"Old Mass. grudge may have been factor in Bulger’s slaying" by Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy Globe Staff November 01, 2018
It’s unclear whether US Bureau of Prisons officials who made the decision to transfer James “Whitey” Bulger, the infamous octogenarian Boston gangster, to the US Penitentiary Hazelton and place him in the prison’s general population, despite a recent spate of violence there and complaints of chronic understaffing, were aware that people who know Fotios “Freddy” Geas say he hated informants and, as a longtime informant for the FBI, Bulger would have earned his animus, but Geas believed that Bulger had helped frame one of his friends for murder.
Because Bureau of Prisons officials have refused to answer questions about Bulger’s murder, it remains unclear why the presence in Hazelton’s general population of Geas and at least one other Massachusetts organized crime figure, Paul Weadick, didn’t set off alarm bells that this was not a safe place for the elderly hood.....
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It's the talk of the town and in all the bars.
I'm told ‘Whitey’ cemented Boston’s racist image and that justice was served.
Now that they have their ducks in a row the parade began, and as the triumphant tour rolled through and the music blared nonstop, they all get ‘shit-faced’ while spraying champagne and throwing beer cans.
Gonzalez gets praise, flak for time as budget chief
Charlie Baker says he’s been tough on Trump
I missed the first gubernatorial debate, sorry. The race is just not gaining any traction with me because I feel frozen out by the poll.
All I know is Baker kept his promise not to raise taxes while Gonzalez wants to raise taxes to help fix the state’s ailments. Baker has been a good governor, but not a great one -- or so I'm told.
Baker proposes $5m pilot program to coordinate police response to fentanyl
It is a homeland security problem that may well win him reelection.
Law enforcement group wants outside review of State Police
That will be for others to decide in a dual forum.
He needs to keep moving and stay on the campaign trail.
He is also in your Facebook feed, and even has a follower.
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The National lead is the Sayoc Puppet:
"Bomb suspect planned his campaign for months, new court papers say" by Alan Feuer and William K. Rashbaum New York Times October 31, 2018
NEW YORK — After an intense, nationwide manhunt, the suspect, Cesar A. Sayoc Jr., an ardent fan of President Trump, was taken into custody on Friday in a parking lot in Plantation, Fla., near a white van in which he had apparently been living.
He was parking it down by the river.
The van, which has been seized by the authorities, was plastered with pro-Trump stickers, some of which depicted Sayoc’s intended victims, including former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, marked with red rifle crosshairs.
How subtle.
The bomb campaign started mysteriously on Oct. 22, when the first device was found at the home of George Soros, a billionaire Democratic donor, in a suburb north of New York City. The discovery of explosive devices continued in a rolling wave through the week, sowing fear and discord across the country just ahead of the coming midterm elections.
Nothing mysterious about it. It's Deep State/Democrat desperation at the red riptide.
Related:
"The far-right Proud Boys and their founder, Gavin McInnes, have been banned from Facebook and Instagram because of policies against hate groups, the company announced. McInnes criticized the ban in an e-mail Wednesday, saying it was a way to drum up ‘‘hysteria’’ prior to the midterm elections next week. ‘‘The left knows they are going to lose this election so they are ramping up the hysteria with fake news and censorship in a last ditch effort to win,’’ he said. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the all-male Proud Boys a hate group, but the Proud Boys reject the label and describe themselves as ‘‘Western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.’’
Also see:
Stable premiums, more options as health law signups begin
It is the Democrats top issue, and the Republicans and Trump are running it better than Obama!
Prosecutors said at least 15 devices had been found so far — all of them in similar manila envelopes and with printed labels bearing the misspelled name and return address of US Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida.
The devices were mailed to some of Trump’s most vocal critics and those who have been targets of his ire, including former Vice President Joe Biden; former Attorney General Eric Holder; John O. Brennan, a former CIA director; and actor Robert De Niro. Federal officials have said that a fingerprint on one package, addressed to US Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, led them to Sayoc.
He has denied playing any role in the bombing campaign, a law enforcement official said.
Two central questions regarding the devices remained unanswered five days after Sayoc’s arrest. Were they constructed in a way that would allow them to detonate on their own? And, if not, was that because Sayoc lacked skills as a bomb maker or because the devices were intended only to sow terror and division?
And CUI BONO?
The new court papers reiterated what the authorities have already said: that the bombs, while crudely fashioned, were in fact dangerous. Prosecutors noted that many of them contained “energetic material with explosive qualities” and that others were also packed with shards of glass “intended to maximize harm.”
But with no trigger mechanism or source material for explosion. Minor detail.
The papers also indicated that Sayoc started hatching his campaign during the summer. On July 26, the papers said, he created a file on his laptop titled “Debbie W.docx,” which contained several copies of Wasserman Schultz’s address in Sunrise, Fla., that eventually appeared on the envelopes. Other laptop files, created Sept. 22, were used to print the mailing labels on the packages delivered to Sayoc’s victims, the papers said.
Oh, so all the stuff was collected by the NSA.
Prosecutors added that Internet records found on Sayoc’s laptop showed it had been used for months to conduct chilling research on several of his targets and their families. On July 15, the papers said, Sayoc searched for the words “hilary Clinton hime address.” Two months later, he searched for the words “address for barack Obama.”
There were further searches, the papers said, for “eric holder wife and kids” and “john brennan wife and kids.”
Sayoc also sent several threatening Facebook messages in April to US Representative Beto O’Rourke, a Texas Democrat running for the Senate, said his campaign spokesman, Chris Evans. Evans said the campaign reported the threats to the Capitol Police and then turned them over to the FBI.
On Sayoc’s phone, investigators also found photos downloaded from the Internet of Soros, what appeared to be Obama’s home, and a driver’s license belonging to Michelle Obama, the former first lady.....
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Synagogue just a pair of photos today, no print.
"A St. Louis day care center is under fire after a video surfaced showing preschoolers punching each other in what appeared to be a fight club organized by teachers. KTVI-TV obtained video taken at Adventure Learning Center in December 2016. It shows small boys wearing oversized green Incredible Hulk fists punching each other, including in the head. At one point, a teacher jumps up in apparent excitement. The only person seen trying to break up a fight is another preschooler. Police and state inspectors investigated. Both teachers were fired but no charges were filed and the center was allowed to remain open. The mothers of two of the children are suing. The case goes to trial in December. Phone calls Wednesday to Adventure Learning Center went unanswered......"
New York Bishop Is Accused of Sexual Abuse
Also see:
D.C.’s attorney general opens probe into sexual abuse by Catholic clergy
Virginia attorney general opens investigation into possible child sex abuse and coverup in the Catholic Church
How odd that soon after a bunch of files went missing.
Pope removes Memphis bishop after an investigation
Issue of married Catholic priests gains traction under pope
They say more than a dozen men in four European countries who are either living clandestinely with women, have created their own unsanctioned church communities where married priests preside at Mass, or left the Catholic priesthood altogether to marry, and that he celibate priesthood has been a tradition of the Latin rite Catholic Church since the 11th century.
What they are not telling you is the celibacy clause was adopted because the Church was going broke paying for all the illegitimate children that local officials were siring.
Some portraits will have to be removed even as they integrate.
Historic Wakefield church will be torn down after devastating fire
The parishioners are moving forward and are resolute even as the church’s future is in doubt.
It's like a castle to them, and the rebuilding is going to be tricky.
Oh, my, look at the time, and I've got a train to catch!
Trump says he might deploy up to 15,000 troops at border
The Globe gives you a 14th Amendment primer.
ADL chief calls for lawmaker Steve King to be censured
A buried brief, too.
Maybe he is right.
Oprah will campaign for would-be Georgia governor
There will be no need for a vote because her opponent has already resigned.
William proposed. Sandra said no. They reunited on the Supreme Court.
She can't even remember it and left him waiting for hours while leading him on.
"US archivists release Watergate report; Long-sealed document could provide a road map for Mueller" by Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post November 01, 2018
WASHINGTON — US archivists on Wednesday revealed one of the last great secrets of the Watergate investigation: the backbone of a long-sealed report used by prosecutor Leon Jaworski to send Congress the evidence that led to the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.
The release of the 1974 impeachment referral came after a former member of Nixon’s defense team and three prominent legal analysts filed separate lawsuits seeking its release from grand jury secrecy rules. The legal analysts argued that the report could offer a precedent and guide for special counsel Robert Mueller as his office addresses its present-day challenge on whether, and if so, how to make public findings from its investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 election, including any that directly involve President Trump.
The legal specialists said they and Watergate veterans sought the release of the Jaworski report after more than four decades of secrecy because of the historic parallels they see to the current probe and the report’s potential to serve as a counterexample to the independent counsel Ken Starr’s report seeking president Bill Clinton’s impeachment.
The 453-page Starr report, written in 1998, deepened partisan divisions when its graphic detail and legal conclusions about Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky were immediately made public by House Republicans, who suffered an electoral backlash. By contrast, the reputation of Jaworski’s report has fared far better, even as its bare-bones form remained a mystery.
While much of the report’s substance — including evidence of the Nixon campaign’s funding of the break-in of Democratic National Committee headquarters and the president’s role in the subsequent coverup — has long been public, its structure and potential to serve as a template for others remained under seal.
Stephen Bates, a Las Vegas professor who cowrote the Starr report with now-Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and other members of Starr’s team, said as a Starr prosecutor in 1997, he learned that despite the potential for the road map to present a legal model for future investigations, such as Mueller’s, it was not publicly available when he asked the National Archives for a copy to study.
‘‘It is one of the only precedents of a report that has had to go through that kind of process [under grand jury secrecy rules] to get to the House for consideration as grounds for impeachment,’’ Bates said in an interview. ‘‘If Mueller could say, ‘We have structured this report the way Leon Jaworski did in 1974, and Judge Sirica approved it,’ that might be persuasive in this case.’’
????!!!!!
Wouldn't the alleged evidence -- if any -- be persuasive enough?
Jaworski needed then-Chief US District Judge John J. Sirica’s approval to send materials to Congress because they were covered under federal grand jury secrecy rules under a process overseen by the judge.
Jaworski faced a problem similar to one that may confront Mueller today: He had relevant evidence but not, he concluded, the constitutional authority to indict a sitting president. Congress had the authority to impeach Nixon, but not the evidence. In the end, the House committee sought access to evidence gathered by prosecutors, the grand jury adopted the road map, and Sirica and the US Circuit Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia authorized its transmittal under seal.....
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The roadmap is for you, and you know where to stay overnight.
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Turkish prosecutor says Saudi dissident was strangled
The killing of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi has significantly raised tensions between Saudi Arabia and Turkey as the U.S. and Britain seek a cease-fire in Yemen.
The question is, will the ‘a cry for help’ be answered?
Pakistani Christian woman who faced death penalty for blasphemy is acquitted by high court after 8 years on death row
She has been offered asylum in Austria.
Looks like coverage of the Indonesian plane crash is drying up, and look who wants to question Zuckerberg:
"Two Ontario women have been charged in as many weeks with a crime that would not seem out of place in 17th-century Massachusetts: posing as a witch. The first is Dorie ‘‘Madeena’’ Stevenson, a 32-year-old fortune teller in the city of Milton, who police allege swindled $60,000 out of one of her clients as the owner of Milton Psychic. On the website for her business, nearly a dozen ‘‘accurate, in-depth, amazing’’ psychic readings are on offer. The second woman is 27-year-old Samantha Stevenson from Toronto, who police claim bilked a 67-year-old man out of $600,000 in a so-called ‘‘evil blessing scam.’’ Police say she promised to ward off evil spirits if he sold his house and transferred the money into her bank account until the spirit removal was complete. It was never returned. The women were charged under section 365 of Canada’s criminal code, which deals with the crime of ‘‘pretending to practice witchcraft.’’
Well, they did put a $pell on them.
The next war will be in the north:
"‘Cold War’ takes new meaning for US Marines at a NATO exercise" by Helene Cooper November 01, 2018
ABOARD THE USS IWO JIMA, on the Norwegian Sea — Hovering over the Trident Juncture exercise in Norway and among the roughly 15,000 US troops — most of them Marines — who are participating, is a consuming narrative about the alliance’s next possible war.
The next, more immediate adversary is closer to northern Europe: Russia.
No thanks.
The country’s president, Vladimir Putin, has made no secret of his distaste for the Atlantic alliance’s encroachment into territory he considers part of his sphere of influence — particularly in the Baltics and in the Balkans, and since Moscow seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Western officials have worried that NATO states could be next.
Well, Moscow didn't seize it so, you know, “false in one matter, distrust and reject the rest.”
Btw, why haven't any other women come forward since?
Warfare in northern Europe is entirely different. It requires attention to small details, like carrying cold-weather lubricant for machine guns, as well as to seismic decisions, like moving thousands of men and women, and their heavy machinery and weapons, across fields packed with snow — something US troops have not had to worry much about for more than a half-century.
It's what turned the war against the Nazis.
Unprovoked, the Atlantic alliance does not plan to attack Russia. Still, Eastern European members of the group worry that Putin will, at some point, challenge its collective defense compact, which holds that an attack on one ally is an attack on all.
This year, President Trump questioned the compact, putting the Atlantic alliance on the spot and potentially weakening its backbone.
The premise of the 2018 Trident Juncture exercise is that Norway has been invaded by hostile “South Forces.” For the purpose of the war game, the enemy invaders are being played mostly by Italian, German, Dutch, and British troops.
Coming to the rescue are the “North Forces” representing NATO — US Marines and brigades of soldiers from Norway, Sweden, and Canada.
Related:
"The rustling of a gum wrapper at a performance of the symphony last week in the Swedish city of Malmo brought a section of the audience back down to earth, and brought several concertgoers to blows....."
Other patrons intervened, establishing a cease-fire and thus saving the crown jewels.
Last month, only days after Hurricane Florence tore through much of the Southeast, the Marines and 1,500 members of the Navy left Norfolk, Va., aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima. They weathered choppy seas and frigid winds for 10 days on the Atlantic Ocean before arriving in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Who remembers Florence now?
The Marines aboard the ship had prepared to practice an attack in Reykjavik before the Trident Juncture exercise in Norway, but had to cancel.
“Sea conditions were too rough,” Admiral James G. Foggo III, the head of the Allied Joint Force Command based in Naples, Italy, said Monday. “It’s an exercise, not a war, and we decided to hold off because we didn’t want to swamp the vehicles.”
Great.
Let's hope an actual war doesn't break out, 'eh?
Especially with Italy as an ally.
Their track record in World Wars isn't very good.
Officials said the alliance wants to display its ability to mount a full-scale response to an invasion of an ally from multiple locations within 30 days.
Russia has certainly taken note, as Moscow has sent official observers to watch the exercise. US officials said Russians had also rented farms in the Norwegian countryside for some unauthorized snooping on the alliance’s military tactics, and Russian officials said they know the exercise is aimed at them.
For all the show of force, the troops have been running into trouble with the cold weather.
Two Italian soldiers ended up with hypothermia on Sunday after spending the night in below-freezing temperatures.
Captain Joseph O’Brien, the commanding officer of the Iwo Jima, found himself suddenly tending to the heaters on his ship — just back from five months off the coast of Djibouti — to ensure they still worked, and Corporal Jeremy Seabridge, a Marine rifleman, said he was focused on making sure his troops changed their socks regularly to prevent trench foot, caused by prolonged exposure to the cold.....
What kind of boot are they wearing?
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Turns out “a lot of them are from southern states and haven’t fought in the cold in a long time.”
UPDATE:
"One month after Russia launched its biggest-ever military exercise with 300,000 soldiers, its main rival to the west returned the favor on Thursday. About 50,000 troops will participate in the two-week long Trident Juncture NATO drill in and around Norway. Besides the 29 member states, troops from non-NATO countries Finland and Sweden were also invited to join. While officials have been careful to emphasize that they are defending Norway’s sovereignty against a ‘‘fictitious aggressor,’’ Russia has voiced anger with the exercise. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has described the drills as ‘‘saber-rattling.’’ NATO counters, however, that recent aggressions have mainly originated in Moscow. Russia and EU member states have traded accusations over airspace violations and military buildups in Eastern Europe. Despite the verbal attacks, however, those fears have so far not materialized. Trump has supported some NATO-led efforts to strengthen the alliance, but....."
WWIII will begin in Montenegro.
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Unpredictable governor’s race dubbed a ‘full Rhode Island’
The Globe endorsed Raimondo and hopes she will be dancing on election night while her opponents mourn.
Current, former Springfield police officers indicted for alleged attack on Latino boys
That was the result of the federal probe?
Murder charges against 6 dropped in Plymouth County
That could really effect the DA’s race!
Police investigate hateful graffiti at South Boston elementary school
East Boston school honored with Payzant prize for academic achievement
Halloween cheer for the smallest Beth Israel patients
They were visited by Naomi Watts.
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New tool helps stand guard against fake news
And yet there it is on the newsstand every day.
"US workers see fastest wage increase in a decade" by Heather Long Washington Post October 31, 2018
WASHINGTON — US workers are seeing the largest nominal wage increase in a decade, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.
Sluggish pay growth has been one of the biggest problems in this recovery, but employers are finally having to hike wages at a more normal level typically seen during good economic times. Unemployment is at a 49-year low and there are more job openings than unemployed Americans, which forces companies to fight for available workers.
Just as the whole thing is about to collapse and send us further into the Grand Depression.
‘‘Wages are grinding higher as the labor market continues to tighten,’’ said Justin Weidner, an economist at Deutsche Bank. ‘‘Wage growth is likely to be over 3 percent again soon.’’
Still have a long way to go to match the consistent 20% profit returns over the last several quarters, and did you know billionaires made more money in 2017 than any other year in history?
On Friday, the Labor Department will release the other most-watched wage metric: average hourly earnings. Many economists expect that will be above 3 percent for the first time since April 2009.
‘‘How hot is the labor market? Hot enough for employers to pony up some more cash to get workers to come work for them,’’ wrote Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank, in a note to clients.
And that is the meat of it, shall we say?
As Americans head to the polls for the midterm elections next week, consumer confidence is at the highest level since 2000, largely because people feel that job opportunities are plentiful, the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Survey showed Tuesday.....
And yet it will still not help the Republicans, as ‘‘putting food on the table is still a constant struggle.’’
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Related(?):
Cambridge biotech Tango signs $50m deal with drug giant Gilead
Plenty of money out there if you know where to look.
Thermo Fisher said to plan sale of pathology unit
It could fetch them about $1 billion.
Could buy a new car with that:
"Despite signs of decline in the auto market, General Motors is flourishing, reporting a 25 percent jump in income for the third quarter, boosted by higher-priced domestic truck and SUV sales in North America and China. GM’s income came in at a record $3.2 billion. Since 2009, global car sales have surged an average of 5 percent per year, Fortune recently reported, but GM has largely managed to dodge the quagmires of trade and manufacturing that have hurt some of its competitors and GM performed well thanks to better sales of higher-end cars....."
It's all about the luxury now, as GM is set on evolving to hang onto its status as an industry powerhouse.
Unlike these guys:
GE credit rating cut by Moody’s as power unit’s woes deepen
They are three steps over junk.
How long will it take until they reach it?
Athenahealth is near deal with Veritas Capital, Elliott
In June, Athenahealth chief executive Jonathan Bush stepped down following allegations of misconduct. At the time, the company said it would also explore a sale or merger and would start looking for a CEO. Former General Electric Corp. CEO Jeffrey Immelt took on the role of executive chairman at Athenahealth when Bush, a cousin of former president George W. Bush, left.
Doesn't that just melt your heart?
Or did it scare you?
What you should be frightened about, and yet it is far back in the C section, pages C2 and C4:
"Trump’s debt sales top crisis-era levels even as economy revs up" by Saleha Mohsin and Liz Capo McCormick Bloomberg News October 31, 2018
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s debt sales will surpass levels last seen when the United States was digging out of its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The difference is, this time the economy is booming.
A ballooning budget shortfall — fueled by tax cuts, spending hikes, and an aging population — is driving the US Treasury to raise its long-term debt issuance at its quarterly refunding auctions to $83 billion from $78 billion three months earlier, the department said Wednesday.
The need for the Treasury to raise auction sizes for a fourth straight quarter is also partially driven by the Federal Reserve’s decision not to replace some of its Treasury holdings when they mature as it winds down crisis-era stimulus measures. The debt issuance at this quarterly refunding beats the previous record of $81 billion first set by former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in 2009 when the United States was recovering from the Great Recession.
That means they artificially kept asset and stock prices high by printing money and purchasing lots of junk.
This time borrowing is surging as the economy hums along at a 3.5 percent annual growth rate and unemployment is near a half-century low. The Treasury release may draw more attention to rising federal deficits less than a week before midterm elections that will determine whether Republicans maintain control of Congress. Trump frequently criticized his Democratic predecessor for running up the budget deficit, and in 2012 recommended banning lawmakers from reelection if Congress couldn’t balance the budget. Waning support for US government debt from the Fed, combined with Trump’s deficit-spending policies, are weighing on the debt load that he inherited from Barack Obama.
In Trump’s first full fiscal year, the US budget deficit grew to $779 billion, the highest level since 2012, despite having an economy which Trump budget director Mick Mulvaney last week called a “Goldilocks moment” of low unemployment and contained price growth.
The Treasury Department has also highlighted the need to sell more debt as the Fed allows its $4.2 trillion balance sheet to slowly shrink. While some analysts are raising concerns over demand for Treasuries as more debt is issued, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has dismissed worries.
“The market has handled the supply very well,” Mnuchin said earlier this month, adding that demand for US government bonds remains strong.
That's because U.S. taxpayers are on the hook.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecasts the budget gap will reach $973 billion in fiscal 2019 and exceed $1 trillion the next year. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicts the deficit will reach $1 trillion and $1.125 trillion respectively.
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It could be even more if the banks need another bailout:
"Fed proposes easing capital rules, testing of some big banks" by Marcy Gordon Associated Press October 31, 2018
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve is proposing to ease requirements for holding capital and cash for US banks that are big, but not as big as the Wall Street mega-banks.
The Fed’s proposal issued Wednesday is the latest move by federal regulators to relax government oversight of financial firms in line with President Trump’s objectives.
The Fed governors, by a 3-1 vote, put out the proposals for public comment. They also are looking to ease the schedule for the agency’s ‘‘stress tests’’ for banks, based on their size and risk.
Fed officials are aiming to relax rules implemented under the 2010 law enacted in response to the financial crisis that pushed the economy into the Great Recession.
Fed governor Lael Brainard, the only Federal Reserve board member not appointed by Trump, was the dissenting vote. She warned that the moves would raise the risk of another taxpayer bailout of big banks.
Then Dodd-Frank was a failure, wasn't it?
A new law enacted in May dismantled a chunk of the Dodd-Frank rules framework for banks installed to prevent a recurrence of the 2008 crisis. The Republican-led legislation was aimed at helping small and medium-sized banks, including community banks and credit unions. It multiplied by five — to $250 billion — the level of assets at which banks are deemed so big that if one were to fail it would create major havoc. Those banks are subject to stricter capital and planning requirements.
The new law meant that regulations and oversight were eased on more than two dozen financial institutions with assets between $100 billion and $250 billion, including BB&T Corp., SunTrust Banks, Fifth Third Bancorp, and American Express.
Randal Quarles, the Fed’s vice chairman for supervision and the chief architect of the proposals, said they follow an important principle: that the level of regulation of a bank should match its characteristics.
Generally, he said, US banks with assets between $100 billion to $250 billion don’t show ‘‘meaningful levels’’ of complexity and tight connection with the financial system.
A capital buffer is designed to cushion the shock to a bank of unexpected losses. Capital is long-term money that a bank can draw on to make loans; it comes mostly from the bank’s shareholders and profits it keeps.
The stress tests assess whether a bank has a big enough capital buffer to survive an economic shock and keep on lending.
The 2010 Dodd-Frank law was enacted by former president Barack Obama and the Democrats who then controlled Congress. It aimed to restrain banks, which received hundreds of millions in taxpayer bailouts, from the kind of reckless practices that many blamed for the crisis.
They really cleaned that up, huh?
What they did was bundle insecure mortgages and other collateralized debt and sell them, knowing they would fail, while at the same time betting against them and then fraudulently foreclosing on properties to fix the balance sheets.
Trump and Republican lawmakers have argued that the stricter regulations have constrained lending and economic growth.
The new Fed proposals also would modify the so-called ‘‘liquidity’’ requirements for big banks to hold enough cash, government bonds, and other high-quality assets to fund operations for three to four weeks during a time of financial distress. The idea is to help ensure that a bank’s cash resources — not taxpayers’ money — would provide the needed support for it to withstand stress.
The proposed change would eliminate liquidity requirements for most banks with $100 billion to $250 billion in assets.
At the other end of the scale, the proposals would keep the current requirements for capital, liquidity, and stress testing for mega-banks with $700 billion or more in assets, the Wall Street powerhouses deemed so big and interwoven with the financial system that each could threaten its stability if it failed. They include JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Citigroup.....
What Eric Holder infamously called "too big to jail."
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Also see: Stocks rally again, but end Oct. with steep losses
