Mike Krieger On The "Useful Idiots"

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
- Mahatma Gandhi

There isn’t a cohesive message coming from the protestors other than the system is rigged in favor of the top .01%. Those who think they are in control are losing their grip. They see their power and wealth slipping away. They’ve had their way for decades and will not willingly submit to a change in the existing social order. Last night Jim Cramer voiced the concerns of the .01% by saying the Occupy Wall Street protests were worrisome. They are worrisome to the moneyed interests. They are a reason for hope to the 99.9%. We are approaching our moment of truth. There is something terribly wrong with this country. A new American Revolution has begun. It is time to stop being afraid and take this country back. What happens next? The choice is ours.

- Jim Quinn (Read this http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-what-country-needs-now-hope [12]) 

But the banking elites that led these frauds have been able to do so with impunity from prosecution.  Take on federal agency, the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS).  During the S&L debacle, the OTS made well over 10,000 criminal referrals and made the removal of control frauds from the industry and their prosecution its top two priorities.  The agency's support and the provision of 1000 FBI agents to investigate the cases led to the felony conviction of over 1,000 S&L frauds.  The bulk of those convictions came from the "Top 100" list that OTS and the FBI created to prioritize the investigation of the worst failed S&Ls.  In the ongoing crisis -- which caused losses 40 times larger than the S&L debacle, the OTS made zero criminal referrals, the FBI (as recently as FY 2007) assigned only 120 agents nationally to respond to the well over one million cases of mortgage fraud that occurred annually, and the OTS' non-effort produced no convictions of any S&L control frauds.  OTS' sister agencies, the Fed and the OCC, have the same record of not even attempting to identify and prosecute the frauds.  The FDIC was better, but still only a shadow of what it was in fighting fraud in the early 1990s.  If control frauds can operate with impunity from criminal prosecutions, then the perverse Gresham's dynamic is maximized and market forces will increasingly drive honest banks and firms from the marketplace.
- Bill Black

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