"They (The Banks) Own The Place."

That's Senator Dick Durbin, talking about Congress. Karl Denninger has a devastating post today about the continued corruption in DC:

Well well well Senator Durbin:

"And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."

Now that had to be uncomfortable.

Oh by the way, its not just The Senate either; Barney Frank seems to have a revolving door in his office that goes between his front door and Goldman's along with SIFMA, a big industry group.

The amusing part of this is that the article appeared in Salon, a notoriously left-leaning rag. The not-so-amusing part of this is that nobody is bothering to try to hide the blatant corruption and fraud any more - $100+ billion in so-called "CDS" written by AIG that were "made good" by Treasury so as to avoid people having to take an economic loss that was properly theirs for getting involved with someone in a transaction when their counterparty didn't have any money!

And then there's this:

The Wall Street Journal, on A-1 (that'd be the top page) this morning is pointing out something much more uncomfortable - The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Chairman, who was sitting on Goldman Sachs' board, continued to serve after they converted to a bank holding company and was in fact buying their stock.

Things are completely out of control. The cheating continues unabated, and it won't stop until people demand it stops. When people get angry enough to care, it's going to get ugly!