Obama to Propose Limits on Risks Taken by Banks

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/business/21volcker.html?hp

President Obama will publicly propose today “giving bank regulators the power to limit the size of the nation’s largest banks and the scope of their risk-taking activities,” an idea “championed by Paul A. Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve and an adviser to the Obama administration. The proposal would prohibit commercial banks from proprietary trading for their own accounts.

More bullshit.

Earlier this year, Obama tried to give the private central bank, the Federal Reserve, these powers.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5476T220090508
Admin wants Fed to oversee "systemic risk": sources
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration is expected to propose legislation by June calling for the U.S. Federal Reserve to play a central role in regulating systemic risk in the economy, trade association sources said on Friday.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/16/plan-gives-fed-swee...
Federal Reserve to gain power under plan
The Federal Reserve, already arguably the most powerful agency in the U.S. government, will get sweeping new authority to regulate any company whose failure could endanger the U.S. economy and markets under the Obama administration's regulatory overhaul plan.

This is just more banker puppetry to funnel more power and control into fewer and fewer hands. Just as there is a revolving door relationship with bankers, politicians and regulators...any new regulation agency will be mere lip service, a fake security blanket to pacify the American public while keeping actions I have detailed in previous posts from coming to mainstream attention.

Top banks spent big money on lobbying efforts during financial crisis.

http://thehill.com/news-by-subject/finance-economy/77223-banks-spending-big-on-lobbying-efforts-during-financial-crisis

Eight of the nation's largest banks spent nearly $26 million lobbying federal lawmakers in 2009, during one of the most tumultuous periods in financial history.

The banks spent nearly 6 percent more on federal lobbying last year compared with 2008, according to a review of congressional lobbying records. The banks spent $25.8 million on lobbying in 2009 and $24.4 million in 2008, the two years at the heart of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The eight banks include:

JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Bank of New York Mellon and State Street.

Those eight banks were the first recipients of taxpayer bailouts at the end of 2008.

They have since repaid the aid (read: WE have repaid the aid we were FORCED to give them) and have seen their stock values increase. They are now preparing to pay out massive compensation packages. While the financial industry shows signs of improvement, the broader economy remains bleak with 10 percent unemployment.

The banks are locked in a tough lobbying battle over new financial regulations with other parts of the financial industry, consumer groups, labor unions, congressional Democrats and the White House.

Yes, it costs a lot of money to fight Ron Paul and Alan Grayson when they've got millions of voters clued in to your scam and have them wanting to audit the Fed.

I'd be scared too, if I was a greedy, scumbag, thieving bankster gangster.

The Secret Bank Bailout

Hope you're happy with those record profits, because they come out of your wallet!

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2010/01/secret-bank-bailout.html

There's one method that the Federal Reserve has been employing to shovel money to the bank elite that is rarely mentioned, though I hear the sums that have been shoveled are in the billions and they are showing up on the books of firms like Goldman Sachs as pure profit. It's really pure scam.

Here's what went on for months, according to traders familiar with the situation.

When the Federal Reserve buys and sells Treasury securities it does so through primary dealers. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are among the select elite firms that, naturally, got into this club.

So when the Fed wants to trade it goes to one of these primary dealers. In the past, to earn a profit, the banks would execute the trade and mark up the price a bit on a buy to the Fed (or mark down a bit to the Fed when they were selling for the Fed ). Since Fed traders have screens showing them where market prices are, in the past primary dealers were allowed small mark ups and mark downs in line with what banks were marking up and down for their other clients. It would be difficult for a primary dealer to get away with an outrageous mark up or down because the Fed trader would have a pretty good idea of where a trade should have been made.

Once the Fed and Treasury started shoveling money in every possible way they could think of to the elite banks, the word came down to Fed traders to "ease up" on the mark ups and down. Let the banks take a "healthy" mark up and mark down, they were told. I'm advised that the "healthy" mark ups and mark downs have resulted in the Fed overpaying on their trades with primary dealers to the tune of billions. These billions are looking like profitable skilled trades, when they are nothing of the kind. They are hidden gifts from the Federal Reserve that are generally unseen, unknown and will never be paid back.

Israel's 10 Worst Errors of the Decade

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bradley-burston/israels-10-worst-errors-o_b_409596.html

1. The Siege of Gaza -
The stated goal of the siege was to undermine Hamas and to goad Gazans into rejecting Hamas rule. The effect of the siege has been to focus and intensify Palestinian anger against Israel, increase Gazans' dependency on Hamas social welfare arms, enrich Hamas coffers through tunnel taxation and foreign donations, and sap Palestinian support for Fatah, which, through its back-channel encouragement for the siege, is seen as a betrayer and a boot-licker in the eyes of many Palestinians.

2. The Siege of Gaza -
The blockade was ostensibly a means to stem the influx of weaponry into Gaza. In practice, with shipments the size of automobiles flowing through the tunnels, the Hamas arsenal has grown ever more sophisticated, now believed to include Iranian-manufactured rockets capable of striking Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion Airport from the Strip.

3. The Siege of Gaza -
In the eyes of the world community, the overwhelming collective punishment - and the relative silence of Israelis in response - has gutted Israeli claims to the moral high ground. It has undercut sympathy for Israelis living within Qassam range. It has kept open the moral wounds of the Gaza War, cramping rebuilding efforts, enshrining universal unemployment, and ensuring agonizing homelessness as the coastal winter gathers full force. Israeli officials have quietly take steps of astounding insensitivity, arbitrarily barring such goods as school supplies.

4. The Siege of Gaza -
The siege has been presented in the past as a means of pressing Hamas to release Gilad Shalit. Not only does he remain captive, the terms of a prospective deal appear not to include lifting the siege. The siege has been presented in the past as a means of pressuring Gazans to end rocket fire. But rocket fire only increased after the siege was put in place. Finally, Cast Lead, the Gaza war a year ago, might have been prevented altogether, had Israel adhered more closely to the Egyptian-brokered Hamas-Israel truce agreement of June, 2008, and lifted the siege more completely in response to a drop in rocket fire.

5. The Siege of Gaza -
The siege works to the detriment of U.S. support for Israel. In February, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signaled anger at Israel over obstacles to humanitarian aid entering the strip. The message came soon after Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, visiting Gaza, learned that Israel had blocked shipments of pasta, ruling it off the list of permitted humanitarian aid items.

6. The Siege of Gaza -
The fact that the siege has failed so completely in achieving its stated aims, reinforces the impression that its real purpose is punitive.

7. The Siege of Gaza -
The siege places Israeli officials in jeopardy of being charged with violating the Fourth Geneva Convention and other international codes, as outlined in detail in the Goldstone Report. Referring to the siege, paragraph 1335 of the report states that: "From the facts available to it, the Mission is of the view that some of the actions of the Government of Israel might justify a competent court finding that crimes against humanity have been committed."

8. The Siege of Gaza -
With the siege under the direct aegis of Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his deputy, Matan Vilnai, the moral failings of the siege could prove the coup de grace to an already foundering Labor Party.

9. The Siege of Gaza -
The siege threatens to destabilize the rule of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, posing a potential threat to Israeli-Egyptian peace and Israeli security.

10. The Siege of Gaza -
The siege corrupts the moral values of all Israelis, who, whether or not they are aware of what is being done to the people of Gaza, bear ultimate responsibility for all acts being carried out in their name.

Money Well Spent...If You Value Oppression.

U.S. Military Aid to Israel Averages $3 Billion a Year for Last 25 Years

Washington’s generosity towards Israel has amounted to $3 billion a year in military aid since 1985, and extends even further back to the mid-20th century. According to a Congressional Research Service report, no other country has received more foreign assistance from the United States than Israel from World War II until now, and it was the largest annual recipient of U.S. foreign assistance for each year from 1976 to 2004, when Iraq became a high priority.

 

Israel also benefits from special treatment from Washington, such as the fact that all of its yearly aid is delivered within the first 30 days of the new fiscal year. Most other allies of the U.S. get their assistance through installments that are spread out over the year. Additionally, Israel gets to use some of its U.S. military assistance for research and development in the United States and for military purchases from Israeli manufacturers. But the Jewish state must spend 75% of its help from Washington on military hardware made in the USA, which aids American manufacturers, especially during recessionary times.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel (by Jeremy M. Sharp, Congressional Research Service) (pdf)

US Aid Tied to Purchase of Arms (by Ann Davies, Sydney Morning Herald)