Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

The Latest Scandal: Goldman, Fed Employees Busted For Illegally Sharing Confidential Information
ZeroHedge | author | 11/20/14

Because when the rape and pillaging of the US middle-class begins at the very top, it won't end until the sharp metal objects finally start falling.

On the morning of Friday, September 26, in addition to the shocking news of Bill Gross' departure from Pimco, the world was just as shocked, or not as the case was for many, that a former NY Fed staffer, Carmen Segarra, who had been previously fired for suggesting that Goldman Sachs has an undue influence on the NY Fed and gets a preferential treatment (certainly as a result of NY Fed's president Bill Dudley being working previously at Goldman Sachs), had released nearly 50 hours of tapes confirming her allegations: that the NY Fed was nothing but a branch of the bank that controls every central bank. The full details were presented in "How Goldman Controls The New York Fed: 47.5 Hours Of "The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes" Explain."

Ironically it was on that very day that another recent Goldman hire from the NY Fed - a classic case of, as the NY Times puts it, the "revolving door, the symbolic portal that connects financial regulators to Wall Street" - a 29-year-old former New York Fed regulator named Rohit Bansal, got into hot water after something "shocking" was revealed: he had an inside source at the NY Fed who was providing him with illegal, confidential information on a regular basis. ... Read more

*DN | Matt Taibbi and Bank Whistleblower on How JPMorgan Chase Helped Wreck the Economy, Avoid Prosecution (11/07/14) [9:25]

Enough Is Enough: The President's Latest Wall Street Nominee
HP | Sen. Elizabeth Warren | 11/19/14

I believe President Obama deserves deference in picking his team, and I've generally tried to give him that. But enough is enough.

Last Wednesday, President Obama announced his nomination of Antonio Weiss to serve as Under Secretary for Domestic Finance at the Treasury Department. This is a position that oversees Dodd-Frank implementation and a wide range of banking and economic policymaking issues, including consumer protection.

So who is Antonio Weiss? He's the head of global investment banking for the financial giant Lazard. He has spent the last 20 years of his career at Lazard -- most of it advising on international mergers and acquisitions. ... Read more

Neo-Feudalism Has Officially Arrived -- Congressman Suggests Building A Moat Around White House
ZeroHedge | author | 11/20/14

"While the general population is aware something is seriously wrong, people remain extremely confused about the root of the problem. This is because what's happening all around us isn't socialism and it isn't free market capitalism. It is actually a return to something much more ancient and much more oppressive. It is a return to serfdom, neo-fedualism and oligarchy." ... Read more

World Not Even Close To Avoiding Dangerous Warming, UN Report Finds
HP | Seth Borenstein | 11/19/14

The world still isn't close to preventing what leaders call a dangerous level of man-made warming, a new United Nations report says. That's despite some nations' recent pledges to cut back on carbon dioxide emissions.

The report looks at the gap between what countries promise to do about carbon pollution and what scientists say needs to be done to prevent temperatures rising another two degrees. That two-degree level is a goal that world leaders set in 2009.

To achieve that goal, the world has to hit a peak of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases before 2030, said the report's chief scientific editor, Joseph Alcamo. But the study says carbon emissions will continue to soar until 2050 and by then it will be too late, even with recent promises by the U.S., China and Europe. ... Read more