Top Senate Democrat: Admits "Bankers Own Congress" on Radio

A top Democratic Senator blurted out "Bankers Own Congress" on a Radio show, when answering a question and talking about the bailouts. He admitted bankers have the most powerful lobbyist in Washington. I found it interesting who is who of banker lobbyist.

link to full article: www.salon.com...

Sen. Dick Durbin, on a local Chicago radio station this week, blurted out an obvious truth about Congress that, despite being blindingly obvious, is rarely spoken: "And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." The blunt acknowledgment that the same banks that caused the financial crisis "own" the U.S. Congress -- according to one of that institution's most powerful members -- demonstrates just how extreme this institutional corruption is.

What is interesting is following the jobs of various Senate staffers to lobbyist back to White House officials.

Former Barney Frank staffer now top Goldman Sachs lobbyist

Goldman Sachs' new top lobbyist was recently the top staffer to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., on the House Financial Services Committee chaired by Frank. Michael Paese, a registered lobbyist for the Securities Industries and Financial Markets Association since he left Frank's committee in September, will join Goldman as director of government affairs, a role held last year by former Tom Daschle intimate, Mark Patterson, now the chief of staff at the Treasury Department. This is not Paese's first swing through the Wall Street-Congress revolving door: he previously worked at JP Morgan and Mercantile Bankshares, and in between served as senior minority counsel at the Financial Services Committee.

Nice little musical chairs being played with those who were staffers of influential Senators who run committees directly in control of legislation of our banking regulations.

So: Paese went from Chairman Frank's office to be the top lobbyist at Goldman, and shortly before that, Goldman dispatched Paese's predecessor, close Tom Daschle associate Mark Patterson, to be Chief of Staff to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, himself a protege of former Goldman CEO Robert Rubin and a virtually wholly owned subsidiary of the banking industry. That's all part of what Desmond Lachman -- American Enterprise Institute fellow, former chief emerging market strategist at Salomon Smith Barney and top IMF official (no socialist he) -- recently described as "Goldman Sachs's seeming lock on high-level U.S. Treasury jobs."

Meanwhile, the above-linked Huffington Post article which reported on Durbin's comments also notes Sen. Evan Bayh's previously-reported central role on behalf of the bankers in blocking legislation, hated by the banking industry, to allow bankruptcy judges to alter the terms of mortgages so that families can stay in their homes. Bayh is up for re-election in 2010, and here -- according to the indispensable Open Secrets site -- is Bayh's top donor:

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Goldman reports $1.8 billion profit

Goldman Sachs reported a much stronger-than-expected first-quarter profit Monday, bouncing back from its worst quarter as a public company. . . .

In reporting its results a day earlier than expected, New York-based Goldman said it earned $1.81 billion, or $3.39 a share, for the quarter ended March 31. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were looking for a profit of $1.64 a share.

Goldman shares, which have surged more than 70% during the past month, continued rising late Monday, gaining about 4.7% for the day.

Nobody even tries to hide this any longer. The only way they could make it more blatant is if they hung a huge Goldman Sachs logo on the Capitol dome and then branded it onto the foreheads of leading members of Congress and executive branch officials.

This next part is completely honest about our media and where they stand in getting information out to the public about what is really going on.

One might think it would be a big news story for the second most-powerful member of the U.S. Senate to baldly state that the Congress is "owned" by the bankers who spawned the financial crisis and continue to dictate the government's actions. But it won't be. The leading members of the media work for the very corporations that benefit most from this process. Establishment journalists are integral and well-rewarded members of the same system and thus cannot and will not see it as inherently corrupt (instead, as Newsweek's Evan Thomas said, their role, as "members of the ruling class," is to "prop up the existing order," "protect traditional institutions" and "safeguard the status quo").

That Congress is fully owned and controlled by a tiny sliver of narrow, oligarchical, deeply corrupted interests is simultaneously so obvious yet so demonized (only Unserious Shrill Fringe radicals, such as the IMF's former chief economist, use that sort of language) that even Durbin's explicit admission will be largely ignored. Even that extreme of a confession (Durbin elaborated on it with Ed Schultz last night) hardly causes a ripple.

MSM wonders why people are turning to the internet for their news now?

If they provided more information that "what someone is wearing and what celebrity is doing what" then I would turn them on.

The article has other good information in it with links, I advise reading it at the link provided.

All this talk about how we HAVE to save these incompetent banks or the world economy will collapse is just a lie. We should have let the banks fail but the banks told Congress "If you give us billions of $ to make up our losses we'll kick back millions of that to each of you". And so it happened. I bet barney frank has gotten something like $50 million from the banks in the last year or so.

AMERICA = INFINITE CORRUPTION

questioningall great post

yes i'm not sure why this is largely ignored by the sheep.....you know in FREAK'N france they wouldn't take this shiiiit lying down

I think american gov't could teach france the importance of a a Compromised media who have shills up the wazoo (like you said) who's only agenda is to maintain the status quo.....don't upset the upper class beneficary's and don't spread the word of corruption to the people......this is the difference ( I HOPE ) between the way that the french seem to not stand for this Sh#$ yet american's take it mostly lying down.....i have seen limited clips of France TV and they still have a bit more "unbiased.....no b.s approach.......which is NO WHERE To be found in the great U S of A...........

That is why the Media has to be boycotted and the message needs to be spread.......Boycott the MSM

put it on posters MSM sold out to corrupt corporations and banks

they decieve....in order to (as you credited evan thomas)

prop up the existing order," "protect traditional institutions" and "safeguard the status quo").

reply to post by Make Speed Limit 45


No, the world economy would have certainly collapsed. The problem is, it's still almost certain to collapse. These bailouts are on par with selling your plasma to keep the lights on for a little bit longer, despite knowing that you can't pay your rent.

It just irks me, that the MSM does not report the most important information out there, about what is going on. I find it amazing too, most people don't want to know either.