https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KqOyNAmzdE
Friday, August 14, 2020
Anti-Laundering Bill Targeting Shell Companies Stalled in Senate as Big Banks Caught Cooking Books
https://citizentruth.org/anti-laundering-bill-targeting-shell-companies-stalled-in-senate-as-big-banks-caught-cooking-books/
The Anti-Money Laundering Act would expose the owners of shell companies now sits alone on a shelf in the US Senate while the Federal Reserve shrugs its shoulders in the face of blatant manipulation by the too-big-to-fail banks.
(By: Raul Diego, Mintpress News) Money laundering and cooking the books are usually treated as separate things when discussing white collar crime, even though the latter is often the mechanism through which the former is carried out. In the world of corporate banking, hedge funds and the host of satellite market services that underpin the financialized economies of the U.S. and U.K., tax haven jurisdictions allow money flowing in from all sorts of highly profitable illicit activities, shell companies and brass plate trusts to become an asset on the books of massive institutions like JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and HSBC; all of which have been embroiled in massive money laundering scandals.
Real account holders’ names escape regulatory scrutiny thanks to the anonymity the current rules of the game allow them to enjoy. But, that might soon come to an end if a bill passed by the House of Representatives makes it past the Senate. The Anti-Money Laundering Act was tucked inside the House’s version of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act and mandates the creation of a “beneficial ownership” record which would force the public disclosure of any U.S.-based company’s ownership.
The thought of the real names behind the plethora of shell companies and other shady instruments of finance being exposed must have sent a shiver down the back of more than one Senator, because the bill has been excised from the Pentagon’s annual budget authorization by the upper chamber, placing the proposed legislation in a state of limbo for the time being.
A beneficial ownership record would seriously curtail tax haven entities from operating in complete darkness, as they do now. The U.K. created its register in 2016 and Europe has been directed by Brussels to have one up and running by 2020. The legislation, which has earlier iterations known as the Illicit Cash Act and Corporate Transparency Act, was passed by a large majority in the lower house and reportedly has widespread support in the Senate, as well.
Transparency is too risky
Despite the already semi-opaque structure of the current bill, members of the Senate still want more. Unlike the U.K. version, which makes the data publicly available, the U.S. version would be controlled by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and only be accessible to law enforcement agencies.
The Senate Banking Committee has, reportedly already agreed on the bill’s language and only the funding source is a question mark, at this point. It is clear that the legislation has accrued momentum and will likely pass at some point. 42 Attorney Generals have urged the federal government to pass it and in June, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a letter in support to the Banking Committee.
As usual, the words sound very nice and a lot of people seem to be doing the right thing. But, history does not show a promising outcome. The measures put in place after 2008 in order to restrain the impulses of the “too-big-to-fail” financial institutions are being manipulated and, in some cases, completely ignored. Banks like JP Morgan Chase and HSBC – two of the biggest money launderers on earth – all seem to have a gentlemen’s understanding with the Federal Reserve about how the new rules are applied.
Gaming the system
After the crash of 2008, the Federal Reserve instituted so-called “stress tests” on banks and other financial institutions that had then been deemed “too big to fail”. A formal list has been compiled since 2011 and they are now called by their official designation, Global Systemically Important Financial Institutions (G-SIFIs).
These banks and insurers must report their levels of exposure to the Fed, which then assesses the need for more or less control over the institution’s financial activity or penalties through the results of a stress test (simulations run on their balance sheets). An annual stress test report is published by the Fed, which includes the capital requirements of each institution. But, it has now come to light that virtually all of the G-SIFI banks – JP Morgan Chase, HSBC and Deutsche Bank among others – have been cooking the books to fool the stress test in order to reduce their capital requirements.
A “bombshell” report by the American central bank reveals that the Fed is aware of the pattern being followed by the big banks to game the stress test; which they do by magically dropping their over-the-counter derivatives exposure by Trillions of dollars every fourth quarter and just as magically having it restored by the end of the following first quarter of the next auditing period. The practice, which seems to be tolerated by the Fed “as a legitimate means of reducing its capital requirements” makes a mockery of the entire point for stress testing, which is to mitigate systemic risk.
AOC Gets 60 Seconds at DNC While Republicans Get a Bigger Seat at the Table
Alec Pronk August 13, 2020
https://citizentruth.org/aoc-gets-60-seconds-at-dnc-while-republicans-get-a-bigger-seat-at-the-table/
Republican John Kasich will enjoy a full speaker slot at the Democratic National Convention
With the Vice President selected, the Democratic Party is gearing up for the Democratic National Convention. To the surprise and frustration of many, it was announced that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would only be allotted a 60-second prerecorded message rather than a full speaking slot.
The news confirmed the fear of many on the left-wing have that the most prominent voice of a burgeoning left-wing movement would be cast aside in favor of centrist, moderate, and conservative voices.
For her part, Ocasio-Cortez took the breaking news in stride and tweeted a poem about only having 60 seconds to speak.
Even prominent Biden supporter Charlotte Clymer spoke out against the decision calling it “absurd”. “AOC has done some of the most effective comms work of any Democrat in the country. 60 seconds is ridiculous,” she said.
But for many left-wing voices, the concern also stems from the other names on the speaking list, including the Republican former governor of Ohio John Kasich.
David Sirota, former senior adviser and speechwriter for the Bernie Sanders campaign, tweeted, “overjoyed that millions of progressives get a 60-second ad at the John Kasich concert.”
Time for Republicans, But Not The Squad?
John Kasich’s appearance on the first day of the DNC has been pitched as a “night of unity”. Kasich’s slot falls on the same day as Bernie Sanders’s speech, Joe Biden’s biggest competitor in the primary.
Kasich is part of a somewhat growing of “Never Trump” Republicans who insist they have turned their back on the party. And while the optics of nabbing a former Governor who ran in the Republican presidential primary, it has left the progressive wing of the party worried about their seat at the table.
There is little that unites the edges of the coalition the Democrats are attempting to build for the 2020 election. Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders have little in common politically with a governor who signed “one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans.”
And it’s not just Kasich, the Republican strategist hodgepodge at The Lincoln Project has gained notoriety on social media, a group of Republicans who have questionable intentions.
Biden has also looked to the ranks of Republican strategists for political help. Biden picked Republican strategist Ana Navarro to help drive Latinos out to the polls, a demographic Biden struggled with during the primary.
Never Trump?
Setting aside what Republican strategists and right-wing think tanks want after Biden is elected, a larger question remains to be seen, are Never Trump Republicans relevant if and when Trump is out of the picture?
Despite the swelling number of coronavirus cases and deaths and an unprecedented pandemic-induced economic recession, Trump’s approval ratings have held steady and are actually at a higher level than much of 2017.
And while Democrats have cheered progressive victories over established incumbents, the radical fringe of the Republican Party has enjoyed its own victories.
Several QAnon-supporting candidates have won Republican primaries, with a couple looking like they are nearly guaranteed a spot in Congress due to the voting breakdown of their district.
Marjorie Taylor Greene nearly cemented her seat in the House after her victory in the run-off primary in Georgia. Greene was facing off with another pro-Trump Republican, but the candidate who believes in the QAnon conspiracy took home the winning prize.
Not only does Greene believe in a conspiracy theory the F.B.I. labeled a potential domestic terrorism threat, but she also holds extreme views on race and religion.
Greene is not the only QAnon sympathizer running for Congress, and while she may be the first to be elected to Congress in November, she likely will not be the last.
If Biden Wins, Get Ready for Trump to Punish America
Thom Hartmann August 12, 2020
https://citizentruth.org/if-biden-wins-get-ready-for-trump-to-punish-america/
Revenge is as sweet to Trump as a race war.
What could happen to America if Trump were to further, severely crash the U.S. economy the day after Joe Biden is announced as the winner of the 2020 presidential race?
As Trump tweeted on June 15, 2019, “if anyone but me takes over… there will be a Market Crash the likes of which has not been seen before!”
On July 6, 2020, he tweeted, “If you want your 401k’s and Stocks, which are getting close to an all time high (NASDAQ is already there), to disintegrate and disappear, vote for the Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats and Corrupt Joe Biden.”
And on July 27, 2020, he further tweeted that “if Sleepy Joe Biden, the puppet of the Left, ever won. Markets would crash and cities would burn. Our Country would suffer like never before.”
Meanwhile, the meme is spreading. CCN Markets was quoting traders saying that a Biden win would cut 25 percent from the stock market, and Forbes is suggesting Biden “would be bad for businesses and could negatively impact the stock market.” Yahoo Finance quotes AdvisorShares CEO Noah Hamman as saying “a 25 percent decline is not an unreasonable expectation” if Biden wins.
Even the New York Times got into the act, with Matt Phillips writing that “the Trump tax cuts were a windfall for major American corporations, helping to drive up the profitability of companies in the S&P 500 more than 20 percent in 2018.” The suggestion is that reversing that tax cut will drive profitability down, and stock prices would follow.
All of these scenarios simply envision Biden removing the “sugar high” of unusually low corporate and billionaire tax rates through a Biden reversal of Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax cut.
But what if Trump decides he wants a slice of his favorite meal—revenge—and will get it during the nearly three months between the November 3 election and Biden’s inauguration on January 20?
What if Trump decides to punish America for not being sufficiently loyal to him, and that punishment is to drive America into a second Republican Great Depression while he’s handing the government over to Biden?
He now has the power to make this Depression, amplified by the pandemic, far, far worse than the Republican Great Depression of 1930, now that he’s cowed the Fed. It’s almost like it was set up in advance.
Jerome Powell is the first Fed chief in two generations who’s not an economist; instead, he’s a lawyer, a multimillionaire private equity banker and former partner with the Carlyle Group, whose BA was in politics.
And politics is where Powell shines. In a complete abrogation of the rules governing the Fed, he’s created roughly $7 trillion (one-third of the entire nation’s normal annual GDP) out of thin air and used much of that money to buy corporate stock and bonds to keep the stock market afloat.
In its 107-year history, the Fed has never, ever done this; some observers consider it illegal.
And the rest of the world is watching, as the dollar drops in value (and gold skyrockets) relative to other currencies, another sign that both inflation and economic disaster are on the horizon.
So, imagine that all the ballots are counted on, say, November 20, and Joe Biden is declared the winner. The next day, the Fed stops supporting the stock and corporate bond markets, and the Dow drops over the following few months to 7,800, roughly where it was in October 2008, the last time a Republican administration goosed the economy to keep things looking good until an election (although Bush mistimed it by a bit short of a year).
Making things even worse, Powell could announce that he’s actively working to drive up interest rates (a function related to inflation).
That would cause a tsunami of corporate bankruptcies (corporate debt is currently higher than any other time in American history) and a collapse of the housing market just as Biden is stepping into the White House.
Powell recently suggested he’s considering just such a move, as CNBC reported on August 4 with the headline: “The Fed is expected to make a major commitment to ramping up inflation soon.”
If Trump and Powell do this, Republican commentators will be all over TV and other media saying that the crash was entirely because Biden was elected. It’ll be a bald-faced lie, but the GOP has been peddling this kind of crap since the Reagan Revolution.
Getting our economic house in order, then, will be a more herculean effort than Franklin Delano Roosevelt pulled off after Republican President Herbert Hoover’s tax-cut and deregulation policies crashed the economy in 1930, and could take well over a decade.
And then there’s the matter of Trump showing the fascists in the GOP where the weaknesses are in our three branches of government. If a major market crash and even more widespread unemployment, homelessness and hunger than we’re experiencing today were to ripple across the country, a surge of protesters into the streets is probable.
And Trump’s been rehearsing how to respond to that, particularly in Portland, as Charles P. Pierce lays out in Esquire.
This would play right into the hands of right-wing groups that are openly working for a race-based second civil war, a replay of The Turner Diaries, the book that inspired Timothy McVeigh.
Trump and Attorney General William Barr have already revealed a number of areas where our rule of law is sadly deficient, including the inability to hold a president to account for crimes he has committed while in office and the damage a president can do by gutting almost every federal agency and then putting lobbyists in charge of them.
Many of the holes, cracks and weaknesses in our republic that Trump has exploited were put into place by the Supreme Court in the 1970s and by Congress after 9/11. It’s so bad that the headline of a Rolling Stone article by David S. Cohen notes, “Donald Trump is trying to start a race war. And with the Insurrection Act, he has the statutory authority to do so.”
America needs a major reboot.
The Buckley v. Valeo and First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti Supreme Court decisions of the 1970s gave corporations and billionaires the “free speech right” to own politicians and political parties, and the Patriot Act and other similar legislation since 9/11 have given the president vast police powers that, throughout history, we’ve only seen in authoritarian, strongman governments.
We must reevaluate, rescind and replace all of these, if our republic is to survive the fresh hell that Trump and his right-wing paramilitaries are apparently planning for this fall and winter.
If Democrats acquire federal power through holding the House and taking the Senate and White House, the entire country needs to be laser-focused on stripping the oligarchic and fascistic elements that have crept into our republic since the Powell memo, multiple Supreme Court interventions, and the Patriot Act with its associated war crimes and torture.
America today is at a turning point, and whether we continue our slide into fascism and oligarchy, or pull back to small-d democratic values will depend, in no small part, on the planning and work we do now, and the candidates and policies we support and put forward two and four years from now.
Within Healthcare USA, Risk and Reward Have Never Been More Out of Kilter
Sam Pizzigati August 12, 2020
https://citizentruth.org/within-healthcare-usa-risk-and-reward-have-never-been-more-out-of-kilter/
Nurses are losing lives and jobs while execs rake in million after million.
(Common Dreams) How’s pandemic life been going for you? If you work in America’s healthcare industry, that depends. That totally depends.
If you happen to provide healthcare services to actual Covid-19 patients—as a nurse or a doctor, an orderly or a physician’s assistant—this has been the year from hell. Amid the worst worldwide pandemic in over a century, you’ve been working long, intense, chaotic hours. You’ve watched patients die at rates unimaginable just six months ago. You’ve watched colleagues die. You’ve worried that you may be bringing death home to your families.
If you work in healthcare but don’t interact with pandemic patients, the months since March haven’t exactly been easy street either. In April alone, 1.4 million healthcare workers lost their jobs, as virus-free Americans delayed and cancelled appointments and elective procedures.
If, on the other hand, you swivel your day away in a corporate healthcare executive suite, these difficult and horrific months of Covid-19 have been among the most rewarding—financially—you’ve ever seen. The “vast majority” of healthcare companies, Axios reports, “are reporting profits that many people assumed would not have been possible as the pandemic raged on.”
Health insurers are leading the way, enjoying earnings, as a New York Times analysis puts it, “double what they were a year ago.” UnitedHealth, for instance, registered $6.7 billion in 2020 second-quarter profits, up from $3.4 billion in last year’s second quarter.
What explains this huge insurance industry profit spike? The simple story: Insurers like UnitedHealth, Aetna, and Anthem are continuing to collect their regular premiums from the Americans they insure, but they’re paying out far less—as the pandemic rages on—for claims on normal maladies.
Now the Affordable Care Act—Obamacare —does have a provision that requires insurers to spend at least 80 percent of the premium dollars they collect on providing direct healthcare services. If they miss that target, they have to rebate dollars to the businesses and individuals they insure. Those rebates, unfortunately, seldom amount to much.
One reason: Many of the giant health insurers don’t just sell insurance. They also control networks of doctors and own health services firms like pharmacy benefit managers. These auxiliary companies charge—and overcharge—their parent health insurer for the healthcare services they provide. These relationships, in effect, let health insurers launder their profits and sidestep the Obamacare profit limits.
A second reason the Obamacare rebates provision has been less than an effective check on corporate greed: Health insurers can delay paying any rebates to customers for up to three years. In the meantime, their excessive profits can trigger one windfall after another for the CEOs who engineer them.
At CVS Health, the corporation that owns Aetna, CEO Larry Merlo pocketed $36.5 million last year, up from $21.9 million the year before. Merlo took home 790 times the pay of his company’s most typical worker.
The lowest-paid CEO among America’s seven biggest health insurers, Anthem chief Gail Boudreaux, grabbed a healthy $15.5 million in 2019, the equivalent of just under $300,000 a week.
If current pandemic-time trends continue, top execs like Merlo and Boudreaux will end up doing even better in 2020. But they might not do quite as well as their counterparts in Big Pharma.
The Trump administration is currently shoveling cash to the nation’s biggest drugmakers—for the development of coronavirus vaccines—at a furious pace. If the vaccines these companies are developing and testing end up flubbing, the drugmakers get to keep all that cash. If the vaccines work, these companies will get still more cash—since their deals with the White House entitle them to register patents they can exploit for years to come.
The most visible of these corona vaccine companies has so far been Moderna, a Massachusetts-based start-up founded ten years ago. The federal government, notes economist Dean Baker from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, has signed Moderna to nearly $1 billion in contracts, $483 million for pre-clinical research and initial testing and another $472 million for advanced testing. In the process, notes Baker, the federal government is taking all the risk.
“If Moderna’s vaccine turns out to be ineffective,” he points out, “the government will be out the money, not Moderna.”
Already “in” the money: Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel. His company’s soaring share price now has him a billionaire three times over.
How can we put the kibosh on this sort of shameless profiteering? We need, no more than ever, systemic change in healthcare, starting with Medicare for All.
In the shorter term, legislation along the line of the “Make Billionaires Pay Act” that Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) have just introduced would speak directly to Corporate America’s pandemic jackpots.
This new legislation would, if enacted, place a one-time 60 percent tax on the $732 billion in new wealth that 467 top U.S. billionaires have added to their fortunes since the corona lockdown in March.
Some of those billionaires—most notably Tesla CEO Elon Musk—have openly defied the pandemic’s public health protections. Musk reopened his flagship California Tesla plant in a direct challenge to local safety rules. His defiance of these rules has helped Musk triple his personal fortune since the pandemic began. Under the new Senate legislation, he would face a richly deserved wealth tax of $27.5 billion.
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