j_b

Wall Street Is Laundering Drug Money and Getting Away with It By Zach Carter Too-big-to-fail is a much bigger problem than you thought. We've all read damning accounts of the government saving banks from their risky subprime bets, but it turns out that the Wall Street privilege problem is far more deeply ingrained in the U.S. legal system than the simple bailouts witnessed in 2008. America's largest banks can engage in flagrantly criminal activity on a massive scale and emerge almost completely unscathed. The latest sickening example comes from Wachovia Bank: Accused of laundering $380 billion in Mexican drug cartel money, the financial behemoth is expected to emerge with nothing more than a slap on the wrist thanks to an official government policy which protects megabanks from criminal charges. Bloomberg's Michael Smith has penned a devastating expose detailing Wachovia's drug-money operations and the government's twisted response. The bank was moving money behind literally tons of cocaine from violent drug cartels. It wasn't an accident. Internal whistleblowers at Wachovia warned that the bank was laundering drug money, higher-ups at the bank actively looked the other way in order to score bigger profits, and the U.S. government is about to let everyone involved get off scott free. The bank will not be indicted, because it is official government policy not to prosecute megabanks. From Smith's story: "No big U.S. bank . . . has ever been indicted for violating the Bank Secrecy Act or any other federal law. Instead, the Justice Department settles criminal charges by using deferred-prosecution agreements, in which a bank pays a fine and promises not to break the law again . . . . Large banks are protected from indictments by a variant of the too-big-to-fail theory. Indicting a big bank could trigger a mad dash by investors to dump shares and cause panic in financial markets." Wachovia was acquired by Wells Fargo in late 2008. The bank's penalty for laundering over $380 billion in drug money is going to be a promise not to ever do it again, and a $160 million fine. The fine is so small that Wachovia will almost certainly turn a profit on its drug financing business after legal costs and penalties are taken into account. International authorities know the banker-drug-dealer connection goes well beyond Wachovia, but governments aren't doing anything about it. A 2009 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that most rules to prevent drug money laundering through banks are being violated. From the report: "At a time of major bank failures, money doesn't smell, bankers seem to believe. Honest citizens, struggling in a time of economic hardship, wonder why the proceeds of crime – turned into ostentatious real estate, cars, boats and planes – are not seized." In late 2009, the head of that U.N. office, Antonio Maria Costa, told the press that much interbank lending—short-term loans banks make to each other—was being supported by drug money. As financial markets froze up in 2007 and 2008, banks turned to drug cartels for cash. Without that drug money, many major banks might not have survived. read more: http://www.alternet.org/economy/147564/wall_street_is_laundering_drug_money_and_getting_away_with_it/?page=entire

If the issue is how much time you have to get out and do something, taking the drive into account seems sensible to me.

How does the fact that mega-corps and the ubber rich evade paying taxes at any opportunity they get while they don't invest in the economy fit in with right wing propaganda about how we need to cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy so they invest in our economy?

Right wing race baiting goes on unabated: [video:youtube]ptbuIme-iCc

Once I did Guye, Lundin, Snoqualmie, and the Tooth. I didn't time it but it didn't take all that long (somewhere around 12 hours round trip from Seattle).

Soloing the Tooth from the trailhead in a couple hours doesn't seem that much fun to me. What about trying to see how many Snoqualmie peaks you can solo in a day?

The Business Case Against Overseas Tax Havens by Chuck Collins Kate’s Café and AAA Appliance probably pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than profitable Fortune 500 companies. In the U.S., thanks in part to overseas tax havens, we have one tax system for multinational companies and wealthy individuals –and another for small businesses and ordinary taxpayers. Tax havens enable the rich and U.S. multinationals to move income and assets between global subsidiaries and dodge taxes. Responsible businesses and individual taxpayers are left to pay for U.S. infrastructure, defense, education and all the public investments that contribute to a healthy business climate and economy. How does this work? A U.S. company creates a subsidiary in a secretive low tax haven such as the Luxemburg, Bermuda or the Republic of Mauritius. In the Grand Cayman Islands, one building called Ugland House, houses over 19,000 of these corporate subsidiaries. These corporations moving assets and income between these subsidiaries so that profits appear to be generated overseas while losses are deducted from U.S. taxes. Because of the lack of transparency it is difficult to assess just how much money is loss, but estimates range from $43 billion to $123 billion per year for both individual and corporate tax avoidance. A new campaign, Business and Investors Against Tax Haven Abuse, signals an interesting convergence of domestic manufacturers, community banks, and small businesses that are fed up with how porous the global corporate tax code has become. They launched a petition drive on July 20th with 400 initial business signers. “Small businesses are the lifeblood of local economies,” said Frank Knapp, President and CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce and one of the lead signers. “We pay our fair share of taxes, shop locally, support our schools and actually generate most of the new jobs. So why do we have to subsidize multinationals that use offshore tax havens to avoid paying taxes?” read more: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/20-12

Really, it's as if the racist fucks hadn't been race baiting at any opportunity they got to do it, and Billcoe hadn't taken their side at any and all opportunity he had. LOL

So, according to you I'd be a "Nazi" for pointing out that your pals are demonizing minorities incessantly? and that you are supporting them? Who do you think is going to buy that nonsense?

Fox News has hyped phony New Black Panthers scandal at least 95 times FAUX News devoted more than 8 hours of air time to bogus story since June 30: Read more here and lemmings regurgitate the race-baiting propaganda. Someone has to frighten the elderly, it's an election year after all ...

at least, we are now seeing the real billcoe ... in tune, with the racist fucks. It's OK Bill, you never fooled me, as you know.

so you think nobody will notice you edited my post? Let's just say that your logic sucks and that your selective outrage at name calling on this board isn't fooling anybody. Your giving support to the racist scumbags isn't going unnoticed either.

Liar. I am quite tolerant of religious folks. Cops Forced to Rescue Egyptians from Hostile Wingnuts as Islamophobic Ground Zero Protests Turn Ugly The North Bergen Record brings us the worst people in the world (via) … As a hot, humid wind blew off New York Harbor, Mitzner joined some 500 others to stir up a rhetorical whirlwind of protest against a proposal to build a mosque and Islamic cultural center near the site of America’s bloodiest terror attack. [..] At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims. “Go home,” several shouted from the crowd. “Get out,” others shouted. In fact, the two men – Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry — were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called “The Way.” Both said they had come to protest the mosque. “I’m a Christian,” Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face. But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety. “I flew nine hours in an airplane to come here,” a frustrated Nassralla said afterward. http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/06/09/islamophobic-ground-zero-protests-turn-ugly-passersby-harrassed-by-hostile-wingnuts/

Who's your daddy?

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! A terrorist plane! An Arab! A Muslim! An Islamic extremist! A scary black man! A rock star! The anti-Christ! A commie! A socialist! A traitor! A treasonist! It’s un-American! It’s… it’s…. It’s election year. welcome to the GOP racist Southern strategy!

you aren't fooling anybody, fascist thug.

yeah, we know, you aren't just a racist scumbag, you are also an islamophobe.

when you stop your racist postings, I'll change material just for you, Adolf.

how many brown people did you demonize today? racist scumbag.

State employees are not the budget culprits Until the state deals with the real causes of fiscal fiasco, prepare for more misery. By George Skelton Capitol Journal June 21, 2010 From Sacramento It's the summer budget-brawling season in Sacramento, a time for regurgitating old myths and simplistic solutions. One persistent myth about the perpetually bleeding state budget is that it's all the fault of public employee unions. [..] Based on my e-mail, many people believe that the way for Sacramento to make ends meet is to cut state employees' salaries by, say, 10%. Well, in the last year, most have been cut by 14% through furloughs. And the state still has a $19-billion projected deficit. For the fiscal year starting July 1, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing to cut salaries by 5%, require workers to contribute an additional 5% of pay to retirement and cut the workforce by 5%. That would save a mere $1.8 billion. Even if Schwarzenegger could fire every state employee under his control — roughly 230,000 — it still wouldn't balance the books. "Fire every prison guard, every CHP officer, everyone who works at the DMV, everyone who works for the state parks system … and you're still not there," notes H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the state Finance Department. That's because roughly 70% of the state general fund flows out to local governments and schools, one of the unintended consequences of Proposition 13, which slashed the property tax 32 years ago. And those pension costs? The governor has budgeted $3.8 billion in state contributions for the next fiscal year. But only $2.1 billion of that would burden the bleeding $83-billion general fund. The rest would come from self-sustaining special funds. So even if employee pensions didn't cost the state a cent — an impossibility — the savings would fill only 11% of the general fund deficit hole. [..] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-me-cap-20100621,0,6406096.column

what a hatemonger!

Per usual not a single argument from the right wing goon squad.

On his inaugural spin on the Sunday talk show circuit, Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts called for a freeze on federal-employee pay, which he said was twice that of private-sector counterparts. It was an issue he campaigned on as a way to bring government spending under control. "Lavish pay and benefit packages have unfortunately become a way of life for public employees," he said at an event in January. "It's time to bring fiscal sanity to Washington. I support a temporary freeze on federal wages until the Congress devises a plan to control spending and debt." [..] PolitiFact was surprised by Scott Brown's claims, which after fact-checking, proved false. Brown used Cato Institute numbers that put the average federal employee's salary at $79,197, compared to $50,028 in the private sector. It's easy to tell right away that those salaries aren't double, contrary to Brown's claim on This Week on Jan. 31, but PolitiFact did even more digging. The Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers put average federal wages at $68,740, while private-sector wages averaged out at $42,270. The disparity is still there, in part because the nation's overall work force skews more toward blue-collar jobs than does the federal government. But $68,000 sounds less "lavish" than "respectable." Whether a worker makes more or less in the public sphere depends a lot on what job he or she is doing: Nurses make more, and petroleum engineers make less. Cashiers in government jobs make a lot more, $34,000, than the $18,000 of their private-sector counterparts. But where can anyone easily live on $18,000 a year? It's below the federal poverty line for a family of three, and even a two-wage-earner household, with both adults making that salary, would be struggling well below the national median household income of $50,000. Conservatives argue that, especially in a bad economy, everyone should suffer equally. But why should we advocate anyone suffering at all? Morgan Warstler recently posted on Andrew Breitbart's Big Government blog that, to "fix" the budget, the government should cut federal employee wages by 20 percent because, "it is time for government workers to share our pain and get their interests aligned with ours." He also argues, without explanation, that government employees would eventually make more money as a result. Presumably he means they'll make more when they can snag the private-sector jobs created when savings from government wage cuts go to tax credits for businesses. So, he seems to simultaneously argue that federal employees are paid too well and that those employees would ultimately make more in the private sector. "Real jobs," he calls them, "the kind that don't have the dirty taint of government on them." Which is really the point; conservatives don't believe the government should have many employees at all. That argument might be picking up steam because it's coupled with rhetoric that the government is expanding -- with the stimulus, bank bailouts, and health reform. It also probably helps that much of the anti-government rhetoric in the Republican Party is now aimed at voters in the South, where many of the states are among the nation's poorest and median incomes fall below the national average. So what about Warstler's claim that cutting federal-employee wages by 20 percent would save the government so much money? (Incidentally, I don't know of any work force that would tolerate an overnight cut in the wages they agreed to work at by one-fifth.) Total compensation in the 2011 budget for employees is about $457 billion, including military personnel and benefits, and represents about 12 percent of the budget. It's clearly not where the bulk of our money is going; that would be defense spending. And while conservatives like to gripe that government jobs don't inspire innovation in their workers, they don't like to point out how many private-sector jobs are spurred by government spending. It's hard to ignore that the Department of Defense gives a lot of money to Lockheed Martin, the third largest employer in Colorado Springs. So, government employees -- at the city or federal level -- are problematic, but employees whose jobs would not exist without government money are fine. The hostility to government workers also fits into a larger conservative narrative that arose during the bank bailouts of Obama as a socialist who just wanted to spread the wealth. Letting the banks fail would have caused a lot of pain to the working class, which might have lost paychecks along with tax dollars, but that's beside the point for conservatives. Loss is already socialized, but wealth can't be. The wealthiest, of course, always deserve what they earn. The federal government -- with its steady pay structure, good benefits, and somewhat even playing field for promotions -- runs counter to the Republican idea that a system in which the wealthiest rise leaving the lowest earners behind is better for all. http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=how_much_should_a_government_employee_make

In the 80's, the Reaganites spewed their hate of "welfare queens" years on end to justify cutting the social safety net like today's dead-enders spew their hate of public employees and their unions to cut public spending. The strategy is the same as it always has been: divide and conquer. Pit the public employees who retained their benefits against private sector employees who lost their benefits. Pit the young against the old by lying about social security, the most successful program ever for Americans. Pit whites against ethnic minorities through race-baiting that I don't need to describe since everybody can witness it today. The tactics is always the same: lie about how many "welfare queens" there are and how much they weigh in the balance of the equation, like they lie today about how many overpaid public employees there are (JayB has been caught several times cherry-picking data about public employees to support his bogus argument) and how much that weighs against the corporate/elite boondoggle we have continually financed for decades now. The purpose is always the same: cut the social safety net, increase the share of banksters and other thieves who they claim work the hardest, plunder what's left of the treasury (i.e. today it's social security) and kill off the middle class. The result is society of a few have-a-lot and everybody else has-little-to-nothing: almost the perfect neofeudal wet dream.