Three days before the Iowa caucuses, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has released what might have been her closing argument had she been a candidate in the presidential race.
It’s a thorough indictment of a rigged system in Washington that allows corporate criminals to go free while those without the same power and influence get severely punished.
The report — a 12-page booklet titled “Rigged Justice: How Weak Enforcement Lets Corporate Offenders Off Easy” — cites 20 well-documented civil and criminal cases from 2015 “in which the federal government failed to require meaningful accountability.”
Of the 20 cases, which span Wall Street, the auto industry, pharmaceuticals, natural resources, and more, only one resulted in any convictions to executives, and that was for a misdemeanor — in the Upper Big Branch mine case, where 29 Americans died.
The focus on how laws are enforced rather than the intricacies of the law itself carries on a theme Warren has stressed throughout primary season — that personnel is policy, that who you will put in power in those key regulatory positions matters as much as your 10-point plan.
The Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders camps — and their allies in the press — have been arguing increasingly harshly over who has the most perfect or most attainable policies. But the real issue, as Warren sees it, comes in installing the personnel to carry out the laws on the books that protect public safety and the economy.
Both Clinton and Sanders have called for stiffer penalties and more aggressive Justice Department enforcement on financial crimes. The Warren report suggests how far we have to go, and how intensely she will be watching developments as they unfold.
The report is the first in a promised annual series from Sen. Warren, where she will highlight the most egregious cases of unprosecuted corporate crime from the previous year.
In virtually all the cases she cites — from Standard & Poor’s delivering inflated credit ratings to defraud investors during the financial crisis, to Novartis giving kickbacks to pharmacists to steer customers to their products, to an explosion at a Bayer CropScience pesticide plant that killed two employees — the Department of Justice declined to prosecute individual executives or the corporations themselves, resorting to settlements with minuscule fines that barely disrupt the corporations’ business models.
The report also gives new meaning to the term “1 percent.”
JPMorgan’s settlement for giving conflicted advice to its clients over wealth management products was less than 1 percent of annual operating profits.
GM paid under 1 percent of company revenue to settle claims on the faulty ignition switch that killed multiple vehicle passengers.
For-profit college EDMC ripped off students with false promises of well-paying jobs, and paid below 1 percent of its student loan revenue over the period of violations.
Warren further documents how in some settlements, the headline dollar figure looks tough until you read the fine print. A settlement with Graco Children’s Products for selling defective car seats yielded $10 million, but $7 million of it went toward developing safety programs, which any responsible manufacturer would do in its normal course of business. The BP civil settlement over the Deepwater Horizon for $20.8 billion sounds massive until you learn that $5 billion could be deducted as an ordinary business expense for tax purposes.
Warren singles out the Securities and Exchange Commission as “particularly feeble,” letting corporate offenders off the hook with weak civil settlements, and then routinely granting the wrongdoers waivers from automatic penalties triggered by the violations. Sen. Warren has been at odds with the SEC and its chair, Mary Jo White, whose tenure has been “extremely disappointing,” in her view.
Some of the enforcement gaps stem from under-resourced federal agencies dealing with bad laws, Warren says. She points out that the Occupational Health and Safety Administration could only fine DuPont $372,000 for an incident at a factory in LaPorte, Texas, where four workers died from methyl mercaptan inhalation. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s maximum possible fine for Honda for concealing the harm from its violently exploding Takata airbags was $70 million, again around 1 percent of the company’s total profits.
This could get worse, Warren warns, if Republicans succeed in inserting a provision into a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that would raise the bar for federal prosecutors to indict corporate criminals. The Koch Brothers have pushed for the provision. “If adopted,” Warren writes, “this amendment would severely weaken the already anemic enforcement of federal white-collar criminal laws.”
But Warren insists that the bigger problem is a failure to “use the tools Congress has already provided to impose meaningful accountability on corporate offenders.” She even argues that bank regulators had the tools they needed to stop the 2008 financial crisis, but chose not to.
Despite multiple promises by President Obama’s Department of Justice to stiffen enforcement of corporate misconduct, including a 2015 memo creating new guidelines for prosecutions of individuals, almost all major instances lead to toothless settlements, she writes. “Accountability has been shockingly weak.”
Warren also published an op-ed in the New York Times on Friday discussing her report. “Enforcement isn’t about big government or small government,” she writes there. “It’s about whether government works and who it works for.”
All of wall street is nothing but a fascist enterprise.
David your comment section is, putting it mildly, a cesspool. I never thought The Intercept would be such a draw to the right wing nut bags but I was wrong.
Eric Holder, who took a 7-year hiatus from corporate America, went back to it and was welcomed with open arms. He took pride in the fact that in all that time, he may never have sent anyone to jail who wore a tie to work.
I’m okay with enforcing the law against corporate crimes, but what about government crime? Government employees commit most of the “white collar” crime in the US. Lois Lerner and her IRS cohorts schemed and plotted and violated the rights of every person in the US, but she nor any of her co-conspirators have been jailed or prosecuted. They should all should be in prison serving 25 year sentences. How about the people at the EPA responsible for poisoning the river in Colorado? How about Hillary Clinton? Government crooks never pay for their crimes. How about the illegal spying on US citizens by almost every government agency. The people in charge and their minions should be in prison. Instead the government goes after the person who blew the whistle on it. The US Federal government is nothing more than a mafia.
No, the hypocrites like Warren will never propose government accountability because that would hurt their legalized bribery schemes.
The EPA didn’t create the waste water at the mine. But sure, punish someone at the EPA right after punishing all the corporations who create superfund sites and leave them for the taxpayers to clean up.
And yes, members of the government should absolutely be held accountable. Let’s start with Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. And Oliver North. Reagan is lucky he’s dead or, senile or not, he’d be in jail as well.
If Ms. Warren wants to change the future, she needs to step out from behind that desk, and speak out to America, in support of Bernie Sanders. She needs to do it now! As a woman, no one wants a female president more than I, but it is time for ethics. It is time for a bold, progressive platform, not only talked about, but acted upon. We The People, and by our own actions, we can change the future trajectory of our nation. Bernie Sanders cannot do it without US. Ms. Warren surely must awaken to this and soon. If she fails to support him, I fear what may happen to her future in the Senate, her supporters’ attitudes towards her. I know that it will hurt my own feelings towards her. My support for her may not hold up much longer, if she does not come out in support of the only candidate with the ethics and with the right platform. The platform of the People.
It is time, Ms. Warren. It is time.
A good read on this is Bill Black’s book “The best way to rob a bank is to own one” about the S & L crisis over 20 years ago resulting in over 1000 felony indictments. Regan had put a non regulator in charge but the evil taking place was so egregious he decided to regulate and being Regan’s friend he was untouchable. Several US Senators were involved and they walked but quite a few banksters went to jail. Fast forward and David Kay Johnston’s book “Perfectly legal” came to pass; laws were re written to make the illegal legal. If you don’t understand how gamed the system is, you are beyond hope.
Come on corporate crime is not good but it ain’t a direct matter of life and dead. You should watch Warren’s interview in the middle of the Israeli’s crackdown on Gaza, July 2014. Spoiled cold bloody politician, hawkish like a Israeli settler, no further questions.
So, is Warren also going to pressure the candidates to make statements against our forever wars? No, of course not. Is Warren going to pressure either candidate to speak out against the brutal child-killing Israeli assault on Gaza? No, of course not. Looking at this election farce from the outside, one might come to the conclusion that nobody in the US cares about war crimes as much as they do the stock market or their favorite sports team… what a pathetic dog and pony show. The practiced indifference to the excesses of our terrorist allies, and that of our criminal foreign policy is staggering.
No not John, we was thinking the same things on this sunday morning
The lesson is clear: Personnel is policy. – Sen. Elizabeth Warren … hmm career politician?
In the era of Google, ignorance is no excuse. Learn before speaking.
The lesson is clear: There is no hono(u)r among thieves. – Anon.
She was actually a noted College Professor before she got into politics. NOT EVEN CLOSE TO CAREER POLITICIAN. Jeeze some people speak without any thought to facts.
She was a noted fraud claiming phony Indian ancestry to get minority status. And she’s always been a shill for the commie-dem crime machine. Come to think of it, so are you.
Goldman Sachs’ Profits, Stock Plunges
By Shiv Mehta, CFA | January 20, 2016
[Excerpt]
At the same time, the compensation ratio – the salaries, bonuses, stock awards as percentage of revenues – increased to its highest level – 37.5% since 2012.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/012016/goldman-sachs-profits-stock-plunges.asp
Food for thought: If a Senator aspired to advance to a cabinet or appointed position within an administration, why would he or she endorse any particular candidate in a presidential face off?
#WeAreBernie because he is for the people, not corporations! #FeelTheBern pic.twitter.com/wO8ZSEuuyz
https://mobile.twitter.com/Women4Bernie/status/693120760819359744
Alternative title:
Zionist Senator Maintains Pretense That The POTUS Doesn’t Serve Wall Street
Have to agree with Vivek — if Warren is still clueless about Clinton, she is one incredibly ignorant and stupid individual?
Also, is Warren’s sister-in-law still with the Peterson Institute?
See above
Goldman Sachs’ Profits, Stock Plunges
By Shiv Mehta, CFA | January 20, 2016
[Excerpts]
On Wednesday, shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) fell by 3.15% (at the time of writing) after it reported weak profits for Q4 2015 on account of high legal expenses. Quarterly profits fell by whopping 65% after the bank agreed to pay a settlement amount of $5 billion levied by the Justice Department over questionable sales practices related to mortgage bonds just before the Great Recession.
(…)
Legal Costs and Compensation Eat Into Profits
With the mortgage bond settlement of $5.1 billion, the bank closed the year with the highest legal and litigation costs of its peers. At the same time, the compensation ratio – the salaries, bonuses, stock awards as percentage of revenues – increased to its highest level – 37.5% since 2012.
(cont.)
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/012016/goldman-sachs-profits-stock-plunges.asp
There are several perplexing questions about this so-called “settlement”, Mr. Dayen. Has this deal, in fact, been finalized? Has it been announced as such by the DOJ? If not, what exactly has been charged against the balance sheets for Q4 2015 such that would account for a profit fall of 65%? Wass_up with this?
Here’s how much Goldman Sachs’ most senior execs were paid last year
Portia Crowe
Jan. 22, 2016, 2:21 PM
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein made $23 million in 2015 — down $1 million from the year before.
Blankfein’s compensation included $2 million in base salary and $6.3 million in cash bonus, according to a person familiar with the matter.
He received $14.7 million in equity, according to an SEC filing.
»»»»» That excludes a long-term incentive plan that will be reported later this year. «««««
http://www.businessinsider.com/lloyd-blankfein-2015-compensation-2016-1
Yup, but who are the majority shareholders in Goldman Sachs?
Vanguard Group, Blackrock, State Street and Fidelity.
Who are the majority shareholders in the majority of major corporations in North America and Europe?
The same . . .
Lloyd Blankfein – Wikipedia
[Excerpt]
Politics
Blankfein contributes to mostly Democratic party candidates and donated $4,600 to Democratic Party candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2007.[23] He self-identifies as a Democrat.[24] Goldman employees and their relatives contributed almost a million dollars to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign—making it “the company from which Obama raised the most money in 2008″—and Blankfein has visited the White House 14 times as of January 2013.[25] However, Goldman gave substantially more to Republicans than Democrats in 2012.[26] Former Goldman executives who hold senior positions in the Obama administration include Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Robert Hormats, the undersecretary of state for economic, energy and agricultural affairs.[27]
(cont.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Blankfein
Hillary made more in 12 speeches to big banks than most of us earn in lifetime
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/08/hillary-clinton-earned-more-from-12-speeches-to-big-banks-than-most-americans-earn-in-their-lifetime/ #DemTownHall pic.twitter.com/9ujrFtIPle
https://mobile.twitter.com/ZaidJilani/status/691831872612122624
Fact Check on Bernie’s Wall Street Ad: Wall Street is Hillary’s top funder! She is bought & paid for. #FightBigMoney pic.twitter.com/Br9VrWi3ke
https://mobile.twitter.com/LouisianaBernie/status/688691073623953408
Hello Sen. Elizabeth Warren and staff!
Clinton’s most lucrative year was 2013, right after stepping down as secretary of state. That year, she made $2.3 million for three speeches to Goldman Sachs and individual speeches to Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity Investments, Apollo Management Holdings, UBS, Bank of America, and Golden Tree Asset Managers.
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/08/hillary-clinton-earned-more-from-12-speeches-to-big-banks-than-most-americans-earn-in-their-lifetime/
My bad, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and staff … the credit goes to this fine gentleman, scholar, investigative journalist, bro :-) x https://theintercept.com/staff/zaidjilani/
The Bottom 100 Million | Bernie Sanders
Bernie 2016 432,726 views
https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=kkyjwqkNIOI
GM’s cars didn’t have a faulty ignition. The recall was due to people not paying attention to what they were doing and hitting the key cutting off the car. There was literally nothing faulty and worked as it should have, but because people these days aren’t responsible for their actions we have to blame the manufacturer for not making it adult proof. Read the recall if you don’t believe it. I literally laughed out loud when they told me to bring my Camaro in just to replace the key fob.
I agree there’s plenty of corporate wrong doing, but we gotta be more selective than that to get worked up over.
Ugh, the ignition would turn off on impact, causing airbags to not deploy and killing people. Pretty plainly defective!
You ignore all of the facts just to spit out your beliefs? Are you anything more than just a corporate sycophant? It is people like you, people who do not care, that make these kinds of heinous decisions just for stock holder profits….UGH!
I am a little tired of hearing about what Sen. Elizabeth Warren has to say. I know everyone is tired of the “Bernie supporters” complaining, but here goes…
She may not agree with him on everything but clearly on issues that are dearest to her (those above in particular) the two have been aligned for some time. They have fought together on so many things; reinstating Glass-Steagall, fighting TPP, overturning Citizens United, and here they are over a year ago arguing together to fight against the Keystone XL Pipeline: http://billmoyers.com/2015/01/10/missed-keystone-energy-committee-hearing/.
Sen. Clinton did not even come out against the pipeline until right before the first Democratic Debate. Sen. Clinton also is still not in favor of reinstating Glass-Steagall. She also waited until the first debate to oppose TPP, which she at first said was the gold standard of trade agreements.
Despite all of this, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has never come out in support of Sen. Sanders. If she had in the beginning, it would have been a great boon for him. There is little doubt he would have come out in support of her.
Based upon your comments, which are quite intelligent, it might be a good time to take a closer look into Sen. Warren’s background, as in family background.
Might prove interesting . . .
It’s hard to believe Hillary would do anything being in their back pocket. Go Bernie!
Goldman Sachs sends US into recession, promptly retracts report’s slide
Published time: 22 Jan, 2016 01:44
Edited time: 22 Jan, 2016 09:47
https://www.rt.com/news/329757-goldman-sachs-recession-slide-fail/
FYI: The Fibonacci Queen’s predicted a market crash by the end of the coming week – and some parts of Wall Street are very much believers.
nfjtakfa: I wouldn’t know because I am not a paper trader.
Oh, I’m sure I am and have been several unsavory things you’re not. My reply was about hearing multiple market sources the last few weeks suggesting another sharp downturn is coming. Many sectors would probably already be recognized in recession but for election year politics – and at least temporarily trying to avoid angry voters. Let’s see, whom is GS supporting, anyway?
Nature seems to build itself around the Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Ratio. Do you like spiral seashells? Personally, I find something very exciting about a math suggesting the nature of existence itself might force even global market manipulators into predictably different directions – they don’t control.
For a $250 million venture this website leaves a lot to be desired!
Goldman Sachs executive takes ‘personal leave’ amid Malaysian fund corruption probes
Published time: 30 Jan, 2016 00:33
https://www.rt.com/business/330665-goldman-leissner-malaysia-corruption/
Goldman Sachs to pay $5bn to settle financial-crisis mortgages
Published time: 15 Jan, 2016 16:57
https://www.rt.com/usa/329110-goldman-financial-crisis-settlement/
Well, Warren has set the bar pretty low. Sanders or Clinton would merely have to pursue an investigation into corporate crime to overtake Obama’s underwhelming interest in the criminality of the corporate state. I would not use the Obama administration as starting point for taking on the pathological behavior corporate institutions. The TPP, as every respectable economist, or anybody that remembers NAFTA predicts, will be the Mohammad Ali of collective corporate criminality – The Greatest of All-Time.
Empire will ensure it has many far more distracting problems while TPP gets approved.
For Company crime, CLINTON Itself should be prosecuted away! And Baby (boomer) steps are S0 last millenium; DEM Their ayes and run For President, Lizzie!! NOW!!!
Elizabeth Warren is a Baby Boomer. So what is your point?
Warren’s failure to endorse Bernie Sanders who she obviously agrees with on many substantive issues leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of many progressives like myself. I’m sure people can come up with a plethora of legitimate reasons for her silence but you reep what you sow in politics and she may come to regret her inaction.
Warren’s failure to endorse Bernie Sanders who she obviously agrees with on many substantive issues leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of many progressives like myself. I’m sure people can come up with a plethora of legitimate reasons for her silence but you reep what you sow in politics and she may come to regret her inaction.
Impressive! Standing up to crime @ it’s core.. . She’s got my vote! #KK
Jon Stewart had an interesting funny of view in a brief segment about the corporate fines. He likened the government to the Mafia asking some other criminals for part of their take. Basically, the fees was for protection. He used his NJ Mafia voice to demand fines as protection money. It was an apt and telling analogy.
Sanders Goes After Goldman Sachs in Latest Campaign Ad
The self-described democratic socialist’s ad also criticizes Wall Street speaking fees, an indirect swipe at Hillary Clinton.
Mark NiquetteMark
January 28, 2016
3:09 PM CST Updated on January 28, 2016 3:57 PM CST
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-01-28/sanders-goes-after-goldman-sachs-in-latest-campaign-ad
Your point being?
The problem: Washington is bought and paid for by Wall Street.
Case Sheds Light on Goldman’s Role as Lender in Short Sales
By GRETCHEN MORGENSEN
Jan. 29, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/business/case-sheds-light-on-goldmans-role-as-lender-in-short-sales.html?_r=0
Goldman Sachs agrees to tentative $5.1B mortgage settlement
Kevin McCoy, Kaja Whitehouse and Paul Davidson, USA TODAY
14 days ago
[Excerpts]
“We are please to have reached an agreement in principle to resolve these matters,” Goldman Chairman and CEO Lloyed Blankfein said in a statement announcing the deal.
(…)
Goldman cautioned, however, that its agreement in principle is subject to negotiation of definitive documentation. There’s no assurance that the bank and government authorities will reach final agreement, Goldman said.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/01/14/goldman-sachs-agrees-tentative-51b-mortgage-settlement/78810874/
Why is Elizabeth representing my state….she does nothing for me or my state…she is only interested in national issues …when is a New Englander going to take up my issues? If not, just send Elizabeth to the white house and send a New Englander here to represent
me.
Oh, as if New Englanders were not national citizens.
Pfft, that should be easy.
The court system is a quaint tradition from a bygone era. They are a ceremonial punishment for the rarest of oddballs who refuses to take the punishment the prosecutor offers his lawyer. They aren’t trustworthy to figure out if an immigrant should be deported – that’s up to executive order. They aren’t trusted to decide if you have a right to carry a firearm – that’s up to some unaccountable watch list. They can’t look into the treatment of POWs (or even demand they be called that). They play whack-a-mole with unconstitutional regulations and lose. They stand around futilely demanding the government release a videotape, year after year, until the squeaky wheel finally gets a better-paid appointment within the ceremonial hierarchy. And, yes… they are called out to ritually “punish” a wayward corporation, ten Hail Maries and five strokes with a flyswatter to purify their souls.
In modern society, the third branch of government is not the courts but the terrorists. If a company is considered a wrongdoer, it can be hacked and its sensitive records leaked, its executives bullied into resignation on Twitter. Or there’s the usual racketeering tactics. I suppose a package of anthrax or a car bomb would work too, but who has the money? I suppose as time goes on we’ll see a strengthening and consolidation of the terrorist system to improve perceptions of its reliability … even as that of the judiciary continues to wane.
Radio broadcast from an adjacent galaxy received by NSA today, brought to you courteous of teh Intercept
More damning evidence of Obama’s reneging on the muchy-ballyhooed Audacity of Hope theme that propelled him into history. I defended him for years, until the TPP debacle. Obama sold his supporters–and the middle dclass– out to the corporations just like the Clintons.
I have to agree that the product did not function as advertised.
Do you think the fact that the Senators got paid to vote for it had anything to do with it? You can bet, the President got his cut as well…smh http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/27/corporations-paid-us-senators-fast-track-tpp
More poverty and inequality under Obama — that’s change!
Warren had nothing to say to O’Malley? His stand on this issue is pretty strong.
Mr. Dayen, I fully get the gist of your meaning in your review of Elizabeth Warren’s report.
Senator Bernie Sanders is the only candidate in either party who is not in the pockets of the billionaire/corporate puppet masters…….This election is not about lib. vs conserv. or dem. vs repub…….it is about taking our country back for the people……Enough is enough!
Senator Bernie Sanders is the only candidate in either party who is not in the pockets of the billionaire/corporate puppet masters…….This election is not about lib. vs conserv. or dem. vs repub…….it is about taking our country back for the people……
My dear Senator. Stop for a minute and think that Mr. Obama and our nation NEEDED YOU to champion this matter. You may not be aware that the Republicans met on Tuesday after he was sworn in to plot how they would make him a one term president. A few months later we slowly became aware of just who you are and what you stand for. Take a moment to recognize your place in our nation’s history. Senator Brookes and Kennedy (both of them) lead from the Senate. You can do the same and be invaluable to our nation even if you never make it the White House (which I hope you will).
“This report prepared for Sen. Warren — …” [p1]
Prepared by the Staff of Senator Elizabeth Warren
Warren is the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a sitting Senator. Seems to me that she can do something about this if she wants to…
Warren is not the head of the CFPB, though she probably should have been. As a sitting Senator she can’t also head up the CFPB.
Go figure she boasts big talk but still votes in opposition for a more public transparent auditing of the federal reserve .
It is already audited. Get over it.
The only way anything will change for us is when Donald Trump will become president.
Either he will change everything for the rest of us, or the rest of us will wake up to the need to do something.
All the other candidates of both parties just want to enjoy the benefits.
I hear you, elect a leader who will change the system or inspire the people to rise up against it.
Specifically, why do you believe Donald Trump is the person that will do it?
Senator Bernie Sanders is the only candidate in either party who is not in the pockets of the billionaire/corporate puppet masters…….This election is not about lib. vs conserv. or dem. vs repub…….it is about taking our country back for the people……
And by change you mean being obliterated by nukes?
Trump or Bernie fascist- or socialist- light, if these are my chooses I hope the bars are open on election day. It would be a shame to vote sober in this one. “I voted, drunk on my ass” might be a great slogan for this election cycle. Alternative “Grab your drug of chose and everyone vote.” If you took all the good qualities of everyone running you might have one good candidate. A couple of elections back I thought we had a good candidate until he was elected and joined in the orgy of power, wealth, surveillance and preemptive warfare. I voted sober that time my mistake.
Lmao. Fauxcahontas, the big banker’s best friend, who voted AGAINST the “Audit The Fed” bill – TWICE – has zero credibility on economic justice issues. And Obama’s criminal Holder (contempt of Congress), put exactly ZERO bankers in jail in 6 years. The demonrats are uber fails just like the repukelicans.
>…”Prosecute Corporate Crime *Better* Than Obama.”
Gee whiz Dave! The thing is, if they prosecute anybody at all, it would be better than Obama.
I’ve been searching for that ‘candidate’, any candidate (including ‘the Bern’), willing and able to use the *P* word… to no avail! It’s like even the possibility of “Prosecution” for powerful political/wealthy people has been stricken from public discourse entirely… across the board, I might add.
That’s a pretty fair assessment dave … but Donald Trump is far more eloquent: “I could shoot someone on 5th ave. and not lose votes.”
True Dat.
The Obama administration is weak in prosecuting corporate offenders, but EXTREMELY tough on the whistleblowers who help us know how crooked our govt. is run.
Warren shining a light on the outcomes of these cases is doing more good than just about anybody in DC on this issue..
The fact that these are Obama appointees/hires letting the crooks off easy should be repeated again and again until Democrats understand that Repubs aren’t the only problem that needs to be dealt with in our political/corporate establishment.
Hey TI- there seem to be some issues with the website today… links for stories going to the wrong ones… “recent” stories don’t show up at all.
A
I’ve always thought that while the furor over Citizens United is focused on the idea that a corporation is a person, this monumental mistake also does precisely what Ms. Warren charges in her writing: Shield individual corporate officers from accountability and responsibility for the conscious decisions they make as corporate leaders.
I wouldn’t know how to quantify the portion of C.U. drawn up specifically with the idea that it, in addition to giving even more voice and power to wealthy, private entities, allows corporate criminals to do their thievery with impunity, escaping consequences for their behavior by hiding behind a corporate logo.
Now, the Koch boys want to make it even harder to prosecute individual corporate crime, huh? The question in my mind is: Why? You’d think that responsible companies would want their industry policed; insist that it be overseen and its course corrected when it veers off. This should make life safer and more profitable for the good players, and put the hurt on the baddies. Who wouldn’t want that? And, why wouldn’t they want it?
I applaud Ms. Warren for shining a big light on the issue of the wealthy and powerful being either above the law, or wealthy enough to influence legislators to tailor the law specifically to a company’s needs.
Now, let’s follow through with some action.
Their philosophy concludes that *everything* elites do with their capital to reap greater growth is beneficial to society. Detriments to the lower classes are, in their twisted Malthusian minds, social positives.
I’ve always been impressed by the right’s ability to attract and retain so much support from the very people for whom their policies have been so detrimental down through the decades. The level of toolness required to enable their elites to do this to them is off the charts.
If I was Sanders, I’d do whatever it takes to get her on the ticket. And I wouldn’t wait until July or August — do it now.
BTW, I think Warren’s floor speech of a week ago on Citizens United was more aimed at Obama than anyone else. Despite the small splash it made as being pointed at Clinton.
What? Pull her out of the senate to be a toothless VP? Bad idea.
Every time I read about Warren it becomes increasingly
obvious what a phony she is. This is typical of democrats.
Warren is still portrayed as the outstanding fighter against
financial corruption even though she now is a
member of the club which protects corruption AND
even after she went into the white house and helped
set up the CFPB so that it is kept on a leash under
the control of the Secretary of the Treasury –
whose job has continued to be –
to protect the corrupt financial predators.
When she finally gets around to endorsing a democrat
candidate for president, her fakery will be more clear.
Do you have a link for that, Clark?
As I recall, it was the rest of the Administration (and their bankster pals, of course) that wanted the CFPB to be as tame as possible.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/11/elizabeth-warren-201111
~
Agreed she wanted the CFPB strong. It was eviscerated in the womb. She wrote a book about it. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/125006225X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1454073606&sr=8-1&pi=SL75_QL70&keywords=Elizabeth+Warren
The CFPB was implemented under the phony
pretense of the “Dodd Frank” fake reform.
It established that the CFPB would operate under
the control of the so-called
Financial Security Oversight Committee (FSOC)
which, among other corruptions,
is a committee that gives the Secretary of the Treasury
enormous control and veto power over the decisions of
the CFPB.
The Secretary of the Treasury
(who is usually an agent of Wall Street)
was also given the right to redact the minutes
of the meetings of the FSOC.
Warren was rewarded with her seat in the clubhouse
and now she is complaining about the situation
she helped create.
If she was the real deal
(as so many , like the authors of this article, seem to still believe)
she would have left the white house in disgust.
I do not post links.
Yeah, no need to document your spurious claims. The very fact that Clark is telling us this should be sufficient to prove it right. All hail Clark, the truth-teller.
All you need to do is read up on Dodd Frank and
see how it was designed as a cover to enable the lack of change.
I think everyone agrees Dodd-Frank is Ball-Less piece of swiss. CFPB is not part of Dodd-Frank. Am I wrong?
You are wrong.
Look up Dodd Frank.
links or it didn’t happen.