The Elite Coup is Complete
by Robert Hunziker / June 27th, 2012
The American plutocratic revolution is now complete. The proof
is: There are no criminal charges for the housing bust and financial
meltdown of 2008. Starting with Reagan in the 1980s, as of today the
Right has won their decades-long overthrow for complete control of
America. An elite corps of wealthy now run the country. Their bloodless
rebellion, a
coup d’etat whereby the Left was nullified by a tripartite (bankers, academia, and politicians) cabal’s
tour de force, is a sharp contrast to the old-fashioned traditional bloody
coup d’etats
we’re accustomed to in South America; e.g., the Chilean September 1973
military coup against President Allende conducted by ultra right wing
General Pinochet, who, after bombing the presidential palace, massacred
the Left (See the film
Missing, by Costa-Gavras
,
Universal Pictures, 1982.). Of course, Pinochet’s old-fashioned coup had
the advantage of speed and efficiency, completed within hours, whereas
America’s bloodless coup took decades to accomplish, but on the other
hand, America has not yet condoned military occupation on domestic soil.
The proof of a successful coup by the plutocratic elite is everywhere
on display because it is absolutely remarkable how much we know about
their unethical and/or criminal behavior behind America’s 2007-08
financial meltdown without knowing what to do about it!
As Charles H. Ferguson, winner of the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature,
Inside Job,
says, “There is overwhelming evidence of massive criminal behavior” in
the 2007-08 real estate bust and financial meltdown, but nobody has been
charged with a crime. This, in part, is why his recently published
Predator Nation, Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America
(Random House, 2012) footnotes/documents the virulent combination of
unchecked greed and criminal behavior behind the financial collapse of
2008. Ferguson identifies leading bankers, academics, and politicians
who collaborated to pillage the American public. The book has been
called a “roadmap for prosecution,” naming the culpable, stating the
crimes, referencing laws that were broken.
How this tragedy occurred right under the country’s collective noses
is a lengthy and nefarious story. Charles Ferguson’s new book covers
this story with remarkable detail. Ferguson’s diatribe is laced by a
book cover depicting a one hundred dollar bill folded into the image of a
hand, flipping the bird, an obvious reference to the perpetrating
financial, political, and academic elite’s haughty attitude towards the
general public, emphasizing the dauntless, depraved lawlessness behind
their theft committed in broad daylight. And, part of Ferguson’s thesis
is exactly that; i.e., criminal acts led to, and were the cause of, one
of history’s worst financial meltdowns. He also paints the picture of
how America has been hijacked by a financial elite, an oligarchy that
operates at the expense of the entire American population: “The
financial sector is the core of a new oligarchy that has risen to power
over the past thirty years, and that has profoundly changed American
life.”
Ferguson’s ingenious work is, without a doubt, on target because we,
as a nation, know it is true. Not only have oodles of articles and books
already flushed out this repugnant story but intuitively, the citizens
of the country know it is true because of how the disaster came down;
namely, governmental policy and Wall Street chicanery turned the housing
industry into a gigantic Las Vegas craps table and dispensed free
playing chips to beginners. Millions of unsuspecting Americans bought
into this deal-of-a-lifetime, and when the house of cards tumbled,
unsuspecting American taxpayers rescued the culprits, but the bankers
already tucked away gargantuan fees.
We also know it is true because it happened in broad daylight, right
before our eyes, caught on camera was the U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry
Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, on one knee before a stern-faced,
but dismayed, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, pleading congressional
approval for $700 billion (taxpayer funds) to bail out his buddies (so
sorry Richard S. Fuld, Jr., CEO, Lehman Brothers, no jerks allowed.)
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve turned the SWIFT international wire
system white hot, spreading trillions of US Dollars around the globe to
foreign banks and multinational corporate interests in order to keep the
worldwide ship of state afloat, and surrounding these horrifying
events, the housing market crumbled apart like broken tinker toys,
credit dissipated, and Wall Street crashed with the durable S& P
Index registering a nasty, and ominously devilish, 666 low print early
in March 2009.
As of today, people who are not normally schooled in the language of
the Wall Street know names of people and of programs, like Goldman
Sachs, Bear Stearns, Lehman, Freddie Mac, credit default swaps, and
derivatives. Wall Street and big banks are the butt ends of crass jokes
on late night TV, and inequality of income/wealth has never been so
obvious. According to a recent
Survey of Consumer Finance by
the Federal Reserve, median family net worth fell 40% from 2007 to 2010.
Meanwhile, according to Forbes Magazine, billionaires and
multi-millionaires set all-time records. The discrepancy between Middle
America and Wall Street has never been so radiantly exposed, and the
general public has finally learned how Wall Street makes a killing off
their backs. Most likely, Goldman Sachs’ CEO Lloyd Blankfein, whose firm
bet against (short sales) toxic securities they sold to other
institutions, would not survive a stroll down Main Street in certain
parts of the country.
The American public is overly informed about how and why one of the
most corrupt and stupidest-ever financial schemes body-slammed the world
economy, but as Charles Ferguson astutely declares, “Nobody has gone to
jail” (poor ole Bernie Madoff must feel like he’s carrying the burden
for everybody.) Mortgage brokers, Wall Street investment bankers,
commercial bankers, credit rating agencies, accountants, and politicians
are complicit in the world’s biggest-ever ponzi scheme, taking
advantage of the entire population of the country and sticking it to
foreign banks/institutions by selling them toxic housing securities. The
pure ugliness, brazenness, and gall of the perpetrators is enough to
turn one’s stomach. As for CEO Fuld, he was attacked shortly after it
was announced Lehman was bankrupt: “He was on a treadmill with a heart
monitor on. Someone was in the corner, pumping iron and he walked over
and he knocked him out cold.” (
The Telegraph, October 7, 2008.)
According to Ferguson, there is overwhelming public evidence in (1)
lawsuits, (2) depositions, (3) government investigations, and (4)
whistleblowers of highly illegal conduct in the housing bubble and
financial crisis. There is a staggering amount of evidence that CEOs of
Wall Street firms, like Lehman Brothers, were warned that their
financial controls were inadequate and their accounting was wrong, or to
put in it in plain English: ‘their books were cooked’. A prime example
is a memo warning to top Lehman executives by Senior Vice President
Matthew Lee, “I feel it is my ethical and legal responsibility to point
out to you that there are billions of dollars of unjustified assets on
our balance sheet.” (To see the memo, Google: “Matthew Lee and Lehman.”)
A month later Lee was dismissed from the firm and the CEO of Lehman
continued to stand by the firm’s financial statements even though warned
of extreme problems, inaccuracies, and overstatements; e.g., ‘Repo 105’
transactions artificially boosted the firm’s balance sheet by $50
billion! This is illegal corporate behavior of the first order, but
where are the criminal charges?
Furthermore, according to Ferguson, “Over the last thirty years, in
parallel with deregulation and the rising power of money in American
politics, significant portions of American academia have deteriorated
into ‘pay to play’ activities. The sale of academic expertise for the
purpose of influencing government policy, the courts, and public opinion
is now a multibillion-dollar business,” academia has become embedded
within the finance industry and its greatest apologist, Exhibit A, is
Lawrence Summers, former Treasury Secretary, former President of
Harvard, former Head of the Council of Economic Advisors, former
Mister Everything Economics,
a proponent of the deregulation of financial services; i.e.,
elimination of the Glass-Steagall Act, which kept commercial bankers out
of the risky securities business ever since 1933, stating, when
significant parts of Glass-Steagall were overturned: “With this bill,
the American financial system takes a major step forward towards the
21stCentury.” Thus, Summers was directly behind the entire meltdown,
but as a highly endorsed hedge fund/banking consultant raking in
millions, before and after his stint with Clinton, he had to follow his
true conscience; i.e., benefactors,
and push to kill the 1933 Act, which successfully, and responsively,
protected bank depositors from risky commercial bank shenanigans for
over 60 years.
Summers is the one who dressed down Raghuram Rajan (Finance
Professor, University of Chicago; Chief Economist IMF), who presented a
paper about credit default swaps at the Federal Reserve Jackson Hole
2005 Conference,
Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?
accusing firms of “goosing up returns” with latent risk, which proved
to be precisely what cratered A.I.G., asking the prescient question: “If
firms today implicitly are selling various kinds of default insurance
to goose up returns, what happens if catastrophe strikes?” Rajan’s
critique was thoughtful, balanced, and very obviously on point; it is
indeed a sad commentary that Summers immediately stood up, lambasting
Rajan and calling him a “Luddite,” but on the other hand, since Summers
planned to be or was/is in the pockets of hedge funds and Wall Street,
he flippantly overlooked the most obvious of dangers to the entire
financial system in concert with the “profits now” mentality that bends
to Wall Street’s every wish.
The real mystery is how and why they get away with it when their
crimes and/or despicable ethical behavior prove so hideous… and so
obvious, and thus, many astute progressive mouths dropped wide open with
dismay when President Obama insanely appointed Summers as the Director
of the National Economic Council, which only goes to prove what a tight
clique exist amongst academia, politicians, and Wall Street whereby bad
judgment and/or unethical practices are overlooked in favor of
companionship-to-profits.
Nobody has gone to jail and as Ferguson explained in an interview
with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, “There is overwhelming evidence of
massive criminal behavior.” Ferguson says: “the American people need to
take their country back.” He suggests some kind of nationwide movement
but without stating specifics. Indeed, the stench of the entire cabal,
including academia, politicians, Wall Street, and rating agencies is so
loathsomely squalid, and rotten to the core, it would not surprise if
perpetrators are dragged into the streets in the middle of the night,
stripped naked, tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail,
assuming some daring citizens become so fed up with the ‘system’ they
take matters into their own hands.
Otherwise, and because nobody has been criminally charged, one can
bitterly assume the country is now firmly in the hands of a wealthy
elite, including academicians who, similar to guns for hire, will say or
publish anything for a buck. With 20/20 hindsight, it is now clear the
citizenry of the country cannot trust, but also cannot do anything about
(other than revolt in the streets), the tripartite cabal that stole
their country in broad daylight right under their noses. And, really…
isn’t it a crying shame the intelligentsia, who we trust to educate our
society, is so deeply involved… but… come to think about it, they
probably saw what happened to their colleagues in Chile under Pinochet,
concluding life is much better, and easier, when one is part of the
Inside Job.
By definition … if no criminal charges are filed, the coup is complete.
Robert Hunziker, a former hedge fund manager, is a
professional independent negotiator for worldwide commodity actual
transactions and a freelance writer for progressive publications as well
as business journals. Mr. Hunziker earned an MA degree in economic
history at DePaul University/Chicago, and he resides in Los Angeles. He
can be contacted at:
rlhunziker@gmail.com.
Read other articles by Robert.
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