Posted by Craig McDermott A quick update between reformats on my home computer… Advertisement As the state lege remains at a near-standstill due to ongoing (but closed-door, of course) budget negotiations between the Republicans in the lege and the Republicans in the Governor's office, there are a few signs of life. Almost all committee meetings … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Authoritarians always resort to fear mongering and scapegoating others as their "enemy." As George W. Bush so aptly put it, "you're either with us or against us." The power of hate to blind one to reason and judgment should never be underestimated or taken lightly as a motivation. So it should come … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Director Ron Howard brought together the Saturday Night Live cast members who portrayed our presidents on SNL over the years (he asked Jim Carrey to play Ronald Reagan) to make this ad in support of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency on behalf of Main Street Brigade.

The concentration of the nation's wealth in the hands of the financial services sector, the "smartest guys in the room" who nearly destroyed the world's financial markets and economy with their casino capitalism and risky Ponzi scheme investment devices is why an independent consumer regulatory agency with the power of criminal enforcement is necessary. Can you name any of the titans of Wall Street who have been prosecuted for their fraud, besides Bernie Madoff? Anyone? That's what I thought. These bastards just collected their millions of dollars in bonuses for having pushed the world to the brink of economic collapse.

Just how much of the nation's wealth is concentrated in the hands of Wall Street bankers and financiers? Washington's Blog: 

You know the big banks have gotten bigger.

As Rolfe Winkler noted last September:

For the big have gotten even bigger since the start of the financial crisis. At the end of 2007, the Big Four banks — Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo — held 32 percent of all deposits in FDIC-insured institutions. As of June 30th, it was 39 percent.

(If the image doesn’t load, click here.)

But Simon Johnson gives an even broader perspective on how big the too big to fails have gotten:

Fifteen years ago, the combined assets of our six biggest banks totaled 17 percent of our GDP. By 2006, that number was 55 percent. Right now, it stands at 63 percent.

Johnson also points out that:

The big four have half of the market for mortgages and two-thirds of the market for credit cards. Five banks have over 95 percent of the market for over-the-counter derivatives. Three U.S. banks have over 40 percent of the global market for stock underwriting.

As I've previously noted, the government created the mega-giants (they are not the product of free market competition), and their very size destroys the real economy like a massive black hole destroys the matter around it.

And as Johnson and many others have pointed out, the very size of the giant banks enables them to easily capture politicians … about as easily as the Great Attractor captures galaxies.

Where is "Trust Buster" Teddy Roosevelt when we need him most? The problem, once again, lies in the dysfunctional U.S. Senate, the millionaire boys and girls club whose friends and neighbors are the very titans of Wall Street from whom they are supposed to be protecting the American people. Is the Senate Bungling Its Wall Street Crackdown? | Mother Jones:

[A]s Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), chair of the Senate banking committee, prepares to release his proposal for financial reform this week, House lawmakers who have worked on the issue tell Mother Jones they're worried that the talks will once again paralyze the Senate and produce only flimsy restrictions on financial firms.

Exhibit A for these anxious House lawmakers is the battle for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, arguably the lifeblood of any financial overhaul. The CFPA, to borrow an analogy, would protect consumers from subprime mortgages and unfair credit card policies in much the same way as the Consumer Product Safety Commission scrutinizes faulty toasters and dangerous toys. It's an essential piece of the puzzle that experts say would rein in the predatory practices and disastrous products that toppled the housing industry and dragged the economy down with it.

In December, the House's major financial reform bill featured such a stand-alone consumer protection agency. But in the Senate, the CFPA has run into serious trouble. Senators like Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the banking committee's ranking Republican, and other GOP colleagues have sought to neuter or outright kill the proposal for an independent body, suggesting that a consumer agency could instead be folded into an existing department, like the Treasury. Even Dodd, who's led the Senate's negotiations for months, had expressed doubt earlier this year whether a CFPA could make it into the final legislation. And now that Shelby has reportedly rejoined the Senate's main talks, the fate of an independent CFPA is even further in doubt. So contentious is the CFPA that it's been cast lately as financial reform's "public option," threatening to derail the entire bill.

* * *

"I am concerned about the consumer protection agency," Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chair of the House financial services committee and an architect of financial reform, says. "It's a deal-breaker if we don't have consumer protection."