THE LATEST THIS AY-EM:

• 4000 US Marines Surging In Anti-Taliban Offensive In Afghanistan
• One US Soldier Seized [This may become the story!]
• Pakistan Taliban Vying With US In Providing Relief
• States Shutting Down Summer Schools As Money Vanishes
• Vibe Magazine Dies After 16 Years
• Banks Still Raising Fees To Consumers
• Ant Colonies Taking Over World

THE BANKSTER VOW TO GO TO WAR
IRAQ WAR PROPAGANDIST BEHIND THEIR CAMPAIGN
THE REFORMS WE NEED

The shot has been fired over the bow. It’s war. The “Banksters of America” are drawing a line in the sand by telling the Obama Administration and the long suffering, ripped off and deceived consumers of America that they will not allow the government to create a new Consumer Protection Agency. (Remember Illinois Senator Dick Durbin’s comment on the influence bank lobbyists exert in the Senate? He said “they frankly own the place.”)

Their message: you may want or need reform, but you ain’t going to get it.

Says Edward L. Yingling, president of the American Bankers Association “It’s going to be a huge fight.”

Reports the New York Times: Banks Balk at Agency Meant to Aid Consumers

“Banks and mortgage lenders are placing top priority on killing President Obama’s proposal to create a new consumer protection agency that would regulate home loans, credit card fees, payday loans and other forms of consumer finance.”

“Top Priority?” Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

The translation of that phrase is simple: they are planning a pricey kick out the jams massive lobbying and media campaign to go to the mattresses to stop new regulators and regulations that can stop them from doing what they have been doing for years—screwing consumers with predatory loans, excessive fees and abusive/exploitative practices.

Reports the Times: “The industry’s heated reaction presages an intense lobbying battle that is already beginning. Opponents include JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo as well as thousands of regional and local banks that have close ties to lawmakers in every part of the country. But the opposition could also include countless mortgage lenders and independent mortgage brokers.

House and Senate Democrats, as well as many consumer groups, strongly support the proposal. The House Financial Services Committee hopes to complete work on a bill by the end of July, and House Democrats hope to send the measure to the Senate in September.” READ FULL STORY HERE

So those are the battle lines being drawn. Consumer groups are supporting the proposed new agency but the public is not engaged, or even aware of the propaganda war to come. Millions are beings set aside by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), to quell the upsurge of “populist” anger directed at the financial sector.

BUSH WAR PROPAGANDIST IN CHARGE

Already this agency is setting up a war room led by former top GOP operative named Jim Wilkinson Called an “advisor” in the media, first to the Bush Administration’s War on Iraq and then to Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson at the Plunge Protection Unit (which did not anticipate or stop the plunge), he has actually had a track record of association with orchestrating the darkest moments in our recent past.

Wilkinson organized the GOP sabotage of the vote recount in Miami Dade County in 2000 by invading the City-County building with a team of right-wing Congressional aides who caused a ruckus with phony charges of vote tampering that stopped the recount. Those dirty tricks helped give the election to George W. Bush.

He was rewarded with a post in the Administration and used as a one man fire brigade and spin doctor to create propaganda and put out political fires. He was a utility fielder, playing every position including aide to Condi Rice (while keeping an eye on her!)

Mother Jones reported: Guess Who’s Selling Wall Street’s Bull?

“In the run-up to the Iraq War, Wilkinson was a member of the White House Iraq Group, which devised the administration’s information offensive making the case for deposing Saddam Hussein.”

“By November 2002 Wilkinson had been installed as Central Command’s (CENTCOM) director of strategic communications, where he coordinated the administration’s information campaigns on Afghanistan and Iraq. As the military’s “Shock and Awe” campaign commenced in March, Wilkinson presided over press conferences at the military’s forward base in Doha, Qatar, where reporters were fed a daily dose of pro war misinformation. propaganda.” READ FULL STORY HERE

My film, WMD, showed Wilkinson in action at the Coalition Media (Disinformation) Center with one reporter from the Houston Chronicle comparing him to a Stalinist propagandist. After “selling” the Iraq War–with loads of inaccurate information, he was moved to the financial war to handle crisis management for Henry Paulson.

From there, he was rewarded with a partnership at BrunswicK Group, a powerful PR firm.

Bragged Brunswick: “Jim is a great strategic thinker. His experience of government, international relations and the financial and commercial worlds will be of tremendous value to our clients worldwide,” said Alan Parker, Brunswick’s Chairman. “We are thrilled to welcome him to the partnership.”

The firm is being paid $70,000 a month. Bloomberg reports it will be planning a “city-by-city, grass roots” effort targeting such international hubs as New York, London, Washington, and Brussels.

Adds Mother Jones: “The goal: to convince the public that Wall Street is open to reform, and is part of the solution, not the problem. But what does it say about Wall Street’s commitment to change that it turned to a man notorious for misleading PR campaigns to sell the US public on its transformation?”

Also an ad agency that’s worked with the Obama campaign is also involved in working for the banks and Wilkinson.

THE BANKS SAY CONSUMERS DON’T NEED NEW AGENCY; TRUST US

AP reports on the line the Banksters will take:

“We think this agency is a mistaken piece of the overall program and not something that needs to be done,” said Wayne Abernathy, who heads financial institutions policy at the American Bankers Association. “This agency is going to be deciding what products we should offer instead of our customers telling us what they want.”

Abernathy said his group, which represents most of the nation’s estimated 8,000 banks, would push the administration to “replace” the agency with another entity.

In response, about 200 consumer protection groups are joining forces to defend the proposed agency. Their success could determine how sweeping and long-lasting the financial overhaul turns out….

“This is the exact same industry that used those arguments to bring our economy to a screeching halt,” said Kathleen Day, a spokeswoman for the Center for Responsible Lending. “It’s not patchwork (regulation). It’s checks and balances.”

As a centerpiece of Obama’s financial overhaul, the consumer agency would be an independent body. It would oversee virtually all banking transactions, including mortgages, credit cards and checking and savings accounts.

CONGRESS DIVIDED

The LA Times reports that Congress is divided already on these issues. Says Barney Frank:

“It’s been my experience that when you have an ongoing responsibility for broad systemic issues, consumer complaints can get crowded out,” Frank said, hammering the Federal Reserve in particular for “literally ignoring” its responsibility for policing mortgages and credit cards offered to average Americans.

The proposal for a new agency mirrors legislation introduced in March by Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.). The idea was the brainchild of Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard University law professor and chairwoman of the government panel overseeing the $700-billion financial bailout fund.

“We need someone in Washington . . . who looks at the products not from the point of view primarily of bank profitability, but what it means to families and the economy,” Warren, who proposed such an agency in 2007, told the Financial Services Committee on Wednesday. She said the terms for credit cards have become so complex that even an expert on contracts such as herself can’t understand them.

At the same time, as the Financial Times reports, the world’s top bank wants tougher regulations that go much further than anything we have seen yet.

BANKS NEED TO BE REINED IN: FINANCIAL TIMES

In fact, commentators in other countries are much stronger than our financial journalists in calling for tougher rules. Martin Wolf is the editor of the Financial Times;

With one bound the banks are free, or so it seems. Already, the panic of the autumn of 2008 is fading. The period within which lessons can be learnt and changes made is closing. Yet without radical changes, another crisis is certain. It may not even be that long delayed.

In a recent speech, governor Elizabeth Duke of the Federal Reserve told an anecdote from just after the failure of Lehman Brothers last September. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, was asked: “Well, what if we don’t do anything?” To which he replied: “There will be no economy on Monday.”

Instead, all institutions deemed systemically significant were saved, by shifting almost all of the risk on to taxpayers.

“Never again” might be too much to ask. But “not for a generation” is essential. Governments cannot afford an early repeat, financially, politically, perhaps morally: the lives of so many cannot soon be sacrificed to the whims of a foolish few.

Yet, what has emerged after the crisis is, as I argued last week , an even worse financial system than the one with which we began. The survivors are an oligopoly of “too-big-and-interconnected-to-fail” financial behemoths. They are the winners not because they are necessarily the best businesses, but because they are the best supported. It takes no imagination to realize what these institutions might now do, given the incentives for risk-taking.

TREAT FINANCE LIKE MEDICINE SAYS BIS

Financial products should be regulated like medicine in future, the Bank for International Settlements, said on Monday as it advocated sweeping reforms to financial instruments, markets and institutions. The central bankers’ bank had previously given the most accurate warnings about the impending financial crisis. In its annual report on Monday it called for an overhaul of financial regulations, economic policy and the structure of the global economy. READ FULL STORY HERE

The question is: