Posted on 11/07/2014 11:02:15 AM PST by Lorianne
Fleischmann is the central witness in one of the biggest cases of white-collar crime in American history, possessing secrets that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon late last year paid $9 billion (not $13 billion as regularly reported more on that later) to keep the public from hearing.
Back in 2006, as a deal manager at the gigantic bank, Fleischmann first witnessed, then tried to stop, what she describes as "massive criminal securities fraud" in the bank's mortgage operations.
Six years after the crisis that cratered the global economy, it's not exactly news that the country's biggest banks stole on a grand scale. That's why the more important part of Fleischmann's story is in the pains Chase and the Justice Department took to silence her.
She was blocked at every turn: by asleep-on-the-job regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission, by a court system that allowed Chase to use its billions to bury her evidence, and, finally, by officials like outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, the chief architect of the crazily elaborate government policy of surrender, secrecy and cover-up. "Every time I had a chance to talk, something always got in the way," Fleischmann says.
This past year she watched as Holder's Justice Department struck a series of historic settlement deals with Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America. The root bargain in these deals was cash for secrecy. The banks paid big fines, without trials or even judges only secret negotiations that typically ended with the public shown nothing but vague, quasi-official papers called "statements of facts," which were conveniently devoid of anything like actual facts.
(Excerpt) Read more at rollingstone.com ...
That’s we see it. I agree completely.
Used to be a lot worse though. Illegal immigration and trade with China have both revealed themselves to be massive mistakes.
Interesting thread. I consumed most of it. I absorbed a good portion of it.
Walker sounds problematic on face value. It’s hard to view a guy who is playing the CIA’s game and not find some problems along the way. And yes, I agree I am down-playing some of the atrocities. I don’t like it either.
When you get into these international situations there are conflicts that come up, moral ones. You can have something happen that is terrible, and still have to ignore it for the overall benefit of the mission.
What do you do if some wing-nut commits and atrocity and by pushing for justice, you alienate the government and the whole operation is lost, the nation goes communist?
Carter pulled that sort of thing with the Shah and look what we got for it.
So Walker is a hot mess. We had more troops down there than he said. It was a covert operation. Should we be outraged?
What would have happened if El Salvador did fall? What would have happened if Nicaragua had just been ignored? Isn’t it reasoned to believe proliferation would have taken place?
Kosovo was a massive screw up IMO. Walker’s role in it seems undeniable. He had worked for years as a “yes man”. Along came Kosovo and he was asked to be one again. What a mess.
Anything that had to do with the Clinton administration, that idiot stick Warren Christopher was going to be problematic at best. And here, it was downright loathsome IMO. It was so bad I checked out. It wasn’t going to change, and I just didn’t want to watch the atrocity day after day after day.
As for Walker’s role in it, despicable. I may be able to grasp what an effort is if there is a logical national interest involved, but when it comes to Leftist trying to establish their international credentials with a guy like this, you know it’s going to end badly.
The Left is just flat out craven. I see no rhyme or reason for the bombing, the policies, the whole stinking mess.
I hope you got to the part about Albert Pike, the 19th Century William Walker ("emperor" of Nicaragua), and the Knights of the Golden Circle (progenitor of the Kuklux Klan). THAT was my point about "families" being more influential than we think. George Herbert Walker was the banker of the St. Louis Fed that was one of the big players at Jekyll Island. Etc.
Carter pulled that sort of thing with the Shah and look what we got for it.
No argument there. The 1955 (IIRC) CIA operation that reinstalled the Shah was a good thing for all concerned.
This is where the power freaks of the world take action "on behalf of the public interest" supposedly out of a sense of noblesse oblige but the powers they accrue develop the entitlement to droit de siegneur.
We're paying for it big time and they didn't ask. Nobody learns that way.
No, there was one long post back, and this may have been burried in there. It was what prompted me to say I read most of it and absorbed most of it.
I appreciate you pointing out now. Makes me just that much more resolute to oppose any Bush for higher office.
I don’t find all that many people backing the Shah besides myself. It’s amazing how many people dislike the guy because the CIA installed him
BTW: I hadn’t realized he was there prior to ‘55. Would you mind expanding on that a bit?
Ortega came back didn’t he. It as my take it was a much less active incarnation. However, that may mostly be because there’s nobody up here objecting to what he’s doing.
What’s your thought on the resultant down sides to taking him out?
From Wikipedia:
Initially there were hopes that post-occupation Iran could become a constitutional monarchy. The new, young Shah Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi initially took a very hands-off role in government, and allowed parliament to hold a lot of power. Some elections were held in the first shaky years, although they remained mired in corruption. Parliament became chronically unstable, and from the 1947 to 1951 period Iran saw the rise and fall of six different prime ministers. Pahlavi increased his political power by convening the Iran Constituent Assembly, 1949, which finally formed the Senate of Irana legislative upper house allowed for in the 1906 constitution but never brought into being. The new senators were largely supportive of Pahlavi, as he had intended.
In 1951 Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq received the vote required from the parliament to nationalize the British-owned oil industry, in a situation known as the Abadan Crisis. Despite British pressure, including an economic blockade, the nationalization continued. Mosaddeq was briefly removed from power in 1952 but was quickly re-appointed by the shah, due to a popular uprising in support of the premier and he, in turn, forced the Shah into a brief exile in August 1953 after a failed military coup by Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri.
Thanks. I should have looked it up.
Considering the long term connections of the Bush family in Central and South America, it is most telling that GWB took such extreme action in the Middle East while ignoring the increasing spread of communism throughout Central and South America. My take is that the internationalist ilk loves communism because assets are cheap to buy from dysfunctional governments. They prey upon collapse.
At this point, that process is now so advanced there is no place for a domino to fall that isn't already down. I don't think Ortega amounts to much in that respect with Venezuela or Brazil being just as bad.
Basically, American regulation of oil production has financed communism worldwide with petro-revenues. It has forced America to fund military production and consolidated our police state. Essentially, it is environmentalism that supposedly justifies said regulation that is the central battle of our time, not only politically but socially. For example, middle class dysfunctionality reducing purchasing power is the central rationale for the architecture of our educational system, whether the positive reinforcement system of Skinner's "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" justified on an environmental essentially Malthusian rationale (Carnegie and Ford Foundation money) or Kinsey's program of sexual depravity as financed by the Rockefellers.
Ain't it grand? Now you know why I wrote Natural Process, Shemitta, and have now finished up a new book on our native plant restoration project here. I have dedicated my lift to go after that environmental nexus by redefining both technically and socially the quality of relationship between people and the land through free enterprise and automated contract systems involving risk management. It's "out there" but somebody's got to do it. This Hegelian dialectic is actually composed of two groups of people who each want the power to determine the degree of risk of harm supposedly inflicted in the management of private property. Both miss the opportunity to develop vitality in the land because both are abused with the false 18th century notion that Nature is self-optimizing. It's really a foundational problem in American culture.
“Lets face it. Its the Kryptonite in a Leftists lunch-box. We all know that. The Left hates banks, corporations, Wall Street, small businesses, they just know that these entities never created a job and are vile entities.
It’s an act. The writing of the Communist Manifesto was financed by European bankers”
True. If the left hates banks, Wall Street, etc, why are there so many leftist billionaires on Wall Street? And how did leftist billionaire Soros go from a net worth of 8 billion in 2009, to 24 billion today? Let me tell you something. Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce LOVE Obamacare, and demand amnesty. Why? If amnesty is allowed, it will all but destroy the milddle class, and this will allow big banks to make a fortune financing poor immigrants with no credit, or bad credit.Amnesty and Obamacare shift the COSTS of medicine, and illegals to the middle classes to finance.
Blaming Frank & Dodd for what the big lenders did to us is like blaming Obama for leftism. 98% of sub-prime loan were acts of deliberate fraud by the lenders. Countrywide Home loans, Ameriquest,Washington Mutual, and Citibank were the biggest perpetrators of sub-prime fraud, but there were many others, including Wall Street.
They love Dodd Frank too, because it's killing their competition and consolidating the market. Oh they scream about the "threat" and cost of regulation, but it's no more sincere than Brer Rabbit begging for his life with the briar patch nearby.
And B’rer Fox, he lay low.... : )
Sell geez then, I guess it doesn’t matter who we vote for. The Democrats are just poor misunderstood Republicans.
Who knew?
There's a reason they banned that book. It taught how to recognize the dangerous games adults really play. For the longest time, it was part of American culture, teaching children the wisdom of those ancient stories, as interpreted and brought here by an African culture. If you haven't read Harris' introduction to that book, it is an absolute must. The man was an outstanding anthropologist and humanitarian. The book also uses a device common to American humor of the 1820s, one that Twain popularized: the use of phonetic spelling to insert puns into the story that are themselves jokes about the content. It is a work of genius.
” http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3225352/posts
Know who you are voting for. The Chamber of Commerce OWNS McConnell, Boehner,Cornyn, McCain, Flake, and many other(Rove-backed) senators. Our only hope is Cruz, and 4 other Republican senators. This is all about amnesty. And many FReepers don’t see it.
What, you don’t want Jeb?
LOL
I noticed a thread today, where Jorge W. Bush is boosting his brother for POTUS. For 6 years, not a peep out of W.....he just hung out with his bosom buddy, Bill Clinton. Now he is back to aid in the destruction of America. God help us.
It's a good opportunity for conservatives to distinguish themselves from the Bush clan as the "moderate Republican" (aka RINO crooks) they really are.
The Bush clan(gang) don’t even qualify as RINO> Traitor comes to mind.
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