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June 19, 2010
Anyone remember how the Obama administration and US Attorney General Eric Holder promised America that the Justice Department would prosecute Wall Street executives responsible for the crisis? If you’ve been holding your breath, you’d better breathe out because it “ain’t gonna happen”. We’re in to the 16 month since Holder declared he’d be relentless in his investigations, and not one Wall Street executive has even been properly investigated, let alone prosecuted. Prosecuting white collar criminals of high stature will never be a priority with our elected and appointed officials. But to keep the masses at bay, they will get some of the off-Wall Street boys. Holder has announced that 1,215 of those have been charged with mortgage fraud since March 1, 2010, for a total of $2.3 billion in fraud. 485 have been arrested. Lee Bentley Frakas of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker (Ocala, Fl.) is one of them. He’s the biggest to date, and is charged with only $1.9 billion in fraud. The least of the Wall Street criminals goes beyond the tens of billions of dollars mark. So we should be IMPRESSED!! But there’s probably a reason Wall Streeters are getting away: 1,447 former government workers have been hired since the beginning of 2009 to lobbying for Wall Street. And the Old Man said in January of last year that this would be the way it would turn out.
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Republican lawmakers have block Democrats efforts again for a total of four times to raise the liability cap of $75 million on oil companies. One must remember that within the first hour of the BP Horizon disaster the cost had well exceeded that amount. Naturally no one is surprised at this — if it were left up to Republicans, the American tax payers would be paying for all the cost of BP’s mess, and the cost of any future “accidents” by oil companies. But there are those who think if there had been no cap in the first place oil companies would behave differently, and you can rank the Old Man among them. I worked for two of those oil companies, and I can tell you that $75 million is pocket change to them. One must remember that BP had even done a study on when it would become unprofitable to kill employees.
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Now look! We can understand why the Republicans would fight attempts to disclose who campaign contributors are, but Democrats!? Conservative “Blue Dogs” (Democrats) and the Congressional Black Caucus (Democrats) forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to pull the campaign finance bill. The bill is simply called a DISCLOSURE Act (PDF), which does no more than bring campaign contributors out of the closet. What exactly are they afraid of? Would you vote for a candidate who had a bag over their head and their name and party affiliation withheld from the public? Hell no, you wouldn’t, but that is exactly what this amounts to. Now there aren’t many things I would side with liberal Pelosi on; in fact, I can’t name any from the past. But this is one I support her solidly on. I WANT TO KNOW WHO’S BUYING MY POLITICIAN!
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Afraid of deficit spending now (once upon a time a core Republican value – but no more), Democrats are having a hard time funding some of their short-term programs. Driven mostly by the more conservative Democrats, others are being forced to face up to the deficit. However, some of those conservative Democrats are joining their Republican friends by speaking and voting with forked tongue. Democratic Senator Evan Bayh was one of the Democrats who voted against the jobs bill, but had no problem with “softening” tax reforms targeted at investment-fund managers who shelter their income at lower capital-gain tax rates. Put in plain everyday English, ‘no help what-so-ever for those people who have no job and can’t find one, but you multi-millionaires/billionaires have my full support of not paying your share of taxes’. GOOD CHOICE BAYH!!!!
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Something everyone in America already knew: Republicans are “losing it” on the deficit even though it was Republicans who cut taxes twice while the Bush administration was starting two wars. Translation: The cost of two wars started by their Republican President plus tax cuts structured by a Republican Congress has added nearly $3 trillion in our current debt, but Republicans in Congress are “concerned and worried” over the budget deficit. Yeah, sure! Remember — Obama has the cost of the two wars in his budget, but Bush and Cheney never did. They left the cost out in order to make their budget appear better, and then summoned their Republican controlled Congress for war cost as needed / desired through out a budget year.
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Do you have any concerns over financial regulation reform saving you from future Wall Street bailouts? Well, you should be! So far Wall Street has handed over $112 million to 43 lawmakers who are on the financial regulation committee. So who do you think will come out with the winning hand? We taxpayers, or the bankers?
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So you want smaller government? Well, you shouldn’t be so quick to make that a blanket statement. Last year the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) made $65 billion in erroneous payments. Granted a good portion is due to inefficiency, partly blame on a don’t-give-a-damn attitude, but a bigger part is due to a shortage of help. Any bills coming in that’s less than $100,000 is automatically paid, mainly because the center doesn’t have enough people and time to properly digest all the claims. How about your personal job? Ever had to just let something go because you became too overloaded with work after your employer cut staff to lower overhead cost?
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