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Silent Coup
In the past 4 years 22 universities across the U.S. have quietly taken the CIA’s dollars and agreed to become spy-factories for student spooks. David Price breaks the story, identifies the campuses, details secret faculty protests and charts the strategy for resistance. The U.S.’s warlord clients in Afghanistan now produce 90 per cent of the world’s opium. Peter Lee reports how the U.S. sponsors widening drug plagues in Iran and Russia. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents.
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Today's Stories February 8, 2010 Pam Martens Heather Gray Paul Craig Roberts Franklin Spinney Ralph Nader Ellen Brown Sasha Kramer Richard Morse Fred Gardner Binoy Kampmark Michael Winship David Michael Green Charles R. Larson Website of the Day February 5 - 7, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Forrest Hylton Joanne Mariner Bill Quigley Jeffrey St. Clair Todd Gordon / Jeffrey R. Webber Consolidating the Coup in Honduras Joseph Nevins Mike Miller Mark Weisbrot Alison Weir David Swanson Missy Beattie Jonathan Cook Richard Morse David Ker Thomson Benjamin Dangl Cal Winslow Jim Goodman Michael Dickinson Bouthaina Shaaban Don Monkerud Ananya Mukherjee-Reed Doug Bevington Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Day February 4, 2010 Barbara Rhine Barry Lando David Macaray Shamus Cooke P. Sainath Christopher Brauchli Ramzy Baroud Suzan Mazur Harry Clark Andy Worthington Website of the Day February 3, 2010 Paul Craig Roberts Kathleen Christison Franklin Spinney Dean Baker Marc Levy Kathy Kelly Gareth Porter Joshua Frank Rannie Amiri Gregory Vickrey Website of the Day February 2, 2010 Michael Hudson Boadiba Chris Floyd Paul A. Passavant Mike Whitney John Ross Jonathan Cook Susan Galleymore Dave Lindorff Tolu Olorunda Ron Jacobs Website of the Day February 1, 2010 Michael Hudson Stan Goff Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Dr. Carol Paris, MD Marshall Auerback Harvey Wasserman Johanna Berrigan Peter Gelderloos David Michael Green Martha Rosenberg Kevin Zeese Alan Farago Website of the Day January 29 - 31, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Daniel Ellsberg Bill Quigley Franklin Spinney Jeffrey St. Clair Steve Early Joe Bageant P. Sainath Jordan Flaherty Joshua Frank Winslow T. Wheeler Brian M. Downing Wajahat Ali William Loren Katz Dave Lindorff Jim Goodman Judith Scherr Kerry Kennedy / Monika Kalra Varma Anthony Papa David Macaray Roger Burbach Belén Fernández Nikolas Kozloff Dr. Susan Block Windy Cooler Charles R. Larson Mikita Brottman David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff David Rovics Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend January 28, 2010 Bill Quigley Peter Hallward Tanya Golash-Boza Shamus Cooke Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Uri Weiss Thomas M. Power Cecil Brown Wajahat Ali Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day January 27, 2010 Daniel Kovalik Paul Craig Roberts Dean Baker Uri Avnery Sasha Kramer Vijay Prashad Nikolas Kozloff Mark Weisbrot Jonathan Cook Bob Fitrakis / Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day January 26, 2010 Michael Hudson Joan Roelofs Patrick Cockburn Mike Roselle Brian M. Downing David Macaray Bouthaina Shaaban Kevin Zeese Richard Morse Fidel Castro Farzana Versey Jonathan Cook Website of the Day January 25, 2010 Michael Hudson Anthony DiMaggio JoAnn Wypijewski Nadia Hijab Robert Jensen John Maxwell Richard Morse Marilyn Langlois Dan Bacher James L. Secor Jayne Lyn Stahl Website of the Day January 22/24, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Russell Feingold Ralph Nader Christopher Ketcham Manuel Garcia, Jr Paul Craig Roberts Jeffrey St. Clair Nikolas Kozloff Jean Damu Mitchel Cohen Paul Buccheit Conn Hallinan Steven Higgs Rob Stone, MD Saul Landau / Ron Jacobs Vijay Prashad P. Sainath M. Shahid Alam George Wuerthner Missy Comley Beattie Jean Sabaté Shamus Cooke Stephen Fleischman Michael Donnelly David Michael Green Michael Dickinson Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Day
Paul Craig Roberts Alan Farago Richard Morse Stewart J. Lawrence Harvey Wasserman Carl Finamore Ramzy Baroud Marshall Auerback Fawzia Afzal-Khan Adam Federman Website of the Day January 20, 2010 Alexander Cockburn James Bovard Mary Lynn Cramer Dean Baker Uri Avnery Kathy Kelly Jeb Sprague Ron Jacobs John V. Walsh Bouthaina Shaaban Gail Dines Website of the Day January 19, 2010 Michael Hudson John Maxwell Stephen Soldz Richard Morse Björn Kumm Gary Leupp Eric Toussaint / Nikolas Kozloff Benjamin Dangl Dave Lindorff Robert Roth Website of the Day January 18, 2010 Petra Bartosiewicz Nelson P. Valdés Bill Quigley Richard Morse Tolu Olorunda John Ross Manuel Garcia, Jr. The Murder of Masoud Alimohammadi: Assassinating the Iranian H-Bomb Ralph Nader Franklin Lamb Frederick B. Hudson Website of the Day January 15-17, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Richard Morse Bill Quigley Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Anthony DiMaggio Tom Reeves Daniel Wolff Alan Nasser Saul Landau / Andrew Oxford Michael Donnelly Russell Mokhiber Darwin Bond-Graham Missy Beattie David Ker Thomson Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Clifton Ross Jordan Flaherty Marshall Auerback Marjorie Cohn Joe Bageant Tariq Ali Jayne Lyn Stahl Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend January 14, 2010 Ashley Smith Harvey Wasserman Dean Baker Brian Cloughley Brock L. Bevan Don Monkerud Winslow T. Wheeler Gideon Levy Adam Federman James McEnteer Brian Concannon Jr Website of the Day January 13, 2010 Patrick Haenni / Jonathan Cook Cecil Brown Steven Higgs Paul de Rooij Richard Forno Dr. Trudy Bond Daniel Drennan Martha Rosenberg Brenda Baletti, Gilson Rego and Antonio Sena Website of the Day January 12, 2010 Bill Salganik Uri Avnery Dean Baker Dan Kovalik Raza Naeem George Wuerthner Dave Lindorff David Macaray Tolu Olorunda Patrick Bond Website of the Day January 11, 2010 Patrick Cockburn Gareth Porter John Ross Gregory V. Button Ralph Nader Tom Barry Mikita Brottman David Michael Green Lost in the White House David Swanson Kevin Zeese Website of the Day
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February 8, 2010 This Trend is Not Your FriendWall Street's Killer Instinct Spells Death Knell for JobsBy PAM MARTENS I think it’s time to take Wall Street literally: they’ve made it abundantly clear they have an insatiable appetite for killing things: the housing market, the financial system, the economy, reform legislation, the next generation’s future. Wall Street is so steeped in destruction that the symbols of death are everywhere. Wall Street calls the big newspaper ads they take out to herald the launch of their market offerings a “tombstone.” (To understand how appropriate that is, consider the billions in bond and stock offerings they raise for Big Tobacco.) What does Wall Street call the completion of a buy or sell order: an “execution.” (Think of how many derivative trades they “executed” for the now crippled, life support patients Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG; or the off balance sheet vehicles they created for Enron, WorldCom, and dozens of now bankrupt companies.) Wall Street calls an order to complete a trade without any reduction in quantity a “fill or kill.” This could just as reasonably be called a “fill or cancel” order but it’s so much more fun for the thundering herd to race around a trading floor screaming “kill it, kill it!” What is the benefit to Wall Street in killing things or bringing the share price of companies to near worthless? Tails they win; heads you lose. Wall Street can and does make enormous profits on bets that share prices will decline (shorting), that companies will disappear (credit default swaps), that the economy will crater (interest rate swaps). And there’s a slogan on Wall Street: the trend is your friend. When it’s clear the bull is lying in the center of the ring (think Lehman’s death and the Merrill Lynch shotgun wedding on September 15, 2008), Wall Street moves its bets to the downside. No one has their jive aligned with their agenda any better than Citigroup’s traders. When they set out to inflict pain on the European bond market in 2004, they labeled the trade “Dr. Evil.” Citi also created a structured finance vehicle that greased the skids for the collapse of Italian dairy giant Parmalat, dubbed Buconero, Italian for “Black Hole.” Until a President comes along with a genuine will to deal with the truly rapacious nature of Wall Street, these destructive forces will continue. President Obama’s latest Wall Street reform plan to bar commercial banks from owning private equity funds or hedge funds and banning proprietary trading for the benefit of their own firm constitutes needed reform toward unrigging the markets. But the proposal neglects Wall Street’s most serious threat to the economy. It’s the commercial banks’ ownership of investment banks and brokerage firms that’s killing innovation and job growth in America. The longer we wait to deal with this issue, the more the national debt will balloon as the government is forced to indefinitely add job stimulus money and sustenance funds for the growing number of unemployed. As currently structured, Wall Street investment banks have no incentive to bring viable companies to market. Wall Street makes the same huge fees for putting lipstick on a pig and dumping it on the public as they do for launching solid companies with real job growth potential. Over the past decade, trillions of dollars of investors’ life savings have been misallocated to bogus business models. Those companies are now worthless or are trading for pennies on the Pink Sheets, the graveyard for investment banks’ misfired ideas. The Pink Sheets provide quotes on these stocks to broker dealers. It’s not responsible for the legitimacy of the companies and, in fact, warns investors on its web site that these “are small companies with limited operating histories or are economically distressed…Investors should avoid the OTC [over the counter] market unless they can afford a complete loss of their investment.” In many cases, this is far more disclosure than licensed brokers at the “venerable” firms told their clients when the companies first went public at fat share prices. A study done by Tyler Shumway and Vincent A. Warther for the University of Michigan Business School and University of Chicago Graduate School of Business found that between 1972 through 1995, 4,188 companies were delisted by Nasdaq, the stock exchange that facilitated the boom and bust in dotcoms and tech start ups in the late 90s. After delisting, many ended up on the Pink Sheets. In March 2000, the Nasdaq index stood at 5,048. Today, a decade later, it’s still down 58 percent from its peak. It's time for Congress to open its eyes to the reality that this massive decline in Nasdaq is telling us Wall Street is not bringing enough good companies to market. And the mergers Wall Street has put together, typically traded on the New York Stock Exchange, have created Frankenbanks and debt-laden conglomerates too bloated to figure out their own balance sheet let alone create new jobs. Two poster children come to mind: AOL-TimeWarner and Citibank-Travelers-Smith Barney-Salomon, a/k/a Citigroup. Investment banks that arrange these initial public offerings of new companies or merge together existing ones are now located within the “too big to fail,” publicly traded commercial banks. But they used to be private partnerships and put their own money at risk when bringing a new company to market. When their own money was at risk, there was a far greater due diligence done to ensure the company would be viable. That’s gone now. There’s no incentive to be vigilant. It’s OPM: other people’s money to throw down on the casino table. To fully understand the new structure of Wall Street, it helps to reflect back to August 1995 when the FDA told us that a cigarette was really a nicotine delivery system in drag and Big Tobacco was manipulating “nicotine delivery at each stage of production.” People were being hooked on something very harmful to their well being while a colluding industry lied and lobbied. Insiders on Wall Street call their retail brokerage firms, now also dangerously merged with commercial banks, a “distribution” system. The investment banks create the toxic product, the brokers distribute it to the public under an enshrined carrot and stick system that is virtually identical at every major firm. That is, the internal research department puts out a buy recommendation. The brokers’ local manager holds a sales meeting and pushes the firm’s latest offerings. The brokers’ commission system dramatically favors risky products that the firm is pumping out over safer investments. There is absolutely no system that rewards a broker for how well his clients’ portfolio performs. The broker’s ability to have secretarial help, the size of his or her office, gaining the title of Vice President on the business card, the annual bonus, even being taken out to lunch by the Branch Manager, is dependent solely on how much money the broker makes for the firm. If you want to challenge the system as corrupt, the courthouse doors are closed to you. Wall Street enforces its own private justice system called mandatory arbitration. The public is not allowed to have a peek, after all it’s private justice, so there is no disinfecting sunshine on this cabal. The only way a system this riddled with conflicts of interest and contempt toward its own customers' interests could have survived this long was by grabbing that huge depositor base of money from the commercial banks and then trading it into oblivion. The newest patsy in this grand bank heist is the taxpayer who is replenishing the empty vaults. With each new $100 billion job creation program from the government, we acknowledge that Wall Street isn't creating companies that create jobs. According to the Labor Department, 9.3 million Americans could not find work as of January and millions more are involuntarily working part-time or too discouraged to look for work. So if Wall Street is not properly allocating capital to viable companies, it’s not rewarding its shareholders or customers, remind me again why taxpayers are spending trillions to save it? The February 15, 1999 cover of Time magazine lauded Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers as The Committee to Save the World. We now know this was really The Committee to Slave the World. The economic challenges the world now confronts were of their making; together, of course, with some well placed Washington and Wall Street cronies. Greenspan has a B.S., M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from New York University; Rubin has a B.A. in Economics from Harvard and a law degree from Yale. Summers has a B.S. from M.I.T. and a Ph.D. from Harvard. Despite these 7 degrees from some of the finest institutions of learning in the country, we are asked to believe that there was not one ounce of common sense that suggested to these men that repealing the depression era investor protection legislation known as the Glass-Steagall Act that prevented the combination of commercial banks with investment banks and brokerage firms would end up killing jobs, the financial system and the economy. (Were we not looking at men who profited greatly from that bad decision, we might be less skeptical.) There has been this intellectual dishonesty and revisionist history suggesting no one could have seen this coming. Not only did lots of people see it coming but on June 25 and June 26, 1998 a steady stream of public-minded citizens walked through the stately doors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and testified that repealing the Glass-Steagall Act and allowing commercial banks to merge with Wall Street firms was a preposterously bad idea and would lead to economic ruin. Why is our President turning to Summers and Rubin for advice instead of the people who got it right? President Obama has now anointed Neal Wolin to join the New Committee to Save the World along with himself and former Fed Chair Paul Volcker. Who is Neal Wolin? He was confirmed as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury on May 19, 2009. In the Clinton administration, Wolin was general counsel to Lawrence Summers, a key proponent of repealing the Glass-Steagall Act. According to the New York Times, Mr. Summers earned $5.2 million in 2008 working one day a week for the hedge fund, D.E. Shaw & Company, while simultaneously advising Obama. After leaving government, Wolin worked for Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. for eight years. According to BusinessWeek, if you add up Wolin’s cash compensation, restricted stock awards, options, and other compensation, he made $3.4 million his last year at Hartford in 2008.
Mr. President, it’s time to clear out the fat cats and deliver on that message of hope and change. Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years; she has no security position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article. She writes on public interest issues from New Hampshire. She can be reached at pamk741@aol.com
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