Media and Government are Both Failing Us

Here is Cenk Uygur relating recent discoveries that members of congress provided inside information to hedge fund managers. There hasn't been much media coverage on this. Cenk notes that the story originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal, which one would think would have been enough to trigger follow-up stories, you know, the ones on the front page of every newspaper saying criminal investigations are under way.

Didn't happen. And that is the other story: media complacency. Even though the story has been broken, few have followed up and tried to learn more. How many people really learned of this story? Can there be a more blatant example of the corruption of our government? And has our media reached a point where this no longer seems to be especially newsworthy?



Cenk treats this as a breaking story, and it should be, but in reality it is another incremental move to complete oligarchy. The more it happens, the less people pay attention. Apparently not enough people, regardless of motivation, seem to think the story should be vigorously pursued.

David Sirota has a excellent analysis on why no one is investigating Wall Street, not specifically the insider trading info given to the hedgies, but the widely documented criminal behavior of the big banks.

When it comes to our government’s collective refusal to aggressively investigate — much less prosecute — Wall Street crime, one prevailing line of apologism implies that it’s all about resources. As the general fable goes, Wall Street is so sprawling and so lawyered up that public law enforcement agencies simply don’t have the resources to make sure justice is served, especially at a time of budget deficits. In this story, Wall Street is not simply too big to fail; it’s too big to even police.

Right, David; there are reasons why congress has underfunded watchdog agencies like the SEC, and it isn't because it cares about the budget deficits. And it is worth noting that the media did in fact cover the banker-induced recession reasonably well, at least for those of us who sought out appropriate media sources. Not hard to do, by the way if you have an Internet connection. Sirota's dismay is that Washington knew full well what had happened, in time we all knew, but that there is still almost no government action to hold the criminal class criminally liable.  Instead politicians direct their venom at the poor.

Tracking an individual example of this phenomenon, Matt Taibbi makes clear that it’s really difficult to overstate just how revealing this kind of thing is. Wall Street crooks who stole trillions of dollars are rewarded by the administration with additional trillions in bailouts. Meanwhile, those crooks’ now-impoverished victims — so poor they are on food stamps, mind you — are being targeted by the same administration for criminal investigation for allegedly making a few extra bucks on recycling empty bottles.

Our government is directing prosecutorial resources at food stamp recipients because they may have earned a few extra dollars from recycling bottles. Poor people are sent to jail while the wealthy pay fines and sign documents that allow for no admission of wrong-doing.

We could endlessly debate the extent to which President Obama or Democrats in congress contribute to Wall Street's special privileges. It should be clear to all that Republicans are the party of America's wealthiest. Never in recent history has a party so shamelessly shilled for the 1% while demonizing, ridiculing, and haranguing the poor and powerless. It is Republicans, it must be remembered, who continue to claim that unqualified home borrowers of modest means were to blame for derailing the economy.

Others will argue, incorrectly in my view, that there is no real difference between the two parties. These are cynical conclusions held by the intellectually lazy. Having said that, there is not as much difference between the two parties as I would like, or as much as there used to be. More than a few Democrats have shown a contemptible willingness to do the bidding of the investor class.

Blowing Up the Economy

Here's Rachel Maddow giving an excellent overview of how Wall Street blew up the economy. This is the corrupt casino mentality that now dominates our lives. It is what happens when wealth is dramatically concentrated in the hands of so few that they literally don't know how to put it all to productive use. 

It doesn't help that many of those same people are America's most rapacious and reckless, the ones that want you to think they are creating wealth and should only be envied. Perhaps you have heard that investment bankers show personality characteristics very similar to psychopaths. And no, it is not the occasional rogue trader.

And who protects these guys? Who refused to investigate years of fraud? Who denounces Occupy Wall Street as unAmerican practitioners of class warfare, but has shown remarkable indifference to Wall Street's trillion dollar scams?

Who were Elliot Spitzer's mortal enemies, the ones who gleefully rejoiced when he was brought down?

Those are not rhetorical questions. You know the answer.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Bread and Circus

Hey sports fans. Some wonder why I am so indifferent to pro sports these days. Classmates will recall that I was a typical American school kid; I loved pro sports. Once I went to college, my interests.. uh... diversified. More recently I had a rekindled interest in college football, though that too is waning. I realize more than ever that money and power dominate and corrupt what is supposed to be an amateur enterprise. Not on my dime; not if I can help it.

We have become more like Rome than we realize. It is bad enough that modern sports are a diversion that help keep our public discourse so inane and uninformed.

It's actually much worse. Here is an interview of sports writer Dave Zirin. The essential problem, as he points out, is that wealthy owners get the public to pay for their arenas and stadiums. Massive tax breaks are usually involved. The owners are enjoying outsized profits precisely because they get taxpayers to underwrite their business. To cap it off, the owners use their profits to fund right-wing, anti-government agendas. They want you to think they are self-made captains of capitalism. They don't say much about the millions of tax dollars they pocket.

Hypocrisy anyone?  Dave Zirin's most recent book, Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love, tells the whole story.




I still want the Pac-12 to do well. Anyone but the SEC.

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Here's Cenk Uygur with guest Matt Taibbi acknowledging that Wall Street is now above the law.



Taibbi, who is one of America's last remaining old-school journalists, the kind that actually investigate the issues that matter and the perps behind the issues, reports on what should be on the front page of every newspaper, but isn't: The Security and Exchange Commission has been routinely destroying data, including sensitive and potentially incriminating data, for years. And it isn't data on you and me, but the bankers, brokers, and hedgies, the ones who have been defrauding us.

So not only are no charges being brought against criminals on Wall Street, much of the primary evidence against them, thanks to an accommodating SEC, has been trashed, quite literally. As Taibbi writes:

Imagine a world in which a man who is repeatedly investigated for a string of serious crimes, but never prosecuted, has his slate wiped clean every time the cops fail to make a case. No more Lifetime channel specials where the murderer is unveiled after police stumble upon past intrigues in some old file – "Hey, chief, didja know this guy had two wives die falling down the stairs?" No more burglary sprees cracked when some sharp cop sees the same name pop up in one too many witness statements. This is a different world, one far friendlier to lawbreakers, where even the suspicion of wrongdoing gets wiped from the record.

That story was in the August 17th edition of Rolling Stone, Taibbi's main haunt. There is, or should be, much more to this story. And, of course, much remains to be actually proven. But that is precisely what the media should be jumping on. Uncover the story one way or another. But we have a deadly combination of feckless media and embarrassing lack of citizen interest and knowledge. Considering all the Ritalin this country takes, you would think people could pay attention.

What do you want to bet this story goes nowhere? Republicans won't touch it because they don't care; they are ones that have largely emasculated the SEC anyway. and Obama is having enough trouble with moneyed interests as it is. He has decided he needs Wall Street's approval, so that quaint shit about equal application of the law is out the door.