USAWatchdog January 20 2013
William Black is both a Professor of Law and Economics. He has a wealth of opinions on the politics of spying and Wall Street crime. On President Obama’s curtailing of NSA spying, Professor Black says, “It is only because of Snowden’s disclosures that we know more, and we have this debate . . . The NSA probably intercepts 50,000 documents for every one document that foreign intelligent services collect. So, we are the story internationally. . . . It turns out we were not just spying on terrorists, we were spying on the general population of the world.
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We used the intelligence we were gathering against journalists to try to discourage whistleblowers from coming forward.” As far as President Obama’s recent curtailment of NSA spying, Professor Black says, “It really tells you the politics of the thing. They decided they had to do something politically to curtail this because they are getting terrible publicity, and they’re getting terrible publicity not just in the United States. . . . This turned into disaster in terms of public relations for the United States and in terms of diplomatic relations.”
Professor Black is a former financial regulator and an expert in white collar crime. What does the Professor think about the trouble JP Morgan Chase has been in over things such as the so-called London Whale trading losses, the selling of tainted mortgage bonds and being a conduit for convicted fraudster Bernie Madoff? Just these three legal debacles alone have cost the bank nearly $23 billion in fines, restitution and trading losses in the last year. Professor Black says, “CEO Jamie Dimon has presided over the largest financial crime spree in world history. . . . It depends on how you count it, but it is more than a dozen, and more in the range of 15 major felonies that either the United States investigators have found, state investigators have found or foreign governments have found.” The Professor goes on to say, “JP Morgan’s frauds are epic in scale, unprecedented in world history. . . in these $23 billion we’re talking about, these are frauds that made Jamie Dimon and other senior officers incredibly wealthy by creating fictional income that led to very real bonuses.”
But, it’s not just JP Morgan. According to Professor Black, the entire financial system is headed for an even bigger collapse. As a major warning sign, Professor Black points to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew’s complaint about no money for regulation in the recent budget deal. Professor Black says, “Jack Lew is the anti-canary in the coal mine because Lew has been gutting regulation for virtually all of his professional life. . . . Lew is saying, my God we’ve gone so far we’re going to cause the collapse of the system. . . . You know when Jack Lew keels over, you know that carbon monoxide has already killed everybody reasonable.” Professor Black goes on to say, “The system is ungovernable . . . It has already largely imploded.” Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Professor William Black, who recently updated and re-released his popular book “The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One.”