Obama Admin helps Banks Found Guilty of Felonies

osted: 08/11/2015 04:24 PM EDT | Edited: 2 hours ago

With the blessing of the White House and the Justice Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development is attempting to sneak through a major policy change that would enable big banks convicted of felonies to continue lending through a federal mortgage program, according to federal records and government officials.

The housing agency wants to quietly delete a requirement for lenders to certify they haven’t been convicted of violating federal antitrust laws or committing other serious crimes. HUD proposed the move on May 15, without detailing the reasoning behind the change. It’s now considering public comment, with an eye towards finalizing the proposal.

Five years after lawmakers and the Obama administration said the Dodd-Frank financial reform law would end the problems caused by banks perceived to be “too big to fail,” HUD's move could represent yet another capitulation from federal officials who want to appear to be tough on Wall Street’s crimes, but don’t want big banks to suffer the consequences typically associated with felony convictions.

David Cay Johnston: Is There a Pension Crisis?

Jewish Advocacy for Increasing the Minimum Wage

http://jewishcurrents.org/jewish-advocacy-for-increasing-the-minimum-wage-38712
August. 2015.

What's the Fed? You should care.

Robert Reich (The Revolt Against the Ruling Class)

Robert Reich (The Revolt Against the Ruling Class)

Republican Rank-and-File Line Up Against Financial Regulation

Republicans seek to repeal Dodd-Frank. 

Economist Says Government Policies are Hurting the Economy

Our economy is promoting the hoarding of cash and assets at the top

July 30, 2015 2:00AM ET

by David Cay Johnston   @DavidCayJ

Around the world, financial pages report that the global economy is slowing and might even contract.

Prices of commodities are falling, with copper, cotton, grains and oil all down by about half in the last five years — a strong signal of slowing growth.

Companies are tightening their belts, with fewer perks and fringe benefits. An inadvertently leaked report showed that staff economists at the Federal Reserve are more pessimistic about the near future than the official Fed positions. And big companies with nowhere else to put their piles of cash are buying back their stock or buying up competitors, which means fewer well-paying management jobs.

Yet hardly any of these reports citing official sources and economic data connect the dots to outline what’s behind this unwelcome trend in the U.S.: government policies.

Governments are helping big industries by diminishing competition, providing abundant cheap credit for speculation rather than investment and failing to rein in price gouging. In turn, these policies produce a growing concentration of income and wealth at the top while the vast majority struggle with falling wages, flat incomes, job insecurity and a shrinking slice of investment assets.

Highly concentrated ownership

U.S. economic malaise has been clear for some time.