Not too big to fail in the Cayman Islands...

Via:

The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority has officially revoked the banking license of HSBC S.A. (Cayman Islands Branch).

In a press release dated Friday, 1 March, the authority said that since last July the said bank had been under investigation to establish whether they had breached any local laws and regulations.

“In the Decision notice of 27 February, the CIMA revoked the Category B Banking license."

Following Section 18 (1) ( i) of the Banks and Trust Companies Law (2009 Revision), CIMA concluded that HSBC was conducting business in a manner detrimental to the public interest, the interest of depositors or of the beneficiaries of any trust or other creditors and that the direction and management of its businesses has not been conducted in a fit and proper manner,” read the announcement.

In September of 2012, then premier McKeeeva Bush made known that "the local operations of HSBC would be investigated, in the wake of the issues surrounding HSBC Mexico, which was the subject of a US regulators investigation for laundering funds of sanctioned nations including Iran and Sudan."

“Needless to say, as a government we are extremely concerned about the potential impact this could have on our jurisdiction. The actions or lack thereof by the bank officials and alleged misuse of the Cayman entity can undermine the jurisdiction’s hard work and accomplishments in the AML (anti-money laundering) regime,” Bush said in the statement released last year.

A bank that breaks money laundering laws is shut down. What a novel idea.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson has been arrested in a group of protesting northern Illinois workers during an act of civil disobedience in Freeport.

Jackson was taken into custody Wednesday with about a dozen workers. He is expected to be released later in the day.

Sensata Technologies is owned by Bain Capital and in the process of moving its Freeport manufacturing operations to China. That'll cost Freeport 170 jobs.

WIFR:

Jackson spent most of the afternoon in "Bainport”, the make-shift campsite that's been home to Sensata employees and their supporters for the last 40 days. Things took a turn around 4:00 p.m. when Jackson and about a dozen workers decided to march onto company property, before being arrested by police.

You may remember the plant is scheduled to close the day before the election, because around 170 jobs are being relocated to China. Today, Jackson said workers were humiliated because they've had to rain their Chinese replacements. He says he hopes his arrest will get Sensata management to the negotiating table. He hoped to convince them to keep the plant open.

“When these workers lose their jobs, they lose their homes, they lose their cars. Their kids cannot stay in school, they lose their hope. We are fighting for the integrity of the American worker, we're fighting for an even playing field,” said Jackson.

Sensata emerged as a flashpoint in the controversy over Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s ties to Bain this summer, with the company’s employees pleading publicly with Romney to help save their jobs from being outsourced to China. Not only does Romney stand to profit from the outsourcing of these jobs to China through the stock he still owns in the company, his 2011 tax returns show that he got a huge tax break by moving Sensata stock to a charity organization he controls -- and that he continues to profit from Bain’s offshore holdings and tax avoidance strategies.

A caravan of about 50 former workers and supporters headed to the fire department where the people who were arrested are to be released.

With Election Day on the horizon, a Bain-owned company in Freeport, IL, is moving out equipment as it shuts down operations in the U.S. to ship 170 jobs overseas. On Monday, workers and community members blocked the loading dock for a second time to prevent equipment from being removed from the plant. Three community members -- including the daughter of a Sensata worker -- were arrested when they refused to move after the company called the police.

The company -- Sensata -- emerged as a flashpoint in the controversy over Romney’s ties to Bain this summer, with the company’s employees pleading publicly with Romney to help save their jobs from being outsourced to China. Not only does Romney stand to profit from the outsourcing of these jobs to China through the stock he still owns in the company, his 2011 tax returns show that he got a huge tax break by moving Sensata stock to a charity organization he controls -- and that he continues to profit from Bain’s offshore holdings and tax avoidance strategies.

Sensata workers are certainly not alone watching their jobs sail off to China, or to have wealthy American businessmen profit by investing in those companies:

NYT:

The tale of Asimco Technologies, an auto parts manufacturer whose plants dot eastern China, would seem to underscore Mitt Romney’s campaign-trail complaint that China’s manufacturing juggernaut is costing America jobs.

Nine years ago, the company bought two camshaft factories that employed about 500 people in Michigan. By 2007 both were shut down. Now Asimco manufactures the same components in China on government-donated land in a coastal region that China has designated an export base, where companies are eligible for the sort of subsidies Mr. Romney says create an unfair trade imbalance.

But there is a twist to the Asimco story that would not fit neatly into a Romney stump speech: Since 2010, it has been owned by Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Mr. Romney, who has as much as $2.25 million invested in three Bain funds with large stakes in Asimco and at least seven other Chinese businesses, according to his 2012 candidate financial disclosure and other documents.

“How is it China’s been so successful in taking away our jobs?” he(Romney) asked recently. “Well, let me tell you how: by cheating.”

That was Mitt Romney the candidate for president. Mitt Romney the millionaire, or is it billionaire --trust him, you'll never know for certain -- that Mitt Romney is calling the American people "suckers."

Some day I would like to see people who do everything they can to avoid paying taxes ostracized as the unpatriotic, selfish, leeches they are.

Ann Romney's comment last week on "Good Morning America" raised some eyebrows when she said Mitt wasn't going to release anymore of their tax returns to "you people". Watch as she explains what she really meant and why you people need to cut them some slack.

A parody from comedienne/impersonator Rosemary Watson.

An explosive article from Salon this week highlights the attitude of corporations that profits rule, above all else.

But what if that corporation is a for-profit health care company that values profits over the health and safety of its patients? You may say that's just how corporate America rolls in these times, and I'd have to agree. But now what if the corporation that owns the for-profit health care provider is Bain capital -- founded by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney -- reportedly sees about 1 death per year on average in its facilities due to neglect, abuse or the use of under-paid staff with inadequate training? And what if Mitt Romney, a man who is running for the highest office in our nation based on his business acumen, is also profiting from that health care provider?

"Corporations are people, my friends." No, no they're not. Also, their profits are absolutely not more important than the troubled teens who were sent for "treatment" at the Bain Capital owned CRC Health centers who didn't live to return home.

Via Salon.com:

When the morning staff arrived at 7 a.m., they discovered Brendan face down on the floor of the Purple Room, his body already stiff with rigor mortis. The state’s chief medical examiner later determined that Blum had died of a twisted-bowel infarction, which requires emergency surgical intervention.
...

The failure at Youth Care was not due simply to the carelessness of a few workers — a point underscored when a Utah court found that the threshold needed to pursue criminal negligence charges against the two monitors in 2008 wasn’t met and the charges were dismissed. And it wasn’t the only example of alleged negligence or abuse at treatment centers for adult addicts and “troubled teens” that are owned by Aspen’s parent company, CRC Health Group, according to a Salon investigation based on government reports, court filings and official complaints by parents and employees, along with interviews with former clients and staff.

...

Court documents and ex-staffers also allege that such incidents reflect, in part, a broader corporate culture at Aspen’s owner, CRC Health Group, a leading national chain of treatment centers. Lawsuits and critics have claimed that CRC prizes profits, and the avoidance of outside scrutiny, over the health and safety of its clients. (We sent specific questions on these basic allegations to CRC and owner Bain Capital. CRC would answer only general questions; Bain did not reply.)

And CRC’s corporate culture, in turn, reflects the attitudes and financial imperatives of Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Mitt Romney. (The Romney campaign also did not reply to written questions.) Bain is known for its relentless obsession with maximizing shareholder value and revenues. Indeed, this has become a talking point of late on the Romney campaign trail; he bragged to Fox in late May that “80 percent of them grew their revenues.” CRC, a fast-growing company then in the lucrative field of drug treatment, was perhaps a natural fit when Bain acquired it for $720 million in 2006. In conversations with staff and patients who spent time at CRC facilities since the takeover, there are suggestions that the Bain approach has had its effects. “If you look at their daily profit numbers compared to what they charge,” Dana Blum said of CRC’s Aspen division in 2009, “it’s obscene.” That point, ironically enough, was underscored by the glowing reports in the trade press about its profitability.

Also noteworthy, of the three Bain managing partners who sit on CRC’s board, two, John Connaughton and Steven Barnes, along with his wife, gave a total of half a million dollars to Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney. They also each donated the $2,500 maximum directly to his campaign.

I can't imagine the pain Brendan Blum's family must feel when they hear Mitt Romney droning on about profits, stock options, and tax shelters in the Caymans as they grieve in silence. They can no longer speak publicly about Brendan’s death, according to the terms of a settlement reached last year in a wrongful death lawsuit.