(1) Bush banned the states from protecting consumers. No US federal agency regulates mortgage lending, that's a province of the states. In 2003 when they collectively sought to legislate against predatory bank lending practices they were blocked by the US Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, acting on Bush's advice. Former New York Governor, Eliot Spitzer said this:
"In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative.
The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks.
The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules. But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation."
Bush saw this turmoil coming back in 2003 because 50 states told him so. He is a front man for crooks, helping his corporate mates to steal a trillion dollars. He sets corporations above the law and it was his corrupt mismanagement that lead to the global financial meltdown.
(3) Since 2005 the US Justice Dept has refused to prosecute over 50 corporate criminal cases preferring instead to enter into "deferred prosecution agreements" which allows the government to collect fines and appoint outside monitors to impose internal company reforms without going to trial. In many cases the details of the agreements are kept secret. Under Bush, corporations are simply above the law.
(4) Early in 2008 Bush's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) refused to create a US Task Force to investigate mortgage fraud. In Oct 2008 the New York Times reported on Justice Department data showing "prosecutions of frauds against financial institutions dropped 48 percent from 2000 to 2007, insurance fraud cases plummeted 75 percent, and securities fraud cases dropped 17 percent."
The FBI has been unable to investigate serious cases of fraud, often involving millions of dollars, simply because of staff cuts made to meet the burgeoning security and terrorism industry. Since 2004 FBI officials had warned that mortgage fraud posed a looming threat and repeatedly asked the Bush administration for more money but were refused. Billions were wasted on corrupt, no-bid Iraqi contracts for the likes of Haliburton but nothing to stem mortgage fraud.
(5) And then there's the financial markets meltdown. It was Bush who in 2006 appointed Henry Paulsen as Treasury Secretary when he knew the financial markets were in trouble, and he knew what he was getting. In 2000 Paulsen had pressed the SEC and Congress to remove leverage limits that bound investment banks (including his own company, Goldman Sachs). He was knocked back but in 2004 he tried again and aucceeded. Every one of the firms that were ultimately bailed out by the US taxpayer -- Lehman, Bear, Fannie, Freddie and AIG - all had leverage more than double that of the previous limits when they blew up thanks to him. Paulsen designed a series of financial remedies to the sub prime mortgage crisis all of which failed. And it was in his former position as head of Goldman Sachs that he sold Grade AAA mortgage paper to gullible customers while his own company was shorting the same investments! Never mind that when Goldman Sachs got a US $12 Billion US government bailout they handed out $14 Billion in company bonuses.
And it's the same with Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, appointed by Bush in Feb 2006. He handed out hundreds of billions in emergency lending based on credit ratings from companies that gave AAA grades to toxic securities. And his message to Obama: "Don't raise taxes!" Since most US corporations don't pay taxes anymore Bernanke wants to keep corporate America free and workers in servitude.
Bernanke and Paulsen are front men for the largest criminal rip off in history.
(6) And then there's the regulatory failures. In Oct 2008 Mr Lynn Turner, former chief accountant of the SEC, gave evidence to the US House Oversight Committee investigating the collapse of insurance giant AIG. He testified that the SEC Office of Risk Management, which had oversight responsibility of all US securities, including swaps, had been progressively cut by the Bush administration from 146 personnel. By Feb 2008 only one person was left for assessing corporate financial risk management for the entire US securities market! How's that for looking after the public interest.
Here's Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) questioning Lynn Turner:
Welch: "You said that the SEC office of risk management was reduced to a staff. Did you say, of one?"
Turner: "Yeah, when that gentleman would go home at night he could turn the lights out in February of this year. We had just gotten down to one person at the SEC responsible for identifying the risks at all the institutions".
Welch: "So that included the $62 trillion dollar credit default swap?"
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