Here comes a new Pecora Commission!
By John Amato Wednesday May 06, 2009 6:00pmThat's it. I think we need another good Sicilian kinky-haired, olive-skinned, jut-jawed lawyer from Manhattanin there mixing it up with these Banksters.
Pelosi calls for panel to probe Wall Street
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying that the American people are demanding "discipline and accountability" following the multibillion-dollar federal bailouts, vowed today to initiate a legislative commission with broad oversight to investigate the causes of Wall Street irregularities and their full costs to taxpayers.
Pelosi, speaking to the Commonwealth Club of California, said she wants the panel to be modeled after the Pecora Commission, a bipartisan investigative body established by the U.S. Senate in 1932 to examine the causes and abuses of the Wall Street crash of 1929 and to prevent a repeat.
"They investigated what happened in the markets," including conflicts of interests and irregularities that set off such devastating effects on the U.S. economy, she said. When the commission issued its findings during the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "they had tangible recommendations," she said, which helped generate widespread public support for major banking system reforms and new securities laws.
You can watch the video segment Bill Moyers featured on PBS. He had a discussion about the Pecora Commission here. (h/t Heather)
Robert Borosage has been calling for hearings on Wall Street for a while now.
CFAF just released a statement on this by Borosage:
We applaud House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s pledge to create a special commission to investigate the roots of the financial collapse similar to the Pecora Commission that exposed the crimes and collusion's of Wall Street in the 1930s.
The devil, of course, is in the details – and the people. The commission needs subpoena power. It needs to be able to expose what appears to be widespread fraudulent and illegal practices – that can only be done with the power to demand production of documents and witnesses. It needs a large, aggressive and competent staff able to sort through volumes of material. It needs time to lay out the case to the public. And it needs courageous commissioners and a fearless prosecutor, a modern day Pecora, committed to unearthing the truth.
I was watching FOX News and every panelist was so terrified by the fact that there could be any kind of hearings about any of the garbage that happened these last eight years. They were calling in madness, but not what the Bush administration did of course. That's why the country is in this frakkin' shape. We need to know why and we need people held accountable.
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They are terrified they are all going to be thrown in jail. What they did was almost (the jury is still out) bring down the whole economy... of the world! Now if it was a Democratic administration who was responsible then do you think they would want a commission or do they only want commissions when it concerns sex? Why would they not want a commission to figure out EXACTLY what and how this happened.
They're all guilty. Pubs speaking or not speaking, for or against anything, is generated for their base only.
Dem's and pub's both are guilty of FISA and related wrongdoing, torture, financial benefit for personal gain, the unraveling of regulations in all fields, sectors, industries, and more.
They're all guilty, NONE of them wants, or can afford to have, a Pecorra Commission.
This is all but talk . . . . pandering to the left side of the dem base, and pub opposition to a commission, panders to their base. It will all be washed away, without convictions, sentences, or investigations.
Sweeps is almost over . . . . too. BTW.
I'm out of work, so I'm getting unemployment checks. money from "teh gubmint". this means, I *HAVE* to look for work, or else I'm breaking the law, because the Employment Dept established conditions to me accepting checks from them. the Employment Dept has the right, sometimes even the duty, to investigate me and make sure I'm actually applying for jobs and not just sitting on my ass.
my good friend is on food stamps and welfare. money from "teh gubmint". this means, he *CAN NOT* use that money to buy drugs or booze, and he can't sell his food stamps for drugs or booze. the Social Services agency has the right, sometimes even the duty, to investigate him if they think he's violating these conditions.
***
we should have established stricter conditions to these financial institutions before giving them money. and of course we should investigate them, audit them, and make sure they're following whatever thin conditions we *DID* enact. fuck all this "right to privacy" mumbo jumbo they're crying about. they lost the right to privacy, the moment they stopped earning and spending "private" money.
we need to give these clowns the same kinds of hassles that we give people on welfare.
What's good for us is better for them.
Break up these banks. Sell them to employees. There are probably many people in the ranks with the know how to be successful given the opportunity. These too big to fail corporations have bought off politicians and controlled our government. The middle class is weakened considerably by outsourcing millions of jobs while the Wall Street bonus crowd enriched themselves like pigs at the trough. Time to take our country back. Vote.
are scared to death of a commission they can not control...Most of the long in the tooth legislators were in the mix when Glass Stegeall was repealed, NAFTACall Congress. 1.800.828.0498 or 1.866.220.0044...Tell them to put teeth in this and not congressional strenght 'PURELL"!!
did away with all the regulations we had put in place after the Pecora Commission.
Really, I may not understand all the intricacies of of CDS and CDO, and all the rules that were in Glass-Stegall Act, or the actual regulatory roles of the Fed and the SEC - but I understand exactly what has happened to our financial system and economy: greedy criminals running banks/corps invested huge sums in electing folks to legislative office who then passed laws that would enable the greedy criminals to do even worse things and swindle more Americans out of billions of their hard-earned dollars. It's a vicious cycle -
and the people who make the laws are not going to make laws that will put them out of office and off the gravy train (i.e., term limits, public campaign financing, voter protections, etc.).
An investigation would be nice, but who gets to appoint the prosecutor and the commissioners? The system is so corrupt, I seriously doubt we could trust the people involved. And, after they tell us the results (what we already know as I've outlined above), and they make some cosmetic changes, if we're lucky, it'll be back to business as usual before you can say, Goldman-Sachs.
Before you can say Government Sachs.
'Government Sachs' by Robert Scheer here.
Corruption at the highest levels.
Like the stress tests?
Is suddenly the peon of "accountability". Tougher mid-terms last year than she expected? I guess she's at least smart enough to know that if Hillary and Joe can be dethroned, then she could be next. I just wish Feinstein would wise up, too.
Pelosi has been completely useless since she took the job in 2006.
I hope she gets hit by a mack truck.
They'll probably pick a "bi-partisan blue ribbon panel" which will then blather for weeks, and then deliver a 3,000 page volume blaming all of Wall Street's problems on Lee Harvey Oswald.
i saw this interview earlier. simon johnson sitting at the table is very sharp. he was the former chief economist of the IMF. he said this,"I think the banks have control of the state. Not the state in control of the banks". he also mentions thomas hoenig KC fed reserve who suprisingly was in the media when he said,' when you have banks and financial institutions that are TOO big to fail you get oligarchs'. simon johnson also said the banks believe they have won.....they have an 'arrogance of power'. like what the RIGHT wing does with the torture issue, WallStreet/financial elites will tell us how bad it will be if we dig any deeper.
And you are right, Johnson is very sharp
about investigations, why don't they dig into what happened to the pallets of cash that was shipped to Iraq and all of the money grubbing cons in the government, military, and private sector?
Thanks for not letting this one go down the memory hole. Here's a link to CNN's reporting on a related story on Jan 31, 2005.
More than four years have passed since that story and no real effort has been made to find out where the money went. Only wait, this is only PART of the story.
So that 8.8 Billion is separate from the $10 Billion of pallet cash you mention. So in those two separate stories you have nearly twenty billion dollars. And who would be foolish enough to think that it stops there?
What's really needed are two separate investigations; one into the missing money (and money that didn't go missing as such, but was still swindled by contractors like KBR) and another into the lies that led up to the war. My guess is that the two would converge in short order.
I'v got beachfront property in Colorado free for anyone who believes harriet will do anything more than stall.
If it were Harriet it would not be any worse, maybe better.
As for your beachfrontage, I am busy enjoying the view from my high mountain top in Michigan.
Some of us here tried to say it was a bad idea to spend money we don't have but so many thought we could just punch our way through if we dumped enough money at it.
Uhm, no.
China Says Global Easing Policies Risk Devaluation (Update2)
Global central banks risk inflation, currency devaluation and a 'big consolidation' in bond markets by pumping cash into their economies, the People?s Bank of China said in its quarterly monetary policy report.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsar...
It seems clearer each day that the bank/lending/stock market scenario was the final kiss, the Bush Legacy, if you will, to the American people. Our major problem now is neither Congress or the White House really wants to get to the bottom of who did what, to whom, when. Save and except some members of Congress, the guilty parties have come and gone. The new crowd's thinking goes along the lines of "why pursue justice from the old crowd, when, in a few years, that might be us! To quote the comedian, Freddy Prinz, "Its not my job!"
"Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying that the American people are demanding 'discipline and accountability'"
Be simpler to just say the American people would like the rich to quit stealing from them.
Like this is going to be more than a dog and pony show. I have no faith at all that Pelosi will actually follow thru with this anymore than with all the other investigations she called for and then dropped. We'll see if this is empty grandstanding or the real deal.
If they appoint Henry Waxman to head the investigation, I'll take this more seriously. (Waxman should be speaker. I think he's the only one with the balls to pursue shit like this.)
I agree with most of the skepticism displayed here. I'm thinking this fabulous commission will be just like the "hearing" conducted on health care that was all insurance lobbyists and no "single payer" representatives. This one will likely not include anybody who will even say the words "Glass-Steagall".
Still, don't just talk about it Nancy. Freakin' DO IT! This should have been done months ago.
There are enough laws on the books that have been transgressed that warrant a full-fledged investigation -- and possible criminal charges for fraud alone -- by the Department of Justice. More laws and recommendations from a committee of -- likely -- corporatist shills are unnecessary. Families, communities and nations are held together by ethics not laws. Dealing with those who are determined to act unethically calls for a strong deterrent. A start would be for the DOJ to expunge the in-house Bushites and then act on their mandate. All else is distraction, disinformation and smoke and mirrors all of which contribute to further cynicism by the citizenry.
if a commission to investigate is all we can get for a start --
I nominate Eliot Spitzer to chair it!!
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