"Behold, I am sending my messenger
to prepare the way before me. And suddenly the Lord whom you seek
will appear in the temple,
with that messenger of the covenant
in whom you delight. Indeed, he is coming,
says the Lord of hosts.
But who will be able to endure
the day of his coming,
and who will remain standing when he appears?"
"The greed of gain has no time or limit to its capaciousness. Its one object is to produce and consume. It has pity neither for beautiful nature nor for living human beings. It is ruthlessly ready without a moment's hesitation to crush beauty and life."
Rabindranath Tagore
"Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system."
1. Financial Institutions should not be allowed to cheat people through confusing and complex products, or just plain lying about credit cards and mortgages.
2. Financial Institutions should not be allowed to use taxpayers to pick up their risks through deposits or bailouts.
We know what needs to be done. Big financial institutions are flexing their political power to keep us from doing it, and to undermine what has already been attempted.
Auto loans now look like the pre-crisis mortgage market because they were exempted by Congress from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau oversight.
Department of Justice relies on deferred prosecutions and does not take repeat offending institutions to trial, and the SEC is even worse. They are abusing a system that was designed for low level non-violent offenders.
It is time to end the slap on the wrist culture at DOJ and SEC. Fines should be equal, at a minimum, to every dime of profits gained, and there should be an independent judicial review of these deals.
It is time for the Fed to make enforcement a top priority. Big financial institutions have every incentive to commit large financial offenses, and that is what they do. They rig global markets, and launder criminal funds and help the very wealthy to engage in tax cheating.
Dodd-Frank did not end 'too big to fail.' We need to stop talking about it and break up the Big Banks now, and force them to face the consequences of their own investment decisions. Too much of a technocratic approach is undermined over time, favoring a few well-connected, lawyered-up firms over time. What is needed is a structural approach, not a heavier layer of regulation. We need a new Glass-Steagall Law.
Congress must be able to limit the Fed's emergency lending of subsidized loans to global financial institutions without oversight.
Reforming the tax laws is critical to effective reform. Corporations are incented for short term thinking and using stock buybacks to manipulate price performance. The tax code incents Banks to engage in higher leverage and lower capitalization.
High Frequency Traders introduce more volatility without adding value. A targeted financial transaction tax would curb this without affecting mom and pop investors.
The shadow banking system is unregulated and open to serious short term financial risk before the next Lehman or Bear Stearns starts another financial crisis.
The system is rigged, and those that rigged it want to keep it that way.
“Now what is it moves our very hearts, and sickens us so much at cruelty shown to poor brutes? I suppose this first, that they have done no harm; next, that they have no power whatever of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims which makes their sufferings so especially touching.
...there is something so very dreadful, so satanic in tormenting those who never have harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power, who have weapons neither of offence nor defence, that none but very hardened persons can endure the thought of it.
Now this was just our Saviour's case: He had laid aside His glory, He had disbanded His legions of Angels, He came on earth without arms, except the arms of truth, meekness, and righteousness, and committed Himself to the world in perfect innocence and sinlessness, and in utter helplessness, as the Lamb of God."
John Henry Newman
'Truly, I say to you, as you have done to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done so to me.’
There was intraday commentary about the Non-Farm Payrolls Report here.
US markets will be closed tomorrow in observance of the 4th of July holiday weekend.
The rest of the world will have to try to carry on without our guidance.
There was intraday commentary about the Non-Farm Payrolls Report here.
Today's economic news was marked by stagnant wages, the lowest labor participation rate in 37 years, increased new unemployment claims and higher continuing unemployment, and a highly distorted unemployment percentage which is the product of callous ignorance and willful misdirection.
For the Fed Vice-Chair to have celebrated the achievement of 'US full employment' from their misguided monetary policy at long last earlier this week is aloof to the point of the tragic.
And it is a fine example of what is wrong with a privileged elite that has come to listen, to see, and to serve only themselves. And they are doing all of it for themselves exceptionally well.
We are called to a different task, to be something different, someone new.
Stocks were edgy today ahead of the long holiday weekend and the Greek referendum.
Let us pray for those whose hearts are hardened against His grace and loving kindness by greed, fear, and pride, and the seductive illusion and crushing isolation of evil.
We pray that we all may experience the three great gifts of our Lord's suffering and triumph: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness. And in so doing, may we obtain abundant life, and with it the peace that surpasses all understanding.
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