Wall Street banks are the new American oligarchy

"I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." -Thomas Jefferson (1816).

When enormous private wealth goes unchecked, regular folks get hurt -- badly. That's what happened in 2008 when the monied interests led us up the garden path to the great collapse. -Bill Moyers

How could you make so much money and not know the score?

You were either pulling the levers or asleep at the switch."

Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch

Corruption, cynicism and greed on a scale that would make the Roman Emperor Caligula cringe.

Subprime loans that executives knew were rotten, were packaged as mortgage securities and pawned them off on unsuspecting investors. Loan officers were paid by the number of mortgages they sold, and ran up the numbers by lying to customers and falsifying data so they could make bigger bucks and win trips to Maui and the Caribbean. At one Washington Mutual office in Montebello, California, 83 percent of the housing loans contained bogus information.

The New York Times reported that Lehman secretly controlled a company called Hudson Castle. Critics say it was used by Lehman Brother to borrow money and to hide bad investments in commercial real estate and subprime mortgages.

Many bankers continued to game the system after the collapse -- still paying themselves exorbitant salaries and bonuses while hitting everyday people with usurious same day paycheck loans, credit card fees and other charges -- and refusing to help small and medium-sized businesses that could be creating employment.

The banking industry and corporate America are fighting against proposed financial reform with all the money and influence at their disposal, attempting to preserve a system that would enable them to ransack the country once again.

The financial services industry has hired more than 125 former members of Congress and congressional staffers from both parties to help them fight off accountability.

"the nation's ten richest hedge fund managers have dumped nearly one million dollars into campaign accounts over the past several years... consumer advocates and critics from other financial sectors say hedge funds would get off pretty easily"