Bernie Sanders

Scandal after scandal – but the Fed just doesn’t want to be audited. Period.

Independent from Congress … or from the American People?

Big Banks Are Rotten to the Core

Poor, poor Federal Reserve.

Some emotional words from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders over the increasing social inequality in America, which he now defines as indicative of America's transition to a banana republic: "Many of the nation's billionaires are on the war path. They want more, more, more. Their greed has no end, and apparently there is very little concern for our country or for the people of this country if it gets in the way of the accumulation of more and more wealth, and more and more power. Today as the middle class collapses, the top 1% earns 23.5% of all income, more than the bottom 50%. Today, if you can believe it, the top 1/10th of 1% earns about 12 cents of every dollar in America... It is very clear that the people on top are doing extraordinarily well as the poverty is decreasing... Today the crooks on Wall Street, the people whose illegal, reckless actions have resulted in the millions of Americans losing their jobs, their savings, after we bailed them out, the CEOs are making more money than before the bailout. The US now has by far the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on earth." Not surprisingly, Sanders is not too happy about the proposed tax cut for the richest.

Paging Christine Varney. Finally, what Zero Hedge has been pounding the table on for months is starting to make it through to (some of) the ruling elite. In an interview with Dylan Ratigan, Bernie Sanders, who unfortunately is not quite representative of the prevailing DC groupthink yet), says: "it is not just a too big to fail problem, it is monopolistic control of the economy and the incredible concentration of ownership. If Teddy Roosevelt were here right now, the guy who broke up all the big special interests in his day: if he believed that two-thirds of the credit cards were being issued by four banks, does anyone think we should not be breaking these guys up."

The argument for breaking them up is blatantly simple: to protect taxpayers against another TBTF episode, as well as to preempt  their concentration of ownership which means "unbelievable power and monopolistic influence over the whole economy."

Sanders, following in William Black's footsteps, is also painfully blunt: "the issue is not whether Congress regulates Wall Street, it's the degree to which Wall Street regulates Congress."

The concentration of ownership in the financial services industry has resulted in higher bank fees and interest rates that consumers are forced to pay for credit cards, mortgages and other financial products.

No single financial institution should be so large that its failure would cause catastrophic risk to millions of American jobs or to our nation’s economic well-being.

No single financial institution should have holdings so extensive that its failure could send the world economy into crisis.

We believe it is time to break up the banks and insurance companies which are too big to fail.

While Congress is still in recess, it is relevant to remember that one of the most critical pieces of legislation, Ron Paul's HR 1207 Bill is still waiting in the corridors, compliments of several individuals who for some reason or another are trying to do all they can to prevent a bill which has a guaranteed passage, with 282 co-sponsors, the second it goes to a vote. And yet the heat is already rising in the Senate, with Bernie Sanders' S. 604 Bill aka the "Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009" already receiving increasing endorsement, with 23 co-sponsors at last check. We suggest readers contact their Senators and voice their endorsement of this critical measure which many are trying to drown out in a whole lot of noise.