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Showing posts with label too big to jail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label too big to jail. Show all posts

06 January 2016

BERNIE tiene un mensaje para WALL STREET - "No se puede tener todo!" #BreakEmUp 5JAN16

 
"Yo no quiero ser del agrado de todos. Llega un momento en el que usted tiene que tomar en el establecimiento y no ser parte de ese establecimiento."
Senador Bernie Sanders
 
+ Senador Bernie Sanders dio una progresiva discurso audaz, potente el martes 5 de 16-ENE en Wall Street y la cábala bancaria financiera. Aquí está, el vídeo y los comentarios preparados. Soy un Sandernista orgulloso! Escuchar y leer el discurso de Bernie, vaya a Bernie 2016  y unirse a la revolución política barriendo a través de América, para los Estados Unidos !!!! SENTIR LA BERN!

Reforma de Wall Street y Política Financiera | Bernie Sanders

 Transmitido en vivo en 05 de enero 2016
Bernie Sanders habla de su visión de la reforma económica en Estados Unidos, incluyendo reinante en las políticas financieras que tendría aplicar como presidente de Wall Street y. "Si Wall Street no termina su avaricia, terminaremos por ellos!" #BreakEmUp Senador del estado de NY James Sanders introduce el senador Bernie Sanders con un discurso esclarecedor sobre el impacto de la crisis financiera en los neoyorquinos de todas las clases sociales.



Comentarios preparados

Wall Street y la Economía

En declaraciones a pocas paradas de distancia del epicentro de la crisis financiera mundial, el senador Bernie Sanders prometió rehacer el sistema financiero para servir a las familias trabajadoras de Estados Unidos. A continuación se presentan sus declaraciones preparadas. Vea la transmisión en vivo aquí.

El pueblo estadounidense está poniendo de moda. Ellos entienden que algo está profundamente mal cuando, en nuestro país hoy en día, la parte superior de una décima parte del 1 por ciento posee casi tanta riqueza como la parte inferior del 90 por ciento y cuando las 20 personas más ricas poseen más riqueza que los inferiores a 150 millones de estadounidenses - la mitad de nuestra población. Ellos saben que el sistema está amañado cuando la persona promedio está trabajando más horas por salarios más bajos, mientras que el 58 por ciento de todos los nuevos ingresos va al 1 por ciento.
También saben que un puñado de personas en Wall Street tienen un poder extraordinario sobre la situación económica y la vida política de nuestro país. Como mucha gente sabe, en los años 1990 y posteriores, los intereses financieros gastan miles de millones de dólares en cabildeo y campañas contribuciones a la fuerza en el Congreso la desregulación de Wall Street, la derogación de la Ley Glass-Steagall y el debilitamiento de las leyes de protección del consumidor en los Estados .
Pasaron este dinero con el fin de conseguir que el gobierno de sus espaldas y mostrar al pueblo estadounidense lo que podrían hacer con ese nuevo ganado la libertad. Bueno, seguro que mostraron al pueblo estadounidense. En 2008, la codicia, la imprudencia y la conducta ilegal en Wall Street casi destruyeron la economía estadounidense y mundial.
Millones de estadounidenses perdieron sus empleos, sus casas y sus ahorros.
Mientras Wall Street recibió el mayor rescate de los contribuyentes en la historia del mundo con sin condiciones, la clase media estadounidense continúa desapareciendo, la pobreza va en aumento y la brecha entre los muy ricos y todos los demás están creciendo más y más. Y los ejecutivos de Wall Street siguen recibiendo los paquetes de compensación enormes como si la crisis financiera que crearon nunca sucedió.
La codicia, el fraude, la deshonestidad y la arrogancia, estas son las palabras que mejor describen la realidad de Wall Street hoy.
Por lo tanto, a los de Wall Street que puede estar escuchando hoy, permítanme ser muy claro. La codicia no es buena. De hecho, la codicia de Wall Street y la América corporativa está destruyendo el tejido de nuestra nación. Y, aquí es una Resolución de Año Nuevo que voy a seguir si es elegido presidente. Si no termina su avaricia, terminaremos por usted.
Ya no vamos a tolerar una economía y un sistema político que ha sido manipulado por Wall Street para beneficiar a los estadounidenses más ricos de este país a expensas de todos los demás.
Mientras que el presidente Obama merece crédito por mejorar esta economía después de la caída de Wall Street, la realidad es que una gran cantidad de asuntos pendientes que queda por hacer.
Nuestro objetivo debe ser la creación de un sistema financiero y una economía que funcione para todos los estadounidenses, no sólo un puñado de multimillonarios

Ending "Too Big To Fail"

Eso significa que tenemos que terminar, de una vez por todas, el esquema que no es más que una póliza de seguro libre para Wall Street, la política de "demasiado grande para quebrar."
Necesitamos un sistema bancario que es parte de la economía productiva - la concesión de préstamos a precios asequibles a las pequeñas y medianas empresas para que creamos puestos de trabajo decentes pagar. Wall Street no puede seguir siendo una isla en sí mismo, miles de millones de juegos de azar en los instrumentos financieros de riesgo, haciendo enormes beneficios y la seguridad de que, si sus esquemas fallan, los contribuyentes estarán allí para rescatarlos.
En 2008, los contribuyentes de este país rescatados Wall Street, porque nos dijeron que eran "demasiado grandes para quebrar". Sin embargo, hoy, 3 de los 4 mayores instituciones financieras (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America y Wells Fargo) son casi el 80 por ciento más grande que antes de que los rescatados . Increíblemente, los seis bancos más grandes de este país emitan más de dos tercios de todas las tarjetas de crédito y más del 35 por ciento de todas las hipotecas. Ellos controlan más del 95 por ciento de todos los derivados financieros y poseen más del 40 por ciento de todos los depósitos bancarios. Sus activos son equivalentes a casi el 60 por ciento de nuestro PIB. Ya es suficiente.
Si un banco es demasiado grande para quebrar, es demasiado grande para existir. Cuando se trata de la reforma de Wall Street, que debe ser nuestra línea de fondo. Esto es cierto no sólo desde una perspectiva de riesgo y el temor de otro rescate. También es cierto de la realidad de que un puñado de grandes instituciones financieras simplemente tienen demasiado poder económico y político de este país.
Si Teddy Roosevelt, el republicano de confianza-buster, estuviera vivo hoy, él diría "romper 'em up." Y tendría razón.
Y así es como voy a lograrlo.
Dentro de los primeros 100 días de mi gobierno, que requerirá el secretario del Departamento del Tesoro para establecer un "demasiado grandes para quebrar" la lista de los bancos comerciales, sombra bancos y compañías de seguros cuyo fallo podría suponer un riesgo catastrófico para la economía de Estados Unidos sin un rescate de los contribuyentes.
Dentro de un año, mi gobierno va a romper estas instituciones de manera que ya no constituyen una grave amenaza para la economía como autorizado bajo la Sección 121 de la Ley Dodd-Frank.
Y, voy a luchar para restablecer un 21o siglo Ley Glass-Steagall a servicios de banca comercial, banca de inversión y de seguros claramente separados. Seamos claros: esta legislación, introducida por mi colega senador Elizabeth Warren, apunta al corazón del sistema bancario en la sombra.
En mi opinión, el senador Warren, tiene razón. Dodd-Frank debería haber roto Citigroup y otros bancos "también- grandes para quebrar" en pedazos. Y eso es exactamente lo que tenemos que hacer. Y eso es lo que me comprometo a hacer como presidente.
Ahora, mi oponente, la secretaria Clinton dice que la Glass-Steagall no habría evitado la crisis financiera porque los bancos sombra como AIG y Lehman Brothers, los bancos comerciales no grandes, eran los verdaderos culpables.
La secretaria Clinton que está mal.
Shadow bancos hizo jugar imprudentemente, pero ¿de dónde vino ese dinero? Venía de los depósitos bancarios federalmente asegurados de los bancos comerciales grandes - algo que habría sido prohibidos en virtud de la Ley Glass-Steagall.
No olvidemos: el presidente Franklin Roosevelt firmó este proyecto en ley, precisamente para evitar que los especuladores de Wall Street de causar otra Gran Depresión . Y, funcionó durante más de cinco décadas hasta Wall Street regó abajo durante la presidencia de Reagan y lo mató durante la presidencia de Clinton.
Y, vamos, no nos engañemos. La Reserva Federal y el Departamento del Tesoro no acaban de rescatar a los bancos de sombra. Como resultado de una enmienda que me ofrecí a auditar las actividades de préstamo de emergencia de la Reserva Federal durante la crisis financiera, nos enteramos de que la Reserva Federal proporcionó más de $ 16 billones de dólares en corto plazo, préstamos a bajo interés para cada institución financiera importante en el país, incluyendo Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, por no hablar de las grandes corporaciones, los bancos extranjeros y los bancos centrales extranjeros en todo el mundo.
La secretaria Clinton dice sólo tenemos que imponer unas cuantas tasas y regulaciones en el sector financiero . No estoy de acuerdo.
Como ex Secretario del Trabajo ha dicho Robert Reich y cito: "bancos gigante de Wall Street siguen amenazando el bienestar de millones de estadounidenses, pero ¿qué hacer? Bernie Sanders dice romperlas y resucitar la Ley Glass-Steagall que una vez separada la inversión de la banca comercial. Hillary Clinton dice que acusen un poco más y supervisar con más cuidado ... propuestas de Hillary Clinton sólo se invitará a más de dilución y finagle. La única manera de contener los excesos de la calle es con reformas tan grandes, audaces y público que no puede ser aguado -. Revienta a los mayores bancos y resucitar a la Glass-Steagall
"Secretario Reich es correcto. La verdadera reforma de Wall Street significa romper los grandes bancos y el restablecimiento de los cortafuegos que separa la toma de riesgos de la banca tradicional.
Mi oponente dice que, como senador, le dijo a los banqueros para "cortarlo" y poner fin a su comportamiento destructivo. Pero, en mi opinión, políticos del establishment son los que tienen que "cortar a cabo." La realidad es que el Congreso no regula Wall Street. Wall Street, sus cabilderos y sus miles de millones de dólares a regular el Congreso. Tenemos que cambiar esa realidad, y como presidente lo haré.

-To-Cárcel Demasiado-Big Ending

No es ningún secreto que millones de estadounidenses se han desilusionado con nuestro proceso político. Ellos no votan. Ellos no creen mucho de lo que sale de Washington. No creo que nadie está allí en representación de sus intereses. En mi opinión, una de las razones de que en el fondo la desilusión es la comprensión generalizada de que nuestro sistema de justicia penal se rompe y manifiestamente injusto - y que no tenemos justicia equitativa bajo la ley. El estadounidense promedio ve niños arrestados y en ocasiones incluso encarcelados por posesión de marihuana u otros delitos menores. Pero cuando se trata de ejecutivos de Wall Street, algunas de las personas más ricas y poderosas de este país, cuyo comportamiento ilegal causado dolor y sufrimiento para millones - de alguna manera no pasa nada con ellos. Sin antecedentes policiales. No ir a la cárcel. No hay justicia.
Vivimos en un país hoy que tiene una economía que está amañado, un sistema de financiación de las campañas, que es corrupto y un sistema de justicia penal que, con demasiada frecuencia, no dispensar justicia.
Ni un importante ejecutivo de Wall Street ha sido procesado por haber causado el casi colapso de toda nuestra economía.
Eso va a cambiar bajo mi administración. "Equal Justice Bajo la Ley" no va a ser sólo palabras grabadas en la entrada de la Corte Suprema. Será la norma que se aplica a Wall Street y todos los estadounidenses.

El modelo de negocios de Wall Street es el fraude

Parece que casi todas las semanas leemos acerca de una institución financiera gigante tras otro ser multados o alcanzar acuerdos para sus actividades temerarias, injustas y engañosas.
Algunas personas creen que esto es una aberración: que tenemos un sistema financiero honesto en el que, cada de vez en cuando, las principales instituciones financieras hacen algo mal y quedar atrapado. En mi opinión, la evidencia sugiere que habría un análisis incorrecto.
La realidad es que el fraude es el modelo de negocios de Wall Street. No es la excepción a la regla. Es la regla. Y en un clima regulatorio débil la probabilidad es que Wall Street se sale con mucha comportamiento más ilegal que conocemos.
¿Cuántas veces hemos escuchado el mito de que lo que Wall Street hizo pudo haber sido un error, pero no fue ilegal?
Let ayúdame añicos ese mito hoy.
Desde el año 2009, las principales instituciones financieras de este país han sido multados $ 204 mil millones. $ 204 mil millones. Y que tiene lugar en un clima regulatorio débil.
Éstos son sólo algunos ejemplos de cuando los principales bancos fueron sorprendidos haciendo actividad ilegal.
En agosto de 2014, Bank of America resolvió un caso con el Departamento de Justicia para más de $ 16 millones de dólares en los cargos que la banco engañó a los inversores sobre el riesgo de los valores respaldados por hipotecas que vendió en el período previo a la crisis.
En noviembre de 2013, JP Morgan resolvió un caso de $ 13 mil millones con el Departamento de Justicia y la Agencia Federal de Financiamiento de la Vivienda sobre los cargos del banco a sabiendas venden títulos valores compuestos por hipotecas de baja calidad a Fannie Mae y Freddie Mac.
En junio de 2014, BNP Paribas fue condenado a cinco años de libertad condicional y se le ordenó pagar $ 8.9 mil millones en multas por un Juez Federal de Distrito en Manhattan después de este banco declaré culpable de los cargos de violar las sanciones por la realización de negocios en Sudán, Irán y Cuba.
Permítanme leerles unos titulares y usted me dice cómo tiene sentido que un ejecutivo no fue procesado por fraude.
  • CNN Headline 20 de mayo de 2015: "5 grandes bancos a pagar $ 5.4 mil millones para las monedas aparejo." Los bancos incluyen JPMorgan Chase y Citigroup.
  • Titular de la International Business Times (24 de febrero de 2015): ". Grandes Bancos en investigación para la fijación Supuestamente Metales Preciosos precios" Los bancos se están investigando incluido Goldman Sachs y JPMorgan Chase.
  • Titular de la Red de Noticias de Bienes (26 de noviembre de 2013): "Los documentos en la liquidación JPMorgan revelan cómo cada banco grande en los EE.UU. ha cometido fraude hipotecario."
  • Encabezado por el Washington Post (14 de marzo de 2014): "En la demanda, la FDIC acusa a 16 grandes bancos de fraude, conspiración," que incluyeron el Bank of America, Citigroup y JP Morgan Chase.
  • Encabezado del Guardián (2 de abril de 2011): "¿Cómo un banco grande US lavar miles de millones de bandas de narcotraficantes asesinos de México." Este artículo habla de cómo Wachovia (que fue adquirida por Wells Fargo) ayudó a los cárteles mexicanos de la droga en la transferencia de miles de millones de dólares en dinero de la droga ilegal. Esto es lo que el fiscal federal (Jeffrey Sloman) dijo al respecto: "flagrante desprecio de Wachovia por nuestras leyes bancarias dio cocaína internacional cárteles una carta blanca para financiar sus operaciones."
Sin embargo, la multa total por este delito fue de menos de 2% de los del banco $ 12.3 mil millones de ganancias para 2009 y nadie fue a la cárcel. Nadie fue a la cárcel.
Y, si eso no es suficiente, aquí hay otra.
  • Título: The Wall Street Journal, 9 de febrero de 2011: "JP Morgan se disculpa por ejecuciones hipotecarias militares." Aquí hay un caso en el JP Morgan Chase, el mayor banco de América, arruinó las finanzas de 4.000 familias de militares en violación de los Miembros del Servicio Civil Ley de Alivio, sin embargo, nadie fue a la cárcel.
Y, cuando digo que el modelo de negocios de Wall Street es un fraude que no es sólo Bernie Sanders hablar. Eso es lo que los ejecutivos financieros dijeron a la Universidad de Notre Dame, en un estudio sobre la ética de la industria de servicios financieros el año pasado.
De acuerdo con este estudio, el 51 por ciento de los ejecutivos de Wall Street que ganan más de $ 500.000 al año encontró que es probable que sus competidores han participado en la actividad inmoral o ilegal con el fin de obtener una ventaja en el mercado.
Más de un tercio de los ejecutivos financieros o bien han sido testigos o tienen conocimiento de primera mano de la maldad en el lugar de trabajo.
Casi uno de cada cinco profesionales de servicios financieros creen que deben participar en ilegal o actividad poco ética para tener éxito.
El veinticinco por ciento de los ejecutivos financieros han firmado o ha pedido que firme un acuerdo de confidencialidad que prohíba la presentación de informes de actividades ilegales o poco éticas a las autoridades.
Esto es lo que un banquero de Barclays dijo en 2010, cuando fue sorprendido tratando a precio-arreglar el mercado de divisas $ 5000 mil millones por día ". Si usted no está engañando, no se está tratando"
Esto es lo que un analista de Standard & Poors, dijo en 2008: "Esperemos que todos somos ricos y jubilados por el momento este castillo de naipes se tambalea.
"Este país ya no puede permitirse el lujo de tolerar la cultura del fraude y la corrupción en Wall Street.
Bajo mi administración, los directores ejecutivos de Wall Street ya no recibirán un encuentro fuera de la cárcel tarjeta gratuita. Los grandes bancos no serán demasiado grandes para quebrar. Grandes banqueros no van a ser demasiado grande a la cárcel.
Como presidente, voy a nominar y nombrar a las personas con un historial de enfrentarse al poder, en lugar de aquellos que han hecho millones defensa de los CEOs de Wall Street. Goldman Sachs y otros bancos de Wall Street no estarán representados en mi administración.

Impuesto sobre la especulación de Wall Street

Y, si nos tomamos en serio la reforma de nuestro sistema financiero, tenemos que establecer un impuesto sobre los especuladores de Wall Street. Tenemos que desalentar el juego imprudente de Wall Street y fomentar las inversiones productivas en la economía creadora de empleo.
Vamos a utilizar los ingresos de este impuesto para que los colegios y universidades públicas de matrícula gratuita. Durante la crisis financiera, la clase media de este país rescató a Wall Street. Ahora, es el turno de Wall Street para ayudar a la clase media.

La reforma de agencias de calificación crediticia

No podemos tener un sistema financiero sano y salvo, si no podemos confiar en las agencias de crédito para evaluar con precisión los productos financieros. Y la única manera que podemos restaurar esa confianza es hacer que las agencias de calificación de crédito seguro no pueden obtener un beneficio de Wall Street.
Los inversores no habrían comprado los derivados respaldados por hipotecas riesgosas que condujeron a la Gran Recesión si las agencias de crédito no dieron estos inútiles financiera productos calificaciones triple A - notas que sabían eran falsos.
Y la razón de que estos esquemas financieros de riesgo se les dio esas calificaciones favorables es simple. Wall Street pagó por ellos.
Bajo mi administración, giraremos agencias sin fines de lucro de calificación crediticia en las instituciones sin fines de lucro, independientes de Wall Street. Ya no va a Wall Street podrá elegir qué crédito agencia calificará sus productos.

Cap Tarjeta de crédito Tasas de interés y cargos de cajeros automáticos

Si vamos a crear un sistema financiero que funcione para todos los estadounidenses, tenemos que dejar de instituciones financieras de estafar al pueblo estadounidense mediante el cobro de tasas de interés por las nubes y los honorarios escandalosos.
En mi opinión, es inaceptable que los estadounidenses están pagando una cuota de $ 4 o $ 5 cada vez que vayan al cajero automático.
Es inaceptable que millones de estadounidenses están pagando tasas de interés de tarjetas de crédito de 20 o 30 por ciento.
La Biblia tiene un término para esta práctica. Se llama usura. Y en La Divina Comedia, Dante reservado un lugar especial en el séptimo círculo del infierno para los que cargó la gente tasas de interés usurarias.
Hoy en día, no necesitamos el fuego del infierno y las horquillas, no necesitamos los ríos de sangre hirviendo , pero necesitamos una ley nacional de la usura.
Hoy en día, tenemos que limitar las tasas de interés en tarjetas de crédito y préstamos de consumo en un 15 por ciento.
En 1980, el Congreso aprobó una legislación para requerir las cooperativas de crédito para limitar las tasas de interés de sus préstamos en no más de 15 por ciento. Y, esa ley ha funcionado bien. A diferencia de los grandes bancos, las cooperativas de crédito no recibieron un enorme rescate de los contribuyentes de este país. Ha llegado el momento de ampliar este límite a todos los prestamistas en Estados Unidos.
También debemos limitar cargos de cajeros automáticos en $ 2.00. La gente no debería tener que pagar una cuota de 10 por ciento para el retiro de $ 40 de su propio dinero de un cajero automático.
Los grandes bancos tienen que dejar de actuar como usureros y empezar a actuar como prestamistas responsables.

Permitir oficinas de correos para ofrecer servicios bancarios

También tenemos que dar a los americanos opciones bancarias asequibles.
La realidad es que, increíblemente, millones de estadounidenses de bajos ingresos viven en comunidades donde no hay servicios bancarios normales. Hoy en día, si usted vive en una comunidad de bajos ingresos y que necesita para cambiar un cheque o conseguir un préstamo para pagar una reparación de automóviles o una emergencia médica, ¿a dónde vas?
Usted va a un prestamista de día de pago que podrían cobrar una tasa de interés de más de 300 por ciento y atraparte en un círculo vicioso de la deuda. Eso es inaceptable.
Tenemos que dejar de prestamistas de estafar a millones de estadounidenses. Existen oficinas de correos en casi todas las comunidades de nuestro país. Una forma importante proporcionar oportunidades bancarias decentes para las comunidades de bajos ingresos es permitir que el servicio postal de Estados Unidos para participar en los servicios bancarios básicos, y eso es lo que voy a luchar.

La reforma de la Reserva Federal

Además, tenemos que reformar estructuralmente la Reserva Federal para que sea una institución más democrática que responda a las necesidades de los estadounidenses de a pie, no sólo los multimillonarios de Wall Street.
Cuando Wall Street estaba al borde del colapso, la Reserva Federal actuaron con una feroz sentido de urgencia para salvar el sistema financiero. Necesitamos a la Fed a actuar con la misma libertad para luchar contra el desempleo y los bajos salarios.
En mi opinión, es inaceptable que la Reserva Federal ha sido secuestrado por los mismos banqueros que se encarga de la regulación. Creo que el pueblo estadounidense se sorprenderían al saber que Jamie Dimon, presidente ejecutivo de JP Morgan Chase, que se sirve en la junta de la Fed de Nueva York, al mismo tiempo que su banco recibió un rescate de $ 391 mil millones de la Reserva Federal. Eso es un claro conflicto de intereses que iba a prohibir como presidente. Cuando soy elegido, los zorros ya no estarán vigilando el gallinero en la Fed. Bajo mi administración, ejecutivos de la industria bancaria ya no podrán servir en las juntas de la Fed y handpick sus miembros y el personal.
Además, la Fed debería dejar de pagar las instituciones financieras de interés para mantener el dinero de la economía y estacionados en la Fed. Increíblemente, el exceso de reservas de las entidades financieras que están sentados en la Reserva Federal ha crecido desde menos de $ 2 mil millones en 2008 a $ 2400 mil millones en la actualidad. Eso es absurdo.
En lugar de pagar los bancos intereses sobre estas reservas, la Fed debería cobrarles una cuota que podría ser utilizado para proporcionar préstamos asequibles a las pequeñas empresas para crear cientos de miles de puestos de trabajo.

Conclusión

Por último, permítanme decirles lo que ningún otro candidato le dirá. Ningún presidente, no Bernie Sanders o cualquier otra persona, puede abordar con eficacia las crisis económicas que enfrentan las familias trabajadoras de este país solo. La verdad es que Wall Street, la América corporativa, los medios corporativos y donantes de campaña ricos son demasiado poderosos.
Lo que esta campaña se acerca es la construcción de un movimiento político que revitaliza la democracia estadounidense, que reúne a millones de personas en conjunto - en blanco y negro, latino, asiático-americano, nativo americano - jóvenes y viejos, hombres y mujeres, homosexuales y heterosexuales, nativos e inmigrantes, personas de todas las religiones.
Sí. Wall Street tiene un enorme poder económico y político. Sí. Wall Street hace enormes contribuciones de campaña, tienen miles de grupos de presión y proporcionan tasas de habla muy generosas a los que van delante de ellos.
Sí. Tienen una fuente inagotable de dinero. Pero tenemos algo que ellos no tienen. Y es que cuando millones de familias trabajadoras están juntos, exigiendo cambios fundamentales en nuestro sistema financiero, tenemos el poder para llevar a cabo ese cambio.
Sí, podemos hacer que nuestra economía funcione para todos los estadounidenses, no sólo un puñado de especuladores ricos. Y, ahora más que nunca, eso es exactamente lo que debemos hacer.
Así que mi mensaje para ustedes hoy es sencillo: Si es elegido presidente, voy a controlar a Wall Street para que no puedan bloquearse nuestra economía de nuevo.
¿Me gustaría? No. ¿Van a comenzar a jugar con las reglas si soy presidente? Será mejor que lo creas.
Gracias y espero con interés trabajar con la fuerza más poderosa en nuestra gran nación, no los barones de Wall Street, pero la gente de nuestro gobierno fue creado para servir. He aquí algunos comentarios sobre el discurso de Bernie disponibles en el diario + Kos sitio web, haga clic en los enlaces ....  Bucknackt, ayer Bernie Sanders dio un importante discurso en la ciudad de Nueva York en Wall Street reforma que tiene gran parte de la comunidad Daily Kos energizado y comprometido.



Independientemente de que usted apoya para la nominación presidencial demócrata, todos estamos de acuerdo de que Bernie Sanders es una poderosa voz contra la codicia de Wall Street.

BERNIE HAS A MESSAGE FOR WALL STREET - "YOU CAN'T HAVE IT ALL!" #BreakEmUp 5JAN16


+Senator Bernie Sanders gave a bold, progressive, powerful speech on Tuesday, 5 JAN 16, on wall street and the bank-financial cabal. Here it is, the video and the prepared remarks. I am a proud Sandernista! Listen to and read Bernie's speech, go to Bernie 2016  and join the political revolution sweeping across America, for America!!!! Feel the BERN!!!!!

Wall Street Reform and Financial Policy | Bernie Sanders

 Streamed live on Jan 5, 2016
Bernie Sanders discusses his vision for economic reform in America, including reigning in Wall Street and financial policies he would implement as president. "If Wall Street does not end its greed, we will end it for them!" #BreakEmUp

NY State Senator James Sanders introduces US Senator Bernie Sanders with an illuminating speech on the impact of the financial meltdown on New Yorkers from all walks of life.


Prepared Remarks

Wall Street and the Economy

Speaking a few subway stops away from the epicenter of the global financial crisis, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders promised to remake the financial system to serve America’s working families. Below are his prepared remarks. Watch the live stream here.

The American people are catching on. They understand that something is profoundly wrong when, in our country today, the top one-tenth of 1 percent own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent and when the 20 richest people own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans – half of our population. They know that the system is rigged when the average person is working longer hours for lower wages, while 58 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent.
They also know that a handful of people on Wall Street have extraordinary power over the economic and political life of our country. As most people know, in the 1990s and later, the financial interests spent billions of dollars in lobbying and campaign contributions to force through Congress the deregulation of Wall Street, the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and the weakening of consumer protection laws in states.
They spent this money in order to get the government off their backs and to show the American people what they could do with that new-won freedom. Well, they sure showed the American people. In 2008, the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street nearly destroyed the U.S. and global economy.
Millions of Americans lost their jobs, their homes and their life savings.
While Wall Street received the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world with no strings attached, the American middle class continues to disappear, poverty is increasing and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider. And Wall Street executives still receive huge compensation packages as if the financial crisis they created never happened.
Greed, fraud, dishonesty and arrogance, these are the words that best describe the reality of Wall Street today.
So, to those on Wall Street who may be listening today, let me be very clear. Greed is not good. In fact, the greed of Wall Street and corporate America is destroying the fabric of our nation. And, here is a New Year’s Resolution that I will keep if elected president. If you do not end your greed, we will end it for you.
We will no longer tolerate an economy and a political system that has been rigged by Wall Street to benefit the wealthiest Americans in this country at the expense of everyone else.
While President Obama deserves credit for improving this economy after the Wall Street crash, the reality is that a lot of unfinished business remains to be done.
Our goal must be to create a financial system and an economy that works for all Americans, not just a handful of billionaires

Ending “Too Big To Fail”

That means we have got to end, once and for all, the scheme that is nothing more than a free insurance policy for Wall Street, the policy of “too big to fail.”
We need a banking system that is part of the productive economy – making loans at affordable rates to small- and medium-sized businesses so that we create decent-paying jobs. Wall Street cannot continue to be an island unto itself, gambling trillions in risky financial instruments, making huge profits and assured that, if their schemes fail, the taxpayers will be there to bail them out.
In 2008, the taxpayers of this country bailed out Wall Street because we were told they were “too big to fail.” Yet, today, 3 out of the 4 largest financial institutions (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo) are nearly 80 percent bigger than before we bailed them out. Incredibly, the six largest banks in this country issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards and more than 35 percent of all mortgages. They control more than 95 percent of all financial derivatives and hold more than 40 percent of all bank deposits. Their assets are equivalent to nearly 60 percent of our GDP. Enough is enough.
If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. When it comes to Wall Street reform that must be our bottom line. This is true not just from a risk perspective and the fear of another bailout. It is also true from the reality that a handful of huge financial institutions simply have too much economic and political power over this country.
If Teddy Roosevelt, the Republican trust-buster, were alive today, he would say “break ‘em up.” And he would be right.
And, here’s how I will accomplish that.
Within the first 100 days of my administration, I will require the secretary of the Treasury Department to establish a “Too-Big-to Fail” list of commercial banks, shadow banks and insurance companies whose failure would pose a catastrophic risk to the United States economy without a taxpayer bailout.
Within one year, my administration will break these institutions up so that they no longer pose a grave threat to the economy as authorized under Section 121 of the Dodd-Frank Act.
And, I will fight to reinstate a 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act to clearly separate commercial banking, investment banking and insurance services. Let’s be clear: this legislation, introduced by my colleague Senator Elizabeth Warren, aims at the heart of the shadow banking system.
In my view, Senator Warren, is right. Dodd-Frank should have broken up Citigroup and other “too- big-to-fail” banks into pieces. And that’s exactly what we need to do. And that’s what I commit to do as president.
Now, my opponent, Secretary Clinton says that Glass-Steagall would not have prevented the financial crisis because shadow banks like AIG and Lehman Brothers, not big commercial banks, were the real culprits.
Secretary Clinton is wrong.
Shadow banks did gamble recklessly, but where did that money come from? It came from the federally-insured bank deposits of big commercial banks – something that would have been banned under the Glass-Steagall Act.
Let’s not forget: President Franklin Roosevelt signed this bill into law precisely to prevent Wall Street speculators from causing another Great Depression. And, it worked for more than five decades until Wall Street watered it down under President Reagan and killed it under President Clinton.
And, let’s not kid ourselves. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department didn’t just bail out shadow banks. As a result of an amendment that I offered to audit the emergency lending activities of the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis, we learned that the Fed provided more than $16 trillion in short-term, low-interest loans to every major financial institution in the country including Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, not to mention large corporations, foreign banks, and foreign central banks throughout the world.
Secretary Clinton says we just need to impose a few more fees and regulations on the financial industry. I disagree.
As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has said and I quote: “Giant Wall Street banks continue to threaten the wellbeing of millions of Americans, but what to do? Bernie Sanders says break them up and resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act that once separated investment from commercial banking. Hillary Clinton says charge them a bit more and oversee them more carefully … Hillary Clinton’s proposals would only invite more dilution and finagle. The only way to contain the Street’s excesses is with reforms so big, bold, and public they can’t be watered down – busting up the biggest banks and resurrecting Glass-Steagall.”
Secretary Reich is right. Real Wall Street reform means breaking up the big banks and re-establishing firewalls that separates risk taking from traditional banking.
My opponent says that, as a senator, she told bankers to “cut it out” and end their destructive behavior. But, in my view, establishment politicians are the ones who need to “cut it out.” The reality is that Congress doesn’t regulate Wall Street. Wall Street, its lobbyists and their billions of dollars regulate Congress. We must change that reality, and as president I will.

Ending Too-Big-To-Jail

It is no secret that millions of Americans have become disillusioned with our political process. They don’t vote. They don’t believe much of what comes out of Washington. They don’t think anyone is there representing their interests. In my view, one of the reasons for that deep disillusionment is the widespread understanding that our criminal justice system is broken and grossly unfair – and that we do not have equal justice under the law. The average American sees kids being arrested and sometimes even jailed for possessing marijuana or other minor crimes. But when it comes to Wall Street executives, some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country, whose illegal behavior caused pain and suffering for millions – somehow nothing happens to them. No police record. No jail time. No justice.
We live in a country today that has an economy that is rigged, a campaign finance system which is corrupt and a criminal justice system which, too often, does not dispense justice.
Not one major Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for causing the near collapse of our entire economy.
That will change under my administration. “Equal Justice Under Law” will not just be words engraved on the entrance of the Supreme Court. It will be the standard that applies to Wall Street and all Americans.

The business model on Wall Street is fraud

It seems like almost every few weeks we read about one giant financial institution after another being fined or reaching settlements for their reckless, unfair and deceptive activities.
Some people believe that this is an aberration: that we have an honest financial system in which, every now and then, major financial institutions do something wrong and get caught. In my view, the evidence suggests that would be an incorrect analysis.
The reality is that fraud is the business model on Wall Street. It is not the exception to the rule. It is the rule. And in a weak regulatory climate the likelihood is that Wall Street gets away with a lot more illegal behavior than we know of.
How many times have we heard the myth that what Wall Street did may have been wrong but it wasn’t illegal?
Let me help shatter that myth today.
Since 2009, major financial institutions in this country have been fined $204 billion. $204 billion. And that takes place in a weak regulatory climate.
Here are just a few examples of when major banks were caught doing illegal activity.
In August 2014, Bank of America settled a case with the Department of Justice for more than $16 billion on charges that the bank misled investors about the riskiness of mortgage-backed securities it sold in the run-up to the crisis.
In November of 2013, JP Morgan settled a case for $13 billion with the Department of Justice and the Federal Housing Finance Agency over charges the bank knowingly sold securities made up of low-quality mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
In June of 2014, BNP Paribas was sentenced to five years’ probation and was ordered to pay $8.9 billion in penalties by a U.S. District Judge in Manhattan after this bank pled guilty to charges of violating sanctions by conducting business in Sudan, Iran and Cuba.
Let me read you a few headlines and you tell me how it makes sense that not one executive was prosecuted for fraud.
  • CNN Headline, May 20, 2015: “5 big banks pay $5.4 billion for rigging currencies.” Those banks include JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup.
  • Headline from the International Business Times (February 24, 2015): “Big Banks Under Investigation For Allegedly Fixing Precious Metals Prices.” The Banks under investigation included Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.
  • Headline from The Real News Network (November 26, 2013): “Documents in JPMorgan settlement reveal how every large bank in the U.S. has committed mortgage fraud.”
  • Headline from The Washington Post (March 14, 2014): “In lawsuit, FDIC accuses 16 big banks of fraud, conspiracy,” which included Bank of America, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase.
  • Headline from the Guardian (April 2, 2011): “How a big U.S. bank laundered billions from Mexico’s murderous drug gangs.” This article talks about how Wachovia (which was acquired by Wells Fargo) aided Mexican drug cartels in transferring billions of dollars in illegal drug money. Here is what the federal prosecutor (Jeffrey Sloman) said about this: “Wachovia’s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations.”
Yet, the total fine for this offense was less than 2% of the bank’s $12.3 billion profit for 2009 and no one went to jail. No one went to jail.
And, if that’s not bad enough, here’s another one.
  • Headline: The Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2011: “J.P. Morgan Apologizes for Military Foreclosures.” Here is a case where JP Morgan Chase, the largest bank in America, wrecked the finances of 4,000 military families in violation of the Civil Service Members Relief Act, yet no one went to jail.
And, when I say that the business model of Wall Street is fraud that is not just Bernie Sanders talking. That is what financial executives told the University of Notre Dame in a study on the ethics of the financial services industry last year.
According to this study, 51 percent of Wall Street executives making more than $500,000 a year found it likely that their competitors have engaged in unethical or illegal activity in order to gain an edge in the market.
More than one-third of financial executives have either witnessed or have firsthand knowledge of wrongdoing in the workplace.
Nearly one in five financial service professionals believe they must engage in illegal or unethical activity to be successful.
Twenty-five percent of financial executives have signed or been asked to sign a confidentiality agreement that would prohibit reporting illegal or unethical activities to the authorities.
Here’s what one banker from Barclays said in 2010, when he was caught trying to price-fix the $5 trillion-per-day currency market: “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.”
Here’s what an analyst from Standard & Poors said in 2008, “Let’s hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters.”
This country can no longer afford to tolerate the culture of fraud and corruption on Wall Street.
Under my administration, Wall Street CEOs will no longer receive a get-out-of jail free card. Big banks will not be too big to fail. Big bankers will not be too big to jail.
As president, I will nominate and appoint people with a track record of standing up to power, rather than those who have made millions defending Wall Street CEOs. Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks will not be represented in my administration.

Tax on Wall Street Speculation

And, if we are serious about reforming our financial system, we have got to establish a tax on Wall Street speculators. We have got to discourage reckless gambling on Wall Street and encourage productive investments in the job-creating economy.
We will use the revenue from this tax to make public colleges and universities tuition free. During the financial crisis, the middle class of this country bailed out Wall Street. Now, it’s Wall Street’s turn to help the middle class.

Reforming Credit Rating Agencies

We cannot have a safe and sound financial system if we cannot trust the credit agencies to accurately rate financial products. And, the only way we can restore that trust is to make sure credit rating agencies cannot make a profit from Wall Street.
Investors would not have bought the risky mortgage backed derivatives that led to the Great Recession if credit agencies did not give these worthless financial products triple-A ratings – ratings that they knew were bogus.
And, the reason these risky financial schemes were given such favorable ratings is simple. Wall Street paid for them.
Under my administration, we will turn for-profit credit rating agencies into non-profit institutions, independent from Wall Street. No longer will Wall Street be able to pick and choose which credit agency will rate their products.

Cap Credit Card Interest Rates and ATM Fees

If we are going to create a financial system that works for all Americans, we have got to stop financial institutions from ripping off the American people by charging sky-high interest rates and outrageous fees.
In my view, it is unacceptable that Americans are paying a $4 or $5 fee each time they go to the ATM.
It is unacceptable that millions of Americans are paying credit card interest rates of 20 or 30 percent.
The Bible has a term for this practice. It’s called usury. And in The Divine Comedy, Dante reserved a special place in the Seventh Circle of Hell for those who charged people usurious interest rates.
Today, we don’t need the hellfire and the pitch forks, we don’t need the rivers of boiling blood, but we do need a national usury law.
Today, we need to cap interest rates on credit cards and consumer loans at 15 percent.
In 1980, Congress passed legislation to require credit unions to cap interest rates on their loans at no more than 15 percent. And, that law has worked well. Unlike big banks, credit unions did not receive a huge bailout from the taxpayers of this country. It is time to extend this cap to every lender in America.
We must also cap ATM fees at $2.00. People should not have to pay a 10 percent fee for withdrawing $40 of their own money out of an ATM.
Big banks need to stop acting like loan sharks and start acting like responsible lenders.

Allow Post Offices to Offer Banking Services

We also need to give Americans affordable banking options.
The reality is that, unbelievably, millions of low-income Americans live in communities where there are no normal banking services. Today, if you live in a low-income community and you need to cash a check or get a loan to pay for a car repair or a medical emergency, where do you go?
You go to a payday lender who could charge an interest rate of over 300 percent and trap you into a vicious cycle of debt. That is unacceptable.
We need to stop payday lenders from ripping off millions of Americans. Post offices exist in almost every community in our country. One important way to provide decent banking opportunities for low income communities is to allow the U.S. postal Service to engage in basic banking services, and that’s what I will fight for.

Reforming the Federal Reserve

Further, we need to structurally reform the Federal Reserve to make it a more democratic institution responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans, not just the billionaires on Wall Street.
When Wall Street was on the verge of collapse, the Federal Reserve acted with a fierce sense of urgency to save the financial system. We need the Fed to act with the same boldness to combat unemployment and low wages.
In my view, it is unacceptable that the Federal Reserve has been hijacked by the very bankers it is in charge of regulating. I think the American people would be shocked to learn that Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, served on the board of the New York Fed at the same time that his bank received a $391 billion bailout from the Federal Reserve. That is a clear conflict of interest that I would ban as president. When I am elected, the foxes will no longer be guarding the henhouse at the Fed. Under my administration, banking industry executives will no longer be allowed to serve on the Fed’s boards and handpick its members and staff.
Further, the Fed should stop paying financial institutions interest to keep money out of the economy and parked at the Fed. Incredibly, the excess reserves of financial institutions that are sitting in the Federal Reserve has grown from less than $2 billion in 2008 to $2.4 trillion today. That is absurd.
Instead of paying banks interest on these reserves, the Fed should charge them a fee that could be used to provide affordable loans to small businesses to create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Conclusion

Finally, let me tell you what no other candidate will tell you. No president, not Bernie Sanders or anyone else, can effectively address the economic crises facing the working families of this country alone. The truth is that Wall Street, corporate America, the corporate media and wealthy campaign donors are just too powerful.
What this campaign is about is building a political movement which revitalizes American democracy, which brings millions of people together – black and white, Latino, Asian-American, Native American – young and old, men and women, gay and straight, native born and immigrant, people of all religions.
Yes. Wall Street has enormous economic and political power. Yes. Wall Street makes huge campaign contributions, they have thousands of lobbyists and they provide very generous speaking fees to those who go before them.
Yes. They have an endless supply of money. But we have something they don’t have. And that is that when millions of working families stand together, demanding fundamental changes in our financial system, we have the power to bring about that change.
Yes, we can make our economy work for all Americans, not just a handful of wealthy speculators. And, now more than ever, that is exactly what we must do.
And so my message to you today is straightforward: If elected president, I will rein in Wall Street so they can’t crash our economy again.
Will they like me? No. Will they begin to play by the rules if I’m president? You better believe it.
Thank you and I look forward to working with the most powerful force in our great nation, not the Barons of Wall Street but the people our government was created to serve.
HERE's some commentary on Bernie's speech available on the +Daily Kos website, click the links.... 
Bucknackt, yesterday Bernie Sanders gave an important speech in New York City on Wall Street reform—which has much of the Daily Kos community energized and engaged.

Regardless of who you support for the Democratic presidential nomination, we can all agree that Bernie Sanders is a powerful voice against Wall Street greed.

13 November 2014

CONGRATULATIONS SEN ELIZABETH WARREN ON YOUR NEW SENATE LEADERSHIP APPOINTMENT!!! & Elizabeth Warren Gets Senate Democratic Leadership Spot 13NOV14


Congratulations Elizabeth Warren on your new leadership appointment! We look forward to continuing our strong partnership with you!
SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN D MA, Bold Progressive and champion for the American people, has been appointed to the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee by Sen Harry Reid D NV to guide the party on progressive policies that the electorate, even in the 2014 mid term elections in red and blue states, support. I love this quote in +The Huffington Post article "Somebody asked me on the way in here, 'Elizabeth Warren's going to be part of your leadership. What do you expect her to do?' I expect her to be Elizabeth Warren," Reid told reporters during a press conference introducing his new team." From the Bold Progressives of the PCCC / Progressive Change Campaign Committee and +Huffington Post Politics .....

BREAKING NEWS: Warren now in Senate Leadership

BREAKING: Warren in Senate Leadership!!!
Huffington Post reports:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) gained a leadership position in the Senate Democratic caucus Thursday ... Warren's role, which is a new position created specifically for her, will be in crafting the party's messaging and policy.
This is a good reminder that when we invest early in progressive leaders, it's not just about winning elections in the short term -- it's about building power over time.
As Elizabeth Warren advocates for big ideas like reforming Wall Street, making college affordable, and expanding Social Security benefits, her voice will now be even louder -- because she'll be at the Democratic leadership table.
Click here to sign a congratulations card to Elizabeth Warren (and add a personal note), which we will deliver to her.
PCCC members led the "Draft Elizabeth Warren for Senate" campaign. We were her #1 grassroots supporter in 2012, and partnered with Warren on big legislative pushes in 2013 and 2014.
With this news, that partnership grows stronger -- and all of our work together has more impact.
Thanks for being a bold progressive.
-- Stephanie Taylor and Adam Green, PCCC co-founders.

Want to support our work? Ed Schultz called us "The top progressive group in the country"! And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in $3 here.

Elizabeth Warren Gets Senate Democratic Leadership Spot

Posted: Updated:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) joined the Democratic leadership Thursday. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) gained a leadership position in the Senate Democratic caucus Thursday, giving the prominent progressive senator a key role in shaping the party's policy priorities.
Warren's new role, which was created specifically for her, will be strategic policy adviser to the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, helping to craft the party's policy positions and priorities. She will also serve as a liaison to progressive groups to ensure they have a voice in leadership meetings and discussions, according to a source familiar with the role.
A source close to Warren told The Huffington Post that the senator was interested in the position because she wanted to have a seat at the table in the leadership meetings in order to influence the agenda.
Sources told HuffPost that Warren had the strong support of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who wanted her as part of his team. Warren's presence in the weekly leadership meetings and her role helping to shape the caucus' policies are significant achievements for progressives.
"Somebody asked me on the way in here, 'Elizabeth Warren's going to be part of your leadership. What do you expect her to do?' I expect her to be Elizabeth Warren," Reid told reporters during a press conference introducing his new team.
Reid's support for Warren also underscores his desire to push progressive policies in the next Congress, a priority his office has confirmed.
"If the ballot measure results are any indication, actual progressive policies remain popular with voters in red and blue states. I believe you’ll see a Senate Democratic caucus fight on behalf of those policies and provide the votes if and when Republicans are ready to act," Faiz Shakir, a senior adviser to Reid, told HuffPost earlier this month.
Speaking to reporters after the leadership elections, Warren sounded familiar themes when detailing what her policy priorities would be.
"Wall Street … is doing very well, CEOs are bringing in millions more and families all across the country are struggling," she said. "We have to make this government work for the American people. And that's what I will fight for."
The Warren announcement took many senators by surprise, with some saying that the leadership simply informed them of the change with little debate.
"It's a fait accompli," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), adding that there wasn't much discussion about what exactly Warren would be doing.
Throughout Senate history, individual members have often steered away from leadership positions, worried that the horse-trading and consensus-gathering that leadership involves would neuter their power. But the Senate has been evolving in recent years into a much more leadership-driven institution, in which individual senators and even chairmen have less power than they once did compared to caucus leadership. Today, decisions that would have been made in side negotiations, in committee or on the floor are instead made by leadership.
It's those meetings that Warren will now be a part of. At the same time, she will diminish her ability to maintain that inside position if she criticizes the party from the outside. That dilemma, however, has been with her every step of her career, as she has moved closer to the center of power.
"I really rather doubt, knowing Elizabeth Warren as I have over the last couple of years, that she's going to give up her progressive views and her strong commitment to consumers, even if she is part of the leadership," Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said Thursday. "I can't imagine that happening."
Erica Sagrans, campaign manager of Ready for Warren -- the campaign to convince Warren to run for president -- welcomed the senator's new role.
"Warren's new role shows how much of a leading voice she's become," said Sagrans. "It's a great opportunity to put her vision for working families front and center in Washington."
Jennifer Bendery, Michael McAuliff and Sabrina Siddiqui contributed reporting.



06 November 2014

Critics say Elizabeth Warren 'lives in a $5.4 million mansion' 29OKT14

A person knows they are a threat to the rich and powerful when they are attacked by anonymous sources. Here is one such attack on Sen Elizabeth Warren D MA, who is an unrelenting and powerful advocate for the protection and rights of all regular Americans (the 99%) and for the regulation of the bank-financial cabal and wall street as well as the prosecution of the corporate executives who brought down the American economy in the great recession of 2008 (the recession we are still recovering from). She forced the creation of the CFPB / Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and will continue as Chairperson of the US Senate Banking Committee until the 114th US Congress is sworn in in January 2015 when she will be the minority leader of the committee. This from +PolitiFact .....

Mostly False
Facebook posts
Says Sen. Elizabeth Warren "lives in a $5.4 million mansion."
— Facebook posts on Wednesday, October 29th, 2014 in a meme on social media

Critics say Elizabeth Warren 'lives in a $5.4 million mansion'

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has been in demand as a speaker at Democratic campaign events this year. Here she campaigns for the Democratic Senate candidate in Iowa, Bruce Braley, on Oct. 19, 2014, in Des Moines.
We checked this social media meme critical of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
Nothing animates political discussions like the appearance of hypocrisy. And for some critics these days, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., offers a tempting target.
Warren, elected in 2012, has become a leader of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, decrying the excesses of Wall Street and income inequality. These efforts -- and the possibility that she could run for president in 2016 -- has made her a high-profile political figure.
Here’s a social media meme we recently received:
"Senator Liz Warren lives in a $5.4M mansion, claimed 'Native American' status to score a Harvard gig paying $350,000 to teach one class, and now lectures us that 'the system is rigged to benefit the rich.' "
That’s a lot to chew on, so we’ll limit our analysis here to the claim that Warren "lives in a $5.4 million mansion."
It’s a claim that mirrors others cited elsewhere in the media -- for instance, in an op-ed in the Boston Herald and in an article in the Huffington Post, both of which say Warren’s house is worth $5 million.
But is it really worth that much? No.
After plowing through public real estate data, we found that the house Warren shares with her husband, Bruce Mann, is worth less than half that -- though it’s located in a desirable neighborhood in Cambridge, Mass., so it’s still pretty expensive by most Americans’ standards. (Warren's staff did not respond to an inquiry for this story.)
House values
According to real estate records, Warren’s house -- a clapboard Victorian built in 1890 -- was purchased in 1995 for $447,000. Back then, the median sale price for a single-family home in Cambridge was roughly $300,000, so the house was definitely above average for the city at the time.
The amount paid for the house in 1995 works out to just shy of $700,000 in today’s dollars. But it was a smart purchase. The house’s assessed value for 2015 was a bit over $1.9 million, and as is often the case, the expected resale value is higher.
The real estate website Zillow.com estimates that the house’s value today is about $2.4 million. That’s well above the median price of homes currently listed in Cambridge, which Zillow says is $639,000, though in Warren’s immediate neighborhood, several houses have values exceeding $2 million and more exceed $1 million, according to Zillow.
It’s worth noting that the use of the term "mansion" may be a bit of a stretch. The house has two bedrooms and three-and-a-half baths, and 3,728 square feet of living space. According to the Census Bureau, the median new home in the northeastern United States in 2010 had 2,392 square feet. So Warren’s house is bigger than average, but hardly Versailles.
Indeed, almost half of the house’s $1.9 million in assessed value comes from the land, not the structure itself. And a key factor in the price growth likely stems from its location in a good school district, the easy access to fancy neighborhood amenities, and its close proximity to Harvard University, where Mann is a law professor, and where Warren taught before winning her Senate race.
So where did the $5 million figure come from? A garbled financial disclosure report, most likely.
Warren’s 2011 financial disclosure report, required of Senate candidates, listed the house as having a value of between $1 million and $5 million. This disclosure form only requires the candidate to gauge asset values within broad ranges, rather than a specific amount. Somewhere along the line, some authors started neglecting to mention that the $5 million figure was the upper range for the house, not its specific value. (Other articles were more careful.)
A final note: Warren is wealthy by national standards, but so are a lot of other senators. In the most recent Roll Call survey of congressional net worth, Warren ranks 24th among senators with an estimated net worth of $3.66 million, and 76th among the 535 members of the House and Senate combined. So her net worth is well above average, but it’s nowhere near the congressional or senatorial top 1 percent.
Our ruling
The social media meme said Warren "lives in a $5.4 million mansion." Warren does live in a desirable neighborhood in an expensive urban center, which means that her house is much more expensive than that of most Americans.
Still, the meme overshoots the facts of the case. The house’s estimated value is less than half of the stated $5.4 million, and calling it a mansion is a stretch. The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, so we rate it Mostly False.

About this statement:

Published: Wednesday, October 29th, 2014 at 4:20 p.m.
Researched by: Caryn Baird, Louis Jacobson
Edited by: Angie Drobnic Holan
Subjects: Candidate Biography, Housing

Sources:

Social media meme critical of Elizabeth Warren
U.S. Senate, financial disclosure form for Elizabeth Warren, Dec. 29, 2011
City of Cambridge, Mass., property database, accessed Oct. 29, 2014
Zillow.com, Cambridge Home Prices & Values, accessed Oct. 29, 2014
Cambridge Community Development Department, "Housing Profile," Aug. 2010
U.S. Census Bureau, "Median and Average Square Feet of Floor Area in New Single-Family Houses Completed by Location," accessed Oct. 29, 2014
Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI inflation calculator, accessed Oct. 29, 2014
Roll Call, "Wealth of Congress," Oct. 22, 2014
New York Post, "Mass. masquerader," Nov. 21, 2011
Huffington Post, "Elizabeth Warren, Worth Millions, Says Members Of Congress Shouldn't Own Stock," Jan. 28, 2012
New York magazine, "A Saint With Sharp Elbows," Nov. 13, 2011
Boston Herald, "Cohen: One-percenter Liz Warren milks system then slams it in phony soundbites," April 26, 2014
Human Events, "Elizabeth Warren Goes Native," May 7, 2012

13 October 2014

Elizabeth Warren: The Obama Administration Chose to Protect Wall Street, Not Families & EXCLUSIVE: Elizabeth Warren on Barack Obama: “They protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. And it happened over and over and over” 13&12OKT14

THIS is why I count myself a member of the Elizabeth Warren Wing of the Democratic Party. No time for the wishy-washy, kow-towing dinos and third way democrats here, just truth, social justice and the American social contract way! She is respectfully un-intimidated by office and wealth and so is not afraid to speak her mind. She lets the Obama fiscal policy managers and supporters, and the President have it for their deliberate decision to abandon the poor, retired and the working and middle classes in the great recession. Some may question the timing of her comments with the 2014 midterm elections 3 weeks away. Actually, the timing is spot on, because her comments remind people the Obama administration along with congressional dinos and third way democrats compromised with the opposition in congress to promote and pass the gop / tea-bagger agenda that increased and prolonged the economic suffering of everyone but the politicians and their rich corporate masters. Maybe her words will be enough to open some eyes so they will see their way to vote for bold progressives candidates where they can or to vote for the mainstream Democrat if no progressive candidate is running, or for an independent candidate, in short, for anyone but a republican / tea-bagger. This from +Mother Jones followed by the full interview with +Salon .....
| Mon Oct. 13, 2014 3:20 PM EDT
In a new interview with Salon, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) leveled a bit of harsh criticism towards President Barack Obama's administration, charging his financial advisors with routinely favoring big banks following the financial crisis, rather than looking out for ordinary Americans.
"They protected Wall Street," Warren said. "Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. Not young people who were struggling to get an education. And it happened over and over and over."
But the senator, who was responding to columnist Thomas Frank's question regarding Democrats' mounting disappointment since the 2008 election, stopped short of issuing a scathing rebuke, largely pointing the finger at Obama's economic team for deregulation failures. She also made sure to credit the president with the creation of the Consumer Financial Bureau.
"If Barack Obama had not been president of the United States we would not have a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Period," Warren said. "I’m completely convinced of that...He was the one who refused to throw the agency under the bus and made sure that his team kept the agency alive and on the table."
As for continued confusion regarding the bureau's name itself, Warren jokingly blamed Republicans for the head-scratching.
"It was named by Republicans to be as confusing a name as possible. I used to think of it as the four random initials. I just call it my consumer agency. So that’s it, just the consumer agency."
Warren also noted that in light of Attorney General Eric Holder's recent resignation announcement, she would work to confirm a successor who will fully prosecute banking executives.
Warren's remarks follow last week's meeting at the White House between Obama and financial regulators to propose additional regulatory measures.
 

EXCLUSIVE: Elizabeth Warren on Barack Obama: “They protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. And it happened over and over and over”

"There has not been nearly enough change," she tells Salon, taking on Obama failures, lobbyists, tuition. So 2016?

  • EXCLUSIVE: Elizabeth Warren on Barack Obama: "They protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. And it happened over and over and over"Elizabeth Warren (Credit: AP/Charles Dharapak)
Senator Elizabeth Warren scarcely requires an introduction. She is the single most exciting Democrat currently on the national stage.
Her differentness from the rest of the political profession is stark and obvious. It extends from her straightforward clarity on economic issues to the energetic way she talks. I met her several years ago when she was taking time out from her job teaching at Harvard to run the Congressional Oversight Panel, which was charged with supervising how the bank bailout money was spent. I discovered on that occasion not only that we agreed on many points of policy, but that she came originally from Oklahoma, the state immediately south of the one where I grew up, and also that high school debate had been as important for her as it had been for me.
In the years since then, Professor Warren helped to launch the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (which will probably be remembered as one of the few lasting achievements of the Obama Administration); she wrote a memoir, A Fighting Chance; and she was elected to the United States Senate from Massachusetts.
This interview was condensed and lightly edited.
I want to start by talking about a line that you’re famous for, from your speech at the Democratic National Convention two years ago: “The system is rigged.” You said exactly what was on millions of people’s minds. I wonder, now that you’re in D.C. and you’re in the Senate, and you have a chance to see things close up, do you still feel that way? And: Is there a way to fix the system without getting the Supreme Court to overturn Citizens United or some huge structural change like that? How can we fix it?
That’s the question that lies at the heart of whether our democracy will survive. The system is rigged. And now that I’ve been in Washington and seen it up close and personal, I just see new ways in which that happens. But we have to stop and back up, and you have to kind of get the right diagnosis of the problem, to see how it is that—it goes well beyond campaign contributions. That’s a huge part of it. But it’s more than that. It’s the armies of lobbyists and lawyers who are always at the table, who are always there to make sure that in every decision that gets made, their clients’ tender fannies are well protected. And when that happens — not just once, not just twice, but thousands of times a week — the system just gradually tilts further and further. There is no one at the table…I shouldn’t say there’s no one. I don’t want to overstate. You don’t have to go into hyperbole. But there are very few people at the decision-making table to argue for minimum-wage workers. Very few people.


They need to get a lobbyist. Why haven’t they got on that yet?
Yeah. Why aren’t they out there spending? In the context when people talk about “get a lobbyist,” the big financial institutions spent more than a million dollars a day for more than a year during the financial reform debates. And my understanding is, their spending has ratcheted up again. My insight about that, about exactly that point, [is] in the book [A Fighting Chance], in the second chapter, which is when my eyes first get opened to the political system. Here I am, I’m studying what’s happening to the American family, and just year by year by year, I’m watching America’s middle class get hammered. They just keep sliding further down. The data get worse every year that I keep pulling this data. Bankruptcy is the last hope to right their lives for those who have been hit by serious medical problems, job losses, a divorce, a death in the family — that accounts for about 90 percent of the people who file for bankruptcy. Those four causes, or those three if you combine divorce and death. So, how could America, how could Congress adopt a bankruptcy bill that lets credit card companies squeeze those families harder?
What year was that?
When they finally adopted it was 2005. But the point was, it started back in — actually it started in 1995, the effort [to change the bankruptcy laws]. And that’s when I got involved with the Bankruptcy Commission. When, first, [commission chairman] Mike Synar came to me, and then Mike Synar died. It was just awful. And Brady Williamson [the replacement chairman] came to me. But what I saw during that process is, this was not an independent panel that could kind of sit and think through the [problem]: “Let’s take a look at what the numbers show about what’s happening to the families. Let’s take some testimony, get some people in here who have been through bankruptcy, and some creditors who have lost money in bankruptcy, and let’s figure out some places where we could make some sensible recommendations to Congress.” That wasn’t what it turned out to be at all.
It turned out that it was all about paid lobbyists . . .
And what they wanted.
And what they wanted. I tried as hard as I could, and there were almost no bankrupt families who were ever even heard from. And you stop and think about it — why would that be so? Well, first of all, to show up to something like that, you’ve got to know about it and you’ve got to take a day off from work. Who’s going to do that? These are families who are under enormous stress and deeply humiliated about what had happened to them. They had to make a public declaration that they were losers in the great American economic game.
I know exactly the kind of people you’re talking about. I wanted to ask you, not specifically about people declaring bankruptcy, but about the broader working people of this country. You’re from Oklahoma. I’m from Kansas. You’ve seen what’s happened in those places. There are lots and lots of working people in those places and a lot of other places…
Hardworking people. People who work hard. That’s what you want to remember. Not just people who kind of occasionally show up.
Yeah. The blue collar backbone of this country. And in places like I’m describing, it gets worse every year—well, I shouldn’t say worse, because it’s their choice, but a lot of them choose Republicans. I was looking at Oklahoma, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, I’m pretty sure you are, 16 percent of the vote went for Eugene Debs in 1912 and today it’s going in the other direction as fast as it can. How is this ever going to change?
I have at least two thoughts around that and we should explore both of them. One of them is that we need to do a better job of talking about issues. And I know that sounds boring and dull as dishwater, but it’s true. The differences between voting for two candidates should be really clear to every voter and it should be clear in terms of, who votes to raise the minimum wage and who doesn’t. Who votes to lower the interest rate on student loans and who doesn’t. Who votes to make sure women can’t get fired for asking how much a guy is making for doing the same job, and who doesn’t. There are these core differences that are about equality and opportunity. It can’t be that we don’t make a clear distinction. If we fail to make that distinction, then shame on us. That is my bottom line on this.
You know, during the Senate race that I was in — I mean, I was a first-time candidate, I’d never done this before — the thing that scared me the most was that the race wouldn’t be about the core differences between my opponent and me. I wanted people to understand where I stood on investments in the future, investments in education and research that help us build a future. Where I stood on the minimum wage and equal pay. And where he stood on the other side. The point was not to blur the differences and to run to some mythical middle where we agreed with each other. The point was to say that, here are really big differences between the two of us. Voters have a chance to make a choice.
In some ways that’s exactly the problem. When I talk to people, they often say Democrats aren’t the party of working people at all. And they talk about NAFTA and deregulating Wall Street, and they say, look at these guys, they won’t prosecute the financial industry. They say, Democrats talk a good game, but they’re always on the side of the elite at the end of the day. What do you say to these people?
We’re the only ones fighting back. Right now, on financial reform, the Republicans are trying to roll back the financial reforms of Dodd-Frank. In fact, Mitch McConnell has announced that if he gets the majority in the Senate, his first objective is to repeal healthcare and his second is to roll back the financial reforms, and in particular to target the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — the one agency that’s out there for American families, the one that has returned more than four billion dollars to families who got cheated by big financial institutions. That’s in just three years.
So, Democrats have not done all that they should, but at least we’re out there fighting for the right things. We’re fighting and I think trying to pull in the right direction. So if the question is, hold us to a higher standard, man, I’m there. You’re right. [If] you want to criticize and say, “you should do more!,” the answer is: Yes, we should! You bet! We should be stronger. We should be tougher. But understand the difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party right now. It’s pulling as hard and fast as it can in the opposite direction.
No doubt about that. I should ask you about — and we’re talking about the financial crisis and the failure to prosecute anyone, and the…I’m sorry, I’m going to get the name confused, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
That’s okay. It was named by Republicans to be as confusing a name as possible. (laughs) I used to think of it as the four random initials. (laughs) I just call it my consumer agency. So that’s it, just the consumer agency.
So here’s another aspect of this: Eric Holder is stepping down as attorney general, and you in the Senate are going to have to confirm a successor. And one of the things, I don’t know if you’ve followed this or not, but one of the things the Department of Justice has been doing, if you look at the actual prosecutions they’ve been making, they essentially blame the financial crisis on little people. People who lied on their loan applications. And I wonder, are you going to demand something different out of his successor? You’re going to have a chance to confirm this guy and talk to this guy…
You bet I am. I want to be clear on this. It’s the Justice Department. But it’s also the banking regulators. And the SEC. So the most recent hearing we held that had them all in together — you know we get them in twice a year — and, boy, you want to ask me if I’m glad to be in the United States Senate? (laughs) I get to be on the Banking Committee, and twice a year we haul the banking regulators in front of us for supervision. For oversight I should say, not supervision. So we had them all in. . . . We had them all in, in July. And that was the question I asked: How many big bank executives have you referred to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution?
That’s a very good question. I was going to ask you that, too.
Exactly right. Because that’s the other half of how the game is rigged. You know, we think of it in terms of Congress, and we should, because it’s definitely rigged in Congress and this is a place where people can do something about it. But the wind always blows from the same direction through the agencies. Those agencies, the banking regulators, who do they hear from, day in and day out? Big banks. They don’t hear from people who got cheated on their mortgages, people who got tricked on their credit cards. They hear from the big financial institutions, day after day after day. That’s, in part, what this whole Fed — this latest scandal at the Fed — you know with Carmen Segarra who has the tapes. Part of what that shows, if you just back up and think about what you’re seeing there, it’s that the supervisors, or regulators as they’re called — everybody commonly calls them that — the regulators all meet with Goldman Sachs executives and employees day after day after day. They don’t see the people who get tricked, the people who get cheated, the people who get fooled by the products that Goldman turns out.
That’s right. Regulatory capture, this is an old problem. I was writing about it, obviously, in the Bush days. But President Obama had a golden opportunity when he came in to change the system and I just don’t feel like it has changed, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau aside. I mean, are the regulators now referring things to the Justice Department? Are the wheels turning again?
There has not been nearly enough change. Not nearly enough. The consumer agency — this is why I argued for it — the consumer agency is structural change. So basically, the premise behind it was that there were plenty of federal laws out there, but no agency would step up and enforce them. And the responsibilities of these laws were scattered among seven different agencies and not one of those agencies saw its principal job as looking out for American families. So the OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] was all about bank profitability, the Fed was all about monetary policy. Everybody had something that they were about, but consumer protection was everybody’s job and therefore nobody’s job. You know, it was down seventh, or tenth or hundredth on the list and they never got to it, even as the big financial institutions were selling mortgages that should have been described as grenades with the pins pulled out. Really! My whole thing about toasters—remember, that was based on fact. At the time I wrote that piece on it, that was before the crash, one in five mortgages that were being marketed by the biggest financial institutions were exploding and costing people their homes. No one would permit toasters to be sold when one in five exploded and burned down somebody’s house. But they were selling mortgages like that and every regulator knew about it.
And those people who had it blow up in their faces, those are the ones we’re prosecuting.
Oh God. So exactly right. Well, to the extent we do [prosecute] anyone. But that’s exactly right. And so the idea behind the consumer agency was to say: structural change. We need an agency that has one and only one goal, and that is to look out for American families. To level the playing field, to make sure that people are not getting tricked and trapped on these financial instruments. And so it was a big shift, and it’s a shift worth thinking about. We took away — Dodd-Frank took away — all this responsibility that had nominally been spread among the other agencies, concentrated it in one agency, and now holds that agency accountable. So you give the agency the tools and then hold them accountable. The reason I think that story is so important is because it is structural. It’s not just a question of, “Gee, get good people and somehow things will work better.” There are structural changes we have to make. . . . The idea, the question that haunted me at the agency was: How do we make sure the agency is true to its mission, not just today with the people that we hire in the first plume of excitement, but 30 years from now, 40 years from now, 50 years from now…
Yeah, that’s the problem, when President Huckabee has . . . [At this point Senator Warren conferred with an aide about her schedule.] Can I skip to another subject real quick?
You can.
Let’s get back to the mindset of a lot of people. They look at you and they say, Elizabeth Warren, she’s part of the elite too. She was a professor at Harvard. And people would also say, look at the student loan disaster which you talk a lot about these days, the root cause of it is college tuition, which has increased by a thousand percent in 30 years. You look at the advertised price at Harvard right now, I know that not everybody pays it, but the advertised price is sixty grand a year. If you have three kids and all of them have to pay that much for four years—you know what I’m talking about?
I do.
Nobody can afford that. Is it time to do something about college tuition?
Absolutely. Yes it is. But let’s get the right frame on this. Because I think this is really important, and it’s the right question to ask. But start with this: three out of four kids in college are in public universities. A generation ago, state support for public universities was strong enough that three out of four dollars to educate those kids came from taxpayers and the family had to make up the difference for the fourth dollar. Today, that has basically reversed itself. That is, that the states are putting up, just generally across the country, about one out of four dollars and the families have got to come up with the other three out of four dollars. This matters because it is the state universities that are the backbone of access to higher education for middle class families, and I think that’s the place you have to start the conversation. I’m not going to let anybody off the hook, but I think it’s the critical part of the conversation. And I say this — it’s like I talk about in the book — this is personal for me. I graduated from a commuter college that cost $50 a semester in Texas.
Those were the days.
That’s right. It opened a million doors for me. And that happened because I grew up in an America that was investing in its kids. That America is gone. We’re not doing that anymore. So I start there at the heart of it. . . . And then there’s a second piece that we’ve got to factor into the equation, and that is: one in 10 kids in college is in a for-profit university. Actually, here are three numbers. They’re not perfect, but they’re just about right: 10, 25, 50. Ten percent of our kids are in for-profit universities, colleges. Those for-profit universities are sucking down 25 percent of federal loan dollars, and they are responsible for 50 percent of all student loan defaults.
It’s an outrage.
So we are, the federal government is currently subsidizing a for-profit industry that is ripping off young people. Those young people are graduating — many of them are never graduating — and of those that are graduating, many of them have certificates that won’t get them jobs, that don’t produce the benefits of a state college education.
You know somebody to talk to sometime if you want to ever do a separate story on this is Marty Meehan [who] is the president of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. And what he talks about is, particularly, the young vets who come to UMass-Lowell already sixty or seventy thousand dollars in debt without a single college credit that will transfer to an accredited university. Now, think about that.
So who do you think gets targeted by these for-profit universities? It’s kids who are the first in their family to go to college. It’s not happening to the sons and daughters of graduates from elite schools. It’s happening to young people who are the first in their family to graduate from college. Many of them have come out of the military, they’ve gone into the military straight from high school. They’ve now completed their military service. These are strivers, boot-strappers, hard-working kids who are the very kids we most want to make sure the doors of opportunity are open for. You know who else goes [to these schools]? It’s young, single mothers who are trying to make something out of their lives, many of them are working two and even three jobs, who believe that if they can get a college education, their children will have opportunities that would otherwise be closed off, and yet that’s not what they’re getting. They’re getting preyed on by these schools. So I mention this only by way of saying, when we look at college — you’re not wrong — we have got to use the leverage of the federal government investment to bring down the cost of college across the board. But we’ve got particular problems to focus on, both in support for public universities and the resources that are being drained away by the for-profit schools.
Here’s the penultimate question: everything you’re saying are issues that have been important to me most of my adult life. In 2008, I thought I had a candidate who was going to address these things. Right? Barack Obama. Today, my friends and I are pretty disappointed with what he’s done. I wonder if you feel he has been forthright enough on these subjects. And I also wonder if you think that someone can take any of this stuff on without being president. You know, there are a lot of good politicians in America who have their heart in the right place. But they’re not the president. Well anyhow. You understand my frustration…
I understand your frustration, Tom and, actually, I talk about this in the book. When I think about the president, for me, it’s about both halves. If Barack Obama had not been president of the United States we would not have a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Period. I’m completely convinced of that. And I go through the details in the book, and I could tell them to you. But he was the one who refused to throw the agency under the bus and made sure that his team kept the agency alive and on the table. Now there was a lot of other stuff that also had to happen for it to happen. But if he hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t have gotten the agency. At the same time, he picked his economic team and when the going got tough, his economic team picked Wall Street.
You might say, “always.” Just about every time they had to compromise, they compromised in the direction of Wall Street.
That’s right. They protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. Not young people who were struggling to get an education. And it happened over and over and over. So I see both of those things and they both matter.
Is there anything someone can do about all the things we’re describing, short of being president?
But we keep fighting back. The way to think about this is not…. Yes, we want the right person for president. You bet. But it’s all of us fighting back. . . . This is, and actually, this is where we almost started this conversation — how, as a people, we reclaim our government. How we, as a people, force Washington to work for us, not just for those with money and power. So I just gave a speech this morning. It’s interesting you would catch me on this particular day. I spoke to the New England Council so we had lots of CEOs and COOs — about 300 people — and I spoke on a not very sexy topic, on infrastructure and basic research. And I made the pitch about the importance of both of those. You know, gave some of the basic stats on why both are so important to building a future for this country. Then I did the basic stats on how we’re falling short. Where we’re cutting our investments — where we’ve been cutting our investments for 30 years. The Society of Civil Engineers says we’ve got $3.4 trillion in infrastructure underfunding — work that we need to do to bring our infrastructure up to current standards. So I talked about this and about the importance of it in building a future.
But the third part of the speech was the political part. It was the democracy part. I said, “So how could this happen in a country like America? I mean, I’m sitting here with you. You’re business leaders. Nobody would run a business like this. To under-invest in the key pieces to help build a future. So how does this happen?” It happens because there are a lot of people in Washington who say the answer to everything is, cut taxes. And when you’ve cut them as much as you can, cut them some more. And a lot of people have the corollary to that, and that is — cut spending. And it’s spending in all of the basics that help build a future: cut spending in education, in resource management, in infrastructure, in research, in core pieces we need to build a future.
“It’s there,” I said. “Look, get out there and fight back against this. I’m glad to do it. But I can’t do it alone. You have to get out there. You’re business leaders! You have to say ‘enough is enough.’ We have to build a future going forward.” And I said, “We need your voices. You have to be out there on the front lines. I’m glad to be out here. I’ll take the point. I’ll be in the leadership spot. I’ll talk about it, I’ll be loud, I’ll be blunt. But we need your voices in this. That’s the way we build a future.” And I feel like it’s all this series of issues we talked about, we have got to bring more people in.
You know, the other side has its advantage, and boy have they played it out for 30 years now — concentrated money and concentrated power. And you can do a lot with concentrated money and concentrated power. But our side—we have our voices and we have our votes. If people get engaged on the issues, the votes are on our side. Seventy-five percent of America wants to raise the minimum wage. That’s where we’ll head.
There’s a lot of issues like that.
But that’s the point. Look, there are two ways you can look at that. You can look at that and say, “Well, obviously, democracy doesn’t work.” Or the other way you can look at that is to say, “We have the opportunity. The moment is upon us.” We push back hard enough, we’re pushing for America’s agenda. Not an agenda to help a small group of people, an agenda to build a future for this country. And I believe we win. I believe it.
Thomas Frank Thomas Frank is a Salon politics and culture columnist. His many books include "What's The Matter With Kansas," "Pity the Billionaire" and "One Market Under God." He is the founding editor of The Baffler magazine.