The latest fallout in the banks manipulating the LIBOR scandal were criminal charges against two UBS traders. LIBOR is a key financial rate and the Justice Department this week fined UBS $1.5 billion for rate rigging. The Japan UBS subsidiary also pleaded guilty to wire fraud.
UBS Securities Japan Co. Ltd. (UBS Japan), an investment bank, financial advisory securities firm and wholly-owned subsidiary of UBS AG, has agreed to plead guilty to felony wire fraud and admit its role in manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), a leading benchmark used in financial products and transactions around the world, Attorney General Eric Holder announced today. The criminal information, filed today in U.S. District Court in the District of Connecticut, charges UBS Japan with one count of engaging in a scheme to defraud counterparties to interest rate derivatives trades by secretly manipulating LIBOR benchmark interest rates.
There is a war on social security and America is losing the battle. One constant in the fiscal cliff negotiations is the agenda to cut your retirement benefits by a ruse, a lowering of the inflation adjustment.
International corporations use “free market” capitalism ideology to justify globalization and create a “world-market-state.” Supposedly, “free market” capitalism makes America’s economy efficient and, therefore, far more prosperous. In practice, however, international corporations promote laws based on “free market” capitalism—for their own benefit.
We have lobbyists controlling the fiscal cliff debate and the messaging:
By posing as populists hostile to “government social engineering,” the Right succeeded in duping large numbers of middle-class Americans into seeing their own interests – and their “freedom” – as in line with corporate titans.
Corporations are literally posing as grassroots activists with media appearances, twitter accounts, social media, major articles and dedicated websites, all in an effort to hoodwink the American people into signing onto having their social security cut along with their health benefits.
Pundits and Lobbyists all make huge riches ranting and prattling on how someone is stealing food stamps or how Grandma should have her social security benefits cut and denied health care. Corporate controlled financial press puts biased choices for their 1% audience. Those still ethical and objective cannot type fast enough to confront all of the lies on the fiscal cliff. We are being barraged with corporate money funded digital bitstream lies on an minute by minute basis.
Is the “fiscal cliff” real or just another hoax? The answer is that the fiscal cliff is real, but it is a result, not a cause. The hoax is the way the fiscal cliff is being used.
The fiscal cliff is the result of the inability to close the federal budget deficit. The budget deficit cannot be closed because large numbers of US middle class jobs and the GDP and tax base associated with them have been moved offshore, thus reducing federal revenues. The fiscal cliff cannot be closed because of the unfunded liabilities of eleven years of US-initiated wars against a half dozen Muslim countries–wars that have benefited only the profits of the military/security complex and the territorial ambitions of Israel. The budget deficit cannot be closed, because economic policy is focused only on saving banks that wrongful financial deregulation allowed to speculate, to merge, and to become too big to fail, thus requiring public subsidies that vastly dwarf the totality of US welfare spending.
With the latest mass shooting tragedy dominating the news, we thought it might be time to re-watch Michael Moore's award winning documentary, Bowling for Columbine.
There have been 63 mass shootings in the United States since 1982 and it seems in 2012 there is an epidemic of horror and violence. We know extreme poverty increases violence as does general economic stress. The loss of a job, a threat to career can tip the scales towards tragedy. Workplace abuses have increased as jobs became scarce.
Some will blame guns, some will think the answer is even more guns to shoot the other people with guns.
Could it be the real problem is our me first, f*@k you society? Think about it. If one is mentally ill, they will probably be fighting just to survive, never mind be in any sort of environment where that person would be accepted, with all of their limitations. We have more people in prison than any other industrialized nation. We have homeless kids and homeless people, an entire invisible world of American poverty out there, served platitudes with nothing to stop the downward spiral and slide.
The FOMC just did a great thing. The Federal Reserve tied interest rates and quantitative easing to U.S. labor. The messaging alone is powerful. The Federal Reserve is saying, very clearly, U.S. workers matter. Businesses need to start hiring and increasing wages if they want to actually improve the overall economy.
About 5 million people—more than 40 percent of the unemployed—have been without a job for six months or more, and millions more who say they would like full-time work have been able to find only part-time employment or have stopped looking entirely. The conditions now prevailing in the job market represent an enormous waste of human and economic potential.
Have you ever noticed that large corporations can get away with pretty much anything? Over and over again a major scandal breaks and in the end the fines are pennies on the dollar for the profits gained by these nefarious financial activities.
Banks can launder money with impunity and the consequences are a small fine in comparison to the profits made. No matter how egregious there are no criminal chargers or revoking of the bank's charter.
The British bank Standard Chartered said on Thursday that it expected to pay $330 million to settle claims by United States government agencies that it had moved hundreds of billions of dollars on behalf of Iran.
Most Americans know corporations run the nation and long ago ceased to be good citizens. U.S. Corporations have endorsed a sociopathic stance of short term profits as their objective exclusive to all others. Profits above people is now the norm. Dr. Ralph Gomory, who contributes to this site and Dr. Richard Sylla have dismantled the U.S. corporation and even put it back together again in an essay published by American Academy of Arts & Sciences. The essay gives a historical narrative of the U.S. corporation, touching upon major historical events which shaped these business entities into the conglomerates we know today. The authors also propose solutions and describe options to channel business behavior to be more in concert with America. We need to structurally redefine and realign the U.S. Corporation.
The House of Representatives is out to destroy the American Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Professional. Republicans passed H.R. 6429 with the oxymoron title, STEM Jobs Act of 2012. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and this bill gives 55,000 foreigners a year who graduate from an American university with a Masters or PhD in these fields an employment sponsored green card. Democrats didn't like it, not because it will labor arbitrage American Technical Professionals and lock out some Americans from even being accepted into Masters and PhD university programs. No, Democrats don't like the idea of separating the agenda of giving those here illegally legal status from the corporate lobbyist never ending demand for more foreign guest worker Visas and turning the American higher education system into a glorified green card ATM. Democrats believe they will never get their unlimited migration agenda through Congress without sacrificing the American Science and Technology professional to the globalization wolves.
The latest fallout in the 
There is a war on social security and America is losing the battle. One constant in the 
We have lobbyists controlling the fiscal cliff debate and 
Originally published by 
With the latest mass shooting tragedy dominating the news, we thought it might be time to re-watch Michael Moore's award winning documentary, 
The FOMC just did a great thing. The Federal Reserve tied interest rates and 
Have you ever noticed that large corporations can get away with pretty much anything? Over and over again a major scandal breaks and in the end the fines are pennies on the dollar for the profits gained by these nefarious financial activities. 
The House of Representatives is out to destroy the American Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Professional. Republicans passed H.R. 6429 with the oxymoron title, STEM Jobs Act of 2012. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and this bill gives 55,000 foreigners a year who graduate from an American university with a Masters or PhD in these fields an employment sponsored green card. Democrats didn't like it, not because it will labor arbitrage American Technical Professionals and lock out some Americans from even being accepted into Masters and PhD university programs. No, Democrats don't like the idea of separating the agenda of giving those here illegally legal status from the corporate lobbyist never ending demand for more foreign guest worker Visas and turning the American higher education system into a glorified green card ATM. Democrats believe they will never get their unlimited migration agenda through Congress without sacrificing the American Science and Technology professional to the globalization wolves.
Recent comments