Campaign 2010

Countdown to Congressional Elections


The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.
Noam Chomsky, M.I.T. emeritus Professor of Linguistics

The Rise of Corporate Freedom of Speech

(Surpassed 2008 total on August 18)

See Weekly Spending Totals

$2.9 Billion Spent in 08
on Congressional Race
See Major Contributors

Corporate money in politics is bad enough. Secret corporate money is intolerable.


Primary Election Results
(UPDATED: August 25, 2010)






"The Great 2010 Incumbent (Non-)Revolt"

Senate Primary’s
Incumbent Democrats
1 Loss; 6 Wins of 13
Incumbent Republicans
1 Loss; 9 Wins of 12

House Primary’s
Incumbent Democrats
2 Loss; 182 Wins of 245
Incumbent Republicans
2 Loss; 140 Wins of 158

General Election Candidates

Senate

House of Representatives

Visual Facts

Hover to Pause.
Click Image for Larger Size.

National Debt Clock

Hover to Pause

WHEN Did You Become Fiscally Responsible?
BEFORE Obama or AFTER Obama??
January 20, 2009
$10,838,758,414,164.46 - ↑90%
Discretionary Spending at 48.6%

January 20, 2001
$5,719,124,940,098.04 - 36%
January 20, 1993
$4,192,107,025,882.17 - 62%
January 20, 1989
$2,601,104,000,000.00 - 189%
January 20, 1981
$909,041,000.000.00

Click Image for Full Size


Debt by President

Are You A Tea Party Hyprocrite??

(Click for Debt Details)

United States of Corporations

Thanks to the GOP's Supreme Court
(Click Flag for Full Size)
Corporate Bill of Rights

Quotes and Links

Hover to Pause
(Look for the Listings)

The Decade When the U.S. Lost Its Way

Where Have All the Neocons Gone?

From Neocons to Crazy-Cons

America Builds an Aristocracy

Supreme immodesty: Why the justices play politics

The Biggest Medicare Fraud Ever

Enough Right-Wing Propaganda

Tax Rate for Richest 400 Taxpayers Plummeted in Recent Decades, Even as Their Pre-Tax Incomes Skyrocketed

"The financial reform bill will determine whether Wall Street’s banks will serve the American economy or whether the American economy will continue to serve Wall Street's banks."

"While the economy doesn't function for most of us ordinary workers, it yields considerable reward for those at the top."

Republicans Are Locked in a Passionate Embrace with a Corpse and Won't Let Go

"The most important thing Republicans think is that if there are Americans who can't afford the insurance policies that private insurers are willing to offer, then that's their problem."

"It should tell you everything you need to know that, in lobbying to retain its bank supervisory powers, the Fed's allies include the big Wall Street banks."

"[Texas Republican Jeb] Hensarling told a Texas-size whopper — and then tried to claim Republican credit for Bill Clinton’s budget surpluses."

"The Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision last week giving American corporations the right to unlimited political spending was an astonishing display of judicial arrogance, overreach and unjustified activism."

"It was wrong because nothing in the First Amendment dictates that corporations must be treated identically to people."

"They backed the truck up to Fort Knox in broad daylight. They emptied it out, we rescued them and they get $150 billion in bonuses."

"A huge, unregulated boom in which almost all the upside went directly into private hands, followed by a gigantic bust in which the losses were socialized."

So You Just Squandered Billions . . . Take Another Whack at It

Banks 'Too Big to Fail' Have Grown Even Bigger

Bankers' bonuses Beat Earnings as Industry Imploded

U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7 Trillion

The Bank Bailouts — Corporate Welfarism

New Evidence Cheney Swayed Reaction to Leak - Valerie Plame

Once Again, The More You Watch Fox The Dumber You Are

"Over the past year, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have injected trillions of dollars into frozen financial markets, snapping up unwanted bonds, extending guarantees to banks and slashing interest rates."

Building a Better Capitalism

The End of Supply Side Economics

The Great Wealth Transfer

The Richer

Who Rules America? Power, Politics, and Social Change

Proponents of Estate Tax Repeal Are Resurrecting Old Misconceptions

Income Gaps Between Very Rich and Everyone Else More Than Tripled In Last Three Decades

Ending Plutocracy: A 12-Step Program

Our Gilded Age

The Rich and the Rest of Us

GOP's "Small Government" Talk is Hollow


Distortions, Hypocrisy & More

"I'm not upset that you lied to me; I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you"
Friedrich Nietzsche
[Hover to Pause]

Today is

September 27, 2009

Federal Reserve Was Sub-Prime Lenders Guardian Angel

September 27, 2009

I said this before: “The more we learn, the worse it gets”. The Washington Post published an article today that just makes your blood curl. The Federal Reserve, acting under, or rather adhering to, a law that was quietly passed in 1998 ignored dozens of complaints about sub-prime lenders. The writer of the article referred to it as a “hands-off” policy, saying it created a double standard. The fed, under Alan Greenspan, was supposed to scrutinize banks, which they failed to do, but due to a policy of their own making, did not police sub-prime lenders, usually a subsidiary of banks.

The article, As Subprime Lending Crisis Unfolded, Watchdog Fed Didn’t bother Barking, covers a lot of information. Instead of making further comments on it, I have simply included various excerpts from the lengthy article. The writer, Binyamin Appelbaum, tells us this is the first of a series about the record of the Federal Reserve.

“….large banking companies including Wells Fargo and Citigroup had created subprime businesses wholly focused on making loans at high interest rates, largely in the black and Hispanic neighborhoods to the south and west of downtown Chicago.”

“Under a policy quietly formalized in 1998, the Fed refused to police lenders’ compliance with federal laws protecting borrowers, despite repeated urging by consumer advocates across the country and even by other government agencies.”

“Under the policy, the Fed did not even investigate consumer complaints against the affiliates.”

“Acting on a recommendation from four Fed staffers including representatives of the Philadelphia, St. Louis and Kansas City regional reserve banks, the Fed’s Board of Governors unanimously decided to formalize a long-standing practice, ‘to not conduct consumer compliance examinations of, nor to investigate consumer complaints regarding, nonbank subsidiaries of bank holding companies’.”

“Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Fed, recalled that [Fed Governor Edward M.] Gramlich broached the [predatory lending] subject at a private meeting in 2000. Greenspan said that he disagreed with Gramlich, telling him that such inspections would require a vast effort with no certainty of results, and that the Fed’s involvement might give borrowers a false sense of security.”

“After the Fed’s decision, several of the largest bank holding companies added finance arms, expanding into the regulatory vacuum.”

“By 2004, the consumer finance industry had largely been folded into the banking industry.”

“The Fed found that some practices had continued in violation of that commitment, and that [Citigroup] employees had misled regulators.”

“The Fed’s reluctance was part of a broad governmental retreat from oversight of the financial industry. Greenspan and many politicians in both parties saw regulation as a blunt instrument that often deprived more people than it protected.”

“Congress now is weighing whether the Fed should be fired. The Obama administration has proposed shifting consumer protection duties away from the Fed and other banking regulators and into a new watchdog agency. That proposal, a central plank in the administration’s plan to overhaul financial regulation, is opposed by the industry and faces a battle on Capitol Hill.”

And to think millions of us commoners are still supporting those Wall Street protectors who are saying the Obama administration is trying to turn our financial industry into socialist institutions with regulatory reform. Well here’s a wake up call for you — preventing criminals from robbing our storage depots is NOT socialism!

Bookmark and Share

Leave a Reply

 

 

 

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>