-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- from: http://www.angelfire.com/de/CassandraCrossing/fedreserve.html Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.angelfire.com/de/CassandraCrossing/fedreserve.html">SECRETS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE</A> ----- Ezra Pound joins forces with CASSANDRA CROSSING History of the CRA, the Community Reinvestment Act; Analysis of Pension Funds; Examination of longstanding disputes between Treasury and Fed Reserve Links to the Glass-Steagall Act and its enormous weight on run-away THRIFT CHARTERS and HOLDING COMPANIES, that are at this moment licking their lips, for favorable legislation now under negotiation, in the House and Senate and US Treasury: click here for a dead-on and INSIGHTFUL history of the GLASS STEAGALL Act click here for Holding Companies in the Thrift Industry Background Paper from the OTS of the US Treasury!! click here for the American Bankers Association perspective on why it is in their favor to lobby heavily to ELIMINATE the Thrift Charter from the 1999 THE NEW YORK TIMES GRAMM FIGHTS TO MAKE IT MORE DIFFICULT FOR COMMUNITY GROUPS TO CHALLENGE LENDING RECORDS OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS How the Sharks Feed off the CRA!! exerpted from an article by STEPHEN LABATON "[...] Mr. Rubin said in an interview last Friday that he had not heard a single complaint from BANKERS about the costs of the COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT, and that the civil rights groups were right to make the legislation a central focus of their agenda. But Democrats say they fear that the Republicans have found an ideal "wedge issue" for the modern age -- embarking on what could be a successful political strategy between the POWERFUL and polticially generous BANKING INDUSTRY, which has spent years pushing for the adoption of both bills, and the civil rights leaders who oppose them. [...] Before last fall the COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT had never been an important issue in the perennial debate over whether to deregulate the banking system by eliminating the restrictions imposed in the DEPRESSION. Those restrictions limited the ability of banks, insurance companies and securities firms to compete with each other. The law has actually proved HIGHLY PROFITABLE FOR MANY BANKS and savings associations, encouraging them to lend in areas that had often BEEN REDLINED and NEGLECTED. Some experts have estimated that the law has helped to direct more than $6 BILLION annually to distressed communities. Senator Gramm's proposal would EXEMPT some 4,000 smaller banks and savings associations from the ACT. He would also make it more difficult for community groups to challenge the lending records of financial institutions." Carter GLASS and Henry STEAGALL finally tied to a barrel and tarred and feathered!!! This means we'll all come to the same GRIEF with our buttocks to the wind!!! from the NEW YORK TIMES, February 11, 1999, by STEPHEN LABATON "In the annals of American politics, few lawmakers have done more to help members of Congress raise money, unwitting though they were, than CARTER GLASS and HENRY STEAGALL, the authors of a DEPRESSION ERA law that sharply limited the cross-ownership of commercial banks, securities firms and insurance companies. Over the last 20 years or so, legislative proposals to break down those barriers have been an annual rite of Congress, invariably played out in turf wars between wealthy industries, competing committee chairmen and powerful regulators, who have fought to Congressional gridlock. The beneficiaries of the exercise are the political parties and the members of three Congressional committees; for them, the issue is a stalking horse used to raise millions of dollars from those business interests that have a stake in the outcome. During the 1997-98 election cycle, for instance, in a legislative session in which, for the first time in history, the House of Representatives passed legislation to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act, the industries that lobbied the issue gave more than $15 million to the members of the three committees -- House Banking, House Commerce and Senate Banking -- and more than $58 million to political parties and all candidates for Federal offices, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that researches money and politics. [...] financial conglomerates have tried to get around the restrictions imposed by the Glass-Steagall and Bank Holding Company Acts with complicated and expensive legal maneuvers setting up corporate structures to permit institutions to sell insurance, underwrite securities and offer insured bank deposits. [...] Phill Gramm, the Texas Republican, has compared [that] law, the Community Reinvestment Act [CRA], to a form of legalized extortion. Democrats have considered it a central tenet of social fairness for a core constituency ... [...] Another, longer-standing aspect of the legislative fight concerns which regulatory agency should take the lead under any new law. Mr. Greenspan has endorsed proposals that would require diversified financial companies to be structured with separate entities under one HOLDING COMPANY. The Federal Reser ve now regulates BANK HOLDING COMPANIES and would continue to do so under these proposals ... [...] The outcome will determine whether the Federal Reserve, an independent agency, will regulate financial conglomerates or whether they will fall under the supervision of the TREASURY, which is controlled by political appointments made by the President. [...] Another contentious issue is whether any new law should permit the emerging financial behemoths to be affiliated with industrial companies, as such companies [HOLDING COMPANIES] are in some ASIAN and EUROPEAN countries." from the 1999 The Washington Post [excerpted] by Kathleen Day " ... the Community Reinvestment Act. Congress passed the law, known as CRA, 22 years ago to encourage banks to make what now total more than $1 TRILLION in consumer, small business and mortgage loans to worthy low-income people who traditionally have been shunned by lenders as poor credit risks. ... President Clinton vowed to veto any bill that weakened CRA. In the past month, both Vice President Gore and Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin have underscored CRA's importance to the White House by publicly praising it. The issue pits Gramm, who has just become the chairman of the Banking Committee, ideologically against Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland, the committee's senior Democrat and a staunch CRA backer. Sarbanes believes government has a role to play in the private sector's lending policies by promoting wider access to credit. He and the Clinton administration want to expand CRA requirements to ANY banklike entities that would be created under proposed legislation to allow securities firms, insurance companies and banks to enter each other's businesses more easily than they can now. Gramm, by contrast, dislikes government intervention in the market. He has said he opposes including in any new law any expansion of community reinvestment requirements. Indeed, last year he successfully defeated efforts to apply CRA rules to credit unions, which increasingly act like consumer banks and, his critics point out, enjoy subsidies such as tax exemptions and federal deposit insurance. [...] Those bankers who aren't wild about the law say they have learned to live with it and don't wish to hold up bank reform legislation over it. Proponents of the law, including Clinton and many bankers, say abuses are the exception and that, overall, the law has succeeded in getting banks to find ways to make profitable loans in neighborhoods they once avoided as unprofitable. [...] All this fuss stems from a law just a few sentences long stating that banks must serve the communities in the areas where they do business. Regulators have interpreted the law to mean they must review CRA lending records as part of every bank's ROUTINE FEDERAL EXAMINATIONS to make sure banks are safe and sound. CRA loan commitments from all financial institutions since the law was enacted in 1977 now total $1.053 trillion." [...] Gramm acknowledges more information is needed before either critics or proponents of the program can make definitive statements about it. He has asked the FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD, which regulates bank HOLDING COMPANIES, to undertake a study to answer some of the questions. Gramm says he will use the information to hold hearings in the future to examine the entire issue of CRA." also from the 1999, The Washington Post [excerpted] by Kathleen Day "TREASURY, FED Move Closer On Bank Bill: Rubin Offers Compromise On Overhaul of Services" "Treasury Secretary Robert E. RUBIN yesterday offered a compromise to the FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD on legislation to revamp regulation of banking, securities and insurance, a move that industry officials hailed as a big step toward removing a key obstacle that helped kill a bank overhaul bill last year. The TREASURY and the FED --- the two main federal bank REGULATORS --- have been at loggerheads over which agency will be the primary federal bank regulator if reform legislation passes. [...] Rubin backed language allowing banks to offer customers a variety of financial services, including securities underwriting through SUBSIDIARIES. The Treasury would continue to regulate most bank SUBSIDIARIES. But, in an apparent bow to the FED, the LaFalce provision would not allow banks to underwrite insurance or sell real estate through a subsidiary. Instead, the bill requires a bank to conduct those activities through a HOLDING COMPANY. The FED regulates bank HOLDING COMPANIES. [...] Last year TREASURY said it would veto any legislation that didn't permit banks to engage in any financial activity through a subsidiary. The FED, by contrast, opposed allowing banks to use subsidiaries to branch into securities and insurance. Instead it favored a holding company structure, wherein banks affiliate with SECURITIES and INSURANCE companies by having a common PARENT or owner." ========================================================= Standard Federal Bank Senior Vice President Mary M. Fowlie Named to Freddie Mac's Affordable Housing Advisory Council excerpted from PRNewswire "TROY, Mich., May 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Standard Federal Bank, Michigan's leading home mortgage lender, announced today that Mary M. Fowlie, Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Compliance/ CRA, has been named to the Freddie Mac Affordable Housing Advisory Council. The Affordable Housing Advisory Council consists of nationally recognized leaders in the field of home finance; its purpose is to advise Freddie Mac on ways to promote affordable housing for low- to moderate-income individuals and families. "Standard Federal Bank has historically been a leader in promoting affordable housing for persons of all income levels in the various communities in which we operate," said Ms. Fowlie. "I am very pleased to now be given the opportunity to use this expertise on the national level in order to help expand opportunities for those who might not otherwise have access to affordable housing." [...] Standard Federal Bank, a subsidiary of ABN AMRO North America, Inc., is headquartered in Troy, Michigan." "Is the FHLB Purchasing MORTGAGE LOANS or Selling the BROOKLYN BRIDGE??" from the Wall Street Journal, March 29, 1999 [excerpted from page B7-A for your reading convenience] " [...] Chairman Bruce Morrison, of the Federal Housing Finance Board, which regulates the FHLB Bank System, reacted sharply to Fannie Mae's comments. "What this boils down to is Fannie Mae says it favors competition but is somehow worried that low risk MPF loans from Federal Home Loan Banks with higher capital are somehow unsafe," he said. "If you believe that, I have a great deal on a BRIDGE in Brooklyn." [...] Fannie Mae spokesman John Buckley ... said that ... "if the Federal Home Loan Banks want to expand into wholly new areas, they should have a real regulator, real capital and real percentage-of-business goals just like Fannie Mae." FHLB Sued by an African American!! TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS MANAGED BY PUBLIC PENSION FUNDS Fall Into Re-Election Coffers from Reuters Wire Services, March 31, 1999 "United States regulators will soon propose rules designed to prevent securities firms that manage trillions of dollars of PUBLIC PENSION FUNDS from making campaign contributions to officials that select the firms, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission said today. Arthur Levitt, chairman of the S.E.C., said that his staff had uncovered possible wrongdoing in at least 17 states that offer PUBLIC PENSIONS to tens of thousands of bus drivers, firefighters and other workers. In a speech before a group of large investors in the United States Securities markets, Mr. Levitt said his staff probably wold have uncovered even more problems if it had had more time. It's time we put an end to the culture of "PAY TO PLAY" in the area of MUNICIPAL MONEY MANAGEMENT," he said. Pay-to-play occurs when public officials select Wall Street and other firms to manage state or local pension funds on the basis of political contributions . [...] The MUNICIPAL MARKET RULE requires Wall Street bond dealers to refrain from doing business for two years with local governments whose elected officials have accepted political contributions from them. [...] Any S.E.C. proposal is expected to get a chilly response from state and local government officials who think new rules would be unfair." from the March 29th, 1999 USA TODAY "Investigators Question Calculation of Benefits" "Government investigators say they have identified systemic failures in the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.'s [PBGC] ability to calculate accurate and timely benefits for nearly a half-million Americans. [...] the pension fund remains fiscally SOUND with a $5 billion surplus ... Last year, the fund paid $842 million in benefits. [...] Some pensioners die before knowing what they are entitled to, though the government pays estimated benefits in the interim. [...] The SELF-FUNDED federal fund PROTECTS the pensions of 42 million Americans and actively administers the benefits of 472,000 working and retired Americans formerly employed by 2,665 DEFUNCT corporations. PBGC Deputy Executive Director Joseph Grant says "a major overhaul" has helped the agency overcome many deficiencies identified by investigators. But Grant says the agency still hasn't calculated benefits for 200,000 pensioners." "PENSION FUND AGENCY [PBGC] IS BEING SCRUTINIZED" from the Sunday New York Times, March 28th, 1999 by David Cay Johnston "Costs and Safeguards Are at Issue After Lawsuit and Internal Audit" [excerpted from the original] "A quarter-century ago, Congress created the PENSION BENEFIT GUARANTY CORP. to make sure that the 42 million workers with traditional pensions would get paid even if the EMPLOYER went BANKRUPT. The legislation was hailed at the time as second only to SOCIAL SECURITY in its significance to working Americans. How well that agency operates is now being questioned in a series of audits by the Agency's Inspector General, which are to be made public this week, and by a lawsuit charging that one of the pension agency's contractors [OFFICE SPECIALISTS Temporary Employment agency] DEFRAUDED it. [...] Two Republican Senators ... said that hearings would be held by SEPTEMBER to investigate how well the Agency is run and why ... half of the 472,000 people covered by failed pension plans [due to their employers having conveniently filed bankruptcy] ... have not been told how much they are due [.]. [...] The audits, the lawsuit and the hearings come as Congressional Republicans are gearing up for a battle to pass major changes in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act [ERISA] that have long been sought by major corporations and business owners. [...] the Pension Agency, which received five awards from Vice President Al Gore for improving efficiency and customer service, had reduced the backlog of people waiting to hear how much they are due [.]. [...] One employee of the Agency, who calls himself Jim Dough, to avoid any RETRIBUTION, has filed a LAWSUIT on behalf of the Agency against one of its biggest Contractors, OFFICE SPECIALISTS, of Peabody, Mass. [...] The Dough lawsuit, unsealed on March 18 by a Federal District Court judge in Baltimore, says that a senior Pension Agency official, Bennie L. Hagans Jr., steered business to OFFICE SPECIALISTS, which received a number of contracts WITHOUT competitive bidding, and ordered PAYMENTS [to the temp agency] to be EXPEDITED. The suit also asserts that Mr. Hagans improperly intervened when Myrna Cooks, the Office Specialists' liaison to the Pension Agency, quit to form her own company and was sued by Office Specialists for violating her employment contract. Mr. Hagans, the lawsuit asserts, "threatened Office Specialists" with a loss of business from the pension agency unless it dropped its suit against Mrs. Cooks and let her assume an Office Specialists' contract valued at $13.5 million. Office Specialists then settled with Mrs. Cooks, whose business, operated out of her home, was awarded the contract. [...] Jesse P. Schaudies, General Counsel for RANDSTAD North America, a subsidiary of the DUTCH company that owns OFFICE SPECIALISTS, said "we have no basis for believing there was anything improper" in its dealing with the Pension Agency." ... a very unique but convincing view of what happens to all our gold and national currency, from SAM FARRA, link originally from the Islamic News Group on the KNIGHTS TEMPLAR click here for more than this little excerpt ... "When I say the US economy stays on top, I'm not referring to your personal economy or mine, rahter the Fed's position, control and power, which goes parallel with its Establishment. It was never meant to regulate banking, but rather gather power by taking it (the GOLD) out of our hands." New Flash!!! Read the article from LOUIS UCHITELLE's New York Times "Viewpoint", February 14, 1999 titled "Sky High Stocks Breed Debt, Sowing the Seeds of a Slump", in which he says [excerpted] "Contrary to accepted wisdom, the falling market, by extinguishing consumption, would definitely weaken the economy. [...] more than ever, Americans are using the stocks they own to finance the spending that keeps the economy afloat. The harnessing of stock portfolios to this task, diluting the market's role as a repository of savings, is taking several forms, one of them evident in Cincinnati, among many other cities." EXAGGERATED CONFIDENCE IN THE FEDERAL RESERVE TO CUSHION THE ECONOMY AGAINST SHOCKS from the March 21, 1999 THE NEW YORK TIMES MORE FROM LOUIS UCHITELLE !!! [excerpted from Louis Uchitelle's editorial feature story] "The Stronger It Gets, the Sweatier the Palms" [...] ALAN GREENSPAN, the Federal Reserve chairman ... told Congress last month that the economy "appears stretched in a number of dimensions." That, on top of his insistence last September that America CANNOT remain an "oasis of prosperity". Or hear out Warren E. Buffet, the celebrated stock market guru, who said on national television not three weeks ago: "The level of SPECULATION is high by any historic standard. And you know that doesn't go on forever." Or worry with Robert M. Solow, a Nobel laureate in economics, who said in an interview last week: "We have had three awfully good years now, and an incredible fourth quarter. But any SETBACK can start the DOMINOES FALLING. Who knows what's next?" The nervousness, in fact, may be appropriate. This is hardly a standard, predictable boom. Normally, there is a beginning, middle and end ... But the boom that started in late 1995 broke this pattern. [...] As stock prices have shot up ... millions of people are putting up their HOMES AS COLLATERAL, but with the thought, lenders and economists say, that they can sell stock to repay debt if necessary. "The stock market has become a way of EXTRACTING equity from housing," said Wynne Godley, an economist at the Jerome Levy Institute. Mortgage and HOME EQUITY loans, as a result, are the fastest rising form of CONSUMER DEBT in recent months. [...] Macroeconomic Advisers, a forecasting firm in St. Louis ... don't see stock prices falling sharply enough to halt the ... economy. Average stock prices would have to fall at least 30 percent and stay down for a least six months, an unlikely event in the view of most Wall Street economists, and CERTAINLY in the view of many shareholders. [...] "Might people ... be taking RISKS that they would NOT HAVE TAKEN were it not for an exaggerated confidence in the ability of the Fed to cushion the economy and financial markets against any and all shocks?" [...] "If so, there conceivably could be greater potential INSTABILITY in the system than is readily APPARENT at this time." MORE FROM "SECRETS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE" the classic that created a furor in the 50s!!! page 41 " ... Each of the twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks was to elect a member of the Federal Advisory Council, which would meet with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors four times a year in Washington, in order to "advise" the Board on future monetary policy. This seemed to assure absolute democracy, as each of the twelve "advisors", representing a different region of the United States, would be expected to speak up for the economic interests of his area, and each of the twelve members woud have an equal vote. [...] In fact, the small banks of the twelve Federal Reserve districts existed only as satellites of the BIG NEW YORK financial interests, and were completely at their mercy. Martin Mayer, in THE BANKERS, points out that "J.P. Morgan maintained correspondent relationships with many small banks all over the country." The BIG NEW YORK banks did not confine themselves to multi-million dollar deals with other great financial interests, but carried on many smaller and more routine dealings with their "correspondent" banks across the United States. [...] ... Paul WARBURG remained the dominant presence at FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD meetings throughout the 1920s, when the European central banks were planning the great contraction of credit which PRECIPITATED THE CRASH OF 1929 and the GREAT DEPRESSION." During the Senate Hearings on Paul Warburg before the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, August 1, 1914, Senator Bristow asked, "How many of these partners of (of Kuhn, Loeb Company) are American citizens?" WARBURG: "They are all American citizens except Mr. Kahn. He is a British subject." BRISTOW: "He was at one time a candidate for Parliament, was he not?" WARBURG: ""There was talk about it, it had been suggested and he had it in his mind." Paul Warburg also stated to the Committee, "I went to England, where I stayed for two years, first in the banking and discount firm of Samuel Montague & Company. After that I went to France, where I stayed in a French bank." CHAIRMAN: "What French bank was that?" WARBURG: "It is the Russian bank for foreign trade which has an agency in Paris." BRISTOW: "I understood you to say that you were a Republican, but when Mr. THEODORE ROOSEVELT came around, you then became a sympathizer with Mr. Wilson and supported him?" WARBURG: "Yes." Thus the three partners of Kuhn, Loeb company were supporting three different candidates for President of the United States. Paul Warburg was supporting Wilson, Felix Warburg was supporting Taft, and Otto Kahn was supporting Theodore Roosevelt. Paul Warburg explained this curious situation by telling the Committee that they had NO INFLUENCE OVER EACH OTHER'S POLITICAL BELIEFS, "as finance and politics don't mix." RETURN TO EZRA POUND HOMEPAGE HERE FastCounter by LinkExchange Check out Cassandra Crossing Table of Contents here Click here for feature on TEMP SLAVES!!! Click here for feature on HMOS ARE OUT TO KILL YOU! ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! 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