wall street banks

Deregulation and the Triumph of Wall Street

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With most of the media focused on Obama's speech about health care on Wednesday, this item got largely overlooked.

Sweeping regulatory reform of the financial sector-thought to be a 2009 legislative given just four months ago-may now come down to a piece-meal approach, with the White House and its allies happy to see a couple prized components signed into law this year.

The Return Of The Robber Barons

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"We must break the Money Trust or the Money Trust will break us."
- Louis D. Brandeis, 1913

When the economy appeared to be melting down last September, Wall Street bank representatives began showing up in Congress like mobsters walking into a mom-and-pop business looking for protection money.
"Nice economy ya got here.(crash!) It would be a shame if something were to happen to it."

Mobsters and Robber Barons have a lot in common.
Neither has any respect for the law or morals, only for power. Neither can ever be satisfied with any amount of wealth. They will always need to steal more and more and more until they've completely bankrupted their victims.

We are now at the mercy of modern Robber Barons, and if history is any judge, it is either them or us.

Two years later and still nothing has been learned

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Two years ago Friday the financial crisis started.

Most financial media pundits and politicians didn't recognize that we had a problem until Lehman Brothers went under on September 15, 2008. The official start of the recession is marked at December 2007.

But the real start of the financial crisis was July 31, 2007, when Bear Stearns filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection on its two major hedge funds (High-Grade Structured Credit Fund and High-Grade Structured Credit Enhanced Leveraged Fund).

And yet 24 months later, after all the job and capital losses, after all the heartbreak and stress on the average Americans, the financial media, the politicians, Wall Street, and most of the blogosphere still refuses to even acknowledge, much less address the root causes of our economic problems.

The Banking Crisis Is Over! Long Live The Banking Crisis!

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Time magazine has announced an end to the banking crisis! Huzzah!

the great banking crisis of 2008 is over.
...
All of those plans, no matter how well-intentioned they may seem, are unnecessary now. Wells Fargo (WFC) indicated that it made about $3 billion in the first quarter of the year and declared its buyout of the deeply troubled Wachovia to be a success. Wells Fargo (WFC) said that the low cost of money from the government combined with a surging demand for mortgages was all the medicine that it required.

It's all True! Wells Fargo Bank announced an immense $3 Billion profit last quarter.
Shortly afterward Goldman Sachs announced a $1.8 Billion profit.

Suddenly everything is coming up roses on Wall Street.
At least if you are willing to believe total bullsh*t.