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Leo W. Gerard

By Leo W. Gerard
USW International President

Recent stories about Wall Street contain a recurring theme: deceit.

For example, this week the CEO of the late Lehman Brothers, Richard S. Fuld Jr., with a completely straight face swore to Congress that he’d been utterly out to lunch on the issue of “Repo 105,” a sleight-of-hand accounting procedure auditors found Lehman used to conceal its debts.

Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit charging  Goldman Sachs with securities fraud and describing a scheme in which Goldman defrauded clients by selling them a mortgage investment to bet on after secretly permitting selection of its component securities by a hedge fund manager who Goldman knew planned to bet against it.

Also last week, the Senate conducted hearings on failed Washington Mutual following a report by a Senate subcommittee that found the bank’s lending operations rife with fraud, including fabricated loan documents.

This deceit illustrates that America’s largest financial institutions can’t be trusted to refrain from crashing the world economy again. In fact, when the big banks announced their first quarter earnings recently — Citigroup $4.4 billion; Bank of America, $4.2 billion; Goldman Sachs $3.46 billion, and JPMorgan $3.3 billion; Morgan Stanley $1.8 billion – it turned out that much of that money was made by their trading divisions – the very ones that dragged them – and the U.S. economy – down during the crisis in 2008. These are the same risky trading practices that cost taxpayers a $700 billion bank bailout, their savings, their jobs, their businesses.

Clearly, these bankers can’t control themselves. And the “free market” has failed to moderate their behavior. Strict regulation is essential, including re-instituting the Glass-Steagall Act and other rules that will prevent financial firms from growing too big to fail; forcing the banks themselves to pay for liquidation of big financial institutions; placing on open markets trades of those secretive derivatives that brought down AIG and that the SEC says Goldman used fraudulently; and creating an independent consumer financial protection agency to stop practices like predatory lending, usurious interest rates and hidden fees.

Congress lifted bank regulations over the past three decades, including the Glass-Steagall Act passed after the 1929 stock market crash to reduce speculation and conflicts of interest and to prevent “too-big-to-fail” financial institutions by forbidding the combination of investment and commercial banks. Like gullible investors in subprime mortgage bonds, the politicians who reversed those rules bought the argument that the free market would regulate itself. This is the same argument 1,500 Wall Street lobbyists are using, along with millions of dollars, right now in attempts to persuade lawmakers to stop worrying their little heads about seriously regulating Wall Street.

Main Street, where foreclosures continue at a record pace and unemployment remains painfully near 10 percent, desperately needs its own 1,500 lobbyists and millions in influence dollars. It will have the power of thousands of voices at a “Make Wall Street Pay” rally April 29 in the heart of New York City’s financial district, one of several protests across the country organized by the AFL-CIO.

On Main Street the need to forcefully re-regulate to prevent another Great Recession is clear; it’s not in Washington, D.C. In fact, weakening the already-too-soft financial regulation bill proposed by Sen. Chris Dodd is a crusade for Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, whose campaign coffers have received more money from security and investment firms than from any other category — $1.3 million. Like a Wall Street banker, McConnell is using deception. For example, he harped all last week that an “orderly liquidation fund” in the Dodd bill was a “bailout fund.”

It’s not. It would be created with fees on banks – not taxpayers. And it’s not for bailouts that preserve banks. It is for bank liquidation. It would pay for the orderly closing of too-big-to-fail banks. Ezra Klein of the Washington Post ridiculed McConnell’s claims, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the Nation, described McConnell’s attacks on the bill as fraudulent.

All of the sudden on Monday, McConnell changed his mind about Dodd’s bill. Coincidentally, that was three days after the SEC filed the fraud suit against Goldman Sachs, making railing against financial reform appear not quite so politically wise to Republicans anymore. It’s all about the politics in Washington, D.C.

McConnell said he had new optimism that Wall Street reform would pass because Democrats had resumed bipartisan talks and, he said:

“I’m convinced now there is a new element of seriousness attached to this, rather than just trying to score political points.”

Listening to McConnell is like hearing Lehman’s Fuld, who got a $22 million bonus six months before his financial firm filed for bankruptcy, swear to Congress he knew nothing about the “Repo” accounting procedure Lehman used to conceal $50 billion in debts. Following his testimony, Anton R. Valukas, the examiner in the Lehman bankruptcy, told Congress that his investigators found a person who had discussed Repo with then-CEO Fuld and e-mails to Fuld describing it.

The problem with McConnell and his new-found eagerness to pass “bipartisan” legislation is that the Dodd bill needs to be strengthened, not weakened with compromises thrown to Senate Republicans, all 41 of whom signed a letter last week saying they’d vote against it.

Before compromises remove from this bill the power to effectively regulate, Congress needs to review what Goldman is accused of doing. Ezra Klein of the Post described it best:

“Goldman Sachs let hedge-fund manager John Paulson select the subprime-mortgage bonds that he thought likeliest to explode and put them into a package called Abacus 2007-AC1. Paulson, who guessed early that the market was heading for a crash, wanted to bet against these bonds. But he needed someone on the other side of the bet. So Goldman went out and found him some suckers, or, as Goldman called them, “counterparties.” .  .  .But here’s the rub: Goldman didn’t tell the counterparties that Paulson had picked the bonds. ‘Goldman wrongly permitted a client that was betting against the mortgage market to heavily influence which mortgage securities to include in an investment portfolio, while telling other investors that the securities were selected by an independent, objective third party,’  said Robert Khuzami, the director of the  SEC’s division of enforcement.”

Khuzami’s description makes Goldman’s behavior sound a lot like lying.

The real economy in this country – the one that manufactures, builds and produces tangible products – can’t afford a Wild West financial economy. The real economy depends on banks to finance business expansion and everyday transactions. All of that froze in the Fall of 2008 because of Wall Street’s reckless, inadequately-regulated gambling.

In a speech in New York City on Thursday, President Obama reinforced that some bankers “forgot that behind every dollar traded or leveraged, there is family looking to buy a house, and pay for an education, open a business, save for retirement.”

Obama also referenced the issue of dishonesty when he said this in New York:

“A free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it.”

If McConnell-style deceit about the financial reform bill continues in the Senate, serious regulatory reform won’t happen. Half measures won’t work. Only robust financial reform will end Wall Street’s freedom to deceive.

Leo W. Gerard

By Leo W. Gerard

International President

Within hours of Barack Obama’s election, naysayers chastened caution. Don’t go too far, they inveighed. Build trust slowly with restrained, moderate, and gradual actions, they admonished.

In other words: Start with piddling plans.

Basically, they want to abort hope — kill it before it has a chance.

That is all wrong after an election in which it’s believed that a higher percentage of Americans voted than at any time in the past 40 years; a win that brought tears to the eyes of even hardened reporters; a result that drew joyful citizens into streets across the country to celebrate, a balloting that swept even larger majorities of Democrats into the U.S. House and Senate.

This moment during which the nation is suffering great economic peril pleads for political valor. This moment screams for boldness.

Troubled times demand greatness. Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that. He’s the reason U.S. presidents are judged by the sum of their accomplishments in their first 100 days in office.

When FDR was inaugurated in 1933, the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. He didn’t waste time tinkering. After 100 days, he’d given the country the Emergency Banking Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Federal Emergency Relief Act and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Obama may not inherit a Great Depression, but he’ll take the oath during an intense recession. Look at the news that arrived the same week as his election: unemployment rose to 6.5 percent after 10 straight months of jobs losses totaling more than 1.2 million; the stock market dropped 1,000 points in 48 hours after the worst October showing in two decades; auto makers travelled to Capitol Hill begging like hobos for handouts to stave off bankruptcy, two dozen major retailers revealed sales declines, most double digit, and the New York Times reported hospitals strained as they register fewer paying patients and increasing charity cases.

These problems won’t be solved with timidity. In his first press conference after the election, Obama said resolving the economic crisis is his top priority. He said, in fact, “I will confront the economic crisis head on.” No weak-heartedness suggested there.

He said a new president can restore confidence and advance an agenda for the middle class. That is exactly what FDR did with the combination of legislation and fireside chats.

During this brief press conference, Obama got it right, emphasizing aid to the middle class. He said it is essential to pass a rescue plan that would create jobs and extend unemployment benefits. He wants aid to state and local governments so they don’t increase taxes or furlough workers.

The federal government should help both small businesses and the huge auto industry, which provides jobs directly and indirectly through its suppliers.

The $700 billion bailout must be reviewed, he said, to ensure that it is stabilizing markets, that it’s not unduly rewarding the Wall Street risk-takers who caused the crisis, and that it’s helping families avoid foreclosure.

In addition, he said it’s essential to implement policies to grow the middle class such as investing in clean energy technology, resolving the nation’s health insurance dilemma, and providing tax relief for working families.

These are the correct priorities. And his plans are audacious. Which means he needs our help.

He called for bi-partisan cooperation in accomplishing these goals. But he’ll need more than that. He will need the kind of support he got in those weeks just before Election Day.

All of those who voted for him, all of those who want to keep hope alive, and all of those who want real change must demand both houses of Congress and both political parties work with Obama to accomplish it. Those who believe in real change must make it clear that they won’t stand by and allow courageous action to be reduced to faint-hearted baby steps.

On election night, Obama told the crowd in Chicago that the victory was theirs: “I know you didn’t do this just to win an election and I know you didn’t do it for me.”

Then he warned of what is ahead:

“You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime – two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.”

With more than 10,000 volunteers across the country, the United Steelworkers campaigned hard to help get Obama on that Chicago stage to make that speech. We will back him as he works to fulfill his promises of what is a New Deal for the new century. And we urge every American who wants real change to join us to ensure his success, the nation’s success.

By Dean Baker
Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research

With all the urgency and frenzied debate around the Wall Street bailout, it is important that we not forget to still have some fun. With that thought in mind, let’s take a moment to mark the sudden transformation of the Wall Street free trade crowd, led by several of the top figures in the Clinton administration, into the Wall Street protectionist crowd.

As Wall Street free traders, these folks argued that we should get the government out of the economy. They wanted to remove the trade barriers that obstructed the free flow of goods and services (especially goods). If this meant that workers had to lose their jobs, so be it. Because they were nice guys, they promised benefits like job training and wage insurance.

But now the Wall Street crew no longer wants to leave things to the market.

Virtually all financial firms are now counting on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to prop up their stock prices by prohibiting short sales. It seems that there are many investors who think that Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and the rest are not worth their current market price and are willing to bet that their price will fall.

However, at the urging of the Wall Street former free traders, the SEC has made it illegal for these investors to trade based on their assessment of market values. Of course such government intervention distorts market prices and leads to inefficiency. If the shorters are wrong and the banks are really worth more than they believe, their shorting efforts would allow other investors (including the former free traders) to swoop in and buy up shares at bargain basement prices. They actually should be delighted that the shorters are giving them such great buying opportunities.

But, the Wall Street crew is not very sophisticated when it comes to economics. So, rather than let the market run its course, they go running to the government for protection. And, being somewhat more powerful than autoworkers and textile workers, the Wall Street crew has been able to get their protection.

So, there you have it. The Wall Street free traders are now protectionists. It’s a new day. (btw, someone should check the listings to see if any of the big shareholders took advantage of the moratorium on shorts to dump large amounts of their holdings.)

By Leo W. Gerard
International President
Staking everything
Today, in Las Vegas, a town where jackpots are sought and fortunes are lost, Derek Simpson, general secretary of the UK-based international union, Unite the Union (Amicus Section) and I together staked everything on a worthy cause — working men and women world wide.
We signed an agreement at the USW convention in the Paris-Bally’s Conference Center joining our two great unions, creating the first global one. It is called Workers Uniting, the Global Union because we foresee industrial unions from other continents joining us to face off unregulated multinational corporations that exploit labor worldwide. (more…)