[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0a6jyuxm1s[/youtube] “These guys on Wall Street, they don’t render any services at all. They don’t help the economy any except their own employees, their own little family.” — protester Paul Akers “Wall Street has taken so much money from the American people and haven’t given anything back, and it’s absolutely absurd.” — Jim Brown, operating [...]

Last week Senators Sherrod Brown and Ted Kaufman unveiled the “SAFE Banking Act” with a clear purpose: Breaking up the big banks. The proposal places hard leverage and size caps on financial institutions. It is well crafted and based on a great deal of hard thinking, according to economist Simon Johnson. And, as suggested on the front page [...]

We speak with investigative journalist, filmmaker, and author Danny Schechter, ‘the News Dissector.’ His latest film features interviews with industry insiders to reveal how the financial crisis was built on a foundation of criminal activity. It’s called “Plunder: The Crime Of Our Time.” via Democracy Now!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaDh1kdltLc[/youtube] JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and UBS AG were among more than a dozen Wall Street firms involved in a conspiracy to pay below-market interest rates to U.S. state and local governments on investments, according to documents filed in a U.S. Justice Department criminal antitrust case. A government list of previously [...]

As of July 1, the Federal Reserve will require that banks obtain a customer’s consent before they can charge them overdraft fees for A.T.M. transactions and debit purchases; many banks now automatically enroll customers. In anticipation of the new Fed rule, some banks have begun marketing campaigns to encourage their customers to opt in to [...]

There has been widespread public anger against the hubris of the banks, who are regarded as being to blame for the financial crisis. Their bonus policies, which have persisted even after the system has been bailed out by the taxpayer, have been attacked by politicians and the media. But what I can’t understand is why [...]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EelmqMgqBU8[/youtube] The worst of the bad guys, nearly everyone agrees, are the so-called Big Six: JP Morgan/Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Experts believe the first four alone hold at least 40 percent of our nation’s deposits and half of all bank assets. But despite ANWF’s nationwide rallies — [...]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkRCBz-PAYE[/youtube] For worried Democrats, the sudden return of Social Security privatization as a fashionable  nostrum among Republicans should lift their gloom. Or it would if only the Democratic leaders understood what to do when their opponents deliberately step into a messy dogpile again. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., a pair of the most outspoken [...]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaI5IRuS2aE[/youtube] Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, scolded Wall Street representatives at a hearing Thursday for sending “an army of lobbyists whose only mission is to kill the common-sense financial reforms” needed by the public. “The fact is,” Dodd said, “I am frustrated, and so are the American people.” He charged [...]

Exposing this entirely legal labyrinth of ownership took years of interagency pick-and-ax work. In the end it demonstrated how nefarious activity — even as high profile as this — can go on for years, right under authorities’ noses. It’s also meant that tenants of the prestigious Manhattan property have been paying millions in rent to [...]

Extended interview with top TARP cop, Harvard Professor, Elizabeth Warren. Shes sassy and real and tells it like it is… [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2kfAr2h5NE[/youtube]

The risk that deteriorating government finances could push economies into full-fledged debt crises tops a list of threats facing the world in 2010, according to a report by the World Economic Forum. Major world economies have responded to the financial crisis with stimulus packages and by underwriting private debt obligations, causing deficits to balloon. This [...]

On the substance, a financial reform that’s too weak will provide nothing more than the illusion of stability, and by creating that illusion could actually make the next crisis worse. On the politics, the Obama administration desperately needs to distance itself from Wall Street; a deal that the street likes will, almost by definition, be [...]