[Executive summary] “The proposed Release contains a broad release of the banks’ conduct related to mortgage loan servicing, foreclosure preparation, and mortgage loan origination services. Claims based on these areas of past conduct by the banks cannot be brought by state attorneys general or banking regulators.”

http://tinyurl.com/6wt6jp7

Occupy Harvard Occupies Lamont Library

The group plans to hold study breaks, film screenings, knowledge shares, and facilitated discussions about many issues including access to higher education, the ongoing privatization of the university, and Harvard’s role in facilitating neo-liberalism worldwide. Topics for upcoming discussions include: “The role of knowledge in promoting social equality and social justice,” and “What is a library? What does the library of the future look like?” The group intends to maintain a presence in the cafe until 10:00pm on Friday February 17th.

The Occupation of the Library coincides with a larger campus debate about plans for restructuring the Harvard library system. In a letter sent to the Harvard community last week, President Drew Faust wrote, “We are moving into an exciting yet uncharted new world of digital information in which experiments and innovations are constant and necessary, yet their outcomes not always predictable.”

Such vague statements from the administration about restructuring the library have provoked serious concerns about the human and academic cost.

http://tinyurl.com/8ygb8ks

Harvard Occupiers Protest Library Staff Cuts

Shortly after 11 A.M. Monday, the Lamont Occupiers were informed by a library administrator that their signs-which they regard as protected speech-violated a policy against the hanging of signs in library buildings. They were told that although the policy is unwritten, it is widely known. Members of the Harvard University Police department then removed the signs as the Occupiers videotaped the event.

http://tinyurl.com/83k6b48

Banking Wasn’t Meant to Be Like This

The process that began with central bank support thus has turned into broad government guarantees against bank insolvency. The largest banks have made so many reckless loans that they have become wards of the state. Yet they have become powerful enough to capture lawmakers to act as their facilitators. The popular media and even academic economic theorists have been mobilized to pose as experts in an attempt to convince the public that financial policy is best left to technocrats – of the banks’ own choosing, as if there is no alternative policy but for governments to subsidize a financial free lunch and crown bankers as society’s rulers.

The Bubble Economy and its austerity aftermath could not have occurred without the banking sector’s success in weakening public regulation, capturing national treasuries and even disabling law enforcement.

http://tinyurl.com/7not24r