Schneiderman for President

We need leaders like Eric Schneiderman, because he's willing to pursue the big banks for driving us into the Great Recession.

I do mean that. The banks created the Great Recession. People were thrown out of work; people were thrown out of their homes, because big banks played such high-stakes fraud with all the nation's mortgages. They sliced them and diced them, sold them and resold them, and cut a lot of corners when they did all this, starting with the higher than usual number of fraudulent mortgages on which these securities were based.

Unemployment still has barely fallen to an official 9%, or a real 16%, the wave of foreclosures on homes seems unending, and is about to get even worse, now that "the paperwork" has been cleared up. Ordinary people are hurting, but it's because of the insane gambling by the banks, with depositors money, their money and money the Fed, a quasi-government entity, virtually gave to them, through extremely low cost loans.

When the banks were in danger of going bankrupt, the Government and the Fed offered $700 billion to bail them out with TARP, and then gave them extraordinary access to virtually costless money from the Fed. The program worked --for the banks and bankers. They're having one of their best years, bonuses are higher than ever, profits are soaring--

But we still have 9-16% unemployment, and we still have a sinking housing market, with millions of people ejected from their homes. During normal times, construction jobs are relatively plentiful. Now they are not; housing starts have fallen off a cliff.

All of this started because the wise-asses at places like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan thought they could play fast and loose with everybody's money. They thought they couldn't lose: until they did, beginning in mid-2007, when the bottom almost fell out of the whole global financial system, and it was because of their reckless behavior.

So far, no one has gone after the banks even for the fraud. I think they're responsible for much more, but at least the fraud has been documented. Still, neither Obama's DOJ, nor the 50 states attorneys general in their suit, have pursued the banks' massive fraud, even though it dwarfs any financial crime in history. That is, until now.

Enter Eric Schneiderman, New York's progressive Attorney General: he's going after Goldman, JP Morgan and Bank of America! I voted for him twice (first, in a five-way primary). The man's been busy in his first year: going after tobacco companies, Medicare fraud, corruption in state contracts, but now? Schneiderman has spurned the "deal" other AG's are negotiating. Instead, he's demanding documentation on the mortgage securitization that destroyed the housing market: he's looking for fraud. Finally, someone is!

Alert to Roman Senators! Slip some coke in Schneiderman's suit-coat; get a pimp to hook him! Your predatory schemes are suddenly at risk!