War Is Killing US - Banks, Robbing US Blind

War Is Killing US - Banks, Robbing US Blind

- - Moyers on the Costs of War
- - Bill Moyers talks with authors Simon Johnson and James Kwak

- - Moyers on the Costs of War
April 16, 2010

In his closing essay this week Bill Moyers talks about Binghamton, New York's Mayor Matt Ryan and his effort to make manifest the costs of war to his town and its citizens. The mayor has installed a "cost of war" clock that keeps a running tab of how much in tax dollars Binghamton citizens collectively and individually have contributed to the war effort. You can see how much your community has spent by using Costofwar.com, which keeps a running tab. And, you can see what those dollars might have paid for by using The National Priorities Project's "Trade Offs" calculator.

BILL MOYERS: That's it for the JOURNAL, except for this postscript to last week's conversation with the historian and military analyst Andrew Bacevich, who had this to say about Afghanistan:

ANDREW BACEVICH: "it is the longest war in American history. And it is a war for which there is no end in sight. And to my mind, it is a war that is utterly devoid of strategic purpose. And the fact that that gets so little attention from our political leaders, from the press or from our fellow citizens, I think is simply appalling, especially when you consider the amount of money we're spending over there and the lives that are being lost whether American or Afghan."

BILL MOYERS: Hardly had we finished talking about the rising anger over Afghan civilians killed by American and allied troops then news came of more death. American troops opened fire on a passenger bus near Kandahar. They thought the bus threatened a military convoy. At least five Afghan civilians were killed and 18 wounded. Soon a loud and angry crowd was demonstrating against the United States, followed by a suicide bombing at the Kandahar office of Afghan intelligence, killing four officials and another five civilians.

All of this as General David Petreus, commander of our forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, told a Washington audience that the continued loss of innocent civilian lives undermines everything we're trying to do in Afghanistan. And all of this as congress prepares to vote on spending another 33 billion dollars on that faraway war.

Mayor Matt Ryan Of Binghamton, New York, can't take it anymore. He calculates that by September 30th of this year the citizens of Binghamton will have paid 138 million dollars toward the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan — and more if congress passes the Obama request for supplemental funds. Binghamton is a small city of 47,000 people with an annual budget of 81 million dollars. Facing a budget deficit, the mayor has to raise taxes or cut jobs and services. He says he is sick and tired of watching people in town "squabble over crumbs" while sending all that money to foreign wars. Next week, he will become the first mayor in the country to install on city hall a large digital clock adding up minute-by-minute how much the people of Binghamton are paying for those two wars.

To watch or read the program, see: www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04162010/profile2.html

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- - Bill Moyers talks with authors Simon Johnson and James Kwak
PBS.org

The White House and Democrats in Congress have begun pushing in earnest for a package of financial reforms. But will it be enough to stop Wall Street from causing another meltdown?

To find out what real financial reform needs to look like, Bill Moyers turns to Simon Johnson and James Kwak, the co-authors of 13 BANKERS: THE WALL STREET TAKEOVER AND THE NEXT FINANCIAL MELTDOWN.

The problem, according to Kwak, is that the legislation currently doesn't address the central problem of the crisis, that America's banks have grown 'too big to fail.' In fact, the problem has gotten worse, with just six banks holding assets in excess of 63% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. Kwak explains that the crisis actually made the surviving banks more powerful, "I think what's remarkable is that it used to be maybe eight or nine banks. But what's happened over the last two years, as Simon is saying, is that these banks have gotten bigger, because they've bought each other. They've become more powerful. And they have an even stronger market position in some key markets like credit cards, mortgages, equity underwriting, and derivatives."

Johnson argues that for reform to work, policy makers and regulators must reject the belief that Wall Street knows what's its doing, that its interests are always aligned with the nation as a whole, "The idea that we need Wall Street with its current structure — and a disproportionate economic power that implies — to somehow make this economy work and drive entrepreneurship, that idea is nonsense. This is why we wrote the book, all right? There's plenty of evidence on this issue. We go through it. If you want a faith based economy in this regard, you can disregard the evidence."

Senator Brown and the 'Volcker Rule'

Johnson and Kwak believe Congress should pass a law capping the size of the banks, to keep them from becoming so large that their failure threatens the world economy. This approach has been dubbed the 'Volcker Rule,' after Paul Volcker, the well-respected former Federal Reserve chairman who has pushed hard for its inclusion. Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio has introduced an amendment to the bill that would do just that, reading in part that, "No bank holding company may possess non-deposit liabilities exceeding 3 percent of the annual gross domestic product of the United States."

The Six Big Banks

The names of the six banking behemoths are no doubt familiar to most Americans. The four largest by assets — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup — hold 39 percent of American's deposits.

The six biggest commercial banks by deposit:

* Bank of America, $817.9 billion
* JPMorgan Chase Bank $618.1 billion
* Wachovia Bank $394.2 billion
* Wells Fargo Bank $325.4 billion
* Citibank $265.9 billion
* U.S. Bank $151.9 billion
Source: FDIC

Truncated, for complete article see: www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04162010/profile.html