Occupy Wall Street vs the Tea Party

[finehoe]

I do not understand (or I am not aware of) the criminal charges being discussed and exactly who should be charged.  If there are specific charges against specific persons then I would like to hear them...and I would like to know where any prosecution stands. 

That's precisely the problem.  No one is being prosecuted.

No crimes, eh?  Except for all the ones they have admitted to under oath -- or where someone other than a bankster went to jail, like:

1)Money laundering for Mexican drug cartels
2)Intentionally and knowingly peddling crap loans
3)Filing over 100,000 known perjured affidavits
4)And selling crap CDOs as "good investments."

And that's just a "quick list" of a few examples, and by no means is exhaustive.  Every one of those is a criminal act by the way, ranging from fraud to perjury to knowingly assisting in a criminal enterprise.

[second_pancake]

I do not understand (or I am not aware of) the criminal charges being discussed and exactly who should be charged.  If there are specific charges against specific persons then I would like to hear them...and I would like to know where any prosecution stands. 

That's precisely the problem.  No one is being prosecuted.

No crimes, eh?  Except for all the ones they have admitted to under oath -- or where someone other than a bankster went to jail, like:

1)Money laundering for Mexican drug cartels
2)Intentionally and knowingly peddling crap loans
3)Filing over 100,000 known perjured affidavits
4)And selling crap CDOs as "good investments."

And that's just a "quick list" of a few examples, and by no means is exhaustive.  Every one of those is a criminal act by the way, ranging from fraud to perjury to knowingly assisting in a criminal enterprise.

The burden of proof is always on the person making the claim.  All of your claims above need to be substantiated by some type of documentation justifying them to be considered.  If you were to actually do the research on any one of those, they would all lead back to mis-doings by our Federal Government, not banks.  Therefore, you would be stating that someone within our governmental system would need to be prosecuted.  Since it was Clinton who put into effect the Everyone in a Home program which was backed by the government-owned FannieMae and FreddieMac which insisted on banks coming up with "creative" underwriting and even incented them for the number of Fannie and Freddie loans that were originated each month, should it be Bill?  Or maybe it should be Bush who should be in jail for backing the HAMP and HARP programs which, again, gave incentives to banks for each loan they originated under those programs to modify the terms of the now bad loans either through payment modification or refinance?  Wait, how about Obama, for issuing bailouts using taxpayer money without taxpayer agreement or vote by the people, against the Capitalist form of government for which we are supposed to be governed under our Constitution (treason?)?  Or, MAYBE, we could even prosecute every person in the 1968 Congress for backing the mortgage-backed securities created by their very own GinneMae?

Guys, it all started with the government and they continue to perpetuate the problem, not the banks.  The banks (namely, the big, bad Bank of America) didn't even get involved with pooling loans and selling securitized assets until 1978...10 years after the government came up with the idea to create the mortgage-pools and invest on them.  Couple that with the Clinton-era Everyone in a Home, and what you have is an increase in fraud (yes, some banks did commit fraud in order to receive incentives, not denying that) to originate creative loans to receive incentives under the program, increase the ability to originate even more loans by opening credit via the sale of MBS pools (backed by the GSEs), and the ultimate credit crisis we're now under in which NO ONE can get a home because the banks don't have the ability to lend.

So, who did you say needs to go to jail??  When Hitler created the Holocaust to rid the world of one race, we killed Hitler and started prosecuting all of the folks who followed his orders.  If that same sentiment were true of how we got where we are now (on a much lesser caliber of course), then it should be the highest possible punishment for the leaders (presidents/congress) with prosecution for the bank's policy-owners (fyi, CEOs are not necessarily the policy-owners.  They hire teams of people to handle that, i.e. Chief Compliance Officers).

[finehoe]

If you were to actually do the research on any one of those, they would all lead back to mis-doings by our Federal Government, not banks. 

Oh, please.  How on earth is the Federal Government responsible for this?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html

or this?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/18/national/main20080533.shtml

or this?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/11/01/77791/how-goldman-secretly-bet-on-the.html

[second_pancake]

If you were to actually do the research on any one of those, they would all lead back to mis-doings by our Federal Government, not banks. 

Oh, please.  How on earth is the Federal Government responsible for this?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html

or this?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/18/national/main20080533.shtml

or this?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/11/01/77791/how-goldman-secretly-bet-on-the.html

Money Laundering:  Federal Government at fault for these comments made in the article that you posted: The bank didn’t react quickly enough to the prosecutors’ requests and failed to hire enough investigators, the U.S. Treasury Department said in March. After a 22-month investigation, the Justice Department on March 12 charged Wachovia with violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to run an effective anti-money-laundering program.

Five days later, Wells Fargo promised in a Miami federal courtroom to revamp its detection systems. Wachovia’s new owner paid $160 million in fines and penalties, less than 2 percent of its $12.3 billion profit in 2009.

"If Wells Fargo keeps its pledge, the U.S. government will, according to the agreement, drop all charges against the bank in March 2011. "  Why would the government not prosecute them under the fullest extent of the law and under the Bank Secrecy Act for which they were in violation?  And why would the government, with its own prosecution team, go into a full on investigation for the claims and then come out and say they were , "...found of no wrong-doing"? 

Robo-Signing:

This one is a bit complicated to explain to someone not in mortgage finance or Default, but here it is...

The government has mandates that they issue for home-lending and loan servicing companies; loan servicing companies service the loan on behalf of a lender and/or investor.  They usually do all the dirty-work like property tax payments, payment processing/collection, and even the foreclosure of a loan.  Among these "compliance" orders are timelines around the date of "first action" as well as Notice of Default/Intent issuance dates, and the foreclosure sale date (you have to publically publish the date the sale is to take place and where, etc.), etc.  There are so many regulations at the Federal level that there are entire departments within these organizations whose only job is to read through them and issue them to the appropriate departments and then do QC checks to make sure all their policies and procedures have been updated to meet the regulations and that they are abiding to them.  So, back to Robo-Signing...

When the sub-prime mortgages started to Default, banks were left with so many loans in which they had to not only meet the Gov guidelines, but also those of the GSEs (FannieMae, FreddieMack, and GinnieMae) which were in a lot of instances, much more strict and the timelines much tighter since they were government backed; that they were facing monetary penalties for not meeting the SLAs (service-level agreements), and even down-grading (When a servicing corporation or bank is down-graded, it affects alot more than just the servicing side of the business, it affects the stock-prices and the shareholders).  In order to ease the pressure and ensure they were in compliance, they, again, came up with creative measures to ensure they could keep up with all the mandates placed upon them.

I am in no way condoning this behaviour.  I don't think the end justifies the means (i.e. - the homes were going into foreclosure, to ensure we meet foreclosure, we must falsely sign documents).  I am merely pointing out that it is the government's involvement in private enterprise that has caused these issues.  This is not Capitalism.  Corporations should not be told how to run or not run their business.  They should be allowed to fail or suceed on their own. 

I equate this to a teacher telling his/her student at the end of the day that they have to complete a 20-page essay on the Theory of Relativity by first thing the next morning otherwise they will receive a failing grade for the entire course.  What do you think that student would do with only a few hours to work with?  They are faced with all of the hard work they've put into the year being completely for naught over one assignment.  One is faced with a choice: the wrong one - cheat, and the right one - accept the failing grade and move on.  When you're entire business, your job and the jobs of the thousands you employ depend on it though, the decision becomes much harder, doesn't it? 

[second_pancake]

http://firedoglake.com/2011/01/27/tea-party-patron-saint-ayn-rand-applied-for-social-security-medicare-benefits/

What would John Galt and Howard Roark say?

    Critics of Social Security and Medicare frequently invoke the words and ideals of author and philosopher Ayn Rand, one of the fiercest critics of federal insurance programs. But a little-known fact is that Ayn Rand herself collected Social Security. She may also have received Medicare benefits.

    An interview recently surfaced that was conducted in 1998 by the Ayn Rand Institute with a social worker who says she helped Rand and her husband, Frank O’Connor, sign up for Social Security and Medicare in 1974.

    Federal records obtained through a Freedom of Information act request confirm the Social Security benefits.

Collectivist! Dagny Taggart weeps.



And before any glibertarians come back with “but…but…she paid into it so there’s no hypocrisy” in comments, Rand herself wrote,

    There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction.

Adding an extra layer of crow to the deliciousness, the Ayn Rand Center for the Center for F*ck You I Got Mine Individual Rights has an article on its website right now titled, “Social Security is Immoral.” http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=10857&news_iv_ctrl=1021

IOKIYARand.

She is exactly right, there is no compromise, which is why she also said this: "It is obvious, in such cases, that a man receives his own money which was taken from him by force, directly and specifically, without his consent, against his own choice. Those who advocated such laws are morally guilty, since they assumed the “right” to force employers and unwilling co-workers. But the victims, who opposed such laws, have a clear right to any refund of their own moneyâ€"and they would not advance the cause of freedom if they left their money, unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration."

There is no compromise of her moral issues, matters of knowledge, truth or rational conviction.  There is no choice whether or not to pay into SS.  Sure, it is in the Constitution that we not have an identifier to be used for the individual and therefor we are not "required" to have a SSN, however the government dictates that if we receive income, we must pay FICA and the only way we can pay it is by having our "account number" which is our SSN.  So, we have to establish this account and we have to, forcibly, pay into it whether we want to or not.  If we do not collect on it to get our own money back, then that will go to someone else; the Robin Hood syndrome. 

Based on this article, one could also argue that because she gave to many charities throughout her life that she wasn't selfish and didn't live by the ideals of her philosophy which would also be wrong.  If giving to others gives you a sense of value and acheivement then it is indeed a very selfish act. ;-)

Her philosophy is simple:  "...the concept of man as a heroic being with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

[second_pancake]

She didn't.  She went about it just as she did everything in her personal life, privately.  Not having a press conference to announce you're doing something, doesn't mean you're hiding it.  She did the same thing when she had a marital affair, which I don't agree with; it was private between her, her husband, and Nathaniel Branden and when asked about it, she talked about it.  She didn't announce when she gave her private money to charity either.  That was information that was "uncovered" as well.

[buckethead]

If you were to actually do the research on any one of those, they would all lead back to mis-doings by our Federal Government, not banks. 

Oh, please.  How on earth is the Federal Government responsible for this? War on drugs.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html

or this? Gramm, Leach, Bliley
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/18/national/main20080533.shtml

or this?See above

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/11/01/77791/how-goldman-secretly-bet-on-the.html

These actions were promoted by deregulation, implemented by Congress.

Should Banks be held liable? Absolutely. It won't be the Federal Government that holds them liable, however. (Outside token repercussions)

[buckethead]

but if you are truly a fan of objectivism, then surely you realize that you are standing up for everything that she despised and hated about moochers when you stick up for these modern purveyors of finance.

DAMN!!!!!

That might be the most concise statement about Rand I ever read! Well done.

[second_pancake]

If you were to actually do the research on any one of those, they would all lead back to mis-doings by our Federal Government, not banks. 

Oh, please.  How on earth is the Federal Government responsible for this?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html

or this?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/18/national/main20080533.shtml

or this?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/11/01/77791/how-goldman-secretly-bet-on-the.html

Money Laundering:  Federal Government at fault for these comments made in the article that you posted: The bank didn’t react quickly enough to the prosecutors’ requests and failed to hire enough investigators, the U.S. Treasury Department said in March. After a 22-month investigation, the Justice Department on March 12 charged Wachovia with violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to run an effective anti-money-laundering program.

Five days later, Wells Fargo promised in a Miami federal courtroom to revamp its detection systems. Wachovia’s new owner paid $160 million in fines and penalties, less than 2 percent of its $12.3 billion profit in 2009.

"If Wells Fargo keeps its pledge, the U.S. government will, according to the agreement, drop all charges against the bank in March 2011. "  Why would the government not prosecute them under the fullest extent of the law and under the Bank Secrecy Act for which they were in violation?  And why would the government, with its own prosecution team, go into a full on investigation for the claims and then come out and say they were , "...found of no wrong-doing"? 

are you serious?  Why wouldn't they indeed.

Robo-Signing:

This one is a bit complicated to explain to someone not in mortgage finance or Default, but here it is...

The government has mandates that they issue for home-lending and loan servicing companies; loan servicing companies service the loan on behalf of a lender and/or investor.  They usually do all the dirty-work like property tax payments, payment processing/collection, and even the foreclosure of a loan.  Among these "compliance" orders are timelines around the date of "first action" as well as Notice of Default/Intent issuance dates, and the foreclosure sale date (you have to publically publish the date the sale is to take place and where, etc.), etc.  There are so many regulations at the Federal level that there are entire departments within these organizations whose only job is to read through them and issue them to the appropriate departments and then do QC checks to make sure all their policies and procedures have been updated to meet the regulations and that they are abiding to them.  So, back to Robo-Signing...

When the sub-prime mortgages started to Default, banks were left with so many loans in which they had to not only meet the Gov guidelines, but also those of the GSEs (FannieMae, FreddieMack, and GinnieMae) which were in a lot of instances, much more strict and the timelines much tighter since they were government backed; that they were facing monetary penalties for not meeting the SLAs (service-level agreements), and even down-grading (When a servicing corporation or bank is down-graded, it affects alot more than just the servicing side of the business, it affects the stock-prices and the shareholders).  In order to ease the pressure and ensure they were in compliance, they, again, came up with creative measures to ensure they could keep up with all the mandates placed upon them.

I am in no way condoning this behaviour.  I don't think the end justifies the means (i.e. - the homes were going into foreclosure, to ensure we meet foreclosure, we must falsely sign documents).  I am merely pointing out that it is the government's involvement in private enterprise that has caused these issues.  This is not Capitalism.  Corporations should not be told how to run or not run their business.  They should be allowed to fail or suceed on their own. 

I equate this to a teacher telling his/her student at the end of the day that they have to complete a 20-page essay on the Theory of Relativity by first thing the next morning otherwise they will receive a failing grade for the entire course.  What do you think that student would do with only a few hours to work with?  They are faced with all of the hard work they've put into the year being completely for naught over one assignment.  One is faced with a choice: the wrong one - cheat, and the right one - accept the failing grade and move on.  When you're entire business, your job and the jobs of the thousands you employ depend on it though, the decision becomes much harder, doesn't it?

THis is such a load of dingo's kidneys.  On one hand you say that you disagree with the crimes committed, but on the other hand you say that since there was some way to connect it to government practices, that therefore it all amounts to nothing?

No, Stephen, that's not what I said.  I said I don't think the end justifies the means.  What the banks did as a reaction to the SLAs they were trying to meet was wrong.  The question was, how were the actions of the bank the fault of the government and I answered that question.  It's cause and effect.  The government created regulations that were almost impossible for financial institutions of that magnitude to adhere to.  The effect was the banks cutting corners to maintain compliance.

[second_pancake]

read the above, second pancake.  She took it under the name 'ann oconner', and it was a secret.

Stephen, Ann O'Conner IS/WAS her name, lol.  Ayn Rand was her pen name used for her writings.  She could not do anything legally under the name Ayn Rand because that was not her legal name.

[second_pancake]

Second Pancake, you cannot have it both ways.

Either they committed a crime or they didnt.

You seem to be saying that its ok, because they were only doing it to get around regulations.

Which is exactly the point.

Stephen, that IS what I'm saying.  Did you read the Hitler comment???  I am in agreement that when a crime is committed, those who committed the crime should face charges.  This is why I also made the comments as to why would the government not have prosecuted those in charge of monitoring the bank accounts under the Bank Secrecy Act when they admitted to wrong doing?  And why would the government have subsequently said they found no "wrong-doing", again, when the bank came out and admitted they had done something wrong?  It doesn't make sense.  NO deal should've been cut and the head of that department within the bank should be doing jail time, period.

In addition, I'm saying, the government needs to realize BEFORE then enact regulations, what the effect of those regulations might be.  Instead of being so REactive, they should be more PROactive and fully vet their ideas.

[second_pancake]

read the above, second pancake.  She took it under the name 'ann oconner', and it was a secret.

I literally have every word that Ayn Rand ever typed, including every single edition of the Objectivist Newsletter, incidentally.  I love Ayn Rand, and I love objectivist thought, but if you are truly a fan of objectivism, then surely you realize that you are standing up for everything that she despised and hated about moochers when you stick up for these modern purveyors of finance.

This is the very epitome of what she denounced as the aristocracy of Pull, in her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged.

You are defending Wesley Mouch, SP, not John Galt.

Henry Reardon paid the highest wages of anyone in his industry, because he wanted the most competent men.

Dagny Taggart personally built roads and doubled the incomes of her workers in reward for their accomplishments.

John Galt was prepared to give the world a free energy source in order to sell the motors that utilized it.

Trade value for value. A = A.

When you stand up for the villains that sold worthless mortgages as securitized financial products, you are helping to confuse the rest of the world into not being able to tell the difference between criminals and industrialists.

The men and women that Rand was describing were the Randell Mills and Dean Kamens of this world, not the Bernie Madoffs.

Its a perversion of Objectivism to do this, and I wish you would stop.

You are not reading what I wrote.  First, if you believe I am standing up for the villian, than you are brain-locked on the idea that all banks are evil and are the enemy.  That is just not true.  Secondly, having something or reading something doesn't necessarily mean you comprehend or fully understand it.

I am not defending criminal acts and I wish you would stop your perversion of my statements in stating that I am.

[second_pancake]

Lol.  One more time...this time I'll try and make it even more simple since stating "...the end doesn't justify the means", and "...I do not condone criminal acts" seem to have somehow whooshed right over your head:

If you have 2 children and child 1 is pulling child 2's hair, taunting her and calling her names, even after child 2 has repeatedly asked her to stop, then child 2 retaliates and punches child 1 in the face.  Child 1 comes to you crying over how child 2 has hurt her and made her nose bleed.  Your first reaction is to punish child 2, right?  Once you know the true story what is your decision? Does it change?  Mine does.  They BOTH get punished.  Gasp, right?  I'm supposed to be the defender of evil and the unjust, lol.  Why?  They both get punished because while Child 1 was absolutely wrong and completely knew no good could possibly come from her actions other than to cause harm to another, Child 2 actually caused harm.  They both used means of force when it wasn't needed.  Child 2 had other means to rectify the situation other than retaliation.  Do you understand me now?  The banks COULD have done something differently.  They had the money to do it.  They could have rallied against the regulation, they could've taken out full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal as I've seen done with other CEOs (Andy Beal of Beal Bank), they COULD have done a lot of things, but they chose to do something wrong to counteract something wrong that was being done to them.  For the record if I haven't made it clear enough already: I DON'T AGREE WITH THIS.  I was answering a question on how the government had "anything" to do with this and I answered it.  Period.

[second_pancake]

"Arent you also confusing banks with Wall Street?"

I would say yes, but the fact is, the Wall Street that is the Occupy movement's grievance is with is all banks which makes no sense at all.  The banks on Wall Street are: JPMorganChase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley...i.e. investment banks.  Not all banks are investment banks.  Most are merely depositories, but the Occupy movement has stated on their site in several locations that it's not only all banks but "corporations" as well which is also another broad statement...which was addressed by Peter Schiff in the video link I posted.  A corporation, as you well know since you've had one, is just a person who set up their business as a corporation to protect themselves from certain liabilities.

Again, as I stated before, there are many legitimate grievances that need attention.  The lobbying, the political contributions and soliciting, but the largest of all has to do with the government being involved in ANY private business.  There should not have been and should never be a bail-out of a private company.  True Capitalism would've allowed them to fail and true Capitalism would've never allowed the government to enact programs forcing a private company to write loans that they knew were bad investments....AND incent them for it.

[second_pancake]

So its still the governments fault that the banks committed crimes?

So when a guy goes crazy and kills his entire family, is it because we outlawed domestic abuse? Wouldnt that 'regulation' have kept his stress level down to the point that he didnt actually murder anyone?  and when you think about it, isnt maiming better than murder?  And who doesnt need a little discipline every now and then?  Neitsche said that "What doesnt kill me, will make me stronger", you know.

This kind of logic is set up to excuse the criminal, SP.

Obviously not, however there are laws that prevent against the provoking of another individual to the point that they cause harm to another.  So, if the crazy guy murdered his entire family because they locked him in the house, tied him down so he couldn't move, threw things at him and spit on him on a daily basis then he broke free one day and went "crazy"...different story.  Force begets force.