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Posted on 14-4-11 Unreason Able Women
By Jim Hightower, Truthout.org, 13 April 2011
They're back. Actually, they never left, they just laid low while the heat
of political anger blew over.
They are the schemers and scammers of Wall Street who devised the
Phantasmagoric Money-From-Nothing Good Times Machine that was fueled by
indecipherable derivatives and other financial fairy dust. If you're
presently stuck in hard economic times, you have them to thank, for it was
their hocus-pocus that -- poof! -- imploded our economy in 2008.
Responding to public outrage, President Obama and the Democratic Congress
passed a reform bill last year that tightened the rules on these
tricksters. But now -- with Wall-Street-hugging Republicans running the
House and Obama himself turning into Wall Street's best buddy -- the
schemers and scammers are demanding that Washington loosen those pesky
rules so they can restart that Good Times Machine for their own fun and
profit.
For example, the biggest banks are pressing hard for the Treasury
Department to exempt a derivatives game called "foreign-exchange swaps"
from any regulation. These gamble on the ups and downs of foreign
currencies. Not only are they explosively risky, they're massive, with
some $4 trillion being bet on them every day.
A hiccup in this speculative game can ruin the day of a whole country. But
a handful of Wall Street giants rake in about $9 billion a year handling
these high-rolling bets, and they don't want the public even seeing what
they're doing.
"Don't regulate us," they insist, "trust us." After all, they say, this
currency game is the one derivatives market that did not crash in 2008.
Not so fast, slick. The only reason the market for foreign-exchange swaps
didn't crash is that the Federal Reserve poured more than $5 trillion into
foreign central banks that year to prop it up.
Such runaway greed by Wall Street is why change is so desperately needed.
The Powers That Be claim that it's unreasonable to regulate Wall Street.
However, as George Bernard Shaw noted a century ago, "All change comes
from the power of unreasonable people."
I think Shaw would agree to one small addendum to his sage observation,
which is that such people are considered unreasonable only by the
entrenched powers that always oppose change.
Let me offer two examples of people today who deserve our applause for
rankling the establishment and, in turn, enduring its furious abuse:
Sheila Bair and Elizabeth Warren. Both are daring to bring a stronger
consumer and public-interest voice into the closed, cliquish and often
self-serving world of banking.
Bair heads the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which gives a big helping
hand to banks by insuring their customers' deposits. The FDIC is also
supposed to help consumers and taxpayers by regulating banks. And -- my
goodness -- unlike some of her predecessors, she has chosen to do both
jobs, including providing tough enforcement of regulations to prevent bank
failures, foster real competition and deter banker finagling.
At a recent meeting, financial chieftains showed their appreciation for
her work (and their ugly side) with a cascade of catcalls, guffaws, snorts
and boos as she spoke.
Booed by bankers. I'm sure that's unpleasant at the moment -- but what a
badge of honor!
Likewise, Warren is under constant attack by Wall Street bosses and the
flock of Republican Congress critters who shamelessly serve them. She
helped create and is now setting up the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau as a watchdog over banker abuses. To show their gratitude, the
bankers got their GOP mad-dogs to slash the bureau's budget and simply
eliminate Warren's salary.
To add your voice in support of these two "unreasonable" women, go to
Bankster USA: www.banksterusa.org
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