Bernanke, whose second four-year term is set to end in January, has
presided over perhaps the most dramatic period in the century-long
history of the Fed, the mostly autonomous central bank that sets
interest rates and controls the supply of money for the U.S. economy.
The credit crisis that emerged in late 2007 with a downturn in the
housing market eventually led to a near-collapse of the financial system
and the deepest economic recession since the Great Depression.
In response, Bernanke drove the short-term interest rates under its
control to near zero, and unleashed three rounds of bond buying that
have injected massive amounts of fresh money into the economy to keep
inexpensive loans flowing in the economy.
The economic recovery, while slower than hoped, has continued since
late 2009, and Bernanke has vowed to keep rates unusually low at least
until the unemployment rate, now at 7.4%, falls to 6.5%.
The stakes surrounding Obama’s choice for Bernanke’s successor are
unusually high. For one thing, the Fed chairmanship doesn’t frequently
become vacant. Since 1979, there have been only three leaders of the
Fed.
Paul Volcker was put forward by President Jimmy Carter and is
credited with slaying runaway inflation and setting the scene for the
‘80s economic renaissance through punitively high interest rates. Alan
Greenspan used opportunistic rate cuts to help the eoconmy through the
1987 stock-market crash and 1990 recession, ushering in the ‘90s boom.
Bernanke has also presided over an unusually aggressive stimulus
policy, which continues for the moment in the form of $85 billion of Fed
purchases of Treasury and mortgage bonds per month. His programs have
ballooned the Fed’s assets to nearly $4 trillion from less than $1
trillion before the financial crisis.
At some point, Fed stimulus must be wound down in response to further
economic improvement, or perhaps a pickup in inflation. At the moment,
financial markets are nervously watching for clues of the Fed’s
intentions for dialing back its “quantitative easing” campaign of
monthly bond purchases – with many economists expecting this to occur in
September.
The new Fed chair will have to manage this process, while also
assuring world investors, consumers and businesspeople that he or she
stands ready to respond assertively to changing economic fortunes. With
interest rates around the developed world already close to zero, central
bankers’ spoken messages about future policy carry enormous weight.
The two presumed frontrunners for the Fed nomination are Lawrence
Summers, Treasury Secretary under President Clinton and Obama’s first
National Economic Advisor, and Janet Yellen, current Federal Reserve
Vice Chair.
The choice has been unusually contentious, in part because of the way
Obama touched off the succession race by seeming to declare in an
interview the end of Bernanke’s tenure before the Fed chief himself did,
and months before the end of his term. The contrasting personalities of
Summers and Yellen, and the strong feelings voiced by their respective
supporters, have also made the nomination process more intense. The
White House has also not ruled out other dark-horse contenders.
Few question the economic aptitude or policymaking experience of
either candidate. Both have been broadly supportive of Bernanke’s
policies, though Yellen is generally viewed to be more apt to lean
toward greater economic stimulus and less concerned with potential
inflationary risks.
Summers is almost universally considered intellectually brilliant but
tactless and abrasive, perhaps more prone to impulsive public comments.
He famously alienated the Harvard faculty while he was university
president with some musings over whether women might lack some capacity to excel in the upper reaches of the sciences.
Yellen is widely liked in Washington and the economics profession, respected for her research work and was shown by The Wall Street Journal recently to be the most accurate economic forecaster
among Fed policy officials. Somewhat professorial in manner, she has
drawn the support of many female legislators who believe she would make
an excellent choice as the first woman Fed chief.
While both seem qualified and have their strong advocates, whomever
Obama chooses will certainly face a tough Senate confirmation fight –
another indication of how high the stakes are.
Listen to Market Analyst , Peter Schiff in the Video at end of Article
Gld ETF Warning, Tungsten Filled Fake Gold Bars
Commodities / Gold & Silver, Nov 12, 2009
By: Rob Kirby Gold Finger – A New Take On Operation Grand Slam With A Tungsten Twist”
I’ve already reported on irregular physical gold settlements which
occurred in London, England back in the first week of October, 2009.
Specifically, these settlements involved the intermediation of at least
one Central Bank [The Bank of England] to resolve allocated settlements
on behalf of J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank – who DID NOT have the gold
bullion that they had sold short and were contracted to deliver. At the
same time I reported on two other unusual occurrences:
1] - irregularities in the publication of the gold ETF – GLD’s bar
list from Sept. 25 – Oct.14 where the length of the bar list went from
1,381 pages to under 200 pages and then back up to 800 or so pages.
2] - reports of 400 oz. “good delivery” bricks of gold found
gutted and filled with tungsten within the confines of LBMA approved
vaults in Hong Kong. Why Tungsten?
If anyone were contemplating creating “fake” gold bars, tungsten [at
roughly $10 per pound] would be the metal of choice since it has the
exact same density as gold making a fake bar salted with tungsten
indistinguishable from a solid gold bar by simply weighing it. Unfortunately, there are now more sordid details to report.
When the news of tungsten “salted” gold bars in Hong Kong first
surfaced, many people who I am acquainted with automatically assumed
that these bars were manufactured in China – because China is generally
viewed as “the knock-off capital of the world”. Here’s what I now understand really happened:
The amount of “salted tungsten” gold bars in question was allegedly
between 5,600 and 5,700 – 400 oz – good delivery bars [roughly 60 metric
tonnes].
This was apparently all highly orchestrated by an extremely well financed criminal operation.
Within mere hours of this scam being identified – Chinese officials had many of the perpetrators in custody. And here’s what the Chinese allegedly uncovered:
Roughly 15 years ago – during the Clinton Administration [think
Robert Rubin, Sir Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers] – between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks were allegedly manufactured
by a very high-end, sophisticated refiner in the USA [more than 16
Thousand metric tonnes]. Subsequently, 640,000 of these tungsten blanks
received their gold plating and WERE shipped to Ft. Knox and remain
there to this day. I know folks who have copies of the original
shipping docs with dates and exact weights of “tungsten” bars shipped to Ft. Knox.
The balance of this 1.3 million – 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten cache
was also (gold) plated and then allegedly “sold” into the international
market. Apparently, the global market is literally “stuffed full of 400 oz saltedbars”.
Makes one wonder if the Indians were smart enough to assay their 200 tonne haul from the IMF? A Slow Motion Train Wreck, Years in the Making
An obscure news item originally published in the N.Y. Post [written
by Jennifer Anderson] in late Jan. 04 has always ‘stuck in my craw’:
DA investigating NYMEX executive – Manhattan, New York, district
attorney’s office, Stuart Smith – Melting Pot – Brief Article – Feb. 2,
2004 A top executive at the New York Mercantile Exchange is being investigated by the Manhattan district attorney.
Sources close to the exchange said that Stuart Smith,
senior vice president of operations at the exchange, was served with a
search warrant by the district attorney’s office last week. Details of
the investigation have not been disclosed, but a NYMEX spokeswoman said
it was unrelated to any of the exchange’s markets. She declined to
comment further other than to say that charges had not been brought. A
spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office also declined
comment.
The offices of the Senior Vice President of Operations – NYMEX – is exactly where you would go to find the records [serial number and smelter of origin]
for EVERY GOLD BAR ever PHYSICALLY settled on the exchange. They are
required to keep these records. These precise records would show the
lineage of all the physical gold settled on the exchange and hence
“prove” that the amount of gold in question could not have possibly come
from the U.S. mining operations – because the amounts in question
coming from U.S. smelters would undoubtedly be vastly bigger than
domestic mine production.
We never have found out what happened to poor ole Stuart Smith –
after his offices were “raided” – he took administrative leave from the
NYMEX and he has never been heard from since. Amazingly [or perhaps
not], there never was any follow up on in the media on the original
story as well as ZERO developments ever stemming from D.A. Morgenthau’s
office who executed the search warrant.
Are we to believe that NYMEX offices were raided, the Sr. V.P. of operations then takes leave – all for nothing? These revelations should provide a “new filter” through
which Rothschild exiting the gold market back in 2004 begins to make a
little more sense:
“LONDON, April 14, 2004 (Reuters) – NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd.,
the London-based unit of investment bank Rothschild [ROT.UL], will
withdraw from trading commodities, including gold, in London as it
reviews its operations, it said on Wednesday.” Interestingly, GATA’s Bill Murphy speculated about this back in 2004;
“Why is Rothschild leaving the gold business at this time my
colleagues and I conjectured today? Just a guess on my part, but
suspect:”
*SOMETHING IS AMISS. THEY KNOW A BIG GOLD SCANDAL IS COMING AND THEY WANT NO PART OF IT. …”
“ROTHSCHILD WANTS OUT BEFORE THE PROVERBIAL “S” HITS THE FAN.” BILL MURPHY, LEMETROPOLE, 4-18-2004
India Set to Increase Oil Imports from Iran Despite U.S. Pressure
(FTMDaily.com) After months of sanctions and numerous attempts to
destroy the Iranian economy, the U.S. House of Representatives voted once again earlier this month to strengthen the existing sanctions against Iran by targeting the nation’s remaining oil exports.
Iran, which refuses to prop up the failing U.S. dollar, accepts
euros, rubles, yuan, and even gold for its oil and currently exports
approximately 1 million barrels of petroleum per day. (Iran’s current
level of oil exports has already been cut in half from 2.2 million
barrels last year, by the existing sanctions.)
The U.S. has also targeted Chinese banks,
which have been instrumental in helping Iran maintain its oil exports
by settling the oil sale transactions in currencies outside of the U.S.
dollar. (China is Iran’s largest oil customer.) For those who understand the insidious nature of America’s global petrodollar scheme, the Congressional retaliation at Iran’s insistence on selling its oil in currencies outside of the U.S. dollar is no surprise.
These recent actions have a precedent. During World War II, U.S.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt placed aggressive and punitive sanctions
on Japan. Some historians believe that this policy led to the Japanese
bombing of the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor.
India’s Risky Venture
This week, energy-starved India appeared eager to increase its oil imports
from the country after Iran agreed to accept India’s currency, the
rupee, as payment. Because the Indian rupee is not a widespread
currency, Iran will likely use the rupees to purchase imports from
India.
Some Indian politicians fear U.S. reprisals for conducting business
with Iran. It seems, however, that the concerns and demands of India’s
growing voting population may trump U.S. wishes.
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece about India’s risky venture here.
Finally, here’s a recent video of U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, urging India to stop importing oil from Iran.
(Kitco News) - Comex
gold futures prices ended the U.S. day session sharply higher, near
the daily high and hit a fresh seven-week high Thursday. Safe-haven
buying was featured amid the sell- off in the U.S. stock market and the
escalation in violence in Egypt. Technical buying was also seen
Thursday around midday when key chart resistance levels were penetrated
on the upside, which trigger buy-stop orders. The U.S. dollar index
also sold off sharply around midday, which also gave the gold bulls some
fuel. The gold market bulls gained fresh upside near-term technical
momentum on Thursday. December gold was last up $29.10 at $1,362.70 an
ounce. Spot gold was last quoted up $26.80 at $1,363.75. September
Comex silver last traded up $1.198 at $22.985 an ounce.
Reports Thursday said around 525 people have died
the past two days in anti-government violence in Egypt. Government
troops have reportedly shot citizens protesting in the streets. This
news helped to support the safe-haven demand in the gold market. Egypt
controls the Suez Canal, through which a good percentage of the world’s
oil traffic and other commerce flow.
The gold market saw initial selling pressure in
early U.S. trading Thursday. U.S. jobless claims in the latest
reporting week fell by 15,000 workers. Meantime, the U.S. consumer
price index came in at a tame rise of 0.2% in July, which was right in
line with expectations. That jobless claims added fuel to the fire for
those thinking the Federal Reserve will begin to “taper” its monthly
bond-buying program, also known as quantitative easing, sooner rather
than later, and possibly as soon as September. The consumer price
data suggests continued low inflationary price pressures and that was
also not bullish for the gold or silver markets.
There was a batch of other U.S. economic data
released Thursday that failed to significantly move the markets. Also,
St. Louis Fed president James Bullard spoke at a breakfast meeting
Thursday morning. Bullard said nothing that significantly moved the
markets.
The U.S. dollar index was solidly lower Thursday and
sold off suddenly and mysteriously around midday. The greenback had
been firmer Thursday morning following the bullish weekly jobless
claims data. The dollar index bears have the overall near-term chart
advantage. Nymex crude oil futures prices were firmer Thursday on the
Egypt unrest. The crude oil bulls have the overall near-term technical
advantage.
The London P.M. gold fix is $1,329.75 versus the previous P.M. fixing of $1,328.50.
Technically, December gold futures prices closed
nearer the session high and hit a fresh nearly two-month high Thursday.
Gold bears still have the overall near-term technical advantage, but
the bulls made some good headway Thursday. Thursday’s price actions
started a six-week-old uptrend that is now in place on the daily bar
chart. The gold bulls’ next upside near-term price breakout objective
is to produce a close above solid technical resistance at $1,400.00.
Bears' next near-term downside breakout price objective is closing
prices below solid technical support at $1,300.00. First resistance is
seen at Thursday’s high of $1,367.90 and then at $1,375.00. First
support is seen at $1,350.00 and then at $1,345.00. Wyckoff’s Market
Rating: 4.0
September silver futures prices closed nearer the
session high Thursday and hit a fresh nearly three-month high. Bulls
have gained solid upside technical momentum the past week. Bulls have
the near-term technical advantage. Bulls’ next upside price breakout
objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at $24.00
an ounce. The next downside price breakout objective for the bears is
closing prices below solid technical support at $21.00. First
resistance is seen at Thursday’s high of $23.19 and then at $23.50.
Next support is seen at $22.75 and then at $22.50. Wyckoff's Market
Rating: 6.0.
September N.Y. copper closed up 10 points at 334.10
cents today. Prices Thursday closed nearer the session high and closed
at a fresh nine-week high close. Copper bulls have the overall near-term
technical advantage. Copper bulls' next upside breakout objective is
pushing and closing prices above solid technical resistance at the June
high of 341.25 cents. The next downside price breakout objective for
the bears is closing prices below solid technical support at 317.50
cents. First resistance is seen at this week’s high of 334.95 cents and
then at 336.00 cents. First support is seen at 332.50 cents and then
at 330.00 cents. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.0. Follow me on Twitter to immediately get the very latest market developments. If
you are not on board, then you are not getting key analysis and
perspective as fast or as often as you could! Follow me on Twitter to
get my very timely intra-day and after-hours briefs on precious metals
price action. The precious markets will remain very active. If you want
market analysis fast, and in after-hours trading, then follow my up-to-the-second precious metals market perspective on Twitter. It's free, too. My account is @jimwyckoff.
With so many on Wall Street fighting over the valuation of stocks and
worrying whether the market rally has gotten ahead of itself, one
economist tells CNBC that prices in today’s market look eerily similar
to 2007.
Dan Seiver, editor of the Pad System Report and a professor of
finance at San Diego State University, bases his long-term valuation
model on Value Line’s median appreciation potential, which he said has
shown statistically to have predictive value of where the market is
headed.
“Right now, that number is relatively low. It’s down in the range that it was in 2007,” Seiver told “Squawk on the Street” on
Thursday. “That tells me that over the next few years, the returns on
stocks aren’t going to be particularly good and they could even be
negative.” http://www.cnbc.com/id/100965728 Cramer: ‘Giant reset’ looming for markets
A “giant reset” is looming for the markets because the improving
economy is simply not trickling down to companies’ bottom lines, CNBC’s
Jim Cramer said Thursday.
“Macro is great, but when you have to go deal with companies, it’s bad,” Cramer said on “Squawk on the Street.”
“We have to deal with the four walls of the corporate canvas, and
they are simply not able to turn this macro positive into micro earnings
gains, and that’s a real conundrum, particularly when the 10-year is
signaling that happy days are here again,” he said.
Obama’s Economic Approval Slips to 35% Was 42% in June; decline mirrors drop in overall approval
PRINCETON, NJ — Despite President Barack Obama’s renewed focus on the
nation’s economy this summer, he scores worse with Americans on the
economy than he did in June. His approval rating on the issue, now 35%,
is down seven percentage points, and his ratings on taxes and the
federal budget deficit are each down five points. During the same
period, his overall approval rating is down three points.
The earnings hit parade keeps on rolling, but not in the directions
bulls wanted or expected. And with stocks priced well beyond perfection,
today’s reaction should hardly be a surprise. Yet, treasury yields
soared once again in spite of poor earnings, and in spite of a flat
industrial production report. Wal-Mart, Macy’s, Kohl’s Cut Profit Outlook
Yahoo!Finance reports Wal-Mart cuts profit outlook on shopper worries
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. cut its annual profit and revenue
outlook Thursday as the world’s largest retailer expects a tough economy
at home and abroad to continue to squeeze its low-income shoppers
through the rest of the year.
Wal-Mart also reported second-quarter results that missed Wall Street
estimates. The company’s stock fell nearly 2 percent in premarket
trading.
Wal-Mart’s sober assessment of consumer spending adds to worries in
earnings from Macy’s Inc. and Kohl’s Corp. Both lowered their
expectations for the year after reporting disappointing results.
Wal-Mart said recent tax changes have further put pressure on its
shoppers. Americans are dealing with a 2 percentage-point increase in
payroll taxes that took effect Jan. 1. That means that take-home pay for
a household earning $50,000 a year has been sliced by $1,000.
“The retail environment remains challenging in the U.S. and our
international markets, as customers are cautious in their spending,”
Wal-Mart Chief Financial Officer Charles Holley said in a statement. He
noted a “reluctance” among its customers to spend on discretionary items
like flat-screen TVs.
Obama issued an Executive order on August 1, 2013 that will
effectively ban Ammonium Nitrate in the USA. It will become too
expensive and create too much possible civil and criminal liability to
manufacture, store, or transport it. Clinton did the same thing to
Anhydrous Ammonia dealers in 1999. It put most Anhydrous dealers out of
business. Obama is imposing the same regs and adding explosives
regulations on top of OSHA and EPA regulations. It’s all there if you
know how to read bureacratese. Food and Fuel prices will skyrocket because Ammonium Nitrate forms
the basis for almost all nitrogen in granular fertilizers used in
American farming. There are no cost and ease of manufacture/use
equivalents for ammonium nitrate. Supply and demand economics are going
to be the harsh lesson of the day. Crop yields will go down. Corn is the
basis for the American food supply and the fuel additive ethanol. A.N.
is critical in corn production.
Hope everyone is ready for $12/gallon gasoline and $20 a box corn flakes.
You know why NKoreans are starving?? Because they don’t have ammonium
nitrate to fertilize their crops… so they have shi*ty yields…
THE EXECUTIVE ORDER : http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/01/executive-order-improving-chemical-facility-safety-and-security Executive Order — Improving Chemical Facility Safety and Security
The price of a litre of bottled water in B.C. is often higher than a litre of gasoline.
However, the price paid by the world’s largest bottled water company for
taking 265 million litres of fresh water every year from a well in the
Fraser Valley — not a cent.
Because of B.C.’s lack of groundwater regulation, Nestlé Waters Canada —
a division of the multi-billion-dollar Switzerland-based Nestlé Group,
the world’s largest food company — is not required to measure, report,
or pay a penny for the millions of litres of water it draws from Hope
and then sells across Western Canada.
According to the provincial Ministry of Environment, “B.C. is the only
jurisdiction in Canada that doesn’t regulate groundwater use.”
“The province does not license groundwater, charge a rental for
groundwater withdrawals or track how much bottled water companies are
taking from wells,” said a Ministry of Environment spokesperson in an
email to The Province.
This isn’t new. Critics have been calling for change for years now,
saying the lack of groundwater regulation is just one outdated example
from the century-old Water Act.
The Ministry of Environment has said they plan — in the 2014 legislature
sitting — to introduce groundwater regulation with the proposed Water
Sustainability Act, which would update and replace the existing Water
Act, established in 1909. But experts note that successive governments
have been talking about modernizing water for decades, but the issue
keeps falling off the agenda.
This time, many hope it will be different.
“It’s really the Wild West out here in terms of groundwater. And it’s
been going on for over 20 years, that the Ministry of Environment, the
provincial government has been saying that they’re going to make these
changes, and it just hasn’t gone through yet,” said Linda Nowlan,
conservation director from World Wildlife Fund Canada.
'THEY TAKE IT AND SELL IT BACK TO US'
In the District of Hope, Nestlé’s well draws from the same aquifer
relied upon by about 6,000 nearby residents, and some of them are
concerned.
“We have water that’s so clean and so pure, it’s amazing. And then they
take it and sell it back to us in plastic bottles,” said Hope resident
Sharlene Harrison-Hinds.
Sheila Muxlow lives in nearby Chilliwack, downstream the Fraser River
from Hope. As campaign director for the WaterWealth Project, she often
hears from Hope residents who worry about the government’s lack of
oversight with Nestlé’s operations there.
“It’s unsettling,” Muxlow said. “What’s going to happen in the long term, if Nestlé keeps taking and taking and taking?”
While Nestlé is the largest bottled water seller in B.C., others,
including Whistler Water and Mountain Spring Water, also draw
groundwater from B.C.
When asked by The Province, those companies declined to release the volume of their withdrawals.
A LARGE EMPLOYER IN HOPE
Nestlé is one of the largest employers in the District of Hope,
providing about 75 jobs, said District of Hope chief administrative
officer John Fortoloczky. Though Nestlé is not required to measure and
report their water withdrawals to the government, the company
voluntarily reports to the District of Hope, said a Nestlé Waters Canada
executive, reached in Guelph, Ont. last week.
“What we do in Hope exceeds what is proposed by the province of British
Columbia,” said John Challinor, Nestlé Waters Canada’s director of
corporate affairs. Nestle keeps records of water quality and the
company’s mapping of the underground water resources in the area exceeds
what government scientists have done, Challinor said.
“We do these annual reports ... We’re doing it voluntarily with (the
local government). If we are asked to provide it as a condition of a new
permit, that’s easy to do, because we’re already doing it,” Challinor
said.
But the fact that Nestlé’s reports are internal and voluntary is the
very issue of concern, said Ben Parfitt, a resource policy analyst with
the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
“There’s a big, big difference between voluntary reporting and
mandatory,” said Parfitt. “If it’s voluntary, there’s nothing to stop a
company or major water user from choosing not to report ... That is
absolutely critical. You can’t run a system like this on a voluntary
basis.”
Since groundwater remains unregulated in B.C., Nestle does not require a permit for the water they withdraw.
“No permit, no reporting, no tracking, no nothing,” said David Slade,
co-owner of Drillwell Enterprises, a Vancouver Island well-drilling
company. “So you could drill a well on your property, and drill it right
next to your neighbour’s well, and you could pump that well at 100
gallons a minute, 24 hours a day, seven days a week and waste all the
water, pour it on the ground if you wanted to … As far as depleting the
resource, or abusing the resource, there is no regulation. So it is the
Wild, Wild West.”
WATER SHOULD BE A 'PUBLIC TRUST'
The Council of Canadians, a national citizen advocacy group, takes the
position that water should be treated as a public trust, a valuable
resource protected for the benefit of all Canadians.
But when the government allows a multi-billion dollar, international
corporation to withdraw water for free to sell back to us, this doesn’t
seem to serve the public good, said Emma Lui, national water campaigner
for the Council of Canadians, reached in Ottawa. Compared with the rest
of the country, Lui said, “When you look at all these different factors,
B.C. actually is doing quite poorly: that they don’t include
groundwater (in their water licensing system), they don’t have any sort
of public registry of who’s taking groundwater, they don’t charge.”
Nestlé is far from the only large company withdrawing B.C.’s groundwater
for free, and Challinor said Nestlé is “largely supportive of what the
government is trying to do” with modernizing the Water Act. He said he
plans to sit down with B.C.’s new environment minister Mary Polak in the
fall, to discuss these issues. Nestle supports the government moving
toward increased regulation, monitoring and reporting.
As far as the government charging for groundwater, Challinor said “We
have no problem with paying for water, as long as the price is based on
the actual cost of regulating the program.”
If you walk into Cooper’s Foods in downtown Hope — less than 5 km away
from Nestlé’s bottling plant — and buy a 1.5 litre bottle of Nestlé Pure
Life water, it will set you back $1.19.
That’s $1.19 more than Nestle paid to the government last year for
withdrawing more than 265 million litres of fresh water from the well.
Nestlé’s other water bottling plant in Canada is in Wellington County,
Ont., where the province requires them to buy a license and pay for the
water they extract. Some critics, including Lui and Parfitt, feel that
Ontario’s charge of $3.71 per million litres is still too paltry. But
still, they say, it’s more fair than B.C. charging nothing.
(photo)Sheila Muxlow has concerns about Nestle withdrawing millions of
litres of water without payment, outside Nestle's bottling plant near
Hope on August 12, 2013. Photograph by: Wayne Leidenfrost , PNG
It is an open secret among precious metals analysts and traders that the
gold and silver markets are being heavily manipulated, mostly to the
downside; i.e. their prices are being suppressed by various Western
financial entities in what should be a scandal much bigger than the
Libor rigging scheme.
Not only did a senior commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Bart Chilton, reiterate recently his original statements from 26th October 2010 that
"there have been fraudulent efforts to persuade and deviously control the price of silver"
adding this time that "
there have also been silver and gold market anomalies outside of the [current] silver investigation"
, but we have also heard similar comments from former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts:
"I suspect that the Federal Reserve is manipulating the gold and silver
markets in order to prevent its low interest rate policy from
undermining the value of the US dollar. It is easy to offset rising
prices of bullion due to physical demand by selling shorts in the paper
market.”
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And then, of course, there is the famous, albeit much older, remark from the maestro Alan Greenspan
himself, in his July 24, 1998 testimony to the Committee of Banking and
Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives that:
"Central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise".
This bankster-run system does not work for you and me. After reading
this article, if you still have not taken your money out of their banks
and you have not stopped shopping in globalist stores like Walmart and
you are not planning to trade and barter with your neighbors as well as
grow your own food, then you get the dismal future you deserve. If you
stay in the bankster system and continue to participate in this rigged
game stemming from Wall Street, you are sowing the seeds of your own
destruction!
There Is a New Elephant In the Room
There are a series of new free trade agreements which threaten to
obliterate the cities of the United States in the same manner we have
witnessed in Detroit. Among the worst of these new free trade agreements
is the one entitled “Increasing American Jobs Through Greater Exports to Africa Act of 2013 (H.R. 1777).”
The premise of this article is based upon the fact that Detroit was
primarily destroyed by the anti-worker free trade agreements of NAFTA
and CAFTA.
If the complete destruction of one American city was
not enough, through NAFTA and CAFTA, we should all be concerned that
Congress is preparing to pass H.R. 1777. H.R. 1777 is not just another
free trade agreement, but this is far worse than NAFTA and CAFTA. This
bill takes American taxpayer money to fund industrial infrastructure in
many of the 54 African countries in order to make them “factory ready.”
America, you are soon going to be forced to fund your own economic
demise. Not only will you likely lose your job, witness your city going
broke, but you will go deeper into debt paying the taxes that Congress
will require to fund the African Free Trade Agreement.
Before discussing the impact of H.R. 1777
on America as a whole, we can get a strong sense of what it is going to
be like when this bill passes by quickly examining the impact of NAFTA
and CAFTA on Detroit.
NAFTA, CAFTA and the Destruction of the Motor City
At the height of Detroit’s success as a city, it was a representation of
American middle class dominance. It was the greatest manufacturing city
ever seen on the planet. Detroit once made cars that were the envy of
the world.
At its peak, Detroit was the America’s fourth-largest city, with more
than 1.8 million people. Detroit’s population losses began in the 1960s
with migration to the suburbs. Then in the 1990s Detroit fell victim to
global politics in the names of NAFTA and CAFTA; and, literally, the
roof caved in.
Today, 30% of Detroit’s 140 square miles are either vacant or deserted. Today, Detroit has less than 700,000 residents. There are more than 33,500 vacant houses and over 90,000 vacant lots in Detroit. The city government is razing
entire city blocks of business buildings and residential homes. If you
are the only one left on your block, you are forced to move, and if you
are lucky you will receive $10,000 for your home.
Under NAFTA and CAFTA, virtually all tariffs were eliminated so that
manufacturers could shut down U.S. plants and relocate to the Third
World in order that they could pay their new, foreign workers slave
labor wages. Then, adding insult to injury, when NAFTA and CAFTA
eliminated tariffs, they made it possible for the multinational
corporations to ship these foreign made products back into the U.S. and
pay no import taxes at all. Thus, the great city of Detroit was
destroyed.
The National Impact of the African Free Trade Agreement
Soon
after H.R. 1777 passes, every major city is going to look like Detroit.
As bad as NAFTA and CAFTA are, at least the government did not take
trillions of American dollars to build infrastructure in foreign labor
markets. Yet, this is exactly what the African Free Trade Agreement is
going to do.
I have to hand it to Congress for their undisguised boldness as they are
not even hiding this private theft of public money. Additionally,
Congress has the nerve to title this bill in such a way that it appears
that American jobs are going to be created by passage of the bill.
Sadly, most of the sheep will believe them.
How can I be sure that H.R. 1777 will be passed?
A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing
In addition to H.R. 1777, SB 718 “Increasing American Jobs Through
Greater Exports to Africa Act of 2013,” is being run through the Senate.
The language for both bills is identical.
Additionally, the text of H.R. 1777 turns up in SB 431, the Nepal Trade
Preferences Act, and SB 432, the Asia-South Pacific Trade Preferences
Act. The language for all four bills is virtually identical.
Why do the banksters need all four bills with the same language? Simple,
if one bill does not pass, the other three bills still have a chance.
For those who do not think that Congress doesn’t cater to the whims of
Wall Street, explain why these bills contain provisions for global
health, global education, global transportation and global water?
Make no mistake about it, there is an excellent chance that at least one of these bills will pass.
Conclusion
This bill is being perpetrated by the international banksters on Wall
Street. Why do we continue to fund this criminal government, who in
turns funds Wall Street? The solution resides in defunding the
government which hands our money and our jobs over to the thugs on Wall
Street. It makes no sense to continue funding our demise.
There are several options. First, there are countries which would be
happy to accept skilled Americans because of the boost to their economy.
Can you imagine if 100 million Americans suddenly left the country?
Certainly, the government would eventually move to impose an iron
curtain type of restriction on leaving the country.
Secondly, we should withdraw from the Wall Street system
as much as possible. I can see the day where people cash out of their
401K’s (the government is preparing to steal them anyway), withdraw
money from your bank account and invest with other like-minded people in
a farm collective. Trading and bartering would be the new underground
economy. By owning farms, urban refugees would be food sufficient, could
become water sufficient with the proper planning and we could largely
be out of the reach of the feds. However, there is one caveat. In a
brilliant move, the Obama administration and the Supreme Court mandated
participation in the Obamacare system. In my opinion, this was
establishment’s way to keep people in their system. Obviously, defying
the dictates of Obamacare would have to become our first line of civil
disobedience.
There is a third option. The American people could defy the tyrannical
laws to the point where the country erupts into a civil war. I prefer
the second option because it comes the closest to nonviolent revolution.
However, my instincts and knowledge of history tells me we are in for a
very serious civil war. The flash point for what is coming will be gun
confiscation.
Of course, the fourth option is to acquiesce. Presently, that is what
well over half the country is doing. It is sad to think that so many
will go quietly into the night without putting up a fight.
At the end of the day, all Americans have a choice on whether we are going to stop funding our destruction.
Dave is an award winning psychology, statistics and research
professor, a college basketball coach, a mental health counselor, a
political activist and writer who has published dozens of editorials and
articles in several publications such as Freedoms Phoenix, News With Views and The Arizona Republic.
The Common Sense Show
features a wide variety of important topics that range from the loss of
constitutional liberties, to the subsequent implementation of a police
state under world governance, to exploring the limits of human
potential. The primary purpose of The Common Sense Show is to provide
Americans with the tools necessary to reclaim both our individual and
national sovereignty.
Stocks tumble…
Stocks slumped on Wednesday as the market continued to gauge when the
Federal Reserve might start to reduce its $85 billion in monthly bond
purchases. Apple was a standout as some big investors took stakes in the
smartphone maker. http://www.cnbc.com/id/100962175
There is no subsidy for a couple earning $65k+ a year combined. We
included the $5,300 smokers surcharge in our calculation. This will
DESTROY what’s left of the middle class, here the calculator… http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/ The penalty/tax will be phased in from 2014 to 2016.
The minimum penalty/tax in 2016 will be $695 per person and up to 3-times that per family. After 2016, these
amounts will increase at the rate of inflation.
The minimum penalty/tax per person will start at $95 in 2014 (and then increase through 2016)
No family will ever pay more than 3X the per-person penalty, regardless of how many people are in the family.
The $695 per-person penalty is only for those who make between $9,500
and ~$37,000 per year. If you make less than ~$9.500, you’re exempt. If
you make more than ~$37,000, your penalty is calculated by the
following formula…
The penalty is 2.5% of any household income above the level at which
you are required to file a tax return. That level is currently $9,500
per person and $19,000 per couple. The penalty on any income above that
is 2.5%. So the penalty can get expensive quickly if you make a lot of
money.
However, the penalty can never be more than the cost of a “Bronze”
heath insurance plan purchased through one of the state “exchanges” that
will be created as part of Obamacare. The CBO estimates that these
policies will cost $4,500-$5,000 per person and $12,000-$12,500 per
family in 2016, with the costs rising thereafter.
So, basically, you’re looking at penalties of approximately the following at the following income levels:
Less than $9,500 income = $0
$9,500 – $37,000 income = $695
$50,000 income = $1,000
$75,000 income = $1,600
$100,000 income = $2,250
$125,000 income = $2,900
$150,000 income = $3,500
$175,000 income = $4,100
$200,000 income = $4,700
Over $200,000 = The cost of a “bronze” health-insurance plan http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-is-the-obamacare-penalty-tax-2012-7
Cheesedog
People drove across country to be made redundant as company had gone into administration
Parents were told to remove child equipment before handing over company cars as well as company mobile phones
They were left to return home on public transport to places such as Devon, Leeds, Manchester and North Wales
Hundreds of workers were left stranded
and in tears yesterday after they were called to their company head
office, unexpectedly made redundant and then told they could not use
their company cars to get home. Sales
representatives for telephone directory Thomson Local received a
mysterious email late on Tuesday afternoon ordering them to attend a
meeting at head office at noon yesterday. They
drove from across the country to Farnborough, Hampshire, where they
were ushered into two rooms – and half were told they had lost their
jobs because the company had gone into administration.
Account representative Jocelyn Green, 57, from
Chelmsford, Essex, pictured left, is worried about paying her mortgage,
while Emma Foulds, 23, from Bath, right, said there had been no warning
of the job losses
About 200 workers were made redundant. Some had worked for the firm for 27 years. Parents
were told to remove child equipment before handing over company cars as
well as company mobile phones, leaving them stranded and unable to
contact friends and relatives. They were left to return home on public transport to places such as Devon, Leeds, Manchester and North Wales.
Emma Foulds, 23, from Bath,
said there had been no warning of the job losses. She said: ‘We knew
that the company was up for sale, so people thought the meeting was
because we had new owners who wanted to introduce themselves. ‘But as soon as we walked into the room there was no senior management and people we did not recognise, [the] administrators.’ Miss
Foulds said: ‘People started crying, there are a lot of pregnant people
who are not going to get maternity leave, pensions may have gone. It is
disgusting how they have dealt with it.’
Employees drove from across the country to the
office in Farnborough, Hampshire, pictured, where they were ushered into
two rooms and half were told they had lost their jobs
Account representative Jocelyn
Green, 56, feared not being able to pay her mortgage. Miss Green, from
Chelmsford, Essex, sold advertising in the directories and online,
earning £40,000 a year. She said: ‘I have worked for Thomson since July
1986 and have worked tirelessly for them. ‘I
have been noticed as one of the top three reps in the country, never
missing a sale or a target. When I got the email I thought it could be a
buyout, but this is crazy. ‘To travel 86 miles to get here and be told: “Sorry, you don’t have a job” is a terrible way to be treated. ‘I was crying my eyes out in the meeting. People were shouting, accusing the company of having played us like a fiddle. ‘It’s diabolical. I am distraught and have lost everything. I gave the company the best years of my life.’ Single
mother-of-three Rachel Cooper, 37, from Swindon, Wiltshire, said: ‘I’m
terrified about how I will keep a roof over all our heads now. Thomson
have screwed us all over. I was successful in my last job and Thomson
approached me in November and April.’ Thomson
Directories is the UK subsidiary of Italian telephone directory
publisher Seat Pagine Gialle and has been making phone books in this
country for 30 years. Some 174 editions are produced annually and delivered to 22million homes and businesses. Last night there was no one available for comment at Thomson Local, Seat Pagine Gialle or the administrators Grant Thornton.
Whitehall accused of 'letting good people go’ before calling in consultants
Pay-offs in 2012-13 hit £290million as part of cost-cutting programme
But millions more was spent on external firms on temporary contracts
The government has spent £800million
calling in consultants to do the work of staff made redundant with
pay-offs worth almost £300million. The
revelation sparked claims Whitehall departments have ‘let good people
go’ before rehiring former civil servants on expensive, temporary
contracts. The spending also flies in the face of a ban on the use of external consultants as part of the government’s austerity programme.
Revolving door: The government has spent almost £300million laying off staff, and up to £800million bringing in consultants
The total pay-offs in 2012-13 to
core staff at the 17 main central Government departments was £290
million, Cabinet Office figures show. The
data reveals the Ministry of Justice recorded a high of £89 million in
exit payments for staff in 2012-13, followed by the Department of Work
and Pensions' £67 million. But
at the same time Whitehall departments paid out £505 million on
consultants and short-term staff, listed as ‘consultancy and contingent
labour’. Analysis by The
Times of the data placed the overall cost of consultants and temporary
staff at nearer to £800 million for the 17 main departments. It
includes private firms brought in to work on projects including HS2,
Universal Credit and the West Coast Main Line railway, plus more than
£328 million on ‘off-payroll’ staff.
Grip: Tory MP Priti Patel said ministers had to do more to control spending
Tory MP Priti Patel told The Times: Witham, said: ‘Ministers need to get a grip on consultancy and temporary staff costs. ‘Paying
for these services should be the exception rather than the rule and
Whitehall must restructure itself to bring these costs down.’ Bernard
Jenkin, the Tory chairman of the Public Administration Select
Committee, added: ‘We have let good people go as part of the downsizing -
but how many of these consultants are ex-civil servants?’ In
August 2012 Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, claimed the
last government used consultants as a 'comfort blanket', adding: 'If
there was anything difficult to be done, they would reach for
consultants immediately, which is both very expensive, but also it
actually undermines the position of mainstream civil servants.’ The
coalition, he added, was trying to reduce the dependence on consultants
through trying to achieve a skills transfer from consultants used to
civil servants, and knowing where existing skills were across
Government. A Cabinet Office
spokeswoman said: ‘We've already put an end to excessive consultancy
spend by establishing stringent controls across Government saving, over
£1.6 billion in 2011/12 compared to the level of spending in 2009/10. ‘Cabinet Office delivers projects across a wide range of high-profile policy areas. ‘It
is sometimes necessary to recruit for specialist business-critical
roles. Such roles are only authorised where the skills are not readily
available within civil service and where using temporary labour is
better value for taxpayers' money than hiring full-time staff. ‘Bringing
in procurement, finance and digital expertise plays a crucial part in
our determination to strengthen the corporate centre in Whitehall and
ensuring that government operates like the best-run businesses.’
Some countries actually require companies to give employees
vacation leave. This infographic, created by the employee leave and
FMLA (Family And Medical Leave Act) experts at Employment law HQ,
highlights the vacation requirements of countries around the world.
The results are a bit surprising and, depending on your views,
concerning, especially if you live in the United States. It raises
the question of whether some societies like the U.S. have become too
work-obsessed, and taking vacation is unfortunately misconstrued in
those societies as having “lack of commitment” to one’s job.
All I know for sure is that I would love to be able to work in
Austria!
PIMCO’s Bill Gross joined Bloomberg Television’s Erik Schatzker and Sara
Eisen on “Market Makers” today and said: There is an 80 percent
probability that the central bank will begin tapering its bond-buying
program in September. He went on to say, that the Fed will rely on
forward guidance rather than asset purchases more going forward.
** BLOOMBERG TELEVISION **
On seeing the market as “a war in which there will be many causalities”:
“It is bloody if in fact the market has turned and interest rates
have moved higher. They’ve done that for the past three months and bond
prices have gone down. We know that bond mutual funds in the market
itself is described in higher-quality terms and has slipped by about 2
percent. Investors are worried and I’m suggesting there’s a war on to
retain assets and fight a future battle in which the return on bonds may
be less than historic. We’ve come up with some strategies that aren’t
necessarily durational or maturity related and can protect principle
more than historic.” On whether September is the time for tapering:
“I think it is changing and I think September is probably the time.
We give it 80-percent and here’s the reason. We think the future fed
policy will increasingly rely on what’s being called forward guidance as
opposed to asset purchases or quantitative easing. To the Fed’s way of
thinking, that is a tired horse which has inflated asset prices but has
done little to stimulate growth. In addition, according to some Fed
numbers, it puts the Fed balance sheet at future risk with potential
higher interest rates. This implies to us our reliance on future
guidance and forward guidance which is a reverse type of twist from back
in September of 2011. This is a reverse twist in which the fed wants
the market to buy securities with the comfort of forward guidance and
withdrawing the purchasing of 85% of the gross issuance of 20 year and
30 year treasuries. If this diagnosis is correct, long treasuries and
long maturities should be sold in one to five years and one to ten year
maturities should be brought.
On how certain he is about the direction of the bond market:
“The way we look at it is a conceptual way, not subject to historical
modeling. In a highly levered economy, and we have a highly levered
economy not just in the U.S. but globally, when there is a lot of
leverage in the economy, the central bank must tread lightly in terms of
increasing interest rates. That’s why you see the emphasis on forward
guidance and that’s why we see quantitative easing. The store raising
interest rates to countermand higher inflationary threats basically a
thing of the past. If the Fed stays where they are, at 25 basis points
for a long time, perhaps 2016 and beyond, what does it mean in terms of
strategy? It means that the five year and ten year don’t represent value
relative to inflation but represent value relative to where they were
three or four months ago at 150 to 160. It all depends on what the Fed
does in a central bank does and leverage and the associated increase
which would slow the economy significantly and we think the Fed
understands that.”
On whether inflation is something to be concerned about:
“Ben Bernanke has emphasized this. He says they will defend inflation
not from the top side but from the downside. The consumption deflator,
so to speak, that is at 1.2% and they are targeting as high at 2.5%.
This will argue for aggressively easy fed policy going forward, keeping
funds low to elevate inflation much like the Japanese are trying to do
in their economy.”
On whether he has reversed the war to retain assets in the fixed income market:
“It sure is working. Our returns relative to the market were not only
positive in terms of their real returns. What the strategy is, is to
emphasize durational, longer maturities less. The problem is you reduce
yields. If you went to cash entirely, you would have a portfolio
yielding 10 basis points and clients wouldn’t want that grade you want
to reduce aeration but substitute other areas in the bond market which
provide what we call ‘carry.’ That emphasizes yield but is less
sensitive area we are talking about yield curve emphasis volatility and
bonds and other currencies as opposed to dollar-related currencies.
There are other ways to defeat this army other than emphasizing
duration, and we intend to move into other areas to do it.”
On whether it is time for PIMCO to get back into Europe:
“Perhaps not. Not in the core countries like Germany. Yields are
historically low, lower than even the United States. If Europe is
improving, you would not look for ECB to begin tightening. They just
gave us our guide’s in terms of easing for an indefinite time area their
yields are significantly lower in terms of the core. In terms of the
UK, they have adopted forward guidance which suggests, although
indefinite in terms of a lag and unemployment, their policy is as easy
as the policy in the United States. I would look at German Bonds.”
EnlargeLynn Szymoniak (Credit: CBS News/60 MInutes)
If
you know about foreclosure fraud, the mass fabrication of mortgage
documents in state courts by banks attempting to foreclose on
homeowners, you may have one nagging question: Why did banks have to
resort to this illegal scheme? Was it just cheaper to mock up the
documents than to provide the real ones? Did banks figure they simply
had enough power over regulators, politicians and the courts to get away
with it? (They were probably right about that one.)
A newly
unsealed lawsuit, which banks settled in 2012 for $95 million, actually
offers a different reason, providing a key answer to one of the
persistent riddles of the financial crisis and its aftermath. The
lawsuit states that banks resorted to fake documents because they could
not legally establish true ownership of the loans when trying to
foreclose.
This reality, which banks did not contest but instead settled out of court, means that tens of millions of mortgages in America still
lack a legitimate chain of ownership, with implications far into the
future. And if Congress, supported by the Obama administration, goes
back to the same housing finance system, with the same corrupt private
entities who broke the nation’s private property system back in business
packaging mortgages, then shame on all of us.
The 2011 lawsuit
was filed in U.S. District Court in both North and South Carolina, by a
white-collar fraud specialist named Lynn Szymoniak, on behalf of the
federal government, 17 states and three cities. Twenty-eight banks,
mortgage servicers and document processing companies are named in the
lawsuit, including mega-banks like JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi and
Bank of America.
Szymoniak, who fell into foreclosure herself in
2009, researched her own mortgage documents and found massive fraud (for
example, one document claimed that Deutsche Bank, listed as the owner
of her mortgage, acquired ownership in October 2008, four months after
they first filed for foreclosure). She eventually examined tens of
thousands of documents, enough to piece together the entire scheme.
A
mortgage has two parts: the promissory note (the IOU from the borrower
to the lender) and the mortgage, which creates the lien on the home in
case of default. During the housing bubble, banks bought loans from
originators, and then (in a process known as securitization) enacted a
series of transactions that would eventually pool thousands of mortgages
into bonds, sold all over the world to public pension funds, state and
municipal governments and other investors. A trustee would pool the
loans and sell the securities to investors, and the investors would get
an annual percentage yield on their money.
In
order for the securitization to work, banks purchasing the mortgages
had to physically convey the promissory note and the mortgage into the
trust. The note had to be endorsed (the way an individual would endorse a
check), and handed over to a document custodian for the trust, with a
“mortgage assignment” confirming the transfer of ownership. And this had
to be done before a 90-day cutoff date, with no grace period beyond
that.
Georgetown Law professor Adam Levitin spelled this out in
testimony before Congress in 2010: “If mortgages were not properly
transferred in the securitization process, then mortgage-backed
securities would in fact not be backed by any mortgages whatsoever.”
The
lawsuit alleges that these notes, as well as the mortgage assignments,
were “never delivered to the mortgage-backed securities trusts,” and
that the trustees lied to the SEC and investors about this. As a result,
the trusts could not establish ownership of the loan when they went to
foreclose, forcing the production of a stream of false documents, signed
by “robo-signers,” employees using a bevy of corporate titles for
companies that never employed them, to sign documents about which they
had little or no knowledge.
Many documents were forged (the suit
provides evidence of the signature of one robo-signer, Linda Green,
written eight different ways), some were signed by “officers” of
companies that went bankrupt years earlier, and dozens of assignments
listed as the owner of the loan “Bogus Assignee for Intervening
Assignments,” clearly a template that was never changed. One defendant
in the case, Lender Processing Services, created masses of false
documents on behalf of the banks, often using fake corporate officer
titles and forged signatures. This was all done to establish standing to
foreclose in courts, which the banks otherwise could not.
Szymoniak
stated in her lawsuit that, “Defendants used fraudulent mortgage
assignments to conceal that over 1400 MBS trusts, each with mortgages
valued at over $1 billion, are missing critical documents,” meaning that
at least $1.4 trillion in mortgage-backed securities are, in fact,
non-mortgage-backed securities. Because of the strict laws governing of
these kinds of securitizations, there’s no way to make the assignments
after the fact. Activists have a name for this: “securitization FAIL.”
One
smoking gun piece of evidence in the lawsuit concerns a mortgage
assignment dated Feb. 9, 2009, after the foreclosure of the mortgage in
question was completed. According to the suit, “A typewritten note on
the right hand side of the document states: ‘This Assignment of
Mortgage was inadvertently not recorded prior to the Final Judgment of
Foreclosure… but is now being recorded to clear title.’”
This
admission confirms that the mortgage assignment was not made before the
closing date of the trust, invalidating ownership. The suit further
argued that “the act of fabricating the assignments is evidence that the
MBS Trust did not own the notes and/or the mortgage liens for some
assets claimed to be in the pool.”
The federal government, states
and cities joined the lawsuit under 25 counts of the federal False
Claims Act and state-based versions of the law. All of them bought
mortgage-backed securities from banks that never conveyed the mortgages
or notes to the trusts. The plaintiffs argued that, considering that
trustees and servicers had to spend lots of money forging and
fabricating documents to establish ownership, they were materially
harmed by the subsequent impaired value of the securities. Also, these
investors (which includes the Treasury Department and the Federal
Reserve) paid for the transfer of mortgages to the trusts, yet they were
never actually transferred.
Finally, the lawsuit argues that the
federal government was harmed by “payments made on mortgage guarantees
to Defendants lacking valid notes and assignments of mortgages who were
not entitled to demand or receive said payments.”
Despite
Szymoniak seeking a trial by jury, the government intervened in the
case, and settled part of it at the beginning of 2012, extracting $95
million from the five biggest banks in the suit (Wells Fargo, Bank of
America, JPMorgan Chase, Citi and GMAC/Ally Bank). Szymoniak herself was
awarded $18 million. But the underlying evidence was never revealed
until the case was unsealed last Thursday.
Now that it’s unsealed,
Szymoniak, as the named plaintiff, can go forward and prove the case.
Along with her legal team (which includes the law firm of Grant &
Eisenhoffer, which has recovered more money under the False Claims Act
than any firm in the country), Szymoniak can pursue discovery and go to
trial against the rest of the named defendants, including HSBC, the Bank
of New York Mellon, Deutsche Bank and US Bank.
The expenses of
the case, previously borne by the government, now are borne by Szymoniak
and her team, but the percentages of recovery funds are also higher.
“I’m really glad I was part of collecting this money for the government,
and I’m looking forward to going through discovery and collecting the
rest of it,” Szymoniak told Salon.
It’s good that the case remains
active, because the $95 million settlement was a pittance compared to
the enormity of the crime. By the end of 2009, private mortgage-backed
securities trusts held one-third of all residential mortgages in the
U.S. That means that tens of millions of home mortgages worth trillions
of dollars have no legitimate underlying owner that can establish the
right to foreclose. This hasn’t stopped banks from foreclosing anyway
with false documents, and they are often successful, a testament to the
breakdown of law in the judicial system. But to this day, the resulting
chaos in disentangling ownership harms homeowners trying to sell these
properties, as well as those trying to purchase them. And it renders
some properties impossible to sell.
To this day, banks foreclose
on borrowers using fraudulent mortgage assignments, a legacy of failing
to prosecute this conduct and instead letting banks pay a fine to settle
it. This disappoints Szymoniak, who told Salon the owner of these loans
is now essentially “whoever lies the most convincingly and whoever gets
the benefit of doubt from the judge.” Szymoniak used her share of the
settlement to start the Housing Justice Foundation, a non-profit that
attempts to raise awareness of the continuing corruption of the nation’s
courts and land title system.
Most of official Washington,
including President Obama, wants to wind down mortgage giants Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac, and return to a system where private lenders create
securitization trusts, packaging pools of loans and selling them to
investors. Government would provide a limited guarantee to investors
against catastrophic losses, but the private banks would make the
securities, to generate more capital for home loans and expand
homeownership.
That’s despite the evidence we now have that, the
last time banks tried this, they ignored the law, failed to convey the
mortgages and notes to the trusts, and ripped off investors trying to
cover their tracks, to say nothing of how they violated the due process
rights of homeowners and stole their homes with fake documents.
The
very same banks that created this criminal enterprise and legal
quagmire would be in control again. Why should we view this in any way
as a sound public policy, instead of a ticking time bomb that could once
again throw the private property system, a bulwark of capitalism and
indeed civilization itself, into utter disarray? As Lynn Szymoniak puts
it, “The President’s calling for private equity to return. Why would we
return to this?” Update: This story previously
suggested that banks settled this lawsuit with the federal government
for $1 billion. That number is actually the total for a number of
whistle-blower lawsuits that were folded into a larger National Mortgage
Settlement. This specific lawsuit settled for $95 million. The post
above has been changed to reflect this fact.
While the committee investigating the IRS targeting of conservative
groups hasn't found any criminal violations, House Oversight Committee
Chairman Darrell Issa says what it has found is even more troubling.
"Right now, what we see is something worse," Issa told Fox News on
Wednesday. "We see the intent and the recognition of people that the IRS
should not be a political body. And if it is, it could be the end of
our democracy."
Appearing on "Hannity," Issa, R-Calif., said the targeting was ideological and "it clearly affected only conservative groups."
The Internal Revenue Service is being investigated for subjecting
conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status to additional scrutiny.
Though some liberal groups faced the same scrutiny, they were far fewer
in number and were either told they were approved or denied. The
conservative groups were held in limbo, which affected their ability to
participate in the 2012 presidential election.
Issa on Tuesdaycalled
for IRS official Lois Lerner to turn over emails sent to her personal
account. Lerner has pleaded her Fifth Amendment right not to testify
before Issa's committee on grounds she could incriminate herself
"I believe that the trust of the American people was broken," Issa told Fox News.
China, Japan Sell Most US Paper In Years; Foreign Treasury Holdings At 2013 Lows
And the bid hits just keep on coming.
While previously we reported the
foreigners as an aggregate class sold the most gross US securities ever
in the month of June, we also learned that in June the biggest selling
came from America’s two largest creditors: China and Japan (excluding
the Fed of course, whose P&L losses are now approaching $300 billion
in the past 3 months, or would if the Fed marked to anything but unicorns).
Philly Fed Drops Most In 9 Months
From last month’s cycle-leading 19.8 print, Philly Fed printed a
disappointing (but rather preduictably cyclical drop to 9.3). The same
pattern we have seen in economic data (post QEs) has happened once again
for the fourth year in a row as the headline print dropped the most since November 2012.
Missing expectations after such a cognitively reassuring pront last
month is hard for some take we are sure but under the surface things are
even worse as the average workweek sub-index turned negative, new
orders dumped, and both current and futures expectations for number of employees collapsed.
