Banking

I took a break to enjoy the holiday, as I’m sure many of you did, but my inbox kept busy, and on Friday came a doozy, courtesy of the Washington Post.

You remember that little bit of a banking crisis we had a couple of years back, where banks around the world might have possibly, maybe, just a little, conspired in a giant scheme to package toxic mortgage loans into Grade A, investment-ready securities instruments, which then blew up in everyone’s faces to the tune of a whole lot of taxpayer bailouts?

Well all of a sudden, it looks like an agency of the Federal Government is looking to do something about it, in a real big way.

Last Friday the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced they’re suing 17 firms (I’ll give you a list, bit it’s pretty much all the usual suspects); depending on who you ask the Feds are seeking an amount as high as $200 billion.

As Joe Biden would say, it’s a big…well, it’s a big deal, anyway, and that’s why we’re starting the new week with this one.

“On Friday night, I called my wife and I said, ‘Brooke, I am not coming home this weekend. I will call you on Monday. Tonight, I want you to go to the ATM machine, and I want you to draw out everything it will let you take," Burr said, according to the Hendersonville Times-News. "And I want you to tomorrow, and I want you to go Sunday.’ I was convinced on Friday night that if you put a plastic card in an ATM machine the last thing you were going to get was cash.”

Now honestly, is that the kind of leadership that is needed in a crisis?

On Saturday, 60+ demonstrations will be held around the country, demanding structural change in the banking sector. The group organizing the demonstrations, which I'm involved in, a New Way Forward, started less than a month ago, but is already approaching 10,000 members. A New Way Forward embodies the logic of the most thoughtful economic thinkers in the country, translated into clear, direct language and action.

We/they support a Nationalize, Reorganize, Decentralize platform, pointing to Krugman on the need for temporary nationalization, Simon Johnson on the need for removing current leadership in the banking sector, and Mike Lux on the importance of creating a new, decentralized private market, with new banks run by new people. Any bank that's "too big to fail" means that it's too big to exist in a free market.

Atlas has shrugged. The Masters of the Universe have screwed up so badly that even with their massively disproportionate power and influence they can't hide their failure. The Ponzi scheme is over and the financial industry is so badly busted that they can't even manage to take possession of many of the homes they foreclosed on.

You have been directly injured by what these people have done, and what they continue to do. I'm really tempted to name names and go through the list of suffering- suffice to say that by my count two thirds of the active contributors to BlueNC have had their lives (and livelihoods) directly affected.

I guess they thought the testimony would be too emotionally painful for their banking donor buddies. At least, one has to draw that conclusion when Republicans on the House Consumer Credit Subcommittee are so threatened they arrange for witnesses to be stonewalled and bullied.

But, in their efforts to keep these stories out of circulation, House Republicans kinda blew it. No wonder none of 'em are returning reporter's phone calls.

Panelists:
State Rep. Dan Blue — former House Speaker and current chairman of the House Select Committee on Rising Home Foreclosures
Mark Pearce, Deputy Commissioner of Banks
Paul Stock, Executive Vice-President and Counsel, N.C. Banks Association
Al Ripley, Consumer and Housing Attorney, N.C. Justice Center

Gotta laugh at banks sometimes. Thanks, Merril Lynch. Just $22 billion?

Well, as they say, "this too shall pass", and quite frankly, it's about fraking time.

When we last left our hero (well, anti-hero actually), he was busy trying to slay the beast known as BoA (Bunch of Assholes) over a dispute on interest rates (see here). Well it was at that time that the wife and I decided to rid ourselves of those life-blood sucking leeches and move on to another bank. Only one thing stood in our way: selling our home in Raleigh (which if I posted about that it be nothing but profanities, literally). Well as this is the fourth scheduled closing (that's right, the fourth closing), and it appears this one will stick, we can give the heave-ho to BoA. Here is the latest trick they pulled:

WACHOVIA BANK CORP - Riches for CEO, Unemployment for workers -

Wachovia CEO gets $18 Million March 10, 2007. CHARLOTTE - The chairman and chief executive of Wachovia Corp., Ken Thompson, received compensation that the company valued at nearly $18.4 million in 2006, according to a regulatory filing yesterday.
http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173350135956&path=!business&s=1037645507703

AND, SOON TO OUTSOURCE NORTH CAROLINA PROCESSING JOBS TO INDIA

Businessweek JANUARY 30, 2006

Wachovia will have outsourced 500 to 1,000 jobs, with plans to move an additional 3,000 or so by the end of 2007. ..Most, but not all, of those jobs are going to India....

I received a reply from BoA yesterday on an issue I posted about here and my wife posted about here (slightly different account and language, but you all should get the drift), in that my interest rate DID NOT change. So all I had to do was take two hours out of my day to fight the machine. Scratch one up for the little guy.

VeteranDem