Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Tonight: Kickoff
HP | Howard Fineman | 02/01/16

... Perhaps 300,000 Iowans will gather in school gyms, libraries and other public places on Monday night at 7 p.m. Central Time to kick off the 2016 presidential campaign by voting in front of each other (Republicans by using a ballot box in the room; Democrats by gathering in groups).

What matters is not the final delegate count -- which will take many months of maneuvering to determine -- but the raw popular vote winners as announced Monday night on TV and online. ... Read more

Three Financial Crimes that Show How the DOJ "Went Easy" on Wall Street
RealNews | Jessica Desvarieux | 01/31/16

Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren has just released a report slamming federal regulators and the Department of Justice. It's titled Rigged Justice 2016: How Weak Enforcement Lets Corporate Offenders Off Easy. The title says it all. Senator Warren goes after how the government fails to adequately punish corporations when they break the law. She says, quote, when government regulators and prosecutors fail to pursue big corporations or their executives who violate the law, corporate criminals have free rein to operate outside the law.

One of the top cases that is brought up in this report is the Standard & Poor settlement back in 2015, where the ratings agency agreed to pay about $1.4 billion in a civil settlement to the DOJ, 19 states, and DC. Just give our viewers a refresher. Why did S&P have to pay that fine, and why does Senator Warren argue that the fine does not go far enough? ... Read more

*Rigged Justice: 2016 by Senator Elizabeth Warren

Laws are effective only to the extent they are enforced. A law on the books has little impact if prosecution is highly unlikely.

This country devotes substantial resources to the prosecution of crimes such as murder, assault, kidnapping, burglary and theft, both in an effort to deter future criminal activity and to provide victims with some degree of justice.

When government regulators and prosecutors fail to pursue big corporations or their executives who violate the law, or when the government lets them off with a slap on the wrist, corporate criminals have free rein to operate outside the law. They can game the system, cheat families, rip off taxpayers, and even take actions that result in the death of innocent victims -- all with no serious consequences. ...
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Bloomberg | Davos 2016 - Where Is the Chinese Economy Heading? (01/21/16) [1:11:16]

Democracy of the Billionaires
AlterNet & Tom Dispatch | Nomi Prins | 01/31/16

Democracy of the Billionaires, The Most Expensive Election Ever Is A Billionaire's Playground (Except for Bernie Sanders) by Nomi Prins

Speaking of the need for citizen participation in our national politics in his final State of the Union address, President Obama said, "Our brand of democracy is hard." A more accurate characterization might have been: "Our brand of democracy is cold hard cash." ... Read more

Paul Craig Roberts: The West Is Being Reduced To Looting Itself
ZeroHedge | author | 02/01/16

I, Michael Hudson, John Perkins, and a few others have reported the multi-pronged looting of peoples by Western economic institutions, principally the big New York Banks with the aid of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Third World countries were and are looted by being inticed into development plans for electrification or some such purpose. The gullible and trusting governments are told that they can make their countries rich by taking out foreign loans to implement a Western-presented development plan, with the result being sufficient tax revenues from economic development to service the foreign loan.

Seldom, if ever, does this happen. What happens is that the plan results in the country becoming indebted to the limit and beyond of its foreign currency earnings. When the country is unable to service the development loan, the creditors send the IMF to tell the indebted government that the IMF will protect the government's credit rating by lending it the money to pay its bank creditors. However, the conditions are that the government take necessary austerity measures so that the government can repay the IMF. These measures are to curtail public services and the government sector, reduce public pensions, and sell national resources to foreigners. The money saved by reduced social benefits and raised by selling off the country's assets to foreigners serves to repay the IMF. ... Read more