Elizabeth Warren: 'Citigroup Runs The White House'
Senator Elizabeth Warren talks bailouts, swaps, and Citigroup's control over Obama and the executive branch.
If Citigroup has the power to break up Dodd-Frank, we need to break up Citigroup.
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FULL CLIP
"There is nothing wrong with Citigroup asking for something that is in its best interests,’’ said Mike Mayo, a banking analyst at CLSA, a brokerage and investment group.
“The issue is that Congress should say no."
As The New York Times reported last year, lawmakers adopted nearly every word of Citigroup’s plan in drafting a bill that would repeal a requirement that banks “push out” some derivatives trading into units that are not backed by the government’s deposit insurance fund.
Citigroup is holding government funding hostage to ram through its government bailout provision. Join me in opposing the #CitigroupShutdown
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) December 11, 2014
Who knew - the politician with the biggest balls is a 65 year old 5' 8" woman from Massachusetts..
— Eric Scott Hunsader (@nanexllc) December 13, 2014
Dec 12, 2014 at 11:15 PM
Reader Comments (74)
Elizabeth was genuine in her concern and stood alone. I think people should become very concerned about now.
As most of you know, I'm a UVa grad and so the story has been personal for me, especially in the past few days as it has emerged that Jackie made of the entire fantastical, delusional tale in order to win the sympathy of a freshman boy who had spurned her.
She created a fake identity and Catfished her friends. Truly stunning.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/12/10/rolling_stone_sabrina_rubin_erdely_the_washington_post_inches_closer_to.html?wpsrc=fol_tw
Back then, that total was $2.68 trillion.
For September 2014, it’s $10.17 trillion (total deposits) - $6.13 trillion (insured deposits) = $4.04 trillion uninsured deposits.
(---(Source: $10.17 trillion, see https://www.fdic.gov/bank/statistical/stats/2014sep/industry.html
MINUS
$6.13, see https://www.fdic.gov/bank/statistical/stats/2014sep/fdic.html )—)
About 35% of total U.S. deposits are held by JPM Chase, Citi, and BofA, so you figure roughly that 35% of that low-hanging $4 trillion fruit ball is now exposed to the derivatives casino, or $1.4 trillion.
See http://www.usbanklocations.com/bank-rank/total-deposits.html for total deposits for all 6600+ U.S. banks. (Wells Fargo has over a $1 trillion in deposits, too, but isn’t really part of the derivatives casino.)
That’s twice the size of TARP, no?
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Congress just passed the next bailout bill.
http://www.edhec-risk.com/events/other_events/Event.2014-01-22.6397/attachments/Till_CAIA_History_of_Derivatives_Final_with_PRMIA.pdf
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Go to pages 49-52 and that really freaked me out regarding gold and other commodities. Is this why there has been so much manipulation among other things?
Liberals powerless to stop the Clinton-Wall Street gravy train
http://freebeacon.com/blog/hillary-clintons-wall-street-allies-crush-elizabeth-warren-in-the-first-battle-of-the-democratic-primary/
“It is time for all of us to stand up and fight,” she said on the Senate floor. In the end, more than 50 House Democrats supported the spending package, which was also backed by the White House.
Warren, who many consider to be the Democratic frontrunner in 2016 should Joe Biden stay out of the race, specifically attacked Citigroup, the financial firm who helped write the pro-Wall Street provision. As it turns out, Citigroup is one of the most generous supporters of Hillary Clinton’s political career. The firm has paid Bill Clinton hundreds of thousands of dollars to for speeches. Shots fired, as they say.
[ the screenshot here is amazing, I couldn't post it so go the the link]
JPMorgan Chase, another prominent Hillary backer, also lobbied for the provision; CEO Jamie Dimon made personal calls to lawmakers to rally support. Hillary has an account with JP Morgan worth between $5 million and $25 million, according to financial disclosure forms. Some Democrats were not impressed with Warren’s efforts, as Dave Weigel reports:
This rattled the Democrats’ appropriators, some of whom were heading for the exits. Virginia Rep. Jim Moran spent a good part of Thursday telling reporters that Warren was “running for president” and drowning Democrats in her ambition.
First to say I am proud being an American, then to realized that we live in a country of freedom, democracy, and values.
Further more, how do we tell our children and the future generation that America is been run by corrupted politicians and
their buddies from Wall St and the banks. We were fooled once and we took it and put up with it. When we were told by our president at the time, that they were too big to fail. Now we realized once again, that the manipulation and the distrust of the politicians with the banks' lobbies write their own bills so they can get their ways in wall st.
I thought we learned our lesson from the financial crisis of 2008 that paralyzed the economy and millions of people lost their jobs and as a result, they lost their homes. How little we knew then that the banks foreclosed millions of homes that weren't theirs to begin with. Due to the same scam of securitization, derivatives, and many tactics the banks only know how to get away with, millions of homes were lost in the process that even today is implemented through out all the United States.
The banks know they have the edge because most American people do not know their rights, and the law to go about to fight for their homes. we had even seen for those who can afford an attorney to find out later, even with an attorney, the judge give the right to the bank and still foreclose on their homes. So the question is, when are we going to learn once and for all and no let big banks like JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and City Bank continue taking advantage of the system and on us. We are living like in a third world countries. Why do we have a President and Laws in the books to stop this madness. Can we afford another financial crisis of Trillions of Dollars for the next 10 years? Americans please wake up and listen to Senator Elizabeth Warren. We need thousands of women like Mrs. Warren to represent us and run a better senate and a better country. God Bless You and God Bless America.
Where there is no law there can be no criminals.
Larry leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice. ... He teed it up this way: I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People — powerful people — listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule. They don’t criticize other insiders.
I had been warned.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/14/elizabeth-warren-is-changing-washington-without-giving-up-her-outside-status/
Good to see you at it again, btw. Nothing has changed in the last 5-6 years since this site began, or in the last 1+ year since you disappeared. The fight goes on...
If she really does go back to telling the truth, and more importantly, insisting on real change and punishing those who caused the mess, that would be great -- except they all have gotten away with it, and the barn door is closed - the cows fattened, slaughtered, eaten and excreted. This is a woman who falsely claimed to be part Native American to get her job at Harvard. She sold out the American public once, so why would she not do it again? Now she wants to be PRESIDENT? Perfect. A total hypocrite and liar with a falsified resume who has never run anything or done anything and when she had a chance let Wall Street run off with $9 trillion dollars. Do we really need another two faced "academic" running the show?
Maybe she will have the US Treasury bail out Putin if she's President. Why not?? Hell, we should let Citibank BUY Afghanistan -- that would be a lot simpler than Obama's plan. Wait...plan?? What plan??
In the end, all involved (Bush, Hank, Tim-may, Helicopter-Ben, Dodd, Frank, Obummer, Fat Larry et al) took their marching orders from the Godfathers of finance in NYC--the financial elite, the insiders, the financial oligarchy. They rule this country. The individual names of the kings change, but their kingdoms are the same. They are the men behind the curtain. They pull the strings. The borrowers are slaves to the lenders, even when the lenders go bust. Why? Because the lenders own, they control the money and gold and can buy the law. It's just that simple.
In the words of Gordon Gekko:
"We set the price of the paper clip."
"I create nothing; I own."
"If you are not inside, you are outside."
"You're not so naive to think we live in a democracy, are you sport?"
This just came in from the Kansas City Star.
http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/barbara-shelly/article4535487.html
Elizabeth Warren squashes Kevin Yoder’s sorry rationale for unraveling taxpayer protection
U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder is doubling down on his dubious explanation that the controversial amendment he sponsored last week in the huge “cromnibus” spending bill passed by Congress was all about helping community banks and farmers.
The amendment, written by lobbyists for Citigroup (that’s the first red flag), repeals a provision in the 2010 Dodd-Frank law that says banks cannot rely on protection from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation when they trade their riskiest assets. In other words, go ahead and gamble, but don’t expect the taxpayers to bail you out.
Yoder, a Republican from Overland Park, Kan., said in his email newsletter that his amendment doesn’t apply to truly risky transactions, but instead removes a burden for smaller banks.
It’s complex, so here is the congressman’s explanation in his own words:
“The provision amends Section 716 of Dodd-Frank, which would have increased transaction costs by requiring banks to push out almost all derivative business into separate entities. The derivatives associated with this provision are not the same as the riskier Collateral Debt Obligations (CDOs) that many blame for causing the mortgage crisis. CDOs remain subject to the push out even after the adoption of this provision.
Without this change, small regional banks would be in danger of being unable to serve the lending needs of their customers. Ultimately, farmers, manufacturers, and other Main Street businesses would be harmed the most. I opposed the taxpayer bailouts in 2008 and stand strong by the provisions in existing law that prohibit bailouts from ever happening again. This fixes an onerous provision of Dodd-Frank that actually made markets less safe and increased the cost of lending. It does not make any change to provisions preventing bailouts.”
Is he right? Not according to Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who urged the Senate to reject the spending bill because of Yoder’s amendment.
In a speech on the Senate floor, Warren addressed the explanation Yoder is trying to push:
“The fact sheet Republican appropriators sent around to their members explaining the provision does not describe it accurately,” she said. “According to this fact sheet, the provision in question would protect farmers and other commodity producers from having to put down collateral to get a loan, expand their business, and hedge their production. Whatever you think about the bill, that description is flatly wrong. In fact, that description applies to yet another Wall Street reform rollback that the Republicans are pushing right now, which is attached to a completely different bill. I do not know if Republican leaders in the House are deliberately trying to confuse their members in voting for a government bailout program, or whether they cannot keep straight on their efforts to gut financial reform.”
So, who’s version do we go with here? Yoder’s? Or Warren’s?
No contest. Warren is the expert. Protecting taxpayers from the greed of the financial sector is her wheelhouse.
Yoder, as the nonpartisan research organization Maplight points out, has acquired some expertise in accepting donations from big banks. Since the beginning of 2013, he’s received $29,000 from the political action committees of Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, which represent more than 90 percent of the swaps market. That doesn’t place Yoder in the 10 ten recipients of the big banks, but he’s close…
For the most part I agree with this. But our problems run a bit deeper, I think.
What disturbs me more than anything else is that the rule of law has pretty much vanished not only in practice—it’s always favored the monied classes in practice, so on that score nothing has changed that’s not reflected in the skewing of wealth distribution—but also in principle. And that is a big, big difference, a lightning vs. lightning bug kind of difference.
This first came to popular attention in December 2012 when the DOJ refused to prosecute HSBC and its bankers not because there wasn’t enough evidence (the bank had admitted to all material elements of its money-laundering crimes), but because Eric Holder said prosecuting would cause “global destabilization” among other “collateral consequences.”
That’s a bald-faced admission that HSBC is above the law. And as we all know, HSBC wasn’t the last bank that got away with admitted crimes because it’s above the law AS A MATTER OF POLICY.
That’s critical because when it comes to governance there are 2 and only 2 choices, and they’re mutually exclusive: either a country lives under the rule of law, or it lives according to the whims of people, often kings or other oligarchs.
The HSBC case is a clear indication that the U.S. is ruled by kings. And there are many other examples that fit the HSBC pattern, though in subtler guises.
Aside from “collateral consequences,” the law is also trampled in the name of “systemic risk,” “national security,” “domestic terrorism,” you name it. What all of these bogeymen have in common is that there’s no set metes and bounds on what those phrases mean. They’re noses of wax used by the king’s men to get whatever it is they happen to want at the time. If those phrases were LEGAL—and they uniformly, by design, are not—they’d be struck down as unconstitutionally vague.
The constitution and the law are supposed to be what protects us from tyranny like this. But they’re both gone in the wind OFFICIALLY. In 2013, under Jim Comey, the FBI changed its mission from “law enforcement” to “national security” in another FORMAL nod to the oligarchs behind the curtain. And oh, yeah, did I mention that Comey was a board member of HSBC just before he got the nod to take over the FBI?
Justice Louis Brandeis warned very clearly about where the path we’re on will take us:
""The government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes -- would bring terrible retribution.”
Terrible retribution is one way to describe how this will turn out.
Revolution is another.
Hello again! Good to see you fighting the good fight. Agree with all you state. However, as an example of the law being alive and well, and to make you feel a lil' better, a local drug dealer was arrested and jailed yesterday. His crime? Selling a dime bag in a "transitional" neighborhood. Way to go fellas! Keep us safe...
And the WashPost just figured out that Wall St. is a giant skim:
http://tablet.washingtonpost.com/top/a-black-hole-for-our-best-and-brightest/2014/12/17/c5ce54176c565ab010421f6373b363ad_story.html
You'll be seeing a lot more very soon, I hope. I've been helping a guy out with his youtube channel ever since I bought a camera in April. It was a way for him to get his channel up and running and for me to learn how to make videos. The last 2 I made are about the complete corruption of the Justice Department:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkQQoGUj6VY (Part one: "Eric Holder's Legacy: The Divine Right of Criminals")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW4o2eRvzx4 (Part two: "How Eric Holder Turned 'Justice' Into a Wall Street Criminal Protection Racket")
Now I'm about to launch my own channel. The leadoff video will cover a topic very near and dear to our hearts here on DB--the absurd myths propagated to pass TARP. Nancy Pelosi recently retold the legend, which just gets bigger and more ridiculous every year.
Stay tuned...
Their Evolution is almost complete. The general population is running out of options and is essentially powerless to direct those in control of the country.
1776-1913 What the founders intended - A Constitution-based federal republic with strong democratic traditions
1913-1950 Authoritarian Oligarchy - a government in which control is exercised by a small group of individuals whose authority is based on the power of wealth to impose state authority onto many aspects of citizens' lives.
1950-2007 Totalitarian Oligarchy - a government based on wealth and power that seeks to subordinate the individual to the state by controlling not only all political and economic matters, but also the attitudes, values, and beliefs of its population.
2007-20?? Oligarchic Dictatorship - a form of government based on the power of wealth in which a small clique wield absolute power (not restricted by a constitution or laws).
What will the future hold?
2014-20?? Oligarchic Dictatorship?
20??-20?? Revolution - a forcible overthrow of a government or social order in favor of a new system?
20??-20?? Anarchy - a condition of lawlessness or political disorder brought about by the absence of governmental authority?
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/wall-street-heathens-how-their-greed-and-gambling-became-an-instrument-of-statist-policy/
Stockman pearls throughout the piece. Surprised he was not featured more prominently, or at all, in the "Money for Nothing" movie of 2013, which provides "insider" commentary confirming what Stockman has said for years.
@Cheyenne-looking forward to your YouTube channel.
Your timetable is on the money. Over the last 2 years I've been thinking a lot about sovereignty and the glaring erosion of it from the U.S. Yeah, it definitely started in 1913, at least formally, with the congressional abandonment of the constitution's express mandate of coining money.
It would appear, 100 years later, that Madison was right about sovereignty being an all-or-nothing deal. Fruition just took its time. Now it's hard to identify ANY sovereign function that hasn't been outsourced: wars, treaties, lawmaking, law enforcement, you name it--done by private interests. I suppose the bench still interprets the law, but even there you have to wonder what's going on with the Supreme Court, which has lost its mind.
Josie--
The youtube channel is coming slower than I'd anticipated. I'm tired of videos that look and sound like shit. I want quality, goddamnit. And therein lies the problem--I just started learning how to use a camera in April. I've watched a LOT of tutorials about the whole video-making process and STILL find entire concepts where I'm clueless. But I'm getting there. I'm banging out a very identifiable, very old school intro, as well as some touches that I haven't seen anywhere else.
It'd be good if DB got rolling again. That last thing I have time for is setting up a website. Right here is FAR AND AWAY my #1 choice for companion pieces.
A boy can dream....
Absolutely, I regularly visit many different sites and together they don't present as much useful unbiased information in a week as the Daily Bail when DB's rolling.
Hope your channel works out to your expectations, I'll be watching for it.
oligarchs sell judging through puppets,
replacing democracy
monopoly sold for protection
bauder=rothschild (red shield)
The French equivalent: Richelieu
Bloomberg - Bratton: reinterpret the Constitution
Except, Pope Francis sends end using scapegoating
using sexual insecurity, thus attempting to repair history.
Murdoch / Rothschild / Eitam (Effie Eitam:)
"Eitam called the Palestinians "dark forces" and said "We will have to kill them all..."
DRhatigan said it best years ago: "the powers that be care nothing for main street, the middle class, or even America. They care only for stealing as much as they can as fast as they can. We are witnessing the greatest theft in mankind's history."
Has anything changed in the world?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACm1ntw_4dM&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Has anything changed?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2GvuOVcCB8&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Here is the link to Fat Larry you mentioned in your first post for all those to see. (with apologies)….
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102358918
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-10/warren-opposes-congressional-meddling-audit-fed-bill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfTfsWhZi5E
This one ("Who's blowtorching American jobs?") goes after the Federal Reserve.
The next one (at least the next "feature") will attack the myth that's been the bane of this site since its inception.
Well done and good luck with your channel! I will follow it and look forward to your next feature. I note that you have 350+ thumbs up already, without even one thumbs down. That's unusual for a YouTube channel start up, I imagine, especially given the nuts and trolls who live there.
As an aside, you may remember during our many back/forths on the Bail, that Jon Hilsenrath, the WSJ reporter who you show in your piece as an example of the Fed's mouthpieces in the media, is my Duke fraternity brother, class of '89. Funny story: our 25th reunion was last year and I of course ran into Hilsy as many of my frat bros were there. The first thing he said to me was "I don't want to talk about The Fed, Josie!" I have been sending him notes for years, and even copied him on Bail links re: The Fed and how it's destroying our country, saving and enriching a few of the financial elite, while all the actors in this tragedy are protected by the DOJ. He avoided me like the plague that weekend and whispered to others that I was some conspiracy nut job. He now refuses to answer any of my emails.
Keep up the good work. Maybe some day folks will listen to you like they did Mark Pittman and do now with the likes of David Stockman et al. He'll, even Ron Paul directed a shining halogen at The Fed and people began to ask questions, at least for a while.
Pittman knew the score. His FOIA lawsuit was an absolutely hilarious stick in the eye of TPTB. Not only did he win, but the Fed's argument that it deserved FOIA immunity based on the supposedly dire consequences of disclosure went down in flames. Frankly, it was really after that happen that you saw the criminal elite ramp up its expansion of executive power. Probably a coincidence, but you never know.
Stockman is one of the few "names" who understands that the Chicken Little bailout narrative was false from the start. God, would I love to interview him about some stuff he's said...
Not sure I stuck it to Hilsy, but he must know he's a whore, and an underpaid whore at that. Hope he bathes every night to wash off the excrement that he immerses himself in every day at work while "covering" the whorehouse and den of thieves...
If you haven't seen "The Untouchables," by Martin Smith at PBS Frontline, you really should. It's pure dynamite...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/untouchables/
I made couple of follow-up videos to the Untouchables when I was helping a friend set up his own youtube channel (which is where I really started learning the ropes of video production):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkQQoGUj6VY (part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW4o2eRvzx4 (part 2)
I'll get to the global syndicate of banks behind this crap on my own channel in due course...