Economy

Response to “The Start of the Second American Revolution?” by Paul Joseph Watson Issue 3 August 2009 The Sovereign – Hey “Tea Bagger” Twisted Dupes to the Plutocracy – Our Forefathers Are Not With You Nor Are “We” the People!
by Andrew H. Dral

We have it in our power to begin the world over again. Thomas Paine

A version of this article was published in Issue 17 January 2010 of The Sovereign -- a small New York monthly. It was written in response to an article written by "Tea Bagger" Paul Joseph Watson Issue 3 August 2009 of The Sovereign. You might find this updated version of interest.

I found Mr. Watson’s diatribe in the August edition of you paper completely misdirected and without merit. He ruthlessly attacked the U.S. government and President Obama, but what about the true enemy of working class America -- corporate America’s plutonomy -- the corporate aristocracy. Mr. Watson has been duped. He has been made a willing fool and a tool of the corporatists, along with those that would follow the will and policies that benefit the corporations and the plutocrats. Had Mr. Watson and his “tea-baggers” been around during our Revolutionary War times they would have sided with the British loyalists, the Tories.

Krugman

President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein ...

How Banks Prey on the Unemployed

By BARBARA KOEPPEL

While posting breathtaking profits in the last two quarters – Wells Fargo’s $3.2 billion, Citigroup’s $3 billion and Chase’s $2.7 billion – U.S. banks have figured out a way to squeeze some extra dollars from those who can least afford it, the unemployed.

Click the 1st pic for a slideshow and the second for an interactive map
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Peter Morici via Ian Welsh

You got to admit President Obama obfuscates embarrassing facts and pays off his supporters as well as any politician since Huey Long.

He slams health insurance companies, while endorsing heath care reforms that would compel thirty more million Americans to buy their policies or face a poll tax.

Now he slams the bankers for paying themselves $140 billion in bonuses.

Those bonuses were "earned" trading derivatives and other engineered products [watch these two videos] with the more than $2 trillion in cheap credit provided by the Federal Reserve, TARP and other Washington largess. Meanwhile, bankers denied worthy homeowners opportunities to refinance mortgages and solid small businesses credit.

How much is $140 billion?

Good for SMUD!

These thieves have been getting away with stealing from unwitting municipalities for years. As a refresher click here to read how JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley deceived city leaders and school boards in Pennsylvania since at least 2003. And the luxury jets JPMorgan Chase bought after receiving $25 Billion in TARP funds And this warning of the coming recession from two years ago

Bank of America, UBS, JPMorgan Sued Over Derivatives

By Joel Rosenblatt

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America Corp., UBS AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co. were sued by a California public utility over claims they rigged sales of municipal derivatives and shared illegal profits through kickbacks.

The lawsuit, filed by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, is based on federal and state antitrust claims. It alleges Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America and more than a dozen other banks conspired to pre-select winners of municipal derivative auctions, coordinated their pricing, and accepted kickbacks disguised as fees from co-conspirators.

One year later: Unrest within the Obama base

By NORMAN SOLOMON
Published: Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 4:53 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 4:53 p.m.

On election night a year ago, celebrations across the North Bay included dancing in the streets. The voters had spoken — loudly — for Barack Obama, who won 74 percent of ballots in Sonoma County and 78 percent in Marin. Spirits were sky high, and so were expectations.

That evening, as he spoke to the nation from Chicago’s Grant Park, Obama repeated his campaign mantra: “Yes we can.” But a year later, the words are less uplifting.

You ever wonder why there doesn't seem to be any money for parks or libraries or schools or police or firefighters and why they have to close clinics? But they have a $40 million gift for somebody who doesn't even live here

The high-end retailer is supposed to be a key player in the K Street renovation, which has already cost the city about $40 million in property-acquisition costs. Joe Zeiden, Z Gallerie's founder and president, has spearheaded similar developments in San Diego and Pasadena.

And can't even run a business

Now the company, based in Gardena, is retrenching. Twenty-one stores closed last month, the retailer said in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy papers, and three more are expected to close soon. The shutdown lists don't include the two Sacramento-area stores, at Downtown Plaza and Roseville's Fountains shopping center.

And this is just one instance. What they could have done is loan 20 people who actually live here $2 million each, to hire and employ people who actually live here and spread that money around in the local economy, but no, the geniuses get worked again

Los Angeles Corporate Welfare: Ritz-Carlton and AEG

Rich entities siphon taxpayer money while real communities struggle

Strange Geographies: The Little Town That Los Angeles Killed

by Ransom Riggs - September 18, 2009 - 6:37 AM

There are lots of dry lake beds in California, and to the untrained eye, Owens Dry Lake is just like the rest. But there is one key difference: while most of the state’s stark, white alkali flats have been dry for thousands of years, Owens was an enormous, gem-blue lake stretching more than a hundred miles square — and an important habitat for millions of migratory birds — as recently as 1917. That’s when the City of Los Angeles stole it, diverting the streams that fed Owens Lake into an aqueduct that watered the booming metropolis 200 miles to the south. As the lake slowly dried up, so did the once-thriving town of Keeler, which had been both a mining town and something of a lakeside resort. Nowadays, the “lakeside” town of Keeler is more than a mile from the “shoreline” of Owens Lake — little more than a collection of marshy mudpits surrounded by an endless expanse of salt flat, the surface of which can reach 150 degrees on hot summer days.

Loving Couple Divorces To Stay Afloat Financially

For Mary McCurnin and husband Ron Bednar, money trouble has followed health trouble. In 2003, the couple declared bankruptcy after their insurance covered only 10 percent of treatment costs for her breast cancer and his intestinal bleeding. In 2004, McCurnin's breast cancer returned, and Bednar underwent open heart surgery.

Now, after repeatedly refinancing their house to pay medical bills and living expenses, they're broke. To improve their chances of growing old together, they've filed for divorce.

"It occurred to me that I could get my first husband's Social Security," said McCurnin. Her first husband, to whom she'd been married 20 years, died in 1989. When she turns 60 in November, McCurnin said she will be eligible for $1,200 in monthly survivor's benefits from the previous marriage. As the Social Security Administration told her, she can't have the survivor benefit if she's married to someone else.

The Rancho Cordova, Calif. couple has been scraping by with the occasional freelance gig -- both are graphic artists -- and Bednar brings in $1,000 a month in Social Security benefits. They haven't made a payment on either of their mortgages in two months and fully expect a foreclosure. McCurnin told the Huffington Post that they don't bother opening mail from their credit card companies, to whom they owe at least $10,000.

McCurnin said she suspects their horrendous credit is a huge obstacle to either of them landing a job, and Bednar talks about the "gray wall" that faces perfectly qualified older workers.

"We literally live from week to week," said McCurnin. "We got $300 in the bank."

[Related: Wells Fargo exec used Malibu Colony home lost by Madoff-duped couple for extravagant parties, and from earlier this year - Wells Fargo cancels multi-million dollar Las Vegas trip after it is made public, while at the same time - Eviction patrol heats up on U.S. foreclosures]

The Secret Test That Ensures Lenders Win on Loan Mods

“NPV Test: Failed.”

That was the red-lettered verdict on the computer screen of a CitiMortgage negotiator in June. The result: An 83-year-old widow in Illinois was denied a loan modification through the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable program, even though the employee admitted in an e-mail, “I am unable to come up with a reason for the denial.”

The Net Present Value test is a complex computer model used by loan servicers to determine whether a homeowner qualifies for the federal loan modification program. The test compares two scenarios – modification and foreclosure – and determines which would be more profitable for the lender. If it’s foreclosure, the lender has no obligation to modify the loan. But the model is a black box. What goes in isn’t entirely clear, and what comes out isn’t always reliable.

The Treasury Department has refused to release the exact formula for the NPV model, bringing criticism from homeowner advocates and industry experts. Cloaking the NPV formula in secrecy makes it difficult to identify any potential flaws in the design of the program, which has generated fewer modifications than anticipated [1]. There are assumptions built into the model, and they may not be the right ones, said Diane Thompson of the National Consumer Law Center. “Someone needs to be able to review it.”

Proxy Access: the Rights of Shareholders to Nominate Directors, Big Deal for Unions, Pension Funds, and Institutional Investors, Could Transform the Corporate Board Room
by Andrew H. Dral

The following letter was sent by me to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in response to their request for comment on the "proxy access" rule. If you want to make a difference send them your opinion, just upload your letter at "www.sec.gov." The Chamber of Commerce is doing a full court press to water down this rule, any comments you make will help our cause to wrench control away from the corportocracy. This rule will give shareholders more power to replace entrenched corporate board members. My letter, included below, is on the SEC Web site.

http://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-10-09/s71009-513.htm

SEC Headquarters
100 F Street N.E.
Washington, DC 20549

Dear SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro,

In theory, our business texts tell us that shareholders own the corporation. The corporate board of directors works for the interests of the shareholders. Decisions by the board benefit shareholders. Like, so many other fallacies in our society, this is a blatant lie. As corporate boards across our land prove every day, the board of directors works for the interests of management. They promote unwarranted -- out of sight -- management salaries. Its members maintain their status by being docile puppy dogs, and they remain on the board at the pleasure of management. In other words, the current boards are lackeys and lapdogs for management. The crisis in corporate America orchestrated by overly aggressive, unethical, greedy, and corrupt management teams at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, AIG, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, and Adelphia could have been avoided with boards that were engaged in the operation and long-term value of the business.

New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit

Bill Maher - Host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" - Posted: July 23, 2009 11:56 PM

How about this for a New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. It used to be that there were some services and institutions so vital to our nation that they were exempt from market pressures. Some things we just didn't do for money. The United States always defined capitalism, but it didn't used to define us. But now it's becoming all that we are.