Banking and Finance

Global Economy A Giant Debt Scam,What the Financial Elite Don’t Want You to Know

June 10, 2018 By Andrew O'Hehir, Salon Educate! Banking and Finance, Capitalism, Debt, New Economy

Capitalism collapsed in 2008, just as communism had collapsed in 1991 — the system we have now is something else This is an argument Varoufakis has made many times, including in his 2011 book “The Global Minotaur.” As he expressed it to me, the financial crisis of 2008 led to “a wholesale collapse of what used to be called capitalism,” which has not recovered nearly as much as most people believe. What we have instead is an almost galactic-scale system of moving debt around to conceal the various flaws and shortfalls in the system. Varoufakis calls it “bankrupt-ocracy,” in which enormous but endangered or bankrupt financial institutions wield enormous power over the rest of society. “That’s not capitalism.” And on the subject of shell games …

The United States Has A Second Public Bank

May 6, 2018 Rob Blackwell, The American Banker. Create! American Samoa, Banking and Finance, Public Banking

Washington, DC — American Samoa is finally getting its own full-service bank — and successfully creating only the second public bank in the United States. The Federal Reserve is allowing the Territorial Bank of American Samoa access to the U.S. payments system nearly two years after the bank first applied. The decision is a boon to the remote U.S. territory in the South Pacific, where more than half of the households are at, near or below the federal poverty level. Officials across the seven islands that comprise American Samoa have been scrambling for a way to maintain local banking services since the Bank of Hawaii announced in 2012 it was leaving the territory.

The Public Banking Movement Is Taking Off In The U.S.

March 19, 2018 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Banking and Finance, Money, Public Banks, Wall Street

Public Banks exist around the world. They are used to hold public dollars, such as taxes and fees, to keep the money local so it serves the public interest, instead of giving it to Wall Street banks who charge high fees and interest rates. There is only one public bank so far in the United States, the Bank of North Dakota. It has been in existence for almost 100 years. Now, thanks to the work of the Public Banking Institute, there is a vibrant movement to create more public banks in the U.S. at the city and state level. We speak with Walt McRee and John Comerford about the reasons to support public banks, how they would serve people instead of Wall Street profits and current efforts across the country.

This Is US: Student Debt Devours Young And Old

February 11, 2018 Lynn Petrovich, End the Illusion. Educate! Banking and Finance, Student Debt, Student Loans

Over the past decade, through tax preparation work – both pro bono and paid - I’ve seen many student loan borrowers who, like Monica, have struggled not only to make ends meet, but also try to understand what’s happening with regard to their student loans. I’ve watched as refundable credits in the thousands of dollars have been seized by federal and state agencies year after year to pay for student loan debt.

Student Debt Slavery: Bankrolling Financiers On Backs Of Youth

December 28, 2017 Ellen Brown, Ellenbrown.com Educate! Banking and Finance, Higher Education, Student Debt

The government, too, had to be enslaved by debt. It could not be allowed to simply issue the money it needed to meet its budget, as Lincoln’s government did with its greenbacks (government-issued US Notes). The greenback program was terminated after the war, forcing the government to borrow from banks – banks that created the money themselves, just as the government had been doing. Only about 10% of the “banknotes” then issued by banks were actually backed by gold. The rest were effectively counterfeit. The difference between government-created and bank-created money was that the government issued it and spent it on the federal budget, creating demand and stimulating the economy. Banks issued money and lent it, at interest.

Fight The Disease, Not The Symptoms

November 13, 2017 Chris Hedges, truthdig.com Educate! Banking and Finance, Capitalism, Inequality

By Chris Hedges for Truth Dig - The disease of globalized corporate capitalism has the same effects across the planet. It weakens or destroys democratic institutions, making them subservient to corporate and oligarchic power. It forces domestic governments to give up control over their economies, which operate under policies dictated by global corporations, banks, the World Trade Organizationand the International Monetary Fund. It casts aside hundreds of millions of workers now classified as “redundant” or “surplus” labor. It disempowers underpaid and unprotected workers, many toiling in global sweatshops, keeping them cowed, anxious and compliant. It financializes the economy, creating predatory global institutions that extract money from individuals, institutions and states through punishing forms of debt peonage. It shuts down genuine debate on corporate-owned media platforms, especially in regard to vast income disparities and social inequality. And the destruction empowers proto-fascist movements and governments. These proto-fascist forces discredit verifiable fact and history and replace them with myth. They peddle nostalgia for lost glory. They attack the spiritual bankruptcy of the modern, technocratic world. They are xenophobic. They champion the “virtues” of a hyper-masculinity and the warrior cult. They preach regeneration through violence.

Goldman Sachs In Government Pushes Profits Of Goldman Sachs

October 16, 2017 Marcus Stanley, www.inequality.org Educate! Banking and Finance, Corruption, Goldman Sachs, Lobbying, Money in Politics, New Economy

By Marcus Stanley for Inequality - Goldman Sachs has been a conspicuous presence at the scene of one disaster after another in the past half century. The bank is a leader in a Wall Street business model that relies on market manipulation and unsustainable financial bubbles to enrich a few insiders, but that produces disastrous consequences for the rest of us. We are witnessing what may be a new Golden Age for Goldman Sachs. After running a campaign in which he lambasted the “corrupt” ties between Wall Street and Washington, President Trump has handed the job of shaping economic policy over to Wall Street insiders generally, and to alumni of Goldman Sachs in particular. These appointments add up to a level of inside influence that is unusual even by Goldman’s historic standards. And future picks could produce even more Goldman influence. In choosing Gary Cohn as National Economic Council Director and Steve Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary, along with Jay Clayton at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Trump has turned to Wall Street veterans with deep knowledge of the financial crisis—knowledge gained as champions of the dangerous practices that helped cause it. In areas ranging from financial regulations, to taxes, to infrastructure, to trade, this Goldman-heavy Administration is promoting policies that would boost Goldman Sachs’s profits, in many ways, at the expense of taxpayers and the broader public. Goldman’s stock price has already soared.

How To Erase Puerto Rico’s Debt Without Hurting Mom And Pop

October 15, 2017 Ellen Brown, www.ellenbrown.com Create! Banking and Finance, Debt, Federal Reserve, New Economy, Puerto Rico

By Ellen Brown for Web of Debt. During his visit to hurricane-stricken Puerto Rico, President Donald Trump shocked the bond market when he told Geraldo Rivera of Fox News that he was going to wipe out the island’s bond debt. How did the president plan to pull this off? Pam Martens and Russ Martens, writing in Wall Street on Parade, note that the U.S. municipal bond market holds $3.8 trillion in debt, and it is not just owned by Wall Street banks. Mom and pop retail investors are exposed to billions of dollars of potential losses through their holdings of Puerto Rican municipal bonds, either directly or in mutual funds.

How Capitalist Central Banks Have Been Creating The Next Financial Crisis

August 17, 2017 Jack Rasmus, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Banking and Finance, Banks, Capitalism, Crisis, New Economy

By Jack Rasmus for Counter Punch - As central bankers, finance ministers, and government policy makers head off to their annual gathering at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, this August, 24-26, 2017, the key topic is whether the leading central banks in North America and Europe will continue to raise interest rates this year; another topic high on the agenda is when the three major central banks – the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Bank of England – might begin to sell off their combined $9.8 trillion dollar balance sheets that they accumulated since the 2008-09 banking crisis. But the more fundamental question – little discussed by central bankers and academics alike – is what are the likely effects of further immediate rate hikes and/or commencement of central banks’ balance sheet reductions? The assumption is further rate hikes and sell-offs will have little negative impact on the real economy or financial markets. But will they? The effects of hikes and sell off will prove the opposite of what they predict. Central banks in the US and Europe were grossly in error predicting in 2008 that massive liquidity injections and zero interest rates would re-stimulate their economies and return them to pre-crisis real GDP growth rates.

Activist Investors Must Disrupt Corporate Business As Usual

August 4, 2017 Clara Herzberg, www.truth-out.org Strategize! Banking and Finance, Capitalism, Corporations, New Economy

By Clara Herzberg for Truthout - Once known by terms like "asset strippers" or "corporate raiders," activist investors -- shareholders who take large stakes in a company and pressure or replace its management in order to raise share prices -- have now entered the mainstream and are spreading like wildfire. Hundreds of companies are being singled out by activist investors, who are hungrily adding European firms to their target list after having nearly saturated the US market. Most recently, financier Nelson Peltz set his eyes on Proctor & Gamble (P&G), disclosing a $3.5 billion stake in the consumer goods behemoth and announcing that he's vying for a seat on the board. The move came a few weeks after Third Point, led by activist investor Daniel Loeb, clinched an equally large stake in Nestlé, the world's biggest food company. Peltz, Loeb and other activists are now making headlines with their calls for P&G and Nestlé to shed unprofitable brands and streamline operations, all in a bid to boost their own bank accounts by reconfiguring their investees' operations. Their supposedly "disruptive" campaigns to "shake things up" at bloated Fortune 500 firms have won them applause from the media, commentators and fellow investors.

Resistance Report: G20 And Pipelines

July 14, 2017 Eleanor Goldfield, www.popularresistance.org Resistance Report Banking and Finance, G20, Oil and Gas, Pipelines

By Eleanor Goldfield for Act Out! The G20 has historically been a meeting of bankers and finance ministers. Indeed, it wasn’t until 2008 that the first summit was held in Washington, DC as the global financial crisis pressed world leaders to at least make it look like they cared about the fate of millions. Today, the G20 is basically a vapid soiree where the G7 and BRICS nations shake hands, smile for the camera, take in a concert and essentially change nothing but time zones. Camp White Pine is a forest defense camp currently engaging in a large scale tree-sit in central Pennsylvania in order to combat the Mariner East 2 Pipeline. This 350+ mile long proposed pipeline would carry natural gas liquids through Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania to an export facility on the east coast.

If China Can Fund Infrastructure With Credit, So Can We

May 21, 2017 Ellen Brown, www.ellenbrown.com Create! Banking and Finance, Debt, Infrastructure, Transportation

By Ellen Brown for the Web of Debt Blog. United States - May 15-19 has been designated “National Infrastructure Week” by the US Chambers of Commerce, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and over 150 affiliates. Their message: “It’s time to rebuild.” Ever since ASCE began issuing its “National Infrastructure Report Card” in 1998, the nation has gotten a dismal grade of D or D+. In the meantime, the estimated cost of fixing its infrastructure has gone up from $1.3 trillion to $4.6 trillion. While American politicians debate endlessly over how to finance the needed fixes and which ones to implement, the Chinese have managed to fund massive infrastructure projects all across their country, including 12,000 miles of high-speed rail built just in the last decade. How have they done it, and why can’t we?

Climate Change Financing Dropped From G20 Draft Statement

March 20, 2017 Jan Strupczewski and Michael Nienaber, www.reuters.com Educate! Banking and Finance, Climate Change

By Jan Strupczewski and Michael Nienaber for Reuters - Opposition from the United States, Saudi Arabia and others has forced Germany to drop a reference to financing programs to combat climate change from the draft communique at a G20 finance and central bankers meeting. A G20 official taking part in the meeting said on Friday that efforts by the German G20 presidency to keep the wording on climate change financing had run into resistance. "Climate change is out for the time being," said the official, who asked not to be named. At their last meeting in July 2016 in the Chinese city of Chengdu, the G20 financial leaders said they encouraged all signatories of the Paris Agreement on climate change to bring the deal into force as soon as possible.

Wall Street Sets Political Outlay Record

November 3, 2016 Jim Lardner, www.inequality.org Educate! Banking and Finance, Wall Street

By Jim Lardner for Inequality.org - Wall Street will set still another record for political spending this election cycle. So far in 2015 and 2016, banks and financial interests have put more than $1.4 billion into efforts to elect and influence holders of national political office, according to Wall Street Money in Washington, a new report by Americans for Financial Reform based on data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

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