What is most disturbing about the meeting with Treasury and the things that were said, or more accurately admitted, is that an argument could easily be made that this was an overt act by the administration to mislead and trick the American homeowner. That our government has been complicit in the bank’s ravaging of the bank accounts, retirement, and investments of nearly five million people.

For some unknown reason, the NYT prints on its front page a confusing column by Floyd Norris, who seems surprised, shocked that interest rates are at record low levels when everyone the Times normally cites/quotes predicted just the opposite.

suggestions about the right to petition, banks, and cyber-security

At 19% of our debt figure, credit interest obligation mounts daily to new heights. Just as a credit card that acquires new indebtedness daily takes on debt life of its own if we don’t pay it off, our national bonded state daily increases the debt the wingnuts originated. While the right wing accuses this Obama administration of increasing our burden and deplores that as a national hazard, their own obligations add daily to the deficit figure that they claim to deplore; they ignore that old debt that they themselves piled onto this country.

The US economy has been “parted out” for the last three decades of “free trade,” and what is left over is not capable of fairly allocating resources to the extent that the US faces dystopia in the mid term. Americans must demand that the economy be oriented to serve human needs first, and that means hacking Wall Street out of every major economic transaction most folks enter into.

The banking lobby still holds enough sway inside the Beltway to torpedo sensible consumer protection rules, even after releasing a flood of predatory mortgages that kicked off the current economic crisis.

He might agree? Huh? Who would have thunk?

This week’s Audit tackles the problems posed by the bank lobby’s pervasive influence on federal policymakers.