How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War

by Stephen Lendman

ISBN: 978-0-9833539-4-2 192 pp. .95 2011

SYNOPSIS

The 1913 Federal Reserve Act let powerful bankers usurp money creation authority in violation of the Constitution's Article I, Section 8, giving only Congress the power to "coin Money (and) regulate the Value thereof...."

Thereafter, powerful bankers used their control over money, credit and debt for private self-enrichment, bankrolling and colluding with Congress and administrations to implement laws favoring them.

As a result, decades of deregulation, outsourcing, economic financialization,

and casino capitalism followed, producing asset bubbles, record budget and national debt levels, and depression-sized unemployment far higher than reported numbers, albeit manipulated to look better.

After the financial crisis erupted in late 2007, even harder times have left Main Street in the early stages of a depression, with recovery pure illusion. Today's contagion has spread out of control, globally. Wall Street got trillions of

dollars in a desperate attempt to socialize losses, privatize profits, and pump life back into the corpses by blowing public wealth into a moribund financial sector, failing corporate favorites, and America's aristocracy.

While Wall Street boasts it has recovered, industrial America keeps imploding. High-paying jobs are exported. Economic prospects are eroding. Austerity is being imposed, with no one sure how to revive stable, sustainable long-term growth.

This book provides a powerful tool for showing angry Americans how they've been fleeced, and includes a plan for constructive change.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dirty Secrets of the Temple

Capitalism and Freedom Unmasked

Greenspan's Dark Legacy

A Short History of Government Handouts to Bankers and Other Corporate Favorites

Quantitative Easing: Elixir or Poison?

Fraud in Washington

Obama's Anti-Populist Budget and Deficit Fix

The Recession Is Over, the Depression Is Just Beginning

Manipulation: How Markets Really Work

Goldman Sachs: Master of the Universe

Financialization: The Rise of Casino Capitalism

Class Warfare Jeopardizing American Workers' Security

Waging War on America's Workers

Permanent Debt Bondage from America's Student Loan Racket

On the Chopping Block: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

The Federal Reserve Abolition Act

Public Banking: An Idea Whose Time Has Come.

AUTHOR

Stephen Lendman is a writer and broadcaster. His work is exceedingly widely distributed online, with his articles carried on numerous listservs and websites such as OpEd News, Cyrano's Journal, Information Clearing House, Countercurrents, Rense, AltNews, Uruknet, Global Research, Counterpunch, and more.

In early 2007, he began regular radio hosting, and now hosts The Progressive Radio News Hour on The Progressive Radio Network.

He's the co-author with J.J. Asongu of The Iraq

Quagmire:The Price of Imperial Arrogance.

He holds a BA from Harvard and an MBA from Wharton.

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REVIEWS

"Stephen Lendman has been tireless in exposing the hidden forces behind the news, on everything from political economy and human rights to social justice and workers’ rights. His writings draw from a wealth of knowledge and deep conviction. I’m delighted to see him tackle the problem of private banking and government collusion and what I believe is the key to the solution—public banking."

ELLEN BROWN, Web of Debt

"Steve Lendman is one of America’s leading critics,whether it involves exposing collusion between Wall Street and Washington, the Obama regime’s support of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, or the frame-up of Muslim citizens by the attorney general. Fearless,thoroughly documented and judicious in his judgement, Lendman’s essays are a major contribution to the struggle for social justice in America."

JAMES PETRAS

"I think this text is terrific, just what is needed, very clear, informative beyond most people’s ken, easy to read, and of ultimate importance to steering economic and political recovery. The Capitalism and Freedom chapter is right in biopsy. The book just keeps on going with brilliant full exposure."

JOHN McMURTRY

Unequal Freedoms: The Global Market as an Ethical System

"A comprehensive understanding of Wall Street's manipulations of markets, money and power to the detriment of working people everywhere is badly needed. Stephen Lendman's new book "How Wall Street Fleeces America, is the

answer."

PETER PHILLIPS

President Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored

"Stephen Lendman has written a brilliant, passionate, and humane analysis of the current economic disarray in which we now live. Picking up where Thorstein Veblen left off, Lendman links our catastrophic economic situation to the robber- baron mentality in corporations and the failure of government to act as the enforcer of morality. His analysis is full of concrete illustrations of this latter-day barbarism, and is accessible to the everyday person, as well as intellectuals. This book should be required reading in business schools as well as

Congress."

STJEPAN G. MESTROVIC

Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M University

"Stephen Lendman’s latest work covers a great many interconnected subjects that affect not only the United States but everyone in the world. The aspect of investment in America today is shown to be nothing less then the robbing of the

American people by a criminal syndicate, known as Wall Street, banking and the Federal Reserve. A good deal of this is based upon the Federal Reserve Act and the ability of major private banks to control American society. The players have turned the financial world into one vast casino and when the players lose large amounts of money the public is allowed to bail them out. This book digs deeply into many of the contributing parts of what is wrong with the financial system of America and the world today. Stephen Lendman has a great gift for writing and

research and all his readers are the

BOB CHAPMAN

Editor of the International Forecaster

"Stephen Lendman has a breadth and depth of understanding of world and national affairs virtually unmatched among other public intellectuals today. With this exceptional collection of reflections upon our financial and budgetary crises, he clarifies and illuminates the dark and obscure recesses of policies and

programs that, although ostensibly intended to promote the interests of the people, all too often have the opposite effect, enriching and strengthening the wealthy at the taxpayer's expense. Let us hope this book will be followed by many more!"

JAMES H. FETZER

McKnight Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota Duluth

""Stephen Lendman is a true citizen journalist and scholar. After a long and successful business career, Lendman took it upon himself to use his retirement as a springboard for a new career as an analyst of political economy. With great

acumen, Lendman calls out economic charlatans and cuts straight through the core of so-called bull markets to tell the truth about how the powerful fleece the public on a daily basis. Lendman not only traces the history of the current financial calamity, he offers common sense advice on what we can do about it. A solid, fact-based read for anyone trying to make heads or tails of what's happening in today's economy."

MICKEY HUFF

Associate Professor of History, Diablo Valley College, Director, Project Censored

"There are many descriptive, narrative accounts about Wall St. and the current economic crisis available to readers today. But Stephen Lendman's new book takes the analysis far deeper than a simple narrative. Lendman emphasizes and focuses on the connections between Wall St. actions and the political system in Washington. How money operates on both sides of the street -- the banking and the political--is described in detail. The reader is left with a broader, deeper understanding of why the recent crisis happened and where it may well be

headed. Most importantly, the author does not shirk from calling the outcomes of the Wall St.-Washington alliance for what it represents: the emergence of a new kind of class war in America. Readers will find of special interest his innovative views on banking and public banking. Lendman's book is definitely one not to be

missed."

DR. JACK RASMUS

Professor of Economics, Santa Clara University

Author: Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression