Banking

Megabankers "Educate" Hill Staffers on Writing Financial Rules

by Anne Landman — February 5, 2010 - 2:25pm

Last September, when President Barack Obama gave a major speech on Wall Street urging bankers to support financial reform, the CEOs of the nation's megabanks didn't bother to show up -- a move widely interpreted as a sign of disrespect.

Main Source: 
Huffington Post, February 5, 2010

Groundhogs Day on Wall Street

by Mary Bottari — February 5, 2010 - 7:43am
  • Topics: Banking, BanksterUSA, Corporations, Economy, Real Economy Project

    • On the day that Punxsutawney Phil emerged to predict a long hard winter, Americans picked up the newspaper to read that AIG, the bankrupt insurance giant, was going to pay out $100 million in bonuses to its failed financial products division. Kenneth Feinberg, President Obama’s pay czar, announced that these were “grandfathered” retention payments and that the unit had taken a $20 million dollar reduction in bonuses.

    Like Bill Murray in the classic film Groundhog Day, we are being forced to live this day over again.

    Golden Throne Award Goes to Tim Ryan, Spinmeister for U.S. Securities Industry

    by Mary Bottari — February 3, 2010 - 4:02pm
  • Topics: Banking, BanksterUSA, Corporations, Lobbying, Real Economy Project

    • The Center for Media and Democracy and BanksterUSA are pleased to present our Golden Throne Award to T. Timothy Ryan Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer of the Securities Industries and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA). SIFMA is the leading behind-the-scenes lobby group representing big banks and investment firms, as well as broker-dealers and other peddlers of financial instruments, which Warren Buffett labeled "weapons of mass destruction." SIFMA lobbies Congress and financial regulators, and handles securities-related press for some of the biggest players in the financial crisis--Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, AIG, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, and Fidelity Investments.

    Wall Street Fights Back

    by Mary Bottari — January 31, 2010 - 3:18pm

    A group of pinstriped traders, upset with the bank-bashing rhetoric emanating from Washington, launched a Wall Street defense campaign the same morning that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was being grilled by Congress.

    Main Source: 
    The New York Times, January 27, 2010

    This Week in Banking: Root Canals, Rhetoric or Real Reform?

    by Mary Bottari — January 29, 2010 - 10:25am
  • Topics: Banking, BanksterUSA, Democracy, Economy, Lobbying, Public Relations, Real Economy Project

    • The debate over banks and banking came front and center this week. In his toughest language yet, President Barack Obama vowed to veto financial reform legislation that is not tough enough on Wall Street. "The lobbyists are already trying to kill it," Obama told Congress in his State of the Union address. "Well, we cannot let them win this fight.

    Take Action! Millions to Lose Unemployment Insurance

    by Mary Bottari — January 26, 2010 - 3:05pm
  • Topics: Banking, BanksterUSA, Economy, Labor, Real Economy Project, U.S. Government

    • While President Obama is in Washington talking about putting a freeze on government spending, soon millions of American families will be out in the cold. In one month, one million Americans are slated to lose their unemployment insurance. Millions more will follow.

    Time is Running Out for Big Ben

    by Mary Bottari — January 26, 2010 - 9:34am
  • Topics: Banking, BanksterUSA, Corporations, Economy, Real Economy Project

    • Opposition has been mounting to the reconfirmation of Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve Chairman. In recent days, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) and John McCain (R-AZ) announced that they would vote no. Today, Senator Tom Harkin told the DesMoines Register he would be a no vote. If Bernanke does not get a vote this week, before the formal end of his first term, it would send shock waves through Wall Street.

    Although he was named Time magazine's "Man of the Year" due to his handling of the financial crisis, Boxer and Feingold reprise a bit of forgotten history. “Dr. Bernanke played a lead role in crafting the Bush administration’s economic policies, which led to the current economic crisis. Our next Federal Reserve chairman must represent a clean break from the failed policies of the past,” said Boxer.

    Obama to Wall Street: "You want a fight? I am ready."

    by Mary Bottari — January 22, 2010 - 8:30am
  • Topics: Banking, BanksterUSA, Corporations, Economy, Real Economy Project

    • The President took on Wall Street Thursday. Stocks plummeted, consumer activists cheered. Now we are talking.

    Obama's throwdown comes hard on the heels of the special election in Massachusetts in which public outrage over the bank bailout and the state of the staggering economy played a major role. As we have already reported, Republican Scott Brown seized the Democratic stronghold by billing himself as a man of the people and using public dismay with the Wall Street bailout to his advantage on the campaign trail. On Thursday, Obama showed he got the message.

    For the first time, the President's narrative directly blamed Wall Street for the crisis and proposed a major structural reform to business-as-usual. After freeing former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker from the closet he had been stuffed in at the Treasury Department, Obama brought him out to announce new measures long advocated by Volcker.

    Scott Brown Successfully Capitalized on the Bailout Blues

    by Mary Bottari — January 20, 2010 - 2:54pm
  • Topics: Banking, BanksterUSA, U.S. Congress, Economy, Politics, Real Economy Project

    • Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley lost her special-election for the Senate seat vacated by the untimely passing of U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy. Much has been said about the role of health care reform in the race. Apparently everyone in Massachusetts has health care and reasonable doubts about an expensive national plan that might not improve their services.

    But in the final days -- lagging in the polls -- the race was less about health care and more about the Wall Street bailout and the state of the economy. Her opponent, Scott Brown, successfully capitalized on the bailout blues and Coakley pulled out the big guns and resorted to a theme she perhaps should have emphasized throughout, bashing the big banks.

    Senator Dodd’s Dilemma: Who to Take to the Ball?

    by Mary Bottari — January 19, 2010 - 11:28am
  • Topics: Banking, BanksterUSA, Economy, Real Economy Project

    • On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that President Obama's signature financial reform, a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), was in trouble in the Senate.

    Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) was considering dropping the idea of creating an independent, stand-alone consumer protection body, empowered to crack down on banking abuses, in order to get a regulatory revamp passed this year with bipartisan support. Dodd is apparently considering shrinking the CFPA into a division of an already-existing federal agency (no doubt one with a proven track-record of failing consumers.)

    Dodd is faced with a dilemma. Although he introduced a rather strong financial services reform bill in Congress last year -- one which creates an independent CFPA, curtails the powers of the Federal Reserve and tackles many Wall Street abuses -- it appears that big bank lobbyists who have spent millions fighting reform are now chipping away at his bill.

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