Today's Teamster News 03.18.13

Obama to announce Perez as labor secretary nominee  CNN   ...President Barack Obama on Monday will announce Thomas E. Perez, U.S. assistant attorney general heading the Justice Department's civil rights division, as his nominee for the next secretary of the Department of Labor...
Authorities: Mexican drug cartels are a Pennsylvania presence  Philadelphia Inquirer   ...federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities agreed Mexican cartels are the top wholesale suppliers of cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine to the Philadelphia region...
Unions split on plans for Keystone XL pipeline  Associated Press   ...Many unions such as the Laborers International Union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Teamsters, the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO and others strongly back construction of Keystone, calling it a way to create jobs. But the Amalgamated Transit Union and the Transport Workers Union oppose the Keystone XL due to environmental concerns about the oil sands and potential pipeline spills...
Cypriot Outrage Over Tax Could Derail Euro-Area Bailout  Bloomberg News   ...Europe braced for renewed turmoil as outrage in Cyprus over an unprecedented levy on bank deposits threatened to derail the nation’s bailout. European shares and the euro tumbled...
New Reality: Generational Wealth on the Decline  Fox Business   ...People in their 30s and younger currently  have a net worth half of what their parent’s had during the same age...
Richard Fisher Says Too-Big-To-Fail Banks Need To Be Broken Up  Reuters   ...The largest U.S. banks are "practitioners of crony capitalism," need to be broken up to ensure they are no longer considered too big to fail, and continue to threaten financial stability, a top Federal Reserve official said on Saturday...
Bills seek end to farm animal abuse videos  Associated Press   ...in a pushback led by the meat and poultry industries, state legislators across the country are introducing laws making it harder for animal welfare advocates to investigate cruelty and food safety cases...
Detroit protesters vow ‘civil disobedience’ in opposition to city’s emergency manager  Daily Caller   ...Hundreds of well-organized demonstrators vowing “civil disobedience” will greet Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s visit to Cobo Hall in Detroit Monday for an economic summit in order to protest Snyder’s selection of a powerful “emergency manager” to save the city of Detroit from bankruptcy...
Liquor privatization faces key vote  citizensvoice.com   ...One of the first major votes of this legislative session is scheduled for today, when a House committee considers Gov. Tom Corbett's proposal to privatize the state-owned liquor system...
Unions, business face off over Conn. wages bill  Associated Press   ...Companies receiving state economic development aid would have to pay benefits and wages higher than the minimum to janitors, security guards and other service workers in legislation being considered by lawmakers...

Liz Warren grills Fed chairman on $83B bank subsidy (VIDEO)

Massachusetts Teamsters worked hard for Elizabeth Warren's election to the U.S. Senate because she gets what the big banks are doing.

In the clip, Warren is referring to a recent Bloomberg analysis that showed U.S. taxpayers are giving $83 billion in annual subsidies to too-big-to-fail (and too-big-to-jail) banks:

The banks that are potentially the most dangerous can borrow at lower rates, because creditors perceive them as too big to fail. 

Lately, economists have tried to pin down exactly how much the subsidy lowers big banks’ borrowing costs. In one relatively thorough effort, two researchers ... put the number at about 0.8 percentage point. The discount applies to all their liabilities, including bonds and customer deposits... 

Small as it might sound, 0.8 percentage point makes a big difference. Multiplied by the total liabilities of the 10 largest U.S. banks by assets, it amounts to a taxpayer subsidy of $83 billion a year. To put the figure in perspective, it’s tantamount to the government giving the banks about 3 cents of every tax dollar collected. 

The top five banks -- JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. - - account for $64 billion of the total subsidy, an amount roughly equal to their typical annual profits.  

Outraged yet? If not, consider this:  JPMorgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are all linked to the F**k Americans Fix the Debt Campaign. Perhaps we should give Wells Fargo chairman John Stumpf credit for not being a flaming hypocrite like the others.

Oh, and we knew F**k Americans Fix the Debt is full of crap anyway.