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Portal:Real Economy Project
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Toxic Assets Getting You Down?
The big banks on Wall Street have blown a hole in the economy that will take many years to repair. Since the recession began in December 2007, the number of unemployed Americans has risen from 7.6 million to 15.1 million. The formal unemployment rate is rapidly approaching double digits and many of these lost jobs are being permanently shipped overseas. Americans are losing health care benefits at a rapid clip and the historic stimulus package passed by the Obama administration is beginning to run out of steam. We are in a big hole and it is going to take big ideas to climb out of it. The goal of our www.BanksterUSA.org website and our larger “Real Economy Project” is to simplify these complex issues and give you a voice in the debate surrounding proposed public policy fixes. As policymakers get ready to tackle much needed financial-sector reforms, your voice is essential if the needs of Main Street America are to be prioritized over the narrow interests of Wall Street.
This fully-sourced research companion to BankstersUSA.org is a collection of editable wiki profiles of the bankers, financial companies, lobbyists, reformers, front groups, issues and legislation related to the financial crisis and the bank bailout. Don't let the Banskters write the history of this tumultuous time in America! You can help us build this library and document the people and policies behind the financial crisis by visiting the "Help Out" section below. Our motto is "fair, accurate and documented."(About/contact)
Plain Talk: Restore law and split up banks
Nov. 18, 2009
Ten years ago, the Republican-controlled Congress — egged on by that champion deregulator, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm — passed legislation that arguably did more to plunge the United States into our crippling great recession than anything else: It repealed the Great Depression era’s Glass-Steagall Act.
Then on Nov. 12, 1999, an acquiescent Democratic president, Bill Clinton, signed the repeal into law.
Glass-Steagall stood as a firewall between commercial banks and Wall Street since 1933, when the country’s leaders heeded the lessons of the 1929 stock market crash and set in place strict regulations in an attempt to prevent such an economic calamity from happening again.
Bernanke Blames the Banks, Trumka Calls His Bluff
Nov. 17, 2009
America’s financial sector has blown a hole in the economy so large that it will take many years to repair. The formal unemployment rate is above 10 percent and underemployment is an astonishing 17.5 percent. Yet last week, Bloomberg News calculated that the top three bailed-out Wall Street firms are on track to pay $30 billion in bonuses to their top officers this year and the Wall Street Journal estimated that the bonus pool for the financial sector as a whole is $140 billion.
Taxpayers have done their share. They have put trillions of dollars at risk in an effort to stabilize the financial system and have gotten little in return. Too many banks are not lending to small businesses, they are not helping American families facing foreclosure, but they are raising credit card and other bank fees at a rapid clip.
While many have been starkly critical of bank performance, yesterday criticism came from a new source, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.s
"Golden Throne" Award Presented to Scott Talbott of the Financial Services Roundtable
November 12, 2009
The Golden Throne Award salutes the behind-the-scenes lobbyists and spinmeisters of the financial services sector who have done their utmost to hold off any meaningful reform of their industry, even after collapsing the global economy and sending the U.S. unemployment rate above 10%. It invokes fond memories of the $1.2 million office renovation – with its $35,000 commode – ordered by Merrill Lynch's CEO, John Thain, shortly before the firm lost $27 billion and was rescued from extinction by Bank of America.
SCOTT TALBOTT is a top lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable. The Roundtable lobbies on behalf of 100 of the top banks, credit card companies, insurance and securities firms operating in the United States. Its membership includes many bailed-out banks including: Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and PNC.
Anniversary Sparks Renewed Efforts to Break Up the Banks
November 10, 2009
Thursday, November 12th marks the ten year anniversary of the repeal of the depression-era Glass-Steagall Act that protected consumers from casino-style gambling on Wall Street and prevented significant financial crises for almost 60 years. As Congress took up a series of bills this fall to restore confidence in the financial sector, notably lacking were any bills to break up the big banks and restore Glass-Steagall protections. Until now!
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Friday, November 6th, introduced legislation to require the Treasury Department to identify the "too big to fail" institutions and break them up within a year so that their failure will no longer have a catastrophic effect on the United States or global economy.
Both Republicans and Democrats Support Meaningful Bank Reform
In addition a growing list of prominent people from the left and the right support the notion of breaking up the banks, including: former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, former head of the Department of Labor Robert Reich, and Republican Senator Richard Shelby. Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) is considering similar legislation in the House.
The Real Economy Project needs volunteers to help document the people and policies behind the financial crisis and bank bailout. Help can be found at "welcome, newcomers!"; the main help page; and the FAQ.
Reform profile: Glass-Steagall Act
The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 created the regulatory framework for banking following the depression-era collapse of much of the banking system. It established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and included other banking reforms. It placed legal restrictions on combined banking and financial service firms.
The 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealed much of the Glass-Steagall Act and is credited with being one direct cause of the 2008 financial collapse.
Bank profile: Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs gave $478,250 to federal candidates in the 05/06 election period through its political action committee - 35% to Democrats and 65% to Republicans. The company spent $2,380,000 for lobbying in 2006. $1,031,250 went to nine outside lobbying firms with the remainder being spent using in-house lobbyists. The lobbying firms included DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, The Duberstein Group, and Vinson & Elkins.
More help on uncovering the real economy:
- SubsidyScope, a project of the PEW Charitable Trusts, has a wealth of information, charts, graphs and datasets on the bank bailout, as well as a map of recipients of TARP bailout funds, by county. The map is here and their general financial bailout project page is here.
- Featured report: Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America. This 231-page report issued by Essential Information and the Consumer Education Fund tallies the 12 deregulatory steps that set the financial crisis in motion and the money spent by Wall Street to buy Congress. The financial sector invested more than $5 billion in political influence purchasing in Washington over the past decade, with as many as 3,000 lobbyists winning deregulation and other policy decisions that led directly to the current financial collapse, according to the report.The report shows that, from 1998-2008, Wall Street investment firms, commercial banks, hedge funds, real estate companies and insurance conglomerates made $1.725 billion in political contributions and spent another $3.4 billion on lobbyists, a financial juggernaut aimed at undercutting federal regulation. Nearly 3,000 officially registered federal lobbyists worked for the industry in 2007 alone. The report documents a dozen distinct deregulatory moves that, together, led to the financial meltdown. These include prohibitions on regulating financial derivatives; the repeal of regulatory barriers between commercial banks and investment banks; a voluntary regulation scheme for big investment banks; and federal refusal to act.
- ProPublica's "Eye on the Bailout"
Tracking the bailout funds: "Our lists of recipients and programs deal only with expenditures by the Treasury Department – in other words, taxpayer money. We've included all such money allocated by Congress, both the broader $700 billion TARP bill and the separate $400 billion bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: a total of $1.1 trillion. But the Treasury hasn't been working alone – it's been putting up big money alongside the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Our entries for individual financial institutions and programs indicate when the Treasury has committed funds in conjunction with the Fed and/or FDIC, but for a complete accounting of the Fed's and FDIC's spending so far, see Subsidyscope. Most of the data shown in our project comes from the Treasury Department. But in a few cases, we've gathered information from other government agencies or press releases and regulatory filings from bailout recipients."
ProPublica also has a graphical "History of U.S. Government Bailouts" here and a useful "Bailout Timeline."
Latest bank bailouts from: <rss>http://feeds.propublica.org/propublica/watchdog/bailouts-list</rss>
- Consumer Financial Protection Agency
- Goldman Sachs
- Lehman Brothers
- JPMorgan Chase
- Bank of America
- The "plutonomy memos" from Michael Moore's movie, Capitalism, A Love Story
- Financial crisis and bank bailout resources
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