American Spring

"This government, we must chant, is corrupt. We can say that clearly and loudly from the left. They can say that clearly and loudly from the Right. And then we must teach America that this corruption is the core problem -- it is the root problem -- that we as Americans must be fighting."


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-lessig/a-letter-to-the-occupiers_b_1007459.html


"It all started with an e-mail. On July 13 Adbusters magazine sent out a call to its 90,000-strong list proclaiming a Twitter hashtag (#OccupyWallStreet) and a date, September 17. It quickly spread among the mostly young, tech-savvy radical set, along with an especially alluring poster the magazine put together of a ballerina atop the Charging Bull statue, the financial district's totem to testosterone."


http://www.npr.org/2011/10/19/141501013/the-nation-from-wall-street-to-everywhere

http://thedianerehmshow.org/audio-player?nid=14861

What it has become is a dialogue. Democracy at work.

Banks’ Self-Dealing Super-Charged Financial Crisis | Propublica

Over the last two years of the housing bubble, Wall Street bankers perpetrated one of the greatest episodes of self-dealing in financial history.

Faced with increasing difficulty in selling the mortgage-backed securities that had been among their most lucrative products, the banks hit on a solution that preserved their quarterly earnings and huge bonuses:

They created fake demand.


http://www.propublica.org/article/banks-self-dealing-super-charged-financial-crisis

The CDO Daisy Chain | Probublica

Here's how the Wall Street Money Machine worked in the run-up to the financial collapse: Banks created CDOs from mortgage-backed securities. Banks often retained the large top portion, called the "Super Senior." The bottom portion, or "Equity," was often sold off to hedge funds. The middle portion, or "Mezzanine," often went into new CDOs. The main buyers of those new CDOs were once again the banks.

http://www.propublica.org/special/the-cdo-daisy-chain

The Long Con... Scolding Minnows

Tracking Financial Crisis Cases

Very few cases related to the financial crisis have been brought against executives at large companies, and the ones that have been involved are almost entirely civil fraud, rather than criminal allegations. Here are the prominent cases so far. In many of them, the government negotiated a settlement with the defendants before it even filed a complaint, then announced both the case and settlement at the same time.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/financial-crisis-cases.html?ref=business

A Compelling Dosey-Doe | Time to move the burden from the taxpayer to the culprit

Interesting concept... from last week's Business Week:

"Blinder thinks the Fed is being "a little too passive."
 
He wants the Fed to cut to zero the rate it pays banks on the excess reserves it holds for them. That would remove banks' incentive to park money with the Fed. Even better, says Blinder, the Fed could effectively charge banks for holding their reserves by paying a negative interest rate. 

 More likely is that Bernanke will keep short-term interest rates, now around 0.25 percent, at that low level for even longer. "It is becoming increasingly likely that the Fed will be on hold until 2013," says Perli. 

What Now, Ben Bernanke?