Thom Hartmann: There was a Time when Banksters Couldn't Buy Politicians

[thomhartmann]

Wall Street makes a lot of money. Or, more correctly, they TAKE a lot of money, as the leeches and banksters on Wall Street are very much Takers, rather than Makers. They don't make anything - they just move money around and skim - take - their vig off the top. But in the process, they end up with hundreds of billions of dollars in cash - truly big bucks. About a dozen Wall Street banksters made over $2 billion dollars last year - EACH! And the banks themselves have had one of their most profitable years ever, borrowing billions from the Fed at zero percent interest rate, loaning that money to the US Treasury at 2 percent or so, spinning off trillions in derivatives, and stuffing all the profits in their pockets.

Meanwhile, other divisions of the banks are foreclosing on your homes, and actually making both a profit and a tax write-off on it! The result is that both the banksters and the banks on Wall Street have billions and billions of dollars in money they came by pretty easily. And, given that, what better place to put that money than into buying politicians and the laws and regulations those politicians can write? After all, most of the money Wall Street banksters are making right now is being made in ways that were completely illegal for more than 70 of the last 80 years. Then they bought some politicians and got the laws changed. And for most of the 20th century, if they'd made that kind of money, they would have paid upwards of 70 to 90 percent income tax on it - until they bought some politicians and got those laws changed, too.

In the 2008 election cycle, the banksters were betting that Democrats would help them out - so they invested over $170 million in that party, a bit more than they gave to Republicans. And, of course, these are just the official donations - they may have given a LOT more through invisible sources, groups like Karl Rove's so-called "charity" that doesn't report its donors. But the Democrats won big in 2008, and immediately started to pass laws that would rein in the banksters, and even slightly increase their taxes. Horrors! So in 2010 - and, so far, in 2012 - Wall Street has been funneling more of their money to the Republicans, because the Republicans have promised to make it even easier for banksters to rip us off, and, when they do, to keep their taxes low. I mean, the Republican Party is even running a bankster as their candidate for President, and, like a good bankster he and his wife are telling "you people" that they're not gonna let us see their tax returns.

We've been here before. Back in the election of 1920, Herbert Hoover ran for president on the slogan of "Less government in business, and more business in government." He promised to deregulate the banksters, and cut their taxes from 90 percent to 25 percent. The result? Nine years of a bubble that looked like boom times - the roaring 20s - followed by a horrific crash that produced a decade-long Republican Great Depression. And when FDR tried to do what Obama is trying to do - regulate the banksters - they said - like they are now - that the President was anti-American, a socialist, and that he was trying to tear down important American institutions like banks and capitalism. Roosevelt kicked them squarely in the teeth with his "Economics Royalist" speech. But back then the banksters couldn't buy every politician in America. We had laws against that, passed back in the 1800s at the state levels, and in 1907 at the federal level, that prevented corporations - and even, in some cases, very rich people - from buying politicians or political parties.

For example, this old Wisconsin law was on the books from around the time of the Civil War until the 1950s: "No corporation doing business in this state shall pay or contribute, or offer consent or agree to pay or contribute, directly or indirectly, any money, property, free service of its officers or employees or thing of value to any political party, organization, committee or individual for any political purpose whatsoever, or for the purpose of influencing legislation of any kind, or to promote or defeat the candidacy of any person for nomination, appointment or election to any political office." And the penalty for breaking the law? Remember, last week one of the world's biggest banks just pled guilty to criminal manipulation of LIBOR - and not a single bankster from Barclays was arrested.

But back in Roosevelt's day, they were serious about taking on banksters. The penalty part of that law reads, in part: "Any officer, employee, agent or attorney or other representative of any corporation, ... who shall violate this act, shall be punished ... by imprisonment in the state prison for a period of not less than one nor more than five years... and if the corporation [is guilty and is] a domestic corporation it may be dissolved, ... and if a foreign or non-resident corporation its right to do business in this state may be declared forfeited." The reason that law is no longer on the books, and the reason why Obama can't take on the banksters with quite the vigor that FDR did, is because five men on the Supreme Court have appointed themselves the kings of America and declared that money isn't property - it's speech.

And because it's speech, billionaires on Wall Street can throw all of it they want into political campaigns. And their banks can, as well, because, as bankster Mitt Romney said so well and so often: It's time for us to stop the insanity of bought-and-paid-for politicians and political parties. And the only way to do that, is to overturn these twin crazy Supreme Court doctrines with an amendment to the US Supreme Court that plainly and openly says that corporations are not people and money is not speech. For more information on how to clean up American politics, go to move to amend.org

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[truedelphi]

1. And one further proof of the BuyOut of the Elite and Elected --

The continuing, unconstitutional assault on medical marijuana clinics. After all, these clinics damage the control over profit possessed by the Biggest Banks. Much of America's Top Bank profit is garnered by laundering the monies of illegal drug sales.

When drug sales become legal, the banks lose this revenue -
which happens to be BILLIONS of dollars in profit.

Who did the DOJ's assault on Calif's voter-approved medical marijuana clinics help out the most? Why, the Big Drug Cabals of Mexico, who had already begun to pull out of our forests and parks, on account of not being able to face the legal competition of the voter-approved medical marijuana. Now those cabals will be back inside our parks, hiding the "farms" their hired caretakers create, polluting our creeks and rivers, and in the end, they often KILL the caretakers they hire. Those big cartel people are of course laughing at how Obama's Hope and Change has continued to be the same type of support that George W gave them.

Big Pharma is also being helped - in fact, one paragraph inside the Press Democrat's stories on medical marijuana clinics told those who use the clinics not to to worry. After all, the Administration is seeing to it that anyone with a valid prescription can have that prescription filled - by sending for medical marijuana from a pharmacy in Great Britain. (Talk about the unnecessary outsourcing of jobs - JEESH!)

But far above and beyond these nasty beneficiaries of the Obama Drug Policies - the bankers will benefit the most!

[freshwest]

2. Real clarity on the purpose of Wall Street. Excellent, I wish this was a campaign commercial.

Thanks again for providing the transcript so everyone can see it.

[truedelphi]

3. You forget, Thom Hatmann to mention how these

"Democratic" measures relating to bank regulations are rather ineffective.

Sort of like someone giving the school bully a bunion, when that bully has been giving everyone else in the school yard broken bones.

What is and will always be needed is a complete reinstatement of the Glass Steagall provisions. So far, no one who really has the ability to do anything about it in either the Republican party or the Democratic party seems interested. (After all, gotta keep that lovely campaign money flowing in.) The American people also deserve a complete end to the "hedging" that involves the placing of "Exotic Instruments" on such matters as whether the mortgage holders can keep up with their underwater mortgages.

You may complain that Romney is (or was) a banker. But right now, while I would like to see a difference between the two men now running for office, the difference I do see is one of slight separation - while one is (or was) a banker, the other is best friends with the bankers, including his selection of that scumbag Tim Geithner as the head of US Treasury.

And I wish the influence the banking world does hold was limited to the Top Office int he land. But no, the hold of the Bankers is very alive on the state level also. While during the Great Depression, over thirty five states had enforceable provisions on their books banning foreclosure of homes, now when Calif. legislators attempt to stop just MINOR infractions of the overall moral code of the banking world, the lobbyists arrive in Sacramento and make sure that the two or three votes needed are swung their way. (Last year when this happened, surprise, surprise, it was two Dems that swung the way of the Big Banking people.)

I am truly frightened of what has happened to this nation. Beyond belief. Totally scared at how screwn we all are. And our children and grand children even more so.

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. rec and kick. nt