Thanks Ellen, for making the connection between state banks and local banks. Instead of growing bigger and bigger banks, the public needs other options for developing the future outside of the international banking casino. Bank local, invest local, grow local, and eat local are good ways for communities to transition into a greener leaner, less wasteful society based on sustaining life, not amassing wealth. Now what can be done to prove local banks are safe?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Link to the movie, inspired by the Christmas classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life”.
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/move_your_money_20091230/_

Here’s an interesting one going around. The President has term limits (imposed by Congress on FDR after his being elected four times). Probably a good thing overall…imagine four more years of Bush or (insert Democrat of  your choice here). One of the problems we have is the biggest point incumbents are always touting: (“Vote Joe Butthead…He has the EXPERIENCE to get things done in Washington”) Yeah, right. Experience like rubbing elbows with lobbyists. Congressional pensions are a joke: get elected to the House ONCE and forever collect the salary of a Congressman for NOTHING.  Two years, folks, and then it’s off to Tahiti forever.

Of course we’ll never see it because, guess what?, Only Congress can introduce and pass legislation. But I wanted to do my bit and toss it out there. How about this: If your Congressman has been in office more than 12 years, TURN HIM OUT for the guy who promises and delivers term limits.  TURN HIM OUT, no matter how good a job you think he’s doing.  Otherwise we’re all hostages to a system the Founders never envisioned.

Suggested Congressional Reform Act of 2010

1. Term Limits: 12 years only, one of the possible options below.

• A. Two Six year Senate terms
• B. Six Two year House terms
• C. One Six year Senate term and three Two Year House terms Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

2.  No Tenure / No Pension: A congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

3.  Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security: All funds in the Congressional retirement fund moves to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, Congress participates with the American people. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, server your term(s), then go home and back to work.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan just as all Americans. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

6. Congress looses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

8. All contracts with past and present congressmen are void effective 1/1/2011. The American people did not make this contract with congressmen, congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned  citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

- author unknown

Sort of like the too-big-to fail banks. Even Schultz thinks the too-big institutions should fail. Rather than bailing them over, he thinks the banks keep the funds from from their gambling departments, that invest in risky enterprises and questionable securities, separate from their other accounts. Funds from one department cannot be used to bail out department. I’m not sure how you legislate that, but it is not a bad approach. Keep the gamblers out of the loan business and don’t allow the banks to count depositor accounts as collateral. Hopefully someone in Congress is listening.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

“The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee shall maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the economy’s long run potential to increase production, so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates,” reads the relevant statute.

Is the Fed equally concerned about meeting all those objectives?

Bailout chart by Propublica.org

I couldn’t resist this one. It looks really interesting. What could be a more appropriate way to track the history of government bailouts, than with colored bubbles. Check it out and see.

Source: Brattleboro Reformer, November 12, 2009

“It took the House nearly 2,000 pages to draft a health care reform bill. Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders needed far less paper to come up with a bill calling for the breakup of failing financial institutions within a year.

Sanders introduced the “Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act” on Friday. In just two pages, he outlined a simple remedy to avoid a repeat of last year’s massive taxpayer-funded bailouts…

…Back in the 1990s, when Congress passed legislation removing regulatory limits on financial institutions, Sanders was one of the few who warned that deregulating the financial industry could lead to disaster. But breaking up the big banks is not enough.

We also need a return to the kind of financial regulation that was imposed in the 1930s, starting with a restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. Back then, after wild speculation ended with the stock market crash of 1929 that brought on the Great Depression, the Roosevelt administration pushed for restraints on Wall Street. Glass-Steagall separated government-insured commercial banks and the non-federally backed investment banks. By keeping consumer and speculative capital separate, it made it possible to understand the activities of all financial organizations.

In 1999, Congress repealed Glass-Steagall and replaced it with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. It allowed the stockbrokers, insurance companies and banks to merge for the first time since the 1930s, and ushered in a new era of financial irresponsibility.

By reinstating the regulatory firewalls that were ripped down a decade ago, re-regulating the energy markets to end rampant speculation in oil and regulating or abolishing the various financial instruments that are at the heart of the current financial crisis, we can avoid having to pay for another costly bailout.”

read the rest

Why is no one talking about breaking up the too big banks? Why are there no controls on the mergers that create these too big institutions, cost millions of jobs, and leave us with monsters that are all but impossible to control? What happened to the anti-trust laws?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Polluters join ag commissioner in fighting against clean water

It is hard to imagine anyone defending the polluters that are turning Florida’s waters green and slimy. But, hey, money talks. At long last, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is agreeing to set legal, enforceable limits on such nutrients as phosphorous and nitrogen, which are poisoning Florida’s public waters. EPA’s historic decision settles the lawsuit we filed in July 2008. Now the state’s biggest polluters are trying to block the settlement. Big Agriculture, sewage plants, utilities, and phosphate miners have filed legal challenges to try to force the EPA to back down. And the state’s Agriculture Commissioner, Charles Bronson, is using taxpayer dollars to side with the polluters and against clean water.

(read more)

Alan Grayson and Ron Paul: Progressive Democrat, libertarian Republican promote Fed audit bill

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/orl-grayson-targets-fed-092509,0,5177529.story

WASHINGTON – A measure backed by one of Washington’s oddest couples — libertarian Republican Ron Paul of Texas and self-styled progressive Democrat Alan Grayson of Orlando — took another step toward becoming law Friday.

Legislation that would allow a congressional audit of the Federal Reserve — the secretive central bank with authority over interest rates and the nation’s money supply — won support from a dozen members of the House Financial Services committee, including its influential chairman, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts.

(cont.)