Naked Capitalism has the article Bill Black Discusses “Too Big to Jail” on Bill Moyers.

Black goes well beyond mortgage fraud to discuss the gamut of bank abuses the Administration has chosen to ignore and why this posture is guaranteed to cause a future financial meltdown. This is a worthwhile segment in and of itself, and is also a good overview for friends and colleagues who are mystified that as to why the banksters got off scot free.

If you don’t listen to and understand what is told to you in this interview, then you will have no clue as to what is going wrong in the world, let alone this country.

As Bill Black said in the interview,

There is no threat to capitalism like capitalists.

The trouble is that, as in the great depression, we will all be taken down with the system.

If you need any further reason to understand why Hillary Clinton must not be our next President, then I don’t know what could possibly be said to you.

Democracy Now has the transcript of the  interview Jeremy Scahill on Obama’s Orwellian War in Iraq: We Created the Very Threat We Claim to be Fighting.

JEREMY SCAHILL: I mean, Hillary Clinton is-I actually think, is more hawkish than Barack Obama, and Barack Obama has emerged as a pretty significant hawk in terms of his policies. He can talk all he wants about, you know, how he wants to change and reset relationships around the world; this has been a total militarized presidency. Hillary Clinton, when she was secretary of state, acted as though she was also sort of secretary of defense. And her State Department was deeply involved with plotting covert action around the world, using the State Department as cover for CIA operations. And, you know, the Clintons, Bill and Hillary Clinton, are two of the most fierce projectors of the politics of the American empire, and they also have very close relationships with some of the most nefarious characters from the Bush family. So, you know, those two families together, the Bushes and the Clintons, it’s almost like a monarchy in this country. I mean, Jeb Bush very well may run. I mean, it’s unclear what-you know, George W. Bush said the other day that he’s putting pressure on his brother to try to run for president. But, you know, Hillary Clinton is a fierce neoliberal who believes in backing up the so-called “hidden hand of the free market” with merciless, iron-fisted military policies.

Among all the scary things about this interview is the thought that we Democrats might actually get Hillary Clinton elected as the next President of the USA.

At least the investment advice is good news. My investment in Lockhead Martin is up 29.1% since investing in it in November 2013. That is even counting the big drop this week.

Naked Capitalism has the article David Quentin and Nicholas Shaxson: The “Patent Box” – Proof That the UK is a Rogue State in Corporate Tax.

Perhaps most importantly, it is the very existence of intellectual property rights that spurs innovation, so there is no need for them to have a special extra subsidy. However socially useful a patented technology may or may not be, a patent is a privately-held and transferable monopoly over the commercial exploitation of an idea, and that monopoly only exists because the state chooses to enforce it. Bringing into being and protecting such privately-held monopolies is a way for the state to reward human creativity. Owning such an asset is not something the state needs to subsidize with a tax break; simply owning it should be enough.

This article makes it clearer to me than it ever has been the nature of the fight to protect “intellectual property rights.”  You hear President Obama tout this protection in the trade deals he wants to foist on us.  He excoriates countries like China for not protecting our companies’ “intellectual property rights” inside China.  In fact, “intellectual property rights” has turned into another scam to allow the oligarchs to avoid their fare share of taxes.  They are using this as a weapon against us, and want us to fight for their ability to use it against us.

I received an email from Maura Healey in which she said the following:

Together, we can set the record straight on Martha’s life-long fight for the safety of the children of Massachusetts.
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I worked for Martha Coakley in the Attorney General’s office. I saw her fighting against human trafficking. Making our children safer online. Enforcing child labor laws. Keeping families in their homes. Passing an anti-bullying law.

I don’t know where Charlie Baker was, but Martha Coakley was there.

Trust me, if you want a champion for children and families in this state, then we have a clear choice – Martha Coakley.

Here is the video to counteract an ad for Charley Baker that Maura Healey thought was disgusting.

Remember that Charlie Baker is the one who wants to solve Massachusetts ills on the backs of the poor. He is focused on welfare fraud that is tiny, and expects to solve it by insisting that welfare recipients go out and get non-existent jobs. He wants to promote a public housing plan that will boot needy people right out of their homes and make them homeless.

If ever there were a heartless Republican that should not be allowed anywhere near the Governor’s office, this is the one. This is an all out class war of the rich and powerful few against the rest of us. I hope you don’t get tricked onto being a soldier for the other side. If you have hopes of being fairly well off some day, you should know that the Republican plan is not the one that will get you there (at least not if you have any scruples at all.)

New Economic Perspectives has the article A “Perfectly Legal” Scam is Perfectly Unacceptable to Real Bank Supervisors by William K. Black.  Now that you have heard the words of the culprits from my previous posts, let us bring in an expert to tell you exactly what is so wrong with what they did.

Let me give you some excerpts from William Black’s biography from  University of Missouri Kansas City.

Professor Black was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and senior deputy chief counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement.

So when you get an explanation of what the Fed bank supervisors did wrong, you know it is the voice of experience from a bank regulator who has done it right.    He explains several episodes of the financial crisis that are peripheral to (but essential background information about) the current brouhaha over Goldman Sachs before he gets into their latest fraud.

In case you don’t get to read the article, I will just show you the excerpt that shows exactly how derelict the bank supervisors were.

So, it’s “apparent” that the deal was a scam. Silva knew it was a scam. His team knew it was a scam. As a former senior banking lawyer/regulator who worked with real supervisors let me assure the reader that there can be real supervisors and that no change in law was required for Silva to block a “perfectly legal” scam designed to “artificially enhance” a bank’s reported “capital.” Such a deal is “unsafe and unsound” and it abets an “unsafe and unsound” act. We would have ordered Goldman to terminate the scam and if its senior managers refused to comply we would have brought a “cease and desist” order against Goldman and a “removal and prohibition” order against the senior managers. We would have won both actions. The federal banking regulators have explicit statutory power to act against “unsafe and unsound” banking practices.

I think the point is that the system including the FED is corrupt.  However, the likes of Rand Paul haven’t a clue as to exactly what is wrong.  If you want a Senator to go after the Fed and try to fix it, Elizabeth Warren is one of the people you want.

The Daily Kos has the article Wendy Davis knocks it out of the park in debate with Greg Abbott which features the video below.

For those with an interest in Texas politics (like those born there, or married to someone who was born their, or who has a daughter that was born there) this is a very hopeful sign of how Texas might be improving.

This is also interesting for those who want an example of a very effective debater. I wonder if the people of Texas are listening.

Elizabeth Warren has posted a comment on her Facebook page about her NPR interview.

Attention regulators: You work for the American people, not for the big banks. Check out my interview with NPR about the recently released Goldman Sachs tapes.

You can listen to her 7 minute interview below.

You can read Transcript: Sen. Warren’s Full NPR Interview On Financial Regulation. The excerpt below is just the tail end of the interview.

Sen. Warren, this is, uh, something that you’re clearly passionate about, but it’s a complicated issue — bank regulation. What would have to happen for it to be a major campaign issue this fall or in 2016?

You know, I think it already is a campaign issue. The way I see this, for everybody who’s running right now in 2014, there’s a fundamental question of whose side you stand on.

You know, the game out there is rigged, and people across this country really get it. And the Goldman Sachs tapes just show it one more time. Little banks have to follow the rules, regular families have to follow the rules, but big financial institutions? Somehow they can manage just to push their regulators aside and go forward.

There’s a — there’s a fundamental question about who this country works for. It can’t just work for those who already have lots of money and lots of power. We’ve got to have a country that works for everybody else.

Should Hillary Clinton address this issue forcefully?

You know, I’d like to see everybody address this issue forcefully. I think it is a very important question, and I’m — I wanna see everybody in on it. Both parties — I think we all should be there.

Do you think that — do you think that your party is going to be able to make an issue of this in the general election coming up in a couple of years?

You know, I’m gonna keep talking about it, and I think there are a lot of people in the Democratic Party who will do the same.

Someone needs to be monitoring the FED’s behavior to make sure it is doing its job. Failures like the one uncovered here show that the FED’s right to act without oversight has been abused. Whatever powers of oversight the Congress decides to take on, they must be protected from abuse. We must not forget that House Speaker Jim Wright exerted his influence over the regulators in the Savings and Loan crisis to make them back off from doing their jobs.