Banks vs. American People - Can Wall Street Reform Be Done?

[Guest Jesse Lee]

With Congress having finalized a strong Wall Street reform bill, the President urges Congress to finish the job and send the bill to his desk. The legislation reflects 90% of what the President originally proposed, including the strongest consumer financial protections in history with an independent agency to enforce them. It ensures that the trading of derivatives, which helped trigger this crisis, will be brought into the light of day, and enacts the “Volcker Rule,” which will make sure banks protected by safety nets like the FDIC cannot engage in risky trades. It also creates a resolution authority to wind down firms whose collapse would threaten the entire financial system. Wall Street reform will end taxpayer funded bailouts and make sure Main Street is never again held responsible for Wall Street’s mistakes.

[Guest Feigan]

I see nothing changing. Goldman Sachs took down the housing market on futures. Goldman Sachs took down the oil market on futures. Goldman Sachs took down the commodity market on futures. Goldman Sachs took down the currency market on futures. They hide all their money in treasuries, so they can set up bets for another day. People talk about Wall Street being like a Casino. Goldman Sachs is the Mirage of Wall Street.

[Guest Ann Coulte]

"Somehow we just missed that home prices don't go up forever."

 

No, that's not your idiot brother-in-law explaining how his four home equity loans eventually landed him penniless on a futon in your rec room. It's the billionaire CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon.

 

Dimon was explaining to Congress's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission how he and his fellow Magic Men crashed the entire U.S. economy and then turned to taxpayers for a bail out.

 

Really? So Dimon's defense to Wall Street's utter recklessness with other people's money is to claim that Wall Street doesn't really understand how the market works? Again: Really?

 

But no one on the Commission challenged Dimon because, while the Commission's stated purpose is "to examine the causes of the financial crisis," its actual purpose is to conceal those causes -- especially the federal government's own central role in creating the housing bubble.

 

Further proof that the Commission isn't serious: It has not yet recommended that the President resign immediately. (Obama's next idea for fighting unemployment is to institute a weekly census.)

 

Instead, we get make-believe "hearings" where executives like Mr. Dimon admit to egregious stupidity. The Magic Men are happy to play along -- as long as they get to keep their tax-supported bonuses.

 

Don't get me wrong: I'm not suggesting that everyone on Wall Street is as dumb as Jamie claims they are.

 

What I am suggesting, however, is that whether the "best and brightest" on Wall Street turn out to be stupid or dishonest doesn't matter to our retirement accounts. Isn't it time we stopped trusting them with all our money? And if we don't feel quite competent to manage it on our own (I sure don't), shouldn't we find someone whose character, reputation, and financial expertise we can rely on?

[Guest LAW]

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, 7/13/2010

 

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

 

Q You just mentioned in passing part of the Wall Street mess and some of the instruments that were put into place. Jack Lew was the chief financial officer of something called Citigroup Alternative Investments, which ended up losing hundreds of billions of dollars by the time he left in 2008. Did the President ask him about what he did when he was at Citigroup --

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, Chuck, obviously -- Jack has been through a vetting process before --

 

Q But this is a different job.

 

MR. GIBBS: Yes, this is a different job. And let’s -- I mean, understand, Jack’s experience I think is relevant to the Office of Management and Budget. This is the only budget director that’s produced three balanced budgets in the history of the Office of Management and Budget. When Jack walked out of the Office of Management and Budget in 2000, there was a $237 billion surplus. I think that’s the type of experience that the President was looking for.

 

Q I understand that. Did he ask him about this and what was these instrument -- just to -- sort of the way you would --

 

MR. GIBBS: I have not talked to him about that. I don’t know.

 

Q What was the job interview process on this? When did the President first approach Jack Lew about taking this job?

 

MR. GIBBS: I believe -- I can double-check. I think the timing of this was I think he spoke to Jack about this -- sat down with Jack last week. Obviously Jack is somebody that’s been involved in a number of -- based on his position at the State Department, Jack is involved in all of their Afghanistan review. He’s the person in charge at the State Department of ensuring that as we increase our military resources that we also increase our civilian capacity to match our military capacity in order to ensure that, as we clear areas, the type of governance is available for -- the type of governance that we need is available to not just clear an area militarily, but hold it from a government perspective.

 

Q Is his time relevant at Citigroup -- what he did there? Is that relevant in your mind?

 

MR. GIBBS: I know this has been discussed and I think his --

 

Q Do you think it will be relevant for the confirmation hearings?

 

MR. GIBBS: I’m sure it was last time and I think those questions have been dealt with.

 

Q Just to follow up real quickly on what Chuck was saying, did the President -- I mean, did Jack Lew’s tenure at Citi come up during the vetting? And --

 

MR. GIBBS: He was vetted in 2008 as part of the transition team’s work for the State Department.

 

Q Right, but that was before the President and Paul Volcker declared that the kinds of activities that he was involved with -- hedge fund investing, private equity investing -- were fundamentally dangerous and could lead to the next crisis if they were not regulated and reined back.

 

MR. GIBBS: I think we were -- I think people ere having those discussions, as I recall, in 2008 as well.

 

Q Was Jack Lew re-vetted for this position?

 

MR. GIBBS: In the sense of how?

 

Q Well, either politically or was there -- is there a vetting process when someone moves --

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, look, there’s a series of paperwork that has to be filled out and that will go up with the nomination. But I think we had -- we’ve done this for Jack before.

 

Q Well, I guess I’m wondering are there different considerations when you think about vetting someone for this job versus the job he was doing before?

 

MR. GIBBS: The truth is there’s a fairly standard vet for most positions that doesn’t change a whole lot from job to job.

 

Q And what is the timing of when you want him to be? You said not before August, but what is the exact timing --

 

MR. GIBBS: My sense is that the nomination is not going to be completed prior to the August recess and will be done formally sometime by the Senate in the fall when they return from break. But, obviously, Peter is here until the end of July. There will be an acting director named at some point --

 

Q Who is that going to be?

 

MR. GIBBS: -- I don’t have that name now -- before Jack is confirmed by the Senate in the fall.

 

Q So when do you want him to be in the job by?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, sometime in the fall.

 

Q So sometime in the fall?

 

MR. GIBBS: Yes.

 

Q And was there any concern about taking him out of State? Obviously he had an important role with the -- on a couple --

 

MR. GIBBS: Sure, yes, I mean, look, obviously the work that he’s done -- as I mentioned in -- the civilian capability in Afghanistan at the beginning of this term and throughout the review process or the policy process last fall and last winter, you have seen a big change in the amount of resources we have.

 

Jack is a testament to -- along with the people that he works with -- moving a lot of those good people into Afghanistan.

 

So, look, there are always concerns when you’re moving that -- moving people around. But the President believed that we head into a very important time period in implementing the President’s plans both for a three-year non-security spending freeze, and then as we begin to take steps in the medium and long term to get our fiscal house in order, that that was important.

[Guest LAW]

A quick and simple animated explanation of how Wall Street Reform will work and what the strongest consumer protections in history will mean for you and your family.

 

[Guest ALWAYSRED]

This bill is way too complex and no one knows what rules will be inserted by regulators. It also passes a blind eye to Fannie and Freddie. When will they come into focus with Americans.

 

 

Who cooked the books for Fanny and Freddie?

Who cooked the books for Fanny and Freddie?

Who cooked the books for Fanny and Freddie?

[Guest Juxtapose]

I agree with "ALWAYSRED": the bill is way too complex and who knows what it final bills end result will be after the Big Bank-funded, lobbyist-permeated, special-interest members of congress are done shredding it?

Probably not much of an end result at all...

 

This bill is way too complex and no one knows what rules will be inserted by regulators. It also passes a blind eye to Fannie and Freddie. When will they come into focus with Americans.

 

 

Who cooked the books for Fanny and Freddie?

Who cooked the books for Fanny and Freddie?

Who cooked the books for Fanny and Freddie?

[Guest Marco]

As soon as the government stops spending money like drunken socialist we will be able to keep what we have worked for… open a window and get some fresh air people!

 

These foreign countries need to start paying for our troops. If they refuse. Tax those who benefit from our risking lives and draining our National treasury.

[Guest Fairfax Democrat]

I think you should listen to Mark Warner

 

 

Senator Warner played a key role in drafting parts of the new law that end taxpayer bailouts. He also helped design several new tools that will allow regulators to identify and disentangle complex, interconnected financial firms that once would have been described as “too big to fail.”

 

“I don’t want to hear the words ‘too big to fail’ ever again. We have set-up new ‘tripwires’ that allow a council of federal regulators to watch for threats to the financial system, and we allow them to take responsible action to shut down large, troubled financial companies in order to protect the stability of our entire economy,” Senator Warner said. “We also have come up with appropriate tools to ‘unwind’ these failing firms and put them out of business through an orderly bankruptcy process, and all of this will occur at the expense of the financial industry – not the taxpayers.”

 

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, praised Senator Warner’s pivotal role in writing key parts of the legislation. “While a relatively junior member of the Banking Committee, there was no member of this chamber who added as much to this bill as the Senator from Virginia. There are not words or time for me to adequately express my gratitude to him for his involvement, literally on an almost hourly basis,” Chairman Dodd said in remarks on the Senate floor just prior to the final vote on the legislation.

 

The reforms signed into law today put an end to many predatory and deceptive lending practices that unfairly harm consumers. The law creates an independent consumer watchdog bureau within the Federal Reserve to protect borrowers against abuses when they shop for mortgage, credit card, and other types of lending.

 

“Never again will Virginians be treated unfairly because of ‘fine print’ or hidden bank fees,” Senator Warner said. “Consumers will be empowered through greater access to the clear and concise information they need to make the financial decisions that are right for them.”

 

Virginia’s smaller, community-based banks and credit unions – those Main Street banks and other local financial companies who follow the rules every day and did nothing to trigger the 2008 financial catastrophe -- are exempted from many of these new requirements.

 

In addition, the law eliminates many of the loopholes that allowed risky and abusive practices to go unnoticed and unregulated. Under the new rules, the shadowy markets for over-the-counter derivatives, asset-backed securities and other complex financial instruments that helped fuel the 2008 crisis will be subject to government oversight for the first time. The new law also provides tough new rules for transparency and accountability for Wall Street credit rating agencies.

 

“I recognize that simply passing this legislation is only half of the challenge: now these new requirements must be implemented in a responsible and rational way. But we are providing consistent and rational oversight that allows our country to compete globally even as we grow our economies locally,” Senator Warner said.

 

“When the American financial system operates on rules that promote fairness and openness, based on principles that promote economic growth and stability, we all win.”

[Guest LAW]

TARP's International Impact Greater Than Impact of Other Nations' Rescues on America

Panel Recommends Further Stress Testing and International Financial Crisis "War Games"

 

The Congressional Oversight Panel today released its August oversight report, "The Global Context and International Effects of the TARP." The report recommends that Treasury collect data on cross-border flows of funds, increase the scope and frequency of stress testing on financial institutions, and collaborate with foreign policymakers on a cross-border resolution regime and for regular crisis planning and financial "war games."

 

The financial crisis that began in 2007 exposed the interconnectedness of the global financial system. Although the crisis began with subprime mortgage defaults in the U.S., its damage spread rapidly overseas. The Panel found that policymakers were ill-prepared for such a worldwide crisis and that "the internationalization of the financial system has outpaced the ability of national regulators to respond."

 

Despite the limits of international coordination, most countries ultimately intervened in markets using the same basic set of policy tools: capital injections to financial institutions, guarantees of debt or troubled assets, asset purchases, and expanded deposit insurance. The U.S., however, targeted its rescue very differently than other countries. While most nations targeted their funds to save individual institutions, America simply flooded the markets with money to stabilize the system. Since much of this money accrued to U.S. institutions with extensive international operations, it appears that America's rescue had much greater impact internationally than other nations' rescues had on the U.S.

 

The Panel made several recommendations, including:

 

Policymakers need strong, clear data to measure the success of their rescue efforts and to respond effectively to future crises. Treasury gathered very little data on how bailout funds flowed overseas, which makes pinpointing the exact amounts and sources of the flow of cross-border rescue funds impossible. In the interests of transparency and to help inform regulators' actions in an increasingly integrated world, the Panel urges Treasury to collect and report more data about the international flow of TARP funds and to document the TARP's impact overseas.

 

The Panel believes financial "war gaming" and "stress tests" should be used much more widely. One of America's most powerful tools in the financial crisis, and one that was emulated by other countries, was the Supervisory Capital Assessment Program (SCAP), or "stress tests." On the international level, vigorous stress tests could identify the weakest points of the international financial system and allow policymakers to plan an emergency response. U.S. officials should encourage regular international crisis planning and financial "war gaming."

 

The crisis revealed the need for an international plan to handle the collapse of major, globally significant financial institutions. A cross-border resolution regime could establish rules that would permit the orderly resolution of large international institutions, while also encouraging contingency planning and the development of resolution and recovery plans. Such a regime could help to avoid the chaos that followed the Lehman bankruptcy and the struggles that preceded the AIG rescue.

[Guest Pissed Cajun]

Bailing out the big banks was a stupid idea. If you want to save the economy of a nation, you bail out the community banks, not the international monoliths. That way, the small businesses will get the money they need by providing the services to regular Joes.

[Guest Big Blue]

Capitalism should stand on it's own two feet, therefore, all large and small banks and companies should be allowed to fail.

 

The Bush Administration should not have bailed out GM, along with Chrysler, Citibank, GE, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wachovia, AIG, Wells Fargo, Merrill Lynch, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The American taxpayer would have saved trillions of dollars. Unemployment would be higher by several million, but, in the long run, we'd be better off.

 

Now we have so much debt that I do not think any administration will be able repeal this disaster.

[Guest T. Wilson]

Troubled banks have grown from about 300 in early 2009 to just under 800 in the early part of 2010. It is likely for commercial borrowers to have even more trouble getting water from a well that is running dry with financial data like this.

[Guest Nestor]

Goldman Sachs just closed its proprietary lending branch to comply with the Volcker rule that was in the Wall Street Reform bill!

 

This means GS will still do Prop trades, but with client's money rather than the bank's (and the deposits) money.

 

Congress added the prohibition on prop trading to the financial-overhaul package this year after Obama threw his support behind the idea, which had been championed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, 82. The so-called Volcker rule is an attempt to limit risky trading and investing by depositary institutions after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression culminated in an unprecedented level of government support for the banking system.

 

http://www.bloomberg...lcker-rule.html

[Guest EnronEx]

Here is some nifty information I have found:

 

The greatest supporting evidence of market manipulation surrounds the fact that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRNY) began conducting permanent open market operations (POMO) on March 25, 2009 and has conducted 42 to date. These auctions are conducted from about 10:30 am to 11:00 am on pre-announced days. In such auctions, the FRNY permanently purchases Treasury securities from selected dealers, with the total purchase amount for a day ranging from about $1.5 B to $7.5 B. These days are highly correlated with strong paint-the-tape closes, with the theory being that the large institutions that receive the capital injections are able to leverage this money by 100 to 500 times and then use it to ramp equities.

 

http://www.effectivevolume.eu/content/Reports/20DMF_Pivots_Method.pdf

 

http://www.precisioncapmgt.com/wp-content/uploads/PCM-A_G.U.T._of_Market_Manipulation.pdf

[Guest FREEMAN]

Benjamin Franklin stated, "He who sacrifices freedom for security has neither."

 

 

WATCH THIS VIDEO AND SHARE IT WITH YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS

[Guest Desert Rat]

It takes the wife of a general of the world's most powerful army to make change.

 

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201102011539dowjonesdjonline000339&title=petraeus-urges-banks-to-ensure-compliance-with-military-law

 

Holly Petraeus, the U.S. federal government's new military liaison, Tuesday sent a letter to more than two dozen banks, demanding they review their practices to ensure compliance with laws meant to protect military families from foreclosures.

 

Petraeus, wife of Gen. David Petraeus, the top American general in Afghanistan, noted that the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, or SCRA, says loans for active-duty servicemembers can't exceed a 6% annualized interest rate. The act also protects a servicemember's home from foreclosure while a servicemember is on active duty as well as for a period of time after the servicemember's active duty ends.

 

"In view of recent experience, I would urge you to take steps to educate all your employees about the financial protections that the SCRA provides and to review your loan files to ensure compliance," she wrote in the letter. "I would also urge you to take other proactive steps."

 

The letter, which Petraeus sent to 25 of the nation's largest banks, is another example of government pressure on banks as the foreclosure crisis rages on. Recipients include Bank of America (BAC) Chief Executive Brian Moynihan, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) Jamie Dimon, and Citigroup Inc. © Chief Executive Vikram Pandit, among others.

 

Companies such as Citigroup, Ally Financial Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s (GS) Litton Loans have already started examining their practices to make sure that their lending units haven't broken a law meant to protect active-duty servicemembers from foreclosure.

 

The reviews were prompted by news last month that J.P. Morgan Chase overcharged more than 4,000 military personnel in active service and took the homes of 14, possibly violating a law that caps interest rates and stops foreclosures. A U.S. Marine Corps captain had filed a lawsuit alleging that he was overcharged by Chase. In January, after conducting an internal audit, Chase admitted it had wrongly foreclosed on military families and overcharged thousands for mortgages.

 

"We made mistakes here and we are fixing them," the bank said in a statement. "Any customer mistake is regrettable. We feel particularly badly about the mistakes we made here."

 

Petraeus in early January was tapped to lead an office at the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau aimed at helping troops avoid financial scams.

 

Elizabeth Warren, the Obama administration official charged with setting up the new bureau, recently said the Chase overcharges emphasize the need for the watchdog agency.

 

When the news hit about J.P. Morgan, Warren and Petraeus were in San Antonio, Texas, speaking to military personnel at Lackland Air Force Base about financial challenges facing servicemembers.

 

J.P. Morgan Chase has said it is refunding about $2 million to more than 4,000 families that were overcharged. The bank said some refunds were for minor fees.

 

It added that it has worked quickly on the foreclosures, and has already handled 13 with discussions ongoing on the last one.

 

The review is ongoing, the bank said, and it has a specific team dedicated to military lending

[Guest CJ]

Hedge Funds, Derivatives, complex investment transactions, greed, fraud, arrogance, defiance, willful neglect, blah blah, blah blah.

 

Wall Street Bankers are the smartest people in the world, right? That's why they're so rich, right? That's how they manage to 'skirt' and oftentimes just plan defy any regulatory policy aimed at holding them accountable.....The Federal Reserve, the SEC, and the so-called Financial Stability Board are all just JOKES !!

 

Who is responsible for the increased price in a barrel of oil?

Who is responsible for the increased price in food around the world?

It doesn't really matter who on Wall Street is responsible. What should matter is who is held accountable.

 

So what we have are increasing members of the 'from my cold dead hands' club. Entities that cannot be touched no matter what:

 

1. Wall Street

2. Defense Department (Budget)

3. NRA

4. Tax cuts for the wealthy

5. Ad nauseum, blah blah

 

The day of Wall Street reckoning is not too distant. Once China is able to permanently muscle its Yuan onto the world's financial stage, the Euro and the Dollar will cease as the dominant currency, and Wall Street will be converting dollars to Yuan in order to continue to pay bonuses to its already disgustingly wealthy executives (if it's dollars have any value by then at all).

[Guest LPAC]

With the recent release of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Report by the FCIC, a public, federally sanctioned body has acknowledged that it was in fact the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the post-1945 onslaught of de-regulation and post-industrial monetarist practices that led unequivocally to the global economic crisis that so-called "experts" and national governments were unable to predict and are still incapable of responding to.

[Guest 321]

In high school Americans learned from Jefferson:

 

“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”

 

If the banks and other corporations continue their corruption, bringing down governments, you can be assured that we as a planet will not be able to continue to last much longer. If the truth is not revealed, then the people will go down with this corruption, and the “real world” that you envision will no longer exist. It will not be peaceful much longer at this pace. At some point the truth will be revealed, either through leaks, or through history.

[Guest Blue Razor]

Dennis Maley, relates, "[h]aving followed and covered the related events closely, I cannot think of a more effective way to explain the sordid mess to a curious layman than having them watch this film. Ferguson has succeeded in taking a complex and sometimes dry topic and making it not only surprisingly digestible, but thoroughly entertaining." Maley notes the effectiveness of the director's approach, "...letting full-length answers speak for themselves, the punctuating silence at the end of the response reminding the viewer that no creative editing was needed..." and, summing it up as "... a gripping account of what happened, how it came to be and most frighteningly, why it will all happen again.

[Guest NIA]

Silver just reached a new 31-year high on Friday of $35.32 per ounce up 103% since NIA declared silver the best investment for the next decade on December 11th, 2009, at $17.40 per ounce. The short squeeze in silver that NIA first predicted on April 3rd, 2010, in its article entitled "Silver Short Squeeze Could Be Imminent", is now taking place as we speak. NIA was one of the first to connect the dots and expose to the world why the Federal Reserve was so eager to orchestrate a bailout of Bear Stearns, but didn't mind allowing Lehman Brothers to fail. Bear Stearns was the holder of a massive unclothed silver short position in silver that was being used to artificially hold silver prices down. As part of JP Morgan's takeover of Bear Stearns, the Federal Reserve guaranteed to cover certain losses that would arise from the Bear Stearns portfolio, and this most likely included the silver short position.

 

Unfortunately, the average American family still has the bulk of their savings invested in Real Estate, when it should be invested in silver. In NIA's first ever documentary 'Hyperinflation Nation', in which we urged viewers to get out of Real Estate and invest into silver, the median U.S. home to silver ratio was 14,700. In NIA's second major documentary 'The Dollar Bubble', we once again discussed the median U.S. home to silver ratio, which was now down to 9,900, and predicted a further major decline. The median U.S. home to silver ratio is now down to 4,500. This means U.S. Real Estate has lost 69% of its value priced in silver in just the past 21 months alone. NIA is 100% sure that this ratio will decline to below 1,000 this decade and probably bottom around 500. Therefore, even if the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates near zero, we are still looking at another 78%-89% decline in the price of Real Estate in terms of silver.

[Guest Buy America]

The United States Mint reported last week that it had already sold nearly 10 million silver American Eagle coins last week as investors rushed to purchase silver coins. The actual amount of 9.662 million coins was expected to rise over 10 million coins last week.

 

The United States Mint has already taken steps to limit the sales of American Eagle silver coins to authorized purchasers. The steps taken by the mint followed steps from other mints around the world as the price of silver climbed to a 31-year high last week of $35.33 per ounce. Not only have investments in silver coins picked up over the last few weeks, but also industrial demand for the metal have pushed the price up as economies around the world start to increase manufacturing production.

[Guest Manny Herrmann]

In 2008, Big Banks and Wall Street CEOs created the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. As a result, 14 million Americans still are unemployed today.

 

But even though unemployment is high and our economic recovery is pathetically slow and fragile, corporations are lobbying furiously to undo the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

 

Many parts of this new Wall Street Reform Act—including a requirement that outrageous CEO pay be publicly compared with worker pay—haven’t even gone into effect yet. But already, House Republicans are siding with corporate CEOs, trying to repeal the bill piece by piece.

 

What’s the Big Bank/CEO/House Republican plan? Deregulate. And if the economy collapses again because of reckless greed, rob working Americans to pay for bailouts while the rich get richer.

 

This is serious. This is the time to take action. As House Republicans pick at pieces and “provisions” of financial reform, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that deregulation brought our economy to the brink of collapse. That didn’t happen all at once, either. It happened in pieces since the 1970s. Little by little, corporations pushed their agenda, and they got away with it.

 

That’s why working people must push back hard when corporations and greedy CEOs lobby for even a small piece of deregulation.

 

So far, this week Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have proposed repealing several important provisions of Wall Street reform, including CEO-to-worker compensation disclosure—before they even go into effect. They also want to create new loopholes in the law for private equity fund managers, companies that use derivatives, credit rating firms and companies that issue up to $50 million in securities.

 

The fact is, America deserves to know what CEOs make compared with their workers, and we simply cannot afford to deregulate Wall Street.

 

But more broadly, we can’t give an inch and allow the deregulators to bankrupt America again.

 

Efforts at repealing pieces of Wall Street reform are just the beginning of Wall Street thinking it can return to its old ways. We’ve got to put that notion to rest, right now.

[Guest Pissed Off]

I cannot believe that Chase bank foreclosed on a soldier's home before he got back from Iraq.