Chutzpah, Oligarch Style

Rumors have been swirling that too-big-to-fail Bank of America is on the verge of collapsing under the weight of its own greed and corruption.  Its stock has lost a third of its value in the past few volatile  weeks.  Its foreclosure robo-signing fraud settlement with the Feds is being delayed by an upstart attorney general who has the temerity to be doing the right thing by the victims, and not accepting a piddling settlement from the bank.

The feds have no jurisdiction over what New York AG Eric Schneiderman does regarding his own investigation and prosecution of BoA, but that hasn't stopped the Obama Administration from trying.  According to a New York Times article by Gretchen Morgenson,  the Obama Justice Department and HUD are putting pressure on Schneiderman to just drop whatever he's doing and agree to their overly generous deal. Blogger Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism, (thanks to Denis Neville for the link) who has been covering this banking scandal drama better than anyone, today came right out and said it: the Obama Administration is just plain corrupt:

Admittedly, corruption among our elites generally and in Washington in particular has become so widespread and blatant as to fall into the “dog bites man” category. But the nauseating gap between the Administration’s propaganda and the many and varied ways it sells out average Americans on behalf of its favored backers, in this case the too big to fail banks, has become so noisome that it has become impossible to ignore the fetid smell.

The Administration has now taken to pressuring parties that are not part of the machinery reporting to the President to fall in and do his bidding. We’ve gotten so used to the US attorney general being conveniently missing in action that we have forgotten that regulators and the AG are supposed to be independent. As one correspondent noted by e-mail, “When officials allegiances are to El Supremo rather than the Constitution, you walk the path to fascism.”

Luckily for us, though, this White House is so inept that the blatant strong-arming is being done right out in the open, for an unbelieving public to gawk and gasp at. The so-called "attack dog" unleashed by the White House/Wall Street cabal is one Kathryn Wylde, pal of Timothy Geithner and board member of the New York Fed. She had the bad taste to actually confront Schneiderman at the funeral of former Governor Hugh Carey last week and demand he leave her poor Wall Street alone! When it comes to entitled boors, apparently nothing is sacred if it interferes with the pursuit of the almighty dollar.  Not even the funeral of a governor.


 Kathryn Wylde gets around.  Not only is she on the board of the Fed, she started a big business lobbying group called "Partnership for New York City", made up of bankers and real estate moguls.  She then went on to spawn the "Committee to Save New York" whose main purpose was to kill the so-called millionaire surtax in New York State, thus leading to one of those manufactured debt crises we have come to expect.  As a result, the state has imposed draconian teacher and public employee layoffs, decreased government services and massive cuts to the Medicaid program.  Wylde's group also has close ties to newly elected Governor Andrew Cuomo, another Wall Street lackey conserva-dem in the Obama mold.  The group ran a whole series of campaign-type TV ads earlier this year, simply to thank their bought-and-paid-for governor for making them even richer.  If Cuomo hadn't "saved" the wealthy, according to Wylde, there would have been a mass exodus of hedge fund managers (and their campaign contributions) to Greenwich, CT! 


Kathryn of Oligarchia


Kathryn Wylde apparently has not learned the trick of any oligarch worth his salt: keeping a low profile and not whooping with glee in TV commercials when the banksters catch yet another break. The political art of lying is not in her skill set. Asked about her run-in with Scheiderman, she bragged to The Times that she told the AG: "It is of concern to the industry that instead of trying to facilitate resolving these issues, you seem to be throwing a wrench into it. Wall Street is our Main Street — love ’em or hate ’em. They are important and we have to make sure we are doing everything we can to support them unless they are doing something indefensible." (fraud and grand larceny are okay, but maybe murder might cross her line).


 This spring, a group of activists actually showed up at her house and demanded that she quit her job.  Here is the clip  (she seems polite in a shell-shocked sort of way -- notice how she's clenching the railing of her front porch as the hippies converge!)


Meanwhile, Eric Schneiderman has been joined by a few other state attorneys general in Just Saying No to the Obama Administration's strong-arm tactics.  They include Beau Biden of Delaware, son of the vice president.


P.S.  If you'd like to drop a line of support to Schneiderman, you can do so here.