- The 99% Spring--This coming 9-15 April.
- NYPD Randomly Arrests Occupy Wall Street Protesters At Zuccotti Park--"When asked what law they were breaking, Officer DiPace replied, 'There's a law against everything. That's America.'"
- Goodbye, First Amendment: 'Trespass Bill' will make protest illegal--"The US House of Representatives voted 388-to-3 in favor of H.R. 347" that "officially makes it illegal to trespass on the grounds of the White House...." But "[u]nder the act, the government is also given the power to bring charges against Americans engaged in political protest anywhere in the country."
- Retired Philadelphia police officer wears uniform at Occupy Philly event--"I will not idly stand by while law enforcement is administered only to the poor and disenfranchised while the rich flaunt their immunity."
- Homeland Security Kept Tabs on Occupy Wall Street
- Occupy Rallies Against Powerful Right-Wing Group You've Never Heard Of--That group is ALEC.
- Sorry, The Restaurant Receipt Left By That Nasty, Rich Banker Is A Photoshop Hoax
- Wall Street Bonus Withdrawal Means Trading Aspen for Coupons
- The hypocrisy of Wall Street "capitalism" Salon
- Michael Douglas to bankers: Stop imitating me--"The movie was fiction, but the problem is real." Salon
- Life after Wall Street
- Twitter: GS Elevator Gossip--Things overhead at Goldman Sachs by a banker (NYT).
- Bending the Tax Code, and Lifting A.I.G.'s Profit--"Last week, the American International Group reported a whopping $19.8 billion profit for its fourth quarter. [...] But if you dug into the numbers, it quickly became clear that $17.7 billion of that profit was pure fantasy — a tax benefit, er, gift, from the United States government." NYT
- Bank of America considering new checking account fees. Again.--RollingStone's Matt Taibbi has some words about the BoA executives.
- Barclays Bank told to pay £500m in tax that they tried to avoid.
- RBS chairman makes plea as £2bn loss is announced
- ANZ rewards staff with holiday while customers get rates pain--"Just days after sacking 1000 workers and raising interest rates, ANZ chief executive Mike Smith is to take 200 lucky staff on a five-day butler-serviced cruise on the 'world's best' luxury liner."
- Standard and Poor are being sued in Australia for the AAA rating they assigned to toxic structured-finance products
- FDIC Sues Failed Bank Execs for $86M--They "abandoned the bank's prior conservative lending strategy in favor of a high-risk ADC [acquisition, development and construction] lending strategy funded by brokered deposit."
- Regulators Plan Safeguards to Prevent Another MF Global
- Yet More Evidence That Banks Are Too Heavily Regulated
- Record $6 Trillion of Fake U.S. Bonds Seized in Mafia Probe
- Foreclosure errors continue
- With Banks As Landlords, Some Tenants Neglected
- Tinseltown, Ghost Town--"In Hollywood, there are untold screenwriters, actors, directors and others invisibly struggling to keep their homes." NYT
- Corporations Don’t Need a Tax Cut, So Why Is Obama Proposing One?
- How Obama's Corporate Tax Plan Calls GOP Bluff
- Warren Buffett: 'It Is A Myth' That U.S. Corporate Taxes Are High--Like GE's effective tax rate for the past 10 years was just 2.3%.
- Upper class people more likely to cheat: study--"People from wealthy, upper classes are more likely than poorer folks to break laws while driving, take candy from children and lie for financial gain."
- Obama: 'What is it about working men and women they find so offensive?'
- Don’t tell us it’s not a class war--"In a sane world, the economic meltdown and deep recession of the past four years would have led at minimum to stringent regulation of financiers and speculators plus programs to assist their victims. But in this world, you have to be nuts to believe in a sane world."
