Anderson@Large

Fight the Banksters

The national underemployment rate is 17.5 percent. Without the $700 billion bailout, Wall Street banksters would be among the unemployed. Instead, they are making record profits and doling out multimillion dollar bonuses.

Public Citizen and SEIU and organizing a protest in front of Goldman Sachs’ DC office, 101 Constitution Avenue, N.W., today at Noon to protest the obscene bonuses and send a message to Congress, “Enough is enough.”

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In a statement, Public Citizen President Robert Weissman said:

More than a year after the onset of the financial crisis, three things are apparent: Congress has not passed any financial reform legislation (except for credit card rules); the more time passes, the more Wall Street objects to the prospect of any meaningful controls of its operations; and the legislation that has so far progressed in Congress is not commensurate with the scale of the crisis Wall Street caused.

Weissman added:

It’s time to break up the big banks, clamp down on the Wall Street bonus culture - including by imposing a windfall tax on the $140 billion in bonuses and compensation that Wall Street aims to pay in 2009 - and impose a speculation tax on stock and derivative trading. These and like measures are what the public wants - and they are what we need to prevent a recurrence of the financial meltdown.

Can’t be there? Then sign the petition and “fight the powers that be.”

TARP IG to Bernanke: You Lied!

A report released by Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), found that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. “misled” lied about the financial health of Bank of America, Citigroup and the other institutions that were the first to feed at the TARP trough. The Wall Street banksters received $125 billion in the first round of government bailouts.

New York Times finance reporter Louis Story was interviewed by Fox News host Greta Van Susteren:

STORY: The Treasury Department now, which is interesting, because of course it is a different administration. I mean, Paulson is not there anymore.

But, of course, the other thing that is interesting to think about this is that the whole paradigm that was set up by naming these nine banks as the healthy banks also decided that they were in the club. They were in the club of survivors. They were in the club of banks that would become too big to fail. So these healthy banks from back then live today and may live on with an advantage for a long time to come.

VAN SUSTEREN: Are they spending any of this money that they got? Are the banks lending it?

STORY: That’s been one of the biggest controversies.

VAN SUSTEREN: So we have gone from “lie” to “controversy.” They got this money last fall...

STORY: And Paulson said they are healthy and this money will...

VAN SUSTEREN: They are healthy because we gave them all this money.

In his audit report, Barofsky wrote:

Statements that are less than careful or forthright -- like those made in this case -- may ultimately undermine the public’s understanding and support. This loss of public support could damage the government’s credibility and have long-term unintended consequences that actually hamper the government’s ability to respond to crises.

Ya think?

Wall Street Banksters Still Living Large

A year ago, Lehman Brothers’ collapse foreshadowed the financial meltdown, and ushered in an era of bailouts and Big Government.

A year later, nothing has changed on Wall Street. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize- winning economist, told Bloomberg News:

In the U.S. and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger. The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis.

Still, banksters, who “owe a debt to the American people,” are living large. Their effrontery is such that banksters are scheduling “meet-and-greets” with regulators and legislators who are supposed to be looking out for American taxpayers.

While Washington bails on leveling with the American people, filmmaker Michael Moore asks: “Where’s our money?”

Moore's latest film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” had its American premier last night in Pittsburgh.

The Washington Post reports:

But then things get interesting -- in building his indictment against the ill-fated marriage of Wall Street and Washington, Moore zeroes in less on Phil Gramm or other GOP string-pullers than he does on White House economic adviser Larry Summers, Robert Rubin and Sen. Chris Dodd. Especially Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Moore gets an on-camera interview with the mortgage officer who handled the special VIP loans provided to Dodd and other big names, which have dogged Dodd's reelection bid.

“Capitalism” opens in theaters nationwide on Oct. 2. For more info, go here.

The New Welfare Kings

Tonight, Frontline presents “Breaking the Bank,” an investigation of the federal government’s bailout of Wall Street banksters.

A different take on the new welfare kings will be coming to a theater near you October 2.

Will Work for Peanuts

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the national unemployment rate is 8.5 percent, the highest in more than 25 years.

BLS’ monthly estimates of state and local unemployment and employment rates historically include the 50 states and the District of Columbia. With American jobs being outsourced to India, BLS should include the states of Karnataka and Haryana.

JPMorgan Chase has received $25 billion in TARP funds. In the latest bailout outrage, JPMorgan has used American taxpayers’ dollars to establish call centers in Bangalore and Gurgaon to provide assistance to food stamp recipients.

JP Morgan provides debit cards for food stamps in 26 states and DC. ABC News reports:

JP Morgan is the only one today still operating public-assistance call centers overseas. The company refused to say which states had calls routed to India and which ones had calls stay domestically. That decision, the company said, was often left up to the individual states…

Indian call-center employees typically earn about $2.50 to $3.50 an hour, roughly 70 percent less than their American counterparts, said Jagdish Dalal, a managing director at the New York-based International Association of Outsourcing Professionals.

ABC also reports that JP Morgan is routing calls to Rhode Island’s Unemployment Insurance Call Center to India. Rhode Island’s unemployment rate is 10.5 percent.

So, chew on this: More than 5 million jobs have been lost since the recession began in December 2007. But JP Morgan is using our money to bolster its bottom and create jobs overseas.

Mapping Change

President Barack Obama will mark his 100th day in office with a primetime news conference.

For some Obama supporters, it’s still crying time.

The Washington Post reports that black voters in the South Carolina county that ignited Obama’s campaign are still looking for change:

But now, as Obama nears the 100-day milestone of his presidency, Childs suffers from constant exhaustion. In a conservative Southern state that bolstered Obama's candidacy by supporting him early in the Democratic primaries, she awakens at 2:30 a.m. with stress headaches and remains awake mulling all that's befallen Greenwood since Obama's swearing-in…

On Day 88, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that South Carolina had set a record for its highest unemployment rate in state history, at 11.4 percent. Greenwood's unemployment is 13 percent -- more than twice what it was when Childs first started chanting.

The Post continues:

Now Obama is president, and she still believes he will help rescue Greenwood County. But her enthusiasm has faded into a wary optimism. “He's only one man, and there's a lot to get done,” she says, a predicament she knows all too well.

Gov. Mark Sanford rejected some stimulus funds and Childs’ congressman, J. Gresham Barrett, voted against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Still, the Palmetto State will receive more than $600 million in infrastructure funds and energy efficiency grants.

The White House estimates 50,000 jobs will be “created/saved in the next 2 years” in South Carolina, including 7,900 in the 3rd congressional district.

The question now is whether stimulus funds will “help rescue” Greenwood County?

According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, 73 percent think Obama’s economic stimulus plan has made no difference in their personal financial situation; 65 percent think it has made no difference in their local community.

If the economic benefits of the stimulus plan go to Beltway bandits and good old boys, that’s not change Childs, Evon Hackett or any Obama supporter can believe in. Indeed, Hackett told the Post:

I guess he’s just working his way down the list, and he’ll get to us.

But as jobless claims rise and the national black unemployment rate remains in the double digits, “ain’t nothing going on but the rent.

As data become available, Tracking Change Wiki will map the impact of the recovery plan in reducing black unemployment and expanding opportunities for minority businesses.

To borrow a phrase from Gwen Guthrie, black folks are looking for the man, President Obama, to put some money in their hands. After all, what's good for Wall Street is good for Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Summers Asleep at the Wheel

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Larry Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, stayed awake when he was raking in the dough from hedge funds and Wall Street banksters and defending bonuses for bailout bunglers.

But during President Barack Obama’s meeting “to discuss the impact of the current crisis on consumers,” he can’t be bothered.