One of the reasons why the Electoral College has remained in effect for all of these years is because it is assumed that all of the swing states benefit so greatly from the attention and advertising dollars, that no politician from these states would advocate eliminating it. However, if the state republicans are willing to sacrifice the attention and money that comes from these contests, then they can not logically oppose shifting to a popular vote, at least not on those grounds. This could be a unique opportunity to push for the elimination of the Electoral College. Now may be the time to demand a Federal response to the question, "Why aren't we allowed to elect our president directly?" Sign the petition at:
http://wh.gov/yd76
Spread the word. Let's make this the first petition to hit the new threshold of 100k signatures. Thank You.
Frontline: thank you for your fantastic but long overdue report.
Frankly, the resignation of government officials like Breuer are essentially irrelevant.
President Obama ran on the agenda of leveling the playing field for the American people. The one sure way he can add substance to that agenda is to proceed quickly with the indictment & prosecution of those top bankers and not the "small fish" that we keep hearing about. Had it not been for these top executive bankers of this country, we wouldn't have seen the unprecedented collective robbery that we have had to endured and will continue to pay the price for years to come. The one real way to convince us all that the justice system still works in this country is to nail these bastards that are still laughing their way to their banks; Hog Heaven indeed!
The outcome will be a renewed sense of justice while restoring our faith on our financial system.
There must be circumstances that caused charges to be NEVER brought against senior bank executives in one of the biggest financial failures in U.S. history. Our economy has not recovered, and the banks have not fixed the problems that created this fiasco in the first place. Banks colluded and created risky financial instruments and violated their fiduciary duties to U.S. citizens and institutions in the U.S. and abroad for YEARS without repercussions. There absolutely is fraud. Any 5-year old can tell you that.
I am the George Hartzman Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi wrote of the other week, and I believe Wachovia CEO Robert Steel bought Wachovia’s stock in a breach of trust, confidence and his fiduciary duty to shareholders, US taxpayers and our legal system, while in possession of material, nonpublic information.
On July 9, 2008, Robert Steel became president and CEO of Wachovia after working for Goldman Sachs from 1976 to 2004 and the US Treasury under former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson from October 10, 2006 until July 9, 2008. Mr. Steel was “the principal adviser to the secretary on matters of domestic finance and led the department's activities regarding the U.S. financial system, fiscal policy and operations, governmental assets and liabilities, and related economic matters,” according to Wikipedia’s biography. Mr. Steel most likely knew about other firm’s borrowings via his time spent at the U.S. Treasury Department.
On July 22, 2008, Mr. Steel personally purchased 1,000,000 shares of Wachovia’s stock as the company’s undisclosed Federal Reserve Term Auction Facility (TAF) borrowing reached $12.5 billion, which appears not to have been disclosed in securities filings audited by KPMG.
In an interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer On Monday, September 15, 2008, Robert Steel said "I think it's really about...transparency. People have to understand the assets and really be able to say, this is what I own... Complete disclosure. ...we can work through this with transparency, liquidity and capital. ...Our strategy was to give you all the data so you could make your own model. We tell you what we're doing... ...we're raising capital ourselves by basically shrinking the balance sheet, cutting the dividend, cutting expenses. We can create more capital ourselves that way... for now, we feel like we can work through this..." After Jim Cramer asked "Should there be any sort of quick regulatory relief from the SEC that would make life easier to be able to make your bank much stronger?", Mr. Steel responded "I don't think it's about my bank."
After not reporting TAF loans, Wachovia's CEO wrote "I, Robert K. Steel, certify that: I have reviewed this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2008 of Wachovia Corporation; Based on my knowledge, this report does not contain any untrue statement of a material fact or omit to state a material fact necessary to make the statements made, in light of the circumstances under which such statements were made, not misleading with respect to the period covered by this report; Based on my knowledge, the financial statements, and other financial information included in this report, fairly present in all material respects the financial condition, results of operations and cash flows of the registrant as of, and for, the periods presented in this report" on October 30, 2008.
Mr. Steel was at least aware of Wachovia’s Federal Reserve loans since July, 2012, if not the undisclosed loans to multiples of other financial institutions.
If Mr. Steel was “the principal adviser…on matters of domestic finance and led the department's activities regarding the U.S. financial system, fiscal policy and operations”, how could he not have known and acted on undisclosed material information?
On June 22, 2010, Robert Steel was appointed Deputy Mayor for Economic Development by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, after which, Steel resigned his seat on the Wells Fargo board. According to Morningstar data, Mr. Steel owned 601,903 shares of Wells Fargo in 2010, which would be worth $20,446,644.91 as of October 26, 2012.
George Hartzman
Greensboro, North Carolina
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