It takes a brave man to stand up and tell the truth in these times. Independent journalists in Tripoli are being threatened with death by CNN journalists. In particular they do not want them to tell the public that NATO is helping Al Qaeda in Libya. I would like to take a step beyond bravery to offer a prediction in the form of a Post Mortem on the demise of JP Morgan.
I will flatly predict that if there is neither a military coup nor a revolution, JP Morgan Chase will most likely become a government operation as did General Motors which is now popularly called Government Motors.
JP Morgan has been called the Treasury of the United States. It is true that the official depository of the US Treasury is the New York Federal Reserve bank. Tim Geithner whose father was a Director of the Asia program at the Ford Foundation studied Mandarin Chinese in Beijing. His first job was working for Kissinger Associates. He later worked at the Clinton Treasury where he and Larry Summers (Samuelson) were proteges of former Goldman Sachs CEO Robert Rubin. Before becoming Treasury Secretary he was President of the New York Federal Reserve bank.
I have written often of the billions of dollars stolen each week from federal spending because the taxpayers are not allowed to audit the books. On 9-10-2001 Donald Rumsfeld announced that neither he nor his Comptroller rabbi Dov Zakheim could trace 2.3 trillion dollars in Pentagon spending. On 9-11-2001 what was alleged to have been Flight 77 was on a flight path taking it straight towards the top Pentagon brass when it made a difficult 270 degree turn and hit the auditors who were trying to find the missing trillions.
The point I want you to remember above all else about the New York Federal Reserve bank, the US Treasury’s official depository, is that all of the tens of trillions of dollars that have been stolen from the federal government had to go through the NY Fed before it went missing. That means any NY Fed President including Timothy Geithner must be considered a prime suspect in any missing taxpayer money. Keep that in mind as our Post Mortem continues.
JP Morgan Chase is often called the unofficial US Treasury because of its control over interest rates. As I have said before, a derivative is a bet on the future value of a bond or a commodity like gold or oil. JP Morgan has 80 trillion dollars in bets on interest rates. JP Morgue earned its name because it has a total of 92 trillion dollars in bets made in the futures derivative market. If interest rates go up, JP Morgan will be instantly way beyond bankrupt. Do not worry. Treasury Secretary Geithner will just give a special feed to Obama’s teleprompter saying the taxpayers will just have to suck it up and accept the cancellation of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, extended unemployment benefits and Food Stamps while taxes will have to be tripled. But do not lose sleep fretting that we will cut defense spending. There will be no defense cuts with the exceptions of retiree pay and health care for the wounded. We will not cut spending on any of the 6,7 or 8 wars we are currently fighting.
Even if we assume JP Morgue has all the assets it claims, the Morgue has $2,000 in risk for every one dollar in capital. That is well beyond insane. We can only conclude that the people who own the Morgue do not worry about the consequences to their actions because they think they own the government and you.
Enter Hugo Chavez demanding the return of his 211 tons of gold. This has sent both gold and silver higher though there was a slight dip for Options Expirations . If JP Morgue returned their share of Hugo’s Chavez’s gold, they would at best have none of the 10.6 tons they claim to have in their vaults. At worst they would be either buying gold at spot prices or raiding Fort Knox. As I explained in a previous post, the US and UK governments lease their gold to JP Morgue and other banks. But all the banks are supposed to get is a piece of paper and not the bullion. This paper shows up as gold on the bank’s balance sheet. This paper gold is sold five or more times so it appears there is a lot of gold out there until someone like Chavez asks for real gold bullion and no paper. Mr Chavez started a gold run.
JP Morgan works with the US Plunge Protection Team. Every morning the Treasury has a conference call with Morgan and 26 other big banks and brokerages dictating what will happen in the markets later that day. JP Morgan has the special responsibility of keeping the price of silver down so the dollar looks good in order to keep the scam known as the US Federal Reserve going. A few weeks ago I saw a video of a paper silver transaction with a potential loss of ten billion dollars which was equal to one third of the total physical silver for the entire year. Any of these losses will be picked up by the Federal Reserve at the Discount window. All these daily losses will be paid for by you when the inflates away their mistakes. By the way, that video was pulled off YouTube.
Catherine Austin Fitts has called this the Slow Burn. She has documented the stealing of tens of trillions of dollars by the banks from the rest of us. The banks need to keep this daily theft of your tax money, your pensions, your savings and your wages going day in and day out until you have nothing left. The Slow Burn takes a long time to complete but when it is over everything you had including your savings, your pension, your wages and even your home will belong to the banks. Think you made your last payment on your mortgage. You still owe the Internal Revenue Service for any bill they send your way. The IRS is a combination tax collector and Gestapo agent for the New York banks.
Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) use leased gold, paper silver and gold derivatives and a little bit of bullion to simulate the price of gold and silver. HSBC runs the GLD ETF and JP Morgan runs SLV. Enter UBS the Swiss bank which until recently had predicted silver would go back down to $30 an ounce. They just recently said silver will rise to $50 an ounce. Peter Schiff has said that when, not if, silver goes to $50 an ounce, all those people shorting silver will have to cover their short positions. This will drive up the price of silver to $75 or an even $100. This and the Hugo Chavez gold run will severely squeeze JP Morgue over the next three months. There is more gold for investors to buy than there is silver. Big time investors are moving into silver because it is a smaller market and easier to push to higher prices. Investors are putting as much money into silver as gold. This will drive the price of silver higher.
The Pan Asian Metals Exchange is 10% owned by the Rothschilds. All those futures derivatives for August expire on Thursday. The Pan Asian Metals Exchange will join US authorities saying in raising margin requirements on gold and silver. That plus heavy paper sales of gold and silver have combined to drive gold well below the recent $1,900 high. Bob Chapman expects gold and silver markets to rebound on Thursday after August Options Expirations are over. Raising margin requirements is counter productive in the long run because it just drives real investors out of paper ETFs and futures into bullion. This forces them to join everyone fleeing counter party risk to take delivery of physical bullion. It is that run for the physical gold and silver that is threatening JP Morgan and the ETFs. Chavez is a prime exemplar of a counter party risk. If your money or gold or silver is in a bank like Chavez’s, then you never know if you will ever get your money back. This has created a run for gold and silver. Jeff Christian said in testimony before the CFTC that there is 50 to 100 ounces of paper silver and gold for every ounce of bullion. A gold and silver run will destroy paper assets as depositors demand their bullion. The whole Ponzi scheme of the ETFs and the derivatives market is about to collapse and take JP Morgue down with them.
Max Keiser on his Sunday radio show at London’s Resonance 104.4 FM predicted a Bank Holiday. He lives in Europe where there are strong rumors of bank collapses and fears that nations like Italy, Spain, Portugal,Greece and Ireland will pull out of the euro thus cutting their purchasing power in half. Europeans are on vacation until September. Banks normally loan out ten times deposits. The French banks are loaning out 50 times deposits and have trillions of euros of bad assets still on the books. In 2008 the correct solution to the credit crisis would have been to close the banks, cancel all unpayable debts, seize the personal assets of the those criminally responsible and to declare the banks bankrupt. After re-capitalizing we could have issued stock to those who lost money either in the banks or in their pension plans. Instead we Instead we have been handing out money by the tens of trillions without canceling bad debts. That is the worst of all possible solutions.
Keiser is saying that capital markets are freezing up because of bad debts, fear of counter party risk and everyone trying to move every last euro out of their country into safe havens has combined to raise the possibility of a Bank Holiday. Europeans have stopped spending. That means a declining economy, declining government revenues, even bigger deficits and more Treasury bond sales.
Today we are in a much worse credit crunch than in 2008. And we have added trillions of dollars, euros and pounds to our public debts. This severely limits our maneuvering. Diminishing equally fast is the political capital of Barrack Obama, David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. Washington DC runs on rumors. The Democrats will know what the Austerity cuts will be long before the details of the Super Congress budget must be released on Wednesday November 23rd. I predict revolts on the Left and the Right. Every Democrat will distance himself from Obama and declare himself an independent candidate for re-election. The Black congressional caucus was angry about the 16.2% black unemployment rate as compared to 9.2% for America as a whole. There are 6 statistical definitions of unemployment. That 9.2% national rate is the U3 definition. If we use the U6 definition as was common until 1994 when Clinton changed stopped using it, the unemployment rate mentioned in the press would be the U6 16.2% figure. Backtrack to 1981 when Reagan took office. If we used the unemployment rate Reagan used in 1981, the unemployment rate would be 22.5% for the average American and somewhere north of that for black people. Obama is in the White House to betray black people and other minorities to Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. But betrayal of the voters to big campaign contributors is what politicians do.
Before JP Morgue collapses Bank of America will be forced into bankruptcy and be acquired by JP Morgan. Bank of America has been forced to accept worthless paper and equally worthless stock in corporations like Countrywide. This merger will create a Monster Bank that cannot be allowed to fail. They will intentionally use fear to scare Americans into submissively accepting another ten trillion dollars in Bailouts. This merger will give a breather to the Morgue which will use the Bailout to keep the whole scam known as Wall Street going a bit longer.
The Hugo Chavez gold run, the capital squeeze in Europe and New York, the quadrillion dollars in Credit Default Swaps, the looming collapse of the euro, the coming silver short squeeze, the genuine fears of counter party risk, declining value of home and commercial mortgages, Morgan’s 92 trillion exposure in derivatives, the trillions of dollars in unpayable debts on the books and the general decline in stock prices will drive Morgan’s stock value way down. That and the voting public’s growing anger that might spill over into a refusal to pay for any more Bailouts will mean a very bumpy ride is in store for JP Morgan.
Max Keiser had an article about the Butterfly put being used by big traders who combine long and short positions which pay off in highly volatile stock situations. The gamble is that JP Morgan’s stock value will decline sharply by December. Acquiring all those worthless Bank of America’s assets might not help Morgan’s stock price because as I just said they are not canceling bad debts. They are just creating more debt burdens. They are simply making things worse.
So we can expect turbulent times, a bankruptcy of Bank of America, the acquisition of BofA by Morgan with federal money, spikes in gold silver prices, a collapse in the ETFs, a freezing of lending, Austerity cuts spreading to America, rising unemployment, a downturn in the real economy and a decline in the stock market and an emergence of JP Morgue as a government bank. I would remind all Morgan bondholders and stockholders that Obama screwed some investors at the expense of others.
I would not expect the government to seize gold and silver bullion. They do not have the political capital to do that. And their political capital is diminishing daily. And the various governments are expected to have an international conference like the Plaza Accord which will cancel a lot of debts and devalue currencies. That could happen as early as 2012 or soon after the November elections.
Gold and silver have seasonal highs and lows. We are currently in a seasonal low. Bullion prices rise starting in September when jewelers order gold for holiday demand. It will continue to rise until February when Bob Chapman thinks gold will reach $3,500 an ounce. A 35 to 1 price ratio of gold to silver would put silver above $100 in six months. A 40 to 1 ratio would mean $85 dollar silver. It takes 5 pre-1965 quarters to make one ounce of 90% silver. A single pre-1965 90% silver quarter would have a melt value of at least 15 dollars. If the various governments have a Plaza Accord II and devalue the dollar by at least 50%, they will likely want to raise the price of gold to $7,000 an ounce to go back to the Gold Exchange standard which Nixon ended in 1971. That and a few hundred million guns and tens of billions of bullets will stop any nonsense of seizing gold and silver.
A 50% currency devaluation in America and for those nations in Europe forced out of the euro means a doubling of prices overnight. That will eliminate all remaining political capital of every politician in the world. The US government is already far less popular than was King George the Third in 1776.
Max Keiser has a campaign to bankrupt JP Morgan by buying silver bullion. He calls his supporters members in good standing of the Silver Liberation Army and their campaign is called GIABO (the Global Insurrection Against Banker Occupation.) Remember that Morgan is shorting silver while simultaneously operating the SLV ETF. Now Chavez has demanded the return of more gold than Morgan has in its vaults. Keiser has told many nations on the list of countries to be invaded to buy gold and silver bullion. As I explained in a previous post, the six wars America is currently fighting are all funded with paper money. Max said in his latest video report that Hugo Chavez just created the GLA (the Gold Liberation Army.)
When the stock market declines, we can expect the government to attempt to seize the assets of all IRAs and 401Ks (personal American savings retirement accounts) and replace those assets with trillions of dollars in Treasury bonds. They will say this is to protect us from further declines in the risky stock market. The greatest risk humanity faces comes from the banks and the governments in Great Britain and the United States and the blood sucking vampires of London and New York. Two bills allowing the government to steal your savings have already been introduced into the Congress.
All anti-war activists and all nations on Obama’s hit list should immediately convert all disposable assets into gold and silver. This will bankrupt JP Morgan and the US government and bring all the wars to an end. America is already at war with six nations.
If the Nobel Peace laureate gets us into any more wars, we will definitely be bankrupt which was the plan of the bankers all along. They want a bankrupt America to be forced to join the New World Order and to accept IMF dictates just like Ireland. Our after tax wages will be cut in half. And of course America will go down in history as the nation that started World War III.
References:
This essay explains Dr Michael Hudson’s thesis in his book Super Imperialism that America got 8 trillion dollars of things for free from foreigners and forced people overseas to pay for US wars. I continue to explain how these same mechanisms are now being used to steal everything from Americans and treat them as if they were African colonial subjects of the 19th century.
What Has An Affect Through Me Has An Affect On Me
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/what-has-an-affect-through-me-has-an-affect-on-me/
This next essay has generated more traffic to my blog from web searches than any other.
Hugo Chavez, Gold Runs, Bank Runs And Bank Holidays
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/hugo-chavez-gold-runs-bank-runs-and-bank-holidays/
This is the most popular essay I have ever posted.
25 Reasons To Absolutely Despise Bankers And Their Minions
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/25-reasons-to-absolutrly-despise-bankers-and-their-minions/
This essay gives details on how bankers steal billions of dollars from the federal government every week and sometimes billions of dollars a day.
LOL!! I Stole 3.5 Trillion Dollars From You. I Dare You To Do Something.
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/07/31/lol-i-stole-3-5-trillion-dollars-from-you-i-dare-you-to-do-something/
The title of this final essay is self-explanatory.
Americans Deserve Better Than This From The Jews
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/americans-deserve-better-than-this-from-the-jews/
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Gallup Poll: Obama Hits ANOTHER New Low
Read the details at Gallup...
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 21% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -23.
Iowa AG Tom Miller Removes NY AG Eric Schneiderman From Foreclosure Fraud Executive Committee
This is getting ridiculous as banking-captured Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller still thinks he's in high school, and to prove it he just kicked Eric Schneiderman out of his clique.
The latest detail on Schneiderman's efforts can be found HERE and HERE.
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Late breaking story from Bloomberg...
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was removed from a state group working on a nationwide foreclosure settlement with U.S. banks because his office “actively worked to undermine” its efforts, the Iowa official leading the talks for the states said.
Schneiderman, who doesn’t want a settlement to block state investigations, was removed from the executive committee of state officials working on the deal, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said today in a statement.
“New York has actively worked to undermine the very same multistate group that it had spent the previous nine months working very closely with,” Miller said. For a member of the executive committee, that “simply doesn’t make sense, is unprecedented and is unacceptable,” Miller said.
Attorneys general from all 50 states last year announced their investigation into bank foreclosure practices after reports that faulty documents were being used to seize homes. Since then, a group of attorneys general and officials from federal agencies, including the Justice Department, have been negotiating a settlement with the five largest mortgage servicers in the U.S.
Government officials are seeking an agreement that provides funding for writedowns on mortgage loans for borrowers and sets standards for how the banks service loans, interact with borrowers and conduct foreclosures, according to terms proposed in March.
An executive committee of 13 attorneys general, not including Schneiderman, and two state banking regulators is leading negotiations on behalf of all 50 states, said Geoff Greenwood, Miller’s spokesman. The executive committee has a smaller committee that negotiates directly with the banks, he said.
Several attorneys general, including Schneiderman, have criticized any possible settlement that would protect banks from state investigations by providing the lenders with broad releases from liability. Those probes include the bundling of mortgage loans into securities.
The attorneys general who want to continue their own probes after an agreement include Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, Delaware’s Beau Biden and Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada. Delaware is also a member of the executive committee. the 50 state attorneys general.
Continue reading...
Goldman Sachs Movie by Ric Burns, Leaked!
Goldman Sachs Mocumentary, a history of the company! Goldman Sachs has taken a beating as of late, so in order to somewhat clean up their image they've decided to create a documentary. Ken Burns, famous for his PBS series "The Civil War" will shoot the documentary. Goldman has opted to have complete editorial control of the video through it's marketing department. Josh Lipton was able to get a leaked copy of the video.
Created by http://www.minyanville.com
Bernie Sanders "Excessive Speculation Is One Of The Reasons Oil Prices Are Where They Are Today"
http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=16089
Rothschild Is Now In TBTF Plunge Protection Business
Paging Ray Parker Jr. with a remix request:
From the WSJ:
Following the already failed attempt by captured pan-European regulators to stop the local bank Friend-o treatment by instituting a short-selling ban, whose effectiveness as we pointed out lasted, oh, about 7 days, we find just what Plan B is. And, yes, Rothschild is involved. From the WSJ: "Societe Generale SA, whose shares have come under severe pressure in recent weeks, said Tuesday that it had signed a liquidity contract with Rothschild & Cie. to prevent excessive volatility in its stock price." That's right: Rothschild is now in the Plunge Protection business. And they all have the ECB to thank for it: after years of not learning from the New York Fed-Citadel Joint Venture, which "never" steps in at precisely the right time (wink wink), they have opened the market for third party PPT incursions. It only seems fitting that the bank that started it all, would step in and fill the void. Because after all if SocGen falls, Rothschild will sooner or later follow. That said, the official explanation is worth its weight in laughter: "The idea is not to keep the stock price high, but rather to keep it steady" a representative for Societe Generale said. After hearing such... brilliance... what really is there to say?When some evil fund,
Is out there shorting you
Who you gonna call?
Why, Rothschild!
From the WSJ:
Well, unless Rothschild somehow found a way to avoid "the inevitable" from occurring, we would say we agree with that assessment 100%. But first, blogs which "plant" stories are sure to take the blame. That, or Dubya. After that, we go bidless.Societe Generale shares were hammered Aug. 10 amid unfounded rumors about its financial position after a British tabloid published an article alleging that the bank was in a "perilous" state. Its shares have lost 44% over the past month; at one point on Aug. 10 its stock was down more than 20%. The bank has called the rumors ludicrous and has underscored its strong financial position.
Analysts said that liquidity contracts in France are relatively common. Twenty-one of the CAC-40 companies have liquidity contracts with various financial institutions to prevent excessive volatility in their stock price. Rothschild has seven such contracts with CAC-
40 companies, including with GDF Suez.
Companies in France are allowed to buy and sell their own shares to prevent swings in prices, although the activity is regulated by French market regulator Autorite des Marches Financiers. According to a Paris-based analyst, Societe Generale until 2009 had a liquidity contract with one of its subsidiaries.
Analysts said the arrangement with Rothschild won't necessarily insulate the stock against big moves.
15 simple ways to get America on the road to economic recovery
Activist Post
With all that is going wrong in the world today and every day's news even more unbelievable than the last, I thought that I should take some time to avoid the negativity of the headlines and write a solution-oriented article.
I do this far too infrequently and I hope I can do it more often but I truly need feedback and opinions from my readers to do this. What do you think we can do to turn this world around? What would you like me to cover? Please e-mail me your comments at admin@endthelie.com so I can better get a sense of what other people think.
Now, to a list of 15 things we could do to get us back on the road to recovery here in America.
If any one of these ideas were implemented, we would immediately see a drastic change in our national deficit and the entire paradigm in which our economy operates.
None of these are impossible and all are relatively simple, it would just take a massive push from every person in the United States to achieve any of the following. This is because all of the following would make the ruling elite very unhappy and thus would be adamantly opposed by our so-called representatives in Washington.
1. Legalize, regulate and tax marijuana and industrialized hemp and all derivative products.
I am not an advocate of decriminalization because decriminalization solves nothing other than the overpopulated private prison system.
Legalization, regulation and taxation would be a completely different approach that most people in government do not even consider. If we legalized and regulated the production and sale of marijuana it could become an industry like alcohol or tobacco, that is, it would be harder for children to obtain and would take all of the power out of the hands of criminal drug dealers and cartels.
Since marijuana is currently illegal, children can easily obtain the drug from unscrupulous drug dealers more easily than they can obtain cigarettes or alcohol. However, if marijuana was controlled and taxed like alcohol, it would be a lot more difficult for a young teen to walk into a store and get it.
Even more important is the aspect of taxation. If marijuana was legalized and regulated it could easily be taxed with a “luxury” or “vice” tax which would create massive tax revenues for state and local governments.
In California alone marijuana pulls in roughly $14 billion in sales per year, which, if taxed, could bring in billions. Imagine if every state in the union fully legalized, regulated and taxed marijuana sales. There would be billions of additional dollars in revenue per year that could greatly offset the deficits that local, state, and federal government is facing.
2. Properly tax hedge fund managers like everyone other American.
If only the top 25 hedge fund managers paid taxes like you and I, our national deficit would be cut by a staggering $44 billion over the next decade.
Before those who are opposed to any tax increases whatsoever get up in a tizzy, you should realize that this would actually not entail any tax increases whatsoever. This would only involve removing the tax loopholes that hedge fund managers take advantage of.
In a nation where the richest 400 families make about 6,900 times as much as an average household, keeping these loopholes and preferential tax codes in place is nothing short of criminal.
3. Raise taxes on the top earners in the financial and investment sectors.
This is in the same vein as the above but it would indeed involve increasing taxes. However, I specified “the financial and investment sectors” for a reason: these are the people responsible for our current economic climate which has put most Americans in dire straits.
We must demand that those who have profited off of the financial collapse pay back into the system which they have abused in order to get filthy rich while robbing the average American blind.
If there were higher taxes involved in pulling in gigantic wealth through investment and financial apparatuses, it might dissuade some of the elite from continuing their criminal practices. Even if it does not, which unfortunately would probably be the case; it would provide a significant cut in the national deficit.
4. End all offshoring incentives for corporations across the board.
This would include repealing the complete failures that are NAFTA and GATT.
If our government cares at all about rebuilding the American economy and with it bringing countless Americans out of abject poverty, they will incentivize bringing and keeping jobs here at home.
The current tax laws allow American business that pay foreign taxes on profits obtained overseas to get a tax credit against their American taxes based on the taxes paid in foreign countries.
Closing these loopholes would bring in an estimated $43 billion in the period of 2011 to 2019 alone.
Currently, tax laws financially encourage corporations to invest overseas, as they can use these investments as deductions on their U.S. tax returns. These types of loopholes allow multinational corporations like General Electric to avoid paying any taxes in America whatsoever. In fact, corporations like GE know how to game this system so well they actually walk away with tax credits on their staggering profits.
This article goes over some of the incredible gains in revenue that could be achieved, all of which were promised by the Obama administration and none of which have been actually put in place.
5. Place tariffs on all imported goods.
If considerable tariffs were put in place, corporations would be forced to move jobs back onshore in order to avoid huge profit losses from having to import their products.
Some might call this isolationist but without using economic factors to force corporations to bring the jobs back home they will continue to take advantage of everything they can in order to increase profits while decreasing their bottom line.
Corporations do not care about the welfare of Americans and without putting their profits on the line, they will continue to screw over the people of the United States with glee.
6. Collect every single cent laundered by corrupt and criminal banks on behalf of drug cartels.
In early April of this year, I covered a case of Wells Fargo and Wachovia being caught red handed laundering $378.4 billion in drug money.
In response to this, the government did not confiscate all of the illegally laundered funds like one would expect. Instead, they took a tiny fraction of the laundered money.
If they actually collected all of the funds that they laundered like they should have, a significant amount of our deficit could be cut for this year.
But of course, the government which is tied in so closely with the banking industry simply took a tiny bit and let them continue their corrupt, criminal ways unabated.
7. Prosecute and fine banks for mortgage fraud.
Banks in America have been engaging in massive mortgage and foreclosure fraud, stripping struggling Americans of their homes and livelihoods in the process.
Unfortunately, our government selectively investigates and prosecutes these instances of widespread fraud.
For instance, in early May of this year, Deutsche Bank, a German banking company and one of the world’s 10 largest banks in terms of assets, was sued by the Justice Department for at least $1 billion.
However, Deutsche Bank was only a part of this fraudulent mortgage industry that has significantly contributed to our current economic strife.
An episode of CBS’s 60 minutes aired in early March of this year revealed how huge this fraud-based mortgage industry actually is:
If our so-called Department of Justice really cared about bringing America back from the brink of total and complete collapse, they would aggressively investigate, prosecute, and fine banks for their involvement in fraudulent banking practices.
I will continue to add to this list and elaborate on more points as soon as possible.
The following are 8 more ideas I have which I will elucidate further in the near future. If you have any to add, please e-mail me at admin@endthelie.com and I will be sure to investigate and cover your suggestions.
- Raise taxes or add a flat fee to high frequency trading to discourage market manipulation
- End the wars and cut foreign aid, especially military aid to nations like Israel
- Back out of NATO
- Stop all funding of foreign dissidents and opposition groups
- Gut the pentagon budget, especially the top-secret “black budget”
- Impose a large fee for banks to foreclose on Americans, in turn discouraging foreclosures which would positively affect job growth
- Offer tax incentives to corporations for moving jobs from offshore to onshore
- End the Federal Reserve and create a nationalized, debt free monetary system
Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com
Where Are We?
USA Watchdog
Yesterday, the Dow was up more than 300 points, and gold hit another all-time high before dropping nearly $100 an ounce. You would think the stock market was back and the gold trade was over. Wall Street is excited about recent bad economic news that just may force Fed Chief Ben Bernanke to start a third round of quantitative easing (QE3). I hate to break it to Wall Street, but QE3 is already underway in the form of 2 years of guaranteed near 0% interest rates.
That’s the close up of the economy. The wide shot reveals something much more profound and dangerous for anyone who does not know which direction the giant economic cruise ship is turning.
The problem the world faces today is crushing debt. In America, it is at the local, state and federal level. On top of that, there have been many promises made in the form of retirement and health care. In Europe, the same thing, except there the problem is more immediate and dire. The fate of the European Union hangs in the balance.
There has never been a time in history when debt problems globally have been this monstrous. At the beginning of the year, I quoted 87 year old Harry Schultz. He is now retired but is widely respected for his economic and market calls. In his last newsletter, Schultz summed up the calamity we face by saying, “Roughly speaking, the mess we are in is the worst since 17th century financial collapse. Comparisons with the 1930s are ludicrous. We’ve gone far beyond that. And, alas, the courage & political will to recognize the mess & act wisely to reverse gears, is absent in U.S. leadership, where the problems were hatched & where the rot is by far the deepest.” (Click here to read my original post from January 2011.)
David Knox Barker, who wrote “Jubilee on Wall Street: An Optimistic Look at the Global Financial Crash,” echoes Schultz. Enormous problems will usher in equally enormous changes. Barker said this week, “The final plunge of this long wave winter season is now underway. The international political economy, which has lost its moorings in individual accountability, responsibility and purpose, is breaking up. Socialism in all its forms, including the global banking system that is dependent on the government dole, is collapsing from the weight of its internal contradictions. Socialism is going through an extinction event in the final years of this long wave, receiving its just reward from the crushing long wave forces that it has magnified around the globe.” (Click here to read the complete article by Mr. Barker.)
Read Full Article
We Are All Screwed
By MN Gordon
Economic Prism
“Pike’s Peak or Bust!”
How To Profit From Soaring Food Prices – Free Report(Ad)
Travels have taken us to Pueblo, Colorado. Until a week ago we’d never heard of the place. Yet here we are, observing life outside the Los Angeles Basin, and writing to you from the banks of the Arkansas River.
If you didn’t know, Pueblo’s located about 45 miles south of Colorado Springs.
The place was founded as a trading settlement in this mid-19th century, before Utes and Jicarilla Apaches raided the place. But for the Native Americans it was a short victory… Steel mining and milling led to a boom several decades later and Pueblo passed from the hand of Indian tribal rule forever.
Yesterday we rode the historic Royal Gorge railroad route beneath gigantic 1,000 foot granite walls, along the winding waters of the Arkansas River. Today we’ll be making our way to the 700 plus year old Anasazi dwellings leading to Pikes Peak.
Coincidentally, Pike’s Peak was the site of one of the greatest gold rushes of North American history. In 1859, it was “Pike’s Peak or Bust!” for the estimated 100,000 gold seeking “Fifty-Niners” who crashed the Southern Rocky Mountains with gold fever.
Back then gold was money. There was no Federal Reserve to print up paper notes. To obtain money, you either had to trade a product or a service for it. Or you had to mine for it. Either way, you had to work for it. Thus, money was intrinsically backed by gold and the money supply, even with the occasional gold rush, was relatively stable.
So with gold on the mind, we’ll turn our attention to the more recent history of gold and the U.S. monetary system…
Symbiotic Disharmony
On August 15, 1971, just over 40 years ago, President Richard M. Nixon seized the unique and exceptional opportunity he had, and defaulted on the Bretton Woods system. In doing so, he stiffed the world unconditionally. From this point on, dollars have been irredeemable for gold. They’ve been wholly the fiat – paper money – of government.
What a mess it has made of things. Without gold holding tether to the dollar, the world’s currencies have floated like anchorless buoys…rising and falling on a sea of surging currents. And the imbalances that have resulted in international trade are astounding.
Exports from countries with weaker currencies dominate trade as their goods are less expensive when priced in countries with stronger currencies. Services also migrate to countries with weaker currencies in the phenomenon known as globalization. Countries with stronger currencies, in turn, import more goods than they export and run trade deficits.
But as a trade deficit expands, instability also expands, should surplus countries panic and dump the excess reserves they have accumulated from deficit countries. This arrangement of symbiotic disharmony, which underpins the global monetary system, is incredible. But that is not all – it gets far zanier…
Countries are now unofficially engaged in competitive currency devaluation. In this bizarre global monetary system, countries are fighting for a competitive advantage by weakening their currency in world markets. Thus, while currencies fluctuate in relationship to each other, prices of commodities largely increase, as measured by each individual currency. In other words, no currency will protect you from the loss of purchasing power; how much and how fast will your money lose value is the real concern.
We Are All Screwed
When Tricky Dick removed the last vestige of money’s backing by gold he also unleashed the Federal Reserve to print up as much money as Congress could demand. During the 1980’s and 1990’s it appeared that man had conquered the money problem. The goldilocks economy of low inflation and strong growth was making everyone rich…or at least it seemed that way.
But when the economic floors creaked and cracked in 2001 Alan Greenspan pressed the monetary button and an epic debt binge followed. Things got so out of whack that people were lining up to through money at spec condo developments in Miami Beach. What’s more the units would be flipped twice at a 50 percent profit before they’d ever been lived in.
Everyone knows what happened when the music stopped. The sky fell and Bernanke hit the monetary panic button again. Between November of 2008 and today the Federal Reserve’s created somewhere around $2 trillion from nothing. It took no sweat, no toil, no labor, no productivity for Bernanke to gift this free money to the world. Consequently, there will be some most unfavorable effects.
The population in Pueblo is approximately 105,000. Of this, about 68,000 are between 18 and 64 years old, which is generally considered working age. The median income for the city is about $30,000 per year. So, with this rough calculation, and assuming there’s full employment, the city’s gross income is around $2 billion per year – not bad.
There’s no beltway money suck here. There’s no Wall Street con machine. These people ‘earn’ every last cent they receive. Yet it would take the entire city, laboring year-in and year-out, for 1,000 years to earn what the Federal Reserve counterfeited in less than three years. This can only mean one thing…
We are all screwed.
[MN Gordon (send him email) is the editor of the Economic Prism. Visit http://www.economicprism.com. The Economic Prism is published by Direct Expressions LLC. Subscribe Today to the Economic Prism E-Newsletter at http://www.economicprismletter.com]
Economic Prism
“Pike’s Peak or Bust!”
How To Profit From Soaring Food Prices – Free Report(Ad)
Travels have taken us to Pueblo, Colorado. Until a week ago we’d never heard of the place. Yet here we are, observing life outside the Los Angeles Basin, and writing to you from the banks of the Arkansas River.
If you didn’t know, Pueblo’s located about 45 miles south of Colorado Springs.
The place was founded as a trading settlement in this mid-19th century, before Utes and Jicarilla Apaches raided the place. But for the Native Americans it was a short victory… Steel mining and milling led to a boom several decades later and Pueblo passed from the hand of Indian tribal rule forever.
Yesterday we rode the historic Royal Gorge railroad route beneath gigantic 1,000 foot granite walls, along the winding waters of the Arkansas River. Today we’ll be making our way to the 700 plus year old Anasazi dwellings leading to Pikes Peak.
Coincidentally, Pike’s Peak was the site of one of the greatest gold rushes of North American history. In 1859, it was “Pike’s Peak or Bust!” for the estimated 100,000 gold seeking “Fifty-Niners” who crashed the Southern Rocky Mountains with gold fever.
Back then gold was money. There was no Federal Reserve to print up paper notes. To obtain money, you either had to trade a product or a service for it. Or you had to mine for it. Either way, you had to work for it. Thus, money was intrinsically backed by gold and the money supply, even with the occasional gold rush, was relatively stable.
So with gold on the mind, we’ll turn our attention to the more recent history of gold and the U.S. monetary system…
Symbiotic Disharmony
On August 15, 1971, just over 40 years ago, President Richard M. Nixon seized the unique and exceptional opportunity he had, and defaulted on the Bretton Woods system. In doing so, he stiffed the world unconditionally. From this point on, dollars have been irredeemable for gold. They’ve been wholly the fiat – paper money – of government.
What a mess it has made of things. Without gold holding tether to the dollar, the world’s currencies have floated like anchorless buoys…rising and falling on a sea of surging currents. And the imbalances that have resulted in international trade are astounding.
Exports from countries with weaker currencies dominate trade as their goods are less expensive when priced in countries with stronger currencies. Services also migrate to countries with weaker currencies in the phenomenon known as globalization. Countries with stronger currencies, in turn, import more goods than they export and run trade deficits.
But as a trade deficit expands, instability also expands, should surplus countries panic and dump the excess reserves they have accumulated from deficit countries. This arrangement of symbiotic disharmony, which underpins the global monetary system, is incredible. But that is not all – it gets far zanier…
Countries are now unofficially engaged in competitive currency devaluation. In this bizarre global monetary system, countries are fighting for a competitive advantage by weakening their currency in world markets. Thus, while currencies fluctuate in relationship to each other, prices of commodities largely increase, as measured by each individual currency. In other words, no currency will protect you from the loss of purchasing power; how much and how fast will your money lose value is the real concern.
We Are All Screwed
When Tricky Dick removed the last vestige of money’s backing by gold he also unleashed the Federal Reserve to print up as much money as Congress could demand. During the 1980’s and 1990’s it appeared that man had conquered the money problem. The goldilocks economy of low inflation and strong growth was making everyone rich…or at least it seemed that way.
But when the economic floors creaked and cracked in 2001 Alan Greenspan pressed the monetary button and an epic debt binge followed. Things got so out of whack that people were lining up to through money at spec condo developments in Miami Beach. What’s more the units would be flipped twice at a 50 percent profit before they’d ever been lived in.
Everyone knows what happened when the music stopped. The sky fell and Bernanke hit the monetary panic button again. Between November of 2008 and today the Federal Reserve’s created somewhere around $2 trillion from nothing. It took no sweat, no toil, no labor, no productivity for Bernanke to gift this free money to the world. Consequently, there will be some most unfavorable effects.
The population in Pueblo is approximately 105,000. Of this, about 68,000 are between 18 and 64 years old, which is generally considered working age. The median income for the city is about $30,000 per year. So, with this rough calculation, and assuming there’s full employment, the city’s gross income is around $2 billion per year – not bad.
There’s no beltway money suck here. There’s no Wall Street con machine. These people ‘earn’ every last cent they receive. Yet it would take the entire city, laboring year-in and year-out, for 1,000 years to earn what the Federal Reserve counterfeited in less than three years. This can only mean one thing…
We are all screwed.
[MN Gordon (send him email) is the editor of the Economic Prism. Visit http://www.economicprism.com. The Economic Prism is published by Direct Expressions LLC. Subscribe Today to the Economic Prism E-Newsletter at http://www.economicprismletter.com]
Covering Up Wall Street Crimes: Matt Taibbi Exposes How SEC Shredded Thousands of Investigations
An explosive new report in Rolling Stone magazine exposes how the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission destroyed records of thousands of investigations, whitewashing the files of some of the nation’s largest banks and hedge funds, including AIG, Wells Fargo, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and top Wall Street broker Bernard Madoff. Last week, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said an agency whistleblower had sent him a letter detailing the unlawful destruction of records detailing more than 9,000 information investigations. We speak with Matt Taibbi, the political reporter for Rolling Stone magazine who broke this story in his latest article, "Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?" [includes rush transcript]
Iceland's On-going Revolution
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Daily Kos
An Italian radio program's story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a stunning example of how little our media tells us about the rest of the world. Americans may remember that at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland literally went bankrupt. The reasons were mentioned only in passing, and since then, this little-known member of the European Union fell back into oblivion.
As one European country after another fails or risks failing, imperiling the Euro, with repercussions for the entire world, the last thing the powers that be want is for Iceland to become an example. Here's why:
Five years of a pure neo-liberal regime had made Iceland, (population 320 thousand, no army), one of the richest countries in the world. In 2003 all the country’s banks were privatized, and in an effort to attract foreign investors, they offered on-line banking whose minimal costs allowed them to offer relatively high rates of return. The accounts, called IceSave, attracted many English and Dutch small investors. But as investments grew, so did the banks’ foreign debt. In 2003 Iceland’s debt was equal to 200 times its GNP, but in 2007, it was 900 percent. The 2008 world financial crisis was the coup de grace. The three main Icelandic banks, Landbanki, Kapthing and Glitnir, went belly up and were nationalized, while the Kroner lost 85% of its value with respect to the Euro. At the end of the year Iceland declared bankruptcy.
Contrary to what could be expected, the crisis resulted in Icelanders recovering their sovereign rights, through a process of direct participatory democracy that eventually led to a new Constitution. But only after much pain.
Geir Haarde, the Prime Minister of a Social Democratic coalition government, negotiated a two million one hundred thousand dollar loan, to which the Nordic countries added another two and a half million. But the foreign financial community pressured Iceland to impose drastic measures. The FMI and the European Union wanted to take over its debt, claiming this was the only way for the country to pay back Holland and Great Britain, who had promised to reimburse their citizens.
Protests and riots continued, eventually forcing the government to resign. Elections were brought forward to April 2009, resulting in a left-wing coalition which condemned the neoliberal economic system, but immediately gave in to its demands that Iceland pay off a total of three and a half million Euros. This required each Icelandic citizen to pay 100 Euros a month (or about $130) for fifteen years, at 5.5% interest, to pay off a debt incurred by private parties vis a vis other private parties. It was the straw that broke the reindeer’s back.
Read Full Article
Proof Of Another Big US Bank Collapse? Investment Banks Rated "Buy" By Other Banks? What Does It Take For Investors To Learn?
- Asset-Backed Securities
- Bank Run
- Bear Market
- Bear Stearns
- Bloomberg News
- Bond
- China
- Counterparties
- Federal Reserve
- Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
- Freedom of Information Act
- Goldman Sachs
- goldman sachs
- Lehman
- Lehman Brothers
- Market Conditions
- Morgan Stanley
- New York Stock Exchange
- Real estate
- Reality
- Reggie Middleton
On February 10, 2008, I created an extensive blog post, explicitly labeling Morgan Stanley as "The Riskiest Bank on the Street!" To my knowledge, I was the only one to make such a blatant accusation. Of course, months later Morgan Stanley and all of its brethren started collapsing. Many attributed this to the overall market malaise, I didn't.
In September of 2008, 7 months after the first bearish report, I penned "As I said, the Riskiest Bank on the Street", which essentially compared my opinion, analysis and most importantly accuracy, to that of the Street's sell side, as excerpted...
For all of those who had/have a buy on Morgan Stanley, contact me for a special institutional subscription to the blog. I have said Morgan Stanley is a very strong short candidate (for about 9 months now).
Wall Street has said the following (from Zacks.com, ABR = average broker recommendation):
MORGAN STANLEY
(NYSE) $21.75
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The average broker recommended price for that period (and this period as well) was/is absolutely absurd, and has no grounding whatsoever in reality. This is what my report said in 2008:
Does this make you wonder why create posts such as Did Reggie Middleton, a Blogger at BoomBustBlog, Best Wall Streets Best of the Best? It should be blatantly apparent that anyone who follows Sell Side researh over that of BoomBustBlog is at best taking extreme risks with their capital, and more realitically headed for disaster and deserving every bit of it along the way. The telling portion of this tale is today's Bloomberg article ilustrating a fact which we suspected, but which no one really knew for sure except Wall Street banking insiders, and that was that MS took $107 in loans from the Fed during 2008. More than any other entity in the history of the Fed, more than all of the banks who had both larger balance sheets and asset basis' than MS, more than anybody. So, was I right? Was MS truly the The Riskiest Bank on the Street? We shall delve into the Bloomberg article, but first, a few more excerpts from the aforementioned blog post of January 2008:
Look at what I said in Reggie Middleton on Goldman Sachs Q3 2008 vs what the guys that most retail investors and family offices give their money says about Goldman Sachs...
Again, the average broker consensus is an absolute joke. Subscribers and long time readers know my price targets for Goldman were much more pessimistic. Who was right? I refer you to What Do Goldman Sachs and B.B. King Have in Common? The Thrill is Gone…:
As for the Street and mean analysist estimates, this is the verbage (that's verbage, not garbage) that accompanies these reports via hyperlink:
So, to recap, I have accurately called the fall or collapse Morgan Stanley (The Riskiest Bank on the Street and Reggie Middleton on the Street's Riskiest Bank - Update), Lehman Brothers (Is Lehman a Lying Lemming?), and Bear Stearns (Bear Fight - A most bearish view on Bear Stearns in a bear market and Is this the Breaking of the Bear's Back?), Goldman as well (Goldman Sachs Snapshot: Risk vs. Reward vs. Reputations on the Street and Reggie Middleton on Risk, Reward and Reputations on the Street: the Goldman Sachs Forensic Analysis) as well as very recently the French bank run (The French Government Creates A Bank Run…) and Wall Street's sell side opinion still regulalry runs diametrically opposed to mine. I pray thee tell me, who has truly earned their stripes through these rough times? I query, because I have recently picked out another potential failure and we shall see how serious this one is taken this time around. To refresh everyone's memory...
And in closing, for anyone who is interested...
We value Morgan Stanley at US$20.76 per share, 58% lower than the current market price – We have analyzed Morgan Stanley exposure toward the Level 3 assets and its exposure to unconsolidated VIEs. To value Morgan Stanley, we have used the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF), Price-to- adjusted book (P/BV) and Price-to-Earnings (P/E) multiple methods. Based on our weighted average valuation, we arrive at a fair value of $20.76 which represents a downside of 57% from current levels of $48.25.
Look at graph below to determine who was closer to the truth, Reggie Middleton and his team, or Wall Street - all of Wall Street!
Does this make you wonder why create posts such as Did Reggie Middleton, a Blogger at BoomBustBlog, Best Wall Streets Best of the Best? It should be blatantly apparent that anyone who follows Sell Side researh over that of BoomBustBlog is at best taking extreme risks with their capital, and more realitically headed for disaster and deserving every bit of it along the way. The telling portion of this tale is today's Bloomberg article ilustrating a fact which we suspected, but which no one really knew for sure except Wall Street banking insiders, and that was that MS took $107 in loans from the Fed during 2008. More than any other entity in the history of the Fed, more than all of the banks who had both larger balance sheets and asset basis' than MS, more than anybody. So, was I right? Was MS truly the The Riskiest Bank on the Street? We shall delve into the Bloomberg article, but first, a few more excerpts from the aforementioned blog post of January 2008:
"Worsening macro and market conditions to restrict revenue growth – Financial services industry witnessing its toughest times in recent history faces a tough task of getting things back to normal. The deteriorating macro environment coupled with flagging confidence among investors/customers alike, things are more likely to get worse than better."
"as tests to its excessive exposure to the anemic capital reserves of its counterparties, namely monoline insurers and hedge funds."
Now, from Bloomberg: Morgan Stanley at Brink Got $107B From Fed:As markets convulsed in September 2008, Morgan Stanley (MS) Treasurer David Wong briefed the Federal Reserve on a “dark” scenario in which the U.S. firm would need at least $10 billion of emergency loans from the central bank.
It got 10 times darker by month’s end. Morgan Stanley borrowed $107.3 billion, the most of any bank, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News using information released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, related court orders and an act of Congress.
Morgan Stanley’s borrowing -- more than twice the amount all banks got from the Fed in the market squeeze that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- peaked after hedge funds pulled $128.1 billion from the firm in two weeks, documents released by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission show.
The first comprehensive examination of the Fed’s emergency lending reveals how close the New York-based bank came to running out of cash because of a run on its prime brokerage, the unit that finances hedge funds’ trades and holds their cash and securities. The Fed loans also show the degree to which Morgan Stanley and other banks depended on such brokerage accounts for funding, even though clients could close them on short notice.
“These were like hot-money deposits that could flee in an instant,” said Tanya Azarchs, a former Standard & Poor’s analyst who covered Morgan Stanley during the crisis and is now a consultant in Briarcliff Manor, New York. The firm “never thought that the hedge funds would get that spooked.”
Wow! Pretty damn prescient? Or just observant? I'll let you be the judge, but here's a hint: you don't have to be prescient to see any of this coming, and I'm no more special than any other Joe Schmoe on the Street - outside of being a lot less conflicted! Of course, it doesn't end there. Let's take a look at the Golden Boys from that same post back in September of 2008 ("As I said, the Riskiest Bank on the Street"):Look at what I said in Reggie Middleton on Goldman Sachs Q3 2008 vs what the guys that most retail investors and family offices give their money says about Goldman Sachs...
| GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP INC (NYSE) -114.50 | ||
| Current ABR | 2.96 | |
| ABR (Last week) | 2.79 | |
| # of Recs in ABR | 12 | |
| Average Target Price: | $200.91 | |
| LT Growth Rate | 17.40% | |
GS’s considerable leverage provides a means (the lever) of high returns to shareholders when asset prices are appreciating but the same becomes a very material economic concern when the asset prices lose value. With low trading revenues, GS has little cushion to absorb write-downs on these assets, leading to erosion of equity. As of March, 2010, the GS’s investments portfolio amounted to $339 billion (nearly 566% of the tangible equity). Referencing my previous posts, “Can You Believe There Are Still Analysts Arguing How Undervalued Goldman Sachs Is? Those July 150 Puts Say Otherwise, Let’s Take a Look” and “When the Patina Fades… The Rise and Fall of Goldman Sachs???“, we can reminisce over the fact that Goldman BARELY earns its cost of capital on an economic basis, and that’s before considering the potential horrors which may (and probably do) lay on the balance sheet (for more on BS horror, referenceReggie Middleton vs Goldman Sachs, Round 2) .
Okay bloggers and bloggettes, this doesn't make any damn sense.Why would anyone not want to subscribe to truly independent research is beyond my reckoning. Mediocre independent research is better than top notch biased research any day. Just imagine what mediocre biased research will offer you. I know I may be a little biased on this topic because I may stand to gain from selling subscriptions, but let me make this very clear - I am an investor first and foremost. That is what I do all day, everyday. The blog always has, and probably always will, operate at a significant loss.The only reason I am bothering to make this post is because I am absolutely awed by the stickiness engendered by the sell side brokerage marketing machine. One would think that this site (or any independent research site) would be oversubscribed, if anything just because there is chance they may be trying to tell the truth. Okay, rant and rave is now offline... |
The Squid Is A Federally (Tax Payer) Insured Hedge Fund Paying Fat Bonuses That Can't Trade In Volatile Markets
Trade setups on the Squid coming up next for paying subscribers. This one will be tricky, for valuations tell an incomplete story which is the reason why I announced this one publicly. You simply cannot profit off of the ancillary Squid news.And in closing, for anyone who is interested...
Key highlights of my archived research from 2008 (before the crash) on the "Riskiest Investment Bank on the Street":
The Riskiest Bank on Wall Street – Morgan Stanley has US$74 billion of Level 3 assets, over 200% of its equity, which is the highest amongst its peers. Although the Level 3 assets have declined from the previous quarters owing to huge writedowns, the reclassification of assets from from Level 2 to level 3 category continues as the liquidity for the troubled mortgage paper drys up.Declining ABX index indicates troubled times are not over yet – Morgan Stanley used the performance of the ABX index as one of the benchmarks to writedown US$9.4 billion in 4Q 07. As this index continiues to witness downward trend, we believe that the asset writedown done so far, may not be sufficient.
Forensic Accounting of ABS Assets yields more woes - a security by security accounting of MSs ABS inventory shows at least 30% and probably 56% in additional losses coming down the pike, as well as tests to its excessive exposure to the anemic capital reserves of its counterparties, namely monoline insurers and hedge funds.
Losses from unconsolidated VIEs of $38 billion can wipe out almost half of the company’s total equity –Morgan Stanley has $20 billion of its unconsolidated VIEs assets in credit & real estate portfolio where the company expects a maximum loss ratio of 65%. Considering the worsening real estate markets, we believe that the company will incur huge losses on this portfolio. In addition, the company has $7 billion towards MBS & ABS portfolio and $10 billion of strucutured finance products.
Exposure toward Bond Insurers/private funds raises counterparty risk – The failure of bond insurers, on whose shoulders lie the rating of $2.4 trillion of bonds, raises a serious doubt about a systemic failure in the U.S. financial services industry. Morgan Stanley’s exposure of $3.6 billion toward the bond insurers may result in unforeseen losses for the company. The company has a counterparty credit risk exposure of $13.9 billion toward parties rated BBB and lower.
The riskiest bank on Wall Street – High exposure to Level 3 assets despite significant write-downs
Need to raise additional capital if current crisis worsens – Morgan Stanley raised $5 billion from China Investment Corp to maintain its capital ratios as it reported huge losses in 4Q 07. Going forward, as the credit market environment, the housing and real estate markets continues to crack, the company will likely report huge and may have to raise additional capital.Worsening macro and market conditions to restrict revenue growth – Financial services industry witnessing its toughest times in recent history faces a tough task of getting things back to normal. The deteriorating macro environment coupled with flagging confidence among investors/customers alike, things are more likely to get worse than better. Furthermore, the decline in structured product revenues, risk averse nature owing to recent turmoil and the less active M&A environment will exert pressure on the company’s revenue growth in the coming quarters.
We value Morgan Stanley at US$20.76 per share, 58% lower than the current market price – We have analyzed Morgan Stanley exposure toward the Level 3 assets and its exposure to unconsolidated VIEs. To value Morgan Stanley, we have used the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF), Price-to- adjusted book (P/BV) and Price-to-Earnings (P/E) multiple methods. Based on our weighted average valuation, we arrive at a fair value of $20.76 which represents a downside of 57% from current levels of $48.25.
Click the read more link below to continue reading or download the richly formatted pdf version:
Morgan Stanley (287.96 kB 2008-02-11 12:49:56)Dollar Lays Anchor As QE3 Speculation Takes Over
Source: The Street
Why is the market anchored when there is such heavy speculation surrounding a market-defining event? It would stand to reason that the building expectations for a third quantitative easing program (QE3) would push the market into a strong trend. However, there is a difference between forecasts and positioning. While the call for another round of stimulus from the Federal Reserve may be growing; the masses are distinctly aware of what happens should the central bank leave market participants empty handed. Once again, we are witnessing the balance between probabilities and the influence different scenarios can have over the markets. In this case, while a large contingent of the market believes that the policy authority has little option aside from expanding its support; they realize that the positive impact on confidence and positioning is likely very limited. In contrast, the fallout from disappointing those that are growing dependent on outside support is so great that it would be taking a major risk to position against such a scenario.
Will Fed Chairman Bernanke use this forum to announce QE3 or not? That will be the question that keeps the dollar and underlying risk appetite frozen. Though, in the meantime, any headline that is remotely related to this upcoming event (or that can be interpreted as having some form of connection) can still generate a considerable level of volatility. Monday, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard was messing with the scales when he pulled back slightly from his hawkish bearing by saying he could back the FOMC to take action should growth weakened “substantially” and inflation began to turn to “deflation”. That said, he noted that he still expects stronger growth through the second half of 2011.
Euro Traders Too Distracted to Take Notice of ECB Buying
Traders are already discounting the efforts of the ECB and the deterioration of financial conditions is in the Euro Zone; so when there is something else out there that is stealing the financial headlines, it isn’t difficult for their attention to stray. That said, the possibility that the US will pursue further stimulus (potentially bolstering investor confidence and weighing the euro’s primary counterpart) makes for an understandable distraction. Yet, despite the diversion, we should not overlook the headlines this morning. The ECB reported that they had purchased another 14.3 billion euros in government bonds last week – suggesting the financial troubles are still severe. In other news, the Bundesbank’s August outlook rebuked calls for further accommodation for profligate EU members without a commensurate surrender of national fiscal sovereignty. In the upcoming session, we will gauge the economic ramifications of market troubles in PMI figures and investor confidence.
Swiss Franc Peg Murmurs Continue as SNB Remains Mum
A newspaper poll this weekend reported that 63 percent of Switzerland supports the SNB’s market operations aimed at restraining the franc’s dramatic rally and 27 percent even believed that the central bank should adopt a target. Speculation that this is exactly what the Swiss authority would do was sustained over the weekend; but skepticism is firmly planted. We may need a stark franc rally to force the SNB into action.
British Pound Hears BoE’s Broadbent Lower Growth Outlook, What about Weale?
We are seeing a slow transition for the pound from a passive/reactive currency to an independent driver. The change lies with monetary policy expectations. Interest rate expectations have turned mildly dovish recently; but we are still a long ways from seeing a bond purchasing program expansion being priced in. BoE’s Broadbent pushed this agenda forward Monday; but Hawkish-man Weale will have more influence here.
Canadian Dollar Readies for Potential Short-Term Volatility with Retail Sales
The Canadian dollar is looking at notable event risk in the coming session: the June retail sales figures. These figures are certainly market moving from a short-term perspective; but the lasting effect will be sidelined by the preoccupation with the United States’ troubles. However, as the economic counterpart to the US, an improvement in Canadian domestic growth could certainly help the loonie fortify its position.
Australian Dollar: One of the Few Currencies that Won’t be Manipulated?
Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan started the week for Aussie traders by saying policy officials were not considering intervening on exchange rates. If that is true, they would be one of the few. In effect, authorities don’t need to act to manipulate the markets because a sustained downturn in risk appetite will naturally weigh the currency lower. Add to that 12 month expectations for more than 150bps of cuts and they’re set.
Gold Surpasses $1,900 – QE3 Speculation Will Only Accelerate the Move to $1,200
Another benchmark has been surpassed in the unstoppable performance of Gold. The metal overtook the $1,900/oz figure just after the US close Monday. Uncertainty as to whether QE3 is adopted or not doesn’t necessarily sideline this safe haven. Should the program be adopted, the deterioration for the dollar would be bullish. Should it be passed, risk aversion could leverage its safety appeal.
Bailout Update - $1.5 Trillion Still Owed To Treasury, Fed
Source - PR Watch
A new study released today by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) shows that, despite rosy statements about the bailout's impending successful conclusion from federal government officials, $1.5 trillion of the $4.8 trillion in federal bailout funds are still outstanding.
The analysis, presented in charts and an online table and program profiles, is based entirely on government records. This comprehensive assessment of the bailout goes beyond the relatively small Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) program to look at the rest of the Treasury and Federal Reserve's multi-trillion dollar response to the financial crisis. It shows that while the TARP bailout of Wall Street (not including the bailout of the auto industry) amounted to $330 billion, the government also quietly spent $4.4 trillion more in efforts to stave off the collapse of the financial and mortgage lending sectors. The majority of these funds ($3.9 trillion) came from the Federal Reserve, which undertook the actions citing an obscure section of its charter.
"In order to understand the big picture on the bailout, you have to look beyond TARP and examine the trillions the Federal Reserve has disbursed to keep the big banks above water. $4.8 trillion went out the door to aid financial companies and repair the damage they caused to financial markets, and $1.5 trillion of that is still outstanding," said Mary Bottari, director of CMD's Real Economy Project.
TOTAL WALL STREET BAILOUT COST TABLE: You can click here to see our a full list of each bailout program, the amount of money disbursed and the amount of money outstanding in each program.
Most of the bailout funds were comprised of aid to banks – the peak outstanding amount was $2.2 trillion in January 2009 – which took place at the height of the financial crisis in the form of loans with below-market interest rates and for questionable collateral to banks directly from the Treasury and Federal Reserve.
This massive effort is in stark contrast to the mere $2 billion the Treasury has spent to directly help homeowners stay in their homes via the widely criticized Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP) program. With housing prices continuing to falter and the United States approaching 9.2 million foreclosure filings since the beginning of 2008, HAMP can be described as nothing less than an abject failure.
"The Federal Reserve and the Treasury have spent $1.6 trillion in a bank-shot to save the mortgage lending market by using the same financial companies that got us into this mess," said Conor Kenny, lead author of the study. "That's more than 800 times what they've spent directly to keep homeowners in their houses, and the banks have made money off the whole thing."
CMD's analysis also shows how the $4.8 trillion bailout of the financial sector dwarfs the $600 billion that the Federal Reserve spent on the much-hyped "Quantitative Easing 2" of 2010-2011 that was intended to help the broader economy – not just the financial sector – by lowering interest rates across the board and preventing deflation.
A new study released today by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) shows that, despite rosy statements about the bailout's impending successful conclusion from federal government officials, $1.5 trillion of the $4.8 trillion in federal bailout funds are still outstanding.
The analysis, presented in charts and an online table and program profiles, is based entirely on government records. This comprehensive assessment of the bailout goes beyond the relatively small Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) program to look at the rest of the Treasury and Federal Reserve's multi-trillion dollar response to the financial crisis. It shows that while the TARP bailout of Wall Street (not including the bailout of the auto industry) amounted to $330 billion, the government also quietly spent $4.4 trillion more in efforts to stave off the collapse of the financial and mortgage lending sectors. The majority of these funds ($3.9 trillion) came from the Federal Reserve, which undertook the actions citing an obscure section of its charter.
"In order to understand the big picture on the bailout, you have to look beyond TARP and examine the trillions the Federal Reserve has disbursed to keep the big banks above water. $4.8 trillion went out the door to aid financial companies and repair the damage they caused to financial markets, and $1.5 trillion of that is still outstanding," said Mary Bottari, director of CMD's Real Economy Project.
TOTAL WALL STREET BAILOUT COST TABLE: You can click here to see our a full list of each bailout program, the amount of money disbursed and the amount of money outstanding in each program.
Most of the bailout funds were comprised of aid to banks – the peak outstanding amount was $2.2 trillion in January 2009 – which took place at the height of the financial crisis in the form of loans with below-market interest rates and for questionable collateral to banks directly from the Treasury and Federal Reserve.
Mortgage-Backed Securities Purchases
CMD's study also shows how the government is continuing to prop up the same banks that caused the crisis in its attempt to help the housing market. The government's housing program – which peaked at $1.6 trillion outstanding in July 2010 – is aimed at keeping mortgage lending flowing by subsidizing deals Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac make with the banks. Treasury and the Federal Reserve's main approach has been to buy more than a trillion dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so that the two government-sponsored enterprises can continue to purchase and bundle mortgages from the banks, which they sell to Fannie and Freddie at a profit. The banks also benefit from the hundreds of billions in direct loans the government has made to Fannie and Freddie, which the GSEs then turn around and make in insurance pay-outs to banks for mortgages that have gone bad.This massive effort is in stark contrast to the mere $2 billion the Treasury has spent to directly help homeowners stay in their homes via the widely criticized Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP) program. With housing prices continuing to falter and the United States approaching 9.2 million foreclosure filings since the beginning of 2008, HAMP can be described as nothing less than an abject failure.
"The Federal Reserve and the Treasury have spent $1.6 trillion in a bank-shot to save the mortgage lending market by using the same financial companies that got us into this mess," said Conor Kenny, lead author of the study. "That's more than 800 times what they've spent directly to keep homeowners in their houses, and the banks have made money off the whole thing."
CMD's analysis also shows how the $4.8 trillion bailout of the financial sector dwarfs the $600 billion that the Federal Reserve spent on the much-hyped "Quantitative Easing 2" of 2010-2011 that was intended to help the broader economy – not just the financial sector – by lowering interest rates across the board and preventing deflation.
The Goldman Sachs Hearings: 7 Cantankerous Hours Securitized Into A 5 Minute Super Clip (Comedy)
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Video - Goldman Hearings - The Video CDO
Sliced, Diced, Tranched and Securitized. This is highly entertaining.
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Video: Part 2
We lied. There are actually two 5-minute clips.
Video - Goldman Hearings - The Video CDO
Sliced, Diced, Tranched and Securitized. This is highly entertaining.
---
Video: Part 2
We lied. There are actually two 5-minute clips.
9/11/11 - 7 Reasons To Brace For Impact
by Zen Gardner
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it's not looking good for this 10th anniversary of 9/11. All the indicators are there to tell us they need a massive distraction and excuse to take this idiotic war on terror to horrific new levels and even more Orwellian internal controls and crackdowns.
Why They'll Do It Now
1. The illusion is wearing thin and ratings show it.Obama's 'house of corporate banking thugs' administration is tanking in public perception. The matrix-generated veil of lies is disintegrating as economic realities hit home. His and congress' ratings are at record lows. His political opponents have even announced publicly to watch out for a false flag.
2. They've done it before at similar times.
Clinton did Waco then used it to justify Oklahoma City. Now there's an interesting precedent. Bush 2 was just a neocon nincompoop stooge, but his ratings were in the basement on 9/10 and soared on 9/11...another two-termer like the criminal Clinton shoed in by false flag catastrophe.
3. The demonization of all Americans as potential terrorists.
As we've seen with the Norway patsy repeat, the enemy is now arch-anythings. Arch conservatives, activists, Christians, militia, military vets, religious whack jobs, disgruntled taxpayers, people who don't want to get x-rayed or fondled by the TSA, people with guns, cars with Ron Paul stickers, children selling lemonade without a license...it's beyond wrong.
4. Martial law is just a click away.
Now, how would a leader (really cabal) in power possibly stay in power with an election he (the staged figurehead) appears bound to lose....WHILE the PTBs have this craving need to abolish the last vestiges of civil liberties in the name of "homeland security"? Got any ideas?
Now don't give Obummer one iota of credit for anything except being a perfect patsy and mind control subject. He's a 'keeper' in those categories...which is why they'll wanna "keep" him in.
Nothing's written in stone, but it sometimes gets close.
I will be shocked if there are elections next year. It's way too easy to find a way around them in this climate. They're gonna declare martial law, and..maybe..call for a constitutional convention which is as close to a political oxymoron as you'll ever get. It's got to look "democratic" after all. Ha.
Never mind "Homeland Security" antics, FEMA's activities and the militarization zones appearing around the country are a dead giveaway. This "global unrest" they're pointing to now as a precedent to prepare American police I'm not sure is organic at all. Yes, people are mad, but they're being instigated and herded into a form of expression that only spells more fascism worldwide.
5. 9/11 - Build on the emotional impact
Never before events promoting the 9/11 myth are being scheduled around the country. Bad sign. Who would do that? In Dallas for example a big event is scheduled for 9/10. Why this year? Are mainstream people really in the mood to celebrate death and destruction and war and more war while their worlds crumble about them? What are they rallying for? More Islamophobia, support for killing innocent Libyans, and then jack 'em up to endorse wars with Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran?
So wrong on so many levels. But they're already doing this in the mainstain media. It's a set up.
All this is fabricated by bastards behind the scenes who see the rest of us a dumb cattle. This is misdirection. Complete social engineering at its worst. But it works. We've been asphyxiated from truth, and the effects are setting in.
But see the "opportunity"? What if on that very day, while these limp attempts to arouse fading emotions are on display and heightened by a complicit media, there IS an event?!
Wham!
6. The Demonization of "Truthers" and an alternative media crackdown
OK, we've seen this coming for a long time. But just imagine who they'd blame an "event" on--especially in such an emotionally super-charged environment. Don't have to be a prophet to see the potential.
Norway set the stage. White man goes ape-shit with clear conscience...due to political views. Huh?
They've wanted to get a stronger handle on the internet and clamp down on truth-spreading websites and blogs for a long time. They just need an excuse. Wikileaks softened the ground on this in the public mind, as have other alternative media issues, but watch them run the gamut if something big does take place. They're trigger happy and getting their ducks in a row.
That's what they do. And the Truthers need to be demonized and silenced..they're getting too close now. The 9/11 Truth movement has gained monumental momentum....BECAUSE it's the Truth! And they know it.
7. Not A Reason--Just please be prepared--for anything.
I don't mean to bring on negative intentions and manifest anything by pointing out these possibilities....BUT...to be forewarned is to be forearmed. And if it's not now, it's soon.
Don't get hung up on the date or any details. I just think people should be prepared...and now....and I mean not only psychologically and spiritually, but practically. Where are you and your family gonna be on that day? Do you have a plan on where to meet loved ones in the case of calamity? Do you have food and water, protection, community?
These should all be in place now, but if you haven't done these things yet, DO! It gives peace of mind at the least.
"Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it."
In Love, Zen
See also Brace for Impact! The Movie
More samples of stuff from Zen to enjoy:
11 Occult Secrets Now In The Open
SUPERSIZED: Faces of Evil That Rule The World
Alternative Editor beforeitsnews.com
www.zengardner.com
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