7 16 13 on Ruco, Rental Inspections, TREBIC and Regulatory Capture

From an interview with Wlles Fgrao CEO John Stumpf: Tuesday, June 10, 2008, after beginning to take undisclosed Fed loans on January 17, 2008

EDGAR Majority Ownership of - STUMPF JOHN G

"...we shared pretty openly with investors and with regulators
about the things that we would not do.

Did Wells Fargo CEO John G. Stumpf profit from stock and option compensation while not disclosing material information?

If Wells Fargo & Company’s board of directors
approved a grant of retention performance shares
for President and CEO John G. Stumpf and three other executive officers,
and all of the above were aware of secret Federal Reserve Loans,
how did they not benefit from insider trading?

The Fed’s Secret Liquidity Lifelines for Wells Fargo & Wachovia

Sent to the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs and the US Congressional House Committee on Financial Services on Sunday, July 15th, 2012

Forwarded to Michael Mashburn, SEC and Daniel Stefek, FINRA
- both of whom recieved NC Securities Division File No. 12 SEC 84, in late June,
who spoke with George Hartzman during the second week of July

http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2012/07/forwarded-to-michael-mashburn-sec-and.html
.
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From an email sent to xxxyyy

http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2012/07/from-email-sent-to-xxxyyy.html
.
From a public records request of George Hartzman's Wells Fargo NC whistleblower filing

http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2012/07/from-public-records-request-of-george.html
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The potential enormity of George Hartzman's Wells Fargo Whistleblower filing
on Envision Investment Plans and 4front

http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2012/07/potential-enormity-of-george-hartzmans.html

If former Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis knew about secret Federal Reserve loans in 2008 and 2009, how did he not receive BAC without knowing inside information, and how did Price Waterhouse Coopers, who certified Mitt Romney's prior year's tax returns?

Bank of America Secret Liquidity Lifelines

Brad Miller - House Financial Services committee - 1989 - 2012 Total Receipts: $6,011,785

JPMorgan has two in-house lobbyists

with connections to the House Financial Services committee.

Tom Koonce is a lobbyist for JP Morgan

and formerly a legislative director for Brad Miller, D-N.C.,

who sits on the committee.

Lawyers/Law Firms $852,417
Insurance $266,219
Industrial Unions $254,000
Public Sector Unions $253,700
Building Trade Unions $180,000
Securities & Investment $173,825
Transportation Unions $145,450
Misc Unions $129,250
Health Professionals $129,030
Commercial Banks $104,750
Accountants $92,346
Credit Unions $79,341
Lobbyists $64,400

Regulatory Capture

If the Fed is printing enough to cover what the Treasury borrows, should unemployment benefits be extended, and if there's no such thing as a free lunch, who ends up with the bill?

…the earth belongs to each of these generations during its course,
fully and in its own right.

The second generation receives it clear
of the debts and incumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on.

For if the first could charge it with a debt,
then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation.

Then, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid
during the course of its own existence.

Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789

"With millions of Americans still looking for work, now is not the time to cut key safety net programs like Unemployment Insurance. The Emergency Unemployment Compensation program is set to expire at the end of November. If that happens, 2 million people will lose benefits in December and 6 million by the end of next year."

Hilda Solia
Derpatment of Labor
Via Tyler

Fact Check on Health Care Legislation

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients
…and never do harm to anyone.

In every house where I come,
I will enter only for the good of my patients,
keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing.

Hippocratic Oath

"FACT CHECK: Obama's tone shifts on health care

President Barack Obama told voters repeatedly during the health care debate that the overhaul legislation would bring down fast-rising health care costs and save them money...

So far, the law he signed earlier this year hasn't had the desired effect.

An analysis from Medicare's Office of the Actuary this week said that the nation's health care tab will go up — not down — through 2019 as a result of Obama's sweeping law...

If federal budget figures indicated Medicare Part D
would cost more than $1.2 trillion between 2006 and 2015
why did supporters repetitively proclaim the program
would not cost more than $400 billion over ten years?

Obama offered some caveats when asked in his news conference Friday about the apparent discrepancy between what he promised and what's actually happening so far...

...OBAMA: Said he never expected to extend insurance coverage to an additional 31 million people "for free." He added that "we've made huge progress" if medical inflation could be brought down to the level of overall inflation, or somewhere slightly above that.

THE FACTS: Those claims may be supported in the fine print of the plan he pitched to Congress and a skeptical public months ago. But they were rarely heard back then. "My proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions — families, businesses and the federal government," he declared in March.

Why wouldn’t the healthcare industry’s position
as a top political campaign contributor,
correlate to subsidized healthcare
being one of the government’s largest expenditures,
and if not, why does the healthcare industry
contribute so much to those who wouldn’t reduce profits?

Last August he predicted: "The American people are going to be glad that we acted to change an unsustainable system so that more people have coverage, we're bending the cost curve, and we're getting insurance reforms."

On Friday, he conceded: "Bending the cost curve on health care is hard to do." The goal: "Slowly bring down those costs."

If the Veterans’ administration can haggle for lower drug prices
why can't the government negotiate for Medicare part D?

The White House contends that although health care costs will rise when most of the changes take hold in 2014 and coverage is extended to the uninsured, costs will go down over the longer term as controls kick in.

OBAMA: "We took every idea out there about how to reduce or at least slow the costs of health care over time."

Does recently passed health care legislation
prevent insurers, employers and taxpayers indirectly pay for agreements
between brand name and generic drug companies,
keeping lower priced medicines off the market?

THE FACTS: One idea that most experts believe would do the most to control health costs — directly taxing health benefits — was missing in Obama's plan. Opposition from unions and others was too great, and Obama himself had campaigned against the idea.

Would healthcare cost less
if medical insurance wasn’t subsidized by tax breaks
and regulated pricing mechanisms?

Some of the major cost controllers that did make it into the law — including a tax on high-value insurance plans — don't start until 2018. That tax was watered down and delayed, and other cost-control approaches also softened after opposition from hospitals and other interest groups.

Health spending already accounts for about 17 percent of the economy and is projected to grow to nearly 20 percent in 2019.

Did ~86% of fiscal 2004’s $11.1 trillion
federal unfunded future obligation growth
reflect the long term costs of 2003’s prescription Medicare legislation?

OBAMA: "So these policies of cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans, of stripping away regulations that protect consumers, running up a record surplus to a record deficit — those policies finally culminated in the worst financial crisis we've had since the Great Depression."

THE FACTS: The president probably meant the broader economic crisis and not the meltdown of the financial industry when he talked about the "financial crisis." True enough, George W. Bush entered office with a $236 billion budget surplus in 2001, and in January 2009, before Obama was sworn into office, the Congressional Budget Office projected the deficit for the fiscal year 2009 to be $1.2 trillion.

Did the largest generation of parents in American history
promise themselves healthcare benefits
their children won’t have enough money to pay for?

But the surpluses the government foresaw in 2001 were based on a bubble economy that was bound to burst..."

Erica Werner And Calvin Woodward
Associated Press

Why isn't the the government testing for Mercury etc..., from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?

FDA Not Testing Gulf Seafood for Mercury, Arsenic or Other Heavy Metals Because "We Do Not Expect to See an Increase Based on this Spill"

Congressman Markey's subcomittee...got the Food and Drug Administration to admit that fish are not being tested from oiled areas...

The FDA also admitted that it is not testing for mercury, arsenic or other toxic heavy metals, because - wait for it - the FDA doesn't expect to see an increase of these toxins from the oil spill...

The FDA's statement is similar to NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco's recent assertion that oil doesn't bioaccumulate in fish, and that fish naturally "degrade and process" the oil.

The FDA also admitted that it is not testing for the most toxic bioaccumulating metabolites of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

George Washington
via Tyler

New Mortgage Rules

Fed Unveils Slew of Mortgage Rules

The Federal Reserve unveiled...rules...aimed at protecting consumers from abusive lending practices blamed for luring millions into unaffordable home loans.

The rules include a ban on yield-spread premiums, controversial payments that mortgage brokers have historically received in exchange for guiding consumers toward higher-interest rate mortgages.

...The ban, set to take effect April 1, would apply to both mortgage brokers and the companies employing them. It also would prohibit loan originators from steering consumers toward loans that aren’t in their best interest but would generate stronger returns for brokers or loan officers.

...Since the financial crisis started, the Fed has been criticized for failing to enact sufficiently stringent mortgage lending standards and for moving too slowly in curbing the practice of paying yield spread premiums.

The Fed...proposed that lenders clearly tell borrowers what their mortgage could cost them in a “worst-case” interest rate scenario.

In addition, the Fed rules would require lenders to tell borrowers when balloon payments or minimum payment options could hike loan amounts, and disclose how payments could fluctuate for borrowers who have adjustable- or step-rate loans.

Meena Thiruvengadam
Wall Street Journal