Posted on 11/06/2011 4:01:51 AM PST by Clive
Conservative columnist Michael Taube recently criticized me and other fiscal conservatives for expressing some sympathy for the Occupy Wall St. movement and its Toronto offshoot.
He wrote in the Ottawa Citizen he was puzzled why Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney (now heading the G20 Financial Stability Fund), the Fraser Institute’s Mark Milke and Conrad Black, have not been totally dismissive of the “Occupy” protesters.
Speaking for myself, here’s why:
I support the protesters for correctly identifying Wall St. as the scene of a massive heist of global wealth, jobs and homes that started with the subprime mortgage securities crisis of 2008 and continues to this day.
As a result, tens of millions of people world-wide have lost trillions of dollars in their pensions and life savings — including in Canada — along with their jobs and homes.
Most are hard-working, law-abiding, citizens, who pay their taxes, never signed for mortgages they couldn’t afford (given they didn’t expect to lose their jobs in a global economic meltdown) and have never demonstrated in the streets or occupied a park.
As a fiscal conservative, I believe in free markets and the rule of law, not fraud markets and crony capitalism, in which profits are privatized and losses socialized.
That’s what happened in the 2008 global economic crash, where the worst damage wasn’t caused by the subprime scandal itself, but by the global credit freeze it led to because banks no longer trusted each other’s assets.
That not one senior Wall St. executive has been charged, let alone imprisoned, as a result of their companies’ misrepresenting the true nature of the subprime mortgage securities they peddled to institutional investors globally is a disgrace.
The fact they bet against their own investors without telling them — and indeed, privately mocked them — is a disgrace.
The fact credit rating agencies in the pay of Wall St. graded junk subprime mortgage securities as Triple A safe investments, is a disgrace.
The fact most Republican and Democratic politicians don’t want any criminal trials arising out of this scandal is a disgrace.
The reason they don’t want them is that would shine a light on the billions of dollars they accepted in campaign contributions and other favours from the financial services sector, in return for gutting the regulatory safeguards on that industry which led to the ’08 crash.
The fact these banks were bailed out of the financial destruction they caused with hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars is a disgrace.
The fact they are being allowed to walk away from what they did by paying insignificant corporate fines (compared to profits), negotiated by an emasculated U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, with no one being held personally responsible for what happened, or even having to admit wrongdoing — is a disgrace.
Worst of all, because the Wall St. banks that survived ’08 are now bigger than ever — so big the government decreed they were “too big to fail” via the bailout — there is every reason to believe they will do what they did again.
Not only have they escaped any “moral hazard” for their actions, they had their huge bonuses paid for by taxpayers.
The fact Democrats and Republicans are blaming each other — Democrats by accusing Republicans of caving into Wall St., Republicans by accusing Democrats of forcing banks to extend mortgages to people who couldn’t pay them back — is another disgrace.
The reality is both parties and their presidential candidates, happily allowed themselves to be bought by the U.S. financial services sector in the years leading up to the crash.
The reality is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the two U.S. government-sponsored mortgage underwriting agencies — walked away with paying minor fines (relative to their assets) for massive accounting manipulation.
And the fact is fraud is fraud, whether it’s done by a welfare queen or a bank. But when it’s done by a bank, it does a lot more damage.
Yes, the Occupy protesters may be naïve, misguided, troublemaking, freeloading, commies and hippies, in cahoots with professional left-wing agitators and public sector unions.
I certainly don’t want them occupying a public park in downtown Toronto all winter.
But they didn’t cause the global economic devastation we’ve been experiencing since 08.
And the real disgrace is the people who did, got away with it.
It had nothing to do with giving people more freedom but everything to do with forcing them to defy free market principles. TRILLIONS of dollars in bad loans were forced upon these investment markets by ACORN and Congress.
Any sane investor is going to use every possible stradegy to protect themselves from these insane crony capitalism schemes that were put in place (for the good of the poor) by democrats and willing accomplshes in the repblican party.
Your statement that freedom caused this is disgraceful.
This scenerio is much like taking an honest business man and telling him that the people have voted and his new buisness partner is now going to be a mob boss.
Wall Street had to ignore all free market principles and deal with TRILLIONS of dollars in bad loans due to their new business partner (ACORN and the democrats=mofia boss) and now years and years later after the people made them partner up with these criminals some people want to blame them.
Institutions like Wall Street wield too much power and control to be allowed to simply run amok and don't even get started on the speculators.
We're not talking about someones personal freedoms here.
ACORN, Barney Frank may have put pressure on lenders to dole out loans to those who shouldn't of had them, but the banks hardly put up a fight.
There was a huge world wide demand for mortgage backed securities that the banks were all too willing to take advantage of. It only took 7 years after Clinton signed Graham-Leach-Bliley before greed got the best of these folks. They shouldn't have the freedom to rob the American taxpayer anymore then I should have the freedom to rob a liquor store.
You should think about what your saying before you accuse someone of being disgraceful.
Hmm, selling investments, then buying investments with the proposition that the investment they just sold will decline in value, and being right, is not fraud?
What universe do you live in>?
Writer points to both parties fraud, and malfeasance in office.
OWS is a leftist attempt to seize a piece of the pie they have no business receiving, however it is undeniable those who champion the things this writer speaks about are most assuredly right to be protesting.
Great article. Thanks for posting. It’s not often someone rightly identifies the two parties responsible, corrupt politicians and corrupt business, both gutting the middle class for their personal benefit.
Here's my problem with this statement. While it may be a disgrace, any sub-prime mortgage security backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac had the full faith and credit of the USA behind it, even though they're not actually government agencies themselves. Any securities that were privately held may not have been, and those need to be investigated for fraud. But the credit rating agencies can't be faulted for rating sub-prime securities as AAA if the backing organization was rated as AAA.
Mark
"It seems very apparent that President Kennedy challenged the "powers that exist behind U.S. and world finance". With true patriotic courage, JFK boldly faced the two most successful vehicles that have ever been used to drive up debt:
1) war (Viet Nam); and,(BHF gets to add Iraq & F-ghanistan) and
2) the creation of money by a privately owned central bank. His efforts to have all U.S. troops out of Vietnam by 1965 combined with Executive Order 11110 would have destroyed the profits and control of the private Federal Reserve Bank".
Thanks for the link. Very interesting. Bookmarked for later.
Government’s fault - not Wall Street’s fault.
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How can you tell where one ends and the other begins?
Eisenhower talked about the "military-industrial complex" and people thought it only applied the Defense Industries. I say the warning is relevant to Archer Daniels Midland, GE, and Goldman Sachs, just as much as any Defense firm.
The original Progressives started us down this path, Woodrow Wilson kicked it into high gear, FDR, LBJ, Bill Clinton, and Obama have merely been kicking the ball down the field. American big business today has very little to do with capitalism, and a whole lot to do with Big Government.
Why aren’t they camping outside the 12 regional offices of the Federal Reserve. That’s where the management is - Wall Street is manufacturing site.
Don’t expect them to find the right place to demonstrate, they don’t even know why they are demonstrating.
Outside the White House is where they should be. We are in deep trouble because of the a-wipe in that place.
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