|
July 27, 2002
M. Shahid Alam
American
Presidents (Poem)
Mokhiber / Weissman
Push Back: Women Take
on the Corporate Beasts
July 26, 2002
Jerre Skog
American
Dictatorship:
It Couldn't Happen...Could It?
Philip Farruggio
Lie,
Rob and Steal
Rep. Ron Paul
Monitor
Thy Neighbor
Ron Jacobs
Thinking
About the
Weather (Underground)
Walt Brasch
Ashcroft's War on Bookstores
July 25, 2002
Norman Madarasz
Paul
Krugman's Howl:
Populism, War and
the Melting Economy
Gavin Keeney
Van Morrison: In September
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
War
on Terrorism or
Police State?
July 24, 2002
Gary Leupp
An Islam Primer
July 23, 2002
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Battle
for Zuni Salt Lake
Ansar Ahmed
Am I with You, George?
Bill Christison
The
Disastrous Foreign Policies of the US: Oppression Abroad Means
Repression at Home
July 22, 2002
Rick Giombetti
Glaxo Raises White Flag
in Paxil Case
Wayne Madsen
Forbidden
Truth
The Press, Bush, Oil
and the Taliban
July 21. 2002
Francis A. Boyle
The Rogue Elephant
Jennifer Harbury
Why are
the FBI & CIA Targeting Me?
Joan Claybrook
Time
for a Special Prosceutor
for Thomas White
Gloria Bergen
The Struggle
of Workers
in Palestine
Dave Marsh
Mr. Big Stuff:
Alan Lomax, Great White Fraud
James T. Phillips
"I'll
Tell You No Lies"
The Human Rubble of War
July 20, 2002
Gavin Keeney
The Grave
New Urbanism
World Trade Center Burlesque
Jacob Levich
"I
Was Schooled in Hate"
Confessions of a
Summer Camp Terror Tot
Thomas Croft
Augusta,
GA
Growing Up in the Deep South
Alexander Cockburn
The
Market Hogwallow:
Popgun Populism Isn't Enough
July 19, 2002
Abe Bonowitz / SueZann
Bosler
A Discussion
with Jeb Bush on the Death Penalty
Jonathan Power
No Need
for War Against Iraq
Rick Giombetti
Qwest
Death Watch
Kurt Nimmo
Of Mice,
Bullets & Bombs
M. Shahid Alam
Through
Racist Eyes:
Is Eurocentrism Unique?
July 18, 2002
Mokhiber / Weissman
Business
As Usual
Jerre Skog
I Spy: Now
Let's be Fair,
the USA Ain't East Germany
Ralph Nader
The CEO
Crimewave:
Corporate Socialism
Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
The Rising Tensions
Between Spain and Morocco
Alexander Cockburn
Drivel
and Squawk:
Can the Times' Jeff Gerth
Save the White House?
July 17, 2002
Philip Farruggio
The
New Role Model:
Remember Jesus, George?
Zara Gelsey
Who's
Reading Over
Your Shoulder?
Behzad Yaghmaian
9/11 and
Fotress Europe:
the Drama of the New
Moslem Diaspora
Mike Ferner
War, Incorporated
Gary Leupp
Bush, Burqas
and the Oppression of Afghan Women
July 16, 2002
Pierre Tristam
Faith--based
Capitalism in
the Ruins of the Market
Kurt Nimmo
How My
35mm Camera Almost Became a Tool of Treason
Robert Fisk
The Kashmir
Distraction
Salam al--Marayati
When
is Terrorism
Not Defined as Terrorism?
Kathleen Christison
The
Image Problem:
Anti--Palestinian Bias
from Wilson to Bush
July 15, 2002
Gavin Keeney
In One
of Safire's Ears,
Out the Other
CounterPunch Wire
Nader in
Cuba
Ralph Nader
The Secret
World of Banking
Dave Marsh
Vincible:
Michael Jackson, Racism and the Music Cartel
Rahul Mahajan
Justice
for Bhopal
Jeffrey St. Clair
Seduced
by a Legend
The Return of Jimmy T99 Nelson
July 14, 2002
Bill Christison
The
DOA (Poem)
David Vest
I'll Never
Get Out of This Band Alive
July 13, 2002
M. Junaid Alam
A Process
of Dehumanization
Gavin Keeney
Go Tell
Karl Rove!
Matt Vidal
Corporate
"Ethics" Red Herrings
Ed Whitfield
Lessons
from Independence Day
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published March 15, 2002
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
|
Weekend
Edition
July 27, 2002
Citigroup, Heal Thyself
by Ralph Nader
Last week Citigroup, the nation's largest financial
services holding company, trotted out one of its top executives,
Robert Rubin, to spread some soothing words about how to clean
up the corporate scandals and repair the sagging stock market.
Rubin's (and Citigroup's) message appeared
as a lengthy op-ed in the Washington Post under the headline
"To Regain Confidence." As former Secretary of Treasury
in the Clinton Administration, Rubin commands a following, particularly
in the financial press so important to Citigroup's vast empire.
The need for Citigroup to use Rubin to
pose as an ally of reform became obvious two days later when
the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released
hundreds of pages of documents that the Subcommittee Chairman
Carl Levin said  proves that Citigroup and J. P. Morgan
Chase "knowingly assisted Enron Corporation in disguising
debt by structuring sham financing vehicles."
The scheme not only facilitated Enron's
deception which cost investors and employees hundreds of millions
of dollars, but earned more than $200 million in fees for Citigroup
and J. P. Morgan Chase.
Citigroup's Rubin didn't provide an inkling
of his bank's complicity in the Enron scandal when he penned
his piece for the Washington Post. But he may well have had Citigroup's
secret involvement in mind when he argued that "regulatory
and legislative changes and enforcement should be balanced and
appropriate."
With the revelations pouring out of the
Senate hearing, it is understandable that Citigroup and its executives
would be entering a plea for "balanced and appropriate"
enforcement-a light tap on the wrist, perhaps.
At least one Senator at the hearing-Peter
Fitzgerald of Illinois--raised questions about how many of the
current scandals could be blamed on Congress' decision in 1999
to allow banks, insurance companies and securities firms to merge
and form giant financial conglomerates such as Citigroup.
That question must have troubled both
Citigroup and Rubin who played such major roles in the enactment
of the legislation-Rubin as Secretary of the Treasury and Citigroup
as the biggest beneficiary of the action. Rubin left the Treasury
in July of 1999 and Citigroup announced he had been hired by
the corporation on October 26-four days after the final compromise
was reached on the legislation.
In answering Senator Fitzgerald's question
about the wisdom of the 1999 legislation which merged banks and
securities firms, Lynn Turner, the former chief accountant of
the Securities and Exchange Commission, said "securities
firms and banking firms can't be working together, entering into
transactions together and using the security arm to try to get
banking business."
That echoed what many of us warned the
Congress about repeatedly when the legislation was being hammered
through by Rubin and Citigroup and the biggest players in the
financial industry. The lobbying, greased with record campaign
contributions from financial services corporations, drowned out
all warnings about the dangers now so apparent in Enron and other
corporate debacles.
For consumer and community organizations
around the nation, the new revelations about Citigroup should
come as no surprise. Community groups have been trying for years
to get legislative and regulatory action that would halt predatory
lending and other deceptive practices by Citigroup's affiliates.
Citigroup became the nation's largest
predatory lender when it acquired Associates First Capital in
September 2000 and merged it with another its subsidiaries, CitiFinancial
Credit. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed lawsuit
against Associates First Capital, Citigroup and CitiFinancial
Credit Company seeking an injunction against unfair and deceptive
lending practices.
Here is what Jodie Bernstein, director
of FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, had to say about the
practices of the Citigroup affiliates:
"They hid essential information
from consumers, misrepresented loan terms, flipped loans and
packed optional fees to raise the costs of the loans. What had
made the alleged practices more egregious is that they primarily
victimized consumers who were the most vulnerable-hard working
homeowners who had to borrow to meet emergency needs and often
had no other access to capital."
Last year, Citigroup paid $20 million
to North Carolina customers of Associates and $300,000 to the
state to settle allegations that consumers had been tricked into
buying expensive and unneeded credit life insurance as part of
their mortgage loans. The New York Times reported last fall that
Citigroup had settled 200 lawsuits pertaining to practices of
Associates with at least twice that number still pending in the
courts.
But, these facts, like the funny money
games now revealed in the Senate hearings, were strangely missing
in Robert Rubin's lengthy rendition in the Washington Post about
actions that were needed for the nation to regain confidence.
To paraphrase an old adage: Citigroup,
heal thyself.
For information about what you can do
to help create a Financial Consumers' Association, visit http://www.essential.org
Today's Features
M. Shahid Alam
American
Presidents (Poem)
Mokhiber / Weissman
Push Back: Women Take
on the Corporate Beasts
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|