Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Everything is Rigged: This Time, It's Currencies
RollingStone | Matt Taibbi | 06/13/13

I'll get into this in more detail later (I'm on deadline for a magazine feature), but this story just landed. Given the LIBOR story, the Interest Rate Swap manipulation story, the Euro gas price manipulation story, the U.S. energy price manipulation story, and (by now) countless others of the "Everything is Rigged" variety, this screams out for immediate notice. Via Bloomberg:

... This time the rates allegedly being rigged are in the foreign-exchange or "FX" markets, meaning that if this story is true, it would almost certainly trump LIBOR for scale/horribleness.

As one friend of mine who works on Wall Street put it, "It's endless! This is the biggest market in the world." Bloomberg suggested the story is just the tip of the iceberg: ... Read more

NSA head: Leaks have caused U.S. ‘great harm’
Washington Post | Ellen Nakashima | 06/12/13

The head of the National Security Agency defended his agency’s broad electronic surveillance programs Wednesday, saying that they have helped thwart dozens of terrorist attacks and that their recent public disclosure has done “great harm” to the nation’s security.

Facing his first public grilling since it was revealed that the NSA has secretly collected millions of telephone records as well as e-mails and other Internet data, Gen. Keith Alexander sought to aggressively rebut congressional and other criticism of the Obama administration’s anti-terrorism tactics. ... Read more

Connecting the Dots on PRISM, Phone Surveillance, and the NSA’s Massive Spy Center
Wired Magazine | James Bamford | 06/12/13

Physically, the NSA has always been well protected by miles of high fences and electrified wire, thousands of cameras, and gun-toting guards. But that was to protect the agency from those on the outside trying to get in to steal secrets. Now it is confronting a new challenge: those on the inside going out and giving the secrets away. ... Read more

How Spy Agency Contractors Have Already Abused Their Power
TheNation | Lee Fang | 06/11/13

“I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the president if I had a personal email.” —Edward Snowden, Booz Allen Hamilton whistleblower, during his interview with The Guardian.   Could the sprawling surveillance state enable government or its legion of private contractors to abuse their technology and spy upon domestic political targets or judges?

This is not a far off possibility. Two years ago, a batch of stolen e-mails revealed a plot by a set of three defense contractors (Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary Federal) to target activists, reporters, labor unions and political organizations. The plans— one concocted in concert with lawyers for the US Chamber of Commerce to sabotage left-leaning critics, like the Center for American Progress and the SEIU, and a separate proposal to “combat” WikiLeaks and its supporters, including Glenn Greenwald, on behalf of Bank of America— fell apart after reports of their existence were published online. But the episode serves as a reminder that the expanding spy industry could use its government-backed cybertools to harm ordinary Americans and political dissident groups. ... Read more

You Wouldn't Believe Bank of America's Latest Scam
AlterNet | Thom Hartmann | 06/12/13

The American banking industry is back and more dangerous than ever before.   According to the FDIC, U.S. banks posted a record $40.3 billion profit in the first three months of the year.   This staggering profit tops the previous first-quarter profit record that was set more than six years ago, before the financial crisis and big-bank caused Bush Great Recession.

So, now that the big banks have fully recovered from the financial crisis that they themselves caused, and are raking in massive profits yet again, you would think that they’d be extra careful not to cause another financial meltdown, right?   Wrong.

It’s appears that big bank Bank of America is up to the same old dirty tricks that helped contribute to America’s financial meltdown in the first place.   According to the American Banker magazine, Bank of America is using a misleading sales pitch and a flood of fine print to sell you and me on mortgage refinancing plans. ...

... The mailer talks about annual savings of more than $4,000 if borrowers refinance their mortgages, but according to National Consumer Law Center attorney Andrew Pizor, the refinancing offer would actually add more than $37,000 to the cost of a borrower’s loan. ... Read more