bank lobby

While Jamie Dimon Gently Weeps, a "Big Stick" Bank Attack on Democracy

Richard Eskow — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:40:45 -0400

He's at again - and we're glad. A lot of smart people are dedicating their lives to fighting the corrosive effect of Wall Street on our economy and our democracy, but the best spokesman for that cause comes from Wall Street itself.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is still the poster child for today's morally degraded, self-entitled banker mentality. I don't know why he keeps talking, but he's the gift that keeps on giving.

At every major junction in the post-crisis debate about banking, Dimon has stepped in with a perfectly tactless remark that illustrates both the vacuity and the moral corruption of his industry. This week was no exception.

JPM: CSI

Dimon's own bank is the perfect case study in the lamentable state of Wall Street's ethics nowadays. Bankers have been able to break the law and walk away by agreeing to settlements in which their shareholders, not they, pay the penalty for their misdeeds.

A Google search of the words "JPMorgan Chase settles" yields nearly two million hits. Narrow it down to recent events and you get items like these:

"JPMorgan a party to mortgage servicing settlement …" (that's the deal to settle massive mortgage fraud; by the way, where are the prosecutions?);
"JPMorgan settles AFTRA pension suit for $150 million" (which appears to involve more incompetence than fraud);
"JPMorgan Chase< /a>has agreed to pay $153.6 million to settle federal civil accusations that it misled investors in a complex mortgage securities transaction in 2007";
JPMorgan to pay $20m to settle case on Lehman funds handling" (for misappropriating funds); and
"JPMorgan Chase Settles Whistleblower Lawsuit Alleging Fraud in Veteran Loans for $45 Million."

That last one is a particularly odious lawsuit "alleging that it cheated military veterans and taxpayers out of millions of dollars by hiding illegal fees in veterans' home mortgage refinancing transactions and then seeking to collect on void government loan guarantees."

Running JPM's Priors

That's a lot of activity since we last reviewed JPMorgan's criminal record at the end of 2010. JPM's history back then included a settlement in which it had to forego three quarters of a billion dollars in fines and anticipated fees after the bribery of public officials in (now bankrupt) Jefferson County, Alabama. It also included a $25 million fine for selling unregistered securities in Florida, multiple whistleblower complaints, and allegations of currency manipulation.

As for the mortgage fraud charges that Dimon's bank just bought its way out from, accounts at the time told of a sleazy operation where untrained and inexperienced youngsters were hired to mass-produce paperwork that evicted people fraudulently from their homes:

"At JPMorgan Chase & Company, they were derided as 'Burger King kids' -- walk-in hires who were so inexperienced they barely knew what a mortgage was ... revelations that mortgage servicers failed to accurately document the seizure and sale of tens of thousands of homes have caused a public uproar ..."

JPMorgan's rap sheet is long and ugly, which leaves observers with a judgement they'll have to make for themselves about Dimon: Is he ethically challenged, or is he just an incompetent executive who can't get his own house in order?

Nice Little Office You Got Here, Representative. Hate to See Somethin' Happen To It

Dimon's latest foot-stamping tirade comes at the perfect time, as usual. American Banker reports that bankers have formed a SuperPAC which one lobbyist describes as a "big stick" in order to bully politicians into serving them more effectively.

"Congress isn't afraid of bankers," said another. "They don't think we'll do anything to kick them out of office." In case somebody missed the point, the lobbyist then added: "We want to change that perception."

Actually, progressive members of Congress are very aware of the bank lobby's power. Progressive Representatives have told me privately that they're very aware of the cautionary tale of Rep. Peter DeFazio, a courageous reformer in a "safe" district who suddenly found himself in a bitter election struggle in 2010 against an unknown an inexperienced opponent - one with a huge campaign war chest funded by anonymous "Eastern" donors.

DeFazio survived - barely - after being forced to divert attention and resources to his bank-funded opponent. Many other progressives in Congress lack the voter familiarity and demographics that allowed DeFazio to hang on against such a well-funded onslaught, and they know it.

That's one reason why so many Democrats don't take more forceful stands against Wall Street - that, and the chance to get some banker contributions, has helped bank executives rewrite laws, write loopholes - and stay out of jail despite over whelming evidence of lawbreaking. But it's not enough. The new SuperPAC is meant to consolidate the bankers' stranglehold over our politics and our lives.

While My Banker Gently Weeps

Enter Jamie Dimon, right on cue. Dimon just complained that regulators “made the recovery worse than it otherwise would have been" - which is not only wrong, but avoids addressing the issue of the recovery's cause, which was banks like Dimon's. Dimon added that the government forced banks to de-leverage "“at precisely the wrong time" - which is precisely wrong. The government's real error was in not breaking up too-big-to-fail banks like Dimon's.

“Complexity and confusion should have been alleviated, not compounded," complains Dimon. I have a friend who works for JPM - name withheld for his own protection - who complained about the "mountains of paperwork" they've been forced to fill out. "I have a better solution," I told him. "We can just break you guys up. You wouldn't need to fill out the papers if your bank's failure didn't pose a threat to the entire financial system." He thought for a second and then said, "You're right."

On a parenthetical note: I just helped my mother take some money out of her modest Chase long-term savings account. If you want to talk about "complexity and confusion," Chase's own internal procedures are a good place to start.

Where are those "economies of scale" Mr. Dimon keeps promising we'll get from allowing banks like his to become so enormous?

Hit Me With Your Banking Stick ... Hit Me, Hit Me ...

Meanwhile, the new SuperPAC is filled with the language of bullies: "Big stick." "Make them afraid." "Surgical." ""Defeat our enemies." "Hammer these guys." Bullying has always gone hand in hand with a sense of victimhood, and today's bankers are no exception.

Their new PAC is called, without any apparent sense of irony, "Friends of Traditional Banking."

But what they represent isn't traditional banking at all. It's the new breed of Superpredator Bank created by deregulation, and it's exactly what must be stopped.

With Friends Like This

The ABA article says "SuperPACs are considered pretty cutting-edge, which is not a place a lot of bankers feel comfortable."

But we know that's not true. Bankers, and their compliant political friends in both parties, felt comfortable deregulating in the nineties in order to promote what was then called "financial innovation" - credit-default swaps, mortgage-backed securities, and the like. They still complain that regulation will stifle "innovation."

And all the major banks were happy to collaborate in MERS, the electronic mortgage casino that circumvented local laws and taxes while enabling the housing bubble and the explosion of banker mortgage fraud.

No, banks like the "cutting edge" just fine - as long as someone else does the bleeding. That's why bankers like Jamie Dimon and SuperPACs like "Friends of Traditional Banking" must be stopped - by friends of traditional democracy.

And The Door Revolves . . .

Zach Carter — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 14:24:32 -0500

Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.C., is almost certain to be chairman of the Senate Banking Committee next year, once current chair Chris Dodd, D-Conn., is out of office. Johnson has never had a good reputation with consumer advocates, in large part because he's opposed nearly every piece of legislation designed to thwart predatory lending.

That perspective is not likely to change with his chairmanship. Johnson just hired a top bank lobbist named Dwight Fettig to be a "senior policy adviser." Fettig's clients included some of the chief scumbags that wrecked the economy, secured epic bailouts, and opposed financial reform: the American Bankers Association, JPMorgan Chase, the National Association of Mortgage Brokers and the Vanguard Group hedge fund. Prior to peddling influence on behalf of the too-big-to-fail gang, he was the top "government relations" man at Freddie Mac. During the housing bubble.

By hiring Fettig, Johnson is sending the clearest signal possible to Wall Street: I've got your back.

This isn't Fettig's first trip through the revolving door. Before entering the bank lobby, he worked as a Johnson aide in the House.

So the bad news is, Congress is totally corrupt. The good news? It already was.

UPDATE:

And hey! Obama's former Budget Director Peter Orszag just joined Citigroup! It's really pretty sick. The Republicans just spent an entire year promising to give Wall Street whatever they wanted on anything, but the public still thinks it's the Democrats alone who are in bed with Wall Street. This is why.

This also is not the Office of Management and Budget's first turn through the revolving door this year. The current director, Jack Lew, made $1 million running Citi's Alternative Investments unit into the ground.

The political optics here are just horrible. Obama is pushing a tax cut deal that provides huge benefits for the super-rich . . . as his former budget director take a job as Vice Chairman at Citigroup, thus joining the ranks of the super-rich.

Merry Christmas, Wall Street.

AIG Redux: Wall Street Presses Regulators To Repeal New Derivatives Rules

Zach Carter — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 09:47:05 -0400

It's been pretty well-documented that the ultimate fate of Wall Street reform will depend on a series of highly technical proceedings at federal regulatory agencies. If regulators adopt tough new rules, the financial overhaul could succeed well beyond the expectations of optimistic reformers. But there is a very real danger that banks will be able to roll regulators during these quiet and technical affairs, without any real public oversight. One of the most important areas to watch are the rules surrounding derivatives—the shadowy market that brought down AIG. The battle is already under way, and the bank lobby isn't pulling its punches.

Wall Street reform basically did two things unquestionably well. It created a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to curb bank abuses, and it reined in the derivatives market, which is currently a hotbed for fraud, abuse and systemic risk. There are dozens of smaller-bore accomplishments in the Dodd-Frank bill, but derivatives and the CFPB are the two major wins.

Take a look at this 7-page letter from The American Bankers Association—the bank lobby—and this 10-page letter from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA)—another Wall Street lobby group. See if you can spot where they regulators to completely erase the legislative progress on derivatives.

You probably can't-- unless you're a bank lobbyist, a finance lawyer or a nerdy blogger. And the bank lobby loves it that way, because there are only a few nerdy bloggers out there, even fewer financially literate mainstream reporters, and hundreds and hundreds of bank lobbyists. Here are the critical passages from page 6 of the ISDA letter, and page 4 of the ABA letter. I'll explain why it's so destructive below. ISDA:

Financial" risks are "commercial risks." The dictionary definition of "commercial" is "of, pertaining to, or characteristic of commerce." The term "commercial risk" should be defined against this background.

ABA:

It is very important for our members that the term "commercial risk" be interpreted broadly enough to include financial risk for depository institutions.

In the years leading up to the financial crash of 2008, banks could trade complex derivatives completely in the dark. If Goldman Sachs wanted to make a deal with AIG, all they had to do was make a phone call (or just as frequently, type out an AOL instant message). No government regulator looked at this trade, and nobody in the market evaluated whether either party could possibly make good on it.

And so AIG built up literally trillions of dollars in exposure to the housing market by betting money it didn't have with big Wall Street banks. And banks, eager to dump the risks posed by crappy mortgages onto AIG, didn't bother to figure out if AIG could ever possibly make good on all of its derivatives contracts.

Ultimately, AIG got burned badly, and the banks came crying to Washington for help. The Federal Reserve acquiesced, and funneled billions of dollars to AIG, which in turn went directly to major banks—most notably Goldman, which scored $12 billion from the first round of payments alone.

One way to fix this problem is to give the market some scrutiny over derivatives trading—the same kind of scrutiny it has over ordinary stock trades. This is a minimum step—as we've seen with flash crashes and naked short sales, market scrutiny isn't a guarantee against fraud, abuse or excess. But it's a lot better than nothing.

So the Wall Street reform legislation required all derivatives contracts to be traded through what's known as a "central clearinghouse." This is basically a third company that serves as an intermediary between the two firms that want to trade—the way the New York Stock Exchange stands between two companies trading a stock.

When Goldman calls up AIG, the clearinghouse forces both companies to post margin on the trade, verifies their ability to make good on it, and agrees to foot the bill of one party can't pony up.

But the big banks, operating primarily through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, were able to carve-out a big loophole in this process. Surely not every trade needed to be centrally cleared, they argued. Plenty of farmers and manufacturers ink derivatives contracts in order to insure themselves against ordinary, non-financial commercial business risks. If a farmer is worried that the price of wheat might go up or down, he can go to JPMorgan Chase and ink a trade. The farmer pays JPMorgan a few dollars every month, and if the price of wheat goes too high or too low, JPMorgan agrees to pay the difference to the farmer. We don't want to punish poor farmers for excesses committed on Wall Street.

This argument was always stupid for lots of reasons, but it ultimately won the day. "End-users" like airlines and farmers that wanted to hedge "commercial risks" were not required to trade through a clearinghouse.

Fast forward to September 20, and the bank lobby is trying to pull a fast one by redefining the word "commercial." The bank lobby is trying to convince regulators that the business risks of financial institutions—banks, hedge funds and companies like AIG—ought to count as "commercial risks." If the bank lobby succeeds, they'll allow all kinds of huge financial firms to keep their derivatives trading in the dark, and leave the economy open to another AIG-style calamity.

That would directly benefit major Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. Remember, it's not just the farmer who avoids the clearinghouse when she hedges a "commercial" risk—it's the trade itself. That means that the bank on the other side of the trade gets to deal off the grid, as well. So long as the too-big-to-fail Wall Street banks conduct their riskiest, most abusive deals with hedge funds, insurance companies or anybody except another too-big-to-fail Wall Street bank, they could keep their trading totally secret. That is exactly what happened with AIG, and with these two letters, the bank lobby is pressuring regulators to maintain that status quo. If the TBTF derivatives dealers get into trouble again, after all, they can always come to taxpayers for a bailout, just as they did with AIG.

So there you have it. A full 900 words of blogging to explain why a single word in a letter from bank lobbyists threatened to undo one of the most significant accomplishments from the Wall Street reform bill.

There are literally hundreds of rules like this coming. And Republicans are already vowing to hamstring regulators if they gain control of the House next year.

Why Wall Street Reform Should Hammer Bank Profits

Zach Carter — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 13:11:42 -0400

Of the universal-policy-bloggers who occasionally wade into financial waters, Matt Yglesias is generally one of the best. But sometimes he's just flat wrong, and his post today on financial profits is one of those times. Matt argues that looking to financial profits to measure the effectiveness of Wall Street reform is not a good idea, and he's missing the point. The good news is, Annie Lowrey wrote a great piece explaining the current landscape surrounding Wall Street reform, one in which responsible policymakers understand that lower bank profits are an important sign of economic progress.

Here's the key passage from Matt's blog:

"Much has been made, for example, of financial sector profits as a share of overall corporate profits. The numbers are sufficiently striking as probably constitute cause for alarm, but as a metric this is an odd one. If competition between cell phone carriers becomes more robust, leading to falling prices for consumers that’s a good thing. But since it implies smaller profits for Verizon and AT&T it means banking sector profits will rise as a share of overall profits. But who cares?"

This is silly. When people cite this statistic—and I'm one of the people who like to do so—they're not comparing Citibank's profitability to Verizon's. They're comparing the entire financial sector to the entire corporate economy. The idea that innovations in corporate governance, technology and overall corporate efficiency could be applicable to the entire economy except finance should be extremely suspect. Many of these innovations should apply to corporations generally—whether they're banks or boat-manufacturers. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that literally every sector of the economy except finance has found a way to make itself more efficient over the past few decades, while finance has remained the same old bloated bureaucratic beast.

And if we look at the actual recent history of finance, we see that there have, in fact, been dozens of major financial innovations—but innovations that served to extract rents from other players in the economy. Finance, and banks in particular, figured out great ways of simply gobbling up other peoples' money. This didn't create new, better economic activity—it destroyed economic activity and converted it into bonuses for bankers and traders.

And you can measure this phenomenon by examining financial profits as a share of overall corporate profits. It's one way of analyzing the extent to which finance is cannibalizing the real economy. That problem is very significant, even if you ignore the fact that big banks need to be bailed out and create financial crises that have brutal effects on the broader economy. The crashes and bailouts are bad, but finance is eating jobs and converting them into bonuses without them. That's worse.

Matt also emphasizes the need for international coordination on financial reform. It's true to a point, but essentially meaningless so far as U.S. policy is concerned. Sure, if the U.S. adopts really tough Wall Street regulations, and the rest of the world doesn't, then reckless financial activity will move overseas. And eventually, financial excess elsewhere can create trouble here.

But financial recklessness abroad doesn't create the same kind or degree of economic fallout that financial excess at home does. It's bad for the U.S. if global credit markets freeze up because of a real estate bubble in France. It's much worse for the U.S. if global credit markets freeze up because millions of Americans are in foreclosure. "International cooperation" has become a lame excuse not to regulate finance at home, but we can only expect our friends abroad to be as stringent as we are here. If the U.S. continues to allow its banks to take on huge risks as taxpayers guarantee losses, then we're setting ourselves up for economic trouble—much worse economic trouble than we'd have if Europe alone was allowing financial excess.

Matt is commenting on Annie Lowrey's excellent write-up of the Roosevelt Institute conference organized by finance blogger Mike Konczal. Lowrey's piece is a superb summation of the event, and an excellent snapshot of where financial reform stands at this moment—both its enormous economic potential and its perilous political straits.

I'll have my own write-up on the conference tomorrow, but here's a quick summary: Getting Congress to pass any legislation reining in Wall Street was a major task, and the bill we got gives regulators several useful tools. The trouble is, it doesn't give regulators all of the tools, and the regulators who want to fix problems are about to get badgered to death by a Republican Congress that has already threatened to de-fund key parts of the legislation. We'll know if Wall Street reform works if bank profits decline for the right reasons-- not just because the economy sucks, but because banks aren't devouring other economic activity.

Crony Capitalism: Wall Street's Favorite Politicians

Zach Carter — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 17:02:59 -0400

A full 90 members of Congress who voted to bailout Wall Street in 2008 failed to support financial reform reining in the banks that drove our economy off a cliff. But when you examine campaign contribution data, it's really no surprise that these particular lawmakers voted to mortgage our economic future to Big Finance: This election cycle, they've raked in over $48.8 million from the financial establishment. Over the course of their Congressional careers, the figure swells to a massive $176.9 million.

The complete list of these Crony Capitalists is below, along with the money they pulled in from Big Finance, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics (opensecrets.org). The career data goes back to 1989. Of the 69 House members who voted with Wall Street on both the bailout and financial reform, 60 are Republicans, while nine are Democrats. All 21 Senators who voted with Wall Street on both issues are Republicans, and Republicans raked in over 90 percent of the total campaign contributions. Here's a chart showing Wall Street's total contributions to this crowd for the 2010 cycle, by political party:

And here's one showing total Wall Street contributions over the course of their careers:

These aren't the only politicians carrying water for Wall Street—only the most flagrant. Some of the bank lobby's savviest servants on Capitol Hill do their dirty work early in the legislative process. They push through technical amendments and deploy complex procedural tricks to defang a bill, but when the final vote comes, they can still create the appearance of taking a stand against Wall Street's interests. Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill., is a master of this technique, and Tea Party favorite Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., was able to claim credit for voting in favor of reform after demanding—and receiving—a host of big bank giveaways in return for his vote.

Nor are Republicans the only recipients of Wall Street largesse. Bean, for instance, has pulled in over $773,000 from Wall Street in the 2010 cycle alone, while working overtime to carve loopholes into new consumer protections (she's scored $2.4 million over the course of her Congressional career). And the Democratic leadership has received millions as well.

When it comes to dealing out economic damage, no special interest group has been able to wreak more havoc that Big Finance. After inflating an $8 trillion housing bubble and sparking a recession that has cost the economy over 8 million jobs, public pressure to crack down on Wall Street was intense. And the public is still clamoring for Wall Street accountability—after two years in office, the Wall Street reform bill remains the most popular legislative effort championed by President Barack Obama, and getting tough on Big Finance has been a reliable re-election strategy for embattled incumbents.

But harnessing the Wall Street beast proved a tortuously long and difficult process, taking nearly two years despite its economic urgency. And while the bill that Congress approved this year has plenty of virtues, many of the most critical reforms were simply not addressed by the legislation. The too-big-to-fail financial behemoths that taxpayers bailed out in 2008 are even bigger today, banks can still gamble with taxpayer money, and the foreclosure crisis continues to ravage neighborhoods across the country. Until these issues are addressed, the U.S. economy will remain beholden to Wall Street's bonus-crazed whims.

But if you follow the money, it's obvious why so much work remains to be done on financial reform. This year alone, Wall Street spent a staggering $251 million fighting financial reform. According to a separate analysis of campaign contributions performed by Public Citizen, lawmakers who voted with Wall Street on both the bailout and reform received nearly triple the campaign cash of those who opposed Wall Street (figures in the Public Citizen study don't correspond to those I've compiled, as Public Citizen examined contributions from 2007 through July of 2010).

Despite the popularity of Wall Street reform, 90 members of Congress didn't even want to publicly pretend to support reining in almost universally reviled banks. When you're trying to decide which bums to throw out in November, here's one place to start. These members of Congress are okay with setting up economic calamities, and they don't mind paying for them with your tax dollars.

Here's how Wall Street's contributions break down among Wall Street's 21 Senate Cronies. For 2010:

For their careers:

And here are all of the Cronies, along with their Wall Street hauls:

Senator	2010 Wall Street Cash	Career Wall Street Cash
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN)	$1,600,000	$4,900,000
Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT)	$1,500,000	$2,600,000
Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO)	$333,600	$3,300,000
Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC)	$1,500,000	$3,300,000
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)	$2,500,000	$3,500,000
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK)	$451,700	$1,200,000
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN)	$3,100,000	$3,300,000
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)	$3,200,000	$4,700,000
Sen. John Ensign (R-NV)	$1,300,000	$2,600,000
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)	$1,100,000	$2,000,000
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH)	$233,200	$1,100,000
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)	$1,400,000	$2,600,000
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)	$1,400,000	$4,700,000
Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA)	$1,500,000	$4,200,000
Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ)	$2,800,000	$3,800,000
Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN)	$412,200	$2,500,000
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)	$947,600	$34,000,000
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)	$4,300,000	$5,300,000
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)	$268,200	$909,700
Sen. John Thune (R-SD)	$1,600,000	$3,900,000
Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH)	$435,200	$2,800,000
21 Republicans
0 Democrats
Senate Total	$31,881,700	97,209,700

House Member	2010 Wall Street Cash	Career Wall Street Cash
Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La.	$106,500	$422,300
Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala.	$611,600	$4,400,000
Rep. Gresham Barrett, R-S.C.	$20,400	$806,700
Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark.	$24,900	$663,700
Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Ill.	$395,000	$1,900,000
Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.	$1,200,000	$3,800,000
Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio	$1,300,000	$3,700,000
Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Ala.	$90,400	$702,200
Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif.	$190,000	$733,400
Rep. John Boozman, R-Ark.	$257,700	$491,000
Rep. Dan Boren, D-Okla.	$123,100	$722,200
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va.	$92,700	$1,400,000
Rep. Charles Boustany Jr, R-La.	$226,300	$934,600
Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas	$157,000	$840,500
Rep. Henry Brown, R-S.C.	$35,700	$494,000
Rep. Vernon Buchanan, R-Fla.	$336,800	$1,400,000
Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif.	$180,300	$940,300
Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich.	$588,000	$1,700,000
Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif.	$413,400	$1,200,000
Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va.	$2,100,000	$4,400,000
Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del.	$749,100	$3,200,000
Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C.	$23,400	$502,500
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.	$110,000	$686,000
Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas	$161,500	$711,800
Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla.	$86,100	$717,000
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas	$90,600	$606,900
Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa.	$177,900	$881,000
Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas	$324,200	$1,900,000
Rep.Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich.	$8,500	$292,200
Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo.	$143,900	$904,400
Rep. Mary Fallin, R-Okla	($1,000)	$340,700
Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J.	$86,200	$840,300
Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-Pa.	$251,600	$1,800,000
Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas	$140,000	$1,100,000
Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif.	$171,500	$1,100,000
Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich.	($1,000)	$300,600
Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C.	0	$572,800
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.	$173,900	$1,600,000
Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill.	$1,900,000	$4,200,000
Rep. John Kline, R-Minn	$170,900	$989,100
Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif.	$31,800	$748,000
Rep. Daniel E. Lungren, R-Calif.	$147,700	$622,500
Rep. Howard McKeon, R-Calif.	$132,100	$1,100,000
Rep. Gary Miller, R-Calif.	$144,500	$902,000
Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz.	$130,900	$558,000
Rep. Sue Myrick, R-S.C.	$93,600	$1,200,000
Rep. Soloman Ortiz, D-Texas	$40,200	$381,700
Rep. George Radanovich, R-Calif.	$24,900	$462,000
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala.	$128,200	$1,000,000
Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky.	$50,200	$468,000
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.	$127,000	$986,000
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.	$531,500	$1,900,000
Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio	$121,900	$519,700
Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz.	$39,700	$1,200,000
Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa.	$30,700	$403,600
Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Ind.	$20,500	$266,900
Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo.	$112,500	$524,200
Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas	$258,900	$1,300,000
Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind.	$40,500	$405,800
Rep. Zack Space, D-Ohio	$169,300	$476,300
Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla.	$79,200	$494,800
Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb.	$202,600	$1,400,000
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas	$42,500	$603,400
Rep. Patrick Tiberi, R-Ohio	$555,500	$2,800,000
Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich.	$81,700	$929,400
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.	$180,700	$732,400
Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn.	0	$715,700
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C.	$155,500	$580,200
Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va.	$90,400	$1,100,000
60 Republicans	$15,873,400	$72,443,800
9 Democrats	$1,108,400	$7,233,000
House Total	$16,981,800	$79,676,800

What's the Hold-up on Elizabeth Warren?

Zach Carter — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:07:35 -0400

Nobody seriously disputes whether Elizabeth Warren is the best-qualified candidate to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Everybody recognizes the bipartisan political appeal that Warren has with voters, and Democratic strategists know that no action in their power would play better to the party's base than a Warren nomination—a vital maneuver ahead of the November elections. President Barack Obama has no less than three procedural options to get Warren on the job. So: What's the hold-up?

The bank lobby has been doing everything it can to block Warren's nomination, but there are simply no good reasons to bypass her. In the field of finance, there is simply no consumer advocate more accomplished than Warren. She's quite possibly the finest bankruptcy scholar in the country, she came up with the idea for a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the first place, and as Chair of the Oversight Panel for the Wall Street bailout, she has proven that she is willing to ask tough questions and hold powerful people accountable for their actions (she has also been profoundly non-partisan, critiquing Democrats and Republicans alike). Warren has even authored a terrific book on managing household budgets, one which is not only full of excellent advice, but which proves she understands the economic pressures facing everyday Americans.

Wall Street bankers say this kind of record is grounds to question her "impartiality," but after decades of regulatory appointments that came straight from the banking industry, this cry rings hollow. John Dugan, the top bank regulator appointed by President George W. Bush was a bank lobbyist before Bush got him the job—I don't remember bankers worrying about his impartiality.

Moreover, the CFPB is supposed to advocate for consumers by design. That's the whole point of the agency. It's supposed to do so in a nuanced and sophisticated manner, but Warren's entire career shows evidence of exactly these characteristics. You don't have to read through academic law papers for proof, just read her blogs on consumer credit..

So what is Obama waiting for? Outside the offices of Wall Street CEOs, Warren enjoys extremely broad appeal among the general public. She's a former Republican from Oklahoma who fights for working people, not for Democrats or leftists or any other political group or special interest agenda. She wants to see the middle class protected from financial predation. That's not a radical ideology—it's common-sense economics and basic business ethics. Senators would find it very difficult to explain a vote against Warren to their constituents.

But if Obama really doesn't believe Warren can muster the votes in the Senate, he has two other options. He can appoint her during a Congressional recess, or, thanks to a provision of the bill that established the CFPB, he can name her "interim" head of the agency, neither of which require confirmation. There's no reason to be ashamed of such a move, as Warren would easily garner the 50 votes mandated by the Constitution. The only question is whether she could clear 60 votes to get around contemporary Senate rules, and we're only really asking that question because one bank-lobby-friendly Senator asked it, without offering any evidence of confirmation hurdles, while acknowledging that he himself would vote for her.

Obama could even combine these options, naming Warren interim head of the CFPB right now, while simultaneously submitting her nomination for the permanent post to the Senate. This move would allow Warren to begin her work at the agency immediately, as Congress goes through the confirmation process.

Any of these strategies could be perfectly acceptable, depending on the details. Nobody wants to see a fake-out, where Obama puts Warren in the post for a few months, only to replace her with a bank-lobby pick after the election. But there's plenty of evidence that the president sincerely wants to get Warren the job—he fought hard to create the CFPB, and he has praised both Warren and her work repeatedly. He has several options for getting Warren on the job right now and keeping her there for years. So what's the hold-up?

Chris Dodd is Embarassing Himself

Zach Carter — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:06:38 -0400

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., is grasping at straws to block Elizabeth Warren's nomination as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He's making a fool of himself, and hurting his party's political prospects for November.

Dodd's latest foray into bank lobby dirty work came today in a series of inflammatory comments to reporters. Dodd made the preposterous claim that if Obama nominated Warren to the CFPB, Congress would retaliate by de-funding the agency. Here's Dodd, as reported by HuffPost's Ryan Grim:

"This is a big job, an important job, and it needs to be -- you've got to build the support for that institutionally or the next Congress - and none of us know what the outcome's going to be politically -- you could gut this before it even gets off the ground. If you don't have someone running it early on, it jeopardizes the existence of the consumer protection bureau," he said. Asked how Congress would gut it, he said: "Money. Take away the money. That's how you always do it."

This is just absurd. The CFPB is funded through the Federal Reserve, not Congressional appropriations. Dodd knows this. He was a top negotiator on the CFPB and wrote much of the bill. The only way Congress could actually de-fund the agency would be to pass a new law and get President Barack Obama to sign it. Obama would never sign a bill gutting the CFPB—he fought hard to get it included in the Wall Street reform bill—and Congress would never be able to get a two-thirds majority needed to override a veto. Defunding the CFPA is politically impossible, and will remain politically impossible regardless of what happens in November.

Speaking of November, Dodd's recent shenanigans are creating political problems for Democrats. His transparent pandering to the bank lobby on the Warren nomination makes his entire party look bad, and has tainted the public perception of the Wall Street reform bill. It almost looks like an intentional act of political sabotage. If Dodd's colleagues care about getting re-elected, they should convince him to shut his mouth.

It's also truly astonishing for an outgoing Senator to be threatening a President of his own party through the press like this. Warren is clearly the best candidate to head the CFPB. Dodd's opposition doesn't make him look reasonable or moderate, it makes him look like he's working for the Wall Street executives who drove the economy off a cliff. You'd think he could hold off on this kind of behavior until he's officially out of office.

America Still Needs Elizabeth Warren, And The Bank Lobby Is Still Lying About Her

Zach Carter — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 04:15:40 -0400

Of all the accomplishments Elizabeth Warren has amassed during her lifetime, one of the most impressive is also one of the least well-known to the general public. Warren was a co-founder of Credit Slips, a very technical, influential blog on banking and bankruptcy. She hasn't blogged there since taking up her post as Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, but a review of her posts reveals a set of truths that Warren's opponents in the bank lobby do not want to acknowledge. While Wall Street bankers like to smear Warren as an ideologically driven crusader, Warren's blogging reveals her to be the exact opposite: a serious student of economic evidence, eager to embrace good ideas from any source.

Take a look at this post from September 2008, in which she praised economists Greg Mankiw and Ken Rogoff. Both of these economists are, let's say, unpopular among liberals. Mankiw was chair of President George W. Bush's council of economic advisors, and Rogoff is an alum of the International Monetary Fund, where he pushed draconian cuts in social programs in developing nations in the name of balanced budgets.

But it turns out that both Mankiw and Rogoff had something interesting to say at a forum back in September 2008. And what did Elizabeth Warren have to say about it? She calls them "interesting," "terrific," "calm," and "funny." She doesn't blast them for their backgrounds with institutions that are generally reviled by progressives, she just emphasizes that they're serious thinkers who are making good points about the role the bank bailout played in the economy:

Greg's work with the current administration and Ken's background with the IMF and on the Board of the Federal Reserve add a certain credibility to their assessments of conditions on Wall Street. If they are right, the $700 bailout is saving some investment bankers' jobs in the short term, but overall it is just making the financial system worse.

Aside from seeking out common ground with aggressive conservatives, Warren also displays a deep-rooted intellectual curiosity throughout her blog postings. One of the most obnoxious bank-lobby smears against Warren is that she doesn't fully appreciate the benefits of financial innovation, and that she'll cut off useful credit to poor people by pushing overzealous consumer protection. Even some otherwise respectable bloggers have taken up the chant, without really bothering to investigate whether there's any shred of truth to it. Even a casual browsing of Warren's blog work reveals this to be a silly charge.

In a post from May 2008, she details a Wells Fargo customer who was quite clearly ripped off by her bank. Warren provides a very cautious analysis of the situation. While Wells Fargo's actions were an obvious disgrace to the bank itself and the regulatory regime, the appropriate response is not obvious. Maybe the kind of product Wells Fargo was selling should be banned outright. Maybe it should only be provided with more rigorous disclosures. Maybe consumers should have to ask for the product before bankers are allowed to discuss it. The point is, Warren isn't eager to claim that an obviously abusive product should simply be banned—she wants to make sure that policymakers don't unnecessarily cut off credit to well-informed adults who want it.

Again and again, Warren reveals herself to be a devout student of data in her blog work. It isn't sexy, it sure as hell doesn't traffic in the broader blogosphere, but it's the mark of someone who truly cares about getting it right, rather than merely developing a set of popular talking points. Warren clearly loves reading economic papers on the effects of various credit policies, and determining their effects on both individuals and society at large. That's exactly what we need from a bank regulator, especially at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

You can find all of Warren's Credit Slips blogs here. I'll be highlighting more of her blogging in future pieces, but it's clear from these posts alone that she is not an ideological crusader. This fact, in truth, is why the bank lobby so fervently opposes putting her in a position of regulatory authority. For decades, all of our bank regulators have been driven by ideological agendas. They've aggressively pursued any policy that creates short-term profits for Wall Street, under the view that anything that generates money for Wall Street is expanding credit in society and furthering productive economic growth. President George W. Bush even appointed a bank lobbyist to the top regulatory post in the nation. The results of this plan were disastrous, as everyone living through the current recession can attest.

Of course, there is an alternative to appointing regulators who will always put bankers and brokers first. We need a rigorous scholar who cares about finding the right policies to elevate the middle class and further healthy economic growth. We need Elizabeth Warren.

Wall Street Reform: A Good First Step

Zach Carter — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:27:23 -0400

Members of Congress finished ironing out their differences on Wall Street reform last night, and the resulting bill deserves unequivocal support from progressives and conservatives alike. But while the final package is a necessary first step to overhauling the nation's out-of-control financial sector, it will do very little to change the destructive status quo on Wall Street. The bill is a good first step. The public deserves too see stronger reforms from Congress next year.

As a matter of history, sweeping financial change takes several years to secure. It took Franklin Delano Roosevelt seven years to enact all of his New Deal banking regulations, and President Barack Obama appropriately sees the 1930s crisis as the historical analog to today's meltdown-and-reform process. Obama is correct to state that the legislation approved by Congress late last night is the most significant since the Depression—but it is a hollow truth. The U.S. government has been steadily deregulating the banking industry ever since Roosevelt, and the mere act of moving policy in the opposite direction is enough to claim the mantle of dramatic reform. Actually living up to the precedent set by Roosevelt will take several years of serious work, and major legislative action during the next electoral cycle.

As for the current bill, Congressional leaders decided late last night to gut the only two serious structural reforms still on the table. With the political wind at their backs, and the finish line clearly in sight, lawmakers decimated an effort to end outright gambling by the nation's largest banks, and sabotaged a plan to rein in rampant speculation in derivatives—the out-of-control market that brought down AIG and necessitated the bailouts of every major U.S. bank. By adopting the plan from Sen. Blanch Lincoln, D-Ark., to fix derivatives and implement a strong version of the Volcker Rule banning proprietary trading, Congress could have made significant strides toward ending the too-big-to-fail financial oligopoly that held taxpayers hostage in 2008. Instead, Congress chose to reinforce the current destructive banking regime.

But while the resulting legislation will not end too-big-to-fail, prevent future bailouts, or significantly rein in risk-taking on Wall Street, it is nevertheless worth supporting. Three important measures made it through that will make the global economy a fairer and more just marketplace. Those three reforms will not be enough to prevent future financial crises, nor will they be able to ameliorate the fallout from those crises once they occur, but they are nevertheless critical.

First, we will get a thorough audit of the Federal Reserve, an agency which has funneled $4 trillion in bailout funding to the nation's financial system without any oversight or transparency. The public will finally know how it's money is being spent, and credit is due to Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who fought hard for the plan in the face of overwhelming Wall Street lobbying. Kudos are also due to activist journalists Mike Elk and Jane Hamsher, who cobbled together a coalition of good government supporters across the political spectrum and made the Fed audit a centerpiece of the legislative debate. The Fed's blunders on the bailout of AIG have created significant momentum for real reforms, and further information about the secretive agency's operations will help build momentum for next year's financial fights.

The legislation also includes a critical overhaul of the nation's consumer protection regime wherever banks are concerned. For the first time, the public will have a regulator dedicated to defending consumers against bank abuses, with no other conflicts. The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been pilloried with unnecessary loopholes, but the resulting agency will nevertheless be able to write and enforce meaningful regulations on the financial sector. This is a major accomplishment, made all the more significant by the fact that the front-runner to head the new agency has already established herself as one of the most important voices on U.S. economic policy.

As Chair of the oversight panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Elizabeth Warren has taken a position with extremely limited statutory power and converted it into the only mouthpiece for the American middle class in Washington, D.C. She has done a far better job than even the most optimistic good government activists had hoped for, and giving her free reign to crack down on consumer abuses will be a major victory for the American economy. She has not been formally nominated for the post yet, but the world will be a better place once she is.

Finally, while Lincoln's derivative overhaul was largely destroyed, she did manage to preserve tough new rules regulating both food and gas derivatives. The resulting legislation will not keep Wall Street from gambling with our future, but it will make it much more difficult for financiers to jack up the prices of basic necessities in their quest for bigger bonuses. Back in the spring and summer of 2008, prices for food went through the roof as a result of heavy speculation in market for agricultural derivatives—raw bets placed on the future price of corn, rice and other farm products. The resulting price increases forced consumers the world over to pay too much for food, and sparked outright starvation in regions that could not afford the increases.

The same thing happened with gasoline. Remember paying over $4.00 a gallon? That had nothing to do with the fundamentals of supply and demand—it was a direct result of wild speculation in the market for energy derivatives. The bill approved last night will end that abuse. As a result of Lincoln's efforts, two excesses that created real, tangible hardship for millions of people will be eliminated.

This bill is unquestionably deserving of support. It will make the global economy a fairer marketplace. But it will not end the too-big-to-fail incentives that encourage Wall Street to take wild risks and stick taxpayers with the tab, nor will it sufficiently overhaul the market that brought down AIG, nor will it end the widespread practice of bigwig bankers gambling with taxpayer money. All of those reforms could have been enacted—explicit, concrete amendments were offered on all three, and Congressional leaders rejected them in an overt effort to rake in campaign contributions from Wall Street. Republicans resort to such political calculations all the time—catering to entrenched corporate interests has been their only economic strategy since the Reagan years. But it is enormously disappointing to see significant swaths of the Democratic Party adopt the same strategy (particularly the New Democrats, who should rename themselves the Wall Street Democrats after this episode) and even more frightening to see the Democratic leadership incapable of corralling these turncoats.

So support the Wall Street reform bill: it's a good first step toward building an economy that works for all citizens, not just bankers. But demand that your elected leaders finish the job next year. Too-big-to-fail lives on, and must be defeated.

The Bank Lobby Gets Desperate on Derivatives

Zach Carter — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:10:13 -0400

Astonishingly, as Wall Street reform enters its final hours a tired, generic corporate refrain against regulation is gaining traction. As bigwig bankers and their lobbyist brethren fight to defeat tough new rules on derivatives—the crazy casino that brought down AIG—all their sloganeers can come up with is the trite wail that serious rules will send this risky business overseas. It'd be funny if members of Congress weren't taking it seriously.

"Oh no—the business will go overseas!" is the last-ditch, we're-about-to-lose-this-one cry of despair for corporate executives in every industry. Crack down on a profitable abuse in the United States, and the entire business will move to London or Mumbai, sending jobs and tax revenue abroad-- or so the argument goes. You only hear this line when CEOs know they have no case, and have to divert attention away from the real substance of the policy debate. In the case of Wall Street abuses, this nonsense is especially ridiculous. The bank lobby really just doesn't have any good arguments to launch in its favor, so it's falling back on generic corporate jargon.

In reality, the U.S. has extremely broad authority to crack down on derivatives activity abroad, we just don't have a whole lot of good rules on derivatives for regulators to enforce. It's extremely difficult for financial institutions to simply offshore their risky derivatives business to avoid oversight. Under current law, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has the authority to regulate any trading done by foreign firms on behalf of U.S. clients, any trading of U.S. assets conducted by foreign institutions and any trading that causes a "substantial disruption" in U.S. markets. Just about anything the CFTC wants to get its hands on, it can, and the current CFTC Chairman, Gary Gensler, is a committed reformer. We just need to write good rules for his agency to enforce.

Moreover, finance tricksters will have no incentive to move their destructive derivatives trading abroad, because the rules in other countries are, in fact, much tougher than those the U.S. is currently considering.

There are a lot of ways to crack down on Wall Street, but none of them will work without reining in the insane, secretive market for derivatives—speculative instruments that allow financiers to gamble on anything from subprime mortgages to the price of corn. Right now Wall Street is making a big push to roll-out new derivatives on movie box-office receipts, allowing the financial world to place raw bets on how much money a movie is going to make. It sounds crazy and destructive, and it is.

Germany is leading the way on derivatives reform by simply banning this kind of naked gambling outright. The U.S. effort is critically important, but much more modest. Instead of banning the casino, reformers in Congress are hoping to shrink it by ending the taxpayer subsidies that fuel it. This is at the heart of the proposal from Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., that has earned so much ire from the bank lobby. Bankers love their taxpayer subsidies, and love converting them into bonuses—who wouldn't? The trouble is that this business is inherently risky, and can jeopardize the entire economy, as the collapse of AIG attests.

But ending subsidies is still not as strong as banning gambling, which Germany is doing. The entire European Union is currently making a move to follow Germany's lead. Businesses can't exit U.S. markets to skirt regulations if their Wild West trading schemes are outlawed everywhere else.

In the U.K., officials are poised to impose a hefty tax on all financial assets, prevent banks from ballooning their balance sheets with derivatives trades. That means, U.S. banks can't send their derivatives operations to the U.K. without paying a big price.

Outside of Europe, few nations have the financial infrastructure to support derivatives trading on the scale of what we currently have in the U.S., where $300 trillion in trades are housed at just five banks. Some Asian nations do have this kind of infrastructure, big financial firms in Asia all realize that they will have to comply with U.S. rules if they want to keep doing business in the U.S. And indeed, policymakers in Hong Kong and other financial centers are looking to the U.S. for leadership on derivatives, and are likely to mimic whatever reforms are adopted here.

But more broadly, we have to ask why the U.S. should be worried about this activity being offshored at all. Raw gambling by financial institutions brought on one of the greatest economic catastrophes in American history. It forced the government to pony up over $4 trillion in bailout funds, expanded the national debt by 40 percent, and killed over 8 million jobs. If this business goes overseas, so be it! Let other nations bailout their megabanks and wreck their own economies if they want to. Today's derivatives casino is a job-killing nightmare that produces nothing other than megabonuses for bankers. Taxpayers have no business subsidizing such economic destruction.

Compared to international efforts, Blanche Lincoln's derivatives bill is overpoweringly mild, but it remains the only serious attempt to rein in the speculative casino that crashed our economy. The fact that the bank lobby's only tactic left is the wail "offshore!" shows how desperate our bank executives have become. Congress has no business caving to such nonsense at this stage of the reform process.