Free Speech Tv Ring of Fire Featuring Howard Nations - Democrat - The new face of wall st. corruption

MIKE PAPANTONIO: Today’s Democratic Party has become an extension of Wall Street. We’re kidding ourselves if we think that it’s just the GOP. Joining me to talk about the new Wall Street Democrats are attorneys Howard Nations and Dave Teselle. Howard, Wall Street doesn’t need Republicans anymore they have Democrats to do all their fighting and bidding and hustling for them. I mean I’ve never seen such a bunch of Wall Street hustling Democrats like we have with this new Democratic Party that’s evolved since Bill Clinton. NATIONS: It’s absolutely amazing Mike, that after the near collapse of the global economy as a result of Wall Street practices, their financial practices, now we’re back to the point where believe it or not a bill just passed the House Financial Services Committee to allow derivatives trading again. Derivatives what Warren Buffet referred to as “weapons of mass financial destruction.” What you’re talking about is the fact that this bill was carried by Democrats. It was drafted by the Citigroup. It was sponsored by Democrats who had received Wall Street money. What we have there is the fox in the hen house, the revolving door policies continue with respect to the financial industry. The White House revolving door as it turns out opens onto Wall Street. We’ve had PAPANTONIO: [Chuckles] Howard, I saw one line in 70 lines of the 85 line bill that is supposed to again free-up derivative trading, the same thing that brought us this last crash, that 70 of those lines were actually drafted by Citigroup without ever being changed by a Democrat at all. NATIONS: Absolutely. PAPANTONIO: Dave, what’s your take on this? What’s your picture? What is it that you see developing here? DAVE TESELLE: Well what’s really concerning to me is really the growth of what I would call the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party and the squeeze of the progressives at this point. One thing that we’ve seen more recently with the trial balloon that was floated about nominating Larry Summers for the leadership of the Federal Reserve. When the Obama administration did that, that was very important and it was a very telling sign about how much Wall Street has controlled Obama’s White House. I think what we need to know and we need to really look at is Larry Summers is one of the founding fathers of this Wall Street wing from back in the Bill Clinton days. In the Clinton White House, Larry Summers working as a protégé of Bob Rubin, who is now at Citigroup working there, he was the one who pushed deregulation of the big banks and deregulation of Wall Street. That was a root cause of the collapse that happened here. PAPANTONIO: Yeah, I mean you’ve got Jack Lew of course, Chief Operating Officer of Citigroup and course now he’s Obama’s current treasury secretary. You have Peter Orszag who was Obama’s Director of Office of Management in Budget, which we’ve talked about on this program before, that’s where all the bills are held-up because consumers are always affected by a bill doesn’t get through there unless the White House wants it to get through and now this is a guy, Peter Orszag, who was also he’s become a Citigroup’s Vice Chairman. Look Howard, what’s in store here? I mean what’s happening to us? NATIONS: Well the Democrats are rolling back Dodd-Frank, which is totally outrageous. Then the other thing coming out of the White House is that President Obama first of all he placed no strong conditions on bail-out money and then they have not prosecuted one single Wall Street exec. There are all sorts of fraud taking place. They are paying fines left and right. They are paying out billions in fines for fraud, but not one single Wall Street exec has been prosecuted. You just simply can’t trust the Democrats to regulate Wall Street. Senator Paul Wellstone said it best, he said, “I’m a member of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party; the other wing is the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party,” which is just unbelievable. PAPANTONIO: Now the Wall Street wing is clearly winning. Dave, are there Democratic progressives? Full disclosure, people think I’m a Democrat, I’m independent because of this very thing. You almost can’t tell a difference between the parties anymore on significant issues. Now you can on social issues, things like gender and things like immigration, but where it comes to the issues that put food on people’s table, that takes their rights away, you know Democrats are just an extension of Wall Street. Who are the progressives that are fight back here? TESELLE: Well Paul Wellstone is one of them. You make a really good point Mike, this is an issue that really should reach across party lines. When you talk about social issues we have deep divisions between the Democrats and the Republicans. But when you talk about these types of issues, those self-described Tea Party or conservatives, they don’t necessarily disagree with a lot of our more progressive drivers that are against Wall Street and against what’s been going on. I do want to point out even the fines that are being paid, that Howard just talked about by Wall Street, are minuscule, they are minuscule compared to the actual effect of what these big banks have done and no one is standing up to them. PAPANTONIO: Dave, don’t they do the same thing the pharmaceutical industry does TESELLE: Absolutely. PAPANTONIO: Once they’re fined they simply build the fine into the cost of the pharmaceutical, the banking industry does the same thing. Say, “Sure we’ll pay a $20 million fine, but we’re going to build it in to the cost that flows to you.” Howard, as I look at this I see there are very few progressive, I mean Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Carl Levin of Michigan, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, of course you’ve got Bruce Braley of Iowa, you have some Democrats out there who get it, who understand that there are no progressives who are paying attention, who are not embarrassed to say, “Yeah, I consider myself a Democrat because of these very issues.” NATIONS: Well Sherrod Brown give him credit, he wants to break-up the “too big to fail banks,” which Holder, the Attorney General, recently said, “They are also too big to jail.” Now does that need to be broken up? I think so. Senators Levin and Merkley have been doing regulatory review hearings and they’ve been having hearings on all these bank scandals. What they find is all sorts of fraud prevailing out there and as you say it just becomes the cost of doing business with no criminal prosecutions. Bernie Sanders is opposing the fast-track trade authority that President Obama wants, because he wants a strategy that will revise and revive United States manufacturing. So there is a considerable battle between the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party and to some extent President Obama, but where Obama and the progressive do agree is on increasing minimum wage, on action on the perverse CEO compensation packages, which are designed to reward short-term planning on the part of CEOs, as opposed to long-term financial strategy. PAPANTONIO: Yeah, it used to be that a CEO would take over a corporation and be there for 25 or 30 years, now if they’re there 5, they are in there for quick profits. They don’t care what in the hell they do to the stockholders, the shareholders of the company, they’re moving through. Dave, let me go to you on this. You mentioned Summers. Isn’t this the litmus test? I mean you’ve got an Obama administration who knows, (a) Larry Summers was the one who was supporting Enron up till the week that we found out that they had committed this incredible fraud on all of America. Larry Summers is the guy who went to Bill Clinton and helped with Bob Rubin, helped Bill Clinton move on Glass-Steagall, to remove the Glass-Steagall protections we have. He’s the guy who has been more responsible for the deregulation that led to the burn-out of this economy, at least in the same class as Phil Gramm that lead to the same burn-down. So here we have an Obama administration saying, “Yeah, this is my guy, I want to put him in charge of the Fed.” Isn’t that a good reflection of what we’re really dealing with here? TESELLE: It’s an unfortunate reflection. It’s an unfortunate reflection really to the past of tried policies that have failed extremely. So let’s be clear, so when we talk about deregulation, what that is, this is a man who said, “We need less rules and less oversight on Wall Street.” We need to allow Wall Street to devour itself essentially is what happened. He was the one who pushed for that. He was the one who championed that in the Clinton administration and that was built on leading up to the collapse and caused the collapse. He doesn’t have any new ideas. PAPANTONIO: He’s embracing Cory Booker right now. Cory Booker is a nightmare when it comes to consumers versus Wall Street. TESELLE: It’s unbelievable to me. I mean Cory Booker and maybe it’s because when we look at the main-stream media, we only get snippets or little ideas, you hear that he’s the Mayor of Newark and that he is running for the Senate in New Jersey and that maybe his perception is standing up for the little person or the consumer, but the facts when you look into who his benefactors are, the monied elite that are behind him, the anti-affirmative action groups and the vouchers that he backs. PAPANTONIO: He is bought and paid for by corporate America and again Obama is embracing him like he’s one of them. Howard, what does this mean for consumers? In about a minute tell me what is it the consumers do about all this? NATIONS: Well that’s the difficult part of this, because the golden rule of politics in Washington is, “He who has the gold makes the rules.” The example of that is if you look at the financial independent industries lobbying versus what consumer groups try to do protect consumers; in 2009 the consumer group said, “We’re going to raise $5 million to push for financial reform.” In that same timeframe, 2009, 2010, the financial industry spent $750 million in lobbying. They are giving money to both parties. They are giving money more to the conservative wing of both parties, the moderate Democrats and the conservative Republicans and the effect is to push both parties to the right on financial reforms. PAPANTONIO: Guys, it’s my call, I’ve got to tell you something I’ve been talking about lately, it is time for a labor party in the United States, it’s time for a third-party, there is no better time than right now. Democrats are simply Republicans dressed up in Wall Street Armani suits, that’s what we have now. Thanks for joining me Howard Nations and Dave Teselle.