I don’t have time to write a blog post.but these articles are better than I could write, anyway.

Occupy Offshoots Return

Dodd Frank Defanged, or Why Occupy the SEC is so badly needed

Please join some Alt-Banking members and others protesting the Bank of America Shareholder meeting tomorrow — Wed. May 8th..

You don’t need to be in NYC. There are lots of protests around the country.

We will be at the Bank of America Tower at 6th Avenue and 42nd St starting at noon. If you are willing to log into Facebook (please be cautious) more info here.

Info about past protests on our blog, the LA Times and elsewhere.:

The “Fantastic performance artist” will appear as the Ethical Fiscal Fairy. Not to be missed.

It poured rain but a “small but fierce” crowd showed up including the Ethical Fiscal Fairy, of course!

Here are a couple of photos

This Sunday’s Times magazine has an article that unintentionally illustrates a big problem with the political/economic system today. The “respectable” debate — that is, the debate Obama and others in power listen to — is restricted to one between the failed ideas of W Bush and the only slightly better Clinton policies.

This article holds a debate between Glenn Hubbard, adviser to Bush and Romney, and Larry Summers, Treasury Sec. under Clinton and adviser to Obama.

It is surprising, and appalling, that Hubbard gets any respect at all. He is the “architect” of Bush’s failed policies. Haven’t we had enough of that? Unfortunately cutting taxes on the rich is a policy that will never die. Quelle surprise, as Yves Smith would say.

Summers isn’t quite as discredited. Not everything went wrong in the Clinton years. But Summers was a prime mover in squelching regulation of derivatives and getting rid of Glass-Steagall. He was also instrumental in the earlier rounds of bank bailouts — remember the “Committee to Save the World”.

Even the principals in the merger that killed Glass-Steagall, John Reed and Sandy Weill agree that was a mistake.

The problem is that we keep going back to the old, failed ideas. There is a mystique that only the bankers and business people know how to run the economy. Well they know how to run it to their own benefit but it is not working for the 99%. Their arguments have all the substance of the Emperor’s New Clothes.

Hey Adam Davidson, if you like sports analogies, shouldn’t we look for a coach with a new playbook. There are lots of people out there with new, better, ideas. How about James Galbraith or Dean Baker?

Our protest of the Citigroup shareholders meeting was our best attended and definitely the most noticed by the media.

Financial Times: Banks got bailed out, we got sold out

Marni got the most notice, well done.

Dealbreaker: Spandex-clad roller-girl

Huffington Post: Fantastic Performance Artist.

They were also interviewed by the Associated Press and Korean and Dutch news agencies. Will post as they are published.

This week, a climate change expert will give a talk on the History of CO2: Past, Present and Future.

1. Carbon Cycle and Phanerozoic History of CO2
2. Climate history over last 11,000 years (recent paper from Science)
3. Link between CO2 and T (Vostok Ice Cores, paleo records, Berner)
4. Where we’re headed with CO2 and climate (not so bad now, but look at RCP 8.5)
5. The bathtub: avoiding overflow (MIT psych paper)
6. Extreme Weather Events and Loaded Climate Dice (Hansen et al)

It will be Sunday from 2-3 PM. Followed by our regularly weekly Alternative Banking meeting.

Details here:http://www.nycga.net/events/event-edit/?action=edit&event_id=93

Cathy O’Neil, mathbabe, data scientist, former Wall Street quant will explain how private information is collected, stored, sold, and used in Internet models including e-scores (electronic credit scores), advertisements, and other fun stuff.

Sunday, March 31  2-3 PM: Will be followed at 3 pm by the regular weekly meeting of OWS – Alternative Banking working group.

Details here:

That’s what a regulator called the “hedge” that lost JPMorgan $6 billion last year.

The Volcker Rule was supposed to stop proprietary trading by the banks. A clearer name for proprietary trading is “banks betting with FDIC insured deposits”. That is supposed to end.

But, by law it should have been implemented last year but we are now told it probably won’t be “effective” until 2014 (despite the best efforts of our friends at Occupy the SEC).

And when it is, it will only be “effective” in the legal sense of “in effect” not in the English meaning of doing what it is intended to do.  It will not ban hedges which are basically whatever the banks say they are — even “make believe magic voodoo composite hedges”. So, proprietary trading will be alive and well.

So, the megabanks are still Too Big, Interconnected and Complex to Oversee (TIBACO), and they are still abusing the privilege.

Should JPM CEO Jamie Dimon go to jail for lying to shareholders and Congress?

Don’t hold your breathe waiting for this to happen.

Do, get involved in working to stop the banks abusive practices.

Obama promised us the “most transparent government ever”.

The NY Federal Reserve Bank is making secret deals to protect Bank of America.

The latest outrage is that the FDIC is doing its best to sweep settlements it is making under the rug also to protect the banks.

The only good news in all this is that at least some of the mainstream media are still doing their jobs.

Thanks to Jerry Ashton, Huffington Post readers read about the latest Alt-B protest of HSBC’s outrageous behavior.

Pictures from the previous action here.

Stay tuned for the next one.

Break Up the Big Banks!

Note: this post has nothing to do with Alternative Banking, or banking or directly with Occupy though I hope and expect Occupiers to be sympathetic. I just wanted to rant and this was the easiest place to post it. I am only speaking for myself.

I would like to support Senators Rand Paul and Ron Wyden’s efforts to question the use of drones and other killing by the CIA and other secret agencies, but they are so pathetic. They are focusing on the killing of Americans. They seem to take it for granted that it is OK for the US to kill non-citizens.

How would they feel if the Canadian Prime Minister were authorizing its security agencies to kill people and Parliament approved it as long as they didn’t kill any Canadians?

I am frequently distressed at the utter indifference of most Americans to the perspective of the 6.7 billion people they share the world with.