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previously orphan node, see financial node and bank tagsee also FIRE sectortag zombied? bank bnk mebbe pink 1%bak 1019=<div>=</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.desmog.com/2022/11/04/wilful-ignorance-indigenous-delegation-incredulous-at-bankers-attitude-to-fossil-fuel-impacts/">https://www.desmog.com/2022/11/04/wilful-ignorance-indigenous-delegation-incredulous-at-bankers-attitude-to-fossil-fuel-impacts/</a></div><div>Indigenous delegates said they had been amazed at the “wilful ignorance” they encountered when demanding global banks cease financing new fossil fuel projects on their ancestral lands in what is today North America.The representatives of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas and the Nahua nation in Mexico met with executives from HSBC, Barclays, and Credit Suisse in London this week to urge them to stop backing oil and gas pipelines and fracked gas export terminals.  Christopher Basaldú, a member of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe, said he had been appalled at the lack of awareness of the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2015/06/04/epa-study-fracking-contaminates-water-supplies/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">pollution caused by fracking</a> — a high-pressure drilling technique that has revolutionised America’s energy industry, but caused huge environmental damage.  “I had to give a fracking 101 lesson to this bank official. It’s appalling their level of ignorance. They really do not know how potentially permanently destructive fracking is to groundwater,” Basaldú told DeSmog. “It’s incomprehensible to me that these wealthy, privileged, European people can be so wilfully ignorant and draw such tremendous salaries.”Fracking works by using contained explosions and a mix of water, sand, and chemicals to fragment oil and gas-bearing layers of shale rock. The technique can taint groundwater, degrade landscapes and threaten wildlife, according to <a href="https://www.wilderness.org/news/article/truth-about-fracking-and-environment" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">environmental organisations</a>.In addition, fracking sites release a toxic stew of air pollution that can cause severe headaches, asthma symptoms, childhood leukemia, cardiac problems, and birth defects, and some of the 1,000-plus chemicals used in the process are known to cause cancer, according to a <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/issues/reduce-fracking-health-hazards#:_{:text=Fracking%20sites%20release%20a%20toxic,are%20known%20to%20cause%20cancer}" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">report</a> by the National Resources Defense Council. <h2 id="h-fossil-fight" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; line-height: 1.2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Fossil Fight</h2>Basaldú is fighting plans by Houston-based oil and gas company NextDecade to build a $10 billion facility on the South Texas coast near his hometown of Brownsville. The scheme would supercool fracked gas from the Permian Basin for export as liquefied natural gas (LNG).Community members say the Central Park-sized project — known as Rio Grande LNG — would blanket low-income Latinx and Indigenous communities with harmful air pollution, cause irreversible harm to precious wetlands, threaten endangered wildlife, and accelerate climate breakdown via its associated carbon emissions.  The future of Rio Grande LNG and other planned export terminals had looked <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2020/10/08/cameron-lng-export-terminals-financials/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">looked increasingly in doubt</a> as demand for energy slumped during the COVID-19 pandemic. In November, 2020, French utility Engie dealt the sector a further blow when it pulled out of negotiations over a long-term deal to buy LNG cargoes from Rio Grande LNG amid reports that the French government was concerned over <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2021/04/26/fossil-fuel-companies-promoting-lower-carbon-responsibly-sourced-oil-and-gas/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">methane emissions</a> from the Permian Basin.But the picture has since changed dramatically as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered a European scramble for alternatives to Russian gas — bringing once moribund projects back to life. In May, NextDecade <a href="https://investors.next-decade.com/news-releases/news-release-details/nextdecade-and-engie-execute-175-mtpa-lng-sale-and-purchase" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">announced</a> that Engie had returned to the negotiating table and signed a 15-year contract to buy cargoes from Rio Grande LNG starting as early as 2026. The project took another step forward in September, when Credit Suisse helped NextDecade launch a private share placement in anticipation of a final investment decision, Offshore Energy <a href="https://www.offshore-energy.biz/nextdecade-launches-private-placement-eyeing-rio-grande-lng-fid/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">reported</a>.  Barclays and HSBC are linked to the scheme through their role as big financiers of oil majors ExxonMobil and Shell, which have also signed contracts to purchase shipments from Rio Grande LNG, according to a <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/2022-10/RGV_LNG_2022_FINAL_WEB_0.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">report</a> by the Sierra Club and allied organisations. The two banks also have smaller exposures to Engie, according to <a href="https://www.bankingonclimatechaos.org/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Banking on Climate Chaos</a>, a report by advocacy groups.Barclays, HSBC and Credit Suisse declined to comment. <h2 id="h-indigenous-resistance" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; line-height: 1.2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Indigenous Resistance</h2>Basaldú made the trip to London with Bekah Hinojosa, an artist and community organiser who has also been campaigning against Rio Grande LNG since the project was proposed eight years ago, and serves as the Sierra Club’s Gulf Coast campaign representative. The pair were accompanied by Oliveria Montès Lazcano, the coordinator of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples in the central Mexican state of Puebla. Lazcano is fighting TransCanada’s project to build the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2018/01/02/mexico-standing-rock-sempra-transcanada-indigenous-resistance/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Tuxpan-Tula pipeline</a> to import gas to central Mexico from Texas. HSBC, Credit Suisse, and Barclays finance TransCanada, campaigners say.Indigenous networks have been mobilising increasingly effective opposition to fossil fuel infrastructure in recent years, playing key roles in the defeat of flagship projects in North America including the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2021/01/20/keystone-xl-pipeline-canceled-biden-future-fossil-fuels/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Keystone XL tar sands pipeline</a> and the Atlantic Coast gas pipeline.  A report by the Indigenous Environmental Network and Oil Change International <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2021/09/08/indigenous-climate-resistance-stopping-fossil-fuels-line-3-emissions-report/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">published last year</a> found that Indigenous communities resisting more than 20 fossil fuel projects analysed had stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least 25 percent of annual U.S. and Canadian emissions.With the world’s 60 largest private banks extending $4.6 trillion of finance for fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, according to <a href="https://www.bankingonclimatechaos.org/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Banking on Climate Chaos</a>, indigenous groups are increasingly seeking to persuade bankers to pull the plug on polluting projects.In 2017 French Bank BNP Paribas pledged to stop granting dedicated financial support for fracked gas pipelines and export terminals in North America several months after a previous delegation of Indigenous leaders from South Texas visited Paris and gained significant attention, speaking on radio shows and at rallies and shareholder meetings. Indigenous groups from Ecuador and Peru scored further concessions in 2021 by persuading BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, ING, and other European banks to stop financing the export of crude oil from the Ecuadorian Amazon after advocacy groups Stand.earth and Amazon Watch <a href="https://www.stand.earth/latest/new-report-reveals-european-banks-financing-trade-controversial-amazon-oil-us" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">published data</a> revealing their multi-billion dollar exposure to the trade. ...</div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div></div>=<div><div><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/03/30/despite-splashy-net-zero-vows-big-banks-dumping-trillions-fossil-fuels">https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/03/30/despite-splashy-net-zero-vows-big-banks-dumping-trillions-fossil-fuels</a></div><div>
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</div><div><div>no lnx</div><div>Despite 'Splashy' Net-Zero Vows, Big Banks Dumping Trillions Into Fossil Fuels</div><div>"With Wall Street banks leading the charge, these financial institutions are directly complicit in undermining a climate-stable future for us all."</div><div>
</div><div>JAKE JOHNSON</div><div>
</div><div>March 30, 2022</div><div>Flouting their public vows to put themselves and their clients on a path to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, the world's 60 largest private banks have provided a total of $4.6 trillion in financing for the fossil fuel industry since the Paris Agreement entered into force in 2016.</div><div>
</div><div>That's according to the latest edition of Banking on Climate Chaos, an annual report that tracks the banking industry's funding of oil and gas initiatives that are threatening global hopes of reining in carbon pollution and averting climate disaster.</div><div>
</div><div>"Any further expansion of fossil fuels risks locking humanity into generations of climate catastrophe."</div><div>Authored by Oil Change International, the Rainforest Action Network, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and other groups and endorsed by hundreds of organizations from around the world, the report published Wednesday spotlights the marked contrast between banks' public commitments to net-zero emissions targets and their actions, which reflect a continued stake in fossil fuel development.</div><div>
</div><div>In 2021 alone, the report finds, the world's biggest private-sector banks financed oil and gas to the tune of $742 billion. That year, the 60 banks featured in the new analysis poured $185.5 billion into the 100 companies doing the most to expand the fossil-fuel sector worldwide through offshore drilling, fracking, coal mining, liquefied natural gas infrastructure, and more.</div><div>
</div><div>The worst offenders in the banking industry, according to the report, are the U.S. financial behemoths JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America, which together accounted for 25% of all fossil fuel financing identified over the past six years.</div><div>
</div><div>The report highlights a number of specific projects, including the Mountain Valley Pipeline (funded by JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America), drilling in offshore Guyana (funded by JPMorgan Chase, Citi, and Bank of America), and the Line 3 Pipeline (funded by TD, Scotiabank, and the Bank of Montreal), efforts that have drawn fierce resistance from Indigenous communities.</div><div>
</div><div>"Indigenous peoples have long been leading the fight for the sacredness of the land, water, and Earth," Mea Johnson, divestment campaign coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network, said in a statement Wednesday. "Mother Earth has always given us what we need to thrive. We will not back down until our natural balance is restored and anyone helping fund the extractive destruction of our communities will be held accountable."</div><div>
</div><div>Alison Kirsch, research and policy manager at the Rainforest Action Network, added that "any further expansion of fossil fuels risks locking humanity into generations of climate catastrophe, yet the top fossil clients of the world's largest banks are still being showered with tens of billions of dollars even as they actively expand drilling, mining, fracking, and other fossil fuel development unabated."</div><div>
</div><div>"With Wall Street banks leading the charge," Kirsch added, "these financial institutions are directly complicit in undermining a climate-stable future for us all and must immediately end their support of any further fossil fuel infrastructure expansion."</div><div>
</div><div>[Related Content</div><div>Coal plants</div><div>Rich Nations Must Cut Off Oil and Gas by 2034 to Keep Climate Hopes Alive: Report]</div><div>
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</div><div>The banks' financing decisions fly in the face of their own pledges to bring their policies into line with critical climate goals, such as achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a benchmark that 44 of the 60 banks profiled in the new report have backed.</div><div>
</div><div>"Despite their splashy climate pledges, big banks have largely continued with business-as-usual."</div><div>According to the International Energy Agency, reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 would mean ensuring "no new oil and gas fields."</div><div>
</div><div>"But global banks have massively supported the companies doing the most to open new oil and gas fields," notes the new report. "Banks with net-zero commitments last year... financed the top 20 upstream oil and gas expansion companies, potentially helping to lock the planet into decades of climate-warming emissions."</div><div>
</div><div>Adele Shraiman, a representative for the Sierra Club's Fossil-Free Finance campaign, said Wednesday that the analysis "makes it clear that banks must clean up their act and stop funding the expansion of dirty fossil fuel projects like fracked gas exports, tar sands pipelines, and offshore drilling in order to align with what the science demands and what their own commitments require."</div><div>
</div><div>"Despite their splashy climate pledges, big banks have largely continued with business-as-usual and actually increased their overall fossil fuel financing since the Paris Agreement," said Shraiman. "As we look ahead to shareholder season, we'll be keeping up the pressure on the banks and their investors to take these critical reforms seriously and stop bankrolling the fossil fuel industry's reckless expansion plans."</div></div></div><div>=</div>=newno lnx
How Europe’s greedy lending to Africa is driving the migration wave that fuels the EU’s xenophobic politics
Written by Vijay Prashad / Independent Media Institute October 23, 2019If you ask an African migrant in Europe who came across the Mediterranean Sea in a boat if they would make the journey again, most of them would say “yes.” Many of them had been on vans and trucks that took them across the dangerous Sahara Desert, and many of them had been on board vessels that struggled to get across the choppy waters. They might have seen their fellow migrants die of thirst or of drowning, but none of that halts their conviction that they’d cross the sands and the seas again.
Harsh treatment by European border guards and an overwhelming experience of racism inside European society do not bring regret or suggest that they would not do it again.
“It was all to earn money,” said Drissa from Mali. “Thinking of my mom and my dad. My big sister. My little sister. To help them. That was my pressure. That’s why Europe.”
Myths About African Migrants
A UN Development Program report, released on October 17, shows that 97 percent of the nearly 2,000 African migrants in Europe interviewed would take the same risks to come to Europe again knowing what they know now about the danger of the journey or what life in Europe would be like. What is powerful about this UN report is that it dispels the many myths about African migration.
There is a terrible view that Africans are somehow “invading” Europe, even worse “swarming” into Europe. Anti-immigration rhetoric speaks of building fences and creating a Fortress Europe. It is as if there is a war, and Europeans must arm themselves against invaders. A year ago, the UN’s Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng warned that European politicians fan the flames with hateful rhetoric that “is legitimizing hatred, racism and violence. While extremists spread inflammatory language in mainstream political discourse under the guise of ‘populism,’ hate crimes and hate speech continue to rise. Hate crimes constitute one of the clearest early-warning signs for atrocity crimes.” At the UN in Geneva this May, Dieng—a Senegalese lawyer—said, “Big massacres start always with small actions and language.”
The UN report shows that the hatefulness around the African migrant is misplaced. The reasons for major flows of migration to Europe actually come from within Europe itself. Those leaving war zones—Syria and Afghanistan in West Asia, but also Eritrea and Libya—come in expected numbers as they flee bombs that are often produced inside Europe. These numbers are much higher than for those Africans who come to Europe for work.
In fact, more than 80 percent of African migrants stay on the continent. The proportion of African emigration out of the continent compared to Africa’s population “is one of the lowest in the world,” says the United Nations. Most of the migrants who go to Europe, according to European data, come by regular channels—with a visit to the embassy, an application for a visa, the granting of the visa, and then a flight into the country; irregular arrivals, many of whom might come by boat, are far fewer than those who come with a valid visa. It is racism that fails to acknowledge this reality.
Remittances
If you dig into the numbers from the UNDP report, you find that 58 percent of the African migrants in Europe were either employed at home or in school when they decided to leave; most of the migrants had jobs and earned competitive wages. What drove them is the insecurity in their countries, and the fact that they felt they could earn more elsewhere. More than half of the migrants had been supported financially by their families to make the journey, and 78 percent sent back money to their families.
World Bank statistics show that remittances to African countries are growing. In line with the global trend, sub-Saharan Africa received more foreign exchange from remittances than from foreign direct investment (FDI).
In 2018, according to the World Bank, remittances to sub-Saharan Africa totaled $46 billion—almost 10 percent more than in 2017. The countries that received high remittances were Comoros, Gambia, Lesotho, Cabo Verde, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Togo, Ghana, and Nigeria.
The total FDI flow into sub-Saharan Africa, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), was $32 billion, up by 13 percent from 2017, but a significant amount less than the remittance flows.
Migrants who send money home are more important than the corporations and banks that bring investment dollars into these countries. It’s too bad the bankers are treated better than the migrants.

African Debt Crisis 2.0
Africa is on the threshold of a major debt crisis.
The last debt crisis was in the 1980s, as part of the broader Third World debt crisis. In the decolonization period, Africa—looted of its wealth by colonialism—had to borrow money for development; these funds were large, but worse was the manipulation of dollar-denominated debt by the London Interbank Borrowing Rate (LIBOR) and by the U.S. Treasury’s interest rates. Skyrocketing debt in the 1980s produced a long period of austerity and suffering. That debt simply could not be paid as long as multinational corporations effectively stole Africa’s resources and refused to pay taxes on that drain of wealth. This was the reason why initiatives such as the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) were created by the World Bank and the IMF in 1996 and 2005, respectively. By 2017, these initiatives provided $99 billion to reduce Africa’s debts from a debt-to-GNI (Gross National Income) ratio of 119 percent to 45 percent.

No change in the structure was made—no assault on transfer mispricing and base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), mechanisms used by Western-based multinationals to continue their plunder of the African continent. When the 2014 commodity price shock came, many African countries slipped gradually toward a new debt crisis. The new debts are not all government debt, but they include very high proportions of private sector debt, which has tripled from $35 billion (2006) to $110 billion (2017) according to World Bank figures. Debt repayments have risen dramatically, which means that investments in health and education have declined, as has access to capital for small-scale private sector businesses.
Currently, according to World Bank numbers, half of the 54 states in Africa struggle with high debt-to-GDP (Gross Domestic Product)—with many of these over the 60 percent threshold that signals a crisis. The rate of increase of this debt has set off alarms across the continent.
What does this mean?
It means that if there is any financial crisis in the West, it will draw away financing from Africa, plunge the region into another major debt crisis, and set millions of people in search of better earning opportunities. Families and countries in Africa have come to rely upon these remittances. They are part of the structural fabric of finances.

Racism against the migrant is an enormous problem, and it must be tackled in itself.
But deeper than that is another problem that has grown as a result of no effective post-colonial policy—the structural problem of the ongoing theft of resources from Africa, and of the lack of financing for the continent to develop its own potential. Allowing multinational firms to steal African resources, and allowing foreign banks to lend to Africa at virtually usurious conditions, simply creates a cycle of crisis that results in migration and remittances as the band-aids.
Europe does not have a refugee or migration crisis. The real crisis is in Africa, where the thief—often a European firm—continues to undermine the continent’s ability to breathe.
Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than twenty books, including The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (The New Press, 2007), The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (Verso, 2013), The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution (University of California Press, 2016) and Red Star Over the Third World (LeftWord, 2017). He writes regularly for Frontline, the Hindu, Newsclick, AlterNet and BirGün.
This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.<div>
</div>As of August 2019, eight banks – JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, SunTrust, BNP Paribas, Fifth Third Bancorp, Barclays, and PNC – have publicly committed to ending their future financing relationships with the private prison industry, including CoreCivic and GEO Group. Together these eight banks represent an estimated $2.35 billion – or 87.4% – of the credit lines and term loans that are central to these companies’ operations. Notably, all of the banks that provide credit and term loans to GEO Group have committed to end their future financing relationships with the industry. These commitments are the result of ongoing campaigns from #FamiliesBelongTogether and #BackersOfHate to end Wall Street’s financing and profiting off of the private prison industry. This mass exodus of banks has had a cascading effect on the industry. <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/Gip-kVwrCnZWebSuOtxJUw2" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">Fitch Ratings</a>, one of the three premier credit rating agencies, recently downgraded CoreCivic from BB+ to BB. This downgrade will make it more difficult for CoreCivic to secure the plentiful, cheap credit and loans they have accessed in the past. Moreover, California’s $356 billion pension fund, <a href="https://www.ai-cio.com/news/california-state-controller-eyes-calpers-private-prison-divestment/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">CalPERS</a>, is now considering divesting from the industry due to “egregious activities” at the border and the increased riskiness as banks continue to flee. Finally, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/private-prison-companies-were-supposed-to-thrive-under-trump-instead-theyre-under-fire/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">CBS MoneyWatch</a> reported that stock values for CoreCivic (CXW) and GEO Group (GEO) have been cut in half since April 2017.Estimated Impact on CoreCivic and GEO Group’s Future FinancingAs shown in the chart below, these eight banks provide an estimated combined <a href="https://populardemocracy.org/news/publications/wall-street-banks-still-financing-private-prisons" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">$2.352 billion</a> of GEO and CoreCivic’s financing, or 87.4% of the total financing currently available to these private prison companies. Given the eight banks’ commitments to provide no new financing, GEO Group and CoreCivic will potentially face a $2.352 billion shortfall when the current agreements expire. <table class="wp-block-table" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-collapse: collapse; width: 718px; max-width: 100%; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><tbody style="box-sizing: border-box;"><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);"> </td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">GEO Group</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">CoreCivic</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">CoreCivic</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);"> </td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">Line of credit & term loan</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">Line of credit</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">Term loan</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">JPMorgan Chase</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$282,000,000</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$112,000,000</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$28,000,000</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">Bank of America</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$282,000,000</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$112,000,000</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$28,000,000</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">SunTrust</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$282,000,000</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$112,000,000</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$28,000,000</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">Wells Fargo</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$282,000,000</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);"> </td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);"> </td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">BNP Paribas</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$282,000,000</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);"> </td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);"> </td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">Barclays</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$282,000,000</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);"> </td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);"> </td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">PNC</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);"> </td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$112,000,000</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$28,000,000</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">Fifth Third Bancorp</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);"> </td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$80,000,000</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$20,000,000</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">Total</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$1,692,000,000</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$528,000,000</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$132,000,000</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">Grand Total</td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75rem; vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230);">$2,352,000,000</td></tr></tbody></table>Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings for GEO Group and CoreCivic While GEO Group reports its total credit line and loan debt, it does not make specific commitment amounts for each participating bank publicly available. The breakdown in this table is an estimate.As Real Estate Investment Trusts (<a href="http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/ITPI_BanksPrivatePrisonCom-%20panies_Nov2016.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">REITs</a>), CoreCivic and GEO Group are able to keep their income taxes low as long as they pass on much of their income to shareholders. This means that these companies depend heavily on short term borrowing through lines of credit and loans to keep their operations funded day-to-day. An 87.4% shortfall in the availability of that financing could therefore materially impact their ability to do business as usual. The Industry ResponseIndeed, these companies can no longer deny the writing on the wall. GEO Group’s <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/923796/000119312519138425/d651801d10q.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">March 2019 quarterly report</a> acknowledged the impact of these shifts:<blockquote class="wp-block-quote" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2em 15px; padding-left: 10px; border-left: 2px solid rgb(173, 181, 189); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Public resistance to the use of public-private partner- ships for correctional, detention and community-based facilities could result in our inability to obtain new contracts or the loss of existing contracts, impact our ability to obtain or refinance debt financing or enter into commercial arrangements, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.”</blockquote>In their August 2019 <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4282303-corecivic-inc-cxw-ceo-damon-hininger-q2-2019-results-earnings-call-transcript" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">Q2 investor call</a> CoreCivic’s CEO Damon Hininger derided the banks’ decisions to no longer finance his company:<blockquote class="wp-block-quote" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2em 15px; padding-left: 10px; border-left: 2px solid rgb(173, 181, 189); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Despite many of the banks claims of conducting a thorough review process, they clearly bow down to a small group of activists protesting and conducting targeted social media campaigns pushing false information rather than engage in a constructive dialogue about the facts… The most disappointing aspect of these politicized bank decisions, disingenuous activists efforts, and no solution proposals from politicians, is the people who they ultimately hurt. It hurts the American people because of poor policies are being discussed, made or awarded based on misinformation rather than an open and honest dialogue on the challenges at hand.”</blockquote>From GEO Group’s inclusion of public resistance in their SEC filing and the CoreCivic CEO’s tone on the investor call, it is clear that these companies are on the defensive and recognize the financial impact they are facing. AN norman solomaN 619...t an erstwhile Biden fundraiser, Tom McInerney, <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/06/29/after-face-off-with-kamala-harris-joe-biden-stresses-unity-in-bay-area-fundraising-trip/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">didn’t show up</a> at the Stanton poolside event, even though he was listed on the invitation. McInerney, who was a <a href="https://www.marinij.com/2019/06/29/joe-biden-loses-support-of-bay-area-fundraiser-after-segregation-comments-2/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">member</a> of Biden’s national finance committee, said he notified the Biden campaign on June 20 that he would no longer fundraise for it, citing the candidate’s recent fond comments about segregationist senators. (Actually, Biden had been <a href="https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/04/five-quotes-from-joe-bidens-eulogy-of-famed-republ.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">on the record</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/politics/kfile-joe-biden-stennis-latest/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">for many years</a> with such <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4790947/joe-biden-eulogy" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">warm reminiscences</a>. And in a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/11/politics/joe-biden-busing-letters-2020/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">report</a> first published on April 11, CNN had exposed Biden’s letters to racist senators in 1977 and 1978, seeking support for his legislation against school busing for desegregation.)<div class="p7_17" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Quoting McInerney as saying that “I would imagine I’m not alone,” CNBC reported on the day after Biden’s debate pratfall: “While McInerney is the first financier to publicly withdraw his support after Biden’s controversial round of comments, the loss is significant because it could be a harbinger of further defections.”<div class="p8_17" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Overall, market conditions have abruptly changed, in the midst of fierce competition for big-investor dollars.<div class="p9_17" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The New York Times did some candid reporting in mid-June under the headline “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/16/us/politics/2020-democratic-donors-wall-street.html?module=inline" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Wall Street Donors Are Swooning for Mayor Pete. (And They Like Biden and Harris, Too.)</a>” The story explained that “the behind-the-scenes competition for Wall Street money in the 2020 presidential race is reaching a fevered peak . . . as no less than nine Democrats are holding New York fund-raisers in a span of nine day.” And, “with millions of dollars on the line, top New York donors are already beginning to pick favorites, and three candidates are generating most of the buzz”—Biden, Harris and Buttigieg....<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/03/20/jpmorgan-chase-tops-banks-financing-fossil-fuels-climate-change">https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/03/20/jpmorgan-chase-tops-banks-financing-fossil-fuels-climate-change</a>A <a href="http://www.ran.org/bankingonclimatechange2019" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">report</a> published today names the banks that have played the biggest recent role in funding fossil fuel projects, finding that since 2016, immediately following the Paris Agreement's adoption, 33 global banks have poured $1.9 trillion into financing climate-changing projects worldwide.The top four banks that invested most heavily in fossil fuel projects are all based in the U.S., and include JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi, and Bank of America. Royal Bank of Canada, Barclays in Europe, Japan’s MUFG, TD Bank, Scotiabank, and Mizuho make up the remainder of the top 10.This report comes as March has already brought deadly weather to places such as the American Midwest, where historic flooding has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/03/19/more-historic-flooding-expected-midwest-pence-heads-nebraska-survey-devastation/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">left four dead</a> and farm losses <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/farmers-deadly-midwest-flooding-fremont-nebraska-2019-03-19/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">could reach</a> $1 billion, and Mozambique, where Tropical Cyclone Idai has devastated the East African country and President Filipe Nyusi <a href="https://weather.com/news/news/2019-03-19-tropical-cyclone-idai-mozambique-malawi-zimbabwe" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">estimated</a> that more than a thousand people are likely dead.Both disasters have been <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/midwest-flooding-perfect-storm-of-extreme-weather-climate-change-drove-deadly-flooding-in-nebraska-and-iowa/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">linked to</a> <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/cyclone-shows-climate-changes-deadly-impact-on-poor-urbanizing-nations-11553025619" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">climate change</a>. “Increased flooding is one of the clearest signals of a changing climate,” said 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben in a statement <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/deadly-flooding-midwest-nebraska-climate-impacts-ac8865fd6160/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">published</a> by ThinkProgress, adding that flooded Nebraska’s “current trauma is part of everyone’s future.”
“One inescapable finding of this report is that JPMorgan Chase is very clearly the world’s worst banker of climate change,” the report, titled “Banking on Climate Change,” found. “The race was not even close: the $196 billion the bank poured into fossil fuels between 2016 and 2018 is nearly a third higher than the second-worst bank, Wells Fargo.”A half-dozen environmental groups — Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Sierra Club, Oil Change International, Indigenous Environmental Network, and Honor the Earth — authored the 2019 report, which was endorsed by 160 organizations worldwide. It tracked the financing for 1,800 companies involved in extracting, transporting, burning, or storing fossil fuels or fossil-generated electricity and examined the roles played by banks worldwide.<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Global Snapshot of Fossil Fuel Sector Finance</h3>Past report cards by the groups have focused only on coal, or on “extreme” fossil fuel projects, like tar sands extraction, ultra-deepwater oil drilling, and coal mining, and power generation. 2019’s report card expands, for the first time, to cover the fossil fuel sector as a whole.<img alt="Total fossil fuel sector financing by bank in 2016, 2017, and 2018" src="https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/fossil-fuel-financing-banks-2016-18_chart.png" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: 584px; width: 810px;" />
Total fossil fuel financing, in billions of U.S. dollars, by bank and year, 2016-2018. Credit: <a href="https://www.ran.org/bankingonclimatechange2019/#data-panel" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Banking on Climate Change 2019 report</a>This year’s report card also dived deep into lending to shale oil and gas companies for the first time, finding that Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase “are the biggest bankers of fracking overall — and, in particular, they support key companies active in the Permian Basin, the epicenter of the climate-threatening global surge of oil and gas production.”JPMorgan Chase also provided the most financing to LNG projects, Arctic oil and gas projects, and ultra-deep-water oil and gas extraction, the report concluded. The Royal Bank of Canada topped the list on tar sands oil financing.“Coal mining finance is dominated by the four major Chinese banks, led by China Construction Bank and Bank of China,” the 2019 report found, adding that Bank of China provided the most financing to coal power projects as well.On March 19, China’s State Development & Investment Corp., listed as one of the report’s top coal power companies, <a href="https://www.afr.com/news/world/asia/china-state-investment-giant-drops-coal-20190318-p51597" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reportedly</a> confirmed that it would stop investing in thermal coal power plants three years ahead of schedule.“Since the Paris Agreement, JPMorgan Chase has provided $196 billion in finance for fossil fuels,” the groups wrote, “10 percent of all fossil fuel finance from the 33 major global banks.”A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson declined to comment.In 2017, JPMorgan Chase <a href="https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/Corporate-Responsibility/document/jpmc-cr-esg-report-2017.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">pledged</a> to “facilitate $200 billon in clean financing through 2025,” adding that it had helped finance $18 billion of wind, solar, and geothermal projects between 2003 and 2017.Barclays, which offered a total of $109 billion for fossil fuel projects, topped the 2019 report’s list of “worst in Europe,” followed by HSBC, with $77 billion in financing.<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">More Money for Fossil Fuels Since Paris Agreement</h3>All told, financial backing for fossil fuel projects has grown, not shrunk, each year since the Paris Agreement, the report found. Banks provided $612 billion for fossil projects in 2016, $646 billion in 2017, and $654 billion in 2018.That’s despite the fact that Article 2 of the Paris Agreement <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">calls</a> for “[m]aking finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development” — and in the run-up to Paris, major banks positioned themselves as supporting a strong global response to climate change.“Scientific research finds that an increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is warming the planet, posing significant risks to the prosperity and growth of the global economy,” JPMorgan Chase Bank, Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley wrote in <a href="https://www.greenbiz.com/article/six-largest-us-banks-call-strong-cop21-agreement-and-carbon-pricing" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a 2015 statement</a>. “As major financial institutions, working with clients and customers around the globe, we have the business opportunity to build a more sustainable, low-carbon economy and the ability to help manage and mitigate these climate-related risks.”In 2017, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/02/jpmorgan-ceo-dimon-disagrees-with-trumps-decision-to-withdraw-from-climate-deal.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told CNBC</a> that he opposed President Trump’s plan to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement.<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/43005015@N06/26459065919/" target="blank">
</a>[Guerrilla street painting against fossil fuel pipeline investment outside Wells Fargo World Headquarters in San Francisco, November 6, 2017. Credit: Peg Hunter,CC BY-NC 2.0]Activist pressure campaigns focused on individual banks have recently claimed successes. This week, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo both <a href="https://news.littlesis.org/2019/03/18/private-prison-stocks-reel-from-big-banks-decisions-to-stop-providing-financing/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">announced</a> plans to stop financing private prisons, which Moody’s Investment Services said in a comment “builds on the trend of negative publicity and uncertainty prevalent in the sector.”The past year has brought increasing awareness of climate-related risks in some financial circles — but banks headquartered in the U.S. and Canada have lagged behind.“According to a survey conducted by Boston Common Asset Management in 2018, European banks are far ahead of large banks in the U.S. and Canada in implementing climate-related risk assessments,” American Banker <a href="https://www.americanbanker.com/news/why-banks-should-stress-test-for-climate-change" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> in January. “Specifically, 80 percent of European banks surveyed are, in some way, stress-testing their loan and investment portfolios for a 2-degree-Celsius increase in global temperatures, versus just 44 percent of banks in North America.”A report issued last month by U.S.-based Morgan Stanley tallied $650 billion in climate-related disasters over the past three years — and predicted $54 trillion in damages worldwide by 2040, citing figures from the UN. “We expect the physical risks of climate change to become an increasingly important part of the investment debate for 2019,” the Morgan Stanley strategists <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/14/climate-disasters-cost-650-billion-over-3-years-morgan-stanley.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">wrote</a>.The Banking on Climate Change report finds that nonetheless, Morgan Stanley offered fossil fuel companies $19.48 billion in financing in 2018 (down from $23.7 billion the prior year), making it the world’s 11th largest financier of fossil fuel projects.“Alarming is an understatement,” said lead author Alison Kirsch, a Rainforest Action Network researcher. “This report is a red alert.”
<div></div><div>they're baaack</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/the-global-economy-is-a-time-bomb-waiting-to-explode/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/the-global-economy-is-a-time-bomb-waiting-to-explode/</a></div><div>
</div><div>In  the aftermath of the greatest financial calamity since the Great Depression, then–chief of staff for the Obama administration Rahm Emanuel made the call for aggressive action to prevent a recurrence of the meltdown of 2008.</div><div class="p1_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Although the U.S. government’s system of checks and balances typically produces incremental reform, Emanuel suggested that during times of financial upheaval, the traditional levers of powers are often scrambled, thereby creating unique conditions whereby legislators could be pushed in the direction of more radical reform. That’s why he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb-YuhFWCr4" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">suggested</a> that we should never let a crisis go to waste. Ironically, that might be the only pearl of wisdom we ever got from the soon-to-be ex-mayor of Chicago, one of those figures who otherwise embodied the worst Wall Street-centric instincts of the Democratic Party. But give Rahm props for this one useful insight.<div class="p2_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">But we did let the crisis of 2008 go to waste. Rather than reconstructing a new foundation out of the wreckage, we simply restored the status quo ante, and left the world’s elite financial engineers with a relatively free hand to create a wide range of new destructive financial instruments.<div class="p3_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">To cite some examples, consider the case of the UK, where England’s local councils have taken on significant risk via structural financial products known as “LOBO loans” (lender option borrower option). Financial blogger Rob Carver <a href="https://qoppac.blogspot.com/2014/03/lobos-next-banking-scandal.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">explains how they work</a>:</div></div></div></div><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?457500-1/bankers-bailouts-struggle-tame-wall-street">https://www.c-span.org/video/?457500-1/bankers-bailouts-struggle-tame-wall-street</a>2/19<h1 class="video-page-title" itemprop="name" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">Bankers, Bailouts, and the Struggle to Tame Wall Street</h1><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline;">Kathleen Day talked about her book, Bankers, Bailouts, and the Struggle to Tame Wall Street, in which she provides a history of the federal government’s oversight of the financial sector.</div>an cody f 119Despite his boasting about supposedly invigorating the economy, President Donald Trump has alienated many on Wall Street and in the financial industry with his erratic leadership,  his trade wars, and his opposition to immigration.<div class="p1_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">This leaves many on Wall Street clamoring for a strong Democratic challenger in 2020. But according to new reports published Monday morning, insiders are particularly terrified of two potential nominees: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Terrified, that is, that if either of them is elected, the financial industry might face serious regulation and oversight.<div class="p2_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="advertisement " style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">SPONSORED</div><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“She has this sort of applause line that we are all crooks, which is scary that you may hear that for a year and a half,” one anonymous bank executive told the Wall Street Journal of <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-warren-eyes-white-house-big-banks-brace-for-browbeating-11548671401?mod=e2tw" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Warren</a>.<div class="p3_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“It can’t be Warren and it can’t be Sanders,” another top executive at a large bank told Politico. “It has to be someone centrist and someone who can win.”<div class="p4_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Politico report said that Wall Street has a clear favorite: former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The billionaire has indicated his interest in running before, but it’s never been clear how he could gather the necessary coalition. And one banker acknowledged to Politico that Bloomberg seems unlikely to win.<div class="p5_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The feat sparked by Sanders and Warren is reasonable; they really would challenge Wall Street’s power and influence. Both see themselves as enemies to the entrenched financial interests in the country, criticizing banks and accumulated wealth. Sanders frequently bemoans the power of “millionaires and billionaires” in the United States — Warren just proposed a wealth tax on fortunes over $50 million. They also favor greater regulation of the financial industry.<div class="p6_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> What’s not reasonable, though, is the apparent belief in among some financial bigwigs that the Democratic Party presidential nominee ought to be up to them.<div class="p7_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“There is a lot of excitement about where the party is going, and we will all have friends running, and it’s hard to decide who to support,” said Robert Wolf, an <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/28/wall-street-2020-economy-taxes-1118065" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">investment banker</a>and former fundraiser for President Barack Obama, to Politico. “Our party likes the aspirational, exciting candidate, but we also have to find someone who can do well in the swing states.”<div class="p8_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">There’s no reason, of course, to think that a candidate that takes on financial interests would alienate swing states. Trump himself ran — falsely, as was clear then, but passionately — as a candidate who was supposedly against the influence of entities like Goldman Sachs. Opposing the financial industry is likely to be a big political winner for Democrats, and this fact, at least, shouldn’t hurt them at all in Trump country.<div class="p9_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Meanwhile, Richard Hunt, the president of Consumer Bankers Association, criticized Warren’s post-financial crisis politics to the Journal, saying, “The banking industry is a lot different than it was in 2008 … Most people know that but she still seems to be living in 2008-land.”<div class="p10_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">But while some of the problems of 2008 have been addressed, the power for the financial industry to run out of control and drive us back into recession remains, requiring strong oversight of the kind of Warren promises.<div class="p11_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Politico also mentions another candidate who, somewhat surprisingly, could make Wall Street nervous: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). As a senator from New York, she has natural ties to the financial industry, and she has already been criticized as supposedly being too friendly to Wall Street.<div class="p12_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">But the report notes that this characterization may be an exaggeration:<div class="p13_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">After CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/04/kirsten-gillibrand-reaches-out-to-wall-street-execs-about-potential-2020-run-for-president.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">reported</a> earlier this month on Gillibrand making calls to bankers to gauge potential support for a 2020 bid, the senator <a href="https://twitter.com/SenGillibrand/status/1081329011039424513" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">tweeted</a> a list of her progressive credentials on the banking industry including support for a financial transactions tax, reinstating a wall between retail and investment banking and opposing the bank bailouts of 2008.<div class="p14_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> <div class="p15_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">In several interviews, Wall Street executives cited these positions as reasons they were skeptical of Gillibrand as a candidate and unlikely to support her unless she catches fire and emerges from the field. “It will be an interesting test to see if people actually step up and support her,” one senior executive at a large bank said. “There is not a lot of trust there.”<div class="p16_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> <div class="p17_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">But Gillibrand does have Wall Street backers who view her as pragmatic, a centrist and preferable to Warren or Sanders.<div class="p18_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></div></div></div></div></blockquote>In the Democratic primary, closeness to Wall Street will almost certainly be seen as a liability rather than an asset for many voters. Contrary to the fantasies of some bankers, the devastation of the 2008 financial crisis — and the fact that so many of those who shared in the responsibility faced no real penalty — remain fresh in the minds of many voters. They’ll be happy to support someone who doesn’t care about alienating bank executives — and a candidate who strikes fear into the heart of Wall Street may even be more electable.<a href="https://www.alternet.org/wall-streets-corruption-runs-deeper-you-can-fathom">https://www.alternet.org/wall-streets-corruption-runs-deeper-you-can-fathom</a>[quite long]Of the myriad policy decisions that have brought us to our current precipice, from the signing of the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement&source=gmail&ust=1544213295564000&usg=AFQjCNFqHPGJFP7w-eFZxziKo0ZbDMWdyw" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)</a> to the invasion of Iraq and the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Your-Doesnt-Count/dp/1631493213/ref%3Dsr_1_1?s%3Dbooks%26ie%3DUTF8%26qid%3D1544059248%26sr%3D1-1%26keywords%3Dratfucked&source=gmail&ust=1544213295564000&usg=AFQjCNG51oiaKp5uZUQKWLEKL7jLMR7pWA" href="https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Your-Doesnt-Count/dp/1631493213/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1544059248&sr=1-1&keywords=ratfucked" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">gerrymandering</a> of House districts across the country, few have proven as consequential as the demise of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%25E2%2580%2593Steagall_legislation&source=gmail&ust=1544213295564000&usg=AFQjCNGPNaIifjwVVRnm-ChkJo2yWc0KgQ" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_legislation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Glass-Steagall</a>. Signed into law as the U.S.A. Banking Act of 1933, the legislation had been crucial to safeguarding the financial industry in the wake of the Great Depression. But with its repeal in 1999, the barriers separating commercial and investment banking collapsed, creating the preconditions for an economic crisis from whose shadow we have yet to emerge.Carmen Segarra might have predicted as much. As an employee at the Federal Reserve in 2011, three years after the dissolution of Lehman Brothers, she witnessed the results of this deregulation firsthand. In her new book, “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/Noncompliant-Whistleblower-Exposes-Giants-Street/dp/1568588453/ref%3Dsr_1_1?s%3Dbooks%26ie%3DUTF8%26qid%3D1544052340%26sr%3D1-1%26keywords%3Dnoncompliant&source=gmail&ust=1544213295564000&usg=AFQjCNEhFbqwuRhDLv99BcJu4nnl-D-yA" href="https://www.amazon.com/Noncompliant-Whistleblower-Exposes-Giants-Street/dp/1568588453/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1544052340&sr=1-1&keywords=noncompliant" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Noncompliant: A Lone Whistleblower Exposes the Giants of Wall Street,</a>” she chronicles the recklessness of institutions like Goldman Sachs and the stunning lengths the United States government went to to accommodate them, even as they authored one of the worst crashes in our nation’s history.“They didn’t want to hear what I had to say,” she tells Robert Scheer in the latest installment of “Scheer Intelligence.” “And so I think what we have in terms of this story is really not just a failure of the banks and the regulators, but also a failure of our prosecutors. I mean, a lot of the statutes that could be used—criminal statutes, even, that could be used to hold these executives accountable are not being used, and they have not expired; we could have prosecutors holding these people accountable.”Segarra also explains why she decided to blow the whistle on the Fed, and what she ultimately hopes to accomplish by telling her story. “I don’t like to let the bad guys win,” she says. “I’d rather go down swinging. So for me, I saw it as an opportunity to do my civic duty and rebuild my life. … I was very lucky to be blessed by so many people who I shared the story to, especially lawyers who were so concerned about what I was reporting, who thought that the Federal Reserve was above this, who thought that the government would not fail us after the financial crisis, and who were livid.”<interaction data-token="5b96855f8198b4e625350260" data-context="true" data-tags="" data-fallback="true" />“Noncompliant” explores one of the darkest chapters in modern American history, but with a crook and unabashed narcissist occupying the Oval Office, its lessons are proving remarkably timely. “We live in a culture where we reward bad behavior, we worship bad behavior, and it’s something that needs to stop,” she cautions. “Changing the regulatory culture on [a] U.S. governmental level is something that’s going to take a decade, maybe two. And we need to start now, before things get worse.”Listen to Segarra’s interview with Scheer or read a transcript of their conversation below:Robert Scheer:Hi, I’m Robert Scheer, and this is another edition of “Scheer Intelligence,” where the intelligence comes from my guests. Today, Carmen Segarra. She’s written a book, just came out, called “Noncompliant: A Lone Whistleblower Exposes the Giants of Wall Street.” And boy, did she ever. Perhaps you remember this case; it was in 2011, two, three years into the Great Recession. There was a lot of pressure from Congress that these banks be regulated in a more serious way. As a result, Carmen Segarra, someone of considerable education, was brought in. And she was assigned to do a survey of Goldman Sachs, to go over to Goldman Sachs. And I just want to preface this, people have to understand that not only is the Federal Reserve an incredibly—the most important economic institution in the United States, but the New York Federal Reserve plays a special role being in New York. And they are basically entrusted with regulating the banks, and they are the institution that most definitely failed in that task, and helped bring about the Great Recession. Would you agree with that assessment?Carmen Segarra:Yes, I would agree with that assessment. When I joined the Federal Reserve, as you pointed out, I was hired from outside the regulatory world, but within the legal and compliance banking world, to help fix its problems. And I was well aware of the problems that existed. And scoping the problems itself was relatively easy; I mean, within days of arriving, I had participated in meetings where you had Goldman Sachs executives, you know, lying, doublespeaking, and misrepresenting to regulatory agencies without fear of repercussions. And where I saw Federal Reserve regulators actively working to suppress and expunge from the record evidence of wrongdoing that could be used by regulatory agencies, prosecutors, and even the Federal Reserve itself to hold Goldman Sachs accountable. The question was, when I arrived, you know, are these problems fixable? And, spoiler alert: I don’t think so.RS:Well, your book really is a compelling read on, really, what one could consider the dark culture of finance capital. Most of us know very little about it; we think it’s boring, it’s detailed and so forth. And I was thinking of another woman observer of great education and experience, who first tipped me off as a journalist when I was trying to cover the stuff about banking deregulation and so forth, and when Clinton was president and they did the basic financial deregulation. A woman named Brooksley Born, who was head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and she had your kind of background, you know; a leading lawyer with the banks, and so forth. Understood this a lot better than most of the men who were powerful, including Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin; Lawrence Summers, who took over from him and went on to be the head of Harvard; Alan Greenspan–none of them really understood these collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps; she did. She blew the whistle on it, and they basically destroyed her. She was forced out of the Clinton administration, and what have you. Did you know about Brooksley Born’s work when you got into this? Do you have any sense? I mean, this was really sort of the first major whistleblower, and she was, as you have been, basically pushed aside.CS:Yes. I definitely knew about her. And you know, I have to say that I was, you know, just taking that historical perspective, which I think is an important point of view through which we should approach this topic. I mean, I remember when I was in law school, I was one of the very first graduating classes to graduate into a post-Glass-Steagall world. From a 50,000-foot level, I think people have a better understanding of what that means, in the sense, you know, you have all of a sudden the securities and the banking products can get together. But from a practical standpoint, from a ground-zero level, where I was at, that essentially meant two things. From a professional standpoint, we studied and were aware of the fact that there were a bunch of people on one side of the aisle, the investment products side–you know, the collateralized debt obligations that you mentioned. And then there were people who were on the banking side; we’re talking, you know, for purposes of argument, credit cards and debit cards. And that these people, they may have known about their products, but they were highly specialized; they only knew about the one or two things that they touched, and they certainly didn’t know about them and how they interacted together. And one of the things that I remember studying were not just the cases of whistleblowers, but also discussing amongst our classmates, you know, what the impact would be of all of a sudden having a class or a series of classes, graduating from law school, with people who are focusing on banking and compliance, like I was, and who are having to understand both of these products and sort of how they interact together. And what, sort of visualizing what our work life would be like, in terms of reporting to people that had an incomplete understanding of how the banking world worked. So, yes, I was definitely aware; I understood perfectly where she was coming from. And she was very much a cautionary tale for the rest of us who are lawyers. In terms of, if you find yourself in these difficult situations, you sort of game out what potentially can happen. And I certainly took it into consideration when I was gaming out whether or not to whistleblow.RS:Well, before you get to the whistleblowing stage, I think you’re being too kind to what I personally think are people who should be considered as, or at least charged and examined often with what is criminal behavior. Because ignorance is really not a good defense; when they were called before congressional committees, these knowledgeable people admitted they really didn’t understand collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps. And for people who are not that familiar, you mentioned Glass-Steagall. And what Glass-Steagall was, was one of the, really maybe the most important response of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s democratic administration to the Great Depression. And how did this terrible depression happen, how were the banks so irresponsible. And they decided the key thing was to separate investment banks from commercial bank; investment banks could be high-rollers, private money, you know what you’re doing, you have knowledge; and commercial banks where you’re basically protecting the assets of ordinary people, they’re not knowledgeable, they’re trusting your expertise. And eliminating Glass-Steagall eliminated this wall between the two kinds of banking. And the company that you went to observe, Goldman Sachs, was an investment bank. And by the working of that law, they should have been allowed to go belly-up when it turned out they had a lot of these dubious credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations. To people who don’t know, a credit default swap was a phony insurance policy pretending to cover these things, but really there’s nothing backing it up. And somehow, in order to save them, they were allowed to announce they could do commercial banking. One could argue, in some ways, the barrier was lifted to help–Citigroup was of course the other one–Citibank. And these are two banks that the government stepped in to help and create this monster. Is it not the case?CS:Yeah, that’s absolutely the case. But there’s a couple of things that we need to keep in mind. I mean, I think that we’re all sort of educated enough to know that, you know, where there’s a will, there’s a way. And so if a system can be corrupted, people that are allowed to grab hold of power will corrupt it–insofar and only for so long as we allow those people to have the ability and the power to corrupt it. So ultimately, talking about more or less rules, or different rules, is productive only to a point. Because ultimately what we’re talking about here is the haphazard, slap on the wrist, failure to truly enforce the rules and regulations equitably across the system. And that creates the imbalances that you see, for example, in Goldman Sachs, and that you see in the system in general. One of the things that happened as a result of Glass-Steagall coming down was that a lot of the investment bankers were allowed to take over the commercial banks. And those investment bankers knew nothing about banking, and Goldman is a great example of that. I mean, when I arrived three years in after the financial crisis, what was one of the things that was very shocking to me was going into meeting after meeting with Goldman senior management and hearing them lie, doublespeak, and most shockingly of all, insist that they didn’t have to comply with the law. And that is a problem. Because a bank that doesn’t believe, or management at a bank that doesn’t believe they have to comply with the law–you bet they are not supervising their employees correctly, and they’re not incentivizing employees correctly in terms of how to do their job. So their behavior is injecting enormous risk into the system.RS:Why should they think they should comply with the law when they got the law written and they could get it rewritten? I mean, after all, the treasury secretary, who pushed in the Clinton administration, right, to get rid of this restraint of Glass-Steagall and allow companies like Goldman Sachs to cross that line, was Robert Rubin. And he had been a top executive at Goldman Sachs. In fact, people used to refer to it as Government Sachs, that they had people all over the government, and it was a revolving door. And I want to point out that what you did, which was really unique–you had the guts to record these conversations. When you finally got to have your say before Congress, you could be backed up because you had the record. And tell us about that record. The conversations you recorded are absolutely chilling in describing an atmosphere of cynicism; you know, corruption; contempt, actually, for the political process and for restraint and regulation.CS:Yeah. And I would sort of add that part of what the book sort of points out is that I didn’t really get my say. I mean, Congress did hold a hearing, but they did not invite me to testify. They didn’t want to hear what I had to say. And so I think what we have in terms of this story is really not just a failure of the banks and the regulators, but also a failure of our prosecutors. I mean, a lot of the statutes that could be used–criminal statutes, even, that could be used to hold these executives accountable are not being used, and they have not expired; we could have prosecutors holding these people accountable. We could have trial lawyers filing cases and holding these people accountable. Yet we can’t count on them to do it; we can’t count on the judiciary to do anything about it. I mean, when you read about what happened in my case in the book, it’s tragic, you know? It’s unbelievable.RS:Tell us about that. Because you had a judge who was actually deep into this system who threw your case out....<div>=</div><div><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px;"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;">City of Angels Funds Some Hellish Fossil Fuel Projects</h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px;"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2616813329" data-authors="Friends of the Earth" data-headline="The City of Angels Funds Some Hellish Fossil Fuel Projects" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description">By Doug NorlenThis month the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a startling <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">report</a>, which finds that severe impacts of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" style="text-decoration-line: none;">climate change</a> are happening much sooner than previously expected, and that countries must take far more aggressive actions to avoid the most catastrophic impacts. The report finds that the burning of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" style="text-decoration-line: none;">fossil fuels</a> must be curbed sharply.The harmful role Wall Street banks play in propping up fossil projects around the world is increasingly known. Yet there is much less awareness of the role major cities play when they place billions of dollars of their public funds into these same Wall Street banks. According to L.A. city records, as of July 2018, Los Angeles had banking and/or investment relationships with several Wall Street banks, many of which are notorious for their financing of fossil fuel and human rights debacles around the world, including JP Morgan Chase, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.According to <a href="https://www.ran.org/bankingonclimatechange2018/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Banking on Climate Change</a>, a fossil fuel finance report card, between 2015 and 2017 these Wall Street banks collectively provided over $50 billion in financing for <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/tar-sands" style="text-decoration-line: none;">tar sands</a>, ultra-deep <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/offshore-oil-drilling" style="text-decoration-line: none;">water drilling</a>, coal mining, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" style="text-decoration-line: none;">coal</a> power and liquid natural gas projects around the world. These projects contribute vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and many of them have severe local environmental, social and human rights impacts as well.But in 2018, cities have more ethical options. Rather than investing the public's money in environmental and human destruction, cities can establish public banks. When properly structured and operated, public banks can prohibit the use of their funds for fossil fuel and other harmful projects. Instead, they can fund <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">renewable energy</a>and other green enterprises, affordable housing, education and low-cost loans to job-creating entrepreneurs—all while avoiding paying hundreds of millions of dollars in exorbitant fees to Wall Street banks.The movement to establish public banks is growing nationwide. California is at the forefront, with efforts to pass state-wide legislation allowing establishment of municipal banks as well as campaigns to establish public banks in San Francisco, Oakland and other East Bay cities, Los Angeles and other municipalities.When Los Angeles voters go to the polls next week, they will decide whether to approve Charter Amendment B, which amends the city's charter to enable it to take affirmative steps to establish a public bank. And Los Angeles is a great case study on the need for public banks. According to Public Bank L.A., the city maintains bank accounts with between $4 billion and $12 billion in cash, and manages up to $45 billion in investments through large commercial banks.The enormous sum of public funds that L.A. entrusts to fossil fuel banks undercuts the climate leadership of city officials. For example, this past August L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti joined a coalition of hundreds of mayors across the country to <a href="https://www.lamayor.org/mayor-garcetti-and-climate-mayors-representing-407-cities-denounce-trump-administrations-proposed" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">condemn</a> Donald Trump's plans to weaken vehicle efficiency standards and rescind California's waiver right to set stronger greenhouse gas regulations. In December 2016, Garcetti joined other mayors to <a href="https://www.lamayor.org/mayor-garcetti-leads-%25E2%2580%2598climate-mayors%25E2%2580%2599-oppose-us-withdrawal-paris-agreement" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">denounce</a> Trump's decision to walk away from the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Paris agreement</a>. The city council has shown progressive streaks on banking issues as well. In December 2017, the Council unanimously voted to enforce both federal and state Community Reinvestment Act ratings disqualifying Wells Fargo from submitting a Request for Proposal for the city's commercial banking services. And yet, the city still banks with Wells Fargo.If L.A. voters approve Charter Amendment B, the city will be one step closer to creating a municipal bank and redirecting its billions of dollars of public funds to environmentally sound, fiscally smart, sustainable community needs. In doing so, L.A. will serve as a beacon of progress to inspire the larger national movement to establish public banks.
For a sense of why Los Angeles so badly needs to approve Charter Amendment B, we've included descriptions of just a handful of the harmful projects Los Angeles is currently supporting by keeping its money in fossil fuel banks (based on publicly available information). Here is a sample of some of the projects that LA's banks support:Dakota Access Pipeline (United States):<ul class="ee-ul" style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px;"><li>Citi — $235 million in project finance</li><li>MUFG — $235 million in project finance</li><li>Wells Fargo — $120 million in project finance</li></ul>The <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/dakota-access-pipeline" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Dakota Access Pipeline</a>, or DAPL, extends over 1,000 miles across several U.S. states, damaging Native American ancestral lands and water. Passing within just a half-mile of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, the pipeline has destroyed sacred sites and threatens the tribe's drinking water with potential oil spills. Beginning in 2016, Native American water protectors, including Standing Rock Sioux tribal elders and members, led opposition to DAPL. Supported by thousands of allies, this grew into one of the largest and most iconic movements in the world to halt fossil fuel <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pipelines" style="text-decoration-line: none;">pipelines</a>. In response to peaceful, prayerful resistance, police from several states and agencies, members of the U.S. National Guard and armed private security forces used military equipment and tactics, including attack dogs, to intimidate, assault, arrest and otherwise commit grievous human rights abuses against water protectors and their allies. Opposition to the pipeline expanded far beyond the project site and supercharged the growing global movement against financial institutions that support fossil fuel projects.Atlantic Coast Pipeline (United States):<ul class="ee-ul" style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px;"><li>Bank of America — $673.5 million in corporate loans (13)</li><li>Citi — $673.5 million in corporate loans (14)</li><li>JP Morgan Chase — $648 million in corporate loans (15)</li><li>MUFG — $1.182 billion in corporate loans (16)</li><li>Wells Fargo — $673.5 million in corporate loans (17)</li></ul>The proposed 600-mile <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/atlantic-coast-pipeline" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Atlantic Coast Pipeline</a>, running from West Virginia through North Carolina, is the third longest gas pipeline in production or in some phase of development over the past 20 years in the U.S. Trees have been cleared along the pipeline route and infrastructure development has begun. Although two lawsuits against the pipeline are now pending in federal and North Carolina courts, federal law allows pipelines to be constructed prior to the resolution of all litigation. The ACP was the only oil or gas pipeline to be on Donald Trump's list of 50 Priority National Security Projects prior to his election.According to published reports, the central purpose of the ACP is to enter South Carolina and eventually reach Elba Island, Georgia where gas will be exported from a liquid natural gas facility now under construction. This recognition raises serious concerns regarding the use of eminent domain to take privately owned property for private gain instead of public use.The ACP threatens the livelihood of more than 30,000 indigenous peoples that live along the pipeline route. In May 2018, an alliance of community, statewide and national groups filed a complaint to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EPA</a>) Civil Rights Compliance Office, alleging that the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality discriminated on the basis of race and color in issuing permits and certifications to the ACP as part of the permitting process. In September 2018, environmental groups filed legal challenges in an appeals court against federal permitting agencies.
Kusile Power Station (South Africa):<ul class="ee-ul" style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px;"><li>Bank of America — financial advisor</li><li>JP Morgan Chase — financial advisor</li><li>MUFG — part of 705 million euro corporate loan to South Africa's state power company, Eskom, to purchase boilers from Hitachi Power Europe for the Kusile coal power plant</li></ul>Once completed, the 4,800-megawatt Kusile coal plant in South Africa will be one of the largest coal plants in the world. The estimated annual greenhouse gas equivalent emissions of the plant—30 million tons—would increase South African energy sector emissions by 12.8 percent and the country's total contribution to climate change by 9.7 percent. South Africa already has the distinction of being among the top global greenhouse gas emitters per capita. The Kusile project area already exceeds permitted ambient levels of hazardous <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution" style="text-decoration-line: none;">air pollutants</a> that create soot and smog, which cause harm to respiratory, cardiovascular and nervous systems, leading to heart disease, cancer, stroke and chronic lower respiratory diseases, according to Physicians for Social Responsibility. If completed, Kusile will increase the cost of electricity for the poor and household consumers to compensate for Apartheid-era "special pricing agreements" that give large industrial users, which consume most of South Africa's electricity, guaranteed rates that are among the lowest in the world. The cost of Kusile, which in 2007 was estimated by Eskom to be 80 billion rand, had more than doubled to 172 billion rand by 2016. It is "expected to further strain Eskom's financial resources, and place upward pressure on Eskom's electricity price trajectory in the years ahead." In 2015 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Hitachi with violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with contracts to build Kusile and Medupi (another enormous coal plant in South Africa), resulting in a $19 million settlement.Long Phu-1 Coal Plant (Vietnam):<ul class="ee-ul" style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px;"><li>MUFG and JP Morgan Chase — among the lead financial arrangers, with potential combined $650 million in finance</li></ul>Long Phu-1 in Vietnam would emit an estimated 6.3 million tonnes of CO2 per year. As a "supercritical" coal power plant, Long Phu-1 is prohibited from being financed by most official government export credit agencies (ECA), including the U.S. Export-Import Bank. However, the former director of the EPA's Air Enforcement Division, Bruce Buckheit, revealed that the project consulting firm Environmental Resources Management doctored the coal plant's greenhouse gas emissions estimates to make Long Phu-1 appear to be a more efficient "ultra-supercritical" plant, which would be allowed under ECA coal financing restrictions. Analysis of Long Phu-1 by Friends of the Earth U.S. reveals that the project violates other international policies, including requirements to analyze alternatives, identify cumulative and associated risks and impacts, evaluate labor and working conditions, prevent pollution, protect community health, provide safety and security, and ensure biodiversity conservation. In February 2018, the New York Times reported that U.S. Export-Import Bank financing for Long Phu-1 had collapsed after it was revealed that project financiers included Vnesheconombank, a Russian bank that is on the U.S. government's sanctions list and is part of a federal investigation into possible collusion between the Russian government and the Trump presidential campaign. It was also reported that a top Long Phu-1 project official had been sentenced to prison for corruption. MUFG and JP Morgan Chase, like the U.S. Export-Import Bank, must also comply with U.S. sanctions. However, it remains unclear whether these banks continue to be potential financiers of Long Phu-1.</div></div></div><div></div>nomi prins 12/17 AN
https://www.alternet.org/economy/next-financial-crisis-will-be-worse-last-one...On the flip side of that euphoria however, is the fact that the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy/u-s-job-growth-picks-up-flat-wages-raise-consumer-spending-worries-idUSKBN1D308L" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">median wage</a> rose just 2.4 percent and has remained effectively stagnant relative to inflation. And although the unemployment rate fell to a 17-year low of 4.1 percent, the labor force participation rate dropped to 62.7 percent, its lowest level in nearly four decades—particularly difficult for new entrants to the workforce, such as students graduating under a $1.3 trillion pile of unrepayable or very challenging <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/student-loan-bubble-investment-is-private-abs-goldman-2017-12" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">student loan debt</a>. (Not to worry though: Goldman Sachs is on that, promoting a way to profit from this debt by stuffing it into other assets and selling those off to investors, a la shades of the subprime mortgage crisis.)Those of us living in the actual world without billionaire family pedigrees possess a healthy dose of skepticism over the “Make America Great Again” sect that believes Trump has transformed America “hugely,” for record-setting markets don’t imply economic stability, nor do 40 percent corporate tax cuts translate into 40 percent wage growth. We can march forward into 2018 carrying that knowledge with us.But first, a recap. For the U.S. financial system, 2017 was marked by five main themes: The GOP’s “You All Just Got a Lot Richer” Corporate Tax Reduction Plan; Big Banks Still Bad; The Fed’s Minor Policy Shift; Debt; and Deregulators Appointed to Positions of Regulatory Authority.Banks Are Still Big and BadThe Big Six banks have paid billions of dollars in settlements for a variety of frauds committed before and since the 2007-2008 financial crisis, but that didn’t keep them from tallying up new fines in 2017. The nation’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, agreed to <a href="https://www.corp-research.org/jpmorganchase" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">pay $53 million in fines</a> for scamming African-American and Latino mortgage borrowers with disproportionately higher rates than for white borrowers. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau <a href="https://www.corp-research.org/citigroup" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">fined Citigroup $28.8 million</a> for not disclosing foreclosure-avoiding actions. Bank of America <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/03/28/judge-fines-bank-america-45-million-for-heartless-treatment-mortgage-borrowers.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">got fined $45 million</a> for its foul treatment of a California couple trying to save their home.But the Big Six bank that received the most attention in 2017, as it did in 2016, was <a href="https://financialadvisoriq.com/search/search/advanced?referrer_module=companyTag&q=%22Wells+Fargo%22" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Wells Fargo</a>. The number of people affected by its fake-account creation scandal grew from 2 million reported in 2016 to about 3.5 million. That increase resulted in Wells Fargo expanding its associated <a href="https://financialadvisoriq.com/c/1824523/211663" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">class-action settlement</a> to $142 million.Wells Fargo was mired in smaller scandals, too. For instance, it charged 800,000 customers for auto insurance they didn’t need, raised mortgage rates for certain customers without properly disclosing it was going to, and made a bunch of unauthorized adjustments to people’s mortgages.No Glass-Steagall Reinstatement, More DeregulationThe idea of reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 featured in both the Democratic and the Republican National Committees’ platforms during the campaign season. But Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, made it clear multiple times there would be no such push from the administration, arguing against doing so before senators including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.To emphasize his disdain for regulation and oversight, Mnuchin also pushed the Financial Stability Oversight Council, over which he presides, to vote 6 to 3 to rescind American International Group’s designation as posing a potential threat to the U.S. financial system. Thus, AIG will no longer be <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-bc-us--aig-systemic-risk-20170929-story.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">paying penance for its role</a> at the epicenter of the last financial crisis by filing regular risk reports anymore. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen also supported the move....<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/banks-tar-sands-paris-agreement-2505848938.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/banks-tar-sands-paris-agreement-2505848938.html</a>At the start of next week, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the U.N.'s negotiating body on <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">climate change</a>, will meet in Germany to discuss next steps after the historic agreement by 195 countries to curb global climate change to 1.5° Celsius, or 2° at most—an agreement whose <a href="http://priceofoil.org/2016/09/22/the-skys-limit-report/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">only logical conclusion</a> is that the world cannot afford expansion of the fossil fuel industry.Various players in the financial industry have talked a big game on their commitments to the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Paris agreement</a>. But their business practices prove otherwise.According to the new report <a href="https://www.ran.org/fundingtarsands" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Funding Tar Sands: Private Banks vs. the Paris Climate Agreement</a>, in the first three quarters of 2017, major international banks have financed the extraction and transportation of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/tar-sands" style="text-decoration-line: none;">tar sands</a> at levels one and a half times higher than in the whole of 2016.How can it be that in the last nine months, $32 billion has gone to an extreme fossil fuel whose development is flatly incompatible with meeting the goals of the Paris agreement?Moreover, banks continue to stand behind their clients whose proposed tar sands projects, from Teck Resources' Frontier open-pit mine, to Enbridge's Line 3 pipeline, would further damn our climate and infringe upon indigenous rights.When President <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Trump</a> announced he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement, he drew a line: the Paris agreement's goal of limiting climate change to 1.5°C on one side, and his administration on the other.On what side of the line do banks fall? Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said, "I <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/02/jpmorgan-ceo-dimon-disagrees-with-trumps-decision-to-withdraw-from-climate-deal.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">absolutely disagree</a> with the administration on this issue." And yet, JPMorgan Chase has increased its financing for tar sands this year, banking on major companies as they acquire new tar sands assets. Meanwhile, the bank's policy grade comes in at a disappointing D+. JPMorgan Chase's actions declare its support not for the Paris agreement and the world's desperate need to stymie climate change, but rather for the Trump administration's pro-fossil fuel agenda.Financial institutions have shown that they are able to make significant steps toward aligning their businesses with the goals of the Paris agreement. Three weeks ago, BNP Paribas published a new policy restricting its financing for tar sands oil, among other extreme fossil fuels, in a move that the Wall Street Journal called "<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/bnp-paribas-to-stop-financing-shale-oil-sands-projects-1507730419" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">one of the clearest signs</a> yet the banking industry is re-evaluating its relationship with the oil sector."It's a relationship that direly needs reevaluation. Banks can't keep funding business as usual expansion of fossil fuels, especially when it comes to the carbon bomb that is the tar sands.Like it or not, we can't meet the goals of the Paris agreement without the financial industry on board, especially as governments like Trump's loosen the reins on the fossil fuel industry. Banks must take the immediate step of exiting the tar sands sector. Independent of governments, these major multinational institutions must say they're on board with the Paris agreement—and then prove it.=big win gop:  pence tie break<a id="ORGOV0000134" title="U.S. Senate" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/u.s.-senate-ORGOV0000134-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Senate</a> voted Tuesday night to kill a controversial rule that would have allowed Americans to file class-action suits against banks instead of being forced in many cases into private arbitration.The move by the Senate followed a similar action by the House in July to rescind the rule. <a id="PEBSL000163" title="Donald Trump" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/donald-trump-PEBSL000163-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">President Trump</a> is expected to sign the repeal legislation, providing a major victory for the financial industry.Vice President <a id="PEPLT005131" title="Mike Pence" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/mike-pence-PEPLT005131-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Mike Pence</a> cast the deciding vote after the Senate tied 50-50. All but two <a id="ORGOV0000004" title="Republican Party" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/republican-party-ORGOV0000004-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Republicans</a> — John Kennedy of Louisiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — voted to repeal the rule. No <a id="ORGOV0000005" title="Democratic Party" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/democratic-party-ORGOV0000005-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Democrats</a> or independents supported the move.The White House said Trump “applauds” Congress for voting to repeal the rule, which would have given consumers “fewer options for quickly and efficiently resolving financial disputes.”The rule was <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cfpb-arbitration-20170710-story.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">unveiled</a> in July by the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/business/u.s.-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-ORGOV00000233-topic.html" id="ORGOV00000233" title="U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Consumer Financial Protection Bureau</a> and praised by Democrats and consumer advocates as giving average people more power to fight industry abuses, such as <a id="ORCRP016609" title="Wells Fargo" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/business/financial-business-services/wells-fargo-ORCRP016609-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Wells Fargo</a> & Co.’s creation of millions of unauthorized accounts.But banking lobbyists argued that the rule would unleash a flood of class-action lawsuits, and that the cost of fighting those suits would be passed on to consumers. Republicans quickly moved to repeal the regulation.“The entire purpose of this rule is to promote class-action litigation and stop arbitration resolution when there is a dispute,” said Sen. <a id="PEPLT001375" title="Mike Crapo" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/mike-crapo-PEPLT001375-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Mike Crapo</a> (R-Idaho).The U.S. Chamber of Commerce praised the repeal vote, saying the rule “would have benefited the class-action trial bar at the expense of American consumers and businesses alike.”Set to take effect in March, the rule would not have banned clauses in checking account, credit card and other banking agreements that say disputes between companies and customers must be dealt with privately or in small claims court.Instead, there would have been a ban on provisions that block consumers from banding together to bring class-action cases. The CFPB argued that such cases help hold banks accountable.The determinations of an arbitrator are binding and consumer advocates say most decisions favor the company. The private proceedings also allow banks to deal with individual problems quietly rather than address widespread abuses.Bureau Director <a id="PEPLT00008731" title="Richard Cordray" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/richard-cordray-PEPLT00008731-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Richard Cordray</a> called the Senate vote “a giant setback for every consumer in this country” and urged Trump to veto the repeal legislation.“It robs consumers of their most effective legal tool against corporate wrongdoing,” Cordray said. “As a result, companies like Wells Fargo and <a id="ORCRP005319" title="Equifax" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/business/equifax-ORCRP005319-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Equifax</a> remain free to break the law without fear of legal blowback from their customers.”...----<h4 class="yiv5054792590null" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 20px; outline: none;"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=b3abf2cc86&e=06876ede6b" style="line-height: 1.2em; outline: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-weight: normal;">Bank of England Warns of Huge Financial Risk from Fossil Fuel Investments</a> (Guardian)</h4>3/15http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BB%26T
 <a href="http://www.propublica.org/thetrade/item/the-big-bank-backlash-begins">http://www.propublica.org/thetrade/item/the-big-bank-backlash-begins</a>...Last week, I visited an alternate universe. The real world sees a pandemic of bank misconduct, but to the white-collar defense lawyers of Washington, the banks are the victims as they bow beneath the weight of regulators' remarkably harsh punishments.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.4; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">I was attending the <a href="http://www.securitiesenforcement.com/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; background: transparent;">Securities Enforcement Forum</a>, a gathering of top regulators and white-collar defense worthies. The marquee section was a panel that included Andrew Ceresney, the current S.E.C. enforcement director, and five of his predecessors. Four of those former S.E.C. officials represent corporations at prominent white-collar law firms: Robert S. Khuzami, President Obama's first enforcement director who now plies his trade at Kirkland & Ellis; Linda Chatman Thomsen, who served at the George W. Bush-era S.E.C. and now works for Davis Polk & Wardwell; William R. McLucas, the longest-serving agency enforcement director who is now at WilmerHale; and George S. Canellos, who just left the Obama S.E.C. to work for Milbank Tweed. (The well-known Stanley Sporkin, who served in the agency in the 1970s, rounded the panel out.)...hightower Who loves Wall Street banksters? Okay, presumably their mommas do. Also the Republican leadership loves them, as do the fawning Democratic tandem of Tim Geithner and Sen. Chuck Schumer.But that's it. The general public (from red-faced tea partiers to Green party activists) loathes these irredeemable paragons of selfishness. Wall Street greedsters crashed our economy, sopped up some $13 trillion in public bailout funds, immediately went back to their old destructive games of casino speculation, and rewarded themselves this year with billions of dollars in bonuses--while workers, Main Street businesses, homeowners, and the middle class continue to sink. What's to love? Most Americans would cheer themselves hoarse to see those who caused this economic mayhem tarred and feathered (or at least fired), and to see Wall Street's financial fiefdoms broken up, decentralized, and tightly regulated. These bankers should be treated as pariahs in Washington, and sweeping financial reform should have been the easiest and quickest task on Congress's to-do list.But no. Two years have passed since Wall Street's house of cards started falling, beginning with the ominous collapse of Bear Stearns in March 2008, yet only now are the feeblest of reforms plopping out of the legislative grinder. Far from pariahs, the CEOs and lobbyists for Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, et al. are still being glad-handed and back-slapped by beaming officials of both parties. A diamond-level example: Jamie Dimon, honcho of JPMorgan, is a top contributor to Obama, consults regularly with him, counts Geithner as a close personal friend, is being wined and dined by GOP House leader John Boehner for campaign funds, and is likely to be named the next Treasury secretary by Obama. Why this hugfest for such an unworthy group? Money. No other interest group tops the finance sector in laying out cash for lobbying and campaign donations. In the last 10 years, this industry spent $4 billion on lobbyists! Consequently, in this same period, Wall Street won deregulation fights that allowed the big banks to shift from providing financial services for America to creating credit-default swaps, subprime-loan derivatives, and other gambling exotica that enriched global speculators and the bankers themselves. After the 2008 crash and bailout, Wall Street expanded its lobbying army in 2009 in a prodigious effort to fend off regulation, restructuring, and consumer-protection proposals. Of the 11,000 corporate lobbyists presently in Washington, about 3,000 are toiling for the Street. Here's a snapshot of the 2009 lobbying presence of just three of the financial fiefdoms, as compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics (<a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby">www.opensecrets.org/lobby</a>): GOLDMAN SACHS: Had 5 in-house lobbyists. Hired 14 K-Street firms to provide 44 other lobbyists, including former Reps. Dick Gephardt and Harold Ford. Spent $2,830,000. JPMORGAN CHASE: Had 10 in-house lobbyists. Hired 10 K-Street firms to provide 26 other lobbyists. Spent $6,170,000. CITIGROUP: Had 9 in-house lobbyists, including Nicholas Calio, the former head of legislative affairs for both George H.W. Bush and George W. Hired 10 K-Street firms to provide 60 other lobbyists. Spent $5,560,000. According to official lobbying reports, the legislative reforms that these three gangs of hired guns were dispatched to kill (or severely wound) included the Anti-Predatory Lending Act, Assistance For Unemployed Workers and Struggling Families Act, Cap Executive Officer Pay Act, Compensation Fairness Act, Comprehensive Derivatives Regulations Act, Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act, Consumer Overdraft Protection Fair Practice Act, Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act, Credit Card Fair Fee Act, Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights, Derivatives Market Transparency and Accountability Act, Derivatives Trading Integrity Act, FAIR Overdraft Coverage Act, GREED Act, Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, Homeowner Protection and Wall Street Accountability Act, Mortgage Reform Act, Overdraft Protection Act, Ownership Through Counseling Act, Shareholder Bill of Rights, Shareholder Empowerment Act, Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, Student Credit Card Protection Act, TARP Reform and Accountability Act, Transparency In Rating Agencies Act, and Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.In short, the bankers opposed anything that would keep them from doing everything they had been doing. Last April, Sen. Dick Durbin was stunned to see his Helping Families Save Their Homes Act defeated by a stealth lobbying campaign led by Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo. Disgusted, Durbin declared, "The banks--hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created--are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." A year later, Durbin's assessment has been confirmed by the milquetoast Wall Street reform bill that recently limped out of the Senate Banking Committee. Written by Sen. Chris Dodd (whose top career funder, by far, just happens to be the finance sector--including hundreds of thousands of dollars each from Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and other Wall Street powers), the bill rearranges a number of regulatory chairs, subjects some of the riskier casino games to federal monitoring, and helps restrict (but not eliminate) the "too big to fail" syndrome that leads to massive taxpayer bailouts. However, consumer advocates and populist reformers are frowning and bank lobbyists are smiling and winking, for the regulatory changes will be about as effective as a Jello doorstop when it comes to ending Wall Street's ability to abuse the public trust and serve its own enrichment at the expense of our country's real economy. Hoping to win support from a few Republican senators and to mitigate banker opposition, Dodd simply gave up too much. From the start, he refused even to consider proposals to restructure and decentralize America's financial system--thus wasting a once-in-a-lifetime, historic opportunity for fundamental change.Instead, Dodd's bill, now embraced by the White House, gives us a patchwork of new regu-lations (which bank lobbyists will soon turn into Swiss cheese, riddled with loopholes). And, in a fatal concession to Wall Street lobbyists, he places most of the regulatory authority in the gentle grasp of the most banker-friendly agency of all, the Federal Reserve. Even the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency is to be in the Fed, which is akin to moving the hen house into the foxes' den.However, nothing exemplifies the meekness of this bill more than its gesture toward restricting the obscene pay levels that the Princes of Wall Street bestow on themselves. This self-aggrandizement is especially offensive to workaday Americans, and Obama himself made a lot of noise against it. So, what does the bill actually do to stop it? A provision allows shareholders to vote on executive pay. That could be effective--except that these are to be non-binding votes! CEOs can simply ignore them, just as they routinely ignore other shareholder opinions.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>