Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

A Healthy Economy Requires Fewer People Working on Wall Street, Making Much Less Money
AlterNet | Les Leopold | 03/05/14

"I wish someone would give me one shred of neutral evidence that financial innovation has led to economic growth -- one shred of evidence." -- Paul Volker (2009)

... Check out this chart: Between WWII and 1980, the wages of financial workers were the same as those who worked in non-financial industries. Then the two lines split apart with Wall Street extracting an enormous premium. Do the financiers deserve it? And how would we know if they do or don't? The answer should depend on how much value the financial sector, in fact, produces for our economy. Is there a correlation between the explosion in Wall Street incomes and economic growth? ... Read more

Wall Street Has Found Its Latest Dangerous Financial Product, Activists Warn
HP | Ben Hallman | 03/04/14

Housing and consumer activists warn that Wall Street is about to crash the housing market -- again. The activists said they are particularly concerned about the growing number of companies looking to issue bonds backed by rental properties -- bonds that a coalition of groups described as "eerily like" those mortgage-backed securities that helped fuel the last housing bubble.

"We are poised to experience another crisis if federal regulators fail to recognize and take corrective action to address red flags that are all too familiar," more than 75 housing and consumer groups wrote in a letter Tuesday to federal bank and housing regulators. ... Read more

Breaking News in Moscow
Slate | Christian Caryl | 03/06/14

The bizarre, mixed-up world Russians see when they watch the latest news on Crimea.

Another day of crisis in Ukraine, another day of Vesti, one of the flagship news programs on Russian state TV. Wednesday's broadcast led off with a report from the newborn "Autonomous Republic of Crimea," where, as the voice-over intones, "state institutions are rapidly taking shape." The new republic's armed forces and the new border guard service (who are both equipped and uniformed exactly like Russia's) are getting down to work. All this is happening, apparently, entirely spontaneously--there's nary a mention of the involvement of Russian troops or officials. All is calm in Crimea, apparently: As the camera pans over tidy buildings and happy passersby in the capital of Simferopol, the commentator is at pains to contrast the scene with the burnt-out buildings and smoldering barricades in Kiev.

Next there's footage of Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Kiev, where, we're told, "The United States is unreservedly supporting those who came to power through a coup." After Kerry's meeting with the leaders of Ukraine's interim government, we see him shaking hands with leaders of the Euromaidan protest movement; the commentator pointedly notes that Kerry's encounter with these "ultrarightists" is even "friendlier" than his session with the representatives of the government. ... Read more

U.S. Provokes Russia, Acts Surprised to Get Nasty Reaction
AlterNet | William Boardman | 03/06/14

If too many people get sucked in by the current, distorted media coverage of events unfolding now in Ukraine, then there's a good chance life will get very ugly for a lot of innocent people, since one of the logical end points is the use of nuclear weapons. Everyone in power knows that's a potential reality, but the urge to demagogue the Russians is presently overwhelming honesty and caution.

Ukraine is NOT a real place. Ukraine has never been a real place, not in the sense that Madascar or Cuba are both undeniably real places with real edges. Ukraine has no real edges, just lines on a map imposed by some treaty or army over the past several thousand years. To speak, as the more pompous do, of Ukraine's "territorial integrity" is to speak of an imaginary construct, useful for blurring people's minds for political purposes.

Ukraine in recent years has been what the power brokers of the disintegrating Soviet Union decided to let it be in 1991. Ukraine has no coherent history as a nation. First inhabited some 44,000 years ago, most of the region's history is as occupied territory. ... Read more