Florida’s GOP attorney general thinks banksters get a bad rap

from americanblog

5/22/2013 7:07pm by John Aravosis 15 Comments

Imagine that.  Republican Attorney General of Florida, Pam Bondi, is somewhat bored with mortgage fraud, advocates say.

When they attend meetings with her staff they get the distinct impression that Bondi feels the banks are the victims, not the borrowers, so why should she investigate them?

What does bother Bondi is Urban Outfitters selling funny shot glasses.

First, a little about Bondi’s aversion to taking on banks:

Florida’s Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi

“We wanted to convey the idea that we want her to put pressure on the banks to be positive and forthright with their clients,” said Jerry Pena, a community organizer with the Orlando group. “… Her stance was that she didn’t feel the banks were as liable as the media portrayed them to be, and people shouldn’t have gone ahead and signed the mortgage paperwork, and that they knew what they were getting into.”

So you can imagine our surprise when we read today that Bondi has launched an all-out war against the true bad guys who have put millions of American families into ruin: Urban Outfitters.

You see, as Adam Weinstein noted on Twitter a bit ago, Bondi is very upset that Urban Outfitters, the youth-oriented clothing and fun-stuff store, seems to be peddling paraphernalia dealing with young adults drinking alcohol.  And what’s worse, the boozy merchandise is prescription-drug related.

Things like this beer can holder, disguised as a prescription for a Mr. Hugh Jass (okay, I laughed):

And this prescription-style shot glass:

According to Miami New Times, Bondi has joined a group of 22 other state attorney general in writing to Urban Outfitters to urge them to stop poisoning America’s children:

“These products are not in any way fun or humorous but make light of this rampant problem,” the group of AGs wrote in a letter to Urban Outfitter CEO. “We invite you to pull these products from your shelves and join with us to fight prescription drug.”

The Miami Herald has more on the story.

Now, look.  Our own Jon Green, himself a college junior, has written about the problem of prescription drugs on college campuses.  Kids seem to be far too medicated, and they’re taking prescription medicine, without prescriptions, as study aids.  And while I find the story somewhat funny, it’s probably a fair point to raise if in fact Urban Outfitters is trying to play on kids’ new sense of over-medication.  Still, I’m having a hard time getting worked up about this.

It is interesting to note the contrast, as Adam Weinstein did, between Bondi’s verve for taking on Hugh Jass’ shot glass versus taking on the banksters who ruined a lot of actual lives.

Now, if Bondi really wants to prove her bona fides, she’ll skip the shot glass and go after that abominable Gangnam Style Bobble Head.

And while she’s at it, the animal-human hybrid propaganda needs to go too:

And let’s not even talk about Urban Outfitter’s subtle embrace of the gay agenda (or circus-folk, it’s hard to tell):

Gangster State America

from opednews

By Paul Craig Roberts (about the author)     Permalink       (Page 1 of 2 pages) OpEdNews Op Eds 5/13/2013 at 13:59:42

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Source: Paul Craig Roberts

There are many signs of gangster state America. One is the collusion between federal authorities and banksters in a criminal conspiracy to rig the markets for gold and silver.
My explanation that the sudden appearance of an unprecedented 400 ton short sale of gold on the COMEX in April was a manipulation designed to protect the dollar from the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing policy has found acceptance among gold investors and hedge fund managers.
The sale was a naked short. The seller had no gold to sell. COMEX reported having gold only equal to about half of the short sale in its vaults, and not all of that was available for delivery. No one but the Federal Reserve could have placed such an order, and the order came from one of the Fed's bullion banks, one of the entities "too big to fail."
Bill Kaye of the Greater Asian Hedge Fund in Hong Kong and Dave Kranzler of Golden Returns Capital have filled in the details of how the manipulation worked. Being sophisticated investors of many years of experience, both Kaye and Kranzler understand that the financial press runs with the authorized story planted to serve the agenda that has been put into play.
Institutional investors who have bullion in their portfolio do not want the expense associated with storing it securely. Instead, they buy into Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) and hold their bullion in the form of a paper claim. The largest, the SPDR Gold Trust or GLD, trades on the New York Stock Exchange. The trustee and custodian is a bankster, and only other banksters are able to turn investments into delivery of physical bullion. Only shares in the amount of 100,000 can be redeemed in gold.

The price of bullion is not set in the physical market where individuals take delivery of bullion purchases. It is set in the paper futures market where short selling can drive down the price even if the demand for physical possession is rising. The paper gold market is also the market in which people speculate and leverage their positions, place stop-loss orders, and are subject to margin calls.
When the enormous naked shorts hit the COMEX, stop-loss orders were triggered adding to the sales, and margin calls forced more sales. Investors who were not in on the manipulation lost a lot of money.
The sales of GLD shares are accumulated by the banksters in 100,000 lots and presented to GLD for redemption in gold acquired at the driven down price.
The short sale is leveraged by the stop-loss triggers and margin calls, and results in a profit for the banksters who placed the short sell order. The banksters then profit again as they sell the released gold into the physical market, especially in Asia, where demand has been stimulated by the sharp drop in bullion price and by the loss of confidence in fiat currency. Asian prices are usually at a higher premium above the spot prices in New York-London.
Some readers have said "don't bet against the Federal Reserve; the manipulation can go on forever." But can it? As the ETFs such as GLD are drained of gold, their ability to cover any of their obligations to investors diminishes. In my opinion, these ETFs are like a fractional reserve banking system. The claims on gold exceed the amount of gold in the trusts. When the ETFs are looted of their gold by the banksters, the gold price will explode, as the claims on gold will greatly exceed the supply.
Kranzler reports that the current June futures contracts are 12.5 times the amount of deliverable gold. If more than 8 percent of these trades were to demand delivery, COMEX would default. That such a situation is possible indicates the total failure of federal financial regulation.
What the Federal Reserve has done in order to maintain its short-run policy of protecting the "banks too big too fail" is to make the inevitable reckoning more costly for the US economy.
Another irony is the benefactors of the banksters sale of the gold leeched from the gold ETFs. Asia is the beneficiary, especially India and China. The "get out of gold line" of the US financial press enables China to unload its excess supply of dollars, accumulated from the offshored US economy, into the gold market at a suppressed price of gold.
Kranzler points out that not only does the Fed's manipulation permit Asia to offload US dollars for gold at low prices, but the obvious lack of confidence in the dollar that the manipulation demonstrates has caused wealthy European families to demand delivery of their gold holdings at bullion banks (the bullion banks are essentially the "banks too big to fail"). Kranzler notes that since January 1, more than 400 tons of gold have been drained from COMEX and gold ETF holdings in order to satisfy world demand for physical possession of bullion.
Again we see that institutions of the US government are acting 100% against the interests of US citizens. Just who does the US government represent?

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http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

Dr. Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy in the Reagan Administration. He was associate editor and columnist with the Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service. He is a contributing editor to Gerald Celente's Trends Journal. He has had numerous university appointments. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is available here: http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Capitalism-Economic-Dissolution-ebook/dp/B00BLPJNWE/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1362095594&sr=8-17&keywords=paul+craig+roberts

Fearlessness Grows From the Grass Roots: US Protest Movement against the Banksters

from globalresearch

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

Global Research, May 10, 2013

Region: USA

Theme: Global Economy

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 As more people see that the government represents Wall Street and concentrated wealth, instead of them; that the government continues to give the banksters who crashed the economy a break while cutting access to basic necessities, that the government continues to put big energy profits ahead of protecting the planet – more people are becoming fearless.

Last week, front-line environmental groups including climate justice activists, opponents of tar sands, mountaintop renewal and many others who oppose the extraction economy that poisons our land, water and air while risking climate change, announced “Fearless Summer.”  They announced a week of actions from June 24 to 29 to begin “an epic summer of actions.” The rising tide of courage in the environmental justice movement is one we also see growing in many communities on many issues.

When people stand up against the destructive extraction industries of big energy interests, we gain community support and sometimes we win. This week in New York communities got a lot of powerwhen a court upheld their right to ban fracking. This happened because people stood up for their communities.

Long-time activist, George Lakey, describes how he and 17 colleagues protested Mountaintop Removal at the PNC Bank shareholder meeting. They broke all the middle class rules, gave a mocking-award to the outgoing CEO and sang songs. Efforts to drown them out failed and in the end, the meeting was adjourned – and the protest was covered in the media, forcing the bank to respond for the first time. Now, their accountability campaign focused on bank board members will escalate. There are lots of lessons for all of us in this experience.

Another group that has awakened in the last year has been members of the first nations. Ever since the Idle No More campaign began last December, native Indians have been standing up across the continent. One issue that Indians are focused on is the extraction economy and the KXL pipeline in particular which will cross hundreds of indigenous sacred spiritual sites and burial grounds, as well as two major sources of drinking water, the Ogallala aquifer and the Mni Wiconi water line for the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations.

From Chicago to Detroit, from San Jose to Portland, from Oakland to Newark, IL people are standing up and saying “NO” to austerity. Whether it is school closures, mass lay-offs or cuts to essential programs – people are protesting.  People know that austerity ensures the economy will remain in collapse; and they know that the real cause of the budget problems are corporate tax loopholes, low tax rates on the wealthy and giveaways to crony capitalists. People also know – it does not have to be this way.

Students are also standing up.  For years there have been protests against tuition hikes and mass student debt. This week students at Cooper Union, who are assured of free tuition, are standing up not for themselves but for the students that follow and demanding that Cooper Union continue the 144 year old mission of its founder that college education should be free. This week they took over and occupied the president’s office to protest plans for tuition at the school. We believecollege education should be free for all.

Low wage workers, almost always without a union, are protesting across the country. Most recently they protested in Detroit, St. Louis and Chicago. Wal-Mart workers, taking a lesson from the Civil Rights Freedom Rides, are planning bus caravans to the annual meeting of Wal-Mart shareholders on June 7.  And, now people are realizing that the federal government is the largest employer of low-wage workers, (full-time workers paid under $24,000 annually) and that President Obama could change that with a stroke of a pen. He talks about raising wages, but so far he is only talk.

Among the lowest paid and most mistreated workers are farm workers, but after years of organizing they are beginning to win victories in their fight for justice.  In 2011, The United Farm Workers, after a 200-mile, 13-day march through California, won state legislation which protects workers from employer intimidation during union votes. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which has been organizing tomato growers in Florida since 1994, has been winning battles against individual corporations for fair wages and treatment of workers, most recently Chipotle Mexican Grill and Trader Joe’s. Now their targets are Publix and Wendy’s.  And, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee has been winning better working conditions for thousands of cucumber pickers through successful boycotts and strikes aimed at Campbell’s, Heinz, and Mount Olive Pickle Company. Standing up, organizing and mobilizing improves people’s lives.

People who are homeless are also organizing for respect and justice. Here is a group of homeless advocates working for civil rights, e.g. not being harassed for being in public and not being provided lawyers who do not push them to plea bargain. They advocate for housing when they see thousands of vacant homes around them, and they advocate for community land trusts which would keep housing affordable.

And, activists are coming to the aid of people threatened with eviction and foreclosure. This week in Seattle and Los Angeles people stood up against the big banks seeking to put people on the street.

You do not hear about these revolts happening across the United States because the corporate media does not want you to know that America is in revolt.  But, if you think the media is bad now, watch what happens if the Koch brothers are able to purchase a large chain of newspapers that includes the Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun and many others. People in LA are not waiting to find out, they are organizing protests now; and writers at the Times are pledging to quit rather than work for the extreme right wing Kochs.

What we are reporting in this weekly review is something we have seen in previous weeks, indeed for the last several years, even before Occupy began.  A popular resistance is developing throughout the nation; and the more the government fails to listen, the more the media fails to report it, the bigger the explosion of resistance will be.  We’ve been working with some of the best resistance activists in the nation and will soon be announcing a new project to help bring the popular resistance to a new level.  The success of this effort depends on you getting involved.  Sign up now, so you are there to help make transformation from a money-centered oligarchy to a people centered democracy and an economy that works for all of us a reality.

This article is based on the newsletter of OccupyWashingtonDC/October2011. You can see the newsletters and sign up for them here.

Kevin Zeese JD and Margaret Flowers MD co-host Clearing the FOG  on We Act Radio 1480 AM Washington, DC and on Economic Democracy Media, co-direct It’s Our Economy and are organizers of the Occupation of Washington, DC. Their twitters are @KBZeese and @MFlowers8.