Throw The Book At Corrupt Unions...

[icyfroth]

...after the criminal banks!

Citizens Electoral Council leader Craig Isherwood today called on the Abbott government to finally hold the banks accountable for their financial crimes, before it goes off on its crusade against union corruption.

Isherwood said, “In 2009 I called for an Australian Pecora Commission, modelled on the U.S. investigation of Wall Street led fearlessly by Ferdinand Pecora from 1932-34, which exposed the financial crimes that led to the Great Depression, and the corrupt dealings between the Wall Street banks and American politicians that enabled the banks to get away with their crimes.

“So far, outside of some Senate inquiries there has been no serious investigation of financial crimes in Australia. Yet after a few high-profile examples of union corruption, people in the Abbott government are pushing for a Royal Commission into the unions.

“I say investigate both,” he said, “but unless the government goes after the banks with the same zeal it has to tear into the unions, it is being corrupt itself, by covering up for corruption on a scale that crooked unionists could only dream of.”

Isherwood cited examples of the banks not being held accountable: 

• The central role of the Commonwealth Bank, Macquarie Bank and the Bank of Queensland in the Storm Financial scandal, in which hundreds of customers in North Queensland were lured into borrowing heavily against their homes in order to gamble on the stock market, and were subsequently ruined in the 2008 GFC.

• The evidence that loan officers in not just mortgage brokers, but also the Big Four banks, fraudulently doctored loan documentation to justify making low-doc loans that many customers subsequently couldn’t afford.

• The relationship between Macquarie Bank, aka the Millionaires’ Factory, and numerous ex-politicians and public servants who have gone to work for Macquarie after, in many cases, being involved in public policy decisions such as privatisations and public-private partnerships from which Macquarie directly profited.

• The role of Australian-based banks in the UK LIBOR scandal, and the fact that six of the 14 banks caught rigging the LIBOR in London are also involved in setting Australia’s benchmark interest rate, the Bank Bill Swap rate (BBSW). Rigging the LIBOR interest rate allowed the banks to skim off the top of hundreds of trillions of dollars of deals over three decades, and it was known and condoned at the highest levels.

• Commonwealth Bank’s sudden decision in 2012 to no longer disclose its exposure to the toxic over-the-counter derivatives market, after increasing its exposure at a breathtaking rate in the three previous years. OTC derivatives are purely gambling side-bets that are often instruments of outright fraud; it was the global meltdown of the OTC derivatives bubble that caused the GFC in 2008.

Isherwood noted that there have been numerous corporate collapses in recent years in which the losses were borne by the mum and dad investors but not the banks or the well-connected.

Isherwood concluded, “It is time to clean up the criminal activity in the financial system that has been allowed to flourish under the cover of deregulation. 

“We must also impose the only effective regulation which can protect ordinary people from the predations of financial speculators, which is a Glass-Steagall separation of retail banking from investment banking.

“The only reason for the government to not launch a thorough investigation of criminality in the banking system, and not go with Glass-Steagall, is to cover for the bankers.

Link To Article

"The relationship between Macquarie Bank, aka the Millionaires’ Factory, and numerous ex-politicians and public servants who have gone to work for Macquarie after, in many cases, being involved in public policy decisions such as privatisations and public-private partnerships from which Macquarie directly profited."

[boris1gary]

interesting where the article came from, I always like to see the extreme right having a go at the extreme right, just another gem from the Citizens Electoral Council website - The New Citizen volume 7 no:6

Defeat the British Crown's Green Fascist Dictatorship

13 October 2011—Amidst a rising chorus of panic from governments, financial institutions and the mass media, the Global Financial Crisis deepens by the hour. All acknowledge that it is far worse now than in those perilous days of 2007-08 when the entire system teetered on the brink. Terrified governments continue to pour tens of trillions of dollars of taxpayers' funds into the world's major private banks, to no avail. This global bailout must be cancelled, and sweeping remedial measures taken very soon, or we will plunge into the worst depression in world history, far worse than that of the 14th-century Dark Age. Then, one-third of Europe's population perished from starvation, endemic warfare, general chaos and the Black Death. Now, the world's population will plunge to less than a billion, perhaps far less.

The British Crown has intended such worldwide mass death since the end of the 19th century. It was their stated purpose in creating the eugenics movement then, and it is the stated purpose of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip in sponsoring that movement today, rebranded since the end of World War II as "environmentalism". The systematic Green Fascist crippling of agriculture, industry, infrastructure, and the urgently-needed development of nuclear power has devastated the world's economy since the 1960s, far more than even the unbridled speculation by the Crown-centred City of London and its appendage on Wall Street. Now, facing the present collapse of the London-centred international monetary system, the British are preparing the option of fascist coups. Statesman and physical economist Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. warned the Citizens Electoral Council's National Conference on 23 July: "We're on the verge of a coup d'état which establishes a Nazi-style dictatorship inside the United States." He starkly amplified this warning on 8 October 2011.

really.

[boris1gary]

the whole "corrupt union" campaign is nothing more than a witch hunt.

[the_hawk*]

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@boris1gary wrote:

the whole "corrupt union" campaign is nothing more than a witch hunt.

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I would say more like deflection from their own coruption.

[spotweldersfriend]

Those union comments are funny...straight outta the fifties

[cherry*135]

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@spotweldersfriend wrote:
Unions are corrupt? Wolli Creek train station to Sydney airport.About 2.5 km.$16.40
One way.

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Yes, private line.

I can go from local train station to Airport via Wolli Creek for $21.20 one way (2 hr journey from South of Sydney).

[lakeedge]

Comedy is reading all the deflection passing on here  trying to lump all sorts of groups into the corrupt union/labor  basket.

The rotten core of labor and the unions is public knoweledge and the court cases and investigations are ongoing.....award that 

[boris1gary]

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@micasheen wrote:

Comedy is reading all the deflection passing on here  trying to lump all sorts of groups into the corrupt union/labor  basket.

The rotten core of labor and the unions is public knoweledge and the court cases and investigations are ongoing.....award that 

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If you insist - award post above 0 out of 10.

[freakiness]

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@micasheen wrote:

Comedy is reading all the deflection passing on here  trying to lump all sorts of groups into the corrupt union/labor  basket.

The rotten core of labor and the unions is public knoweledge and the court cases and investigations are ongoing.....award that 

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You seriously think one side of politics is corrupt and the other is pure and honest?

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

[freshwater-2]

I have never belonged to a union, nor have I voted for either of the majori parties.

I acknowledge the corruption but remain a  union supporter for workers who have nobody else to come out and support them.

We just have to careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[spotweldersfriend]

😄

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLNhPMQnWu4&feature=youtube_gdata_player