Category: News

by ELLEN BROWN

Before Eliot Spitzer’s infamous resignation as governor of New York in March 2008, he was one of our fiercest champions against Wall Street corruption, in a state that had some of the toughest legislation for controlling the banks. It may not be a coincidence that the revelation of his indiscretions with a high-priced call girl came less than a month after he published a bold editorial in the Washington Post titled “Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States from Stepping in to Help Consumers.”  The editorial exposed the collusion between the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and Wall Street in deregulating the banks in the guise of regulating them, by taking regulatory power away from the states. It was an issue of the federal government versus the states, with the Feds representing the banks and the states representing consumers.

Five years later, Spitzer has set out to take some of that local regulatory power back, in his run for New York City comptroller.  Mounting the attack against him, however, are not just Wall Street banks but women’s groups opposed to this apparent endorsement of the exploitation of women. On August 17th, the New York Post endorsed Spitzer’s opponent and ran a scathing cover story attempting to embarrass Spitzer based on the single issue of his personal life.

Lynn Parramore, who considers herself a feminist, countered in an August 8th Huffington Post article that it is likely to be in the best interests of the very women who are opposing him to forgive and move on.  His stand for women’s reproductive rights and other feminist issues is actually quite strong, and his role as Wall Street watchdog protected women from predatory financial practices. As New York Attorney General, he was known as the “Sheriff of Wall Street.” He is one of the few people with not only the insight and experience to expose Wall Street corruption but the courage to go after the perpetrators.

Targeted for Take-down

The February 2008 Washington Post article that preceded Spitzer’s political travails was written when the state attorneys general were being preempted by the Federal Reserve as watchdogs of the banks. Critics called it a case of the fox guarding the hen house. Spitzer wrote:

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. . . . These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers. . . . [A]s New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. . . .

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye. . . . The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). . . . In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules. But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Less than a month after publishing this editorial, Spitzer had been exposed, disgraced, and was out of office. Greg Palast pointed to the fact that Spitzer was the single politician standing in the way of a $200 billion windfall from the Federal Reserve, guaranteeing the toxic mortgage-backed securities of the same banking predators that were responsible for the subprime debacle. While the Federal Reserve was trying to bail them out, Spitzer was trying to regulate them, bringing suit on behalf of consumers.3 But he was quickly silenced, and any state attorneys general who might get similar ideas in the future would be blocked by the federal “oversight” then being imposed on state regulation.

A Rooster to Guard the Hen House

In a July 2013 article titled “Why Eliot Spitzer’s Return Terrifies Big Finance,” Thomas Ferguson, Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts and a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, wrote of Spitzer’s bid for comptroller:

Suddenly, the Masters of the Universe were staring at their worst nightmare: the prospect of a comeback by the only major politician in the U.S. whose deeds — and not simply words —prove that he does not think corporate titans are too big to jail.

Who, when the Justice Department, Congress, and the Securities and Exchange Commission all defaulted in the wake of a tidal wave of financial frauds, creatively used New York State’s Martin Act to go where they wouldn’t and subpoena emails and corporate records of the malefactors of great wealth, winning convictions and big settlements.

Who in 2005, as New York State Attorney General, actually sued AIG instead of thinking up ways to hand it billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money. . . .

And who in 2013 with business as usual once again the order of the day, is promising to review how the Comptroller’s Office, which controls New York City’s vast pension funds, does business with Wall Street and corporate America.

Yves Smith, writing on her blog Naked Capitalism on July 25th, expanded on this threat. She noted that private equity [PE] investment managers had persuaded their clients that their limited partnership agreements [LPAs] were a form of “trade secret,” and that nobody was looking closely at whether PE firms were complying with the fee and expense provisions of their agreements:

Public pension fund investors have almost universally acceded to the demands of PE firms to exempt the LPAs and cash flow reports from state FOIA laws, which keeps the eyes of the press and the public off the documents.

. . . However, the New York City Comptroller has access to this critical information. Hence the freakout at the prospect that Spitzer might get the job.

Hence also the $1.5 million ad campaign against Spitzer brought by a coalition of business leaders, labor unions and women’s groups.

The Issues that Matter to Women

On July 10th, the head of the local chapter of a national women’s advocacy group asked a small gathering outside City Hall:

Do we want an elected official who has broken the law and who has participated in sustaining an industry that we all know has a long history of exploiting women and girls?

The speaker lumped Spitzer with Anthony Weiner, who is running for mayor after sending out sexually explicit tweets, and Vito Lopez, who is running for City Council after resigning from the Assembly over sexual harassment allegations. She asked whether these men would address the issues that matter to women, “or are they just going to see us as objects?”

Sexual exploitation is an issue that matters to women, but the best way to save women from the sort of desperation that leads to exploitation is to keep them out of ruinous debt. Wall Street fraud, corruption and abuse have caused millions of homeowners to lose their homes and have tipped cities toward bankruptcy; and Spitzer is one of the brave few who has exposed and attempted to prosecute those predatory practices. As comptroller, he could make more information available to the public concerning the companies in which public pension funds are invested, look out for exploitive fees, insist on plain English reporting of derivatives exposure, and take steps to ensure that nurses and teachers are not being financially exploited.  He can monitor contracts and business dealings and help protect the city from the kinds of rip-off schemes that deplete city funds for education, infrastructure, and the social safety nets that women, particularly, rely on.

In a December 2011 article in Slate titled “We Own Wall Street,” Spitzer argued that bad corporate behavior could be stopped by a political movement uniting shareholders, pension funds and mutual funds – the actual owners of the corporations – who could then take coordinated action demanding transparency and accountability.

This is the sort of creative thinking that will be needed if we the people are to take back our power from Wall Street and the corporatocracy. We need a mass movement, coordinated action, and leaders who can organize it. Eliot Spitzer is one of the few people in a position to play that role who have the experience, vision and courage to carry it through.

ELLEN BROWN is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute.  In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how a private banking oligarchy has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Brown’s latest book is The Public Bank Solution. Her websites are http://WebofDebt.com, http://EllenBrown.com, and http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.

 

West End’s much-loved Swiss Gourmet Delicatessen in Boundary Street has received national recognition, with a gong from the SBS Feast Food Awards for their Portuguese Custard Tarts.

Made daily from Maria Marinelli’s traditional family recipe, these deep-sided tarts are filled with silky custard cream, and oven baked to perfection.

According to proprietor Peter Marinelli, the tarts are one of the Swiss Deli’s most popular items, with more than 800 of them walking out the door every week.

Speaking from personal experience, the Westender can vouch for their creamy, crunchy excellence.

Well done Maria and Peter.

More info:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Swiss-Gourmet-Delicatessen/155902404431347?fref=ts

www.swissgourmet.com.au/

Xenophon dumps Greens to be kingmaker: Milne

Republished with the permission of citizen journalism site No Fibs

After firing up a rally for marriage equality in Brisbane’s Queens Park on Saturday, Greens leader Christine Milne rallied the faithful at the campaign launch for Griffith candidate Geoff Ebbs at the Fox Hotel on Saturday night.

This was the first time I have attended a campaign launch, and it was a more intimate and candid affair than I had anticipated. There was no mainstream media present and the speeches, most unscripted, seemed to be heart-felt and genuine.

The aim was to portray the Greens’ as an inclusive party in touch with the aspirations of most Australians, not the fringe group it is portrayed to be, and in the light of recent deals on preferences and Labor’s poor showing in the polls, to stress the need for the Greens to retain the Senate balance of power.

Senate hopeful Adam Stone kicked things off by ridiculing at the ‘old parties’ and the media for labeling the Greens a fringe group. If you support Ebbs, he said, “you will be throwing your lot in with a small business owner who publishes on such obscure, irrelevant topics as people’s rights at work, a man with the audacity to publicly stick it to the Prime Minister in front of the national media on the economic uncertainty he has created …for his back-flipping on significant economic reforms like carbon pricing”.

Greens Senator Larissa Waters said she was “scared to the core” by the prospect of an Abbott government, “but what scares me even more is that we may have an Abbott controlled Senate (and) that’s why we need Adam in the Senate, because the alternative is unimaginable. We know what happened when John Howard had control of the Senate – we got Work Choices.”

Ebbs said the press and politicians referred to the Greens constituency as ‘fringe groups’ to marginalise them.

“The aim of that process is to create this idea that there is some kind of normality, and that people who are normal should be afraid of all of those people who are in fringe groups.’” Although these tactics were obvious, “they work”. People who hate the Greens and hate refugees and hate gay people “hate them because they are afraid, and they’re afraid because they are not secure”.

“They’re afraid because they don’t know what the future holds, they don’t have job security; they’re afraid because the newspapers and the politicians tell them that they should be afraid.”

The Greens challenge, he said, “is not just to celebrate diversify, but to get out there and help calm those people who are afraid’”.

“The Greens want to stand apart from the parties of exclusiveness who want to keep having a dialogue about normality, about the Australian way, about the kind of myth-making that excludes people. What unites us is our inclusivity.”

Milne said that if Abbott won Senate control “he would repeal the clean energy package and he would pull apart the renewable energy target, because his whole driving force is to retain the business case of the old coal fired generators for as long as possible”

“The Greens are not just thinking

about the forward estimates…we are thinking about what it is going to be like to live on this planet in the next 50 years.”

Milne alleged that “the big announcement by Kevin Rudd” that he now supports same sex marriage is nothing more than political gamesmanship, citing Karen Middleton’s recent revelation on SBS that Julia Gillard was poised to change her mind on same-sex marriage when Kevin Rudd announced his change of heart. She pointed out all Rudd had done was say he would allow a conscience vote. “That’s what they have got already. We have already had a conscience vote but it was lost because the Coalition does not allow a conscience vote.”

“I am confident that we will achieve marriage equality, but it will only happen if the Greens are there strongly in the Senate and if Adam Bandt is returned to the Reps.”

Milne said Tony Abbott needed only three Senate seats – in WA, SA and NSW – to gain effective control of the Senate. She appeared to be incredulous at Nick Xenophon’s decision to preference both Liberal and Labor before Greens Senator, Sarah Hansen Young.  ‘

“How is that possible when he is a person who says his key issue is gambling, and the Greens are only political party that has stood up with him time and time again on gambling?”

“Because he knows that if Abbott can pick up these three seats he and Abbott will have effective control of the Senate and The Greens and Labor will be side-lined. He will be the king-maker in that context. And that is why he is doing it.”

“I can’t imagine what Australia will look like if you gave effective control of both houses to Tony Abbott in conjunction with Nick Xenophon and John Madigan, the DLP Senator from Victoria’,” she said, who would be “trading women’s reproductive rights”.

“This election really, really matters. The Greens will make the difference.”

A new study has shown that serious illness, struggling to hold down a regular job and poor social relationships are just some of the adverse outcomes in adulthood faced by those exposed to bullying in childhood.

It has long been acknowledged that bullying at a young age presents a problem for schools, parents and public policy makers alike. Though children spend more time with their peers than their parents, there is relatively little work done on understanding the impact of these interactions on their life beyond school.

The results of this research, published in Psychological Science, highlight the extent of which the risk of health, wealth and social problems is heightened by exposure to bullying; and in doing so is the first study to look into the effects beyond just health.

Professor Dieter Wolke of the University of Warwick and Dr William E. Copeland of Duke University Medical Center led the team, looking beyond the study of victims and investigating the impact on all those effected; the victims, the bullies themselves, and those who fall into both categories; ‘bully-victims’.

Professor Wolke said, “We cannot continue to dismiss bullying as a harmless, almost inevitable, part of growing up. We need to change this mindset and acknowledge this as a serious problem for both the individual and the country as a whole; the effects are long-lasting and significant.”

The ‘bully-victims’ presented the most significant health risk for adulthood, being over six times more likely to be diagnosed with a serious illness, smoke regularly or develop a psychiatric disorder.

The results show that bully-victims are perhaps the most vulnerable group of all. This group may turn to bullying after being victims of bullying themselves as they lack the emotional regulation, or the support, required to cope with it.

Professor Wolke added, “In the case of bully-victims, it shows how bullying can spread when left untreated. Some interventions are already available in schools but new tools are needed to help health professionals to identify, monitor and deal with the ill-effects of bullying. The challenge we face now is committing the time and resource to these interventions to try and put an end to bullying.”

All of the groups were more than twice as likely to have difficulty in keeping a job, or commit to saving, and as such displayed a higher propensity for being impoverished in young adulthood.

However, very few ill effects of being the bully were found in the study. When accounting for the influence of childhood psychiatric problems and family hardships, which were prevalent in the bullies, it showed that the act of bullying itself didn’t have a negative impact upon adulthood.

“Bullies appear to be children with a prevailing antisocial tendency who know how to get under the skin of others, with bully-victims taking the role of their helpers,” explained Professor Wolke. “It is important to finds ways of removing the need for these children to bully others and in doing so; protect the many children suffering at the hand of bullies as they are the ones who are hindered later in life.”

Though there was no real difference in the likelihood of being married or having children, all groups showed signs of having difficulty forming social relationships, particularly when it came to maintaining long term friendships or good ties with parents in adulthood.

The research assessed 1,420 participants four to six times between the ages of 9 and 16 years and adult outcomes between 24-26 years of age.

Volunteers get ready to commence divestment campaign.

350.org trainer Charlie Wood, took a group of 20 volunteers through their paces at its first Brisbane Workshop on Saturday.

350.org stands for 350 parts per million, this figure is what the science says is the absolute limit for CO2 emissions in our atmosphere to avoid runaway climate change.

The aim of the Brisbane workshop was to equip volunteers with the resources to engage with their own banks, superannuation funds, universities, churches and other organisations about the need to challenge the fossil fuel industry and to invest in a more sustainable financial system.

350.org is seeking a global shift in investments to renewables from the current 3% to 5%.

Ms Woods said that while organisations may initially consider divesting of shares in fossil fuel companies to be risky, in reality the energy market is highly volatile. There are a number of studies she said from respected sources such as The World Bank and Goldman Sachs which conclude that energy stocks are overvalued and reinvestment in new and emerging industries can provide equal to greater returns. 

Further, she said, conversations with organisations about divestment can provide organisations with an opportunity to assess whether their values align with those of the companies they invest in.

According to 350.org, 300 campuses and 100 cities and states in the US and other countries have joined the campaign to divest from fossil fuel companies. The movement is still in the early days in Queensland, but the Brisbane group plans to step up its campaign over the coming months. 

A public forum is planned for late September for anyone interested in learning more about the evidence for climate change and divestment strategies. A panel of financial, health and climate experts will answer audience questions.

 

The Federal Circuit Court has dismissed criminal contempt charges against a former union official over his involvement in the community protest staged during last year’s long-running children’s hospital project strike in Brisbane.

In front of a packed court room, Federal Magistrate Michael Burnett rejected all 18 charges against former MUA organiser Bob Carnegie, for which he could have been jailed if found guilty.

He originally faced 54 counts of criminal contempt, but 36 were dismissed during hearings in February.

The charges were brought by Abigroup, the principal contractor on the site and part of the Lend Lease group. It alleged Carnegie breached September court orders it had secured in his support for the nine-week project stopwork.

Community protests, which unions are careful to avoid direct links to, have developed as a means to support striking workers but avoid anti-picketing laws.

Companies have typically been reluctant to target individuals allegedly involved.

The Queensland Government filed an application to intervene if Carnegie was found guilty and the matter progressed to the next phase.

Carnegie in a statement this afternoon welcomed the result and thanked his legal team and his fellow workers for their support.

It’s certainly been a tough time, but the support of workers and the community has made it easier, he said.

BLF state secretary David Hanna also welcomed the ruling.

Slater Gordon national head of industrial law, Marcus Clayton, who represented Carnegie, said the court had accepted that the order he was charged with breaching was not clear and unambiguous.

It has long been a fundamental legal principle that you can’t be found guilty of contempt of a court order if the order isn’t clear, he said.

Bob has been through a lot and we are very pleased for Bob.

Clayton said an application would be made for an order that Abigroup pay Carnegie’s substantial legal costs.

A spokesperson for Abigroup said the company respected the court’s decision.

Background

Abigroup and its contractors secured FWA (now FWC) orders in August last year, which they backed up with court injunctions, against industrial action at the site.

Senior Deputy President Peter Richards in September in orders later upheld by a full bench banned the CFMEU and CEPU, their officers and delegates, plus their members who are employees of Abigroup subcontractors at the site, from engaging in any industrial action. He also ordered the unions not to organise or encourage it.

Abigroup launched separate proceedings against the unions over the matter.

The children’s hospital strike began as a dispute with a subcontractor over benefits but was engulfed in the claim for site rates for contractors that the construction unions were pursuing from other builders during bargaining.

Abigroup at the time still had some two years to run on its Queensland construction sector deal.