Big banks accused of interest rate-swap fixing in U.S. class action suit Getty Images "A class action lawsuit, filed Wednesday, accuses 10 of Wall Street's biggest banks and two trading platforms of conspiring to limit competition in the $320 trillion market for interest rate swaps. The class action lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, accuses Goldman Sachs Group, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Credit Suisse Group, Barclays, BNP Paribas, UBS, Deutsche Bank, and the Royal Bank of Scotland of colluding to prevent the trading of interest rate swaps on electronic exchanges, like the ones on which stocks are traded. As a result, the lawsuit alleges, banks have successfully prevented new competition from non-banks in the lucrative market for dealing interest rate swaps, the world's most commonly traded derivative. The banks "have been able to extract billions of dollars in monopoly rents, year after year, from the class members in this case," the lawsuit alleged. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse and Royal Bank of Scotland declined to comment. JP Morgan, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and UBS were not immediately available to comment..." http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/26/big-...rate-swap-fixing-in-us-class-action-suit.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...sed-of-monopolizing-interest-rate-swap-market
How Elizabeth Warren Is Shaping 2016 Without Picking a Side The Democratic star is waiting to make a presidential endorsement, using it as leverage over Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. "Early last year, the frenzy to enlist Elizabeth Warren in the 2016 presidential race grew so intense that a Ready for Warren group emerged to lead a draft effort. Reporters parsed the Democratic Massachusetts senator’s every utterance for clues to her plans. In the end, Warren opted to pass. But so far, she hasn’t chosen to throw her support behind any of the other candidates. With President Obama unlikely to weigh in, Warren is the most important Democratic elected official who has yet to endorse. Her iconic status among the party’s liberal grass roots, and the national fundraising base she commands, would deliver a substantial boost to Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, or Martin O’Malley. Sanders would appear to be the most ideologically compatible choice for Warren, because his populist, anti-Wall Street rhetoric mirrors her own. And indeed, many of her supporters, including the founders of her draft movement, have embraced him. But Warren has been noticeably reluctant to lend her name to Sanders’s presidential campaign, because, her advisers say, she’s determined that Democrats should hold on to the White House after Obama leaves office and is not convinced Sanders could win. “Her prime directive is not to damage the party’s chances in November,” says a close Warren associate, who has discussed the matter with her..." http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...en-skipped-2016-run-but-has-stayed-in-picture
Fed's Kashkari Floats Breaking Up Big Banks to Avert Meltdown "Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari will lead an effort to toughen U.S. banking laws to prevent another financial crisis, saying regulators must consider options including breaking up the nation’s largest financial institutions. “The biggest banks are still too big to fail and continue to pose a significant risk to our economy,” Kashkari, who managed the U.S. Treasury’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program for rescuing banks in the 2008 crisis, said Tuesday in Washington. It was his first public speech since joining the central bank on Jan. 1 as its newest policy maker. While Kashkari’s position fits with populist sentiment that has driven the rise of presidential candidates including Democrat Bernie Sanders, it’s at odds with top Fed leaders including Chair Janet Yellen, who isn’t calling for dramatic steps such as breaking up large banks. Such changes would also face a steep uphill battle to adoption by the Republican majority in Congress, which wants to roll back parts of the Dodd-Frank financial law passed in 2010, rather than go further as Kashkari proposes. Kashkari, who took over at the Minneapolis Fed following a failed run for governor of California as a Republican in 2014, compared the risk posed by big banks to that of a nuclear power plant in explaining why the government would probably have to bail out banks again in the event of another systemic crisis. “The cost to society of letting a reactor melt down is astronomical,” said Kashkari, who was a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker before joining the Treasury during the administration of Republican President George W. Bush. “Given that cost, governments will do whatever they can to stabilize the reactor before they lose control.” Kashkari, 42, said the Minneapolis Fed will hold a series of events and collect public and financial-industry input before making proposals by the end of this year on how to address the issue. He said options to consider include breaking up big banks, forcing large banks to hold so much capital they resemble “public utilities” and taxing leverage in the financial system to alleviate risks..." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...oats-breaking-up-big-banks-to-avert-melt-down
Banking industry's rough year could finally test Dodd Frank The Washington Post http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...-frank-is-strong-enough/ar-BBpFLRE?li=BBnbfcN
Senator Wants to Protect Investors From Steve Cohen "...Senator Elizabeth Warren, who takes a somewhat broader and less humorous view of securities fraud than I do, also expressed, in her words, "concern and disappointment," in a letter she sent to SEC Chair Mary Jo White: The SEC's decision to approve Stamford Harbor -- and the January settlement terms that allowed this to happen -- make a mockery of the SEC's core mission to "protect investors." The Commission has permitted a recidivist hedge fund manager, well-known for his former company's willingness to evade and ignore federal law, to once again profit from -- and potentially exploit -- investors. ..." http://www.bloombergview.com/articl...n-wants-to-protect-investors-from-steve-cohen
Forget EW as VP. Secretary of the Treasury. Or even better, invent a new position for her with even more power: BoneCrusher Incredible Hulk Basically, you fuck with me and you are dog meat.
On June 11 1963, Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk brought attention to the persecution of Buddhists by the Vietnamese government. After previous protests failed to garner attention, Thích Quảng Đức sat himself at a busy Saigon intersection, doused himself with gasoline, and set himself on fire. The crowd screamed in shock while other monks sat and prayed for their friend who, even though totally immersed in flames, never moved or made a sound. The iconic image is one of the most graphic and disturbing to ever be published but it did bring attention to the corrupt South Vietnamese government.
She's a freakin nut. I'm more scared about the fact that her and Bernie sanders even have supporters!