You're now on the archive server. Commenting has been disabled.
Senator Dorgan: "We Essentially Have Had Modern-Day Bank Robbers ... and There's Been No Accountability ... There's No Question the System Is Rigged"
Senator Byron Dorgan has some harsh words for the too big to fails:
It's
one of the most frustrating things. We essentially have had modern-day
bank robbers -- except that they wore gray suits and not masks -- and
there's been no accountability for it ...Every day we see
energy speculators, war profiteers, managed health-care providers,
media propagandists, and/or financiers given some unfair advantage over
the average consumers and taxpayers, and the cumulative effect of the
American people watching selfishness prevail over the public interest
has been an undermining of the public's trust in government.This "anything goes" approach to capitalism has injured the very economy we have aspired to create.
I'm
a big fan of the free-market system...This is not about a liberal or
conservative philosophy. It is about making sure our economy and the
free-market system work for everybody...
There's no question the
system is rigged against the little guy. The bigger interests have a
lot more information. They jerry-rig the system so that they always win.
Dorgan said 3 things are needed to fix the financial system:
One
is to separate investment banks and FDIC-insured banks. Second,
prohibit FDIC-insured banks from dealing in risky financial instruments
on their own proprietary accounts... And third, abolish "too big to
fail." If you're too big to fail, you're too big. Too big to fail is
what I call no-fault capitalism.
Senator Dorgan was one of eight senators who stood up to oppose the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act in 1999, and said at the time:
I think we will in 10 years' time look back and say we should not have done this.
- the clash
Ironic that a rising stock market, 80% employment, and $2.75 gal. gasoline can placate and pacify a Nation enough to not rise collectively in indignation and demand accountabilty of the Congress. Silent majority indeed. Easier to vent on a blog I guess, then to write and phone your Senators and Congressmen.
Have you vented lately? Doesn't make a spit of difference. This is such a fundamental problem that it would require a change in how this country is run. The masses are still being pacified as long as they deep extending unemployment benefits.
DORGAN FOR PRESIDENT... CZAR
Yeah, nice words. Truly. Now if only this Dorgan fellow were in a position to, you know, actually do something about this. You know, like if he were some sort of CongressCritter.
Oh, wait.
viva la'resistance!
make noise! the loudest sound the world has ever heard, a giant sucking WOOSH! as the system comes unplugged and washes down the toilet of history.
stay at home, stockpile food and emergency supplies, then do not go to work, do not pay your bills(usury), do not pay your utilities, do not pay for anything. help your neghbor do the same.
this trash heap called capitalism(as currently functioning) will DIE!
pass it on ad infinitum, let's start a non-violent revolution, we outnumber them by hundreds of millions. they can't kill alll of us.
well maybe the CDC can... this is my disclaimer.
"Rise like Lions after slumber
in unvanquishable number
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.
What is Freedom? - ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well -
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.
Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants use to dwell.
So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.
Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak.
When the winter winds are bleak
They are dying whilst I speak.
Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;
Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More than e'er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.
Paper coin - that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something of the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.
Exerpt from "The Mask of Anarchy," by Persy Bysshe Shelly, written on the occasion of the massacre carried out by the British Government at Peterloo, Manchester 1819
'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.
'What is Freedom? - ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well -
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.
'Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants' use to dwell,
'So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.
'Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak, -
They are dying whilst I speak.
'Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;
'Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More that e'er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.
'Paper coin - that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something of the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.
'Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.
'And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
'Tis to see the Tyrant's crew
Ride over your wives and you -
Blood is on the grass like dew.
'Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood - and wrong for wrong -
Do not thus when ye are strong.
'Birds find rest, in narrow nest
When weary of their wingèd quest
Beasts find fare, in woody lair
When storm and snow are in the air.
'Asses, swine, have litter spread
And with fitting food are fed;
All things have a home but one -
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!
'This is slavery - savage men
Or wild beasts within a den
Would endure not as ye do -
But such ills they never knew.
'What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand - tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery:
'Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.
'For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.
'Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude -
No - in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.
'To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.
'Thou art Justice - ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England - thou
Shield'st alike the high and low.
'Thou art Wisdom - Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.
'Thou art Peace - never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.
'What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood?
It availed, Oh, Liberty,
To dim, but not extinguish thee.
'Thou art Love - the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,
'Or turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy belovèd sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud - whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.
'Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.
'Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.
'From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan,
'From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old
Groan for pain, and weep for cold -
'From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares -
'Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around
'Those prison halls of wealth and fashion,
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail
As must make their brethren pale -
'Ye who suffer woes untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold -
'Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free -
'Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.
'Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.
Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses' heels.
'Let the fixèd bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.
'Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.
'Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,
'And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armèd steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.
'Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute,
'The old laws of England - they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo - Liberty!
'On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.
'And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, -
What they like, that let them do.
'With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.
'Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.
'Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand -
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.
'And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.
'And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.
'And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -
'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'
Exerpts from "The Mask of Anarchy" by Percy Bysshe Shelly, written on the occasion of the massacre carried out by the Brittish Government at Peterloo, Manchester, 1819.
comrade, it is easy to see that you do not have a good attitude. since there are feds reading and posting around here now, maybe you should clean up your act and get your thing together before they come and give you a visit one night very late and pick you up and send you to a work and redoctrinization camp where they will work real hard to get your mind right so that you will be a good little slave...the word that they hate the most is .....resistance.....
pick me up, make me a martyr, mebbe the boyz in mesopotamia have something to teach us. I advocate a non-violent solution, let me be clear. if that requires my detention, rendition, torture, so be it.
people sit down, don't go to work, don't pay your bills, help/love your neighbor and take your freedom back!
In eliminating the TBTFs, we also need to include a method of liquidating them such that at least a portion of the "bailout-TARP-free AIG 100% on the dollar" payments (hereinafter, "Loot") is returned to the taxpayer. To the extent not returned, the principals of the organizations, after their trial and conviction, should be subject to what will essentialy be clawbacks (through the process we use to seize the property of convicted drug dealers, who as a class, probably have a moral ethos most akin to that of the banksters).
I'm a long time fan of Senator Dorgan. He should run for president. He makes sense and seems honest. If you can make it as a democrat in North Dakota you must be doing something right.
I just saw this with Ratagan, don't know if it has been posted here, if it is a repeat, apologies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xvwhHOK8Rk&feature=player_embedded
They are saying we are not making enough noise. Wouldn't it be nice if it were that easy?
I don't know if it is bullshit or not, but I am going to give it a try.
Senator Dorgan should be getting more airtime. Here is a 40+ minute speech from January. Well worth watching.
http://tinyurl.com/yhqoutd
Byron D. is up-his State's growth industry is oil and gas, aint America great? And he has a Real Race stay tuned.
The Bell Curve narrows further.
The Justice Dept. will RICO them anyday...
/sarc
Let's add auditing Fort Knox in addition to auditing the fed and TBTFs.
Corruption has run rampant, and you won't believe this story:
Gld ETF Warning, Tungsten Filled Fake Gold Barshttp://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14996.html
I wonder if that investment head of the Rockefeller Investment Trust had anything to do with this - you know, the one that wound up dead in his car from "suicide".
Add that story to this little known story from GATA, see the excerpt:
"Most Americans still believe that all that gold is still at Fort Knox.
At the end of World War II, Fort Knox contained 701.8 million ounces of
gold, an incredible 70% of all the gold in the world. How much remains?
No one knows. Despite the fact that Federal law requires an annual
physical audit of Fort Knox gold, the Treasury has consistently refused
to conduct one. The truth is that a reliable audit of whatever
remains here has not been conducted since President Eisenhower ordered
one in 1953."
Where did Americas gold in Fort Knox go? It is said that by 1971, when
the dollar was "freed" from the gold standard, "all the pure gold had
been secretly removed from Fort Knox much of it drained back through
the Fed to the Bank of England. Once the gold was gone from Fort Knox,
President Nixon closed the gold window by repealing Roosevelt's Gold
Reserve Act of 1934, finally making it legal once again for Americans to
buy gold. "
So how did the story about the disappearance of Fort Knox gold get out?
Well, "It all started with an article in a New York periodical in 1974.
The article charged that the Rockefeller family was manipulating the
Federal Reserve to sell off Fort Knox gold at bargain basement prices to
anonymous European speculators. Three days later, the anonymous source
of the story, Louise Auchincloss Boyer, mysteriously fell to her death
from the window of her 10th floor apartment in New York. How would Mrs.
Boyer have known of the Rockefeller connection to the Fort Knox gold
heist? She was the longtime secretary of Nelson Rockefeller."
"For the next 14 years, Ed Durell, a wealthy Ohio industrialist, devoted
himself to a quest for the truth concerning the Fort Knox gold. He
wrote thousands of letters to over 1,000 government and banking
officials, trying to find out how much gold was really left and where
the rest of it had gone. . .
"Unfortunately, Ed Durell never did accomplish his primary goal, a full
audit of the gold reserves in Fort Knox. . .
"What is the government so afraid of. Here's the answer. When
President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, his conservative friends
urged him to study the feasibility of returning to a gold standard as
the only way to curb government spending. It sounded like a reasonable
alternative, so President Reagan appointed a group of men called the
Gold Commission, to study the situation and report back.
"What Reagan's Gold Commission reported back to Congress in 1982 was the
following shocking revelation concerning gold. The Treasury owned no
gold at all. All the gold that was left in Fort Knox was now owned by
the Federal Reserve a group of private bankers as collateral
against the national debt. Much of the rest of it was still in the
U.S., in the vaults beneath the New York Federal Reserve Bank, but held
there for its bank and foreign owners."
Can you believe this, it's like the plot from a James Bond movie.
I didn't believe that tungsten was about the same density as gold. I had to look it up. Turns out tungsten is 19.25g/cm3 and gold is 19.32g/cm3. So I learned something about metals today.
And I thought Fort Knox was filled with paper IOU's...Tungston is worth a shitload more
Remember this movie?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xmYCSjuauY&feature=related
I say we ask Larry Silverstein for his take (on the movie, of course).
On the missing gold at the bottom of the towers or the insurance policies that were reworked to pay out double in the months just preceding the event?
Interesting stories just out involving 9/11:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/11/cancer-new-york-rescuers
9/11's delayed legacy: cancer for many of the rescue workersand this one: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/134384
Jerusalem Monument to 9/11 Victims Unveiled by JNFApparently it's the only monument to 9/11 victims outside of New York.
http://911review.com/motive/gold.html#ref4
stolen gold at wtc
monument to 911 in jeruslalem...
isn't that special....
Something I learned from being on the Grand Jury…if a corporation is engaged in fraud, corruption, malfeasance in the state you live in, you can have their corporate charter revoked - the problem is that it has to be done by the States Attorney General. Getting the charter revoked bars them from operating in your state, and effectively shuts them down. Getting the Attorney General do it is tough - unless you can get a member of the State House of Reps or some lawyer/law-maker to put forward the bill. Most times the corporation will have these guys under their thumb and on the payroll, so to speak. The other way is to enter in a request for the grand jury to review the facts of the case, when you actually sit for grand jury proceedings. The judge asks if there is other business you would like to bring to the attention of the courts. Would surprise the shit out of them if someeone actually did present a case! And all of the other jurists will get pissed because it will perhaps make them stay past their usual 3 to 4 hour timeframe that they have to serve, and, more importantly, you need to have all your evidence buttoned up in one sock to present. But, the laws of the states usually have clauses on their books that can cause a shitstorm within the corporation that is brought to jury proceedings. I'm sure there are others more saavvy on this, but it's worth a look into.
States Attorney Generals are just watching the citizens get robbed. I'm a bit surprised no one has stepped up. Of course Blago threatened to pull all state banking biz from BAC and got popped the next morning on dubious charges so the capture and corruption probably runs much deeper than imagined. City and state pensions/budgets being wiped out and Wall Street skates, nary a whimper from from anyone at the state and local level.
Maybe we'll get some unlikely hero like a local sheriff to step up and do the job. Goldman Sachs defrauded our county with the CDO scam, I'm putting out a warrant for the arrest of their CEO. It would be hard for the clueless/captured feds to mess with a guy like that, look at how Joe Arpaio doesn't take their crap.
Thank you for the tip. Seems like a great idea. When the normal authorities are lax or beholden to crooks, citizens can embarrass them into seeing the laws that need enforcing, and the crooks that need prosecuting.
Yeah it is easy to talk smack when you have your own successfully run state bank and voted against the Rube-Fat Larry-Cue Ball... I mean Rubin-Summers-Gram "Reform" bill back in 1999, there Dorgan...
Funny how the new guy Mr. Change has a lot of "Reform" bills...
You wouldn't see Broke Ass Arnold do something dumb like open a State of California Bank.
Broke Ass Arnold would never deposit revenues and issue credit and bonds in a state bank instead of begging Wall Street to charge huge fees to do it... when they are not laughing at Broke Ass Arnold and his IOUs...
Pete Wilson used to get testy when people flicked him shit over the Broke Ass Pete IOU. He would scream "They're Warrants!"
Disclaimer: I hope none of the above violates any of Marla's new rules and etiquette crackdown...
Didn't understand a word, except "Wall Street" and California. Perhaps one reason Americans have become such easy targets for the bankers is that Americans have become afraid to express themselves directly. They attempt to drop hints that they know something is wrong, but hints do not provide their readers or listeners with knowledge and understanding. So although there is much talk, there is little sharing or dissemination of information among and to the citizenry, which is left ignorant and therefore impotent.
etiquette is the power of the elite to control
the subjects...
What state is he from so I can move there and vote for him?!!
Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota.
bring a warm jacket :)
I like Dorgan's remark back in 1999 upon Congress's passage of the repeal of Glass-Steagall (from NYTimes article, 11/5/99):
''I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010,'' said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota.
He had bingo there, he really did..
I wonder now if David Brooks is onto something in highlighting a small-business-minded Republican prospect emerging for 2012: John Thune
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/opinion/13brooks.html?th&emc=th
Wow, prophetic words.
I think we will in 10 years' time look back and say we should not have done this.
this is why a debate regarding our current political system and the merits of removing it is worth having.
We need a banking "public option"! Why should anyone but the American taxpayer benefit from the fractional reserve magic that allows you to draw interest on money you don't have? Finish nationalizing the banks by insisting on marking their assets to market. Put all of the employees on the government service pay scale, return to traditional banking practices , pay the widows and orphans 5% for their money and charge business 7% to borrow it. Take the fractional reserve benefit and use it to pay down the national debt. Take any federal guarantee away from any non public banks and let them gamble with their own money. This may be socialism but at least it won't be "Sucker Socialism" where the gains are privatized and the former middle class gets the shaft.
Seems that more & more the Senators & Representatives that are not too deeply owned are coming out against the looters (if they want to have any hope of re-election)
Props to Dorgan.
Bravo to Senator Dorgan for calling out the modern-day bank robbers!
To Dorgan's three remedies I would add a fourth: Shock and Awe prosecution of the modern-day bank robbers...coast-to-coast arrests, from Countrywide to Goldman Sachs and every one in between. I hope to see Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) prosecutions and mass trials in style of the Maxiprocesso (Maxi Trial) of the Mafia in Sicily during the mid-1980s that resulted in hundreds of defendants convicted. I hope to see RICO confiscations of the hundreds of billions in illegal "profits" from the criminal enterprises of the mortgage industry and Wall Street Mafia.
Justice demands more than promises of reform. Justice demands hard time in jail for the hundreds of modern-day bank robbers where ever they may be...Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks and brokerages, the rating agencies and AIG, Countrywide and the mortgage industry and the appraisers, Freddie and Fannie and Citi and the big banksters, and then to the federal co-conspirators at U.S. Treasury, SEC, OTS, and the Federal Reserve, including Hank "the mole" Paulson, Ben "the bag man" Bernanke, Tim "the Wall Street patsy" Geithner, and then to the members of Congress who took money to aid and abet the modern-day bank robbers.
Right on, society should demand that the thieves and robbers be stripped of their ill-gotten gains, and punished for their wrong doing.
Deterrence, indeed.
Slaps on the wrist designed to appease the masses are
an insult to our intelligence and a green light to the Kleptocracy to smugly continue the financial terrorism.
People must awaken and fight back, because we have had
war declared on us, and it won't stop unless we make
it happen.
We need a third party that is not beholden to the
entrenched Oligarchy. Destructive innovation in the
form of customized education and jobs for the New
Economy. The old one is dead. We need to get on with
collectively addressing reality.
Easy to do, too. Just establish a bounty of, say, 10% of the recovery to those who furnish the necessary evidence. Sort of like paying Napoleonic naval crews for capturing enemy ships. Harness that boundless greed. The Marines is 'Nam used to say "Kill 'em all. Let God sort 'em out."
Not sure why that popped into my head, Marla, but I assure you it was unrelated to my comment and used metaphorically.
Amen and amen.
Sigh, we aren't learning very fast are we?
No, we aren't learning very fast. And why is that?
If we truly wish to know why, we must begin to ask the really difficult questions, beginning with a few directed at ourselves. This is obviously not a very popular idea among a population who desperately wishes to avoid any personal responsibility for our problems and instead prefers to point fingers everywhere but where it all begins, with We The People.
"In order to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves" - Derrick Jensen
A very lucid point!
So, Cog, e-mail the good Senator.
Truth needs more than a post on ZH to counter the thieves he so rightly "nails".
How about if that Senator was flooded with e-mails?
I have organized my local community into very active citizens who write, phone and march. But we are overpowered by the filthy lobby money that speaks louder than words.
Well said CD.
Nail on the head. Too bad all the other members of congress are nodding their head while receiving loads of money to not act.