Congressman Elijah Cummings, whose district covers inner-city Baltimore, has asked the justice department’s Civil Rights division to investigate the giant bank’s lending ptractices.  Read the full details here

The Judge in charge of Baltimore’s suit against the Wells Fargo Bank has rejected the suit on the grounds that Wells could  not have been responsible for the entire devastation of inner-city neighborhoods.  Read about the decision here.

Leslie and Andrew Cockburn were interviewed on Brian Lamb’s terrific Sunday night show “Q&A” on Sunday, January 3, at 8 pm.  In the hour long discussion they talked about the background to the film, how and why they made it and many other fascinating details.  To watch the show or read the transcript, click here

The Women Film Critics Circle is honored to award AMERICAN CASINO as Best Documentary 2009: Above And Beyond.

The Women Film Critics Circle is an association of 47 women film critics from around the country and internationally, who are involved in print, radio, online and television media.

We came together in 2004 to form the first women critics organization in the United States, in the belief that women’s perspectives and voices in film criticism need to be recognized fully, while offering a fresh and differently experienced perspective.

Just Make Sure the Rules are Fair.

Mark Pittman, a great reporter and a good friend who played a leading role in American Casino, has died suddenly at the age of 52. He was a wonderful guy in every way, combining a deeply serious understanding of the financial system with a never-absent sense of humor and amazement at the ways that same system is being run off the rails. We shall miss him very much.  Read the Bloomberg obituary here by his close friend and colleague Bob Ivry.

“American Casino… has the power of a haymaker that somehow sneaks up on you. It’s a nightmare that starts like a normal daytime drive and ends in a vortex-like sinkhole,” writes Michael Srager  in the Baltimore Sun’s print edition “It’s a nightmare that starts like a normal daytime drive and ends in a vortex-like sinkhole.”

Watch Sun critic Michael Sragow’s amazing  video review

Those who respect the law and love sausage should watch neither being made.
–Mark Twain.

AMENDMENT TO THE PETERSON SUBSTITUTE FOR
H.R. 3795 (a)
OFFERED BY MR. PETERSON OF MINNESOTA (b)

Page 21, after line 25, insert the following:

(19) by adding at the end the following:

‘‘(50) ALTERNATIVESWAP EXECUTIONFACIL-

ITY. (c).—The term ‘alternative swap execution facility’

means a service that facilitates (d) the execution or

trading of swaps between two persons through any

means of interstate commerce, but which is not a

designated contract market (e), including any electronic

trade execution or confirmation facility (f) or any voice

brokerage facility (g).’’

(a) Everyone agrees that the unregulated “dark markets” of Wall Street’s trading in over-the-counter derivatives such as credit default swaps moved the financial crisis from major problem to total disaster. Currently, most trades in these “products” are privately negotiated on the phone, dealer to dealer. It’s appallingly risky – that’s why we have a multi trillion dollar bailout. But because the dealers at major banks can quote different prices to different customers, with huge spreads between buy and sell quotes, the banks are making huge profits and want to keep it that way.
So while congress is busy working on reform legislation, Wall Street’s lawyer-lobbyists in Washington are working hard to neutralize such efforts.
Who’s winning? Over lunch across town from Capitol Hill, I recently asked that question of a very smart attorney endowed with deep experience in keeping Washington safe for Wall Street. In answer, he pointed to this seven-line paragraph buried in a 26 page amendment to “HR 3795, Over-The-Counter Derivatives Markets Act of 2009,” passed in a voice vote by the House Agriculture Committee the night before. Following the vote, the committee had issued a press release hailing their vote for “strengthening” regulation.
On the contrary, said my friend, “I guarantee you that not a single member, and almost certainly no one else, apart from the traders on Wall Street and the lobbyist who inserted it on their behalf, understood the significance of this paragraph. It means that nothing will change.”

(b) Colin Peterson (D-MN) is the Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture. He is on record as asserting “The banks run this place…It’s huge the amount they put into politics.”

(c) An “alternative swap execution facility” is intended by the original drafters of the bill to be a new, fully regulated market for trading over-the-counter derivatives – a technologically enhanced version of the various futures exchanges currently operating, such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where transactions and prices are open for all to see.

(d) A beautiful word. Now the “execution” facility doesn’t have to be an actual exchange. It has just been redefined as merely something that “facilitates” the execution of a swap trade.

(e) Reinforces the point that a “facility” does not have to be one of those transparent exchanges. But wasn’t that what the bill is meant to make happen?

(f) In 2005 the major swaps dealers, under pressure from the New York Fed, set up an electronic “confirmation facility” to keep track of trades, which the dealers control. Not much openness here.

(g) “Voice brokerage.” This means a telephone, as used by a dealer setting prices that are not publicly disclosed. That’s what the dealers were doing the last time they led our financial system over a cliff, and that’s the system that is preserved by this one little paragraph.

Fresh Air’s John Powers reviews American Casino:

“Following E.M. Forster’s old command — “Only connect” — this smart, touching documentary traces the connections between Wall Street’s high-flying practices and the countless citizens on Main Street who now face bankruptcy and eviction”

Read or Listen to the full review here.