Travis Waldron - Former JPMorgan Banker: Exploiting Consumers Is ‘The Purpose Of The Banking Organization’

By Travis Waldron, ThinkProgress

Posted on November 18, 2011, Printed on November 19, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153129/former_jpmorgan_banker%3A_exploiting_consumers_is_%E2%80%98the_purpose_of_the_banking_organization%E2%80%99

 Wall Street banks, largely spared from the economic ruin felt by millions of Americans since the financial crisis of 2008, have returned to profitability, generating higher profits in the two-and-a-half years since the crisis than they did in nearly eight years preceding it. But that hasn’t stopped them from seeking new ways to generate revenue — like Bank of America’s proposed $5-a-month debit card fee or the millions banks have made from charging consumers to receive unemployment benefits or food stamps.

If all this makes Americans feel like Wall Street banks only view them as money-making tools, well, that’s because the banks apparently do. According to David Mooney, a former JPMorgan Chase employee, Wall Street banks see consumers as an “income stream” to exploit for profit-making purposes, Reuters reports:

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Sherwood Ross - Ten Million American Families Sliding Towards Foreclosure

By Sherwood Ross

Global Research, November 8, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27530

Of the 55-million families with mortgages, 10.4-million of them “are sliding toward failure and foreclosure”---a tragedy that will depress the U.S. housing market for years to come, a result of too many houses for sale and too few buyers.

That’s the blunt conclusion of distinguished economics journalist William Greider, to be published in an article in the November 14th issue of The Nation magazine.

America’s “Economic recovery will have to wait until that surplus (excess houses) is gone, because the housing sector has always led the way out of recession,” Greider says. “The more housing supply exceeds demand, the more prices fall. The more prices fall, the more families get sucked into the deep muddy. The vicious cycle is known in the industry as the death spiral. So far, there’s no end in sight.”

Greider says the solution is to forgive the debtors: “Write down the principal they owe on their mortgage to match the current market value of their home, so they will no longer be underwater. Refinance the loan with a reduced interest rate, so the monthly payment is at a level that the struggling homeowner can handle.”

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Robert Reich - Why We Shouldn't Be Selling The Right To Live In America

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-We-Shouldn-t-Be-Sellin-by-Robert-Reich-111024-82.html

October 24, 2011

By Robert Reich

America is having a fire sale. Why not sell wealthy foreigners the right to live here, too?

That's the notion behind a bill introduced last week by Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Democrat Senator Charles Schumer of New York: Stoke demand for American homes by allowing foreign nationals to buy them. In return, give foreigners the right to live here (although not work here).

The price? At least $500,000 cash. It could be one piece of real estate costing $500,000 or more, or several, of one would have to be worth at least $250,000.

Presumably, this would help homeowners by boosting demand. "This is a way to create more demand without costing the federal government a nickel," Schumer told the Wall Street Journal.

And it would help the Street. Rather than have the big banks carry all those non-performing mortgage loans on their books or be forced to write them down, we'll just goose the housing market by selling off the right to live in America.

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Jim Hightower - Wall Street is Dazed and Confused

by: Jim Hightower, Truthout | Op-Ed

http://www.truth-out.org/wall-street-dazed-and-confused/1319028757

Astonishingly, some Wall Streeters continue to be clueless about what the Occupy Wall Street movement is protesting. Yoo-hoo, Streeters: Note that the movement's name has the term "Wall Street" in it.

While there is a plethora of particular issues being raised by the protesters -- from the corrupting power of corporate money in our elections to the demise of middle-class wages -- the unifying theme is that each one adds to the rising tide of economic inequality that's enriching the most privileged few by knocking down America's workaday majority. And, Mr. and Ms. Streeter, guess who is the most powerful perpetrators of this greed-fueled disparity: Yes, you.

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"Mike Whitney"- Europe's "Troubled Assets" Bank Bailout, Germany's Chancellor Merkel Pushes for a Eurozone "Banktatorship"

Global Research, September 5, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26397

The Bundestag will have one chance to stop Angela Merkel's plan to provide hundreds of billions of dollars to underwater EU banks that made bad bets on sovereign bonds. If the German parliament fails to block Merkel on September 23,  then--under the "expanded powers" of the European Financial Security Facility (EFSF)-- insolvent banks will be bailed out and the costs will be passed on to eurozone taxpayers.  
 
Despite her populist bloviating ("We won't be bullied by the markets"), Merkel is a devout Europhile committed to a fiscal union ruled by bankers and bondholders, a Banktatorship. Presently, she is doing whatever she can to hurry the process along before hostile bond vigilantes roil the markets and bring the EU banking system crashing down. This is from Der Spiegel: 
 
 "In a situation of market panic, the EFSF has to act quickly," Holger Schmieding, chief economist of Berenberg Bank, told the Financial Times Deutschland. "It could happen overnight or on a weekend." Guntram Wolff of the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel agreed. Parliamentary approval "must not take too long." ("Parliamentary Influence over Euro Bailouts 'Naive'", Der Spiegel)

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" Sarah Jaffe" - 92% of Foreclosures in New York Lack Proper Documents -- Banks Booting People Without Proof?

By Sarah Jaffe, AlterNet
Posted on August 15, 2011, Printed on August 16, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152030/92_of_foreclosures_in_new_york_lack_proper_documents_--_banks_booting_people_without_proof

Ninety-two percent.

That's how many of the foreclosures on bankrupt families in and around New York City had no proof the creditors had the right to foreclose.

In a three-month investigation, the New York Post—a tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch and usually better known for its salacious headlines than its investigative journalism—found that in nearly all of the foreclosure proceedings, “banks have attempted to steamroll their way over sometimes-outgunned homeowners,” booting them out of their homes even if they didn't have proper documentation that gave them the right to do so.

The Post went through more than 150 Chapter 13 bankruptcy filings from June of last year, pulled a random sample, and:

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Joseph Stiglitz: Foreclosures and Banks' Debt to Society

The mortgage debacle in the United States has raised deep questions about "the rule of law", the universally accepted hallmark of an advanced, civilized society. The rule of law is supposed to protect the weak against the strong, and ensure that everyone is treated fairly. In America, in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis, it has done neither.

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Ted Rall: Too Pig to Jail? Ban Foreclosures Now

SAN FRANCISCO--What would happen to you if you got caught forging a mortgage application? You'd go to jail. And rightly so.

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