RealNews: Is Obama Getting Serious About Bank Reform and Financial Fraud?

One only has to look at the unfolding travesty of MF Global to see how serious he is in not pursuing justice and reform.



See The Real News here.

SP 500 Futures

The futures are up about 6 1/4 from Friday.

But as you can see, the bulls really need to take it up tomorrow to keep the rally going, or allow this doji of indecision to gap down and leave an 'island top.'

These Greek bailouts are like the US government's financial reforms: oft repeated and long on rhetoric, but containing little of substance.

Free Kindle Edition of The New Robber Barons By Janet Tavakoli

"The value of the e-book is that it has the embedded links in the book, unlike mainstream publishers. The other part about this book is that it is arranged chronologically by topic; one sees how much Congress and regulators have let us down, enabled cover-ups and then failed to act as evidence reached the public domain. We’re seeing it all over again with MF Global."

Janet Tavakoli

For today and on Tuesday (not on Monday) the $9.99 Kindle edition of The New Robber Barons by Janet Tavoli is free.

You must own a kindle, or have installed the kindle app for PC or mac, to download it. You can find it at Amazon US here, at Amazon UK here, or Amazon France here.

This e-book is a collection of her writings from various sources.

The NEW ROBBER BARONS continues financial expert Janet Tavakoli’s on-going chronicle of the global financial crisis captured in her articles from the September 2008 meltdown through February 2012. Picking up where her previous book, Dear Mr. Buffett, ended, she exposes the criminogenic environment that enabled international oligarchs to solidify power.

In January 2009, Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, told Tom Brokaw: “the idea that people that move money around are some favored class…strikes me as getting pretty far away from where we should be.” Two years later he publicly excused apparent insider trading by one of his successor candidates, David Sokol.

Berkshire Hathaway officer Charlie Munger admonished law students that Americans shouldn’t be "bitching about a little bailout."

Shortly before Congress confronted him with Goldman Sachs’s profiteering during the financial crisis, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein quipped he was doing “God’s work.”

CEO Jamie Dimon told shareholders that he didn’t think JPMorgan made a mistake when it came to potential foreclosure fraud: “maybe we’ll have to pay penalties eventually to some of the attorneys general but we really think we should just continue.” Meanwhile the bank scoured 115,000 mortgage affidavits and reserved $1.3 billion for legal costs.

After MF Global’s October 31, 2011, bankruptcy a U.S. Congressman told former CEO Jon Corzine: "You've got thousands of hard working people around this country that feel cheated."

Tavakoli serves up example after stunning international example of no-strings-attached socialization of losses and privatization of gains. In the words of Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur: "I believe most of us would call that theft."

Weimar Berlin in the 1920's

This is from the television documentary 'Legendary Sin Cities' which was broadcast in 2005 by the CBC Canada.   The three part series covered Berlin, Paris, and Shanghai.

It provides insight into the Weimar Republic and the cultural ferment between the wars.

It is definitely R rated so be advised.

(I am informed by a reader that the entire three part documentary, including Paris and Shanghai, is available on Netflix streaming for those who have access to that sort of thing. The Paris episode was my favorite.)