Call for Congressional Hearings into "Cyprus" Plans for U.S.

May 1, 2013 • 9:32AM

Martin Berg, editor of WheresOurMoney.org, called for full public hearings on the infamous December 2012 FDIC/BOE plan to "use your money to help fund the next bailout." Berg wrote in an opinion piece published on Huffington Post on April 29 under the title: "Latest D.C.-Wall Street Brainstorm: Bailouts With Your Bank Deposits." That is what was done in Cyprus, and that is what is to be done in the United States. "Inside the Washington-Wall Street bubble, it's not an 'if.' It's a 'when,'" Berg warns.

Berg urges Americans to call their Congressmen to demand "an end to publicly insured bank gambling," and identifies derivatives, "those pieces of paper, unconnected to any physical assets, that created the house of cards that collapsed back in 2008 because nobody could figure out what the derivatives were worth. Why not just let banks that engage in derivatives and loose speculators fold?"

While Berg gives undue credit to "breaking up the banks" schemes, he recognizes that what is most needed is "the re-imposition of a modern-day version of the Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era law that barred banks from mixing in other financial businesses that place depositors' money at risk. Its repeal in 1999 led directly to the 2008 meltdown. In the updated Glass-Steagall, federally insured banks should be barred from gambling in derivatives or other complicated investments," Berg wrote.