It's interesting once again to watch as this so called new 'Gang of 6' have come forward (much like the Cat Food Commission) to talk about so called shared sacrifice, going after the most vulnerable and helpless in our society, (meanwhile, all tip toeing around the great Big 800 pound turd in the room - the real cause of our economic destruction: Wall St./the Banks). I suppose what actually astounds me is that somehow these so called public servants, this so called bi-partisan group, are supposedly somehow making the tough necessary decisions for the American people, when the truth is so transparent it's enough to give you a case of the bad dry heaves. At least that is how it feels to me.
Regardless of the fact, that the American people have already paid the greatest price, since the Great Heist of 2008, we are being held hostage (again) to keep on paying, and paying and paying and paying. You are hereby held on notice from the Gang of 6: Beatings will continue until morale improves.
One of my favorite people is Chris Hedges, and I don't know if you caught his latest from his speech that he gave recently in front of a Bank of America, but it made me break down and cry, as his voice in the wilderness during these dark, dark times in our nation spoke to my heart, and I wanted to throw a few quotes out from that remarkable speech:
We stand today before the gates of one of our temples of finance. It is a temple where greed and profit are the highest good, where self-worth is determined by the ability to amass wealth and power at the expense of others, where laws are manipulated, rewritten and broken, where the endless treadmill of consumption defines human progress, where fraud and crimes are the tools of business. The two most destructive forces of human nature—greed and envy—drive the financiers, the bankers, the corporate mandarins and the leaders of our two major political parties, all of whom profit from this system. They place themselves at the center of creation. They disdain or ignore the cries of those below them. They take from us our rights, our dignity and thwart our capacity for resistance. They seek to make us prisoners in our own land. They view human beings and the natural world as mere commodities to exploit until exhaustion or collapse. Human suffering, wars, climate change, poverty, it is all the price of business. Nothing is sacred. The Lord of Profit is the Lord of Death.
The pharisees of high finance who can see us this morning from their cubicles and corner officers mock virtue. Life for them is solely about self-gain. The suffering of the poor is not their concern. The 6 million families thrown out of their homes are not their concern. The tens of millions of pensioners whose retirement savings were wiped out because of the fraud and dishonesty of Wall Street are not their concern. The failure to halt carbon emissions is not their concern. Justice is not their concern. Truth is not their concern. A hungry child is not their concern. The priests in these corporate temples, in the name of profit, kill with even more ruthlessness, finesse and cunning than Raskolnikov. Corporations let 50,000 people die last year because they could not pay them for proper medical care. They have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis, Palestinians and Pakistanis, and gleefully watched as the stock price of weapons contractors quadrupled. They have turned cancer into an epidemic in the coal fields of West Virginia where families breathe polluted air, drink poisoned water and watch the Appalachian Mountains blasted into a desolate wasteland while coal companies can make billions. And after looting the U.S. treasury these corporations demand, in the name of austerity, that we abolish food programs for children, heating assistance and medical care for our elderly, and good public education. They demand that we tolerate a permanent underclass that will leave one in six workers without jobs, that condemns tens of millions of Americans to poverty and tosses our mentally ill onto heating grates. Those without power, those whom these corporations deem to be ordinary, are cast aside like human refuse. It is what the god of the market demands.
snip...
Life is not only about us. We can never have justice until our neighbor has justice. And we can never recover our freedom until we are willing to sacrifice our comfort for open rebellion. The president has failed us. The Congress has failed us. The courts have failed us. The press has failed us. The universities have failed us. Our process of electoral democracy has failed us. There are no structures or institutions left that have not been contaminated or destroyed by corporations. And this means it is up to us. Civil disobedience, which will entail hardship and suffering, which will be long and difficult, which at its core means self-sacrifice, is the only mechanism left.
http://www.truthdig.com/...
And this last paragraph in Mr. Hedges speech is exactly what the Cat Food Commission and the new Gang of Six represent to me. Why isn't Alan Simpson, or Mark Warner or Dick Durbin, or any of these ass hats asking Attorney General Eric Holder, why he didn't bother to even make a public statement after Senator Carl Levin's recent findings regarding Goldman Sachs, and the other criminal elements that brought out nation to it's knees?
Say what you will about Eliot Spitzer, but at least this man had the courage to admit his mistakes publicly, and has now sought redemption through his current actions in doing what few in our own government will do, which is to stand up to the real reason, we as Americans are being told, that we will pay, and pay and pay and continue to pay and pay and pay again for those that not only brought this nation to it's knees economically, but got away with billions and ruined millions of people's lives.
Now that Goldman is back in the spotlight following Carl Levin's concluding report, referring Goldman Sachs to the same law enforcement authorities that are overeager to get a job at none other than Goldman (the most recent example of which came yesterday when Bank of America which hired Gary Lynch, a former director of enforcement at the SEC, to head its legal, compliance, and regulatory relations efforts) for misleading investors and perjury, the wave of indignation at the glaringly obvious is once again back in vogue. To wit: on Friday's Andreson Cooper, Matt Taibbi and Eliot Spitzer presented their views on the fact that several years into the biggest ponzi collapse in Wall Street history, stabilized only by the Fed's pledging of trillions in taxpayer capital and the Treasury issuing like amount in debt to prevent the insolvency of Wall Street's corner offices, nobody has still gone to jail. It was actually an oddly open and forthright show. Some of the notable soundbites from the transcript: "Eliot, do you believe Goldman broke the law and lied? - Yes, I do. And I know people are going to say how can you say that as a lawyer? I have read this report. It confirms our worst fears about double dealing, lying. Goldman Sachs has zero, none, nada credibility in my book"....."Tim Geithner, treasury secretary, apparently reported in today's "New York Times" was calling people saying don't bring cases, it will unsettle the markets, so they let these guys go free. Meanwhile, he signed off on $12.9 billion to Goldman to cover a bad bet they made."....."Goldman Sachs was the number one private campaign contributor to Barack Obama's presidential election campaign. It's one of the single biggest campaign contributors to both parties in Congress"..."Anderson, before I sued, went after Merrill Lynch, which was the first case we filed many years back, I was told by their lawyer -- this is a direct quote -- "Be careful, we have powerful friends"...and the kicker: "Do you think the Justice Department will prosecute? Spitzer: If they don't, shame on them. If they don't, the Attorney General should resign if he can't bring this case." And when Holder resigns, he can go work as Goldman's newest General Counsel, the end. Hopefully, unlike last time people got angry, only to promptly lose interest in Wall Street's crimes, this time it actually leads to something.
http://www.zerohedge.com/...
(And BTW, I could not get Utube to embed this tape, as apparently Utube has changed it's rules recently. If anyone knows what's up with that I'd love to hear about it). However, if you go to the ZeroHedge link you can see the video and the transcript.
And Mr. Spitzer is right. Regardless of who is in the White House, the Attorney General of the United States does not work for the President, he is a direct representative who swears to protect the American people above all and to hold ALL citizen's of this nation to it's highest standards of the rules of laws. And I fail to understand when Senator Levin made such an amazing case against Goldman Sachs, and the other Big Players on Wall St. recently, and made a point of announcing that he was referring these cases directly to the Attorney General's office, why such a profoundly important case was virtually ignored by Eric Holder. I suppose he was too busy running after medical marijuana clinics and on-line gambling casinos, instead of bothering to address the 'crime of the century.'
As I said in my opening paragraph, the '800 pound turd in the room,' that everyone in our government is tip toeing around just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. In fact, the more 'they,' ignore it the bigger it's going to continue to get.
Among other duties: AG Holder is required:
Chief Law Enforcement Officer
The United States attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer responsible for investigating and prosecuting federal crimes committed against and for the United States government. He also enforces current and proposes future federal laws to strengthen the safety and welfare of the United States government and its citizens.
Protecting the Public
The primary duty of the United States attorney general is to serve the best interests of the public within the United States jurisdiction. He is responsible for enforcing civil rights, preventing unfair consumer practices and improving the lives of United States citizens by proposing environmental protection laws and changes in criminal procedures.
Read more: What Are the Duties of the United States Attorney General? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/...
So, let's be clear on this shall we? It's not that AG Eric Holder doesn't understand what his job is, it is that he like so many other so called public servants, are 'refusing to do their job.' And as a consequence of those who have continue to refuse to do their jobs, it is we, the people who are paying, and will continue to pay to keep the 'cover up going on.'
That is exactly what the Cat Food Commission and the Gang of 6 are all about. Keeping the '800 pound turd covered up,' and pretending it doesn't exist in the room.
This is more “Nonfeasance” — that is what I accused the Greenspan Fed of doing in Bailout Nation. It is also what the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency did and what the Office of Thrift Supervision engaged in. They did not do a bad job int he discharge of their duties. THEY REFUSED TO DO THEIR JOBS AT ALL. They simply refused to discharge their legal obligations, because the people in charge did not believe, philosophically, in regulations.
This is yet another crime we should be prosecuting people for. It is no different than safety regulators who failed to inspect carnival rides and 100s of children died. The bank regulators who refused to discharge their duties for ideological reasons should be prosecuted. That means investigating John Duggan and John M. Reich for nonfeasance. How are they any different from people who took payoffs from carnies and allowed children to die on unsafe rides? Consider how bad it was under these to radical deregulators: We’ve mentioned this stat previously, but its worth repeating: Referrals for criminal prosecution plummeted under the Bush administration fell by 95%. While I have been frustrated by the poor policy and personnel choices Obama has made — and continues to make — the Bush administration was uniquely incompetent when it came to filling regulatory positions with anti-regulators. (Think Harvey “Shred-’em-before-the-subpoena-arrives” Pitt as SEC chair).
Its no surprise that these criminally negligent appointees did not do their jobs. These so-called regulators were far too cozy with the regulated. Friends, pals, drinking buddies. And so, they failed their charges, and left the taxpayer at the mercy of thieves. • Why was John M. Reich, a former banker and Senate staff member appointed in 2005 by President George W. Bush, uninterested in prosecuting Countrywide or Angelo R. Mozilo, its chief executive? Reich said that “he was a good friend of Mozilo’s.” • Why were FCIC investigators (during Obama’s Presidency) told “Countrywide was off limits?” If you want to understand why the public remains so angry about the bailouts, these facts are merely frosting on the cake. The bailouts work to prevent the government from fulfilling its duties as prosecutors. Once they get in bed with banks, they refuse to do anything to “harm” that investment. And the public gets angrier and angrier.
http://www.ritholtz.com/...
Barry Ritholtz is correct. That is why regarding of President Obama's soaring so called progressive 'sweet spots' that he managed to slip in to his recent speech, that this continued belt-tightening message we are hearing on both sides of the isles simply smells more and more like another 800 pound turd dressed up in a 'shared sacrifice,' piece of crap that the American people are buying, anymore, anyhow, anytime soon.
As Nobel laureate Joe Stiglitz said on Friday, speaking at a conference at the AFL-CIO, the recession caused the deficit, not vice versa. Fix the economy and restore a normal tax code, and most of the deficit problem is solved. Fail to fix the economy, and austerity only produces more austerity as falling purchasing power keeps bumping the economy downward -- as the British government is finding out.
In that regard, one particularly unhelpful passage in Obama's speech reinforced the "belt-tightening" frame: "To meet our fiscal challenge, we will need to make reforms. We will all need to make sacrifices."
No, Mr. President, that's dead wrong. About 90 percent of Americans have already sacrificed in advance. Median income is now below where it was in the late 1990s. Young people are burdened with college debts, or can't afford college at all, and see the dream of joining the middle class evaporating. Tens of millions of Americans have lost jobs. Why on earth declare that we "all" need to sacrifice?"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Now if, Attorney General Holder, would get off his lazy ass, and stop refusing to do his job, and or just resign, that would be fine with me. But the fact that day in and day out, I know, I'm paying this guy out of my own pocket, for doing absolutely nothing to address the criminal banking cartel cover-up, isn't going to cut it for me, no matter, what party he represents.
And that is the point of this diary. Either 'we,' make them pay, or guess what? We are going to keep paying and paying and paying and paying until every single working American ends up working in a sweat shop (as in China) for next to nothing, our Unions destroyed and our social safety nets dismantled in front of our eyes, because we continue to allow the top Attorney General, Eric Holder to sit on his hands and do nothing.
I leave you again with the great quote from Chris Hedges speech:
Life is not only about us. We can never have justice until our neighbor has justice. And we can never recover our freedom until we are willing to sacrifice our comfort for open rebellion. The president has failed us. The Congress has failed us. The courts have failed us. The press has failed us. The universities have failed us. Our process of electoral democracy has failed us. There are no structures or institutions left that have not been contaminated or destroyed by corporations. And this means it is up to us. Civil disobedience, which will entail hardship and suffering, which will be long and difficult, which at its core means self-sacrifice, is the only mechanism left.
So either 'they pay,' or 'we pay.' Attorney General Holder: You, sir work for the American people, not the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, but for all of the American people. Do your job, or at least have the guts to resign.
Ms. B.