The Real News Network has the video interview Documents in JPMorgan settlement reveal how every large bank in U.S. has committed mortgage fraud  with William Black.

So the first thing that we have is that there are admissions not just as to JPMorgan in this statement of facts, but also as to Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual. And collectively, of course, we’re talking about three of the largest and most elite financial institutions in the world. And the Justice Department says each of these engaged in fraud, which ought to be sort of the headline news, right, that three of the largest financial entities in the world engaged in pervasive fraud.

The cover-up that is going on here is probably as serious as the cover-up of the Saudi involvement in 9/11. The violence done in mortgage fraud is much more subtle, but it has many more direct victims than 9/11.

In looking for a sign for the Walmart protest, I found the following at the web site of The United Food & Commercial Workers International Union.

I was lonely at Walmart today

The Levy Institute has the one pager Exit Keynes the Friedmanite, Enter Minsky’s Keynes by Robert J, Barbera co-director of the Center for Financial Economics at the Johns Hopkins University.

Brad DeLong recently reposted his 1996 review of John Maynard Keynes’s A Tract on Monetary Reform(1924). DeLong makes the case, quite compellingly, that Keynes, in this book, provides us with the best monetarist monograph ever written. DeLong leads, however, with a sentence that, in 2013, he might want to alter: “This may well be Keynes’s best book.”

It was the complete failure of the monetarist framework that led Keynes to deliver his General Theory in 1936. Quite sadly, in 1996 the Washington Consensus had effectively embraced the minimalist view of monetary policy responsibilities articulated by Keynes in 1924. And in so doing they set the world up for a 1929-style financial crisis in 2008–9

Finally, I understand why I was more right about the economy from Bill Clinton’s administration through the current moment than most of the economics professors of recent years.  I learned my economics in the early 1960s.  I was not lulled into the nonsense that the professionals fell into around 1996.  The explanation of the two parts of Keynes’ career explains how two people can come to very different conclusions about what Keynes’ said.

I learned the Keynes that was based on what he learned during the depression.  I didn’t realize that what he learned from the depression refuted a lot of what he thought before then.  Of course it is silly of me to not have realized that a well respected economist having learned something from an experience must have meant that he didn’t know this before he had his great epiphany.  If he didn’t know it before, then he must have thought something else before.

It is so clear when someone explains it to you.

The Real News Network has the video Revealing the 9/11 Conspiracy Would Undo the Entire US-Saudi Alliance – Sen. Bob Graham on Reality Asserts Itself pt2.

I was going to just add this segment to my previous post, Investigating the Saudi Government’s 9/11 Connection, but I felt this was too important to let it get buried as part of an older post.

GRAHAM: Well, what I’ve been thinking a lot about recently–and we’re going through the period recognizing the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy–a lot of this discussion has gone back to various theories about how was Oswald able to do this. Was he helped by the mob, by the Cubans or somebody? My question is: what difference does it make? If you’d found out that, yes, there was such a conspiracy, how is that relevant to any decision that we would be making today?

In contrast, the issue of whether the 19 hijackers acted alone or whether they had a support network has enormous current consequences. If in fact the Saudi government was the source of financial, logistical support, provision of anonymity that allowed these people to stay in the country such a long time and go undiscovered, if they were part of the system that made that happen, think of what it would mean to U.S.-Saudi relations today. It would be a complete overturning of the premises upon which we have been dealing with Saudi Arabia, that it was a loyal ally of the United States to now being seen as a country which was prepared to sell its soul to the worst in the world, even if that meant putting the United States in jeopardy and the loss of life of 3,000 people.

Graham doesn’t even get to the half of the issue. What if the Saudi’s perpetrated 9/11 in order to get us to attack Iraq? Might they not do a similar thing to get us to attack Iran?

You can look up a Walmart protest near you on the web page, Attend a Black Friday Protest Near You! Just plug in a different zip code.

November 29, 2013• 12:30 PM

Walmart 2797• 100 Charlton Rd, STURBRIDGE, MA 01566

The Daily Kos has the reason you might want to join the protest. If You Aren’t Sure Walmart Needs to Pay Higher Wages, This Photo Will Erase All Doubt.

Truthout has the article Without Reagan’s Treason, Iran Would Not Be a Problem.

Carter was confident that with Bani-Sadr’s help, he could end the embarrassing hostage crisis that had been a thorn in his political side ever since it began in November of 1979.
But Carter underestimated the lengths his opponent in the 1980 Presidential election, California Governor Ronald Reagan, would go to screw him over.

Behind Carter’s back, the Reagan campaign worked out a deal with the leader of Iran’s radical faction – Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini – to keep the hostages in captivity until after the 1980 Presidential election.

This was nothing short of treason. The Reagan campaign’s secret negotiations with Khomeini – the so-called “October Surprise” – sabotaged Carter and Bani-Sadr’s attempts to free the hostages. And as Bani-Sadr told The Christian Science Monitor in March of this year, they most certainly “tipped the results of the [1980] election in Reagan’s favor.”

Not surprisingly, Iran released the hostages on January 20, 1981, at the exact moment Ronald Reagan was sworn into office.

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A long-term Iranian nuclear deal would be a once in a generation chance for the United States to rethink its foreign policy. President Obama should go for it. But he should watch his back. Because if history tells us anything, it’s that Republicans are more than willing to betray their country for a little short-term political gain.

I am hoping that forewarned is forearmed. If we can make abundantly clear that we are aware of the back-stabbing that is being planned, maybe we can scare off the perpetrators or at least foil they plots if they aren’t scared off. Surely the NSA knows what is being planned. If we can’t at least get some benefit from giving up our privacy, then why did we give it up in the first place?

The Real News Network has the series starting with Investigating the Saudi Government’s 9/11 Connection and the Path to Disilliusionment – Sen. Graham on Reality Asserts Itself pt 1.

Here is an except talking about the report on 9/11 from the commission  that Senator Graham lead.

GRAHAM: There were 28 pages in the final report, out of over 800 total, which were totally censored from–that were word one to the end of that chapter. That was the chapter that largely dealt with the financing of 9/11, who paid for these very complex and in many instances expensive activities that were the predicate for 9/11. I was stunned that the intelligence community would feel that it was a threat to national security for the American people to know who had made 9/11 financially possible. And I am sad to report that today, some 12 years after we submitted our report, that those 28 pages continue to be withheld from the public.

JAY: Now, it’s fairly clear from your book what’s in the 28 pages, I mean, in general terms. The L.A. Times did a report on those 28 pages. A journalist for The L.A. Times spoke with someone who’d actually seen the 28 pages–didn’t reveal the name. But apparently it’s the actual names of the people in the Saudi government and Saudi royal family that are in on financing 9/11 conspirators. And your book makes it pretty clear that that’s what it’s about.

First of all, who ordered the redaction, that you weren’t allowed to say this?

GRAHAM: First, I’m going to have to withhold my comment on what you have just said. I am under the strictures of classification. I have–although it was written in 2002, I still have a reasonably good remembrance of what was in those 28 pages, but I’m frustrated because I can’t talk about it.

JAY: I know. And that’s why I quoted The L.A. Times and didn’t ask you.

This is much more than of historical interest. The very sources you hint at in this interview are probably now throwing great resources into getting us to go to war with Iran. I’d hate to think that the attack that gave Bush/Cheney what they needed to justify the war in Iraq will be repeated in order to get us to attack Iran.

Let us all make it clear that we see what is coming, and maybe that will discourage the people planning it.

It is galling to think that information is being kept from the American public that is absolutely vital for them to know as they make choices as to what actions this government should take in the near future.

Perhaps there ought to be a people’s filibuster until we find out what is in that 28 pages that we are not allowed to see.

I had not even seen this interview before I wrote my previous post Obama Rebukes Israeli-Saudi Attack on Iran Nuclear Deal.

See the second part of the interview in the subsequent post Revealing the 9/11 Conspiracy Would Undo the Entire US-Saudi Alliance.

Why Would Saudi Arabia Support the 9/11 Conspirators, Why Would the US Gov. Cover it Up? – Sen. Graham on Reality Asserts Itself pt3

Former Senator Bob Graham, co-chair of the 2002 Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11, believes that the Saudi government “had a high and what has thus far turned out to be credible expectation that their role” in 9/11 “would not be exposed” by the U.S. government.

Senator Graham had talked to the other co-chair of the Congressional Joint Inquiry and the two chairs of the citizen’s 9/11 commission about the possibility of the 19 hijackers acting independently.

“All three of them used almost the same word—implausible—that it is implausible that that could have been the case. Yet that has now become the conventional wisdom to the aggressive exclusion of other alternatives,” says Graham.

Here is the fourth and final piece of the interview – The 9/11 Conspiracy: Did Bush/Cheney Create a Culture of Not Wanting to Know? – Sen. Bob Graham on Reality Asserts Itself pt4.

On RAI with Paul Jay, Senator Bob Graham says there was a pervasive pattern in police and intelligence agencies and “you don’t have everybody moving in the same direction without there being a head coach somewhere who was giving them instructions as to where he wants them to move”

The Real News Network has the interview Obama Rebukes Israeli-Saudi Attack on Iran Nuclear Deal with Robert Parry.

PARRY: Well, the neoconservatives continue to want to see more wars in the Middle East. That’s what they’ve been pushing for now for 20-some years, going back to the ’90s, when they began to lay out this idea that the only way for Israel to maintain its security is through having regime change in a variety of countries–Iraq first, Syria, and Iran being a third. So that idea from the neocons hasn’t really shifted. And they remain a very influential force in Washington, particularly at places like The Washington Post. And so they’re continuing to push this idea that the way you get security in the Middle East is by going to war with and ultimately overthrowing governments that have difficult or hostile relations with Israel.

President Obama and the people in Congress who want peace are going to have some very powerful foes in Congress, in the news media, and in the leadership of Israel, and lobbyists for oil interests.

It will be impossible to stop the drum beat for war without massive support from the grass roots before the opponents even get full momentum behind their push. Keep watching for any opportunity you have to voice your opinion.

I just received this email – Update: Improvements to HealthCare.gov

View in browser | This newsletter created and distributed by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Update: Improvements to HealthCare.gov We’ve been working hard to fix the technical problems that some users have encountered on HealthCare.gov, and we’re happy to report that 90 percent of users are now able to create accounts. Click here to visit HealthCare.gov and fill out an application right now. If you’re looking for other ways to apply, here are three other options: – Call our Marketplace Call Center at 1-800-318-2596 and begin your application over the phone with one of our trained Call Center representatives, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. TTY users should dial 1-855-889-4325. – Visit a trained counselor to apply in person. Find one in your area here. – Download a paper application form and mail it in. If you want coverage that will start as early as January 1, 2014, the application deadline was recently extended to December 23, 2013. Don’t miss your opportunity to get the quality, affordable coverage you need. Use one of the methods above to apply today.

Strangely, the email is better formatted than the web site.

There is a From Alpha 2 Omega  podcast Oh So Reserved that is worth listening to.

This weeks our guest is Dan Kervick. By day Dan works in the book publishing industry. By night, Dan is an independent scholar, specialising in the work of the British Philosopher David Hume, and a regular blogger on progressive and egalitarian economics over on:

http://neweconomicperspectives.org

We discuss the institutional working of the banking system, how reserves really work, bubble blowing and the logic of quantitative easing, military Keynesianism, and the role of capital flows in the modern economy.

I think Dan has provided a good explanation of how things actually work in the economy and banking system. There are a few places that could stand further clarification, but there is only so much you can say in 45 minutes. One of the places that could use some extended discussion is the relation between the huge excess reserves of the banks and the loans that are not being made. Maybe Dan is right about one not causing the other, but it is more that one is a symptom of the other the other. (Correlation, not causation.  Or causation in the other direction.)