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PayPal to Pay $25 Million to Settle CFPB Case - 0 views

www.corporatecrimereporter.com/...25-million-to-settle-cfpb-case

banksters PayPal litigation false-advertising fraud

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Jul 15 - No Cached

By Editor Filed in News May 19th, 2015 @ 11:50 am The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed a complaint and proposed consent order in federal court against PayPal, Inc. for illegally signing up consumers for its online credit product, PayPal Credit, formerly known as Bill Me Later. The CFPB alleges that PayPal deceptively advertised promotional benefits that it failed to honor, signed consumers up for credit without their permission, made them use PayPal Credit instead of their preferred payment method, and then mishandled billing disputes.
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Under the proposed order, PayPal would pay $15 million in consumer redress and a $10 million penalty, and it would be required to improve its disclosures and procedures. “PayPal illegally signed up consumers for its online credit product without their permission and failed to address disputes when they complained,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “Online shopping has become a way of life for many Americans and it’s important that they are treated fairly. The CFPB’s action should send a signal that consumers are protected whether they are opening their wallets or clicking online to make a purchase.”
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As with credit cards and other forms of credit, consumers using PayPal Credit may incur interest, late fees, and other charges. consumers often enroll in PayPal Credit while purchasing a good or service online or while creating a PayPal account. Since 2008, PayPal has offered PayPal Credit to consumers across the country making purchases from thousands of online merchants, including eBay. The CFPB alleges that many consumers who were attempting to enroll in a regular PayPal account, or make an online purchase, were signed up for the credit product without realizing it. The company also failed to post payments properly, lost payment checks, and mishandled billing disputes that consumers had with merchants or the company. Tens of thousands of consumers experienced these issues.
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Obama to propose legislation to protect firms that share cyberthreat data - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html

surveillance state U.S. digital-privacy legislation

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Jan 15 - No Cached

President Obama plans to announce legislation Tuesday that would shield companies from lawsuits for sharing computer threat data with the government in an effort to prevent cyberattacks. On the heels of a destructive attack at Sony Pictures Entertainment and major breaches at JPMorgan Chase and retail chains, Obama is intent on capitalizing on the heightened sense of urgency to improve the security of the nation’s networks, officials said. “He’s been doing everything he can within his executive authority to move the ball on this,” said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss legislation that has not yet been released. “We’ve got to get something in place that allows both industry and government to work more closely together.”
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The legislation is part of a broader package, to be sent to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, that includes measures to help protect consumers and students against cyberattacks and to give law enforcement greater authority to combat cybercrime. The provision’s goal is to “enshrine in law liability protection for the private sector for them to share specific information — cyberthreat indicators — with the government,” the official said. Some analysts questioned the need for such legislation, saying there are adequate measures in place to enable sharing between companies and the government and among companies.
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“We think the current information-sharing regime is adequate,” said Mark Jaycox, legislative analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy group. “More companies need to use it, but the idea of broad legal immunity isn’t needed right now.” The administration official disagreed. The lack of such immunity is what prevents many companies from greater sharing of data with the government, the official said. “We have heard that time and time again,” the official said. The proposal, which builds on a 2011 administration bill, grants liability protection to companies that provide indicators of cyberattacks and threats to the Department of Homeland Security.
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...5 more annotations...
But in a provision likely to raise concerns from privacy advocates, the administration wants to require DHS to share that information “in as near real time as possible” with other government agencies that have a cybersecurity mission, the official said. Those include the National Security Agency, the Pentagon’s Cyber Command, the FBI and the Secret Service. “DHS needs to take an active lead role in ensuring that unnecessary personal information is not shared with intelligence authorities,” Jaycox said. The debates over government surveillance prompted by disclosures from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden have shown that “the agencies already have a tremendous amount of unnecessary information,” he said.
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The administration official stressed that the legislation will require companies to remove unnecessary personal information before furnishing it to the government in order to qualify for liability protection. It also will impose limits on the use of the data for cybersecurity crimes and instances in which there is a threat of death or bodily harm, such as kidnapping, the official said. And it will require DHS and the attorney general to develop guidelines for the federal government’s use and retention of the data. It will not authorize a company to take offensive cyber-measures to defend itself, such as “hacking back” into a server or computer outside its own network to track a breach. The bill also will provide liability protection to companies that share data with private-sector-developed organizations set up specifically for that purpose. Called information sharing and analysis organizations, these groups often are set up by particular industries, such as banking, to facilitate the exchange of data and best practices.
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Efforts to pass information-sharing legislation have stalled in the past five years, blocked primarily by privacy concerns. The package also contains provisions that would allow prosecution for the sale of botnets or access to armies of compromised computers that can be used to spread malware, would criminalize the overseas sale of stolen U.S. credit card and bank account numbers, would expand federal law enforcement authority to deter the sale of spyware used to stalk people or commit identity theft, and would give courts the authority to shut down botnets being used for criminal activity, such as denial-of-service attacks.
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It would reaffirm that federal racketeering law applies to cybercrimes and amends the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by ensuring that “insignificant conduct” does not fall within the scope of the statute. A third element of the package is legislation Obama proposed Monday to help protect consumers and students against cyberattacks. The theft of personal financial information “is a direct threat to the economic security of American families, and we’ve got to stop it,” Obama said. The plan, unveiled in a speech at the Federal Trade Commission, would require companies to notify customers within 30 days after the theft of personal information is discovered. Right now, data breaches are handled under a patchwork of state laws that the president said are confusing and costly to enforce. Obama’s plan would streamline those into one clear federal standard and bolster requirements for companies to notify customers. Obama is proposing closing loopholes to make it easier to track down cybercriminals overseas who steal and sell identities. “The more we do to protect consumer information and privacy, the harder it is for hackers to damage our businesses and hurt our economy,” he said.
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In October, Obama signed an order to protect consumers from identity theft by strengthening security features in credit cards and the terminals that process them. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said there is concern that a federal standard would “preempt stronger state laws” about how and when companies have to notify consumers. The Student Digital Privacy Act would ensure that data entered would be used only for educational purposes. It would prohibit companies from selling student data to third-party companies for purposes other than education. Obama also plans to introduce a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. And the White House will host a summit on cybersecurity and consumer protection on Feb. 13 at Stanford University.
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The Daily Bell - Doug Casey on the Continuing Debasement of Money, Language and Banking in the Modern Age - 0 views

www.thedailybell.com/...-and-Banking-in-the-Modern-Age

Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 15 - No Cached

This isn't going to last because the way you get wealthy is by producing more than you consume and saving the difference – not by consuming more than you produce, and borrowing the difference. With the Fed keeping interest rates at artificially low levels, hoping to increase consumption, they're making it very foolish to save – when you get ½% or 1% on your savings. So people are saving less and they're borrowing more than they otherwise would. This is a formula for making things worse, not better.
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They are, idiotically, doing exactly the opposite of what they should be.
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In point of fact, the Fed should be abolished; the market, not bureaucrats, should determine interest rates. We wouldn't be in this pickle to start with if the government wasn't involved in the economy.
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...35 more annotations...
The Chinese, the Japanese – everybody is selling, trying to pass the Old Maid card of US Government debt, which represents return–free risk. Nobody other than the Fed is buying, and interest rates would skyrocket if they stopped. The more QE there is, the more distortions it will cause, however, making for a bigger disaster the longer it goes on.
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Will the Fed continue to inflate the money supply? Doug Casey: They have to, because with the huge amount of debt in the world – and the amount of debt in the world has increased something like 40 or 50% just since the Greater Depression started – if they don't keep increasing the amount of money in the world then nobody's going to be able to service the huge amount of debt that is out there. So I don't see anything changing in the years to come. They've truly painted themselves into a corner. They're caught between Scylla and Charybdis, and we don't have Odysseus steering the ship of state.
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Let me say, again, that the Fed serves no useful purpose and it should be abolished. Central banks create "super money" by buying government or other debt with new currency units that they credit to the sellers' accounts at commercial banks. That's the actual engine of inflation.
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But it's greatly compounded in the commercial banking system through fractional reserve lending – which would not be possible without a central bank. Fractional reserve lending allows banks to multiply the money supply several times.
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If $100 of Fed super money, freshly created, is deposited in a commercial bank like Chase or Citibank, then $90 can be lent out with a 10% reserve, the current number. That money is redeposited. They'll then lend out 90% of that $90, or $81, and then 90% of that $81, so it multiplies.
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Central banking and fractional reserve lending go hand-in-hand.
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Without a central bank, any bank that engaged in fractional reserve banking would be considered guilty of fraud and, when discovered, would be punished by a bank run, followed by criminal charges. The point to be made here is that the entire banking system today is totally unsound and totally corrupt.
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In a sound banking system you have two types of deposits – checking account (or demand) deposits, and savings account (or time) deposits. They are completely different businesses. With demand deposits, you pay the bank to store your money securely, and write checks against it. A bank should no more lend out demand deposit money than Allied Storage should lend out the furniture you're paying them to store.
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Savings accounts are completely different. Here you lend money to a bank, perhaps at 3%, and they relend it at 6%, making 3% to cover costs, risks and profits. A sound bank not only has to match the maturities of its deposits with the maturities of its loans, but must insure loans are both highly secured and self-liquidating.
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These principles have been totally lost. Today banks operate as hedge funds.
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As an aside, if someone were to set up a well-capitalized 100% reserve bank in a tax haven, especially using gold as an alternative currency, it would be immensely successful in the years to come – when most all conventional banks will fail.
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By all historical, normal parameters, the stock market is greatly overvalued.
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The trillions of new currency units that the Fed is creating are creating bubbles, and one of them is in the stock market. The biggest bubble, of course, is in the bond market – that's a super bubble.
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Not only does the dollar have no real value but the banks you keep it in are all insolvent.
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There are few sound investments out there. Today there are no investments; there are only speculations.
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From the economist's point of view, the bubbles created by central banking are a disaster, but from a speculator's point of view they're a godsend. It's becoming harder and harder to be an investor; I define an investor as someone who allocates capital to productive business. It's hard to be an investor because you now have to spend more money on lawyers than on engineers and workers if you want to produce something. You're increasingly forced to be a speculator in today's climate.
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Stock and bond markets all over the world are overpriced – with the exception of Russian stocks right now; they could be a very interesting speculation. I wouldn't touch anything in China yet, because all the Chinese banks are going to go bust.
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The Chinese have been more profligate inflating the yuan than the Americans have been with the dollar. It's fantastic what the Chinese have done since Deng liberalized the economy in the early '80s, but now's not a time to be in their markets.
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You've got to remember there are two types of people in the world: people who want to control material reality and people who want to control other people.
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It's that second type who go into politics. They play games – here it's called the Great Game, which dignifies it in a way it shouldn't be – with other people's lives and property. It's been this way ever since the state was created about 5,000 years ago, and I don't think you should play games with other people's lives.
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On the bright side, there are more scientists and engineers alive today than in all of human history put together, and so technology is advancing more rapidly than ever for that reason. That's a huge plus.
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The second good thing is that the average person, at least those who aren't on welfare, tries to produce more than he consumes. That creates capital.
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But I'm afraid that Western civilization reached its peak before World War I. World War I destroyed a huge amount of capital and, more importantly, it changed the moral bases of so many things.
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Then World War II institutionalized the State as the most important part of society – which is perverse, because the state is actually the enemy of civil society.
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I think Western civilization reached its peak in 1913, when it reached its maximum geographical extent. That was coincidental with the peak of its technological and philosophical influence on the world, much the way the Roman Empire reached its peak at about the end of the first century, then went down, slowly at first and then quickly. That's what's happening to the West.
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Relative to the rest of the world, and contribution to world production, our piece of the economic pie is getting smaller and smaller. If we have another serious war it would be absolutely smaller, and the final nail in the coffin. Meanwhile, the US, with its bloated military, is just itching for another war. It's out of control, and unlikely to change at this point. That's a big trend that is in motion that I think is going to stay in motion.
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Europe is in particularly bad shape. The place is a fascist/socialist disaster.
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It was possible for the average European to keep his head above water through tax evasion in the past, but now those governments have broken bank secrecy everywhere, and it will destroy a lot of capital.
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The "nation-state" is a really stupid and dysfunctional idea, and I'm glad it's on its way out.
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That said, even the US, which from a cultural point of view is as much of a country as any place in the world, should actually break up into at least five or six regions.
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Canada should break up into at least five or six regions initially.
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I don't think politically; politics is the problem, not the solution. I think that the ideal solution is for every individual to opt out of the current system. When they give a war, you don't come. When they give a tax, you don't pay. When they give an election, you don't vote. You even try not to use their currency and their banking system. T
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he ideal thing is to let the system collapse under its own weight as opposed to starting a new political party and then continuing to act politically, which is to say to use force on other people.
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Market risk is huge today, but political risk is even bigger. One indication of that was, when the banks in Cyprus went bust some months ago, the government essentially confiscated everybody's account above 100,000 euros, in what they called a "bail-in."
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You need several options. It seems like people haven't learned anything from what happened in Russia in 1917, Germany in 1933, China in 1948, Cuba in 1959, or Vietnam in 1975. Rwanda, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Zimbabwe, Ukraine, Syria ... there are lots of examples and these things can and will eventually happen almost everywhere. When the chimpanzees go crazy, you don't want to be where they are. You've got to have a Plan B. You've got to have a crib out of that political jurisdiction. Acting like a plant, and staying put, isn't a good survival strategy for a human.
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Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 15

"Doug Casey: I don't see a real recovery until they stop debasing the currency, radically cut government spending and taxation and eliminate most regulation. In other words, cease doing the things that caused this depression. And that's not going to happen until there's a collapse of the current order. Things have cyclically improved since the height of the crisis of 2008-09. The trillions of currency units created by the Federal Reserve have jammed the stock market higher and kept the big banks from going under. What surprises me is that retail prices have not moved as significantly as I would have expected. The reason, I believe, is that most of that money is still sitting in financial institutions. It has gone into cash out of fear, into stocks because they represent real wealth with earning power and into various speculative assets like artwork and collectible cars. Real estate has recovered somewhat, not because of strong fundamentals but strictly because of money creation. This isn't going to last because the way you get wealthy is by producing more than you consume and saving the difference - not by consuming more than you produce, and borrowing the difference. With the Fed keeping interest rates at artificially low levels, hoping to increase consumption, they're making it very foolish to save - when you get ½% or 1% on your savings. So people are saving less and they're borrowing more than they otherwise would. This is a formula for making things worse, not better. They are, idiotically, doing exactly the opposite of what they should be. Although, I hasten to add, I hate to pontificate on what the Fed "should" do. In point of fact, the Fed should be abolished; the market, not bureaucrats, should determine interest rates. We wouldn't be in this pickle to start with if the government wasn't involved in the economy. In fact, if it wasn't for the state, I suspect we'd all have a vastly higher standard of living, and would be colonizing the Moon, Mars and

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">"Doug Casey: I don't see a real recovery until they stop debasing the currency, radically cut government spending and taxation and eliminate most regulation. In other words, cease doing the things that caused this depression. And that's not going to happen until there's a collapse of the current order. Things have cyclically improved since the height of the crisis of 2008-09. The trillions of currency units created by the Federal Reserve have jammed the stock market higher and kept the big banks from going under. What surprises me is that retail prices have not moved as significantly as I would have expected. The reason, I believe, is that most of that money is still sitting in financial institutions. It has gone into cash out of fear, into stocks because they represent real wealth with earning power and into various speculative assets like artwork and collectible cars. Real estate has recovered somewhat, not because of strong fundamentals but strictly because of money creation. This isn't going to last because the way you get wealthy is by producing more than you consume and saving the difference - not by consuming more than you produce, and borrowing the difference. With the Fed keeping interest rates at artificially low levels, hoping to increase consumption, they're making it very foolish to save - when you get ½% or 1% on your savings. So people are saving less and they're borrowing more than they otherwise would. This is a formula for making things worse, not better. They are, idiotically, doing exactly the opposite of what they should be. Although, I hasten to add, I hate to pontificate on what the Fed "should" do. In point of fact, the Fed should be abolished; the market, not bureaucrats, should determine interest rates. We wouldn't be in this pickle to start with if the government wasn't involved in the economy. In fact, if it wasn't for the state, I suspect we'd all have a vastly higher standard of living, and would be colonizing the Moon, Mars and </div>

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Fed Held Back as Evidence Mounted on Subprime Loan Abuses - washingtonpost.com - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009092602706.html

financial-crisis subprime federal-reserve banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Oct 09 - Cached

Gary Edwards on 19 Oct 09

In depth story about the Federal Reserve failure to act as an unregulated subprime mortgage industry raced out of control, and major banking and financial institutions bought into the wild wild west of high interest rate - predatory lending. excerpt: during the years of the housing boom, pleas from consumer advocate groups failed to move the Fed, the sole federal regulator with authority over subprime mortgage businesses. Under a policy quietly formalized in 1998, the Fed refused to police lenders' compliance with federal laws protecting borrowers, despite repeated urging by consumer advocates across the country and even by other government agencies. The hands-off policy, which the Fed reversed earlier this month, created a double standard. Banks and their subprime affiliates made loans under the same laws, but only the banks faced regular federal scrutiny. Under the policy, the Fed did not even investigate consumer complaints against the affiliates.

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">In depth story about the Federal Reserve failure to act as an unregulated subprime mortgage industry raced out of control, and major banking and financial institutions bought into the wild wild west of high interest rate - predatory lending. excerpt: during the years of the housing boom, pleas from consumer advocate groups failed to move the Fed, the sole federal regulator with authority over subprime mortgage businesses. Under a policy quietly formalized in 1998, the Fed refused to police lenders' compliance with federal laws protecting borrowers, despite repeated urging by consumer advocates across the country and even by other government agencies. The hands-off policy, which the Fed reversed earlier this month, created a double standard. Banks and their subprime affiliates made loans under the same laws, but only the banks faced regular federal scrutiny. Under the policy, the Fed did not even investigate consumer complaints against the affiliates.</div>

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Professor Hoppe's new book: "The Competition of Crooks") | The God That Failed - 0 views

thegodthatfailed.org/...uner-the-competition-of-crooks

Hans-Hermann-Hoppe Libertarian Democracy

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Dec 12 - No Cached

And perhaps then, finally, will come the realization that democracy – in whose name all these dirty tricks have been done – is nothing more than an especially insidious form of communism, and that the politicians who have wrought this immoral and economic madness and who have thereby enriched themselves personally (never, of course, being liable for the damages they have caused!), are nothing more than a despicable bunch of communist crooks.
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democracy which is causally responsible for the fatal conditions afflicting us now
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The number of productive people is constantly decreasing, and the number of people parasitically consuming the income and wealth of this dwindling number of productive people is increasing steadily. This can’t work in the long run.
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That the whole democratic house of cards has not yet completely collapsed speaks volumes about the still tremendous creative power of capitalism, even in the face of ever-increasing governmental strangulation.
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And this fact also allows us to conjecture about what economic ‘miracles’ would be possible if we had unimpeded capitalism liberated from such parasitism.
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the correct realization becomes generally accepted that the only antagonistic conflict of interest in society is the one between tax-payers, i.e. the exploited, and tax-consumers, i.e. the exploiters.:
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In other words, between the class of people on the one hand who earn their income and assets by producing something that is bought voluntarily and valued accordingly by others; and the class of those on the other hand who produce nothing considered to be of value, but who live instead by living off and enriching themselves from the incomes and assets of other, productive people, forcibly taken via taxation – that is to say all government employees and all recipients of government “welfare assistance”, subsidies and monopolistic privileges.
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book’s thesis is that the government is a monopolist of ultimate justice and law enforcement and that every monopoly is always bad from the perspective of the consumer – in this case the citizen. Your alternative solution is a private law society.
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The basic idea is quite simple. Abolish monopoly and encourage competition.
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I can only go to a state court of law, staffed by judges who themselves are paid from taxes to enforce government regulations.
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In this way, government-staged robbery, assault, manslaughter, murder, war is “legally” sanctioned.
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In a private law society, if we had such a conflict, we would instead approach arbitrators who are independent of both parties, and who are competing with other arbitrators for voluntarily paying customers.
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We would not use an inherently biased judge working for and paid directly by the state, who is therefore partisan, but rather a neutral third party, to adjudicate the normal human legal conflicts arising between existing and recognized property rights and private contract law.
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the mediation market.
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My income from my work is my property (not the state’s) and the restaurant is my property (not the state’s).
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Therefore, any government-imposed tax upon me or use restrictions upon my property (such as a smoking ban) would therefore be judged unlawful, as robbery and expropriation.
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the state is nothing but a “great band of robbers,” a mafia, only a much larger, more overwhelming and dangerous one.
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the subject of class consciousness
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“there’s absolutely no reason in any case why the state should have anything at all to do with the production of money.”
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And every newly printed bill causes a redistribution of social wealth.
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More paper money doesn’t make a society richer overall. It’s just more paper. But every new piece of printed paper reduces the purchasing power of all the other previously-existing paper bills
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these machinations, taking place every day on an almost unimaginable scale, are nothing more than a gigantic case of fraudulent theft.
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in a competitive environment, a better kind of money would be produced. Why? Because there’ll always be a demand for means of exchange.
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Gary Edwards on 29 Dec 12

Interview with Hoppe where he once again pushes libertarian thinking forward. Hoppe puts most of the blame on "democracy" itself, caling it "an insidious form of communism". Good stuff. Highlighted parts. excerpt: "That the whole democratic house of cards has not yet completely collapsed speaks volumes about the still tremendous creative power of capitalism, even in the face of ever-increasing governmental strangulation. And this fact also allows us to conjecture about what economic 'miracles' would be possible if we had unimpeded capitalism liberated from such parasitism. If, and when, this insight finally bears fruit will depend upon the class consciousness of the population. There is a Marxist myth, eagerly promoted by the state, of an irreconcilable clash of interests between employers (capitalists) and employees (workers), or between the rich and the poor. As long as this myth prevails in public opinion, nothing at all will change and disaster is inevitable. A fundamental change can only occur if, instead of this, the correct realization becomes generally accepted that the only antagonistic conflict of interest in society is the one between tax-payers, i.e. the exploited, and tax-consumers, i.e. the exploiters.: In other words, between the class of people on the one hand who earn their income and assets by producing something that is bought voluntarily and valued accordingly by others; and the class of those on the other hand who produce nothing considered to be of value, but who live instead by living off and enriching themselves from the incomes and assets of other, productive people, forcibly taken via taxation - that is to say all government employees and all recipients of government "welfare assistance", subsidies and monopolistic privileges. Only when the producer class clearly recognises this, and publicly speaks out; when the producers are finally confident to take the moral high ground and reject the insolent admonitions from the po

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">Interview with Hoppe where he once again pushes libertarian thinking forward. Hoppe puts most of the blame on "democracy" itself, caling it "an insidious form of communism". Good stuff. Highlighted parts. excerpt: "That the whole democratic house of cards has not yet completely collapsed speaks volumes about the still tremendous creative power of capitalism, even in the face of ever-increasing governmental strangulation. And this fact also allows us to conjecture about what economic 'miracles' would be possible if we had unimpeded capitalism liberated from such parasitism. If, and when, this insight finally bears fruit will depend upon the class consciousness of the population. There is a Marxist myth, eagerly promoted by the state, of an irreconcilable clash of interests between employers (capitalists) and employees (workers), or between the rich and the poor. As long as this myth prevails in public opinion, nothing at all will change and disaster is inevitable. A fundamental change can only occur if, instead of this, the correct realization becomes generally accepted that the only antagonistic conflict of interest in society is the one between tax-payers, i.e. the exploited, and tax-consumers, i.e. the exploiters.: In other words, between the class of people on the one hand who earn their income and assets by producing something that is bought voluntarily and valued accordingly by others; and the class of those on the other hand who produce nothing considered to be of value, but who live instead by living off and enriching themselves from the incomes and assets of other, productive people, forcibly taken via taxation - that is to say all government employees and all recipients of government "welfare assistance", subsidies and monopolistic privileges. Only when the producer class clearly recognises this, and publicly speaks out; when the producers are finally confident to take the moral high ground and reject the insolent admonitions from the po</div>

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Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...%80%93Leach%E2%80%93Bliley_Act

banksters law deregulation U.S.

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Nov 13 - Cached

The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLB), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, (Pub.L. 106–102, 113 Stat. 1338, enacted November 12, 1999) is an act of the 106th United States Congress (1999–2001). It repealed part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, removing barriers in the market among banking companies, securities companies and insurance companies that prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and an insurance company. With the passage of the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms, and insurance companies were allowed to consolidate. The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
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Contents  [hide]  1 Legislative history 2 Changes caused by the Act 3 Remaining restrictions 4 Privacy 5 Financial Privacy Rule 5.1 Financial institutions 5.2 Consumer vs. customer defined 5.3 Consumer/client privacy rights 6 Safeguards Rule 7 Pretexting protection 8 Effect on usury law 9 Controversy 9.1 Criticisms 9.2 Defense 10 Amendments 10.1 Proposed 11 See also 12 Notes 13 References 14 Sources 15 External links 15.1 Compliance information 15.2 Consumer/client rights information 15.3 History of the GLB 15.4 Congressional voting records on Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act
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The Daily Bell - Richard Ebeling on Higher Interest Rates, Collectivism and the Coming Collapse - 0 views

www.thedailybell.com/...tivism-and-the-Coming-Collapse

Richard-Ebeling The-Daily-Bell Austrian-Economics Liberty-Tryanny

shared by Gary Edwards on 17 Jun 13 - No Cached

The "larger dysfunction," as you express it, arises out of a number of factors. The primary one, in my view, is a philosophical and psychological schizophrenia among the American people.
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While many on "the left" ridicule the idea, there is a strong case for the idea of "American exceptionalism," meaning that the United States stands out as something unique, different and special among the nations of the world.
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the American Founding Fathers constructed a political system in the United States based on a concept on which no other country was consciously founded:
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But the American Revolution and the US Constitution hailed a different conception of man, society and government.
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n the rest of the world, and for all of human history, the presumption has been that the individual was a slave or a subject to a higher authority. It might be the tribal chief; or the "divinely ordained" monarch who presumed to rule over and control people in the name of God; or, especially after the French Revolution and the rise of modern socialism, "the nation" or "the people" who laid claim to the life and work of the individual.
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the idea of individual rights.
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That is, as long as the individual did not violate the equal rights of others to their life, liberty and property, each person was free to shape and guide his own future, and give meaning and value to his own life as he considered best in the pursuit of that happiness that was considered the purpose and goal of each man during his sojourn on this Earth.
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Governments did not exist to give or bestow "rights" or "privileges" at its own discretion.
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Governments were to secure and protect each individual's rights, which he possessed by "the nature of things."
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The individual was presumed to own himself. He was "sovereign."
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The real and fundamental notion of "self-government" referred to the right of each individual to rule over himself.
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Each individual, by his nature and his reason, had a right to his life, his liberty and his honestly acquired property.
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during the first 150 years of America's history there was virtually no Welfare State and relatively few government regulations, controls and restrictions on the choices and actions of the free citizen.
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But for more than a century, now, an opposing conception of man, society and government has increasingly gained a hold over the ideas and attitudes of people in the US.
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It was "imported" from Europe in the form of modern collectivism.
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The individual was expected to see himself as belonging to something "greater" than himself. He was to sacrifice for "great national causes."
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He was told that if life had not provided all that he desired or hoped for, it was because others had "exploited" him in some economic or social manner, and that government would redress the "injustice" through redistribution of wealth or regulation of the marketplace.
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If he had had financial and material success, the individual should feel guilty and embarrassed by it, because, surely, if some had noticeably more, it could only be because others had been forced to live with noticeably less.
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left on its own, free competition tends to evolve into harmful monopolies and oligopolies, with the wealthy "few" benefiting at the expense of the "many."
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They are the crises of the Interventionist-Welfare State: the attempt to impose reactionary collectivist policies of political paternalism and redistributive plunder on a society still possessing parts of its original individualist and rights-based roots.
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it is in the form of communism's and socialism's critique of capitalism.
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Unregulated capitalism leads to "unearned" and "excessive" profits; unbridled markets generate the business cycle and the hardships of recessions and depressions;
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These two conflicting conceptions of man, society and government have been and are at war here in the United States.
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And if it cannot be gotten and guaranteed through the redistributive mechanisms of the European Union and the euro, well, maybe we should return power to our own nation-states to provide the jobs, the social "safety nets" and the financial means to pay for it through, once again, printing our own national paper currencies.
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This is the political-philosophical bankruptcy of the West and the dead ends of the collectivist promises of the last 100 years.
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Ludwig von Mises's book, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, originally published in 1922, demonstrated how and why a socialist, centrally planned system was inherently unworkable.
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The nationalization of productive property, the abolition of markets and the prohibition of all competitive exchange among the members of society would prevent the emergence and operation of a price system, without which it is impossible to know people's demands for desired goods and the relative value they place on them.
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It also prevents the emergence of prices for the factors of production (land, labor, capital) and makes it impossible to know their opportunity costs – the value of those factors of production in alternative competing uses among entrepreneurs desiring to employ them.
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Without such a price system the central planners are flying blind, unable to rationally know or decide how best to utilize labor, capital and resources in productively efficient ways to make the goods and services most highly valued by the consuming public.
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Thus, Mises concluded, comprehensive socialist central planning would lead to "planned chaos."
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And, therefore, there is no guarantee that the amount of investments undertaken and their time horizons are compatible with the available resources not also being demanded and used for more immediate consumer goods production in the society.
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As a consequence, financial markets do not work like real markets.
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Thus, the interventionist state leads to waste, inefficiency and misuses of resources that lower the standards of living that we all, otherwise, could have enjoyed.
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We cannot be sure what the amount of real savings may be in the society to support real and sustainable investment and capital formation.
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Government intervention prevents prices from "telling the truth" about the real supply and demand conditions thus leading to imbalances and distortions in the market.
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We cannot know what the "real cost" of borrowing should be, since interest rates are not determined by actual, private sector savings and investment decisions.
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Government production regulations, controls, restrictions and prohibitions prevent entrepreneurs from using their knowledge, ability and capital in ways that most effectively produce the goods consumers actually want and at the most cost-competitive prices possible.
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This is why countries around the world periodically experience booms and busts, inflations and recessions − not because of some inherent instabilities or "irrationalities" in financial markets, but because of monetary central planning through central banking that does not allow market-based financial intermediation to develop and work as it could and would in a real free-market setting.
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But in the United States and especially in Europe, government "austerity" means merely temporarily reducing the rate of increase in government spending, slowing down the rate at which new debt is accumulating and significantly raising taxes in an attempt to close the deficit gap.
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The fundamental problem is that over the decades, the size and scope of governments in the Western world have been growing far more than the rates at which their economies have been expanding, so that the "slice" of the national economic "pie" eaten by government has been growing larger and larger, even when the "pie" in absolute terms is bigger than it was, say, 30 or 40 years ago.
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European governments, in general, take the view that "austerity" means squeezing the private sector more through taxes and other revenue sources to avoid any noticeable and significant cuts in what government does and spends.
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So there is "austerity" for the private sector and a mad rush for financial "safety nets" for the government and those who live off the State.
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In reality, of course, it is the burdens of government regulation, taxation and impediments to more flexible labor and related markets that have generated the high unemployment rates and the retarded recovery from the recession.
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Instead, the "common market" ideal has been transformed into the goal of a European Union "Super-State" to which the individual countries and their citizens would be subservient and obedient.
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Keynesian policies offer people and politicians what they want to hear. Claiming that any sluggish business or lost jobs are due to a lack of "aggregate demand," Keynes argued that full employment and profitable business could only be reestablished and maintained through "activist" government monetary and fiscal policy – print money and run budget deficits.
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What Britain and Europe should have as its goal is the ideal of the classical liberal free traders of the 19th century – non-intervention by governments in people's lives, at home and abroad. That is, a de-politicization of society, so people may freely work, trade and travel as they peacefully wish, with government merely the protector of people's individual rights.
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Take the benefits away and tell people they are free to come and work to support themselves and their families. Restore more flexibility and competitiveness to labor markets and reduce taxes and business regulations.
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Then those who come to Britain's shores will be those wanting freedom and opportunity without being a burden upon others.
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What was needed was a change in ideas from the statist mentality to one of individual freedom and unhampered free markets.
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In an epoch of collectivist ideas, don't be surprised if governments regulate, control, intervene and redistribute wealth.
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The tentacle of regulations, restrictions and politically-correct social controls are spreading out in every direction from Brussels and its European-wide manipulating and mismanaging bureaucracy.
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In the name of assuring "national prosperity," politicians could spend money to buy the votes that get them elected and reelected to government offices.
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And every special interest group could make the case that government-spending programs that benefitted them were all reasonable and necessary to assure a fully employed and growing economy.
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Furthermore, the Keynesian rationale for government deficit spending enabled politicians to seem to be able to offer something for nothing. They could offer, say, $100 of government spending to voters and special interest groups but the tax burden imposed in the present might only be $75, since the remainder of the money to pay for that government spending was borrowed. And that borrowed money would not have to be repaid until some indefinite time in the future by unspecific taxpayers when that "tomorrow" finally arrived.
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instability
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Keynes argued that the market economy's inherent
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arose from the
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who were subject to irrational and unpredictable waves of "optimism" and "pessimism."
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animal spirits" of businessmen
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Mises argued that there was nothing inherent in the market economy to bring about these swings of economic booms followed by periods of depression and unemployment.
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If markets got out of balance with the necessity of an eventual correction in the economy to, once again, set things right, the source of this instability was government monetary policy.
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Central banks too often followed a policy of trying to create "good times" in the economy by expanding the money supply through the banking system.
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With new, excess funds created by the central bank available for lending, banks lower rates of interest to attract borrowers.
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But this throws savings and investment out of balance, since the rate of interest no longer serves as a reliable indicator and signal concerning the availability of real savings in the economy in relation to those wanting to borrow funds for various investment purposes.
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The economic crisis comes when it is discovered that all the claims on resources, capital and labor for all the attempted consumption and investment activities in the economy are greater than the actual and available amounts of such scarce resources.
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The recession period, in Mises's view, is the necessary "correction" period when in the post-boom era, people must adapt and adjust to the newly discovered "real" supply and demand conditions in the market.
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Any interference with the "rebalancing" of the economy by government raising taxes, imposing more regulations, or new artificial government "stimulus" activities merely makes it more difficult and time-consuming for people in the private sector to get the economy back on an even keel.
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Friedrich A. Hayek, once observed, unemployment is not "caused" by stopping an inflation, but rather inflation induces the artificial employments that cannot be sustained and which inevitably disappear once the inflation is reined in.
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The recession of 2008-2009 was the result of several years of central bank stimulus.
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From 2003 to 2008, the Federal Reserve increased the money supply by about 50 percent.
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Interest rates for much of this time, when adjusted for inflation, were either zero or negative.
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Awash in cash, banks extended loans to virtually anyone, with no serious and usual concern about the borrower's credit-worthiness.
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This was most notably true in the housing market, where government agencies like Fannie May and Freddie Mac were pressuring banks to make mortgage loans by promising a guarantee that they would make good on any bad home loans.
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Since 2008-2009, the Federal Reserve has, again, turned on the monetary spigot, increasing its own portfolio by almost $3 trillion, by buying US Treasuries, US mortgages and other assets.
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So why has there not been a complementary explosion of price inflation?
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In some areas there has been, most clearly in the stock market and the bond market, But the reason why all that newly created money has not brought about a higher price inflation is due to the fact that a large part of all newly created money is sitting as unlent reserves in banks.
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This is because the Federal Reserve has been paying banks a rate of interest slightly above the market interest rates to induce banks not to lend.
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(a) general "regime uncertainty," that is, no one knows what government policy will be tomorrow; will ObamaCare be fully implemented after January 2014?;
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Among the reasons for the sluggish jobs growth in the US are:
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(b) what will taxes be for the rest of the current president's term in the White House
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(c) what will the regulatory environment be like for the next three years – in 2012, the government implemented around 80,000 pages of regulations as printed in the Federal Registry;
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(d) how will the deficit and debt problems play out between Congress and the White House and will it threaten the general financial situation in the country; an
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(e) what wars, if any, will the government find itself involved in, in places like the Middle East?
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China
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is still a controlled and commanded society, with a government that works hard to try to determine what people read, see and think.
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All these building projects have been brought into existence by a government that not only controls the money supply and manipulates interest rates but also heavy-handedly tells banks whom to specifically loan to and for what investment activities.
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Central planning is alive and well in China, with the motives being both power and profits for those inside and outside the Communist Party having the most influence and connections in "high" places.
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In my opinion, China is heading for a great economic crisis, resulting from a highly imbalanced and distorted economic system still guided far more by politics than sound market decision-making.
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global financial markets in any foreseeable future. It is a money that still primarily exists to serve the political purposes of those who sit in the "inner circles" of power in Beijing.
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One hundred years ago, in 1913, how many could have predicted that a year later a European-wide war would break out that would lead to the destruction of great European empires and set the stage for the rise of totalitarian collectivism that resulted in an even worse global war two decades later?
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Thus, whether, at the end of the day, freedom triumphs and the future is one of liberty and prosperity is partly on each one of us.
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Near the end of his great book, Socialism, Ludwig von Mises said:
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"Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore, everyone, in his own interest, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us . . . Whether society shall continue to evolve or where it shall decay lies . . . in the hands of man."
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In my view, the idea of a "soft landing" is an illusion based on the idea held by central bankers, themselves, that they have the wisdom and ability to know how to "micro-manage" the all the changes and adjustments resulting from their own manipulations of the monetary aggregates. They do not have this wisdom and ability. So hold on for what is most likely to be another rocky road.
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It was Mises's clear vision that once society has broken the relationship between value and payment, sooner or later people would not know the price of anything.
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At this point, investment ceases and business becomes furtive and transactional.
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People cannot plan for the future because they do not understand the reality of the present.
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Society begins to sink.
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Gary Edwards on 17 Jun 13

Incredible. A simple explanation that explains everything. Rchard Ebeling's "Unified Theory of Everything" is something every American can understand. If only they would take a break from "Dancing with the Stars" and pay attention to the future of their country and the world. It's a future where either "individual freedom", as defined by our Constitution and Declaration of Independence, will win out; or, the forces of fascist socialism / marxism will continue to roll and rule. Incredible read!!!!

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">Incredible. A simple explanation that explains everything. Rchard Ebeling's "Unified Theory of Everything" is something every American can understand. If only they would take a break from "Dancing with the Stars" and pay attention to the future of their country and the world. It's a future where either "individual freedom", as defined by our Constitution and Declaration of Independence, will win out; or, the forces of fascist socialism / marxism will continue to roll and rule. Incredible read!!!!</div>

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New WikiLeaks Trove Further Exposes TISA's Neoliberal Agenda - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...216768

trade-agreements TISA services China State-Owned-Enterprises

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 May 16 - No Cached

WikiLeaks on Wednesday released a trove of documents detailing previously unknown pro-corporate provisions and updates to the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), exposing the extent to which the U.S.-driven deal will force signatory nations to privatize public services and deregulate corporations. As the 52 nations involved in TISA comprise a full two-thirds of global GDP, the deal is poised to impact billions of lives around the world. The 18th round of negotiations on TISA resumed Thursday. Released for the very first time on Wednesday was TISA’s annex on “State-Owned Enterprises” (SOEs), which mandates that public services must be treated like private businesses. The documents reveal that the annex was introduced only two days after the U.S. successfully forced through similar text in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) in October 2015.
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Trade expert Jane Kelsey, who teaches law at the University of Auckland, described how the U.S. pushed through such provisions in order to target other nations’ public services—and China’s in particular: When the [TPP] negotiations began in 2010 the U.S. made it clear that it required a chapter on SOEs. The goal was always to create precedent-setting rules that could target China, although the U.S. also had other countries’ SOEs in its sights—the state-managed Vietnamese economy, various countries’ sovereign wealth funds, and once Japan joined, Japan Post’s banking, insurance and delivery services. All the other countries were reluctant to concede the need for such a chapter and the talks went around in circles for several years. Eventually the U.S. had its way. “The U.S. proposal for TISA adopts and adapts key parts of the [TPP] chapter that force majority-owned SOEs to operate like private sector businesses,” Kelsey added. “The most extreme, complicated and potentially unworkable provisions in the [TPP] relating to state support are not included—yet. But there is an extraordinary power for a single TISA party to require the development of those rules if another TISA country, or a country seeking to join TISA, has too many large SOEs.”
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Observers have long taken note of the implicitly anti-China stance of the several U.S.-backed pro-corporate “free trade” deals being negotiated now. While TISA is perhaps the least well-known of these agreements, together with the TPP and the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP), the deals “form not only a new legal order shaped for transnational corporations, but a new economic ‘grand enclosure,’ which excludes China and all other BRICS countries,” as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange put it last year. The leaked documents also showed new, multinational-friendly updates to sections of the deal titled “Domestic Regulation,” “Transparency,” and “New Provisions.” The latest versions, argues WikiLeaks, have further advanced towards the ‘deregulation’ objectives of big corporations entering overseas markets. Local regulations like store size restrictions or hours of operations are considered an obstacle to achieve ‘operating efficiencies’ of large-scale retailing, disregarding their public benefit that foster livable neighbors and reasonable hours of work for employees.
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...1 more annotation...
Consumer protection advocates are outraged that such radically pro-corporate deals are being hidden and negotiated away from public view. “Consumer organizations shouldn’t have to rely on leaks to find out about negotiations that will have a major impact on consumers’ lives,” said Amanda Long, general director of the UK-based consumers International, on Wednesday. “Without greater transparency, the negotiations can’t be exposed to the scrutiny needed to design a good agreement and build public trust, this must be a priority.” The impact of such an agreement will indeed be major: “The TISA provisions in their current form will establish a wide range of new grounds for domestic regulations to be challenged by corporations—even those without a local presence in that country,” WikiLeaks concluded. Kelsey observed, “As President Obama said of the [TPP] in October 2015, these agreements are about the U.S. making the rules for the global economy in the 21st century[…] in ways that ‘reflect America’s values.'”
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EU-US Personal Data Privacy Deal 'Cracked Beyond Repair' - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...218358

surveillance state EU safe-harbor privacy-shield litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Jul 16 - No Cached

Privacy Shield is the proposed new deal between the EU and the US that is supposed to safeguard all personal data on EU citizens held on computer systems in the US from being subject to mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency. The data can refer to any transaction — web purchases, cars or clothing — involving an EU citizen whose data is held on US servers. Privacy groups say Privacy Shield — which replaces the Safe Harbor agreement ruled unlawful in October 2015 — does not meet strict EU standard on the use of personal data. Monique Goyens, Director General of the European Consumer Organization (BEUC) told Sputnik: “We consider that the shield is cracked beyond repair and is unlikely to stand scrutiny by the European Court of Justice. A fundamental problem remains that the US side of the shield is made of clay, not iron.”
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The agreement has been under negotiation for months ever since the because the European Court of Justice ruled in October 2015 that the previous EU-US data agreement — Safe Harbor — was invalid. The issue arises from the strict EU laws — enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union — to the privacy of their personal data.
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The Safe Harbor agreement was a quasi-judicial understanding that the US undertook to agree that it would ensure that EU citizens’ data on US servers would be held and protected under the same restrictions as it would be under EU law and directives. The data covers a huge array of information — from Internet and communications usage, to sales transactions, import and exports.
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...1 more annotation...
The case arose when Maximillian Schrems, a Facebook user, lodged a complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, arguing that — in the light of the revelations by ex-CIA contractor Edward Snowden of mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA) — the transfer of data from Facebook’s Irish subsidiary onto the company’s servers in the US does not provide sufficient protection of his personal data. The court ruled that: “the Safe Harbor Decision denies the national supervisory authorities their powers where a person calls into question whether the decision is compatible with the protection of the privacy and of the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals.”
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Paul Merrell on 12 Jul 16

Off we go for another trip to the European Court of Justice.

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">Off we go for another trip to the European Court of Justice.</div>

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Trump Executive Action Takes Aim At Dodd-Frank, Investor Protection Rule : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...tions-rule-in-executive-action

banksters Trump Dodd-Frank ekection-lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Feb 17 - No Cached

President Trump signed two directives on Friday, ordering a review of financial industry regulations known as Dodd-Frank and halting implementation of a rule that requires financial advisers to act in the best interests of their clients, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. Trump himself made his intentions clear in a meeting with small business owners Monday. "Dodd-Frank is a disaster," Trump said. "We're going to be doing a big number on Dodd-Frank."
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These executive actions are the start of a Trump administration effort to reverse or revise financial regulations put in place by the Obama administration and seen by Trump and his advisers as onerous and ineffective. Based on the description given by the administration official who briefed reporters, the directives the president is expected to sign Friday won't immediately do a big number on the law. The directive will instruct the Treasury secretary to meet with the agencies that oversee the law to identify possible changes.
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"Americans are going to have better choices and Americans are going to have better products because we're not going to burden the banks with literally hundreds of billions of dollars of regulatory costs every year," said National Economic Council director Gary Cohn in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Cohn, who was president and COO at the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs before joining the administration, added, "The banks are going to be able to price product more efficiently and more effectively to consumers." The president of the nonprofit Wall Street watchdog Better Markets issued a statement blasting Friday's actions.
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...1 more annotation...
"The American people trusted candidate Trump when he said he was going to protect them from Wall Street's recklessness, but President Trump has betrayed that trust," Dennis Kelleher's statement says. "He is unleashing Wall Street on Main Street, which is exactly what the financial protections of Dodd Frank were put in place to prevent." Hinting at where the administration might expect the review to lead, the official said that under the Obama administration, "some of the rules may have even been unconstitutional, creating new agencies that don't actually protect consumers." That is an allusion to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the consumer watchdog bureau which Republicans in Congress opposed from its very creation and was the subject of a years-long fight over its leadership and structure.
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Allen West to Democrats: Get your leftism the hell out of America! » The Right Scoop - - 1 views

www.therightscoop.com/eftism-the-hell-out-of-america

Allan-West Socialism Obammunism Patriotism Constitutional-Republic

shared by Gary Edwards on 30 Jan 12 - No Cached

Gary Edwards on 30 Jan 12

Throw the socialist out! The full video of Col. Allan West's speech at the Lincoln Day Dinner in West Palm Beach Florida. Incredible and well worth your time. You will want to stand up and cheer. Left lengthy note in the new Diigo Quick Note. Wish i could do the same with EverNote!!! Quick note is okay. Very convenient, but no tags, groups or lists. And the only HTML-Rich Text editing is at Diigo where you can edit a QuickNote. No bookmarking either with QuickNote either. Hopefully Diigo users will persuade QucikNote to improve this useful product. And hopefully EverNote will come to see the advantages of Diigo. Need to edit the QuickNote with some quick definitions of the isms: Conservatism, the ,any Socialisms, Fascism, Nazism, Communism, Obammunism and libertarianism. My QuickNote discusses three corners: Libertarianism, Socialism and Fascism. Some quick comments: Libertarianism differs from Conservatism in that conservatives champion conservative-judeo-christian social values. The kind you think of when you hear God, Country, Community and Family. The Libertarian champions the founding documents; the Declaration and the Constitution. Here the only "value" the founding fathers desired to be embedded in the governing structure was that of "individual liberty". Making the governing structure a Republic focused entirely on the objective of "ordered liberty". socialist are also focused on social values, but their primary objective is the welfare of the group. More often than not, the individual's liberty is sacrificed to the welfare of the group. In fact, in knee jerk socialism, the individual only exist to benefit the greater society. When the individual becomes a drag, euthanasia is the tool of choice for a socialist. Not though that as long as the individual is a voting and consuming member of the group that is overturning the Constitutional Republic, and clamoring to replace the Republic with mobocracy democracy, the

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">Throw the socialist out! The full video of Col. Allan West's speech at the Lincoln Day Dinner in West Palm Beach Florida. Incredible and well worth your time. You will want to stand up and cheer. Left lengthy note in the new Diigo Quick Note. Wish i could do the same with EverNote!!! Quick note is okay. Very convenient, but no tags, groups or lists. And the only HTML-Rich Text editing is at Diigo where you can edit a QuickNote. No bookmarking either with QuickNote either. Hopefully Diigo users will persuade QucikNote to improve this useful product. And hopefully EverNote will come to see the advantages of Diigo. Need to edit the QuickNote with some quick definitions of the isms: Conservatism, the ,any Socialisms, Fascism, Nazism, Communism, Obammunism and libertarianism. My QuickNote discusses three corners: Libertarianism, Socialism and Fascism. Some quick comments: Libertarianism differs from Conservatism in that conservatives champion conservative-judeo-christian social values. The kind you think of when you hear God, Country, Community and Family. The Libertarian champions the founding documents; the Declaration and the Constitution. Here the only "value" the founding fathers desired to be embedded in the governing structure was that of "individual liberty". Making the governing structure a Republic focused entirely on the objective of "ordered liberty". socialist are also focused on social values, but their primary objective is the welfare of the group. More often than not, the individual's liberty is sacrificed to the welfare of the group. In fact, in knee jerk socialism, the individual only exist to benefit the greater society. When the individual becomes a drag, euthanasia is the tool of choice for a socialist. Not though that as long as the individual is a voting and consuming member of the group that is overturning the Constitutional Republic, and clamoring to replace the Republic with mobocracy democracy, the </div>

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Why Bitcoin Matters | Marc Andreessen - 0 views

blog.pmarca.com/...why-bitcoin-matters

Bitcoin Marc-Andreessen pmarca

shared by Gary Edwards on 22 Jan 14 - No Cached

First, Bitcoin at its most fundamental level is a breakthrough in computer science – one that builds on 20 years of research into cryptographic currency, and 40 years of research in cryptography, by thousands of researchers around the world. Bitcoin is the first practical solution to a longstanding problem in computer science called the Byzantine Generals Problem. To quote from the original paper defining the B.G.P.: “[Imagine] a group of generals of the Byzantine army camped with their troops around an enemy city. Communicating only by messenger, the generals must agree upon a common battle plan. However, one or more of them may be traitors who will try to confuse the others. The problem is to find an algorithm to ensure that the loyal generals will reach agreement.” More generally, the B.G.P. poses the question of how to establish trust between otherwise unrelated parties over an untrusted network like the Internet.
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The practical consequence of solving this problem is that Bitcoin gives us, for the first time, a way for one Internet user to transfer a unique piece of digital property to another Internet user, such that the transfer is guaranteed to be safe and secure, everyone knows that the transfer has taken place, and nobody can challenge the legitimacy of the transfer. The consequences of this breakthrough are hard to overstate. What kinds of digital property might be transferred in this way? Think about digital signatures, digital contracts, digital keys (to physical locks, or to online lockers), digital ownership of physical assets such as cars and houses, digital stocks and bonds … and digital money. All these are exchanged through a distributed network of trust that does not require or rely upon a central intermediary like a bank or broker. And all in a way where only the owner of an asset can send it, only the intended recipient can receive it, the asset can only exist in one place at a time, and everyone can validate transactions and ownership of all assets anytime they want.
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How does this work?
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...5 more annotations...
Bitcoin is a digital bearer instrument. It is a way to exchange money or assets between parties with no pre-existing trust: A string of numbers is sent over email or text message in the simplest case. The sender doesn’t need to know or trust the receiver or vice versa. Related, there are no chargebacks – this is the part that is literally like cash – if you have the money or the asset, you can pay with it; if you don’t, you can’t. This is brand new. This has never existed in digital form before. Bitcoin is a digital currency, whose value is based directly on two things: use of the payment system today – volume and velocity of payments running through the ledger – and speculation on future use of the payment system. This is one part that is confusing people. It’s not as much that the Bitcoin currency has some arbitrary value and then people are trading with it; it’s more that people can trade with Bitcoin (anywhere, everywhere, with no fraud and no or very low fees) and as a result it has value.
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Bitcoin is an Internet-wide distributed ledger. You buy into the ledger by purchasing one of a fixed number of slots, either with cash or by selling a product and service for Bitcoin. You sell out of the ledger by trading your Bitcoin to someone else who wants to buy into the ledger. Anyone in the world can buy into or sell out of the ledger any time they want – with no approval needed, and with no or very low fees. The Bitcoin “coins” themselves are simply slots in the ledger, analogous in some ways to seats on a stock exchange, except much more broadly applicable to real world transactions. The Bitcoin ledger is a new kind of payment system. Anyone in the world can pay anyone else in the world any amount of value of Bitcoin by simply transferring ownership of the corresponding slot in the ledger. Put value in, transfer it, the recipient gets value out, no authorization required, and in many cases, no fees. That last part is enormously important. Bitcoin is the first Internetwide payment system where transactions either happen with no fees or very low fees (down to fractions of pennies). Existing payment systems charge fees of about 2 to 3 percent – and that’s in the developed world. In lots of other places, there either are no modern payment systems or the rates are significantly higher. We’ll come back to that.
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Why would any merchant – online or in the real world – want to accept Bitcoin as payment, given the currently small number of consumers who want to pay with it? My partner Chris Dixon recently gave this example: “Let’s say you sell electronics online. Profit margins in those businesses are usually under 5 percent, which means conventional 2.5 percent payment fees consume half the margin. That’s money that could be reinvested in the business, passed back to consumers or taxed by the government. Of all of those choices, handing 2.5 percent to banks to move bits around the Internet is the worst possible choice. Another challenge merchants have with payments is accepting international payments. If you are wondering why your favorite product or service isn’t available in your country, the answer is often payments.” In addition, merchants are highly attracted to Bitcoin because it eliminates the risk of credit card fraud. This is the form of fraud that motivates so many criminals to put so much work into stealing personal customer information and credit card numbers. Since Bitcoin is a digital bearer instrument, the receiver of a payment does not get any information from the sender that can be used to steal money from the sender in the future, either by that merchant or by a criminal who steals that information from the merchant.
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What’s the future of Bitcoin?
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Bitcoin is a classic network effect, a positive feedback loop. The more people who use Bitcoin, the more valuable Bitcoin is for everyone who uses it, and the higher the incentive for the next user to start using the technology. Bitcoin shares this network effect property with the telephone system, the web, and popular Internet services like eBay and Facebook. In fact, Bitcoin is a four-sided network effect. There are four constituencies that participate in expanding the value of Bitcoin as a consequence of their own self-interested participation. Those constituencies are (1) consumers who pay with Bitcoin, (2) merchants who accept Bitcoin, (3) “miners” who run the computers that process and validate all the transactions and enable the distributed trust network to exist, and (4) developers and entrepreneurs who are building new products and services with and on top of Bitcoin. All four sides of the network effect are playing a valuable part in expanding the value of the overall system, but the fourth is particularly important.
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Gary Edwards on 22 Jan 14

WOW! This is the must read article of the year. Great explanation of Bitcoin; what it is, how it works, and why it is so significant. Excellent analysis!

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">WOW! This is the must read article of the year. Great explanation of Bitcoin; what it is, how it works, and why it is so significant. Excellent analysis!</div>

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NSA uses Google cookies to pinpoint targets for hacking - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...o-pinpoint-targets-for-hacking

surveillance state NSA NSA-targets tracking-cookies cookies

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Dec 13 - No Cached

The National Security Agency is secretly piggybacking on the tools that enable Internet advertisers to track consumers, using "cookies" and location data to pinpoint targets for government hacking and to bolster surveillance. The agency's internal presentation slides, provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, show that when companies follow consumers on the Internet to better serve them advertising, the technique opens the door for similar tracking by the government. The slides also suggest that the agency is using these tracking techniques to help identify targets for offensive hacking operations. For years, privacy advocates have raised concerns about the use of commercial tracking tools to identify and target consumers with advertisements. The online ad industry has said its practices are innocuous and benefit consumers by serving them ads that are more likely to be of interest to them. The revelation that the NSA is piggybacking on these commercial technologies could shift that debate, handing privacy advocates a new argument for reining in commercial surveillance.
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According to the documents, the NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, are using the small tracking files or "cookies" that advertising networks place on computers to identify people browsing the Internet. The intelligence agencies have found particular use for a part of a Google-specific tracking mechanism known as the “PREF” cookie. These cookies typically don't contain personal information, such as someone's name or e-mail address, but they do contain numeric codes that enable Web sites to uniquely identify a person's browser. In addition to tracking Web visits, this cookie allows NSA to single out an individual's communications among the sea of Internet data in order to send out software that can hack that person's computer. The slides say the cookies are used to "enable remote exploitation," although the specific attacks used by the NSA against targets are not addressed in these documents.
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These specific slides do not indicate how the NSA obtains Google PREF cookies or whether the company cooperates in these programs, but other documents reviewed by the Post indicate that cookie information is among the data NSA can obtain with a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act order. If the NSA gets the data that way, the companies know and are legally compelled to assist.
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Gold, Peace, and Prosperity: The Birth of a New Currency | Silver Monthly - The Silver Investor's Resource - 0 views

www.silvermonthly.com/...ty-the-birth-of-a-new-currency

gold-currency ron-paul financial-collapse financial-oligarchs Banksters banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 13 May 10 - Cached

Gary Edwards on 13 May 10

Gold, Peace, and Prosperity is the title of Ron Paul's essay for a "modern" gold standard. According to Paul, such a standard would end the relentless boom-bust cycle, and maintain the value of King Dollar. However, King Dollar would have to be founded on a monetary standard that eschews government tampering. Paul begins his treatise by pointing out that "Congress alone is responsible for inflation, and Congress alone can stop it." Which means that the old scapegoats - OPEC, greedy CEOs, labor unions - are not the real cause of inflation. To support his contention, Paul relates a story told by Marco Polo in his travels through China. As Paul states, "Abuse of paper money led to the expulsion of the Mongol dynasty from China." Bretton Woods - in 1944 - supposedly established a new gold exchange standard. In Paul's opinion, Bretton Woods was "nothing more than an international Federal Reserve System." And of course, it didn't do anything but cause more inflation. Then on August 15, 1971, President Nixon "closed the 'gold window.'" This was the beginning of "managed fiat currency." Paul states that since 1971, the price of gold has increased "more than twentyfold." The trade deficit has increased by 1146%, and the Consumer Price Index has increased 79%. Due to these imbalances, he concludes that the dollar is dead. Rather than pronouncing the Last Rites over the dollar, followed by a mournful funeral and weeping and wailing, Paul views the death of the dollar as an opportunity. "The time is ripe for the institution of a trustworthy monetary system." And it's not all that difficult. The way to stop inflation is to "stop inflating the money supply." Paul then cites the three main reasons politicians, bankers, etc., desire inflation: greed, power, and a way to pay the government's bills without raising taxes sky-high. The answer - the only alternative - to inflation is

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">Gold, Peace, and Prosperity is the title of Ron Paul's essay for a "modern" gold standard. According to Paul, such a standard would end the relentless boom-bust cycle, and maintain the value of King Dollar. However, King Dollar would have to be founded on a monetary standard that eschews government tampering. Paul begins his treatise by pointing out that "Congress alone is responsible for inflation, and Congress alone can stop it." Which means that the old scapegoats - OPEC, greedy CEOs, labor unions - are not the real cause of inflation. To support his contention, Paul relates a story told by Marco Polo in his travels through China. As Paul states, "Abuse of paper money led to the expulsion of the Mongol dynasty from China." Bretton Woods - in 1944 - supposedly established a new gold exchange standard. In Paul's opinion, Bretton Woods was "nothing more than an international Federal Reserve System." And of course, it didn't do anything but cause more inflation. Then on August 15, 1971, President Nixon "closed the 'gold window.'" This was the beginning of "managed fiat currency." Paul states that since 1971, the price of gold has increased "more than twentyfold." The trade deficit has increased by 1146%, and the Consumer Price Index has increased 79%. Due to these imbalances, he concludes that the dollar is dead. Rather than pronouncing the Last Rites over the dollar, followed by a mournful funeral and weeping and wailing, Paul views the death of the dollar as an opportunity. "The time is ripe for the institution of a trustworthy monetary system." And it's not all that difficult. The way to stop inflation is to "stop inflating the money supply." Paul then cites the three main reasons politicians, bankers, etc., desire inflation: greed, power, and a way to pay the government's bills without raising taxes sky-high. The answer - the only alternative - to inflation is </div>

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Offshoring has destroyed the economy : Information Clearing House: ICH - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28212.htm

obammunism financial-collapse free-trade-rip Paul-Craig-Roberts Globalism

shared by Gary Edwards on 01 Jun 11 - No Cached

Gary Edwards on 01 Jun 11

Good read! Many thanks to the mighty marbux for the link. Be sure to catch the YouTube video series featuring Sir James Goldsmith congressional testimony decrying free trade and corporatism. excerpt: "May 31, 2011 "Information Clearing House" --These are discouraging times, but once in a blue moon a bit of hope appears. I am pleased to report on the bit of hope delivered in March of 2011 by Michael Spence, a Nobel prize-winning economist, assisted by Sandile Hlatshwayo, a researcher at New York University. The two economists have taken a careful empirical look at jobs offshoring and concluded that it has ruined the income and employment prospects for most Americans. To add to the amazement, their research report, "The Evolving Structure of the American Economy and the Employment Challenge," was published by the very establishment Council on Foreign Relations. http://www.cfr.org/industrial-policy/evolving-structure-american-economy-employment-challenge/p24366 For a decade I have warned that US corporations, pressed by Wall Street and large retailers such as Wal-Mart, to move offshore their production for US consumer markets, were simultaneously moving offshore US GDP, US tax base, US consumer income, and irreplaceable career opportunities for American citizens.

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">Good read! Many thanks to the mighty marbux for the link. Be sure to catch the YouTube video series featuring Sir James Goldsmith congressional testimony decrying free trade and corporatism. excerpt: "May 31, 2011 "Information Clearing House" --These are discouraging times, but once in a blue moon a bit of hope appears. I am pleased to report on the bit of hope delivered in March of 2011 by Michael Spence, a Nobel prize-winning economist, assisted by Sandile Hlatshwayo, a researcher at New York University. The two economists have taken a careful empirical look at jobs offshoring and concluded that it has ruined the income and employment prospects for most Americans. To add to the amazement, their research report, "The Evolving Structure of the American Economy and the Employment Challenge," was published by the very establishment Council on Foreign Relations. <a href="http://www.cfr.org/industrial-policy/evolving-structure-american-economy-employment-challenge/p24366 " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.cfr.org/industrial-policy/evolving-structure-american-economy-employment-challenge/p24366 </a> For a decade I have warned that US corporations, pressed by Wall Street and large retailers such as Wal-Mart, to move offshore their production for US consumer markets, were simultaneously moving offshore US GDP, US tax base, US consumer income, and irreplaceable career opportunities for American citizens. </div>

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Verizon's New, Encrypted Calling App Plays Nice With the NSA - Businessweek - 0 views

www.businessweek.com/...pp-comes-prehacked-for-the-nsa

surveillance state Verizon backdoors pseudo-encryption

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Dec 14 - No Cached

Verizon is the latest big company to enter the post-Snowden market for secure communication, and it's doing so with an encryption standard that comes with a way for law enforcement to access ostensibly secure phone conversations.Verizon Voice Cypher, the product introduced on Thursday with the encryption company Cellcrypt, offers business and government customers end-to-end encryption for voice calls on iOS, Android, or BlackBerry devices equipped with a special app. The encryption software provides secure communications for people speaking on devices with the app, regardless of their wireless carrier, and it can also connect to an organization's secure phone system. Cellcrypt and Verizon both say that law enforcement agencies will be able to access communications that take place over Voice Cypher, so long as they're able to prove that there's a legitimate law enforcement reason for doing so. Seth Polansky, Cellcrypt's vice president for North America, disputes the idea that building technology to allow wiretapping is a security risk. "It's only creating a weakness for government agencies," he says. "Just because a government access option exists, it doesn't mean other companies can access it." 
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Phone carriers like Verizon are required by U.S. law to build networks that can be wiretapped. But the legislation known as the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires phone carriers to decrypt communications for the government only if they have designed their technology to make it possible to do so. If Verizon and Cellcrypt had structured their encryption so that neither company had the information necessary to decrypt the calls, they would not have been breaking the law.
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Other companies have designed their encryption in this way, including AT&T, which offers encrypted phone service for business customers. Apple and Android recently began protecting content stored on users's phones in a way that would keep the tech companies from being able to comply with requests from law enforcement. The move drew public criticism from FBI Director James Comey, and some security experts expect that a renewed effort to stir passage of legislation banning such encryption will accompany Silicon Valley's increased interest in developing these services. Verizon believes major demand for its new encryption service will come from governmental agencies conveying sensitive but unclassified information over the phone, says Tim Petsky, a senior product manager for Verizon Wireless. Corporate customers who are concerned about corporate espionage are also itching for answers. "You read about breaches in security almost every week in the press," says Petsky. "Enterprise customers have been asking about ways to secure their communications and up until this point, we didn't have a solution." 
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There has been increased interest in encryption from individual consumers, too, largely thanks to the NSA revelations leaked by Edward Snowden. Yahoo and Google began offering end-to-end encrypted e-mail services this year. Silent Circle, a startup catering to consumer and enterprise clients, has been developing end-to-end voice encryption for phones calls. Verizon's service, with a monthly price of $45 per device, isn't targeting individual buyers and won't be offered to average consumers in the near future.But Verizon's partner, Cellcrypt, looks upon selling to large organizations as the first step toward bringing down the price before eventually offering a consumer-level encryption service. "At the end of the day, we'd love to have this be a line item on your Verizon bill," says Polansky.
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Many people in the security industry believe that a designed access point creates a vulnerability for criminals or spies to exploit. Last year reports surfaced that the FBI was pushing legislation that would require many forms of Internet communication to be wiretap-ready. A group of prominent security experts responded strongly: "Requiring software vendors to build intercept functionality into their products is unwise and will be ineffective, with the result being serious consequences (PDF) for the economic well-being and national security of the United States," they wrote in a report issued in May. 
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The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means and how to respond - Agenda - The World Economic Forum - 0 views

agenda.weforum.org/...at-it-means-and-how-to-respond

shared by Gary Edwards on 26 Dec 15 - No Cached

The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.
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Like the revolutions that preceded it, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has the potential to raise global income levels and improve the quality of life for populations around the world. To date, those who have gained the most from it have been consumers able to afford and access the digital world; technology has made possible new products and services that increase the efficiency and pleasure of our personal lives. Ordering a cab, booking a flight, buying a product, making a payment, listening to music, watching a film, or playing a game—any of these can now be done remotely.
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In the future, technological innovation will also lead to a supply-side miracle, with long-term gains in efficiency and productivity. Transportation and communication costs will drop, logistics and global supply chains will become more effective, and the cost of trade will diminish, all of which will open new markets and drive economic growth.
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As automation substitutes for labor across the entire economy, the net displacement of workers by machines might exacerbate the gap between returns to capital and returns to labor. On the other hand, it is also possible that the displacement of workers by technology will, in aggregate, result in a net increase in safe and rewarding jobs.
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I am convinced of one thing—that in the future, talent, more than capital, will represent the critical factor of production.
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This will give rise to a job market increasingly segregated into “low-skill/low-pay” and “high-skill/high-pay” segments, which in turn will lead to an increase in social tensions.
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In addition to being a key economic concern, inequality represents the greatest societal concern associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
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The largest beneficiaries of innovation tend to be the providers of intellectual and physical capital—the innovators, shareholders, and investors—which explains the rising gap in wealth between those dependent on capital versus labor.
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Technology is therefore one of the main reasons why incomes have stagnated, or even decreased, for a majority of the population in high-income countries: the demand for highly skilled workers has increased while the demand for workers with less education and lower skills has decreased. The result is a job market with a strong demand at the high and low ends, but a hollowing out of the middle.
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A winner-takes-all economy that offers only limited access to the middle class is a recipe for democratic malaise and dereliction.
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An underlying theme in my conversations with global CEOs and senior business executives is that the acceleration of innovation and the velocity of disruption are hard to comprehend or anticipate and that these drivers constitute a source of constant surprise, even for the best connected and most well informed. Indeed, across all industries, there is clear evidence that the technologies that underpin the Fourth Industrial Revolution are having a major impact on businesses.
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On the supply side, many industries are seeing the introduction of new technologies that create entirely new ways of serving existing needs and significantly disrupt existing industry value chains. Disruption is also flowing from agile, innovative competitors who, thanks to access to global digital platforms for research, development, marketing, sales, and distribution, can oust well-established incumbents faster than ever by improving the quality, speed, or price at which value is delivered.
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Major shifts on the demand side are also occurring, as growing transparency, consumer engagement, and new patterns of consumer behavior (increasingly built upon access to mobile networks and data) force companies to adapt the way they design, market, and deliver products and services.
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A key trend is the development of technology-enabled platforms that combine both demand and supply to disrupt existing industry structures, such as those we see within the “sharing” or “on demand” economy. These technology platforms, rendered easy to use by the smartphone, convene people, assets, and data—thus creating entirely new ways of consuming goods and services in the process. In addition, they lower the barriers for businesses and individuals to create wealth, altering the personal and professional environments of workers. These new platform businesses are rapidly multiplying into many new services, ranging from laundry to shopping, from chores to parking, from massages to travel.
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On the whole, there are four main effects that the Fourth Industrial Revolution has on business—on customer expectations, on product enhancement, on collaborative innovation, and on organizational forms.
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Overall, the inexorable shift from simple digitization (the Third Industrial Revolution) to innovation based on combinations of technologies (the Fourth Industrial Revolution) is forcing companies to reexamine the way they do business. The bottom line, however, is the same: business leaders and senior executives need to understand their changing environment, challenge the assumptions of their operating teams, and relentlessly and continuously innovate.
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governments will increasingly face pressure to change their current approach to public engagement and policymaking, as their central role of conducting policy diminishes owing to new sources of competition and the redistribution and decentralization of power that new technologies make possible.
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Ultimately, the ability of government systems and public authorities to adapt will determine their survival. If they prove capable of embracing a world of disruptive change, subjecting their structures to the levels of transparency and efficiency that will enable them to maintain their competitive edge, they will endure. If they cannot evolve, they will face increasing trouble.
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In the end, it all comes down to people and values. We need to shape a future that works for all of us by putting people first and empowering them. In its most pessimistic, dehumanized form, the Fourth Industrial Revolution may indeed have the potential to “robotize” humanity and thus to deprive us of our heart and soul. But as a complement to the best parts of human nature—creativity, empathy, stewardship—it can also lift humanity into a new collective and moral consciousness based on a shared sense of destiny. It is incumbent on us all to make sure the latter prevails.
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Brexit uncertainty stops consumers from spending big: Report - 0 views

www.retail-insight-network.com/...xit-uncertainty-stops-spending

#Brexit_Uncertainty #Consumers #British_Retail_Consortium #Accountancy_Company #UK_Retailers

shared by jacob logan on 10 Apr 19 - No Cached

jacob logan on 10 Apr 19

UK retailers say that Brexit uncertainty is stopping consumers from spending big after a low sales month in March, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and accountancy company KPMG.

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">UK retailers say that Brexit uncertainty is stopping consumers from spending big after a low sales month in March, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and accountancy company KPMG.</div>

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Wells Fargo Fined Over Secret Sales Policy to Open Fake Customer Accounts - nsnbc international | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...to-open-fake-customer-accounts

banksters Wells-Fargo CFPB fraud data-breach student-loans

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Sep 16 - No Cached

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has fined Wells Fargo for $100 million based on fraudulent customer account practices. An additional $85 million is to be paid to the city of Los Angeles in California, along with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
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Last year Wells Fargo was sued by employees (current and former) and customers all across the nation for setting up “unwanted accounts, unwarranted fees”. According to the lawsuit, this was “the largest California-based bank violated state and federal laws by misusing confidential information and failing to notify customers when personal information was breached.” Using “aggressive tactics” to coerce new customers, Wells Fargo made it “difficult to correct the mistakes” made by Wells Fargo and return fees to customers because of “high-pressure sales culture set unrealistic quotas, spurring employees to engage in fraudulent conduct to keep their jobs and boost the company’s profits.” Over the course of an extended period of time, “Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses.” There were 1.5 million accounts opened without the authorization of customers and 500,000 credit cards accounts to boot. Wells Fargo has consistently blames “a few rogue employees. Five hundred employees were terminated, according to a Wells Fargo spokesperson. There was no mention of rescinding of bonuses paid to those employees, and there is no clear evidence that executive’s payouts totaling $155 million for “performance based compensation” for 2012 through 2013 was returned to the bank.
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Those bonuses were administered based on the fraudulent accounts opened without customer approval. In a statement, Wells Fargo expressed belated regret and a sudden desire to “take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request.” The training that caused this problem in the first place was a cross-selling strategy called “Going For Gr-Eight” which is a brochure for employees to push banking products onto households of existing customers to increase fee potential and overall profitability. Wells Fargo “staffers, fearing disciplinary action from managers, begged friends and family members to open ghost accounts” and forged signatures “and falsified phone numbers” of customers who did not want to open an account. This practice drove Wells Fargo’s financial success with an estimated “26% of the company’s revenue was from fee income, including those from credit and debit card accounts, trusts and investments.” The bank not only stole money from customers but “also damage their credit scores” and put some into collections to garner fees “for unauthorized accounts went unpaid”. In case of a complaining customer, Wells Fargo would “sandbag” their customers; meaning “failing to open accounts when requested by customers, and instead accumulating a number of account applications to be opened at a later date.”
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Another devious tactic Wells Fargo employed was “bundling” or “incorrectly informing customers that certain products are available only in packages with other products such as additional accounts, insurance, annuities, and retirement plans.” This is not an isolated incident. Wells Fargo has fired 5,300 employees for this same “illegal behavior”. Beyond this questionable business practice, Wells Fargo was previously recognized by the CFPB for misapplying student loan payments in order to increase fee income. In this case, Wells Fargo was fined $3.6 million and forced to pay $410,000 to student loan borrowers for restitution.
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American Surveillance Now Threatens American Business - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...382821

surveillance state NSA U.S. polls sense-of-privacy data privacy

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Nov 14 - No Cached

What does it look like when a society loses its sense of privacy? <div><a href="http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?iu=%2F4624%2FTheAtlanticOnline%2Fchannel_technology&t=src%3Dblog%26by%3Drobinson-meyer%26title%3Damerican-surveillance-now-threatens-american-business%26pos%3Din-article&sz=300x250&c=285899172&tile=1" title=""><img style="border:none;" src="http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ad?iu=%2F4624%2FTheAtlanticOnline%2Fchannel_technology&t=src%3Dblog%26by%3Drobinson-meyer%26title%3Damerican-surveillance-now-threatens-american-business%26pos%3Din-article&sz=300x250&c=285899172&tile=1" alt="" /></a></div>In the almost 18 months since the Snowden files first received coverage, writers and critics have had to guess at the answer. Does a certain trend, consumer complaint, or popular product epitomize some larger shift? Is trust in tech companies eroding—or is a subset just especially vocal about it? Polling would make those answers clear, but polling so far has been… confused. A new study, conducted by the Pew Internet Project last January and released last week, helps make the average American’s view of his or her privacy a little clearer. And their confidence in their own privacy is ... low. The study's findings—and the statistics it reports—stagger. Vast majorities of Americans are uncomfortable with how the government uses their data, how private companies use and distribute their data, and what the government does to regulate those companies. No summary can equal a recounting of the findings. Americans are displeased with government surveillance en masse:   
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A new study finds that a vast majority of Americans trust neither the government nor tech companies with their personal data.
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What does it look like when a society loses its sense of privacy? <div><a href="http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?iu=%2F4624%2FTheAtlanticOnline%2Fchannel_technology&t=src%3Dblog%26by%3Drobinson-meyer%26title%3Damerican-surveillance-now-threatens-american-business%26pos%3Din-article&sz=300x250&c=285899172&tile=1" title=""><img style="border:none;" src="http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ad?iu=%2F4624%2FTheAtlanticOnline%2Fchannel_technology&t=src%3Dblog%26by%3Drobinson-meyer%26title%3Damerican-surveillance-now-threatens-american-business%26pos%3Din-article&sz=300x250&c=285899172&tile=1" alt="" /></a></div>In the almost 18 months since the Snowden files first received coverage, writers and critics have had to guess at the answer. Does a certain trend, consumer complaint, or popular product epitomize some larger shift? Is trust in tech companies eroding—or is a subset just especially vocal about it? Polling would make those answers clear, but polling so far has been… confused. A new study, conducted by the Pew Internet Project last January and released last week, helps make the average American’s view of his or her privacy a little clearer. And their confidence in their own privacy is ... low. The study's findings—and the statistics it reports—stagger. Vast majorities of Americans are uncomfortable with how the government uses their data, how private companies use and distribute their data, and what the government does to regulate those companies. No summary can equal a recounting of the findings. Americans are displeased with government surveillance en masse:   
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“It’s clear the global community of Internet users doesn’t like to be caught up in the American surveillance dragnet,” Senator Ron Wyden said last month. At the same event, Google chairman Eric Schmidt agreed with him. “What occurred was a loss of trust between America and other countries,” he said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “It's making it very difficult for American firms to do business.” But never mind the world. Americans don’t trust American social networks. More than half of the poll’s respondents said that social networks were “not at all secure. Only 40 percent of Americans believe email or texting is at least “somewhat” secure. Indeed, Americans trusted most of all communication technologies where some protections has been enshrined into the law (though the report didn’t ask about snail mail). That is: Talking on the telephone, whether on a landline or cell phone, is the only kind of communication that a majority of adults believe to be “very secure” or “somewhat secure.”
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According to the study, 70 percent of Americans are “at least somewhat concerned” with the government secretly obtaining information they post to social networking sites. Eighty percent of respondents agreed that “Americans should be concerned” with government surveillance of telephones and the web. They are also uncomfortable with how private corporations use their data: Ninety-one percent of Americans believe that “consumers have lost control over how personal information is collected and used by companies,” according to the study. Eighty percent of Americans who use social networks “say they are concerned about third parties like advertisers or businesses accessing the data they share on these sites.” And even though they’re squeamish about the government’s use of data, they want it to regulate tech companies and data brokers more strictly: 64 percent wanted the government to do more to regulate private data collection. Since June 2013, American politicians and corporate leaders have fretted over how much the leaks would cost U.S. businesses abroad.
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(That may seem a bit incongruous, because making a telephone call is one area where you can be almost sure you are being surveilled: The government has requisitioned mass call records from phone companies since 2001. But Americans appear, when discussing security, to differentiate between the contents of the call and data about it.) Last month, Ramsey Homsany, the general counsel of Dropbox, said that one big thing could take down the California tech scene. “We have built this incredible economic engine in this region of the country,” said Homsany in the Los Angeles Times, “and [mistrust] is the one thing that starts to rot it from the inside out.” According to this poll, the mistrust has already begun corroding—and is already, in fact, well advanced. We’ve always assumed that the great hurt to American business will come globally—that citizens of other nations will stop using tech companies’s services. But the new Pew data shows that Americans suspect American businesses just as much. And while, unlike citizens of other nations, they may not have other places to turn, they may stop putting sensitive or delicate information online.
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