Frank Rich: America MUST BE TOLD The Full Story-"The Other Plot To Wreck America"

[kpete]

The Other Plot to Wreck America

By FRANK RICH
Published: January 9, 2010

THERE may not be a person in America without a strong opinion about what coulda, shoulda been done to prevent the underwear bomber from boarding that Christmas flight to Detroit. In the years since 9/11, we’ve all become counterterrorists. But in the 16 months since that other calamity in downtown New York — the crash precipitated by the 9/15 failure of Lehman Brothers — most of us are still ignorant about what Warren Buffett called the “financial weapons of mass destruction” that wrecked our economy. Fluent as we are in Al Qaeda and body scanners, when it comes to synthetic C.D.O.’s and credit-default swaps, not so much.


What we don’t know will hurt us, and quite possibly on a more devastating scale than any Qaeda attack. Americans must be told the full story of how Wall Street gamed and inflated the housing bubble, made out like bandits, and then left millions of households in ruin. Without that reckoning, there will be no public clamor for serious reform of a financial system that was as cunningly breached as airline security at the Amsterdam airport. And without reform, another massive attack on our economic security is guaranteed. Now that it can count on government bailouts, Wall Street has more incentive than ever to pump up its risks — secure that it can keep the bonanzas while we get stuck with the losses.

The window for change is rapidly closing.

more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/opinion/10rich.html?ref=opinion

[Name removed]

1. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dkf]

2. If more people knew they would get more upset at the bailout and lack of recourse.

It's in the governments interest to keep the shenanigans of the vampire squid in murky ink.

[timefortherevolution]

28. Its clear as day for me. Our government acted on the behalf and in the intersest of

the criminals who brought us to our knees.

How much clearer does it have to get?

I'm boiling mad.

[sam sarrha]

33. that is why Bu$h demanded the Bailout BEFORE he left his office, Family Mafia insuring its

its troops.. and focusing the solution away from the people it really hurt..

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
"snip...The Wealth Distribution
In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2009)...snip"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woIkIph5xcU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VHNXTBwj80&NR=1


GOP is a Cargo Cult of OCD Wealth Hoarders, they believe that wealth is the Measure of God’s favor of a man, therefore it is a sin to tax a Rich Man/Corporation. the poor are being punished by God, therefore it is a sin to help them. and they use Mafia tactics to enforce their ideology to keep the money/power coming.

Psychotic Oligarchs think anything they do to horde more wealth is ordained by God, anyone they hurt deserves it..

the GOP is a Psychotic Personality Cult.. there arrogant Ideology mindlessly and heartlessly kills People, men women children in our country and others, in their quest to Horde more and more needless Wealth/Power. their Milton Friedman economic Experiment in South America was later Declared "Genocide" by the UN.


~48,000 a die year because of no health care, Best example is that about half a million die due to the Tobacco industry...1200 people die every day from Tobacco addiction. 1080 of those were addicted as children, 540 of the 1080 Children were addicted at the age of 12, or younger.!!! no one cries louder about regulation of tobacco than a Republican… and the Democrats that support big tobacco to get re-elected arent amy better.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

54. ARMED ROBBERY

DAMN THEIR EYES

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Kpete, Manny--what would a thread like this be without my presence?

Yeah, maybe feeding the Goldman-Sachs/AIG trolls kept them from trashing the place even worse and thereby "saved the economy," but surely that was not the only way to keep us out of a depression. Little interventions like nationalizing the investment banks come to mind, for example.

[JHB]

23. But...but...Then they'd go around calling Dems & Obama "socialists"...

Oh, wait. They do that anyway.

Who could have possibly foreseen that happening? :sarcasm:

[Capn Sunshine]

73. with all due respect JR

saving the economy at the time was a very real issue and there wasn't a lot of time to pursue the "surely there must be another way" line of thought.

As we have seen from trying to get ANYTHING passed by congress, alternatives were scant.

IN retrospect is not effective because the moves were made already; you can't question whether we would have damaged the bus less by steering into the cliff as opposed to off of it.

[BunkerHill24]

4. Not to mention the billions spent on a farce called "War on Terra"..nt

[truedelphi]

5. Well Angelides is an unknown. Yes Di Fi hand picked him

So that we Dems would lose to Ahnold, but who knows, maybe he will turn out to be honest. (The fact that he lacks the charisma to successfully carry off running for the governor's mansion doesn't mean he lacks integrity.)

[musette_sf]

8. DiFI > Ahhhnald > Angelides >

and look who else is in this picture... Scumbag Issa "to the rescue". A get together of the "Recall" enablers.

Last week, a Republican congressman, Darrell Issa of California, released e-mail showing that officials at the New York Fed, then led by Timothy Geithner, pressured A.I.G. to delay disclosing to the S.E.C. and the public the details on the billions of bailout dollars it was funneling to its trading partners.

I feel so used, Poofkins, so used.

[PCIntern]

45. Great LOL CAT!!!!!

thanks...I sent it around to the 'folks'...

[omega minimo]

13. Angelides is another lying phony

Sprawl developer criminal ripping off the public to enrich himself and his friends still in the business.

:thumbsdown:

[truedelphi]

70. Good to know that.

I figure if he is in good enough with Di Fi to get her support for his running for Guvernorship and all, he must be some kinda bad.

And hi :hi:

[omega minimo]

77. Hey there TD

Loved your OP. :yourock:

[Edweird]

6. You mean like giving all our money to the wealthy while making things harder for working people?

You don't say.

[leftstreet]

7. K&R

[Double T]

9. The wall street financial and economic terrorists are already setting up their next attack.

Since our 'do absolutely nothing congress' refuses to regulate the living hell out of these criminals, it may be that the American people need to take wall street reform in hand and shove it down these corrupt bastard's throats. wall street produces one scam after another and to date NOTHING has been done to stop them. It is only a matter of time before YOU, YOU and YOU will be their next victims; driven into financial desperation and ruin. wall street terrorists are far more dangerous than Islamic terrorists. Thanks OP, great article.

[jwirr]

35. I agree that we have to take them on ourselves. I suspect that chainy

and his goon squads are still threatening anyone who tries to oppose our present economic big boys so President Obama cannot do this alone.

Is the idea of moving our money to credit unions and local banks going to help in this at all or is it just a show of power? I am not going to be able to move because the bank has me in a corner - the only thing I can do is die and then they will be off my back. Until then I can only stop spending on anything but necessities.

[kentuck]

10. The times they are a'changin

For the window is rapidly closing...

(I posted this same article under a different quote. Since it an important editorial with information for us all, I decided to leave it up for the time being)

[housewolf]

11. Go read the whole piece

It's worth it - really good piece.

[hfojvt]

15. he never backed up some of his assertions

"Americans must be told the full story of how Wall Street gamed and inflated the housing bubble, made out like bandits, and then left millions of households in ruin."

It sounds like he already knows what happened, so what is really the point of this investigation he is talking about? Full story or not, I would like to see that line explained in a few paragraphs.

[laughingliberal]

18. It is one thing for people to know what happened...

Another thing, entirely, to get the hard evidence. Hopefully, this guy is out for legacy and not a corporate friendly cover up. With subpoena power there is a chance he will get somewhere. As the article pointed out, however, $8 million isn't much to run an investigation against the criminals' armies of lawyers. I think there is a basic explanation of what happened in the article when he compares the activities of National City Bank in the 1920's to what Citi has done since the repeal of Glass Steagall.

The point of the investigation is to identify all the players, find what can be found of laws which were broken and, perhaps most important, wake the American people up to what's been done to them, by whom and cause enough public outcry to, finally, get some lawmakers serious about regulations which will prevent a repeat. We are already building the next bubble.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

55. IT WAS SLICK REAL ESTATE SALESMEN

[louis-t]

56. How is it Real Estate people?

We were minding our own business when the mortgage companies said to us "we can now do 0 down conventional mortgages, oh and by the way, the minimum credit score is now 580." Buyers were coming to us saying "I am approved for $xxx, here is my approval letter." What are we supposed to do, say no? How is that "slick"? Real Estate is worth what someone is willing to pay, not what Realtors say it's worth. Maybe you should engage your brain before putting your mouth into gear.

edit: this happened under bush under the heading of "de-regulation".

[liberation]

58. That is a mighty creative reading you did out of that line...

... he is just saying that transparency is essential, esp. when it comes to transfer trillions of our money over to their coffers.

Why is that so hard to understand? That is plain common sense, or is that such a foreign concept to some people?

[omega minimo]

12. K&R and I TOLD YOU SO.

:hi:

[highplainsdem]

14. K&R

[snagglepuss]

16. K & R nt

[debbierlus]

17. Watching the locals start a pro-Walmart group for a new super store

....

Our work is cut out for us.

They don't know how to live without the system. They will sacrifice their community for cheap things and poor quality food.

Perception change requires mass education. And, it requires leadership at a grass roots community level to lead campaigns of awareness. People are paralyzed.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

32. agreed so totally

I just said elsewhere that eloquent fightin' words are ... eloquent, but the critical next step is leadership.

Without good cat herders, the cats remain paralyzed. Jeez, I know first hand on a personal level -- I'm kind of a hermit and don't have the capacity to manage and organize a friends-over-for-dinner! So without some action from my hun, who knows how to organize call, plan, tell me what I need to do, and keep up the effort, we would never see friends.

Yeah, it's a slightly ridiculous analogy, but there are tons of people like me; without some focused leadership, paralysis sets in.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

19. Bin Laden swore they would ruin us economically...

We are digging our own grave. The greedy elite think they can buy their salvation
when this is all over and our country is in ruins. Many have bought vast amounts
of land in other parts of the world and are privy to information that the rest of us
are not. They care nothing of the coming environmental crisis because they don't
anticipate the world will be supporting the current population. They are preparing
much differently than we are.

Everyone believes they have something to lose by taking the drastic steps that are
required to at least attempt to save ourselves. Our jobs, children, homes, retirement,
need to be protected, but if we don't do something drastic soon we're going to lose
all of that anyway. We need to start making a lot of noise and we need to be taken
seriously. The next transfer of wealth is going to be devastating and since nothing has
changed I don't see how it can be avoided.

[TheKentuckian]

20. K&R Please America wake up

[yurbud]

21. what are the chances DLCers unrec'd this?

[malaise]

22. Frank Rich nails it

Rec

[Hubert Flottz]

24. Frank always does nail it IMO...

K&R :kick: :hi:

[fasttense]

25. The only hope lies with mass demonstrations and sustained protests.

President Obama must be forced to change. He used change as a campaign tool now he needs to use it on himself.

[Fire1]

37. Those protests should be directed toward the Senate Finance

Committee, i.e., Barney Frank, Chairman. Not President Obama.

[Vinca]

26. Move your money, pay off your credit cards, starve the beast.

[timefortherevolution]

29. Only problem with that is my credit card allowed me to pay for a dentists visit

or a car repair that my down-sized and out-sourced job wage could no longer pay for.


If only it were that simple.

[Vinca]

39. There's a huge difference between necessary credit card use,

such as yours, and recreational credit card use. I'm in your boat and struggling both not to use the darn cards and pay a little off as I can afford it. The end goal is no credit cards.

[dotymed]

51. Hey,

I'm doing my part...I have no money left to pay the beast.

[earth mom]

27. Banksters = Gangsters. What happened with the Banks is Enron on steroids people.

Good on Frank Rich to shout it out in the New York Times! :thumbsup:

[mod mom]

30. When you don't bring justice to criminals they return-"1934: The Plot Against America"

1934: The Plot Against America
DEPARTMENT No Comment
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED July 28, 2007
I’m back from the land of heather and thistles, not to mention wee drams and lukewarm ale, but on my way out a friend at the BBC alerted me to this, a not-to-miss program on the BBC this morning, accessible over the next several days by internet. It’s the story of the Plot Against America. I don’t mean the Philip Roth novel, nor even the Sinclair Lewis book, It Can’t Happen Here, but rather the historical events upon which these two works of fiction were based.

In November 1934, federal investigators uncovered an amazing plot involving some two dozen senior businessmen, a good many of them Wall Street financiers, to topple the government of the United States and install a fascist dictatorship. Roth’s novel is developed from several strands of this factual account; he assumed the plot is actually carried out, whereas in fact an alert FDR shut it down but stopped short of retaliatory measures against the plotters. A key element of the plot involved a retired prominent general who was to have raised a private army of 500,000 men from unemployed veterans and who blew the whistle when he learned more of what the plot entailed. The plot was heavily funded and well developed and had strong links with fascist forces abroad. A story in the New York Times and several other newspapers reported on it, and a special Congressional committee was created to conduct an investigation. The records of this committee were scrubbed and sealed away in the National Archives, where they have only recently been made available.

The Congressional committee kept the names of many of the participants under wraps and no criminal action was ever brought against them. But a few names have leaked out. And one is Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the incumbent president. Prescott Bush was of course deep into the business of the Hamburg-America Lines, and had tight relations throughout this period with the new Government that had come to power in Germany a year earlier under Chancellor Aldoph Hitler. It appears that Bush was to have formed a key liaison for the group with the new German government.

Prescott Bush, of course, went on to service as a U.S. Senator from Connecticut, and his son, George H.W. Bush emerged from World War II as a hero.

-snip

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000651



The Whitehouse Coup
Monday 23 July 2007



The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.




http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

[Hekate]

31. KnR.

[AzDar]

34. K & R

[peacetalksforall]

36. If you've never read Frank Rich - now is the time. Right to the heart. However,

is there an error? A deadline of Dec 15. The article appeared today? Was it supposed to be Jan 15?

Looking back, I lost a lot of respect for some of my favorite Congresspeople. I lost respect in general.

We are in the pits - financially and mentally.

What you do unto your brothers .......

Blessed not be the robbers .....

Slime who have no respect for anyone except their peers and bosses ......

I can't even say 'find new people, President Obama' out of fear.

Thanks for posting, kpete.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

38. Well, as the charecter

George Clooney played in 'Oh Brother....' said, "we're in a tight spot".
I say that because for an average person here in the States,we have absolutely NO representation, input or influence on events of this type.
I have to sound like a cynic but more and more I'm convinced our elected representatives are captive to special interests.
Therefore there is no motivation for any of them to do anything about this.

[ananda]

40. It's domestic terrorism on the part of ...

the financial institutions and corporations.

Just call a spade a spade.

[peacetalksforall]

41. I've been saying/writing for a long time - the real war is the one they declared against us.

Strategic maneuvers presented and covered and defended with filth and lies.

Criminal all the way through.

Abd they are given so much deference and honor.

We are a messed up nation.

[mnhtnbb]

50. And its affecting millions of people. Millions, folks. Media ignores it because they're part of it

[WillyT]

42. Big K & R !!!

:kick:

[Kablooie]

43. Yes. The people that created the problems did not suffer and won't suffer if they do it again.

The only way the recession affects them is that they have is that they have to put their scams on hold. And they are complaining about it.

Without laws to disincentivize the scams they will start all over again as soon as public awareness dies down.

[Angry Dragon]

44. K&R

[kenny blankenship]

46. K&R - and HC"R" is the next part of the plot

[valerief]

47. K&R

[alfredo]

48. virulent

Main Entry: vir·u·lent
Pronunciation: \ˈvir-ə-lənt, ˈvir-yə-\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin virulentus, from virus poison
Date: 14th century
1 a : marked by a rapid, severe, and destructive course <a virulent infection> b : able to overcome bodily defensive mechanisms : markedly pathogenic <virulent bacteria>
2 : extremely poisonous or venomous
3 : full of malice : malignant <virulent racists>
4 : objectionably harsh or strong <virulent criticism>
— vir·u·lent·ly adverb

[winyanstaz]

49. K & R........

We are the ones we have been waiting for to save us.

[keep_it_real]

52. K&R

[bvar22]

53. !

NOW we have Your Children’s Money too !!!
And there is not a fucking thing you can do about it!
Now THIS is “Bi-Partisanship” !
Better get used to it!!
Hahahahahahahahaha!





The DLC New Team

(Screen Capped from the DLC Website)

[Loge23]

57. Terrorist priorities are skewed.

There was a terrific article in this weekend's WSJ of all places detailing how pathetically overblown the so-called War on Terror is. "Undressing the Terror Threat", by Paul Campos with the accompanying "Crunching the Risk Numbers" by Nate Silver.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704130904...

Clearly, as the math makes abundantly clear here, we have plenty of threats much more relevant to our everyday lives than a terrorist attack by aircraft.
Someone on this thread posted that (to paraphrase) we have met the answer and it is us. I couldn't agree more. We get the government we deserve. We have let ourselves (as a nation) become so utterly bamboozled by our own ignorance.
Massive civil disobedience is so needed, but - as the article above suggests - if we try that, we will become the "terrorists". Funny how that works!

If there's any meaningful reform in finance I will be completely flabbergasted - thankful, for sure - but very surprised.

[Fearless]

59. +1

[pleah]

60. K&R

[Raster]

61. Kick this muthah UP!

:kick:

[femrap]

62. From what I've read...

Citi is 20% owned by some rich and extremely arrogant Prince of Saudi Arabia. I witnessed him on Nightline, I believe, while he was at his horse stables and adorned in his riding duds. He had selected Prince to take over...guess that didn't work out.

These banksters need to go to jail.

And I wish Volcker had a bigger role to play...he turned things around in the early '80's, but now that we've exhausted all of our resources, I don't know if it would do any good anyway.

WASF.

[midnight]

63. So, after nearly of year of waiting, American mortgage holders of these

predatory products, find out that there still is no change.

the “financial weapons of mass destruction” that wrecked our economy. Fluent as we are in Al Qaeda and body scanners, when it comes to synthetic C.D.O.’s and credit-default swaps, not so much.

[BrklynLiberal]

64. Frank Rich does it again.

[cui bono]

65. THANK GOD IT PASSED!!!

What? Too soon?

[LuckyLib]

66. See Bill Moyers' program of last Friday, 1/8/10. We have reason to be mad as hell.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01082010/watch.html

[David Zephyr]

67. No. 224 K&R.

Thanks kpete!

[defendandprotect]

68. It's simple . . . Unregulated Captialism is merely organized crime ---

And Dems still have NOT moved to re-regulate -- nor reinstate Glass-Steagall and

it looks like Dorgan got shot down over that one, too!!

As if having the gumption to suggest that we need to negotiate drug prices with

big pharma wasn't enough to get him put into a cannot ball and shot out of the party!!

Yeah -- I know he made the decision to leave . . . who wouldn't!!??

[sendero]

69. Exactly..

... people need to wake up. Including Obama whose proposed reforms are a JOKE.

[Why Syzygy]

71. I see the window for change shattering wide open. nt

[troubledamerican]

72. "The window for change is rapidly closing" ... T'was Pisst Away, alas.

[Joe Chi Minh]

74. K&R

[MichiganVote]

75. What? Weren't we all supposed to be satisfied with MadeOff?

[bfarq]

76. Not "quite possibly". More like "certainly"

"What we don’t know will hurt us, and quite possibly on a more devastating scale than any Qaeda attack."

OK, we are all sympathetic to the people who died on 9-11 and other terrorism events, and we can all fell the pain of the families who lost loved ones. But by the numbers, there were about 3000 lives lost on 9-11 out of a population of 250,000,000. That's about 1 on ever 100,000. And if you include the close circle of family and friends, that is 1 in 10,000 who were directly affected.

Not to minimize that, but 100 FREAKING PERCENT of Americans are DIRECTLY affected by the criminality that has been happening and continues unabated on Wall Street. We are all affected:

- It is the direct cause of hundreds of thousands of lost jobs

- It is the direct cause of hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies

- It is the direct cause why we don't have enough money to pay for the kind of health care all other developed countries have

- It will be the direct cause of loss of savings through inflation because of the deficit sending that paid for the transfer of 2 trillion dollars to these crooks

- It will saddle our government (that means the average taxpayer and our great grandchildren) with a crippling debt that will place the next 5 generations at a huge economic disadvantage in this world.

Terrorism directly affects at most 1 in 10,000. The banking criminality affects every one of us.

[99 Percent Sure]

78. Bill Moyers with David Corn and Kevin Drum of Mother Jones

broke our financial mess down so succinctly that even the most uninformed could get it. It was so affecting, that I had to read the transcript:

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.

The ancient Romans had a proverb: "Money is like sea water. The more you drink, the thirstier you become." That adage finds particular meaning today on Wall Street, which began this New Year riding a tidal wave of bonuses in a surging ocean of greed.

Thanks to taxpayers like you who generously bailed banking from the financial shipwreck it created for itself and for us, by the end of 2009 the industry's compensation pool reached nearly $200 billion. And despite windfall profits, the banks will claim almost $80 billion in tax deductions. And nearly $20 billion of those deductions will go to just three institutions — Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs.

Ah, yes — Goldman Sachs, that paragon of profit and probity — which bet big on the housing bubble and when it popped — presto! — converted itself from an investment firm into a bank so it could get your bailout money. Now consider this: in 2008, Goldman Sachs paid an effective tax rate of just one percent. I'm not making that up — one percent! — while their CEO Lloyd Blankfein pulled down over $40 million. That's God's work, if you can get it. And, believe me, Wall Street bankers know how to get it.

Let me read you a letter that was posted on our website a few days ago from a faithful viewer. His name is Mike Demmer. I don't know him personally, but I like to hear from him. He says, dear Bill, I watch your program all the time. What I don't understand is how a bunch of greedy bankers could bring the world to the edge of catastrophe and then in less than a year, already move back to their old ways. How do they do it?

KEVIN DRUM: Well, that's the $64 million question. Or maybe it's the $64 billion question these days. Yeah, how they do it? They've got all the money. And they use all the money. And they use it in Congress to get rules passed and get laws passed that they want. They use it to lobby the Fed, they use it to lobby the S.E.C. They use it to lobby the executive branch. And they get rules passed that allow them to make a lot of money. Just like any of us would. It's not that American bankers are greedier than anybody else's bankers. It's that our rules, our laws, allow them to do things that they can't do everywhere else. We let them take advantage of the system.

BILL MOYERS: But how do you measure their power? Lobbying doesn't happen in the public, in the open. We can't sit in the bleachers and watch the game being played. How do you know they have this power?

DAVID CORN: You can read the lobbying reports. You know that there are scores if not hundreds of lobbyists. And where do they come from? They come from the committees that they're lobbying. People used to work on the committee, whether they were members, Congressmen or Senators, or staffers. And they spent a lot of time — because, ultimately, Bill, this is about knowledge. This is about information. This stuff is really complicated and convoluted. And, you know, you try reading any of one of these bills and figuring out what's actually being said. It's mystifying. And so, these guys who know the rules, they know the language, and they have the access, and they're giving contributions to the people writing the rules, have all the advantages.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01082010/transcript3.html