Here is an email that I received from Elizabeth Warren via the Progressive Change Campaign Committee BoldProgressives.org.

Steven,

We’ve seen all the headlines: JP Morgan Chase took risky bets and lost two billion dollars in a matter of weeks.

CEO Jamie Dimon called the bets “poorly reviewed” and even “sloppy.” He added, “We will learn from it, we will fix it, and we will move on.”  

Frankly, I don’t think we should just trust Wall Street banks to regulate themselves. Because as we learned during the 2008 financial crisis, they are not just taking risks with their own money — they are taking risks with the whole economy.

That’s why today, with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, I’m calling on Congress to put Wall Street reform back on the agenda and to begin by passing a new Glass-Steagall Act. This was the law that stopped investment banks from gambling away people’s life savings for decades — until Wall Street successfully lobbied to have it repealed in 1999.

Will you join us in calling on Congress to hold Wall Street accountable and pass a new Glass-Steagall Act? Click here to stand with us!

A new Glass-Steagall would separate high-risk investment banks from more traditional banking. It would allow Wall Street to take risks, but not by dipping into the life savings and retirement accounts of regular people.

And by making banks smaller, a new Glass-Steagall could also help put an end to banks that are “too big to fail” — further avoiding costly taxpayer bailouts. 

Wall Street’s risky bets nearly brought the economy to its knees in 2008. But instead of taking responsibility, Wall Street lobbied to water down the Dodd-Frank financial reforms of 2010 and fought to weaken the reforms Congress passed.

It has become clear over time — and made even clearer this past week — that additional Wall Street reforms are needed. 

Please join us in urging Congress to put Wall Street reform back on the table — and pass a new Glass-Steagall Act today.

Thousands of Progressive Change Campaign Committee members have stood with me in my campaign for the Senate — and many were with me before that when I was fighting for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

If I’m elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, I promise this difference from my Republican opponent Scott Brown: I will be a reliable and strong champion for commonsense Wall Street reform. But we don’t have a moment to waste.

Together, we must urge Congress to act now.

Thank you,
Elizabeth Warren

 

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Sharon and I stumbled across an interview on C-SPAN with E. O. Wilson in which he talked about his new book The Social Conquest Of Earth. On The e.o.wilson Biodiversity Foundation web site, I found this precis of the book.

Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going? In a generational work of clarity and passion, one of our greatest living scientists directly addresses these three fundamental questions of religion, philosophy, and science while “overturning the famous theory that evolution naturally encourages creatures to put family first” (Discover magazine). Refashioning the story of human evolution in a work that is certain to generate headlines, Wilson draws on his remarkable knowledge of biology and social behavior to show that group selection, not kin selection, is the primary driving force of human evolution. He proves that history makes no sense without prehistory, and prehistory makes no sense without biology. Demonstrating that the sources of morality, religion, and the creative arts are fundamentally biological in nature, Wilson presents us with the clearest explanation ever produced as to the origin of the human condition and why it resulted in our domination of the Earth’s biosphere. 90 illustrations.

There were some really big “Aha” moments in the interview.  For instance, I came to understand the roles of Democrats(Liberals) and Republicans(Conservative) in society.  He explains why we need them both and yet how we need to balance both. The “Aha” moment is more profound than even the above book summary indicates.

When I read The New York Times article, Capitalists and Other Psychopaths, I was able to appreciate it  at a much higher level because of what I had learned from E. O. Wilson.

The New York Times has the article Capitalists and Other Psychopaths by William Deresiewicz. He starts with the following paragraph:

There is an ongoing debate in this country about the rich: who they are, what their social role may be, whether they are good or bad. Well, consider the following. A recent study found that 10 percent of people who work on Wall Street are “clinical psychopaths,” exhibiting a lack of interest in and empathy for others and an “unparalleled capacity for lying, fabrication, and manipulation.” (The proportion at large is 1 percent.) Another study concluded that the rich are more likely to lie, cheat and break the law.

By a stroke of luck, I happened to stumble across an interview on C-SPAN of E. O. Wilson in which he talked about his recent book The Social Conquest Of Earth. This book explains why the article above is true. The interview was quite a revelation to me.

As promised, Elizabeth Warren visited Southbridge on May 12, 2012.  She faced an enthusiastic crowd at the Fins & Tales Restaurant.

Click on the border below to see the photo album in a separate browser window.

The statement Elizabeth Warren Calls on JP Morgan Chief to Resign from NY Federal Reserve Bank Board is posted on Elizabeth Warren’s web site.

“Wall Street banks continue to have fundamental problems, and tough oversight and accountability are urgently needed. Jamie Dimon deserves credit for taking public responsibility for $2 billion in losses based on a trading strategy he called ‘poorly reviewed,’ ‘poorly monitored,’ and even ‘sloppy.’ But Dimon is not only the CEO of JP Morgan, he is also a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, where he advises the Federal Reserve on the oversight of the financial industry,” Warren said.

Credit where credit is due, and consequences where consequences are due.  Unless Dimon is willing to make up the $2 billion from his own pocket, he should be fired.  He should feel grateful for living in the United States.  In China, such sloppy management has been known to result in criminal conviction and the death penalty.

In The Boston Globe article Debate on Romney’s memory of incident Michael Levenson presents an interesting possibility.

While some observers have expressed doubt that anyone could forget such a dramatic episode, one activist who has studied bullying said he believes Romney may, in fact, have no recollection.

Teenagers who bully others often don’t remember the incidents because they weren’t traumatic for them, said Don Gorton, chairman of the Anti-Violence Project of Massachusetts, a nonprofit group that seeks to reduce violence against gays and lesbians.

“Empathy is the critical variable,’’ Gorton said. “If they don’t feel their victims’ pain, the episode won’t stand out. It wasn’t a big deal for them.’’

That should make us feel better about Mitt Romney.  He simply has no ability to feel a victim’s pain.  Sort of a reverse Bill Clinton.

I bet that when Mitt Romney spanked his children he told them, “This is going to hurt you a lot more than it’s going to hurt me.”

He may have said something similar to all the victims of his vulture capital business.  Maybe that is what made him so good at it.  The victims screamed, but he just couldn’t hear it.

So you say, what are you talking about Romney and vulture capitalist? See Romney Economics: Bankruptcy and Bailouts at GST Steel.

JP Morgan announced a $2 billion trading loss yesterday. The big banks and their lobbyists have been fighting to water down the regulations that we need to prevent another crisis — and today we find out that they’re still involved in trades that increase the risks in our financial system.

How many of you out there still believe that we need to cut regulations on the banks? Other than our current Senator, I mean.

You don’t suppose $2 billion is a big enough Oops! that Jamie Dimon might lose his job as CEO of JP Morgan?

Watch the video of the interview Keller @ Large: Senate Candidate Marisa DeFranco.

I know the Introduction to this blog says:

This is my blog for commenting on politics.

I make no pretense about balance on this blog. If you want balance, read another blog.

and I am heavily into promoting Elizabeth Warren, but I will say this about Marisa DeFranco:

Damn, she is  good.

If we could have both as our next Senator, then that would be wonderful.  If we get Scott Brown because of the challenge from Marisa DeFranco, that would not be so wonderful.  Because of my support for Elizabeth Warren, I’ll make no comment on a third possible outcome.

By the way, she may have referred to me without naming me in this interview.  What is the equivalent of junk mail for a Facebook post?

As Goes Janesville is a movie that is coming out this year.

As Goes Janesville follows the story of how the community of Janesville, Wisconsin recovers and reinvents itself after the loss of its century-old General Motors plant. The film will premiere in the summer of 2012 and is supported by The MacArthur Foundation, ITVS and the Sheldon and Marianne Lubar Family Foundation. Stay tuned for more details.

I saw an overlay in the video in my previous post Governor Scott Walker’s ‘divide and conquer’ strategy for union busting. In tiny letters it mentioned the web site and movie that I am highlighting here.  I am glad my curiosity made me follow up.

At one point in the trailer to the movie where one person was saying that it was all for the best, it instantly brought to mind the book, The Shock Doctrine.  Administer a big enough shock to a populace, and they will accept almost any conditions as a remedy if it means any kind of a job at all.  Seems to be working quite well.

I wonder how plainly the Republican’s have to speak before the union members recognize that politicians like Scott Walker are not their friends.

Documentary filmmaker Brad Lichtenstein videotaped this conversation in which Gov. Scott Walker says he would use “divide and conquer” as a strategy against unions. Video courtesy of Brad Lichtenstein

I have heard rumors that the postal workers in Massachusetts favor Scott Brown over Elizabeth Warren. I wonder if these postal workers are aware that part of the reason for layoffs in the Postal Service was the unusual demand put on them by Congress to prefund their retiree health care plan to the tune of $11 billion. No other public or private retiree health care plan has such an onerous requirement.

Maybe Brown has convinced the postal workers that he is their friend because of a recently floated plan that would give an $11 billion cash infusion to the Postal Service. Like this is a subsidy instead of restitution from the people who stole the money in the first place.

Wait, you haven’t seen the half of it. Go to the web site that you see in the above video, As Goes Janesville.