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S&Ls -- The $1 Trillion Financial Meltdown:
Corrupt "Deregulation" and the Search for Accountability

This workshop will investigate the largest financial scandal in history. We will talk about white-collar criminals and their congressional allies, the collapse of federal deposit insurance, and the imminent danger to commercial banking, insurance, and your pension fund. We will explore how organized crime, the CIA, and the power elite profit from the restructuring of America's government-guaranteed financial institutions and loan programs. We will look at what happened when corruption became "business as usual"? The consequences could have been a catastrophic crash and depression.

The panel will propose solutions to these ongoing emergencies. Our focus will be on restoring accountability to the U.S. financial system, legal system, and political leadership. We will outline proposals for legislative reform, as well as citizen actions and involvement around the S&L bailout/affordable housing issue. We will suggest personal financial alternatives, and ways communities can prepare for the future.

• Tom Schlesinger, Director, Financial Democracy Campaign; Southern Finance Project, Charlotte, NC, which monitors the S&L crisis and lobbies in the interest of the ordinary citizen and taxpayer. The Campaign is a coalition of over 200 groups which won conditions to the S&L bill which set aside loan money for affordable housing.

• Curtis Lang is a freelance writer who is investigating the CIA-S&L connection for the Village Voice. Mr. Lang was co-founder of Houston City Magazine and has written for several business publications. He is collaborating on an upcoming book on the S&L crisis.

• Edmund Penkau, private investigator and president of Intertec, located in Houston, investigates insolvent S&L's using asset searches and searches of other computer records. He is co-authoring a book on S&L corruption and crisis with Curtis Lang. An expert in the area of white-collar crime, he believes much of the stolen money can be recovered.

• Pete Brewton, the Houston Post reporter who exposed the involvement of CIA and organized crime in the failure of several S&Ls in Texas and in other states.

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