While the protests and riots in Baltimore in recent days were critically triggered by yet another death of a young black man interacting with the police, there are of course many other forces at work.
Mike Fletcher, a journalist at the Washington Post, has made important contributions to the poverty/economics beat in recent years. But Fletcher has also lived in Baltimore for decades, and his perspective on recent events is particularly germane.
Tag Archives: Banking
Elizabeth Warren on Barack Obama: “They protected Wall Street | Salon
By Thomas Frank
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Sunday, October 12, 2014
EXCLUSIVE: Elizabeth Warren on Barack Obama: “They protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. And it happened over and over and over”
“There has not been nearly enough change,” she tells Salon, taking on Obama failures, lobbyists, tuition. So 2016?
Continue reading Elizabeth Warren on Barack Obama: “They protected Wall Street | Salon
The Secret #GoldmanSachs Tapes – Bloomberg View
(Updates fourth paragraph to include reference to ProPublica article containing Carmen Segarra’s allegations.)
Continue reading The Secret #GoldmanSachs Tapes – Bloomberg View
Flashback: Elizabeth Warren (Basically) Predicts the Great Recession | .@BillMoyersHQ
America’s 10 Most Hated #Banks | Mother Jones
According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, these financial institutions draw the most complaints.
| Tue Jul. 29, 2014
If you put out a complaint box for customers of US banks and financial firms, you will get hundreds of thousands of complaints. That’s what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—which was set up by Elizabeth Warren before she became a US senator—has discovered. And the bank that has drawn the most complaints is Bank of America. Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and Citibank were other top targets of consumer wrath.
Continue reading America’s 10 Most Hated #Banks | Mother Jones
@BillMoyersHQ: Bankers and Politicians: A Symbiotic Relationship | Money & Politics
Although they can put in place any laws and regulations that they see fit, politicians are not in the driver’s seat in their relation with banks. Bankers know more about banking than politicians. Moreover, politicians want the bankers’ cooperation to make the investments the politicians favor — or campaign contributions. When bankers warn that capital requirements will hurt bank lending and reduce economic growth, they are rarely challenged by politicians, not only because politicians do not see through the banks’ claims but also because they do not want to upset their symbiosis with bankers.
Bankers and politicians have a two-way dependence. In this situation, politicians can forget their responsibilities, and the political system fails to protect the economy from banking risk. Even after the financial crisis, as one politician admitted, the banks “own the place.” Continue reading @BillMoyersHQ: Bankers and Politicians: A Symbiotic Relationship | Money & Politics
@BillMoyersHQ Preview: #TooBigtoFail and Getting Bigger
In Washington, DC a bi-partisan effort is underway to chip away at the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which is supposed to prevent the type of economic meltdown that brought the world to the brink in 2008.
Wall Street banks are lobbying to de-fang sections of the law related to derivatives — the complex financial contracts at the core of the meltdown. One deregulation bill, the “London Whale Loophole Act,” would allow American banks to skip Dodd-Frank’s trading rules on derivatives if they are traded in countries that have similar regulatory structures. Continue reading @BillMoyersHQ Preview: #TooBigtoFail and Getting Bigger