time with her payments. She claims the bank's contractors ransacked her possessions, cut her power lines, padlocked her doors, and confiscated her pet parrot. Iannelli has filed suit against the bank, which later reportedly apologized for the little incident, claiming she suffered "severe emotional distress, embarrassment and ridicule" as a result of the wrongful foreclosure. Her beloved blue macaw, Luke, was returned to her, but she had to drive some 60 miles to retrieve him from a neighboring town. (Watch an ABC report about Angela Iannelli's foreclosed home.)

Smells fishy

Dr. Alan Schroit claims he got a "putrid" surprise when he arrived at his Galveston, Texas, vacation home last October after Bank of America ("with which he has neither a relationship nor a mortgage") allegedly repossessed his home and turned off the utilities, leaving 75 pounds of frozen salmon and halibut to rot in the fridge. Schroit, who'd been planning to grill the fish for 30 guests the next night, is suing the bank. (For its part, BoA does "not believe the case will show merit.”)

Dirty pool?

In 2008, Kissimmee, Fla., resident Denroy Bell was living in London, England, when — he claims — a confused local bank attempted to foreclose on his home. The institution, Citi-Residential, allegedly changed the locks and drained the swimming pool. "It was like an army came up and took over the house," said Esther Goshop, Bell's neighbor. Unusually gracious, Bell has asked only that Citi-Residential refill his pool and restore his locks.

Promises, promises...

A jury punished Countrywide Home Loans in January 2009 for failing to notice that it was repossessing and selling the wrong Las Vegas condo back in 2003. Sgt. Gerald Thitchener and his wife, Katrina, absent at the time, were awarded $3.4 million in damages. "[Countrywide] never even said they were sorry," noted one juror. "[Though they did say] it would never happen again."

Obama-Goldman Sachs Administration Sides with Banks

http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-goldman-sachs-administration-sides-with-banks-on-foreclosure-moratorium.html
Obama-Goldman Sachs Administration Sides with Banks on Foreclosure Moratorium
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
October 17, 2010

It was predictable. Obama and his Goldman Sachs insiders have sided with Bank of America and JP Morgan on the growing call for a national moratorium on foreclosures. Obama has sided with the banksters against the American people. No surprise there.

It’s all for our own good, of course. “Delays in foreclosures add cost and other burdens for communities, investors and taxpayers,” said the faceless bureaucrats at the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

In short, bring on the robo-signers.

Imagine my surprise. Banks signed thousands of documents authorizing foreclosures across the country, without actually having reviewed the loan documents, as required by law. In other words, they engaged in fraud in order to expedite the confiscation of property. Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray sent letters to Wells Fargo & Co., Chase, Bank of America Corp., and CitiMortgage asking them to halt foreclosures in Ohio and meet with him to discuss how to solve the problem.

Law officers in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Texas have done likewise, demanding answers and an end to foreclosures until the matter is resolved.

Last week, attorney generals in 40 states announced an investigation into the mortgage-servicing industry. “I think the mortgage-servicing firms need to understand that they face real exposure now, and they would be well advised to take this very seriously, to clean this up by doing loan workouts to keep people in their homes, which up till now they’ve just paid lip-service to,” said Cordray, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Corday’s outspoken effort is admirable. But the likelihood the “mortgage services industry” run by the mega-banks will be forced to shut down their foreclosure and property confiscation mill is slim to none.

On Friday, John Carney, writing for CNBC, said he thinks Congress will line up behind the banksters. “Here’s what is going to happen: Congress will pass a law called something like ‘The Financial Modernization and Stability Act of 2010' that will retroactively grant mortgage pools the rights in the underlying mortgages that people are worried about. All the screwed up paperwork, lost notes, unassigned security interests will be forgiven by a legislative act,” writes Carney.

Carney notes that the 2008 “crisis” was about economics. The new one is about legal rights. If Congress manages to line up behind the banksters and pass such legislation, it will spell the end of property rights in America. “If you’re skeptical about the possibility that this will happen, you have greater faith than I do in the ability of the political system to resist doing favors for bankers,” writes Carney.

Favors? The banksters own Congress, as Sen. Dick Durbin admitted in May, 2009. “And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place,” he blurted out on a Chicago radio station.

Members of Congress do not do “favors” for Wall Street and the banksters. They follow orders.

Millions of Americans are about to wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered, as Thomas Jefferson warned. Gouverneur Morris, who represented Pennsylvania in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and signed the Constitution, said the “rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest… if we do not, by the power of government, keep them in their proper spheres.”

Government is now owned by the international bankers and their mega-corporations. A Republican compromised Tea Party movement will not change the situation. It will work for the bankers too, albeit while sporting patriotic plumage as camouflage.

It may take another election cycle before the people realize the trademark Tea Party will not save them. Nobody will be safe until the Federal Reserve is abolished and the banksters are sent packing.

Congratulations Gov. Blagojevich

http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/congratulations-gov-blagojevich

Congratulations Gov. Blagojevich
August 17, 2010
Scott Creighton

I had forgotten why I had been banned at the Huffington Post... now I remember.

"I just got banned from HuffPo and my profile was [wiped-out] so that no one can read my comments.

Not because I am a republican troll. They have plenty of those there, and they let them post some of the most horrible comments I have seen.

I posted no calls for violence, no racist statements, no anti-Semitic comments, no profanity.

They banned me for pointing out what a witch-hunt this Blagojevich thing has become. They banned me because I posted links showing the connection between [Bank] of America and Blago’s demise.

They banned me because I pointed out that Madigan is probably on that list Rahm gave Blago’s people, and that Arianna had gone on TV the night before that came out and flat out claimed that Rahm hadn’t had any connection with Blago’s people."

me, Dec. 16th 2008


Or maybe they banned me because of this...

"I am not going back to Huffington Post. She is getting all kinds of press for her recent article 'Character is Destiny' where she argues that in the end, the character of Rod Blagojevich is what set this in motion. That’s a fascinating theory coming from a 'liberal journalist' who married a homosexual oil tycoon millionaire friend of the Bush family and then settled her plagiarism case out of court, when she stole another writer’s work and put in her book claiming it as her own. Is that 'character' befitting the 'destiny' she has received?"

me, Dec. 13th, 2008

I don’t know… it’s a toss-up. Ah, but I digress.

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was found guilty on only one charge that had been leveled against him, the other 23 charges were dismissed in a mistrial. The judge declared the mistrial so that the case could be tried again.. talk about your double-jeopardy; “Double jeopardy is a procedural defense that forbids a defendant from being tried twice for the same crime on the same set of facts.”


"A federal jury found former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich guilty on Tuesday of one count of lying to federal agents, and the judge said he intends to declare a mistrial on the remaining counts.

… The count on which Blagojevich was found guilty included accusations that he lied to federal agents when he said he did not track campaign contributions and kept a “firewall” between political campaigns and government work."

MSNBC


I guess it’s called a “mistrial” when the banks and the corrupt politicians that serve them don’t get the version of “justice” they wanted from the jury. I know this, because that is exactly what happened.

Back in December of 2008, I took up this case, investigating it as much as I could because I could smell something was terribly wrong with what they were trying to do to Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The evidence was everywhere and no one, including the left stalwarts like MSNBC and Huffington Post were willing to step up and take a stand for Blago.

They helped railroad Gov. Blagojevich just as much as Rahm Emanuel and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald did. And they did it to support the soon to be anointed President of “CHANGE”. Well, how did all that “change” work out?

Gov. Blagojevich didn’t do anything that every other revolving door politician does these days and the establishment left knows it.

What Blago did do was stand up to Bank of America and threaten to cancel all their state accounts in Illinois… and that they could NOT allow.

The Bank put in a call to Rahm and that was that. The next day, arrests were made.


Think Progress reports that a Chicago reporter has said that it may have been Rahm Emanuel that “tipped off” law enforcement (IE “snitched Blago out”). And now, Obama is also going on record saying “he” personally had no contact with Blago about this issue, but he isn’t saying his staff didn’t… so far… OBAMA: “I had no contact with the governor or his office so we were not…ahh ahhh ahhh… I ..was not aware of what was happening.”

Open Secrets – Bank of America’s PAC donated $10,000 to Rahm Emanuel and $254,167 to Barack Obama. BOA is also a DNC partner


Now here is an article (from HuffPo ironically) about Blago moving to strip Bank of America of state contracts...

"Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich announced Monday that he is asking all Illinois government agencies to suspend business with Bank of America. Blagojevich contended that Bank Of America received a multi-billion dollar bailout from the government and should accordingly restore credit to the Republic Windows & Doors company in Chicago."

HuffPo


What happened here is very simple: after the bailouts, a politician tried to make a stand and hold the banks accountable with our trillions of dollars of bailout money that was supposed to go toward easing credit and starting the lending up again (remember that lie?). So they smacked him down and made an example of him.

Now the people of the jury in the case have spoken and they to get smacked down, their conclusions rejected so that the NARRATIVE of what happened won’t go down in the history books in an accurate representation of what really happened.

I want to congratulate Gov. Blagojevich for this victory. Yes, they will hit you with the biggest penalty they can and yes they will retry the case til they get the results that make history a little easier for Rahm Emanuel and the bankers…

… but in the end, you did your job. You stood with the workers at Republic and you took a stand for what was right. As Gov. of Illinois, you were the highest legal representative of the people of that state and you did your job. Republic workers got their compensation as they deserved and as you stated in your press conference. You paid a high price. One day, one day soon I hope, the people of this country will recognize the sacrifice you made.