Council on Foreign Relations work to defeat end to "Too Big To Fail" & FED accountablity
Council on Foreign Relations members surrounding the President, in Congress, running the Federal Reserve Bank and controlling the Treasury are working to defeat legislation to make the Federal Reserve more accountable and put an end to “Too Big To Fail” banks. The Council on Foreign Relations connection to the story is not being reported Why is that?
Neil Barofsky was Assistant U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York from 2000 to 2008; A lawyer at the New York law firm Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello & Bohrer. Since December
2008 he has been Special Investigator General of the TARP funds. The Washington Post identifies his key Associates as : Council on Foreign Relations member Treasury Secretary (since January 2009) Timothy Geithner , Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability Herbert M. Allison Jr. (since June 2009) , Council on Foreign Relations member U.S. Senator (since January 1981) Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), U.S. Representative (since January 1981) Barney Frank (D-Mass.), and Council on Foreign Relations member Deputy Treasury Secretary (since May 2009) Neal S. Wolin . (http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/ Neil_Barofsky )
In November 2009, Barofsky and his team of inspectors released a scathing report on the bailout of insurance giant AIG. Most notably, Barofsky specifically cited Council on Foreign Relations member Treasury Secretary Geithner's failure to argue for better conditions when negotiating the AIG bailout while heading the New York Federal Reserve. (http://www.sigtarp.gov/reports/audit/2009/ Factors_Affecting_Efforts_to_Limit_Payments_to_AIG_Counterparties.pdf )
In April 2009, Barofsky released a report that highlighted ways in which the programs created to save financial institutions from bankruptcy, like TARP, were vulnerable to corruption, including fraud, tax violations and insider trading. The report revealed 20 open federal investigations into possible crimes committed with the use of the TARP funds. (http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/21/nation/na- tarp-fraud21 ).
The April report warns congress of a system forcing the taxpayer to provide the banks with the use of $14 trillion from the Federal Reserve, much of the $7 trillion outstanding at the US Treasury and $2.3 trillion at the FDIC. Barofsky, also accuses the Treasury Department of repeatedly failing to adopt recommendations aimed at making one component of the government financial rescue effort more accountable and transparent. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/20/ bailout-may-cost-237-tril_n_241512.html )
In July 2009, Barofsky released another report that outlined how the banks used the TARP funds. The original purpose of TARP was to increase lending among banks, but the report concluded that banks used much of the funds for investing, to pay off debt or even to purchase other banks. Of the 360 banks that received TARP funds by the end of January 2009, 110 had invested some of the money, 52 repaid debts with the funds and 15 used it to acquire other banks. (http:// www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/19/AR2009071901770.html?wprss=rss_print/asection
)
In January 31 2010, Barofsyk released a report that told congress the government's bailout of financial institutions deemed "too big to fail" has created a risk that the United States could face a worse fiscal meltdown in the future. Barofsky’s report warned the Troubled Assets Relief Program, known as TARP, has not addressed the problems that led to the last crisis and in some case those problems have festered and are a bigger threat than before. (http://www.foxnews.com/ politics/2010/01/31/watchdog-bailouts-created-risk/ )
On May 6th 2010 Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke ( http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/05/06/bernanke-letter-to-dodd-opposing-amendments-to-audit-the-fed/
) and former Federal Reserve Chairman Council on Foreign Relations member Paul Volker (http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/05/06/volcker- letter-to-lawmakers-opposing-amendments-to-audit-the-fed/ ) wrote letters opposing amendments to audit the Federal Reserve.
On May 6th 2010 a move to break up major Wall Street banks failed by a vote of 61 to 33. Ryan Grim and Shahien Nasiripour of the Huffington Post wrote, ( The article has been modified to identify Council on Foreign Relations members http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/06/senate-votes-for-wall-str_n_567063.html
) :
“Three Republicans, Richard Shelby of Alabama, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John Ensign of Nevada, voted with 30 Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, in support of the provision. The author of the pending overall financial reform bill in the Senate, Banking Committee Chairman [Council on Foreign Relations member ] Christopher Dodd, voted against it. (See the full roll call.)
The amendment, sponsored by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), would have required megabanks to be broken down in size and capped so that their individual failure would not bring down the entire system.
Under Brown-Kaufman, no bank could hold more than 10 percent of the total amount of insured deposits, and a limit would have been placed on liabilities of a single bank to two percent of GDP.
In practice, the amendment required the six biggest banks -- Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley -- to significantly scale down their size. It was touted as a way to end Too Big To Fail.
Though top Obama administration officials have not publicly opposed the amendment, its leading economists have opposed ending Too Big To Fail simply by breaking up the nation's financial behemoths. Austan Goolsbee and [Council on Foreign Relations member ] Larry Summers have both fought back against this idea, as has [Council on Foreign Relations member ] Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
"This is certainly a defeat for those who are concerned about the dangers of financial concentration in this country," Kaufman said in a statement after the vote. "Some causes are worth fighting for, and for me, the concern about the risks 'too big to fail' banks pose to the American economy and people is deep and profound given the economic tragedy millions of American have endured. I believe the debate itself -- though failing to gain a majority of votes -- has helped to change attitudes about the degree of financial concentration and power these megabanks now represent."
The banks owned by the four largest financial firms in the U.S. collectively account for about 45 percent of all assets in the U.S. banking system, according to a HuffPost analysis of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation data.
Those four megabanks collectively hold about $7.4 trillion in assets, according to the most recent regulatory filings with the Federal Reserve. That's equal to about 52 percent of the nation's estimated total output last year.
The top 12 banks in the U.S. control half the country's deposits. By comparison, it took 25 banks to accomplish this feat in 2003 and 42 banks in 1998, according to a Jan. 4 research note by Jason M. Goldberg of Barclays Capital. There are 23 bank-holding companies in the U.S. with more than $100 billion in assets, according to Federal Reserve data.
[Council on Foreign Relations member ] Richard W. Fisher, president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, is among a group of at least three current regional Fed presidents that have called for the nation's megabanks to be broken up, joining Kansas City Fed president Thomas M. Hoenig and St. Louis Fed president James Bullard. Fisher has suggested a ceiling on bank assets placed at $100 billion.
"In the past two decades, the biggest banks have grown significantly bigger," [Council on Foreign Relations member ] Fisher said last month. "The average size of U.S. banks relative to gross domestic product has risen threefold. The share of industry assets for the 10 largest banks climbed from almost 25 percent in 1990 to almost 60 percent in 2009."
Of course, size is not the only danger -- Lehman Brothers, whose crash rocked the financial system, would have been under the size caps proposed by the amendment. To that end, the Brown-Kaufman amendment limited the amount of leverage an institution can take at about 16- to-1. Hoenig has suggested a 15-to-1 ratio. Leverage is the use of debt to increase assets without a corresponding increase in capital.
The amendment began as a wild longshot, backed by the junior senator from Ohio, Brown, and a longtime aide to Joe Biden, Kaufman, appointed to keep his seat warm for two years until the 2010 election. That the amendment gained as much support as it did is an indication of the depth of the populist anger.
[Council on Foreign Relations member ] Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and [Council on Foreign Relations member ] Dodd of Connecticut spoke against the amendment.
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) was indignant. "I don't understand this Brown- Kaufman amendment. Basically, what it says is if you're successful...you're going to break them up? I mean, where does this stop? Do we take McDonald's on?" "It really doesn't make any sense to me," he said.
After the vote, Kaufman defended the provision.
"I believe this idea was sound policy -- and I further believe that a mainstream consensus will continue to grow that these megabanks are too large, too complex and too internally conflicted to regulate successfully," he said, echoing a position voiced by regional Fed presidents, former top Fed officials, and former top bankers on Wall Street.
The Senate will resume voting on amendments to the legislation next week.”
The Vote grouped by position with CFR members identified was : (http:// senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm? congress=111&session=2&vote=00136 )
Grouped By Vote Position
YEAs ---33 Begich (D-AK) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Burris (D-IL) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Casey (D-PA) Coburn (R-OK) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Ensign (R-NV) Feingold (D-WI) Franken (D-MN) Harkin (D-IA) Kaufman (D-DE) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lincoln (D-AR) Merkley (D-OR) Mikulski (D-MD) Murray (D-WA) Pryor (D-AR) Reid (D-NV) CFR member Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Shelby (R-AL) Specter (D-PA) Stabenow (D-MI) Udall (D-NM) Webb (D-VA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)
NAYs ---61 Akaka (D-HI) Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Bennet (D-CO) Bond (R-MO) Brown (R-MA) Brownback (R-KS) Burr (R-NC) Carper (D-DE) Chambliss (R-GA) Cochran (R-MS) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) CFR member Dodd (D-CT) Enzi (R-WY) CFR member Feinstein (D-CA) Gillibrand (D-NY) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hagan (D-NC) Hatch (R-UT) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Inouye (D-HI) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Johnson (D-SD) CFR member Kerry (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Kyl (R-AZ) Landrieu (D-LA) Lautenberg (D-NJ) LeMieux (R-FL) CFR member Lieberman (ID-CT) McCain (R-AZ) McCaskill (D-MO) McConnell (R-KY) Menendez (D-NJ) Murkowski (R-AK) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) CFR member Reed (D-RI) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Schumer (D-NY) Sessions (R-AL) Shaheen (D-NH) CFR member Snowe (R-ME) Tester (D-MT) Thune (R-SD) Udall (D-CO) Voinovich (R-OH) CFR member Warner (D-VA) Wicker (R-MS)
Not Voting - 6 Bennett (R-UT) Bunning (R-KY) Byrd (D-WV) DeMint (R-SC) Lugar (R-IN) Vitter (R-LA)
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Please consider seriously the reason why these elite institutions are not discussed in the mainstream press despite the immense financial and political power they wield? There are sick and evil occultists running the Western World. They are power mad lunatics like something from a kids cartoon with their fingers on the nuclear button! Armageddon is closer than you thought. Only God can save our souls from their clutches, at least that's my considered opinion - Tony
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