Trump's Labor Dept gives reprieves to criminal banks, including Deutsche Bank

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump lender, other convicted banks get reprieves from feds

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[ajc0918]

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[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

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Trump is acting like Obama, so that makes it all okay?

Obama was a willing puppet for vampire squid capitalism, too. But he wasn't openly in debt to one of the banks he was giving a pass to for hundreds of millions of dollars. That last bit makes this look more like quid pro quo than systemic failure and corruption.

This is a pattern I've seen on many issues:

First an administration does it and is ashamed enough of it to keep quiet about it.

Second administration accepts it as business as usual.

Next administration openly celebrates it.

[ajc0918]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Trump is acting like Obama, so that makes it all okay?

Obama was a willing puppet for vampire squid capitalism, too. But he wasn't openly in debt to one of the banks he was giving a pass to for hundreds of millions of dollars. That last bit makes this look more like quid pro quo than systemic failure and corruption.

This is a pattern I've seen on many issues:

First an administration does it and is ashamed enough of it to keep quiet about it.

Second administration accepts it as business as usual.

Next administration openly celebrates it.

The banks have been fined billions of dollars by the U.S. and the E.U. and as a result LIBOR is being replaced. I'm fine with this action.

[pbrower2a]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Trump is acting like Obama, so that makes it all okay?

Obama was a willing puppet for vampire squid capitalism, too. But he wasn't openly in debt to one of the banks he was giving a pass to for hundreds of millions of dollars. That last bit makes this look more like quid pro quo than systemic failure and corruption.

This is a pattern I've seen on many issues:

First an administration does it and is ashamed enough of it to keep quiet about it.

Second administration accepts it as business as usual.

Next administration openly celebrates it.

The banks have been fined billions of dollars by the U.S. and the E.U. and as a result LIBOR is being replaced. I'm fine with this action.

Obama also faced the most dangerous economic meltdown since the early 1930s, and having to choose between judging the banks and letting them fail, he rescued them to avert another Great Depression.  Look at the timing -- the Depression started to abate when FDR backed the banks. Obama did what Hoover should have done in 1930 or 1931.

One problem is that institutional corruption in the banking industry was more extensive around 2007 than going into 1929. The second big problem is that by rescuing Big Business President Obama rescued the economic interests who have since bought practically the entire political system, transforming America into an order more plutocratic than anything since Imperial Russia.

It was a no-win political reality for Barack Obama, who wanted to be an FDR and may have become a Heinrich Bruning instead.

[Green Line]

Good.  Protect the big banks.

[Hammy]

Trump's certainly picking the most awful of Obama's policies as the ones he decides to continue.

[PSOL]

Good.  Protect the big banks.

Yeah let’s protect the only bank that failed a half done risk check with criminal ties by the Federal Reserve own mouth on the first and the FBI on the last. When Deutche Bank falls in flames and leaves the US in an oncoming recession surely this decision will be positive.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump's certainly picking the most awful of Obama's policies as the ones he decides to continue.

To be completely fair to Trump, we could say the same thing about Obama vis a vis Bush. Amnesty for torturers, ongoing domestic spying, unprosecuted bank fraud on a massive scale, murdering civilians with airstrikes... While life (and especially the decisions that need to be made as leader of a 300-million strong global superpower) is complex, and I do have (given the counter-example of Trump in particular) appreciation and respect for much of the job he did, he did continue some awful policies that have served only to corrode our Republic. (I think it's possible to hold multiple opinions about someone, looking at them from different angles as it were. My great objection to Trump is that at best some of his aspects are only the lies of a stupid and venal incompetent, rather than deliberate maliciousness; unlike Obama, Bush, or their predecessors there is no angle from which Trump honestly looks good.)

[Virginiá]

Is America ever going to have an anti-bank* president again?


* as in, a president not swayed by their influence and not particularly open to helping them like this unless they legitimately believe it serves the public interest rather than just the bank's interests

[Progressive Pessimist]

Gee, that doesn't sound sketchy at all.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

To be fair, the stress test failures that have affected a few banks this year are largely due to the balance sheet effects of the Trump tax cuts.  It cause quite a few businesses to have unexpected earnings or losses because of the accounting changes resulting for the change in values of tax assets and liabilities.  It's made evaluating stocks to see if they might desirable to own more complicated as the trailing P/E is all messed up by the effect it had on the books last December, so using it as an initial screen is worthless.