Robert Reich's Smart Take On The Kind Of 'Morality' That's Been Bad For America

Matt Taibbi on Bank of America ("Too Corrupt to Fail"), Bailouts and Fraud on Democracy Now

If you haven't read Matt Taibbi's recent article in Rolling Stone ("Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail"), I highly recommend doing so. Here's an excerpt:

Bank of America has systematically ripped off almost everyone with whom it has a significant business relationship, cheating investors, insurers, depositors, homeowners, shareholders, pensioners and taxpayers. It brought tens of thousands of Americans to foreclosure court using bogus, "robo-signed" evidence – a type of mass perjury that it helped pioneer. It hawked worthless mortgages to dozens of unions and state pension funds, draining them of hundreds of millions in value. And when it wasn't ripping off workers and pensioners, it was helping to push insurance giants like AMBAC into bankruptcy by fraudulently inducing them to spend hundreds of millions insuring those same worthless mortgages.

But despite being the very definition of an unaccountable corporate villain, Bank of America is now bigger and more dangerous than ever.

When you're finished, check out Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez' interview with Matt Taibbi on this morning's Democracy Now:



It's hard to believe, but today marks the ninth anniversary of TestPattern.org, which was originally created to protest the invasion of Iraq. If this is your first visit to the site, welcome. If you're a returning visitor, thanks for reading. If you're into social media, you can follow us on Twitter @testpatternorg)

Financial Crisis: Causes and Solutions [VIDEO]

Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) hosts Up with Chris Hayes and leads an excellent panel discussion on Wall Street, Greg Smith, Goldman Sachs, Occupy, the Volcker Rule and other issues related to the financial crisis which every citizen should take interest in. The panel includes:

• Alexis Goldstein (@alexisgoldstein), member of Occupy the SEC and former Wall Street bank information technologist
• William Cohan (@williamcohan), author of Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World and contributing editor at Vanity Fair
• Noam Scheiber (@noamscheiber), author of The Escape Artists: How Obama's Team Fumbled the Economy
• John McWhorter, Columbia University professor of linguistic and American studies and a contributing editor at The New Republic and TheRoot.com

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

Conservative Brains, Liberal Brains

Not entirely accurate, but amusing nonetheless...

Federal Government/Goldman Sachs Overlap

Federal Government/Goldman Sachs Overlap by Stephanie Herman, Geke.us is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.geke.us.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.geke.us.

Keith Olbermann: Why Occupy Wall Street needs Michael Bloomberg

What Are the Goals of Occupy Wall Street?

Roger Lowenstein writes for Businessweek ("Occupy Wall Street: It’s Not a Hippie Thing: Don’t be fooled by the drum circles. Today’s protests have more in common with the anti-Hoover 1930s than the antiwar ’60s and ’70s"):

As critics have noted, the protesters are not in complete agreement with each other, but the overall message is reasonably coherent. They want more and better jobs, more equal distribution of income, less profit (or no profit) for banks, lower compensation for bankers, and more strictures on banks with regard to negotiating consumer services such as mortgages and debit cards. They also want to reduce the influence that corporations—financial firms in particular—wield in politics, and they want a more populist set of government priorities: bailouts for student debtors and mortgage holders, not just for banks.

"How members of Congress make gigantic bank on insider trades, real estate deals, IPOs and other sweetheart opportunities"

Here's your pull quote ("Congress: Trading stock on inside information?"):

The buying and selling of stock by corporate insiders who have access to non-public information that could affect the stock price can be a criminal offense, just ask hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam who recently got 11 years in prison for doing it. But, congressional lawmakers have no corporate responsibilities and have long been considered exempt from insider trading laws, even though they have daily access to non-public information and plenty of opportunities to trade on it.

Headline courtesy of Cory Doctorow writing for Boing Boing.

Thugs of Penn State vs Occupiers of Berkeley

Do you defend the ugliest manifestations of unchecked power or do you fight for a better world with an altogether different set of values? Do you stand with the Thugs of Penn State or do you stand with Occupiers of Berkeley? It’s fear vs. hope, and the stakes are a hell of a lot higher than a BCS bowl.

"How Do You Illustrate Corruption?"

From Truthout ("How Do You Illustrate Corruption? Artist Rachel Schragis Explains"):

"This image is profoundly not a solution: to either the injustices we face or my own (infinitely smaller) creative concerns. It is a statement of the problem, and its material being does not reflect the world we want: to start, it is drawn with (toxic) sharpies and distributed through the (unsustainably powered) internet. And the reality it states, let us not forget, is pretty bleak. I dream about making spaces that inspire justice - not just collections of words that show what's wrong. And isn't this really what OWS is about, at its core? Believing that if we start by stating the problems correctly, a better world than we can currently envision is possible. Demanding that we dream up that world, and build that dream."