Economic Hit Man John Perkins on the New Banana Republic and USA, Inc.

US President Barack Obama signed the J.O.B.S. act today, otherwise known as the jumpstart our business startups. Only this so called success rolls back securities laws for companies going public with up to a billion dollars in revenue and according to critics, what it really does is jumpstart frauds like wall street pump and dump schemes. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, it has been touted as a bipartisan achievement. Is this simply just another commitment by the washington machine, politicians and subsidized corporations to get their "corporate welfare" fix? It's something that our guest, economic hitman John Perkins, has been writing about for a long time. His latest book "Hoodwinked," covers the power of corporations, and their ability to influence laws in such a way so that outcomes are delivered in their favor.


And although banks, too, are corporations, they are a special kind and deserve special attention. After all, they are so special, that Ben Bernanke had, what appeared to be his semi-annual job evaluation last week. Fortune magazine reports on a private lunch between Bernanke, and the biggest bank CEO's and executives on wall street (and heads of other large financial services firms). Attendees included Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan, Bob Diamon of Barclays, Brady Dougan of Credit Swuisse, Larry Fink of Blackrock, Gerald Hassell of Bank of New York Mellon, Glenn Hutchins of Silver Lake, Colm Kelleher of Morgan Stanley, Brian Moynihan of Bank of America, Steven Schwarzman of Blackstone Group and David Vinar of Goldman Sachs. We ask our guest, author of Hoodwinked and Confessions of an Economic Hitman, John Perkins, for his thoughts on the power of the financial sector and its role in our economy and political system.

And sticking with banks, it looks like the God metaphor made famous by Goldman Sach's CEO Lloyd Blankfein, just won't go away from the public rhetoric concerning the heralded investment bank turned holding company turned...god knows what...Now it appears Goldman is featuring top executives with nuns. What's next, will Blankfein appear amongst a pantheon of Gods? And it isn't just the banks that are pushing this, the financial media doesn't stop short of deifying the big bank executives. We'll show you what went on between Jim Cramer and his colleagues on a CNBC panel discussing Jamie Dimon and his "whining" routine on "Loose Change."


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