Thom Hartmann: FINALLY...a politician who'll stand up to the Banksters... [View all]

[thomhartmann]

The banksters’ blatant fraud in the run-up to the financial crisis hasn’t gone unnoticed by one top lawyer in the nation. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman - who also chairs the President’s Mortgage Fraud Task Force - filed a civil suit against JP Morgan Chase for “widespread fraud in the sale of mortgage-backed securities.” This is the first legal action brought against the banks by this taskforce. Most of the allegations are actually against failed bank Bear Stearns, which was bought by JP Morgan Chase just before the economy went into meltdown in 2008. According to the lawsuit - banksters at Bear Stearns knowingly sold defective loans and mortgage backed securities and kept their investors in the dark about how crummy these deals were. And just like banksters at Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns’ banksters openly bragged to each other about how bad the deals were and how much their customers are getting screwed. And Bear Stearns made big money off the fraud.

At the height of the housing bubble - between 2003 and 2006 - Bear Stearns generated $212 billion in mortgage-backed securities. Unfortunately all these securities were...to use a more delicate term that the banksters themselves used...crap. And when the housing bubble went bust - so, too, did Bear Stearns - which was then bought by JP Morgan Chase - the bank that is now liable for all that fraud. Officials within Schneiderman’s office are suggesting that JP Morgan Chase is just the first in a long line of banks that could be hit with similar lawsuits. Yes, going after the banks with lawsuits for their fraud is a good thing. But we need to go a step further - instead of just civil law suits - we need criminal prosecutions. Back in 1983, Ronald Reagan deregulated the Savings and Loan banks, and, predictably, the hustlers among them started committing fraud.

Three years later, in 1986, the S&L industry collapsed because of that fraud - so Reagan nationalized the banks, screwed their stockholders, fired all their management, and sent about a thousand banksters to jail. I never thought I'd agree with Reagan on anything, but he was right - the only way to stop these billionaire predators from crashing our economy again - is to send some suits to jail. Or you could employ the Mitt Romney strategy - and give one of them a job as Treasury Secretary.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Romney’s list of potential nominees for Treasury Secretary includes this guy - John Thain. So, who is John Thain? Well, John Thain is the former CEO of failed bank Merrill Lynch - which was purchased by Bank of America during the financial collapse for pennies on the dollar. In 2008 - Thain’s bank lost $11 billion - leaving it unable to operate without outside help. At the same time, Thain lobbied the bank’s board of directors to hand him a $10 million bonus for presiding over the bank’s ruin - and he got it, and he took it! In other words - he’s the perfect guy for a Mitt Romney administration - someone who disembowled his own businesses - laid off workers - racked up debt - and then walked away scott-free with an extra ten million dollars in his pocket. It’s what Romney did to businesses taken over by Bain Capital - it’s what Thain did at Merrill Lynch - and it’s what they both will do to America should Mitt Romney win in November.

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