Wall Street's Long Con swindle of America

http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4519019/pension-cuts-2015-federal-spending-bill

I saw the reports of the changes in the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, before today. They were overshadowed by the swindle of Wall Street (Citibank lobbyists) putting in language making Tax Payers responsible for Bank bets. But they are part of the same long swindle that has been going on for more than 30 years. Back in 2009 I wrote about the PBGC in a Blog entry titled "Boomers and Our Grandparents". In that long ago blog entry I recounted the history of bucket shops:

"In the late 19th century and early 20th century ordinary people were encouraged to invest in the Stock Market through “Bucket shops” scattered all over the country. People also invested indirectly by depositing their money in banks, and the banks would invest in stocks or where-ever they thought they could maximize risk. There was no thought about risk. Some of this was through Bucket Shops. The way a bucket shop worked is that a local salesman would sell a derived security that allowed a number of investors to pool together to buy a security on wall street. This allowed ordinary people to play the stock market, and was sold as a way to protect their investments. Unfortunately the same stock could be sold 10 times and the profit pocketed by rich and well connected con men 9 times before anyone caught on. Some bucket shops actually bought stocks, but many of them turned into simply cons. And eventually even “legitimate” bucket shops would get caught short when the stock market did something expected and didn’t perform as expected. As a result of tens of thousands of people being scammed bucket shops were outlawed." [boomers and our grandparents]

These Bucket shops were a long con run by the giant banks with help from con artists around the country. Now we have another long con involving banksters who are happily transferring wealth from ordinary citizens to themselves.

"Even after the bucket shops were exposed, ordinary people were still encouraged to invest in the stock market. Worse, most people put their money in banks, and many of those banks over-leveraged (borrowed more than they had assets to cover) or invested in the Stock market. Eventually the stock market crashed, the banks closed. And ordinary folks realized that this whole idea was stupid, they’d been had. Meanwhile unemployment levels went to 30% while the rich, many of whom had created the casino in the first place, continued to live a life of inconsiderate luxury."

I was hoping that Obama was going to champion law and order and prosecute the latest round of swindles. I didn't expect that Wall Street would continue it's long term plans and just lie low until his last years. But that seems to be what they are doing. In the 20's Wall Street hoodwinked ordinary people directly. They had to have hucksters out there actually selling their worthless securities. Congress eventually passed Glass Steagle and other laws to ban these practices because they were fraudulent and risky. Wall Street was offloading risk so that they would have loaded coins. Like Batman's frenemy Two-face. It's Heads they win, Tails you lose. And I warned of what was happening with the PBGC in 2009:

"What most people didn’t understand is that getting people to invest in a casino is only good for the casino owners. As a result most of us now have inadequate 401K’s and Keogh’s and no pension plan. Those of us with pensions have them in the able hands of the PBGC, which usually has to cut benefits to keep them solvent. And we are facing a demographic disaster. And what are people doing? Blaming themselves. Well to a certain extent we deserve some blame. We are the ones who didn’t pay attention in history class." [boomers and our grandparents]

I was referring to a Washington Post article written by David Ignatious named The Baby Boomers' Retirement Bummer where David Ignatious was warning about what was about to happen:

"People have accused the baby boomers of being whiners almost since we were born. But just wait until we get to retirement age and discover that we don't have nearly enough money to take care of our "golden years." That's going to be the ultimate generational bummer." [The Baby Boomers' Retirement Bummer]

In 2009 PBGC was cutting future benefits. I thought that was wrong then. Wall Street and comfortable folks were fine with it because it wasn't their work being stolen and their future being swindled by the CEOs and investor class. It was the workers fault that the companies they work for won't pay them the worth of their labor. It's the retirees fault that companies chose to recklessly convert pensions to the pockets of insiders and CEOs -- according to Wall Street and savvy "pundits" who serve them. That was bad enough. What is different now is that they are cutting present benefits also thanks to the influence and clout of Wall Street money which the corrupt SCOTUS legalized in Citizens United. Either those benefits get cut, or Wall Street has to be forced to pay for it's privilege and power. In our current corrupt times which do you think will prevail? Well as Ignatious noted back in 2009 and it's only gotten worse since then:

"Let's start with the basic fact that only about half of Americans have any employer-sponsored retirement plan at all. The other folks will have to depend on Social Security. For a typical boomer worker, that would mean a monthly benefit of about $2,400 at a retirement age of 66 in 2020. On that, you won't be able to afford many Starbucks lattes."

So at least our corrupt congress is an equal opportunity economic stiffer. They are only stiffing about 1.5 million people. The rest of us have already been stiffed through direct theft from 401K and IRA accounts and simply not getting paid enough to have a surplus we can save. David predicted what is happening in 2009, when he noted:

"What's going to happen? Certainly, people will try to save more. But my guess, knowing my generational cohort, is that we'll want a government bailout to supplement our too-meager retirement savings. Unfortunately, the Treasury won't have enough money to fund our Medicare benefits, let alone a top-up in Social Security." [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/06/AR2009050603322.html]

All Part of a Long Con

I suspect what our elites have done is that they saw these provisions, publicly pay lip service to protecting the retirement of baby boomers, while privately agreeing with the investor class that it's our own fault and Wall Street gets a pass.

But the problem is that Treasury has plenty of money through the Federal Reserve to bail out Wall Street thefts, such as the Derivative fraud, but is owned by Wall Street and so has a double standard.

Wall Street crooks are running a long con. They snuck this provision in the same bill to protect themselves from bad bets that could quickly dwarf the entire amount of Baby Boom pensions. Our 1% was born with silver spoons in their mouths but will be darned if they will even let the rest of us folks keep the pewter ones the rest of us are stuck with.

"if there's another economic downturn, they can count on a taxpayer bailout of their derivatives trading business." [http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/spending-bill-992-derivatives-citigroup-lobbyists]

It's a long con folks. The fix is in, and we can only fight it -- by Fighting it

Further reading:

History of the Bailout Swindle of 2008 from Rolling Stone:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104?page=2

Mother Jones Article:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/spending-bill-992-derivatives-citigroup-lobbyists

Crooks and Liars

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/12/co-president-dimon-whips-votes-shameful

We lived in a Democracy

We lived in a democracy

until we decided to end it.

We anointed someone to call himself the decider

because we failed to see that we had failed

to understand and live by democratic rules

So we let him decide for us.

 

You hear them deride the constitution

you hear them deride the people.

You hear them if you listen to them

But they don't live in a democracy

and neither do we.

 

The Politburo and it's decider

fly over us from coast to coast

and they extract confessions by torture

while blaming a single city

But really the decisions are made in secret chambers.

and we are expected to go about our labors

and salute their grand old flag

 

Christopher H. Holte 2005

A Fractal Universe

A Fractal Universe

It's a Fractal Universe

suspended between pure chaos

and boring order

 

Look at it from above

as we fall towards the sea

the level of detail we can see

stays the same

 

almost order,

patterns that never exactly repeat

changes that never ever are exactly the same

Endless chaos

Fractal Animals

We are crazy fractal animals

living in an almost sane world

a sequence of cartoonist panels

that seem to think thoughts

and therefore think they are alive.

Descartes Cartoon

captions over a half drunk cartoonist panel

Is that God?

A panel over my image says "I think therefore I am.

 

If God speaks to me

Is it a cartoonist speech

Done with pencil and eraser?

Is my life like a cartoon?

The end the last frame he feels like drawing?

Yet I feel the painful traumas

Of the cartoonists strange set of humors.

 

What do I see?

and is it really there?

 

It's not even a proper vision

Though it roils in turbulence like a tornado

with a vacuum cleaner roar

 

No angelic music

No thumping heart beat

Unless my mind can imagine it

and fine some other existence

at some point this distance is gone.

not even a song.

 

Just as it ever was

dancing patterns,

a chemical burn

electrons vibrating and singing

keeping each other company

Thoughts

A Gate moves open here

A pattern that says something

Do we really understand what?

A code that seems to say life

But also says death.

Either/Or

Creaking, seeking, freaking, tweeking

We live the illusion we call mind.

We seem to see things

but this is the brain talking to itself

all the time

Crazy monkeys who talk to ourselves.

 

We dream of better things

But our dreams lack imagination

They fire in chemical sweeps from overstimulated neurons.

We live in a bounded universe

Up, Down, left, right, forward and back

Stop and Go

All bounded by these boundaries we call time

 

And what do we know of time?

That one day it collapses

Suspended in dust?

All it's particles an illusion

What seemed solid, magnified by the mind

Collapse and shrink into a darkened "not"

No possessions left, just a puff, a nothingness.

 

And what do we know of time?

We express sequences,

but do we know them?

The serpentine crimes of travelling time

Chronons might travel backwards, but we would never know it.

For us we experience time travel only one way.

With inevitable death waiting.

And Death?

One day he was among us

Now he is not.

That is all we know...

and the certainty that one day

others will experience each of us passing that way

though we will not.

 

I won't feel anymore

I am already numb

The reality of the moment

makes me feel dumb

I have nothing more to say

 

Nothing to say

Nothing can cushion

this ultimate illusion

this destroyer of delusion

when all the myths collapse

Into speculative megillahs

furies fall to dust

and hope is finally gone.

But so is fear

 

A chasm below

Is there a heaven above?

In our imagination, yes;

We can move up, down, forward, back, left right

Forever in endless circles

and we can experience endless pain and suffering

We are circling around a hole in time

Certainly heaven can be somewhere in there, with hell

in that whirlwind singularity called the end.

Christopher H. Holte written 2005

Demands Related to Election Reform

This wasn't on Bernies list but it is a priority for everyone and should be for any reformers of our party. It should be a multi-partisan, non-partisan issue. But it isn't. The outlines of fair and just elections are visible to anyone who looks at the issue. We should demand of all our political candidates at all levels the following reforms:

Per Article One Section 4 and Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution, Congress mandates that all elections follow basic rules of balloting as necessary for the proper function of a Republican form of Government:

1. All voting machines must produce a clear readable permanent indelible record that includes an original under the control of a local election judge who cannot be an active participant in any election except as an election judge.
2. The Ballot produced must be uniform, readable and verifiable to the voter who has prepared it as part of voting and to election personnel who must count the ballots.
3. Election places shall ID voters in a reasonable fashion and arbitrary ID rules may not be used to bar a registered voter from casting a vote.
4. The Ballot once cast must be anonymous and any link to the Voters actual ID use a random number to preserve anonymity unless the vote has been contested for cause.
5. No vote may be contested without cause.
6. Purely electronic machines must be scrapped immediately.
7. Electronic tallying may be retained, but all evidence of voting must be hand countable and it should be possible to count the ballots after the election under the guardianship of non-partisan election judges and representatives from each party, if there is any dispute about the outcome of the election or the tally. Moreover records shall be preserved so that they can be recounted or audited if necessary.
8. The same procedure must be used to review ballots before they are prepared and published.
9. Either Election day must be a Holiday or provision be made for workers, persons with odd hours and for all voters to be able to vote with maximum ease and assuredness before the day of the election, preferably up to a week or more and on weekends.
10. Tampering with, altering, or interfering with the ballots or voter access to voting shall be a federal crime with a fine of no less than $5000 dollars or 6 months in jail for each count. Evidence of Election fraud shall be grounds for requiring a new election and candidates convicted of election fraud shall be barred from Federal Office or Federal Contracts.

I don't even have to look these up

Demands related to Jobs, and Job Fairness

Create Jobs!

The goal of creating jobs is directly related to all the other goals and demands we Democrats have and is part of a key positive right that everyone should have the ability to earn an income sufficient to provide a livelihood. In practice we need to make sure we have the resources allocated to ensure that everyone who needs a job can get one and that those jobs are good ones. For that reason "Creating Jobs" is directly related to raising the Wage and Pay Equity. And it is indirectly related to other key goals in Bernie's list.

The goal of 'creating jobs' is regularly cited in RW plots to override pollution controls, seize our public properties and reallocate wealth to the wealthy, but all those programs destroy more jobs than they create, as does unfair trade laws and tax benefits to the already wealthy. On the contrary our demands all tend to create sustainable jobs.

1. Fix our Infrastructure, Build Green Energy, Fight Climate Change

Bernie's #1, #2 and most of the rest of our list, all contribute to creating jobs! A Healthy economy has demand up jobs and invites investment.

In addition we should:

2. Make the Unemployment Program an Employment Program -- Bring Back Hiring Halls

Currently the unemployment office often does good work of helping folks who are unemployed get through to their next job. But thanks to budget cutbacks, when there are severe economic hard times it cuts off unemployment insurance just when a person is finding it hardest to find a job, and there are no provisions for folks with age, disability or other long term unemployment issues to find employment that they can handle. We have a multitude of underfunded welfare offices to help people with these problems, but most of them are inadequate and many veterans, aged people, people with physical or psychological issues get poorly served.

At one time a person who was unemployed could go to a Union or other Hiring hall and get placed with a job. We should bring back something similar. There has to be a public/private partnership to keep people working and provide a source of employment at last resort and Hiring halls that pay people a minimum wage for being on call and pay them better if someone needs day labor or a permanent hire would fill that bill.

The Unemployment program should become an "Employment Program" and pay people a minimum until they get a job -- and also provide employment services. It should be run at State, County, Municipal and neighborhood level and not treat unemployment as if they are criminals. Local government must be the employer of last resort both from the Worker's point of view and private employers point of view.

The enabling Legislation would include model bills for adoption at the State and local Level. Every person attending a hiring hall would be paid the minimum living wage for 8 hours of work, and additional if actually hired.

3. Use Hiring Halls to access Free Education, Training and Apprenticeships

In addition to providing or sponsoring local hiring halls with Large Employers, local Government or Unions sponsoring them, the Government should ensure that people are properly educated and trained for work. This means that not only should there be hiring halls for workers, but those places should provide training, apprenticeship opportunities, volunteer work and education opportunities to folks in the hiring hall while being paid a minimum wage. They should be free to the laborer and the student. A college campus would not only be free to the students attending there, but the government would pay students to attend school as long as their Grade Point and performance justified it. And of course workers would be available to perform University related work while attending.

4. Make the Minimum wage = a Living Wage. And raise that to a threshold of 10$ an hour.

The minimum wage should equal the wage necessary for a person to not be poor anymore if they work 40 hours a week 50 weeks a year. It should be defined the poverty level (yearly) for a family of four divided by 2000 hours. And when there is inflation the minimum wage should change as the poverty level changes.

An even higher "standard" wage should apply and equal the average wage for a working person. This should apply to those who have a full time or part time job in any industry. If businesses can't afford to pay their employees they should have to explain why.

Even more important, taxes should be on income that is higher than that needed to compensate labor for their work. If a businessman has expenses; food, energy, drive time, input expenses, the businessman can deduct them from his/her business earnings. Employees should not be taxed on that part of their compensation that is necessary for them to eat, get to work, clothe themselves and educate themselves and their children. That is why it is called "wage compensation." It shouldn't be taxed.

5. Democrats may support Corporate Welfare to help struggling employers

If employers can't afford to pay the minimum wage or a standard wage, then the hiring halls should have the authority to pay hirees a living wage and run a tab of the difference for employers to be paid out of eventual profits if the employer can stay in business. It should be on businessmen to justify why they can't stay in business unless they pay oppressive wages.

6. All Democratic candidates shall support Fair Trade Provisions

If an employer hires employees outside the country at less than what the exchange rate would calculate as a fair minimum wage for a US worker in the same job in the USA than the employer shall pay a duty on the difference in value added from those employees when the goods are imported or the services are rendered. If they can't afford the duty then the Government shall remove their import license.

An employer cannot export capital goods if it means terminating local employees. No export license shall be granted for any employer exporting capital goods if that export means termination of the local employees.

7. All Democratic candidates shall support the letter and spirit of the Lily Ledbetter Act.

The Lily Ledbetter Act already talks about Pay equity.

8. All Persons Employed by any employer doing business in interstate commerce, with more than 50 employees or doing business with the Government shall have the right to assemble at such times convenient to them, to discuss any issue freely during such assembly, to select representatives and to petition the government of such employer with grievances or demands.

9. Workplace Democracy as a Right

   All Persons employed by any employer whatsoever shall have the right to be consulted by that employer when major decisions are made and to be informed of changes in compensation, employment term, or benefits.

   This list is a "threshold" list. The last two items may sound radical but they are basic to principles of republicanism and good function.

   This list is a strawman and a draft. I hope that others will like the idea and run with it.

   This list relates to Demand #3 on Bernie's list "Create Jobs". Read: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-common-plank.html

More Reading (and this list will get longer):

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/12/demanding-infrastructure-spending.html

Support Dodd Frank at minimum or not get our vote in primaries

We demand that Congressmen either stop or block efforts to protect the gambling of megabanks. Obama should be ashamed for himself in supporting Dimon's corrupt efforts to buy protection for Wall Street from their reckless speculation and conversion while paying for it with cuts to worker pensions. Any one who is trying gut Dodd Frank may not call him or herself a Democrat. As Elizabeth Warren said last night.

"Dodd Frank isn't perfect. It should have broken you to pieces."

Our essential problem with Wall Street is their concentrated corrupt power and influence over our congress, senators and corrupt SCOTUS. We demand that our candidates and representative support reform of Wall Street, reigning in of their ability to convert people's savings and retirement set asides to personal fortunes, and their impunity. The MegaBanks either must be nationalized into a National System or broken up into manageable sized outfits. This is a demand not a plank item. The Threshold is to not gut Dodd Frank and anyone voting for last night's corrupt Funding bill will not get our support in the next election. And We will find a replacement for you and primary you.

Elizabeth Warren on Dodd Frank

“Who does Congress work for?” Warren said in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon. “Does it work for the millionaires, the billionaires, the giant companies with their armies of lobbyists and lawyers, or does it work for all the people?” [...]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/10/1350800/-Elizabeth-Warren-blasts-Wall-Street-sweetheart-deal-in-spending-bill#

“Now, the House of Representatives is about to show us the worst of government for the rich and powerful,” she continued. “The House is about to vote on a budget deal, a deal negotiated behind closed doors that slips in a provision that would let derivatives traders on Wall Street gamble with taxpayer money and get bailed out by the government when their risky bets threaten to blow up our financial system.”

It may seem a small thing but it is a really big thing.

Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-11/house-votes-11-trillion-cromnibus-bill-live-webcast

When Wall Street can get consumers to cover their bad bets, they can literally steal (technical word is convert) people's wealth twice. Once by stealing it and the second time by getting the taxpayer to make good their theft.

This demand relates to Bernie Sander's plank # 9

Demand supporting goal #6 for Pay equity

We demand that any Democratic candidate continue and reaffirm support for the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. We will only support for primary positions candidates who commit to it and will withdraw our support from anyone who votes to infringe this right, defund the law, or doesn't support it. This is Bernie Sanders core goal #6

http://www.nwlc.org/resource/lilly-ledbetter-fair-pay-act-0