OCCUPY WALL STREET

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by GeorgiaMa'am

You go, George Bailey! You go! (Just watched _It's A Wonderful Life_ this past weekend for the I-won't-say-how-many-Christmases-in-a-row. Down with Potterville! Honestly, if you need a temporary escape from the crisis, it's a good movie - unless you can't stand sugary-sweet escapism.)

Well thank you! One of my favorite Christmas movies! I just can't help but think there is a way to tackle this problem via OWS. I really am happy to see the Occupy people in many places on the lawns of foreclosure situations. A couple of these actions have helped get some more time for some folks. We need to get these properties completely out of the hands of banks and re-structure loans based upon actual market values today. Just that would enable many to stay in their homes and pay it off. Some of the bogus loan products people were sold were just nuts! Some of these loans can't even be traced to wherever they ended up!

Oh, I can deal with sugary-sweet escapism!

[atomiczombie]

This past Sunday 60 minutes did a segment on all the fraud that went on at banks such as Countrywide and how no one in the SEC or FBI is willing to do a serious investigation or prosecute them. This link has a transcript and video of the show:

http://occupyamerica.crooksandliars....t-we-prosecuti

Here's a snippet of the interview:

Steve Kroft: Do you believe that there are people at Countrywide who belong behind bars?

Eileen Foster: Yes.

Kroft: Do you want to give me their names?

Foster: No.

Kroft: Would you give their names to a grand jury if you were asked?

Foster: Yes.

But Eileen Foster has never been asked - and never spoken to the Justice Department - even though she was Countrywide's executive vice president in charge of fraud investigations. At the height of the housing bubble, Countrywide Financial was the largest mortgage lender in the country and the loans it made were among the worst, a third ending up in foreclosure or default, many because of mortgage fraud.

It was Foster's job to monitor and investigate allegations of fraud against Countrywide employees and make sure they were reported to the Board of Directors and the Treasury Department.

Kroft: How much fraud was there at Countrywide?

Foster: From what I saw, the types of things I saw, it was-- it appeared systemic. It, it wasn't just one individual or two or three individuals, it was branches of individuals, it was regions of individuals.

Kroft: What you seem to be saying was it was just a way of doing business?

Foster: Yes.

In 2007, Foster sent a team to the Boston area to search several branch offices of Countrywide's subprime division - the division that lent to borrowers with poor credit. The investigators rummaged through the office's recycling bins and found evidence that Countrywide loan officers were forging and manipulating borrowers' income and asset statements to help them get loans they weren't qualified for and couldn't afford.

Foster: All of the-- the recycle bins, whenever we looked through those they were full of, you know, signatures that had been cut off of one document and put onto another and then photocopied, you know, or faxed and then the-- you know, the creation thrown-- thrown in the recycle bin.

[atomiczombie]

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to support a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment that would assert that corporations are not entitled to constitutional rights, and that money is not the same as free speech.

The resolution was backed by Move to Amend, a national coalition working to abolish corporate personhood and overturn U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling. The decision gave corporations and unions the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, so long as their actions are not coordinated with a candidate’s campaign.

“Move to Amend’s proposed amendment would provide the basis for overturning the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,” stated Mary Beth Fielder, Co-Coordinator of LA Move to Amend. “The Supreme Court has no legitimate right to grant people’s rights to corporations. We must clearly establish that it is we, The People, who are meant to rule.”

City Council President Eric Garcetti sponsored the resolution, according to the Los Angeles Times. He said the largely-symbolic legislation was necessary because “big special interest money” was causing gridlock in Washington.

Move to Amend hopes that to get similar resolutions approved across the nation through city councils and direct vote by ballot initiative.

“Our plan is build a movement that will drive this issue into Congress from the grassroots,” stated Mary Beth Fielder, Co-Coordinator of LA Move to Amend. “The American people are behind us on this and these campaigns help our federal representatives see that we mean business. Our very democracy is at stake. Our goal is for 50 towns and cities to put Move to Amend’s resolution on the ballot for the Presidential election in November, 2012.”

Democratic Sens. Tom Udall of New Mexico and Michael Bennet of Colorado have introduced a constitutional amendment that would overturn Citizens United by granting Congress and the states the authority to regulate the campaign finance system. The amendment would not dictate any specific policies or regulations, Udall said, so that it could garner some support from Republicans, who have blocked attempts to overturn the ruling in the past.

LINK: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/0...te-personhood/

[Corkey]

From Dylan Rattan show Mass. Attorney General has joined several States Attorney Generals to investigate mortgage corporations. Doing Holters job for him.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

LINK: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/0...te-personhood/

Yes! This is exactly what needs to be done! No easy task, but must happen. This would be such a great OWS focus nationwide. The Citizens United decision is so very much at the core of why there has been such wage disparity in the US for so long.

[SoNotHer]

"Los Angeles is the first major city in the United States to call for a constitutional amendment that clearly establishes that human being and only human beings are entitled to constitutional rights and that money is not the same as free speech, thus providing the basis to overturn Citizen's United decision."

[SoNotHer]

Legislators around the nation have been working to strip or severely restrict the right of their fellow Americans to vote. They claim to be preventing voter fraud. They deny that their goal is to suppress the votes of people of color, students, the elderly, and the poor. The truth is their efforts amount to nothing more than a scheme to undo generations of work securing the voting rights for all Americans. The NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund have released an important new report on the relationship between the historic levels of participation in the 2008 election and the new voter suppression bills proposed and passed by legislatures around the country. The report removes any doubt about our opponents' intent, and we must not ignore this attack.

Take a moment to read the report and find out the truth. Then make sure your friends and family know about it too:

http://action.naacp.org/defending-democracy-report

The report, "Defending Democracy: Confronting Modern Barriers to Voting Rights in America," provides indisputable evidence of a coordinated attack intended to silence the communities who turned out in record-breaking numbers in 2008: young people and communities of color. The report exposes the reasons why new stringent voter ID requirements, bans on the formerly incarcerated -- people who have already paid their debt to society -- and suppressive rules on voter registration and early voting periods are being pursued.

In short, these laws threaten to undermine the record levels of political participation witnessed during the historic 2008 Presidential election by blocking access to millions of people, many of them our most vulnerable citizens. And it's no coincidence that this comprehensive assault was launched just in time to affect the 2012 election.

You can find full details of the voter suppression initiatives in the report. More importantly, the report provides a roadmap for our communities to begin to actively counter these block-the-vote efforts. "Defending Democracy" is eye opening, and serves as the backbone for our Stand For Freedom Rally at the United Nations in New York City on December 10th. Please take a moment to download the report and spread the word to friends and family:

http://action.naacp.org/defending-democracy-report

Today we face one of the biggest threats to civil rights in over a century. If these powerful forces capture our right to vote, the other rights we care so deeply about -- education, health care, equality for all -- could be at risk.

Thank you in advance for learning more about this crucial issue and taking action in your community.

Yours in justice,

Kim

Kim Michele Keenan, Esq.
General Counsel
NAACP

[MsMerrick]

Standing for Freedom
( copied from http://www.stand4freedom.org/ )

This year, two-thirds of state legislatures have introduced laws that undermine the right to vote. Early voting and Sunday voting are under attack, photo ID requirements will introduce the first financial and document barrier to voting since the poll tax, and racially-motivated bans on ex-felons will wipe tens of thousands off the rolls.

This effort is unprecedented, it is coordinated, and it is targeted. African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, students, working women, seniors and immigrants of all colors will be disproportionately affected.

The right to vote is the heart of our democracy. Throughout our history Americans have been murdered for defending this basic human right. We will not let it be taken away from millions today.

Join us on Saturday, December 10th—The United Nations’ Human Rights Day—to proclaim to America and the world:

It’s time to Stand for Freedom. We must protect our right to vote.
Assembly and March Information

10:30 am to 11:30 am: assemble 61st St. and Madison Ave., the Koch brothers' NYC office.

11:30 am: March from 61st St. and Madison Ave. to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza at 47th St. and 2nd Ave.

12:30 pm: Rally at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza across from the United Nations.

End copy and paste

Join me anyone? Give a yell if you want to meet up...

[MsMerrick]

If there is a separate thread for discussion of teh Citizen's United Case, I'll post this there also.
But meanwhile, if you , like me, believe that Corporations are NOT people, granted the same rights of Free Speech, PLEASE, help correct the Citizen's United Decision with this Constitutional Amendment . This is the time, there is awareness growing all over, even in L.A.
Sign Senator Sanders Petition and share widely !!!

[SoNotHer]

Signed. Thank you for posting this.

Originally Posted by MsMerrick

If there is a separate thread for discussion of teh Citizen's United Case, I'll post this there also.
But meanwhile, if you , like me, believe that Corporations are NOT people, granted the same rights of Free Speech, PLEASE, help correct the Citizen's United Decision with this Constitutional Amendment . This is the time, there is awareness growing all over, even in L.A.
Sign Senator Sanders Petition and share widely !!!

[persiphone]

slightly off topic but i find it relevant....here's what the military thinks about it's members


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...ry.html?wprss=


horrifying really.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by MsMerrick

If there is a separate thread for discussion of teh Citizen's United Case, I'll post this there also.
But meanwhile, if you , like me, believe that Corporations are NOT people, granted the same rights of Free Speech, PLEASE, help correct the Citizen's United Decision with this Constitutional Amendment . This is the time, there is awareness growing all over, even in L.A.
Sign Senator Sanders Petition and share widely !!!

Please circulate on FB, Twitter.... and bump a lot!! Thanks MsMerrick!

[atomiczombie]

[atomiczombie]

Originally Posted by persiphone

slightly off topic but i find it relevant....here's what the military thinks about it's members


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...ry.html?wprss=


horrifying really.

That is FUBAR. Why isn't there more reports of this in the main stream press?

[atomiczombie]

[DapperButch]

Didn't notice this posted in the thread:


http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/bush_tax_cuts_2011/

[persiphone]

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

That is FUBAR. Why isn't there more reports of this in the main stream press?

gee i can't imagine. we are just expendable trash after all. who wouldn't want us to know that? the count was 2700 soldiers. i'm sure there's more. mebbe no one wants the comparison drawn of mass body graves of the past? cuz Bush started it and it was clearly never ended by the current administration? cuz it's beyond disgusting? i could go on and on.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

That is FUBAR. Why isn't there more reports of this in the main stream press?

Not just FUBAR but SNAFU.

[Ebon]

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

Yeah we're fucked. Most people are still not awake either.

[Sachita]

As if we didnt know, here it is

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...the-world.html


Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world


AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs).

"Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's conspiracy theories or free-market," says James Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based."

Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world's economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy - whether it made it more or less stable, for instance.

The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.

The work, to be published in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

John Driffill of the University of London, a macroeconomics expert, says the value of the analysis is not just to see if a small number of people controls the global economy, but rather its insights into economic stability.

Concentration of power is not good or bad in itself, says the Zurich team, but the core's tight interconnections could be. As the world learned in 2008, such networks are unstable. "If one [company] suffers distress," says Glattfelder, "this propagates."

"It's disconcerting to see how connected things really are," agrees George Sugihara of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, a complex systems expert who has advised Deutsche Bank.

Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), warns that the analysis assumes ownership equates to control, which is not always true. Most company shares are held by fund managers who may or may not control what the companies they part-own actually do. The impact of this on the system's behaviour, he says, requires more analysis.

Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power, the analysis could help make it more stable. By finding the vulnerable aspects of the system, economists can suggest measures to prevent future collapses spreading through the entire economy. Glattfelder says we may need global anti-trust rules, which now exist only at national level, to limit over-connection among TNCs. Sugihara says the analysis suggests one possible solution: firms should be taxed for excess interconnectivity to discourage this risk.

One thing won't chime with some of the protesters' claims: the super-entity is unlikely to be the intentional result of a conspiracy to rule the world. "Such structures are common in nature," says Sugihara.

Newcomers to any network connect preferentially to highly connected members. TNCs buy shares in each other for business reasons, not for world domination. If connectedness clusters, so does wealth, says Dan Braha of NECSI: in similar models, money flows towards the most highly connected members. The Zurich study, says Sugihara, "is strong evidence that simple rules governing TNCs give rise spontaneously to highly connected groups". Or as Braha puts it: "The Occupy Wall Street claim that 1 per cent of people have most of the wealth reflects a logical phase of the self-organising economy."

So, the super-entity may not result from conspiracy. The real question, says the Zurich team, is whether it can exert concerted political power. Driffill feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion. Braha suspects they will compete in the market but act together on common interests. Resisting changes to the network structure may be one such common interest.

When this article was first posted, the comment in the final sentence of the paragraph beginning "Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power…" was misattributed.

The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies
1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
11. Wellington Management Co LLP
12. Deutsche Bank AG
13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group
15. Walton Enterprises LLC
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
17. Natixis
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
20. Legg Mason Inc
21. Morgan Stanley
22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc
23. Northern Trust Corporation
24. Société Générale
25. Bank of America Corporation
26. Lloyds TSB Group plc
27. Invesco plc
28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA
30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company
31. Aviva plc
32. Schroders plc
33. Dodge & Cox
34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc*
35. Sun Life Financial Inc
36. Standard Life plc
37. CNCE
38. Nomura Holdings Inc
39. The Depository Trust Company
40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
41. ING Groep NV
42. Brandes Investment Partners LP
43. Unicredito Italiano SPA
44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan
45. Vereniging Aegon
46. BNP Paribas
47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc
48. Resona Holdings Inc
49. Capital Group International Inc
50. China Petrochemical Group Company

* Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used