After the two trillion loss and all that 'sorrow' from Diamond, I am wondering if we, the billpayers

are feeling any sympathy for them?

The majority of these debts are being imposed on young people, who have a potential 40 years of gainful employment ahead of them to pay the debt off. But a sizeable chunk of US student loan debt is held by senior citizens, many of whom are not only unemployed but unemployable. According to the New York Federal Reserve, two million US seniors age 60 and over have student loan debt, on which they owe a collective $36.5 billion; and 11.2 percent of this debt is in default. Almost a third of all student loan debt is held by people aged 40 and over and 4.2 percent is held by people over the age of 60. The total student debt is now over $1 trillion, more even than credit card debt. The sum is unsustainable and threatens to be the next debt tsunami.

this is wrong.

I did what I generally never do this morning, I printed out an article to actually hold it in my hands and read it, after having read it on the screen in front of me. Strange as it may seem (to some) it made all the difference in understanding the article, and also finding how terribly inaccurate the headlines are that draw us toward what we read. It is mighty important, in my opinion, to get this small little detail. The detail is what is stalling us in this mired nation. The detail is how our attention is grabbed with one 'concept' and then derailed with the actual body of the message. I take Chomsky to task in the article posted on the professed Alternative News website.

Do We Have The Makings of A Real Revolution? was the Headline, and in its form, the question. I read the article. And to tell you the truth, I yawned by the second paragraph. It was not something I expected! In the recent past I've read this writer with great relish. I have generally felt inspired by the thrust of his purpose, his understanding of a broad array of readers who need to hear that they are 'known' and included in how he views not only history, but its role in our current situation, and most importantly he seemed to grasp the diversity of that 'situation' for all Americans. Not today.

Now, I have considered the fashion in which 'Alternet' posted this 'article'. In the very last italicized paragraph it is noted who the writer is and that this article is 'excerpted' from a speech given in October. Does He know that this excerpt has been published? Did he know that the headline now places this dated speech in today? And, has it done the 'revolution' any good service? I don't have any answers for these questions, and you know it. Well, except for the last one. And that answer as I present to you is NO. No good service has been done for the people of this country who are taking it in the face as we work, learn, clean, raise kids, care for grandchildren, rescue animals, clean hazardous and contaminated soil and waterways, picnic, visit food pantries, turn soil, read labels, the news, avoid bill collectors, keyword search our rights, make signs, or write articles for our favorite websites... we don't just take to the streets to stop corruption and pray for some measure of fairness for our efforts. We are living our lives as this unfolds. It becomes glaringly apparent to some, that this undertaking as those who write about it, do so with horribly limited approaches. When an editor makes the decision to further that by 'reposting' an exerpt, does anyone take note of its impact?

Chomsky's speech was, and I'm guessing, quite the inspiration in October. Today, in its excerpted form, it did little more then anger this reader as the time has passed for such pondering. If I were the writer I'd be a bit 'put off' by the choice. Given that spring has arrived and various cities across the nation have come out of winter with their intentions intact, and that the struggles of a diverse population coming together on anything is grinding on, its clear that this revolution requires a higher level of rhetoric then a repost can offer. And that is my point.

I printed this out, this article, so I could hold it in my hands. It read very differently when I did that. You'd have to talk to that person who prefers to turn a page as opposed to touching a screen, its again, a diverse nation:) I discovered that there is something to gain from slowing down, finding ease in following a sentence printed before you, rereading one or two of them, and then raising one's eyes to glance out a window or down the block (where ever one might be when reading) as you accept the perspective of another. It helped that I was in no hurry to 'respond' in this new high tech world of ours. I let it stew for a bit. And when I did that, I finally found the fellow American, not the 'famed' speaker, writer, educated MIT professor.... I finally allowed this reader to be as informed and considered as the writer.

So the rhetoric was valuable, and fell away as I allowed myself to fashion my own opinion. But, as you see I had to go through some processes to get to this place where what I know and see is as valuable as what the writer knows and sees. Now you know where I'm going with this don't you? I have to chuckle as I consider just how simple something like this is and yet how often I run across discussions where one can hear the venerated esteem others hold a writer in because they have reached some 'pinnacle' in the published often climb toward that .... what? I often have to ask what the speakers own opinion is in the spray of words used by those esteemed. We have our own most valuable rhetoric, if only we'd ponder that for a bit before adopting that which is presented to us as 'golden' words of knowledge.

As Chomsky's words worked their way into my considerations I picked out a few that I once just flew by. He stated that in Europe a group of people are referred to as Working Class, and that here in America that same group is referred to as Middle Class. I couldn't have disagreed more. I remember hearing that speech once before in print, and passing right by it without a thought.

The revolution has done wonders for my list of definitions.

So, as this revolution picks up again, and revolutions tend to do that, ramp up, slow down, thin out, blow up again.... I will answer Mr. Chomsky's question.

Yes.

That's just one settlement among many—as Taibbi wrote, last year, the bank settled for $335 million with the Justice Department after it pushed black and Latino borrowers, perfectly qualified for normal mortgages, into much riskier subprime loans. And it paid a $137 million fine for conspiring with other banks to rig the process by which cities and towns choose banks to manage their money. Taibbi explained, “in an attempt to avoid prosecution, it applied to the Justice Department's corporate leniency program, essentially confessing its criminal status: As plaintiff attorneys noted, the application 'means that Bank of America is an admitted felon.'”

Merrill Edge is Bank of America’s platform for "mass affluent" customers, or those with between $50,000 and $250,000 in investable assets.

Bank spokeswoman Nicole Nastacie said the decision to close the Charlotte location was made after a lengthy review of the bank’s operations and fit with Bank of America’s efforts to “simplify and streamline” the company.

The Charlotte bank is still in the midst of Project New BAC, named after its ticker symbol, which seeks to cut $5 billion in annual costs and is expected to involve cutting 30,000 positions.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/04/06/3153871/bofa-closing-charlotte-investment.html#storylink=cpy

The director of the vulture fund Donegal International likes to be known as Goldfinger, after the James Bond villain, and has a penchant for expensive Cadillacs.

Donegal owns a $15m (£9.5m) Zambian debt, dating back to 1979, which was originally purchased from Romania in 1999 for $3m. Once in possession of the debt, Donegal began demands from Zambia, which handed over $2.5m before the firm sued them in the UK for defaulting. The high court awarded Donegal $15.5m in 2007 despite the judge's concerns that Sheehan was "cavalier in presenting his evidence". An experienced lawyer, Sheehan has worked at law firms in Washington DC and Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Incongruously, he spent most of the 1990s as a counsel to a debt relief NGO before setting up Debt Advisory International (DAI), a firm that advises vulture funds. DAI was instrumental in brokering the deal between FG Management in the acquisition of Congolese debt from Bosnia.

When you die, your debts usually die with you. Surviving family members rarely have a legal obligation to pay unless they co-signed a loan, such as a mortgage or credit card. That leaves lenders in the lurch.

But debt collectors have found a way to help lenders get their money anyway. Working on behalf of financial giants from Bank of America and Capital One Financial Corp. (COF-News) to Discover Financial Services (DFS-News) and Citigroup Inc. (C-News), collection firms target survivors who might agree to pay at least part of what the dead person owed.

Debt collectors say the survivors have a moral obligation to pay, especially in cases where they benefited from purchases rung up by someone else.

ACA International, the industry's main trade group, says that collecting payments on debts owed by the dead helps ensure that lenders will continue to extend credit at competitive interest rates to older Americans. David Cherner, corporate counsel for the ACA, says lenders must try to collect the debt or else write it off. "Just because someone has passed doesn't mean the debt is wiped clean," he says.

None of the financial firms would say how much debt-recovery work is outsourced. Nor would they comment on any individual collection cases. The companies say that they comply with all applicable laws and make sure surviving relatives are approached with sensitivity.

And crimes they clearly are, far beyond the scope of pitching a tent in a public park. As Judge Rakoff stated, the Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Citigroup with “a substantial securities fraud” in the sale of a billion dollars’ worth of toxic securities that were designed to fail and which the bank had bet against. Rakoff, who has handled a number of these cases, complained that Citigroup, like the other major banks, is a recidivist. Citigroup had already paid fines for four similar scams. The judge observed that “although this would appear tantamount to an allegation of knowing and fraudulent intent, the SEC, for reasons of its own, chose to charge Citigroup only with negligence” despite the far more serious charges called for in securities law.

The failure of the SEC or any other government agency to hold the banks accountable provides the essential justification for citizen action of the sort the Occupy movement has offered. In his concluding summary, Rakoff stated: “Finally, in any case like this that touches on the transparency of financial markets whose gyrations have so depressed our economy and debilitated our lives, there is an overriding public interest in knowing the truth. In much of the world, propaganda reigns, and truth is confined to secretive, fearful whispers. Even in our nation, apologists for suppressing or obscuring the truth may always be found.”

Count the liberal mayor of Los Angeles, a man I have respected and voted for, as one of those apologists for suppressing truth in the name of civic order. As I meekly allowed myself to be ordered about by the police clearing the area so that the concrete barriers could be installed, I wondered whether I had not been reduced to the status of a fearful whisperer.

For all its obscurity, the Fed's balance sheet is relatively simple: on the right there are the liabilities such as currency in circulation (which is relatively flat at around $1.1 trillion but rising slowly (for now) every week), and excess reserves, at $1.5 trillion, or the money that is "parked" with banks and is the topic of so much consternation: will it ever spill out into the broader economy, won't it, and if not why not, and if yes, will it cause hyperinflation, and other such tangential ruminations. Then on the left we have the assets, or the "stuff" that backs the currency in circulation and excess reserves, such as Treasurys and MBS, which total $2.6 trillion, and which are the primary variable in every Large Scale Asset Purchase episode also known as Quantitative Easing: should the Fed "print", or said otherwise, "purchase" assets, then the excess reserve number goes up first, with a hope that it will slowly spill over into currency in circulation and other broader monetary aggregates. Lastly, there is also the Fed's capital account or "shareholder equity" for purists, but since the Fed can never in theory be undercapitalized by conventional definitions, this is merely a placeholder. Another broad way of looking at the Fed's assets is "factors that supply reserve funds" or "source of cash", and liabilities as "factors that absorb reserve funds" which is, logically, "use of cash." The key assets and liabilities noted above are the major components of the "flow" - they move glacially up and down, and are priced in well in advance of such moves. It is the marginal, or far small numbers that matter, and that fluctuate materially from week to week, that are not priced in, and are thus market moving. One such curious liability which we pointed out recently is the Fed's reverse repo agreements with foreign banks: in the week following the MF Global bankruptcy these soared to a record $124.5 billion. Basically, foreign banks scrambled to procure a record amount of US Dollars while repoing Treasurys and who knows what else with the Fed, an indication that other conventional liquidity conduits had frozen in the days following the Halloween MF massacre. Since then the Fed's Reverse Repo balance has moderated to more normal levels as Treasurys have gone out of repo with the Fed. Yet something more troubling has just been spotted. In today's one-day delayed issue of the Fed's H.4.1, literally the very last number on the very last subpage in the weekly update reveals something quite disturbing. Namely the Fed's "other" non-reserve based factors absorbing liquidity. And specifically, the actual number, which rose by an unprecedented $88 billion in one week to an all time high of $115 billion for the week ended November 23!

se·di·tion

   [si-dish-uhn]  

noun
1.incitement of discontent or rebellion against a government.
2.any action, especially in speech or writing, promoting such discontent or rebellion.
3.Archaic . rebellious disorder.

Origin:
1325–75;  < Latin sēditiōn-  (stem of sēditiō ), equivalent to sēd- se-  + -itiōn-  a going ( it ( us ), past participle of īre  to go + -iōn- -ion); replacing Middle English sedicioun  < Anglo-French  < Latin,  as above

Related forms
an·ti·se·di·tion, adjective

Synonyms
1.  insurrection, mutiny. See treason.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/adams/filmmore/ps_sedition.html

Is this a possible response by the government? Will those elected listen to the inconvenienced and irritated corporate voices ringing in the halls of congress and proceed as urged? or, will the elected instead change coarse and opt to hear the citizen?  Is there another option to consider? 

So forget relying on the federal government to hold the Wall Street swindlers accountable. Indeed, the Obama administration has been involved in negotiating a deal with state attorneys general to settle their complaints with the banks for a pittance of compensation for the victims. In return, the states would promise not to institute further legal proceedings against the banks.

Participating customers did not close their accounts because of the controversial $3 debit card fee that Wells Fargo began charging in certain states (Colorado is not one of them).

Rather, the account closings were a statement to Wells Fargo that customers would not stand for predatory lending practices and the bank’s allegedly poor job in improving the financial situations – through HAMP modifications and stopping foreclosure proceedings – for struggling homeowners.

On Monday, members of the CPC walked into a Wells Fargo branch with a list of demands that was faxed to the bank’s CEO, John Stumpf. They asked that Wells Fargo pay the federally mandated 35% tax rate, reduce the principle on underwater loans, increase small business loan lending, and divest from the for-profit prison industry.

Is it me.. or do these guys look like they could be related?

“I don’t think we see ourselves as the target,” said Steve Bartlett, president of the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents the nation’s biggest banks and insurers in Washington. “I think they’re protesting about the economy. What’s lost is that the financial services sector has to be well capitalized and well financed for the economy to recover.”

Type your comment here ...

The Occupy Wall Street protests have been going on for a month. And it seems the FBI and NYPD have had help tracking protesters' moves thanks to a conservative computer security expert who gained access to one of the group's internal mailing lists, and then handed over information on the group's plans to the authorities as well as corporations targeted by protesters.

Since the Occupy Wall Street protest began on September 17, New York security consultant Thomas Ryan has been waging a campaign to infiltrate and discredit the movement. Ryan says he's done contract work for the U.S. Army and he brags on his blog that he leads "a team called Black Cell, a team of the most-highly trained and capable physical, threat and cyber security professionals in the world." But over the past few weeks, he and his computer security buddies have been spending time covertly attending Occupy Wall Street meetings, monitoring organizers' social media accounts, and hanging out with protesters in Lower Manhattan.

Men in the nice suits and who sit at the head of the table have spent a great deal of time and energy to keep you progressing to their style of work and play. They, the CEO's and their minions have spent good money to invade the middle class mind and make it their tool. Just turn on the television and watch their training videos, they're called 'commercials'. Watch your children become 'glued' to the screen when the music is cued. Ask your teenagers questions and listen to the 'influence' they regurgitate like robots, as sure as i'm sittin here, you are no longer the influence in their lives. And, if you've managed to put a credit card in their name... they will live out their lives by corporate culture's standard, not yours.

For the rest of us, the answer is simple... turn on the live stream of Occupywallstreet, look up the next general assembly, and then write me a report. make it more then three pages please, and site your work. If you can explain what they are doing and how they are doing it, why its important and relates to the original idea of democracy... there is hope for you.

If you can't, then you have some serious brain washing to overcome.

It is clear to anyone who reads the sources available, who have little to gain by spreading the unabashed lies of how wallstreet works and who is working it, that the beneficiaries of profits made on the backs of middle and the working poor of this country have absolutely no idea or concern for how that profit happens, or who it hurts. They confirm this by lobbying for laws that make it certain they will pay no price, face no consequence. And, the proof is in the nationwide impact of their express delivery of those profits out of the country. Don't look and you won't have to face it... yet.

But, as many do their level best to bring the reality of this reality into your living room, it is clear, unless you stop the corporate messege that comes with it from bleeding your brain of critical thought... you will contiue to use your credit cards, hand over your futures, and children's futures willingly, and without any benefit. In fact, the average american can depend on the kindness of strangers very soon.. the ones who know what they are doing, because they tuned in to that General Assembly to learn how to be part of a solution, regardless of how messy it is, and are now reaching out their hands to one another with help in it, instead of a bill.

Good luck.

day 28 of Occupy America:)

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. /quotes/zigman/272085/quotes/nls/jpm JPM -4.79% became the latest too-big-to-fail bank to take advantage of an interesting trade: the bank hedges the spread on its own debt. When investors bid up the yield — an indicator that they think the bank won’t pay — J.P. Morgan makes money. Read full story on J.P. Morgan earnings .
Click to Play
Mixed earnings news for J.P. Morgan

Dow Jones Newswires' Paul Vigna has details on J.P. Morgan's earnings report and other items that will impact markets, including a report on jobless claims. AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews

Hey, it doesn’t have to make sense, it’s Wall Street.

The end result was slightly better-than-expected but lackluster profit of $4.26 billion, for the nation’s second-biggest bank by assets. The bank reported $1.9 billion in revenue from the bets against itself — the net income from the move wasn’t immediately available.

But analysts suggest the move goosed earnings by as much as a nickel per share. At minimum the hedge added a penny or two a share to per-share earnings and, thus, helped the bank come closer to the Street’s expectations.

Money-movers, who advocate changing from large corporate banks to credit unions or small local banks, are calling to make November 5 a nationwide Bank Transfer Day.

Together we can ensure that these banking institutions will ALWAYS remember the 5th of November!!

• Open an account with a Credit Union
• Transfer your funds to the new account (online or in person) by 11/05
• Follow your bank’s procedures to close your account

To find a credit union near you: http://www.findacreditunion.com/

Wire transfers cost $35, can take three to five days to clear, and require an existing account in which the funds will land. A better plan may be to simply go to the bank and close your account in person, ask for cash or a bank check, trot over to a credit union and open an account. 11/5/11 is a Saturday so make sure your bank is open that day! Most credit unions are closed on Saturdays. Don’t forget to change any automatic bill pays, etc to your new account–and don’t forget where you hid the cash or bank check over the weekend!

There is nothing that the middle class fears more than the real working class. As of October 3, 2011, the middle class is in revolt against the big bankers for fear that the extravagance of the latter will push the former down into that which they hate the most: the working class. Let the ghettos and trailer parks descend on Wall Street, and then we’ll see where the loyalties of the yuppies really lie!

Authorities used pepper spray on a group of protesters trying to enter the National Air and Space Museum on Saturday, forcing the building to close about two hours early.

One person was arrested, according to Linda St. Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Smithsonian Institution, which runs that and numerous other museums in Washington. She estimated between 100 and 200 people were in the crowd.

Demonstrators railing against U.S. participation in the war in Afghanistan initially gathered Saturday, along with protesters aligned with the national Occupy Wall Street movement, in Washington's Freedom Plaza. The latter effort started in New York more than three weeks ago, targeting the nation's financial sector and various social ills, and has since spread to more than a dozen cities.

I want to give the public an update on how my staff and City departments are working to accommodate the Occupy Seattle protests at Westlake Park.

We understand that Occupy Seattle wishes to have a sustained presence in Westlake Park for the purpose of expressing their views. From the outset we have been trying to work out a solution that meets the city’s needs and Occupy Seattle’s need to protest against wealth inequality in our country.

My staff has been reaching out to and communicating with members of Occupy Seattle. Here’s how we are proceeding:

* We are providing a permit for protest activities at Westlake Park which will allow them to have an organizing tent that can remain overnight. As a condition of the permit, protestors will have to allow for cleaning of the park, protect park property, accommodate the other existing permitted events, and protect access to businesses.
* We are making City Hall Plaza available for those that wish to stay overnight, with reasonable restrictions on the tents so as to allow free use of the plaza during the day. Unlike Westlake, City Hall also has restroom facilities available. Both the permit and the ability to set up tents at City Hall Plaza would last for two weeks, at which point we can assess whether the arrangement is meeting everyone’s needs and should be extended.

These are extraordinary times. We have seen the Occupy Wall Street movement take off in cities across the country, and there’s a reason for it. There is real anger about the unprecedented concentration of wealth and power in this country and the inequality it has produced. I share the values and the message of the Occupy Wall Street movement. We want to provide the opportunity for the people of Seattle to express their views. And we are.

"I came out because corporations have far too much power and working people all over our country are suffering," said protester Betsy Pernotto. "I think we need to stop corporate tax breaks, and we need the government to start creating jobs to get people back to work and get money into the economy and into people's pockets."

The group gathered briefly in front of Bank of America before heading back to Magnolia. Once there, some of the protesters gathered in the crosswalks and blocked Cornwall, confronting a truck with a "We the People" sign after the passenger gave them a thumbs down. Police directed traffic away from that section of Cornwall to keep protesters safe.

Pernotto said she hoped the protest would send a message to politicians.

As the ongoing occupation of Wall Street by hundreds of protesters enters its third week — and as protests spread to other cities such as Boston and Los Angeles — demonstrators have endorsed a new slogan: “We are the 99 percent.” This slogan refers to an economic struggle between 99 percent of Americans and the richest 1 percent of Americans, who are increasingly accumulating a greater share of the national wealth to the detriment of the middle class.

It may shock you to learn exactly how wealthy this top 1 percent of Americans is. ThinkProgress has assembled five facts about this class of super-rich Americans:

1. The Top 1 Percent of Americans Owns 40 Percent of the Nation’s Wealth

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is threatening to shut down democracy on Wall Street.

You might expect that from a man who is the fourth-wealthiest person in America, with $19.5 billion dollars in his pocket. Moreover, Bloomberg made a lot of money as a Wall Street financier, but he catapulted into the multibillionaire category by revolutionizing financial market information and selling a specialized terminal and access services to the financial industry (followed by Bloomberg media services).

In short, his fortune is directly integrated into the Wall Street status quo.

That may be why he told a New York City radio show host last week that "New Yorkers need 'to help the banks.'" The Village Voice headlined its story on the plutocratic pronouncements of Bloomberg, "Mayor Bloomberg: 'We'll See' If The City Will Let Occupy Wall Street Continue."

Bloomberg seemed in a baronial haze, claiming, "The protesters are protesting against people who make $40-50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That's the bottom line." Is the mayor mainlining Fox "news" as his source of information? He royally added, "so anything we can do that's responsible to help the banks ... that is what we need."

It's a very personal kinda a day.

Family, when you have it, and when it offers some warm fuzzies... or, better said the dysfunctional elements of it are not the dominant feature, is what inspires the desires for fairness, for acknowledged value and worth, is indeed why most of us come to the forefront as we develop the place where these people we love, live.

Today my Uncle died. He is the last of my father's siblings. Now my father lives without his immediate family.. they are all gone. The people he started out with have all moved on.  And while my philosophy includes the 'we all die' sentiment, when it comes to family I am fully aware of the grief involved and how we must move through it.

I can not get there to be with him. He knows it, and I know it, and we say all the right things to be able to tolerate the reality of it. But this is family. He is feeling this and being 'the man' about it. Somewhere deep inside I am disappointed with myself, as is normal, that i can't just throw down and go. But I can't, literally, go.. there is no money. We in fact are barely making the rent every month, and the meager bills we have as we live smaller and smaller.

My son had left the standing order that he was to be called if Uncle got worse. Which we did this morning. He is at work. We wait to see if he'll be able to get 'free' without losing his job, and go to be with his grandfather on Thursday. You know how that goes.. Wednesday will be tolerable if he knows someone is on the way.

My brother already spoke with his 'employer', a rather popular cooperate killer of mass produced chickens. He was told 'no problem' but 'you won't get paid'. Uncles are not on the list of 'family'. Not even last uncles who's brother happens to be your elderly father. So he's gonna talk to my son and both will see who can make this happen. They'll be talking to Dad so that he knows that we're working to be there for him, so he can say "Hey, don't put your job in jeopardy, I'll be ok". And then we'll know he will feel good about making the sacrifice for a good reason.. and it will give him some kind of purpose. You know how that works, he's old school.

This is what corporate culture has designed for themselves. This is the activity we've placed all our energy in. This is the way we've learned to live.  Gentler ain't it?!

This is how we do it... we hard workin Americans who have always lived within the boundaries developed for us by the now mega wealthy rule makers. This is how they have co-opted the quality of our lives. Little by little making it an acceptable part of our lives to neglect the valuable moments of family, in the name of profit. Profits so obnoxious that we can no longer see the way in which we are enslaved. the way our families are burdened and flailing to develop themselves.

Dad knows how long its been since I got a call for an interview. He knows we are now living day to day. But, more then that, he feels our love from so far away, he knows we are going to patch this thing together some way or another. He and we will love more and stronger today and tomorrow.

To bad the 1% can't figure that out... that you can only @!$%# on family well-being so long.. and then family will come together and make things right.

There are a great many reasons for the OCCUPATION OF THIS NATION, to bad the media doesn't get it either.

Day 18 of this particular wake up call:)

With "Occupy Wall Street" going strong for two weeks now (and growing stronger by the day), how does New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg feel about it all? True to form, he's being pretty boneheaded about it. Via Runnin' Scared:

New Yorkers need "to help the banks" was Mayor Michael Bloomberg's message to the Occupy Wall Street crowd in his weekly radio appearance on the John Gambling show.

"The protesters are protesting against people who make $40-50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That's the bottom line," Bloomberg said, presumably meaning service workers on Wall Street, adding that "we all" share blame for taking on too much risk, not just the financial industry.

"And people in this day and age need support for their employers. If the banks don't go out and make loans we will not come out of our economic problems, we will not have jobs so anything we can do that's responsible to help the banks do that is what we need."

Yes, poooooooor Wall Street. Bloomberg also said he wants to ensure that "people who don't want to protest can go down the streets unmolested" and cited "societal concerns," such as sanitation. Asked if the city would allow the protests to continue, the mayor said only, "We'll see."

Protesters gathered outside Chase Bank’s downtown Seattle headquarters Wednesday, calling on banks and wealthy CEOs to do more to help the struggling economy. Organizers say 11 of them were arrested.

Dozens of people marched to Third Avenue and University Street, carrying signs reading "Guilty as charged," "Where's my bonus?" and "No more tax breaks."

The Chase Bank protest in Seattle was being echoed at Chase branches across the state, including Spokane, Olympia and Vancouver.

The protest was in conjunction with what organizers called the “Showdown at Suncadia.” Members of the Association of Washington Business were holding a policy summit at the Suncadia Resort near Cle Elum and protesters vowed to be there.

Organizers say they want Wall Street banks and big corporations to “pay their fair share to fix the economy.”

"....So what happens if the system that binds us all fails? Is there less food on the planet? Are there less resources? Does the water dry up and the oxygen drift off into space? Are you any less capable, willing, or strong? The only thing that is in jeopardy with this financial crisis is the control that a very few have over the rest of us. The only thing in jeopardy is their system of debt that keeps us all subservient to their desires.

The only people that will actually be hurt by a crash are the wealthy; the one percent that controls everything. They will try and shift the burden to everyone else by hoarding control over all that they have accumulated, and charging higher prices for life’s necessity. That will be the first thing that must change. Shortages will not be real, they will be imposed by those who have been allowed to convince us that they own that which belongs to all of us. Their system is failing, and with it, so should their control.

Right now they are trying to crash the system in order to devalue our labor and resources. Given the chance, they will convince us that it is our job to make up for the losses while they proceed to buy up the rest of what they don’t already own. This cannot be allowed. Call their bluff. Crash their system. Default on their loans, and reclaim what belongs to every child of this planet, equally.

Privatization is not the answer. All that will do is give them all the control they want and sell off any leverage that the citizens of the world still have. Government should be by the people, of the people, and for the people, and so should stewardship over the earth’s resources… shrinking the power of government is simply taking away the power of the people. Our current system of government, corrupted by corporations and special interest, certainly needs to change, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be turned over to those that would destroy it completely. A government truly of and by the people is what is needed now more than anything, don’t be tricked into giving up the only leverage you have left.

Economic reforms, debt ceilings, austerity measures, and tax versus spending debates are not designed to save the people of this planet. They are designed to save the economic system that enslaves the people of this planet. Don’t be tricked into digging your own grave or driving the final nail into your own coffin.

Global capitalism is a house of cards that we have all watched as it has begun to fall, in slow motion, for the last few years. It doesn’t need to be propped up and made to last just a little while longer so that those that benefit can figure out how to still come out on top. Like the money we are forced to live chasing, this house of cards is made of flammable paper. Don’t raise any debt ceilings. Don’t accept any austerity measures. Refuse to be wage slaves until you’re seventy, or older. Don’t sell the little you have left in order to prop that cardboard house up. Don’t let them reform the rules to their own game to make it keep on working for them. Don’t just let it fall, burn the mother down.

The vast majority of those commenting on raising the federal debt limit are certain that Congress will act in time to forestall a debt default, which would occur if the Treasury lacked sufficient cash to pay interest due that day or to redeem maturing securities. The smart money says that Congress could not possibly be so stupid as to permit a default and will raise the debt limit just in time. Americans would likely agree, however, that some members of Congress really are that stupid. But here’s the good news: An arcane provision in the U.S. Constitution gives the president the edge.

Over the last several weeks, a number of Republican congressmen have said that they will not vote to raise the debt limit unless massive cuts are guaranteed in advance. Some Republican senators have promised a filibuster against a debt limit increase should it pass the House. And Tea Party spokesmen have promised strenuous primary opposition for any Republican voting for a debt limit increase. A Republican running against a Tea Party member for the party nomination could be accused of supporting President Obama to increase the national debt — a charge that would assure an election loss

The truth is lost in America

truth is that if your sick

don't go to the doctor

if you have no insurance,

die, and then it will stop.

This insipid gross green

fungal growth of fascism,

is spurred on by our refusal

to just die, quietly.

You see the numbers are to high.

The church like need to have enough

gold, silver, brand named status

is your ticket to the material cave.

Work you see for quarters is preferred

to foreclosing, closing before you can

call yourself an owner, of land,

and make rules when you forget

what the rules were when you started

down this road that tolls were built upon.

We're still picking you see... and the bag

its stuffed in is plastic and fits in your wallet.

You will pass on through the door without

craning your neck to see what others

contently deny any who state they have rights,

democracy and republics are for the learned.

The place of higher learning isn't teaching

the deserving how to share. The banks of America

know which day is coming, and prepare for

the chagrin should you bring your glasses.

“The rules will change, we need not notify you

or explain on the phone, and no, there are

no supervisors available. But thank you for

calling we'll send your statement general delivery.”

Fight. Bring the horrors home and sit in the

great outdoors pondering the value of

veterans benefits pulled like the latest

recall of baby cribs out of your grasp.

But please, don't look for truth... its not here.

This is not the end there is simply to much

muck to stuff in this particular news cycle,

so we've decided what you need to know.

Warning that failure to pay would create windfall gains for speculators who had bet that Greece would default, Mr. Bini Smaghi refused to acknowledge the corollary: to pay the full amount would create windfalls for those who bet that Greece would be forced to pay. He also claimed that: “Restructuring of Greek debt would … discourage Greece from modernizing its economy.” But the less debt service an economy pays, the more revenue it has to invest productively. And to “solve” the problem by throwing public assets on the market would create windfalls for distress buyers. As the Wall Street Journal put matters bluntly: “Greece is for sale – cheap – and Germany is buying. German companies are hunting for bargains in Greece as the debt-stricken government moves to sell state-owned assets to stabilize the country’s finances.”[4]
Rather than raising living standards while creating a more egalitarian and fair society, the ECB’s creditor-oriented “reforms” would roll the time clock back to oligarchy. Not the post-feudal oligarchy of landlords owning land conquered militarily, but a financial oligarchy accumulating banking claims and bonds growing inexorably and exponentially, leaving little over for the rest of the economy to invest or consume.

ride us till we're all down and dying.

much more then what is posted here... reading it actually gives you an idea of what kind of 'inspiration' is needed to save ourselves.

...

Similarly, no matter how completely sold-out to the Wall Street giants D.C. politicians are, they would start paying attention to their real employers - the American people - if we make enough noise.

If 3 million Americans all peacefully surrounded the White House and Capitol Hill, holding signs saying "We're Not Leaving Until the Too Big to Fails which Caused the Economic Crisis are Reined In", things would change pretty fast.

3 million might sound like a lot of people. But many millions of people read popular alternative financial and economic news sites. You are probably one of millions of people who will read this essay (by the time it is published by some of the larger sites).

In other words, it's not even a question of convincing other people to go. We - those who read alternative financial websites - could do it ourselves.

If millions of us don't go protest in D.C., it's because we are choosing not to sacrifice a tiny bit in order to change things.

The bad guys are only winning because we - the American people - aren't making enough noise.

But he offered not a word as to how the severe effects of that housing bust might be mitigated. Not a word about assisting people to stay in their homes. Yet he claimed that the relief that the Fed provided to the bankers by buying up more than $1.2 trillion of the toxic mortgages those bankers had created “has been accomplished, I should note, at no net cost to the federal budget or to the U.S. taxpayer.”

This is the Big Lie technique at work, employed by a huge banking lobby that stresses the direct cost of the TARP program while ignoring other programs that will not be paid back, as well as the additional cost of $5 trillion to the national debt that a proper Fed policy could have avoided.

As one leading hedge fund manager recently stated, "There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner... because we haven’t solved any of the things that caused the previous crisis." The market for derivatives is somewhere in the realm of $600 trillion.

When Greece exchanged its drachma for the euro in 2000, most voters were all for joining the Eurozone. Their hope was that it would ensure stability, and that this would promote rising wages and living standards. Few saw that the stumbling point was tax policy. Greece was excluded from the eurozone the previous year as a result of failing to meet the 1992 Maastricht criteria for EU membership, limiting budget deficits to 3 percent of GDP, and government debt to 60 percent.

Are the money folk turning on each other?

and yet, the president continues to use the word recovery.

The financial stocks got pummeled Wednesday with Goldman Sachs Group GS +0.03% and J.P. Morgan Chase JPM +0.14% each down more than 3%, Bank of America BAC +0.44% down more than 4%, and State Street Corp. STT -0.21% Charles Schwab and Wells Fargo down 5% or close to it.

The Four Horsemen of Banking (Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo) own the Four Horsemen of Oil (Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, BP and Chevron Texaco); in tandem with Deutsche Bank, BNP, Barclays and other European old money behemoths. But their monopoly over the global economy does not end at the edge of the oil patch.

According to company 10K filings to the SEC, the Four Horsemen of Banking are among the top ten stock holders of virtually every Fortune 500 corporation.[1]

So who then are the stockholders in these money center banks?

This story begins back before the United States was the United States.

The original thirteen colonies printed their own currency, and it worked very well at empowering commerce and turning the young America into a powerful growing economy, free of the poverty and unemployment that even then crippled London. But the bankers of Europe, long used to private banks issuing the public currencies, were horrified by the
American approach and saw it as a threat to their deeply cherished religious belief that the gods intended for the bankers to have all the wealth of the world. So, the Bank of England lobbied King George III to impose the Currency Act on the colonies, which forbade the colonies to use their own money and required them to borrow their lawful tender from the Bank of England, at interest.

It took only a few years for this scheme to reduce the formerly prosperous and productive colonies down to the poverty and unemployment typical of London at the same time period, as depicted in the literature of Charles Dickens, among others.

While the state-run American schools teach that the revolution was about the Stamp act and the Tea tax, it was primarily the rage created by the enforced impoverishment of the Currency Act which fueled the rebellion. Why the Currency Act is not mentioned in the public schools will become apparent further on.

The International Monetary Fund's 24-member executive board will meet Thursday to begin the process of selecting a new leader, said John Lipsky, the IMF's acting managing director.

"We want this to happen as expeditiously as possible," Lipsky said.

His comments came shortly after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged the IMF to quickly select a new chief through an open process.

Lipsky took over this week after former chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid. Strauss-Kahn, who is has denied the charges, resigned late Wednesday. That set up a scramble to choose his successor.

Traditionally, the head of the IMF has been a European while an American has run the World Bank. Developing countries have long chafed at that arrangement and are pushing for officials from their countries to be considered this time.

The United States will play a critical role in the selection. The U.S. has the most votes among any individual country, although collectively Europe carries the most weight.

Geithner's statement was ambiguous and leaves open the possibility that the U.S. could support a candidate from either group. Some analysts said the U.S. government will make its preference clearer behind the scenes while keeping a more impartial stance in public.

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is seeking records from three major Wall Street banks as part of a broad investigation into the mortgage crisis that fueled the recession, an official familiar with the issue said Tuesday.

Schneiderman is meeting with representatives of the Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, according to the official, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Those meetings are expected to focus on mortgage securities operations during the boom on Wall Street that ultimately cost banks billions of dollars.

and betting they are.

History, if only it were taught in our schools would show that such manipulation of men and women has been repeated since Time immemorial but this time the plan is so sinister that it will strike the death knell for the freedoms and dreams of all human beings.

To return to my point that America will be no more, I want you to realise that if America stands for liberty and freedom, then in order to remove it as an obstacle to one world government it must first be shown to represent neither, which appears to be what’s happening right now, only then can the safety and security that so many people seem to desire be offered in the form of a one world government.

All we see right now are clear examples of the American administration and their naively obedient military, as opposed to the American people, attacking nation after nation in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and accusing them of harbouring him or being in some way complicit in his misdeeds, none of which is true.

At the same time we are led to believe that America is responsible for the pending collapse of the financial markets which is actually due to the mishandling of the markets by private banks who are the only ones to benefit from this chaos and not the American people who like the rest of us suffer at every turn with the theft of their property and wealth through the bailout fiasco and so called austerity measures imposed all over and a currency designed to fail, since being issued at interest inevitably means someone must fail, default and lose everything or indeed the system itself.

America is being set up as the bad guy, which is actually what wiki leaks was created to achieve, it was not about individuals fighting for truth, but to expose the corruption and abuses being carried out in the name of the American people who again had no control over, or for the most part were even aware of these things, the power is in the hands of only a few with an agenda unrelated to the apparent issues, it’s merely a smoke screen to hide the real crimes.

 In the second half of the show, Max talks to Chris Martenson about the breakdown drawing near! KR on FB:

The interview with Chris Martenson is very interesting. Keiser's America bashing is getting pretty old, but he redeems himself with the second half interview... its worth a listen.

the discussion is about Gold, actually.

These are remarks Chris Hedges made in Union Square in New York City last Friday during a protest outside a branch office of the Bank of America.

This week Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, report on the scrap metal crimewave, shorting US treasuries and other signs of economic chaos. In the second half of the show, Max talks to author and blogger, Cory Doctorow, about copyright extremists and about watching robots throw buildings at each other.

The S&P rises as does the food stamp lines;

The chairman of the House Budget Committee who penned a comprehensive and controversial deficit reduction plan said today House Republicans will seek statutory spending limits and cuts in exchange for supporting an increase in the debt ceiling.

Rep. Paul Ryan, a Republican from Janesville across the Illinois-Wisconsin border, also said it would be "fantastic" if reform of any of the nation's social entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid also became part of the debt-ceiling debate.
With an 11th hour congressional agreement with the White House on a budget plan for the next six months, the issue of raising the debt ceiling looms as the next controversy between Republicans who control the House and Democrats who lead the Senate and the presidency.

Ryan, who appeared before the Chicago Tribune editorial board, is the author of "The Path to Prosperity," a budget plan for the next federal fiscal year that Democrats have chastised as rewarding wealthy taxpayers with tax cuts while vastly altering the Medicare program for seniors and Medicaid for the poor.

Every day, the federal government spends more money than it takes in. It makes up the difference by borrowing money. So every day, the government's debt increases. Some time next month, total federal debt will rise above $14.3 trillion.

There's a law on the books — first passed in 1917, updated many times since — that caps the federal debt at $14.3 trillion. This is the debt ceiling.

Some time very soon, the government either has to raise the debt ceiling or stop spending more than it takes in (in other words, balance the budget).

Balancing the budget would mean cutting spending by about 40 percent, raising taxes by a comparable amount, or enacting some combination of massive spending cuts and huge tax increases. (Context: Every penny of discretionary spending, including defense, amounts to about 40 percent of the budget.)

During deliberations over the $700 billion federal bailout of banks and financial institutions, several members of Congress were threatened with the prospect of martial law if they did not act quickly and decisively to approve the measure, according to Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., an ardent opponent of the plan.

"Many of us were told in private conversations, that if we didn't pass this bill on Monday, the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points, another couple thousand the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no," he said on the House floor Oct. 2.

Sherman's speech to colleagues was captured on C-Span. The video can be seen below:

If demand for US bonds drops, that means higher US bond yields, US mortgage yields, and further damage to the key US banking and housing sectors.

In particular, Madoff names Jeffry Picower, Stanley Chais, Carl Shapiro and Norman Levy, his four largest investors.

At the outset, Madoff insists that one of the ground rules for the interview is that "nothing that I say should be taken as an excuse" for his behavior.

Yet later, he paints himself almost as a victim of Picower, Chais, Shapiro and Levy. "I was at their mercy," he says.

Madoff describes how he started managing money for the men in the 1960s. After the 1987 market crash, he says, he found himself locked into investment positions that his four stalwarts refused to close out. In order to keep the business going, they referred other investors to him. Madoff says that by 1992 it had become a Ponzi scheme and his big clients knew.

"They were complicit, all of them," Madoff says.

"He's drawing the line between him and the hawks at the Fed," said Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York.

This week Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, report on the Class A backing both the Triple A rated and the A listed. In the second half of the show, Max talks to James Howard Kunstler about entropy made visible and a return to the medieval.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein's $19 million compensation for 2010, almost double the prior year, ended two years in which the firm's top executives gave up cash bonuses.

Blankfein's pay included $5.4 million in cash, $12.6 million in restricted stock, a $600,000 salary and about $464,000 in other benefits, a proxy statement from the New York firm showed. Blankfein's $9.8 million pay for 2009 included $9 million in restricted stock plus salary and other compensation.

Cash awards are back at Goldman Sachs, the fifth-biggest U.S. bank by assets, after a 38 percent drop in annual earnings and a year in which the stock price ended close to where it began. While pay is up from 2008, when Blankfein, 56, and six other senior officers got no bonuses, it remains below Blankfein's record-setting $67.9 million award for 2007.

April 6 (Bloomberg) -- William Montgomery, a senior Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker to the oil and gas industry, is leaving the firm's Houston office and plans to join a local private- equity firm, said a person with knowledge of his plans.

Montgomery, 49, may join Quantum Energy Partners later this year, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity. His retirement is effective May 31, Goldman Sachs said in a memorandum last month that was confirmed by Andrea Rachman, a Goldman Sachs spokeswoman.

Montgomery was part of Goldman Sachs teams that advised Schlumberger Ltd., the largest oilfield services company, on its $11 billion acquisition of Smith International Inc. last year, and counseled Apache Corp. on its $7 billion purchase of assets from BP Plc in the wake of the London-based oil company's Gulf of Mexico spill.

Below-Market Rates

Two former Dexia units were among more than a dozen financial firms that conspired to pay below-market interest rates to U.S. state and local governments on so-called guaranteed investment contracts, or GICs, according to documents filed in a U.S. Justice Department criminal antitrust case.

Municipalities buy GICs with money raised by selling bonds, allowing them to earn a return until the funds are needed for schools, roads and other public works.

An employee of Financial Security Assurance Holdings Ltd., one of the Dexia subsidiaries, agreed to pay kickbacks ranging from $4,500 to $475,000 to a Los Angeles investment broker called CDR Financial Products Inc. in exchange for rigging bids, according to people familiar with the case and public records.

CDR employees fed information on competitors' bids to FSA, allowing the firm to win deals at a lower interest rate than it would have paid, according to a federal indictment, public records and the people.

And then the bottom fell out.

The name Mark Pittman probably means nothing to most people. Pittman, a reporter for Bloomberg News, died almost a year and a half ago. But not before he had taken the Fed to court -- successfully, it turns out -- over its refusal to make public some crucial documents that the New York Times' Gretchen Morgenson has summarized in a story headlined "The Bank Run We Knew So Little About."

What those documents reveal is a pattern of cash payouts to both domestic and international banks as early as summer of 2007, when markets were already beginning to show the strains of the housing bust. The result, the Times reports, was a megabucks equivalent of an old-fashioned bank "run," but with banks, rather than individual investors, coming to the Federal Reserve of New York to borrow huge amounts of cash. As collateral, the banks put up commercial loans and mortgages, including second mortgages.

"Thus began the bank run that set off the financial crisis of 2008," writes Morgenson. "But unlike other bank runs, this one was invisible to most Americans."

Invisible, that is, until the collapse thundered down on the economy as a whole.

The just-released Fed documents appear to show Bernanke's reasoning in the statement above -- probably made in good faith -- taken to its unfortunate conclusion: "Protecting global lenders and investors from the effects of their financial decisions," Morgenson writes, "was exactly what the Fed decided it had to do."

This week, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, report on the black hole of bankers' debts in Ireland, virtual pigs in Australia and free workers in America. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Alex Jones about food stamps and financial terror.

Barack Obama recently issued an executive order imposing a wave of sanctions against Libya, not only freezing Libyan assets, but barring Americans from having business dealings with Libyan banks.

So raise your hand if you knew that the United States has been extending billions of dollars in aid to Qaddafi and to the Central Bank of Libya, through a Libyan-owned subsidiary bank operating out of Bahrain. And raise your hand if you knew that, just a week or so after Obama's executive order, the U.S. Treasury Department quietly issued an order exempting this and other Libyan-owned banks to continue operating without sanction.

March 27, 2011 |

Photo Credit: USUncut.org

Saturday marked US Uncut's second big nationwide protest. From coast-to-coast, more than forty cities joined in a day of action protesting the tax-dodging practices of massive corporations that they see as the real source of the country's deficit.

"I'm tired of people calling for shared sacrifice and it's all coming from the workers and nothing's coming from the top," says protester Dave Sonenberg. "I'm sick of companies like Bank of America not paying their taxes."

Bank of America hasn't paid a nickel in federal income taxes for the past two years, and in fact raked in an additional $1 billion in tax "benefits." The bank is enjoying these profits after accepting $45 billion from taxpayers, which the company then got to count as a deduction when they paid back the money.

Big corporations get to play by a whole different set of rules, says tax expert Bob Willens of New York-based Robert Willens LLC:

This week Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, report on American household wealth declining by 23% while billionaires see their wealth rise by 25%. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Dmitry Orlov for an update on the state of economic collapse in America.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says the TARP bank bailout is yielding a profit for the federal government. We'll see. The facts will take time to come out, and require the efforts of a decimated press corps. But it's not surprising. The rescue, if it worked half right, was always expected to produce such results.

That's not the problem.

TARP was always seen by its smartest proponents, including candidate Obama, as half the solution to keeping the financial panic from turning into a deep depression. The other half, fundamental reform of the system, never happened, despite all the whining of bankers over the mild Dodd-Frank bill.

The panic and crash were a direct result of the dodgy swindles and high risk undertaken by the banking sector during the housing boom. These highly complex derivatives and other securities, insured with other complex vehicles cooked up by the likes of AIG, sold to investors in a world awash with money (your tax cuts at work), turned out to be the "financial weapons of mass destruction" that Warren Buffett warned against in 2003. Once housing values fell, mortgages went poof and a fire-sale mentality took hold, it turned out that many derivatives were "derived" from nothing.

Not much has changed. The banks are back to high profits, many coming from these "innovations," and . Obama's chief of staff is a former executive from JPMorgan Chase. The regulators are just as whipped and captured as before the crash. The Too-Big-To-Fail banks that posed such systemic risk in 2008 are bigger than ever.

This time Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, report on well-armed television presenters, bankrupt crusaders and a reign of terror in central banking. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Isa Blumi about Yemen, Libya and the militarization of borders.

What's behind the move
It's not hard to understand why banks are trying to get into 401(k) management. Not only are 401(k) assets growing rapidly, but they also tend to be more stable than money in checking and savings accounts. Once their employer sets up a 401(k) plan with a particular administrator, workers don't have any ability to shop around for a better deal. Typically, the only time workers can move assets around is after they leave their job. That stickiness attracts banks, big time.

At the same time, banks face significant threats to more traditional revenue sources. Last year, Bank of America said that the combined impact of credit card reform, debit card fee limitations, and other reductions in fee income would cost it billions of dollars.

Those threats have forced banks to turn to other potential sources of income. Initiatives from Capital One (NYSE: COF ) and US Bancorp (NYSE: USB ) as well as Wells and B of A to expand their prepaid card offerings seek to get around some of the limitations on debit and credit cards. American Express (NYSE: AXP ) has added fees and penalties to some of its rewards cards, while some other banks have reduced reward programs and charged annual fees for their cards.

Days after an earthquake and tsunami devastated a huge swath of Japan, the nation is struggling with immediate fears of nuclear disaster while trying to get aid to millions of people and shore up the banking system.

Powerful aftershocks have kept survivors on edge, including a magnitude 6.0 temblor that hit offshore, about 60 miles outside the capital of Tokyo, around midday local time Wednesday.

Up to 450,000 people have crammed into makeshift evacuation centers across the country, waiting for a return to some sense of normalcy. Millions of people spent a fifth night with little food, water or heating in near-freezing temperatures and snow as they dealt with the loss of homes and loved ones.

More than 11,000 people are officially listed as dead or missing, and most officials believe the final death toll will be well over 10,000 people.

In an extremely rare address to the nation Wednesday, Emperor Akihito expressed his condolences and urged Japan not to give up.

Stuck in the middle are U.S. taxpayers.

When the government seized Fannie, it placed it in a conservatorship, a legal term roughly meaning rehabilitation for a badly damaged company. In that role, the government has taken a nearly 80 percent stake in the firm and pledged to inject cash to keep it afloat. So far, the Treasury has invested more than $50 billion in Fannie.

But the arrangement also means that taxpayers are on the line for legal costs. Money that Fannie spends defending itself is money it is not using to plug other losses at the company or repay taxpayers. But if Fannie settled the case, it might expose taxpayers to far greater expense if aggrieved investors are paid anything near the damages they are claiming.