War is Good For Wall Street

by Washington's Blog
Global Research, June 5, 2011
Washington's Blog - 2011-06-04


Well, There's Your Problem Right There ... Insider Trading Rules Don’t Apply To Congress http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/06/ ... there.html


Well, there's your problem right there ...

I've repeatedly pointed out that Wall Street executives are incentivized to lie, cheat and steal. So - of course - they will continue to lie, cheat and steal. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&clie ... =&aql=&oq=

I've repeatedly noted that Wall Street owns the politicians: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/03/ ... -wall.html

* Lobbyists from the financial industry have paid hundreds of millions to Congress and the Obama administration. They have bought virtually all of the key congress members and senators on committees overseeing finances and banking. The Congress people who receive the most money from lobbyists are the most opposed to regulation. See this, http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2009 ... ributions/

this, http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/02 ... 114-m.html
this, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/0 ... 27871.html
this, http://www.emailwire.com/release/23913- ... gress.html
this, http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/05/lobbyists-cramdown/
this, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124396078596677535.html
and this. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/2 ... 02373.html

* Obama received more donations from Goldman Sachs and the rest of the financial industry than almost anyone else http://www.google.com/search?q=obama+co ... =firefox-a

* Summers and the rest of Obama's economic team have made many millions http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/2 ... 35842.html - even in the first few months of being appointed, or right beforehand - from the financial industry

* Two powerful congressmen said that banks run Congress http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/06/ ... banks.html

* Two leading IMF officials, the former Vice President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/03/ ... blics.html and the the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City have all said that the United States is controlled by an oligarchy http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/06/ ... nk-of.html

The chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University (Donald J. Boudreaux) says that it is inaccurate to call politicians prostitutes. Specifically, he says that they are more correct to call them "pimps", since they are pimping out the American people to the financial giants: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/10/ ... y-are.html

Real whores, after all, personally supply the services their customers seek. Prostitutes do not steal; their customers pay them voluntarily. And their customers pay only with money belonging to these customers.

In contrast, members of Congress routinely truck and barter with other people's property...

Members of Congress are less like whores than they are like pimps for persons unwillingly conscripted to perform unpleasant services.


Politicians force taxpayers to pony it up -- just as the services rendered for a pimp's customers are rendered not by that pimp personally, but by the ladies under his charge. The pimp pockets the bulk of each payment; he's pleased with the transaction. His customer gets serviced well in return; he's pleased with the transaction. The only loser is the prostitute forced to share her precious assets with strangers whom she doesn't particularly care for and who care nothing for her.

Also like the ladies under pimps' power, taxpayers who resist being exploited risk serious consequences to their persons and pocketbooks. Uncle Sam doesn't treat kindly taxpayers who try to avoid the obligations that he assigns to them. Government is a great deal more powerful, and often nastier, than is the typical taxpayer. Practically speaking, the taxpayer has little choice but to perform as government demands.

So to call politicians "whores" is to unduly insult women who either choose or who are forced into the profession of prostitution. These women aggress against no one; like all other respectable human beings, they do their best to get by as well as they can without violating other people's rights.

The real villains in the prostitution arena are those pimps who coerce women into satisfying the lusts of strangers. Such pimps pocket most of the gains earned by the toil and risks involuntarily imposed upon the prostitutes they control. No one thinks this arrangement is fair or justified. No one gives pimps the title of "Honorable." Decent people don't care what pimps think or suppose that pimps have any special insights into what is good or bad for the women under their command. Decent people don't pretend that pimps act chiefly for the benefit of their prostitutes. Decent people believe that pimps should be in prison.

Yet Americans continue to imagine that the typical representative or senator is an upstanding citizen, a human being worthy of being feted and listened to as if he or she possesses some unusually high moral or intellectual stature.

It's closer to the truth to see politicians as pimps who force ordinary men and women to pony up freedoms and assets for the benefit of clients we call "special-interest groups."

But it's not only that the politicos have been bought and paid for. They - like Wall Street titans - are incentivized to lie, cheat and steal.

Specifically, Congress members and Senators can trade on inside information.

As Forbes' blogger Kyle Smith notes notes: http://blogs.forbes.com/kylesmith/2011/ ... -congress/

One thing you can do as a member [of the House or Senate] is study pending legislation and regulatory changes, call up your broker and instruct him to trade on that nonpublic information. Do this as often as you want; you will suffer no penalty. There is no limit to how much money you can earn on insider trading in the House or Senate. Lawmakers and their staffers are specifically exempted.

As you might expect, those who work in the hallowed halls are not shy about availing themselves of the opportunity. A Wall Street Journal analysis http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 03198.html published more than six months ago that has thus far provoked no particular sense of shame on Capitol Hill found that at least 72 Congressional aides in both parties had recently traded shares of companies that their bosses helped regulate. In 2009, while Senate Banking Committee member Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, was involved in discussing “stress testsâ€