Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Congress Calls Banks to Testify - Why? Maybe Congress Should Testify as Well!

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Today the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is hearing testimony about the economic disaster of the past year from four of the nation’s leading bankers: Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase, John J. Mack of Morgan Stanley and Brian T. Moynihan of Bank of America.



What in the world is the point? Isn't this just another example of Congress sending up a smoke screen to hide the fact there is nothing they can do about the practices and billions of dollars in executive bonuses being paid out by the banks that just a few months ago faced bankruptcy until the American taxpayers bailed them out. How can they when they are taking millions in campaign bribes from these same people for elections this year?

This is the midterm election year. It just started. Yet the House members have already raised over $263 million and Senate members have already raised over $166 million to get re-elected. Now where in the world did that money come from? Well over $85 million came from banks and over $54 million came from lawyers and lobbyists. Is there any doubt why this Congress cannot slap the hand that feeds them?



In last year's election the banks poured $132 million and the lawyers and lobbyists poured over $95 million into the presidential race. Doesn't that explain why Obama has also been silent on exposing the co-dependence between our politicians and the institutions they are supposed to regulate.

Our economy collapsed over the last two years yet Congress has just started hearings on why the economy collapsed? When do they ever plan on getting to the point of telling us which of their contributors caused the collapse, and how they intend to punish them? Never! Our federal elected officials long ago sold their souls for campaign contributions and have been protecting the thieves in our midst ever since.



Hearings like these are an insult to the public, make a mockery of our governmental system, and do nothing to stop the high crimes and theft between Wall Street in NYC and Easy Street in our Nation's Capitol. Not a single soul in Washington seems to be saying anything about stopping the millions of campaign dollars from being collected by our elected officials from the same people ripping off the system and paying the multi-billion dollar bonuses.

Campaign reform, a pledge of Obama, the Democrats and Republicans, has vanished from the national debate. Well without campaign reform nothing can be done to stop the flow of money from the banks to the politicians. If $139 million has already been invested by the banks in our politicians this year, and it is only the middle of January, just imagine the price that will be paid before the year is out to buy our politicians.



Only the people of America can stop this nonsense. We must demand politicians stop taking the bribes. And we must throw out the politicians taking the bribes. There is no way a White House and Congress already dependent on the campaign funds will stop it.



We have been lied to over and over again. Politicians and the media, whose companies are also dependent on these same firms for advertising revenue, will never tell you the truth about how the politicians and media in America are for sale.

The American revolution was fought over an insensitive government, a corrupt government, and the influence of big business and the banks on the American way of life. Nothing seems to have changed in all the years since. Once again it is the people who must take back America and purge our nation of the evil, corruption, deceit and moral decay that rein supreme.



Freedom and democracy are again threatened by political institutions that think they know better than the people. Nothing could be further from the truth. The ballot is our first line of defense to stop the rape of America and now that the president and congress have demonstrated they cannot stand up to the people who own them, we must use the ballot to clean up the mess.

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