FINANCIAL

promoted to primary 6/14

biggest political donor, plus financialization of economy (goes back to JP M, accodingto Prins)capt 12/17

=6/16= quintet of House incumbents and challengers are far more reliant on the financial world to fuel their campaigns than most others running for a seat in that body — they’ve received twice as much from the securities and investment industry in the 2016 election cycle as they have from their next highest donor industry, OpenSecrets‘ Anomaly Tracker shows. A bipartisan bunch, they are: Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) and David Jolly (R-Fla.) and candidates Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Andrew Heaney (R-N.Y.). The two non-incumbents have raised the most from the Wall Street-centered industry. That makes sense, considering they’re running to represent two of the country’s most prominent Valleys in the financial realm: Silicon and Hudson. Khanna, a former Obama administration official headed into a rematch in the California Democratic primary this month with Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), has long projected himself as the new, young face that can represent Silicon Valley better than the Baby Boomer currently occupying the seat and collecting ethics complaints. Click here to <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://opensecrets.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=aa7cf182bf7041258bb250f9d&id=4724d6b996&e=44dfb36771" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; background: transparent;">read the full article</a>.==

The Consumer Coalition's top issues, Wise says, are reforming the CFPB to weaken its power; <a href="http://www.saveuber.com/" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">"saving" Uber</a>, the popular ride-dispatching app; and attacking <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/benghazi-gun-scandal-issa-operation-choke-point" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Operation Chokepoint</a>, a Department of Justice program intended to force banks to close accounts of businesses they suspect of committing fraud. In June, the Consumer Coalition <a href="http://www.politico.com/huddle/0514/huddle13960.html" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">announced</a> plans to run a $3 million to $5 million campaign to tear apart Operation Chokepoint, including $1 million in paid ads. Last summer, the group hired Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, as a <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/07/24/newt-gingrich-fights-operation-choke-hold-in-paid-role/" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">paid adviser</a>; he now gives closed-door speeches at DC steakhouses attacking Operation Chokepoint.

But the Consumer Coalition's interests don't make it any easier to decipher who's funding it. Wise—who admitted that corporate donors and "people who have interest in the industries" backed the group—denied that "any financial institution" was involved in paying its bills. Uber isn't funding it either, he says. The porn industry and the NRA, which have both been critical of Operation Chokepoint, haven't chipped in, either, according to Wise....

<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/cfpb-us-consumer-coalition-brian-wise-elizabeth-warren">http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/cfpb-us-consumer-coalition-brian-wise-elizabeth-warren</a>

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<a href="http://www.alternet.org/economy/10-economic-trends-spell-doom-americas-workers?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark">http://www.alternet.org/economy/10-economic-trends-spell-doom-americas-workers?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark</a>

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<div>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; color: rgb(35, 31, 32); font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20140818/wall-street-warned-about-91-billion-high-risk-oil-megaprojects" title="Wall Street Warned About $91 Billion of High-Risk Oil Megaprojects" style=" color: black; text-decoration: none; outline: none;">Wall Street Warned About $91 Billion of High-Risk Oil Megaprojects</a></h2>

<h3 style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em;">Tar sands, deepsea drilling and other projects would lose money if lower demand, </h3>

<h3 style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em;">CO2 restrictions or other factors forced crude prices below $95.</h3>

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20140818/wall-street-warned-about-91-billion-high-risk-oil-megaprojects

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<div class="yiv406723445item-hed" style="line-height: 22px; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; outline: none; zoom: 1; font-weight: bold;"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://click.lists.propublica.net/?qs=8d6ba8ef34fe3ad21cbc3f664348e8ed9ca1763cec85bdd044a072f8ff9fcd5a" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(13, 53, 118); line-height: 1.2em; outline: none;">When Regulation Threatens, Bankers Predict Doom For Main Street</a></div>

<div class="yiv406723445item-hed" style=" margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; outline: none; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://click.lists.propublica.net/?qs=8d6ba8ef34fe3ad21cbc3f664348e8ed9ca1763cec85bdd044a072f8ff9fcd5a">http://click.lists.propublica.net/?qs=8d6ba8ef34fe3ad21cbc3f664348e8ed9ca1763cec85bdd044a072f8ff9fcd5a</a></div>

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<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog">http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog</a>

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<div class="byline economy" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://alternet.org/" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">AlterNet</a> [1] / By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/lynn-stuart-parramore" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Lynn Stuart Parramore</a> [2]</div>

<h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title">Predator Banks Enter Brave New World of Epic Scams and Public Hasn’t Got a Clue</h1>

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<div class="story-date">February 13, 2014  |  </div>

Wall Street watchers have been concerned for some time about the monopolizing trend among big banks. One of the most alarming developments in recent years is a buying spree in which megabanks have been gobbling up physical assets.

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone has delved into this story in his characteristically colorful way, shining a light on how this particular activity took off, namely through an overlooked provision in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. This arcane-sounding piece of Clinton-era legislation ranks high on the list of Very Bad Ideas coming out of Washington since the 1980s. It essentially overturned Depression-era regulations that had kept the banking sector under control and opened the door for commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies to merge their businesses.

The fine print of the bill also allowed commercial banks to dive into any activity that is "complementary to a financial activity and does not pose a substantial risk to the safety or soundness of depository institutions or the financial system generally."

So what exactly classifies as “complementary” to financial activity? When the idea came up in Congress in 1999, JPMorgan’s Michael Patterson said it was something like American Express owning a lifestyle magazine that complemented its business. No biggie.

But in reality, it has meant pretty much everything. Like, for example, oil tankers and raw materials. The result is something the public never signed off on — banks getting their mitts on entire supply chains and industrial processes. Taibbi explains how this is going down:

“Today, banks like Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs own oil tankers, run airports and control huge quantities of coal, natural gas, heating oil, electric power and precious metals. They likewise can now be found exerting direct control over the supply of a whole galaxy of raw materials crucial to world industry and to society in general, including everything from food products to metals like zinc, copper, tin, nickel and, most infamously thanks to a recent high-profile scandal, aluminum.”

</blockquote>

Recently, something rotten occurred in Denmark, as Goldman Sachs launched its bid to buy a 19 percent stake in the national electricity provider, a deal that would give it control of key management decisions. The streets erupted in protest as Danes (some carrying images of vampire squids) raged at the idea that government ministers could have invited an American investment bank to exert so much control over the state energy grid. The deal actually set off a <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-06/in-denmark-goldman-sachs-deal-ignites-political-crisis" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">crisis in the Danish government</a> [3].

In California, citizens found out recently that big banks have been rigging prices in the physical business interests they own. JPMorgan Chase and Barclays are accused of manipulating the delivery of electricity in California and elsewhere. Last year, JPMorgan paid $410 million to settle allegations of power market manipulation in California to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Goldman Sachs, for its part, has come under scrutiny for allegedly delaying the delivery of metals from warehouses it owned so that it could manipulate prices (it has since <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/01/business/under-scrutiny-goldman-offers-to-speed-metal-delivery.html?_r=0" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">offered to speed delivery</a> [4]).

Banks not only own the supply chains, they also place bets on their activity in financial markets, such as buying commodities futures. The whole thing is a recipe for corruption and conflicts of interest. Regulators, who have doing precious little about the money laundering, bribery and other scams we already know about, have been slow to address these new problems, the scope of which may be very frightening indeed.

The financial crisis taught us that big banks have turned into dangerous companies that are not only too big to fail, but, as Attorney General Eric Holder openly admitted, too big to police. Their reach continues to extend into more areas of the economy, with little public debate. President Obama has surrounded himself with economic advisors who are not inclined to rein in the banks; some of the banks even participated in the dismantling of the laws that once protected American citizens from their predation.

A lot will depend on the ability of the regulators to adapt to the changes occurring in the banking industry. Wall Street is under pressure to get rid of some commodities assets amid growing awareness of their ability to muck around with the availability of supplies and prices. The Federal Reserve is moving toward tighter restrictions on bank roles in physical commodity markets, and has issued a request for public input on the matter...

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alternet; 2. Crash the Economy, Get Your Money Back. Die with a Student Loan, Stay in Debt.

The financial industry has <a href="http://www.thedeal.com/thedealeconomy/the-case-against-favored-treatment-of-derivatives.php" target="blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">manipulated</a> [6] the bankruptcy laws to ensure that high-risk derivatives, which devastated the market in 2008, have <a href="http://www.alternet.org/economy/wall-street-ticking-time-bomb-could-blow-your-bank-account" target="blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">FIRST CLAIM</a> [7] over savings deposit insurance, pension funds, and everything else.

But the same banker-friendly "bankruptcy reform" has ensured that college graduates <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/06/05/let_college_students_go_bankrupt/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">keep their student loans</a> [8] till they die. And sometimes even <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2012/09/20/theres-no-escape-death-taxes-and-student-loans/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">after that</a> [9], as the debt is assumed by their co-signing parents.

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<a href="http://banktracker.investigativereportingworkshop.org/stories/2013/mar/18/reshaped-banking-industry-emerges/">http://banktracker.investigativereportingworkshop.org/stories/2013/mar/18/reshaped-banking-industry-emerges/</a>

database

Five years ago last week Bear Stearns, then one of the nation’s largest brokerage houses, told the Federal Reserve it was out of money. Despite a $12.9 billion emergency loan from the Fed, within two days<a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/reform_bearstearns.htm" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 90, 132); text-decoration: none;">Bear Stearns was forced to merge</a> with JP Morgan Chase — a deal facilitated with a $29 billion loan from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

It was the opening chapter of what would become the worst American financial crisis in two generations.

The other shoe dropped in September, when the government refused to save Lehman Brothers, another huge investment house. Lehman's collapse really roiled financial markets and spurred Congress and the White House into action.

The crisis sparked the nation’s worst recession since the mid-1970s. Unemployment peaked at 10 percent in October 2009 and remains stubbornly high at 7.7 percent. The stock market lost half its value (though it has subsequently recovered all of that). Millions of homes went into foreclosure, and homeowners lost more about $7 trillion in value before home prices began to rise in 2011 and 2012.

Before the end of 2008, Congress would pass extraordinary legislation authorizing the Troubled Asset Relief Program that ultimately would hand out more than $200 billion to more than 700 financial institutions, making the federal government part owner for a time of some of the world’s largest banks.

Most of that money has been repaid — with interest and dividends — and the banking industry has emerged shaken but in some senses thriving. Last year was the second most profitable ever for the nation’s banks, according to reports filed with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

But it is unmistakably true that the industry is fundamentally different today than it was five years ago.

Because of failures and mergers there were 1,450 fewer banks on Dec. 31, 2012, than at the end of 2007. No new bank has been chartered in the United States since April 15, 2011. Most of the handful of new banks created in the past five years were set up to acquire banks that had failed.

Meanwhile, banks have continued to get larger. On Dec. 31, 2007 there were 8,543 banks in the United States, with median assets of about $132 million.

At the end of last year, there were 7,092 banks and the median assets were $168.3 million, a 27.4 percent increase .

Much of the new growth has occurred at the top end of the industry. At the end of 2007, there were 18 banks with more than $100 billion in assets, accounting for 54.5 percent of the industry total. Five years later, there were 19 banks larger than $100 billion, and they made up 60.8 percent of the total. But even smaller banks are expanding, as well. In 2007, more than 3,400 banks had assets of less than $100 million; by the end of 2012 that number was down to 2200.

JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank, had more than $1.3 trillion in assets in 2007, about 10 percent of the industry total. On Dec. 31, 2012, its assets had grown to nearly $1.9 trillion, or more than 13 percent of the industry.

This additional concentration has occurred in the face of a national political debate over the advisability of having banks so large that they are deemed “too big to fail” because their collapse would trigger widespread financial and economic problems that could ripple through the whole world economy. Lately, some have begun to refer to these gigantic institutions as “too big to jail” because of the government’s apparent reluctance to pursue criminal charges against them.

In many ways, banks today appear to be more conservative than they were just a few years ago.

Partly because of the slow recovery from the recession, partly because of additional regulatory scrutiny and partly because bankers are being more careful with their credit decisions, total lending is still nearly 3.5 percent lower than at the end of 2007 (none of these figures have been adjusted for inflation).

And the makeup of the loan portfolio has shifted significantly. Single-family mortgage loans are down by 15.4 percent, though they still are the largest category of loans. Business loans, the second largest loan, are up by about 4.8 percent.  Loans to individuals are up by 25 percent.

Lending to finance land development and construction fell by two-thirds between the end of 2007 and the end of 2012. As reported previously, those loans were a key reason behind many of the bank failures in the past five years. But without some recovery in that category, it might be difficult to sustain growth in new housing construction.

Unlike at some times in the past, there is no shortage of money available to banks. Deposits grew by 28 percent over the past five years.

With lending restrained, bankers had to find other places to put the cash. Banks now hold 54 percent more securities (mostly bonds) than they did five years ago. Cash on hand is nearly triple its 2007 level.

Banks also now appear more able to withstand losses. Equity capital is up by 20 percent. The Federal Reserve reported earlier this month that 17of 18 of the largest banks would be able to weather a severe recession. Ironically, the only one that didn’t pass was Ally Financial, the lending arm of General Motors; the U.S. Treasury owns about 73 percent of Ally as part of the government’s efforts to shore up the auto industry during the financial crisis.

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Far and away the biggest lobbyist/political donor?

kpfa 7/18 mitch financ has 300 lobbyists paid 2 mil/DAY?! bartlet neeler (sp)

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When it comes to working the refs, no bank works harder than JPMorgan Chase.

The biggest U.S. bank by assets <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000103&year=2012" target="hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">spent $8 million lobbying Congress on financial reform and other topics last year</a>, outpacing every other large bank, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The second-biggest U.S. bank, Bank of America, spent just $3 million on lobbying last year, according to CRP data. That spending equates to the amount <a href="http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/05/30/look-how-much-j-p-morgan-spent-to-save-jamie-dimons-job-titles" target="hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">JPMorgan spent in the fourth quarter alone</a>, MarketWatch reported on Thursday.

The second-biggest lobbying spender among banks last year was Wells Fargo, which spent $6.8 million, according to CRP. Banks are not the heaviest spenders on lobbying -- JPMorgan ranked only 47th in corporate lobbying spending last year. But industry groups like the Chamber of Commerce (which spent $136 million on lobbying last year) and the Business Roundtable ($14 million) do a lot of lobbying on their behalf.

JPMorgan's fourth-quarter <a href="http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/05/30/look-how-much-j-p-morgan-spent-to-save-jamie-dimons-job-titles" target="hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">lobbying was the heaviest since the CRP started keeping quarterly records</a> back in 2008, MarketWatch points out. The bank consistently outspends rivals on lobbying, but it had an extra-special need to plead its case last year. The bank is knee-deep in <a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/jpmorgan-caught-in-swirl-of-regulatory-woes/" target="hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">several pickle barrels of regulatory trouble</a>, starting with its $6 billion "London Whale" trading loss and including alleged manipulation of Libor and energy markets. And this doesn't include CEO Jamie Dimon's <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-gongloff/jamie-dimon-president-obama_b_2104054.html" target="_hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">regularly scheduled crusade to proselytize/whine about the horrors of regulation</a>.

JPMorgan lobbies so hard that some of its shareholders recently tried, at the bank's annual meeting in Tampa, to get the bank to disclose more about its lobbying efforts. <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jpmorgan-chase-co-management-hosts-235601147.html" target="_hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">That effort suffered a crushing defeat, getting just 8 percent of the vote</a> of all the bank's shareholders. JPMorgan will go on lobbying to its heart's content, thank you very much.... <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/jpmorgan-chase-lobbying_n_3366658.html" style="">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/jpmorgan-chase-lobbying_n_3366658.html</a>

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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/bank-lobbying-record-high_n_1106350.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/bank-lobbying-record-high_n_1106350.html</a>

Big banks are on track to spend a record amount lobbying lawmakers this year.

The five banks that spend the most on lobbying have boosted their<a href="http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/11/20/2789388/banks-find-extra-money-to-hire.html" target="_hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;"> lobbying outlays by 12 percent in the first three quarters</a> of 2011, compared to the same period last year, according to an analysis by the Charlotte Observer. Commercial banks comprising the banking industry have spent close to $47 million on lobbying so far this year, compared to $42 million at this time last year, the report finds.

The report comes as lawmakers and federal agencies<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-11/dodd-frank-act-forcing-banks-to-slim-down-reshape-swaps-one-year-later.html" target="_hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">continue to write hundreds of rules</a> stemming from the Dodd-Frank financial reform act passed in July 2010. The bill, which lawmakers passed in response to the 2008 financial crisis, includes provisions regulating a variety of commercial banking fees, such as overdraft and debit card charges, in addition to rules on certain types of trading and other types of financial activities.

In its entirety, Wall Street firms have already spent more than <a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/wall-street-continues-to-spend-big-on-lobbying/" target="hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">$100 million in total this year on lobbying related to Dodd-Frank</a>, according to The New York Times, with some success: Many experts claim that the Volcker rule -- a regulation aimed at curbing proprietary trading -- is so <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/11/volcker-rule-banks-proprietary-trading_n_1005627.html" target="hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">watered down it bears little resemblance</a> to the former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker's original proposal. A handful of Occupy Wall Street protesters recently launched <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/19/occupy-sec-volcker-rule_n_1102842.html" target="_hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">"Occupy the SEC" in direct response to what they perceive as the weakening of the Volcker rule</a>.

And bank lobbyists are fighting back. A notable financial services lobbying firm hatched a plan earlier this week to spend $850,000 on a variety of projects including "opposition research" on the <a href="http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/11/19/occupy_wall_street_a_new_target_for_the_banking_lobby.html" target="_hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">occupy movement in an attempt to undermine it</a>, according to Slate.

But banks may have more to worry about than just the Occupy movement. Cg42, a firm that consults with banks, estimates that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/debit-card-fee-big-banks-lose-185-billion_n_1105688.html?ref=business" target="_hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">big banks will lose $185 billion in deposits</a> over the next year if they don't address consumer concerns. Consumers and lawmakers derided banks earlier this year for proposals to charge for once-free account services such as debit card use.

Before banks such as Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and others <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/bank-of-america-debit-card-fee_n_1069425.html" target="hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">pulled the plug on the debit card fees</a>, some <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/04/banks-obama-bank-of-america-debit-card_n_993907.html" target="hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(124, 84, 211); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">banking industry officials defended charges</a>, claiming they were necessary to recoup revenue lost as a result of financial reform legislation....

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Big banks are on track to spend a record amount lobbying lawmakers this year.

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sum <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/05/24/2059451/meet-the-people-who-are-subverting-wall-street-reform/">http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/05/24/2059451/meet-the-people-who-are-subverting-wall-street-reform/</a>

<a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/banks-lobbyists-help-in-drafting-financial-bills/">http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/banks-lobbyists-help-in-drafting-financial-bills/</a>

...The House Financial Services Committee has been a natural target. Not only is it controlled by Republicans, who had opposed Dodd-Frank, but freshmen lawmakers are often appointed to the unusually large committee because it is seen as a helpful base from which they can raise campaign funds.

For Wall Street, the committee is a place to push back against Dodd-Frank. When banks and other corporations, for example, feared that regulators would demand new scrutiny of derivatives trades, they appealed to the committee. At the time, regulators were completing Dodd-Frank’s overhaul of derivatives, contracts that allow companies to either speculate in the markets or protect against risk. Derivatives had pushed the insurance giant <a href="http://dealbook.on.nytimes.com/public/overview?symbol=AIG&inline=nyt-org" class="tickerized" title="More information about American International Group Inc" style=" color: rgb(72, 112, 154); text-decoration: none;">American International Group</a> to the brink of collapse in 2008. The question was whether regulators would exempt certain in-house derivatives trades between affiliates of big banks.

As the House committee was <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113hr677ih/pdf/BILLS-113hr677ih.pdf" style=" color: rgb(72, 112, 154); text-decoration: none;">drafting a bill </a>that would force regulators to exempt many such trades, corporate lawyers like Michael Bopp weighed in with their suggested changes, according to e-mails reviewed by The Times. At one point, when a House aide sent a potential compromise to Mr. Bopp, he replied with additional tweaks.

In an interview, Mr. Bopp explained that he drafted the proposal at the request of Congressional aides, who expressed broad support for the change. The proposal, he explained, was a “compromise” that was actually designed to “limit the scope” of the exemption.

“Everyone on the Hill wanted this bill, but they wanted to make sure it wasn’t subject to abuse,” said Mr. Bopp, a partner at the law firm Gibson, Dunn who was representing a coalition of nonfinancial corporations that use derivatives to hedge their risk.

Ultimately, the committee inserted every word of Mr. Bopp’s suggestion into a 2012 version of the bill that passed the House, save for a slight change in phrasing.<a href="http://financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/crpt-113-hmtg-ba00-fc013-20130507.pdf" style=" color: rgb(72, 112, 154); text-decoration: none;">A later iteration of the bill</a>, passed by the House committee earlier this month, also included some of the same wording....

matt <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/deja-vu-on-the-hill-wall-street-lobbyists-roll-back-finance-reform-again-20130521" style="">http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/deja-vu-on-the-hill-wall-street-lobbyists-roll-back-finance-reform-again-20130521</a>

So to sum up, we banks would like to remain eligible for bailouts when we engage in hedging, which we think is everything we do, and also additionally when we engage in "certain structured finance swap activities," which will mean whatever we tell the rule-makers it means after the bill is passed.

Read more: <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/deja-vu-on-the-hill-wall-street-lobbyists-roll-back-finance-reform-again-20130521#ixzz2ZQ2ITrcl" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); text-decoration: none;">http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/deja-vu-on-the-hill-wall-street-lobbyists-roll-back-finance-reform-again-20130521#ixzz2ZQ2ITrcl</a>

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These are privatization, financialization, militarization, and criminalization, which together are producing a steadily creeping authoritarianism—a new authoritarianism—to fit our times. Let’s call them the Four Plagues, or if we wish, “The Four Horsemen of Our Apocalypse,” from the Book of Revelations

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cpr:

<div class="asset-body" style="">Banking industry lobbyists helped members of the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/cmteprofiles/overview.php?cmteid=H05&cmte=HFIN&congno=112&chamber=H">House Financial Services Committee</a> craft a bill loosening regulators' oversight of various types of trading, with lobbyists from <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000071&cycle=2012">Citibank</a> playing a large role in the process, according to a report in today's <a target="_blank" href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/banks-lobbyists-help-in-drafting-financial-bills/">New York Times</a>. Seventy-one of the 80 lines in a bill recently approved by the panel were written with the assistance of lobbyists for major banks, said the report, which is based on emails reviewed by the paper's reporters; two paragraphs were copied from the lobbyists nearly word-for-word.

According to Center for Responsive Politics data, in the first quarter of 2013, members of that committee received more than $1.3 million in donations to their campaigns and leadership PACs from the securities and investment industry and commercial banks.

</div>

<div>

The donations came from PACs representing the financial firms, individuals they employ and lobbyists who represent the firms. By far the largest source of cash from the two industries was the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000262">Investment Company Institute</a>, a trade association representing Wall Street firms. The ICI gave at least $129,000 to members of the House Financial Services Committee. Other trade groups representing banks and investment firms, including the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000087">American Bankers Association</a> and the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000261">Independent Community Bankers of America</a>, were also major contributors.

</div>

<div>Among individual corporations, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000020995">UBS</a> was the top donor to the committee's members, contributing $88,000 so far this year.

The banking and securities and investment industries together contributed about the same amount overall to members of the committee in the first quarter of 2011 as in the first three months of 2013 -- roughly $1.3 million. But the commercial banking industry -- including Citigroup -- gave substantially more this time around, while the securities industry gave less.

Banking industry companies increased their contributions in 2013 to $640,286, from $497,169 in early 2011. Citigroup, in particular, jumped from $19,500 in donations to committee members to $39,500. UBS went from $64,250 to $88,000. Wells Fargo also opened its checkbook a little wider this year, giving $80,000, compared with $31,250 in 2011.

The ABA gave $90,750 in the first quarter of 2013, up from $58,650 in the comparable period in 2011.

Although the New York Times article cites a growing friendliness between the banking industry and congressional Democrats, the money going to the members of the committee this year overwhelmingly tilted towards Republicans. Seventy percent of the $1.3 million went to GOP lawmakers. Republicans control the House, and thus the committee, and it is not unusual to see the majority party pick up more cash from donors, regardless of the topic or committee.</div>

<div>

</div>

<div>The top recipient of cash from the two industries so far this year is Rep. <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00024922&cycle=2012">Jeb Hensarling</a> (R-Texas), the chairman of the committee, who has picked up $140,400. The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00006690&cycle=2012">Maxine Waters</a> (D-Calif.), who has criticized the legislation in question, received only $6,000.</div>

<div>

<div>The bill, the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr992">Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act</a> (H.R. 992), was sponsored by committee member <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00031104&cycle=2012">Randy Hultgren</a> (R-Ill.), who has received $50,100 from commercial banks and the securities and investment industry, the majority of which came from individuals rather than PACs. One of his co-sponsors, who defended the legislation to the Times, is Rep. <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00029070&cycle=2012">Jim Himes </a>(D-Conn.) who took in a similar amount from the two industries -- about $47,700.

</div>

<div>According to FEC records, Citigroup's PAC gave Hultgren's campaign committee $2,000. And it gave Himes' campaign $1,000 and his leadership PAC, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00494112">Jobs and Innovation Matter PAC</a> (JIM PAC) another $2,500. The donations to Hultgren, JIM PAC and a $5,000 donation to Hensarling's leadership PAC were all made on March 26.

The panel passed the bill this month despite objections from the Treasury Department. It awaits action in the full House

</div>

</div>

<h4 class="entry-categories-header">Categories:</h4>

<li class="entry-category"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/commercial-banks-1/">Commercial Banks</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-category"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/influence-lobbying/industries/commercial-banks/">Commercial banks</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-category"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/influence-lobbying/industries/">Industries</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-category"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/influence-lobbying/industries/securities-investment/">Securities & investment</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=American%20Bankers%20Association&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">American Bankers Association</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Citibank&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Citibank</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=House%20Financial%20Services%20Committee&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">House Financial Services Committee</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Independent%20Community%20Bankers%20of%20America&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Independent Community Bankers of America</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Investment%20Co%20Institute&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Investment Co Institute</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Jeb%20Hensaraling&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Jeb Hensaraling</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Jim%20Hines&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Jim Hines</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Maxine%20Waters&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Maxine Waters</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Randy%20Hultgren&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Randy Hultgren</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Russ%20choma&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Russ choma</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Swaps%20Regulatory%20Improvement%20Act&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act</a>,</li>

</ul>

</div>

<a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/05/wall-street-shaped-regulatory-refor.html">http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/05/wall-street-shaped-regulatory-refor.html</a>

<div class="byline news-politics" style=""><a href="http://robertreich.org">Robert Reich's Blog</a> [1] / By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/robert-b-reich">Robert B. Reich</a> [2]</div>

<h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title">Why Democrats Can't Be Trusted to Control Wall Street</h1>

</div>

Who needs Republicans when Wall Street has the Democrats? With the help of congressional Democrats, the Street is rolling back financial reforms enacted after its near meltdown.

According to the <a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/banks-lobbyists-help-in-drafting-financial-bills/?hp" target="_hplink">New York Times</a> [3], a bill that's already moved through the House Financial Services Committee, allowing more of the very kind of derivatives trading (bets on bets) that got the Street into trouble, was drafted by Citigroup -- whose recommended language was copied nearly word for word in 70 lines of the 85-line bill.

Where were House Democrats? Right behind it. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, Democrat of New York, a major recipient of the Street's political largesse, co-sponsored it. Most of the Democrats on the Committee, also receiving generous donations from the big banks, voted for it. Rep. Jim Himes, another proponent of the bill and a former banker at Goldman Sachs, now leads the Democrat's fund-raising effort in the House.

Bob Rubin -- co-chair of Goldman before he joined the Clinton White House, and chair of Citigroup's management committee after he left it -- is still influential in the Party, and his protégés are all over the Obama administration. I like Bob personally but I battled his Street-centric views the whole time I served, and soon after I left the administration he persuaded Clinton to support a repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.

Jack Lew, Obama's current Treasury Secretary, was chief operating officer of Citigroup's Alternative Investments unit, a proprietary trading group, from 2006 to 2008, before he joined the Obama administration. Peter Orszag, Obama's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, left the Obama Administration to become Citigroup's vice chairman of corporate and investment banking, and chairman of the financial strategy and solutions group.

All these men are honorable. None has broken any law. But they and their ilk in congress -- the Democrats who are now rolling back Dodd-Frank -- don't seem to appreciate the extent to which Wall Street has harmed, and continues to harm, America.

It's not entirely coincidental that the Obama administration never put tough conditions on banks receiving bailout money, never prosecuted a single top Wall Street executive for the excesses that led to the near meltdown, and still refuses to support a tiny tax on financial transactions that would bring in tens of billions of dollars as well as discourage program trading.

Democrats can't be trusted to control Wall Street. If there were ever an issue ripe for a third party, the Street would be it.

</div>

===

<h1 style="">Investors Seek Ways to Profit From Global Warming</h1>

<div class="author_and_social clearfix" style="">By <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/authors/1776-matthew-campbell" rel="author">Matthew Campbell</a> and <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/authors/51702-chris-v-nicholson" rel="author">Chris V. Nicholson</a> on March 07, 2013</div>

<div class="href" style="">http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-07/investors-seek-ways-to-profit-from-global-warming</div>

Investing in climate change used to mean putting money into efforts to stop global warming. Morgan Stanley (<a href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=MS" class="ticker" data-symbol="MS">MS</a>), Goldman Sachs (<a href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=GS" class="ticker" data-symbol="GS">GS</a>), and other firms took stakes in wind farms and tidal-energy projects, and set up carbon-trading desks. The appeal of cleantech has dimmed as efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions have faltered: Venture capital and private equity investments fell 34 percent last year, to $5.8 billion, according to Bloomberg

New Energy Finance.

Now some investors are taking another approach. Working under the assumption that climate change is inevitable, they’re investing in businesses that will profit as the planet gets hotter. (The World Bank says the earth could warm by 4C by the end of the century.) Their strategies include buying water treatment companies, brokering deals for Australian farmland, and backing a startup that has engineered a mosquito to fight dengue, a disease that’s spreading as the mercury climbs.

Derivatives that help companies hedge against abnormal weather and natural catastrophes are drawing increased interest from some big players. In January, KKR (<a href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=KKR" class="ticker" data-symbol="KKR">KKR</a>) bought a 25 percent stake in Nephila Capital, an $8 billion Bermuda hedge fund that trades in weather derivatives. (The firm is named after a spider that, according to local folklore, can predict hurricanes.) “Climate risk is something people are paying more and more attention to,” says Barney Schauble, managing partner at Nephila Advisors, the firm’s U.S. arm. “More volatile weather creates more risk and more appetite to protect against that risk.”

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<div class="byline economy" style=""><a href="http://www.alternet.org">AlterNet</a> [1] / By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/les-leopold-0">Les Leopold</a> [2]</div>

<h1 class="node-title">The Rich Have Gained $5.6 Trillion in the 'Recovery,' While the Rest of Us Have Lost $669 Billion</h1>

</div>

Oh, are we getting ripped off. And now we've got <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/04/23/a-rise-in-wealth-for-the-wealthydeclines-for-the-lower-93/" target="_blank">the data</a> [3] to prove it. From 2009 to 2011, the richest 8 million families (the top 7%) on average saw their wealth rise from $1.7 million to $2.5 million each. Meanwhile the rest of us --  the bottom 93% (that's 111 million families) -- suffered on average a decline of $6,000 each.

Do the math and you'll discover that the top 7% gained a whopping $5.6 trillion in net worth (assets minus liabilities) while the rest of lost $669 billion. Their wealth went up by 28% while ours went down by 4 percent.

It's as if the entire economic recovery is going into the pockets of the rich. And that's no accident. Here's why.

1. The bailouts went to Wall Street, not to Main Street.

The federal government and Federal Reserve poured trillions of dollars into Wall Street through a wide variety of financial maneuvers, many of which were hidden from view until recently. When we add it all up, it's clear that most of the money floated right into Wall Street. (Fannie and Freddie were private institutions that also considered themselves part of the Wall Street elite.)

2. Wall Street is Washington, Washington is Wall Street.

Those who shuttle back and forth between Washington and Wall Street designed the basic policies that both led to the crash and that responded to it. Hank Paulson, Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, served as chairman of Goldman Sachs before going to Washington. Timothy Geithner, Obama's Secretary of the Treasury, headed the regional Federal Reserve Board in New York (a board composed of Wall Street's Who's Who) before joining the Obama cabinet.

Countless government officials and congressional staffers can't wait to leave public service for  lucrative jobs on Wall Street. Their collective mindset is that the world can't function properly unless the richest of the rich get richer. Any and all policies should therefore protect our biggest banks, rather than hinder them. And, of course, both parties are in hot pursuit of Wall Street campaign cash. Little wonder the so-called "recovery" transferred wealth from us to them.

3. The Federal Reserve banks on trickledown.

The Federal Reserve's ongoing stimulus policy comes down to this: The goal is to reduce interest rates on bonds of all kinds so that money flows into stocks. The more money that goes into the stock market, the higher go the stocks. Rising stock prices leads to what economists call the wealth effect -- those who see their stocks rise dramatically feel richer and spend more. That's supposed to trickle down to the rest of us: The rich spend more, businesses recover and then, maybe, hire more people. It's working beautifully for the super-rich but obviously not for the rest of us.

But wait, don't most of us own stocks either directly or through our pension funds and 401ks? Dream on, says this chart:

4. Washington fails to create enough jobs.

Wall Street's gambling spree tore a gaping hole to our economy. In a matter of months more than 8 million workers lost their jobs due to no fault of their own. What these elite financiers did to us is unconscionable, and they haven't had to pay a dime for the damage they caused. Although the stimulus programs prevented the slide from deepening, it was far too small to put America back to work. So now we're facing the highest levels of sustained unemployment since the Great Depression. The biggest victims of Wall Street greed are the long-term unemployed.

Source: Business Insider: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/unemployed-for-more-than-26-weeks-population-ratio-january-2010-2" target="_blank">http://www.businessinsider.com/unemployed-for-more-than-26-weeks-population-ratio-january-2010-2</a> [4]

5. Government goes on a job-killing spree.

After Wall Street crashed the economy, businesses failed, workers lost their jobs and state and local tax revenues collapsed. In a just world, Wall Street would have been taxed to make up the difference. Instead, public employment was slashed. This further cut back on consumer demand, reduced tax revenues and then created pressure for another round of government job cuts. Of course, the Tea Party right loves the idea of crushing government jobs and public employee unions as well. But the main result is to increase unemployment, which in turn puts downward pressure on wages and increases profits for the wealthy.

As Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney point out <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/jobs/posts/2012/08/03-jobs-greenstone-looney" target="_blank">("A Record Decline in Government Jobs: Implications for the Economy and America's Workforce"</a> [5]), "we are in unchartered territory when it comes to government employment." The chart below from their Brookings article shows that among the major state and local job categories, only firefighters saw an increase.

Occupation