Robert Reich on Power (by David Leonhardt, New York Times)
I received a thought-provoking e-mail message from Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, advised the Obama campaign and teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. Referring to my interview with President Obama in this Sunday’s issue of The New York Times Magazine, Mr. Reich writes: “Neither he nor you mentioned power — how concentrated it has become in our society as income and wealth have concentrated… [S]urely the huge financial supermarkets that are ‘too big to fail’ will flex their muscles and avoid the kind of Canadian regulation Obama looks to.”

Except that the banks are REDUCING their lobbying:
Recipients of Federal Funds Cut Down On Federal Lobbying (Capital Eye, OpenSecrets.org)
Although the lobbying industry doesn't seem to have taken a hit in the first three months of 2009 compared to the same time last year, recipients of cash from the federal government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) handed out less money to lobbyists than they had in any quarter of 2008. The Center for Responsive Politics has found that TARP recipients have spent $13.9 million on lobbying so far this year, compared to $20.2 million in January through March of last year and $17.8 million in the last three months of 2008.

Elizabeth Warren: Stress Tests Need To Be Transparent (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
Bailout watchdog Elizabeth Warren warns that the government stress tests of the nation's largest banks, which are set to be made public next week, will do nothing to improve the health of the banks without sufficient transparency. "If we don't see the details of the stress test, if we don't see the complete details of the stress test, there's a real possibility no one buys any of the outcomes," said Warren, who chairs the Congressional Oversight Panel, monitoring the Troubled Asset Relief Program…

Transparency, however, is just one component of the recovery process. Accountability, clarity and assertiveness were the other three measures that Warren said would determine whether the U.S. economic recovery would mirror Sweden's quick rebound or Japan's lost decade. To more closely resemble the former, Warren argued that investigations may have to be launched into whether criminal activity contributed to the financial system ending up in its current state… Warren [also] warned that the rise of compensation at some of the nation's largest financial institutions -- to levels similar to or greater than before the current crisis began -- threatened to tear the already fraying thread of public confidence in the financial sector.

Banking lobby successfully defeats mortgage cram-down provision. (Think Progress)
[Thursday], a proposal to change bankruptcy law and allow bankruptcy judges to cram-down mortgage payments for troubled homeowners failed in the Senate by a vote of 45-51. The provision, which was introduced as an amendment by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), required 60 votes to pass. In recent weeks, support for the measure evaporated in the face of furious lobbying by the banking and mortgage industries.

Top Senate Democrat: bankers "own" the U.S. Congress (by Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory, Salon)
Sen. Dick Durbin, on a local Chicago radio station this week, blurted out an obvious truth about Congress that, despite being blindingly obvious, is rarely spoken: "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." The blunt acknowledgment that the same banks that caused the financial crisis "own" the U.S. Congress -- according to one of that institution's most powerful members -- demonstrates just how extreme this institutional corruption is.
Durbin was one of the earliest cheerleaders for Obama to run for president. And he had to know that Obama is owned by the banks. Blurting out the truth here doesn’t excuse his own complicity in bank ownership of our country.—Caro

Nevertheless, we got SOMETHING:
House passes bill that favors credit card holders (McClatchy)
Responding to anger and frustration from consumers, and a push from President Barack Obama, the House of Representatives Thursday passed sweeping legislation aimed at shielding consumers from sudden credit card rate increases and providing other protections.

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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com