Bill Moyers this weekend-examines the ridiculous JP Morgan settlement

[No Elephants]

Jon Stewart did so earlier this week.

For helping cause the second Great Depression, JP Morgan paid $13 billion, less than the the $17 billion Dimon had set aside for this when JPM acquired the assets that came with this liability. And, of the $13 billion, $4 billion will be tax deductible, so JP Morgan is actually out only $9 billion, and America is picking up the rest of the tab.

(They didn't build that $4 billion.)

The deal was struck during a private meeting between Dimon and Holder.

Class warfare. (The 99% lost again. Then again, they don't fight back.)

[No Elephants]

1. The CNBC types are saying it's unfair to charge JP Morgan for the sins of Bear Stearns.

JP Morgan took over the assets of Bear Stearns knowing what the liabilities might be.

This is an old, old legal doctrine of successor liability.

My own experience: I had bought something from Bear Stearns for my retirement plan. At the time I purchased, there was no fee. At some point, Bear Stearns notified me of an annual fee that would be deducted when the bond matured. Fine.

The thing got transferred to JP Morgan, which then sent me a bill for the entire amount, including the several years before Bear Stearns even announced it was charging a fee.

I was very sick at the time and could not be bothered fighting it, but it was hundreds of dollars for which JPM had done nothing, and that was contrary to anything that I had agreed to with Bear Stearns, both as to number of years for which the fee would be charges and as to when and how the amount would be paid. And, I'm only one person.

So, do I feel bad that JPM got hit with something it knew it was going to get hit with when it took over Bear Stearns? In an amount substantially less than the amount that JPM had set aside for the purpose?

No, I'm mad they got off easier than they thought they would.

[Enthusiast]

2. I'm mad too.

But the Wild West continues. No one with any influence seems to be interested in reining in the abuses of big finance. We are supposed to shut up and be happy with this bullshit. There used to be a sense of right and wrong. Maybe if we would cut "entitlements" all will be well. Bizarro world.

[No Elephants]

3. Gotta stop those senior, disabled and widowed gangters somehow!

Cutting their fuel subsidies, their food and their medical care oughtta do it!

(The real death panels.)

[No Elephants]

4. Link to the podcast of the JP Morgan segment

http://billmoyers.com/segment/gretchen-morgenson-on-why-jpmorgan-chase-may-be-getting-off-easy/

The second part of the show was about citizen activists. Unless we can hit them in the wallet, I don't see much hope of hope that though.

Tavis Smiley had someone on advocating about citizen activists, too--and Smiley just kept point out it doesn't work.

I think demonstrations are great, if you use them to get names, addresses and emails and build a network of people who are dissatisfied with the status quo. (According to Congressional approval ratings, that would be just about everybody, but everybody keeps re-electing the same clowns anyway--not that new clowns would behave differently). But, they are not going to change a single vote in Congress. Neither are internet petitions or contacts to Reps.

Then again, the NSA will monitor your emails. Maybe this is really why they are so anxious to privatize the post office. Mass mailings are already fairly expensive. Just imagine how expensive they will be when the Post Office is finally done in. And the 4th amendment doesn't apply to private companies.

[Enthusiast]

5. Nice Moyers piece.

What in the hell happened to this nation?

Something very odd happened in the wake of the stolen 2,000 election. Since then, criminality, critical investigations into that destructive criminality and certainly appropriate sentences for the crime has more or less vanished. After the Obama Administration took office they essentially said, "We chose to look forward." There is little argument that the Bush Administration tortured (they admitted it)and they misled us into a costly unnecessary war. I don't think a President has the right to simply wave his hand and dismiss crimes of this magnitude. A president has the right to specific individual pardons. I'm no lawyer but I don't think the President was correct to allow such blatant criminality to go completely uninvestigated. Same deal with the Wall Street malfeasance.

Law and order "Righties"® have always argued that it is only through the most severe sentencing can we discourage crime. What happened to that? Crime only counts when someone else does it? The Laws are written for someone else?

[No Elephants]

6. maybe

"What in the hell happened to this nation?

Something very odd happened in the wake of the stolen 2,000 election."

Maybe. Or maybe Lincoln, FDR and LBJ were odd Presidents. I can't tell.

Anyway, it didn't take long for most of the Great Society to be undone, Medicare and Head Start being exceptions.

Now, they're after Medicare and what remains of the New Deal.


Remember, the modern Republican Party has not changed much. It has been frankly and openly for the wealthy for as long as I can remember. Used to be for the white wealthy, but that has been changing gradually. Democrats used to be the war party, but the Republicans took that over. Now, it seems neither major party minds them some war.

Jimmy Carter and a Democratic Congress got rid of some of FDR's reforms and began deregulation. A New Yorker article about the Koch brothers says that they conceived of the Tea Party in the 1980s. The 1980s was also when the DLC formed officially. The Koch brothers were one of the early donors. The 1980s were also when lobbyists grew exponentially.

The 90's were the years of Clinton, the first DLC President. They were the years when a Democratic President eliminated "welfare as we know it," helped whip Democrats to vote for repeal of Glass Steagall and signed NAFTA. The 2000s were mostly the Bush decade, with the folly of having repealed Glass Steagall caused the global economic collapse of 2008 and the Bush wars having emptied the Treasury. And, then we got Obama, who took office promising to cut entitlements.

Meanwhile, both parties got us focused on social issues, each in its own way.