31 Comments

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common from under the goose.

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Oct 29Liked by Jim Hightower

Shades of Wells Fargo, to name only one. Take a look at the Corporate Accountability Project (https://corporateaccountability.org/).

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Or the cops in your city or mine. They get nailed once in a blue moon for the atrocities they have been committing for decades, and when they do and in the even rarer event they get fined, it's the city (i.e. you and me the taxpayer) that gets stuck with the bill. The cop and his damned union walk.

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Please note that most are represented by the Police Benevolent Association and 80% don't belong to anything at all. While the professional and corporate elites encourage everyone to denigrate unions, there is a difference. In the cities I've lived in, cops insist they belong to an assn. In contrast, firefighters are adamant they are union. Difference being that we rank and file labor activists know, as per the old time adage, "An Injury To One Is An Injury To All." When we say "sisters and brothers," we mean it.

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Why was TD Banks fined. This was an illegal act. Want to stop the spread of the banking cancer ?? Start by giving the top executives and the branch managers involved in the laundering JAIL TIME.

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Remember the slice and dice toxic asset scandal of 2007 which resulted in the greatest "recession" since 1929 (actually a depression but the captive press refused to call it such).

Remember 2008 and we got Bush and all his felons out of office and our good Democrats in? And AG Holder prosecuting those banks that profiteered while depositors and investors took it on the chin? Lots of legal action at very high levels, but did you see any Bank of America CEOs and CFOs doing the perp walk? Did you happen to notice where AG Holder went after the Democrats left office? Hint: he didn't go on welfare.

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Holder should be remembered for representing the Sacklers & Purdue Pharma...they of OxyContin infamy. For the full horror, see the in-depth investigative reporting of the L.A. Times May 2016 series.

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I happen not to be a Jolly Banker, and I’m a disgruntled old codger scraping by on b Social Security, which is several billion dollars less than the fine these fat cats bank is assessed! Where is the exemption published that applies to the very rich?

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They don't need written exemptions. Since there are no penalties, they just take what they want and their lawyers do the post hoc writing that exonerates them. Money is a powerful language!!

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And me deaf! Damn!

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Welcome to GOP whirld, where EVERYTHING is about acquiring $$$ from ANY source by ANY means - for the past 56 years - 'what's legal got to do with it?' The machinations of reThuglicans would fill volumes of any encyclopedia, and then some - "A.L.E..C. for starters, don-cha-no! Not the 60 some years of Whig history before the Civil War.

-.

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This is another example of the hybridized banking system which privatizes the profits and Socializes the risks. Money talks, BS walks and there go the bankers down the street.

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Great revelations about TD Bank. Alas, there are more of the "jolly" billionaire types, such as jolly owners of major media companies, "X" companies, online retail/logistics companies....

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Nothing new here. Rapine and robbery everywhere. And we try to teach our kids to be honest and above board. Where is the lesson here?

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Bailouts solve bank criminal crimes. Year after year PBS kept warning about the real-estate bubble. This went on for years and oh my gosh what a mess when surprise surprise the bubble busted and how many Americans lost their homes and small investments but Obama bailed the banks out because they are too big to fail. Then bankers got millions of dollars in bonuses. One snake 2 heads.

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Can anyone name a bank that is not in the fat cat class? We are still with Wells Fargo (which has had 4 different names over the years). The staff at our local branch is great. The CEO and officers inhabit a different universe. What are our choices at this point? We love Steve's little ditty, and wish someone like Woody would set it to music. All we need is a catchy refrain.

Happy Fall, y'all!

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Your choices are the same as mine when Bank of America bought the National Bank of Fort Sam Houston which had served servicemen at home and overseas for decades. One Christmas eve the BoA cancelled financing on an American windows and doors company and thew hundreds of workers in the street during the holidays. Second coming of Christ? Not exactly. So I closed my account, went down the street to a federally insured credit union and have never been happier.

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As a long-time TD Bank customer, I'm profoundly pissed off by this story. I've stayed loyal to them thanks to the superb crew at our local branch; but now, acting on orders from on high, they have become less concerned with serving customers and more with pushing unneeded services.

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Thanks for lifting the veil on bankers' fraud.

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Now you know why I only do business with credit unions in my area. Both of mine are member service oriented. Nice.

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Oct 31·edited Oct 31

The logic of which is the same as saying the neglectful driver didn't cause the accident, the car did.

However, let's assign blame where blame is due.

Sure, the Reagan era R corporate, finance, and Wall St. toadies started the dismantling. But it was under Clinton and the neolib (econ status quo) Ds when Glass-Steagall and other hard won New Deal regulations were abolished. The neolib Ds enabled conversion to a financialized economy--manipulation of that abstraction known as money. So then the production of physically real goods and services becomes irrelevant. So does the majority working class. And local farmers, without whom we don't eat.

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Oct 30·edited Oct 30

America's COMING REVOLUTION will be an integral part of a modern class war against the super wealthy with corporate powers. We will be in the trenches and racing across the fields fully armed with myriad weapons. WE WILL CEASE: buying from them; banking with them; eating their nutrition-poor foods, including their "processed" foods and meats; using their vouchers for highly selective private and, especially, religious schools; shopping at store chains that forbid, even punish the unionization attempts of their workers; etc.; etc. WE WILL SUPPORT: local businesses; local family farms and butchers and eat more seasonally; local and regional banks and federally accredited credit unions; our public schools and their improved more contemporary curricula via action at our school boards; buy only from the larger stores and shops with unionized workers across their chains; etc.; etc. Sorry for the following: but DAMN THEM. DAMN THEM. DAMN THEM. This has got to STOP. It is all so contrary to our forefathers' and our dreams for our Nation. Our America - not theirs. DAMN THEM.

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Greedy bastard

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