'Massive fraud' at center of trial against BofA over U.S. mortgages

(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp's Countrywide unit placed profits over quality in a "massive fraud" selling shoddy mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a U.S. government lawyer said on Tuesday.
The claim came at the start of the first case by the government to go to trial against a major bank over defective mortgage practices leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.
Pierre Armand, a lawyer in the civil division of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, said Countrywide made $165 million selling loans that it promised were investment quality to Fannie and Freddie.
"What documents and witnesses will show is that the promise of quality was largely a joke," Armand said.
But Brendan Sullivan, a lawyer for Bank of America, said Countrywide had sought to ensure the loans it made were good and that no fraud occurred.
"No fraud," he said. "Two words. That's the heart and soul and body of the defense. No fraud. And that's what the evidence will show."
Filed in October, the lawsuit blames the bank for losses suffered by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on thousands of prime mortgages that later defaulted. Fannie and Freddie, government-sponsored enterprises that underwrite mortgages, were taken over by the government in 2008.
The Justice Department says the loans were pushed out through a Countrywide program called the "High Speed Swim Lane" - also called "HSSL" or "Hustle" - that began in 2007 amid rising mortgage delinquency and default rates and as Fannie and Freddie were tightening underwriting guidelines.
The program was overseen by Rebecca Mairone, a former chief operating officer of Countrywide's Full Spectrum Lending division, who is a co-defendant in the lawsuit and today works at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
The lawsuit is brought under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act. The law, passed in the wake of the 1980s savings-and-loan scandals, covers fraud affecting federally insured financial institutions.
The Justice Department estimates Fannie and Freddie has a gross loss of $848.2 million on the Countrywide HSSL loans, though their net loss on loans it says were materially defective was $131.2 million.
The jury of six women and four men includes a musician, an investment bank employee and a retired civil engineer.
During opening statements before U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, Armand said that under the HSSL program, Countrywide slashed loan quality checkpoints by removing underwriters from the review process and began paying employees based the volume and speed of the loans they produced.
The result was an increase in bad loans, Armand said. Yet those loans were then sold to Fannie and Freddie, even though Countrywide knew homeowners couldn't pay many of them back.
"Hustle was not about quality," Armand said. "It was about speed. It was about volume. It was about profits."
But Sullivan, a lawyer at Williams & Connolly, said that Countrywide never intended to defraud Fannie or Freddie. He called Countrywide's employees "normal well-intentioned people" who never believed they were in a scheme to defraud anyone.
Fannie and Freddie were enormous mortgage companies who "knew the risks, knew the process," and knew Countrywide, he said. They never complained about loan quality, he said.
Removing underwriters wasn't intended to cause fraud but instead was done because at the time, prime loans were considered less risky than the subprime loans the Full Spectrum Lending division had previously handled, he said.
And while the division began relying on an automated computer underwriting process, Sullivan said Countrywide eventually voluntarily brought underwriters back into the process starting in April 2008 out of concern about quality.
"No one came to the door saying, 'We don't like your product,'" Sullivan said.
A lawyer for Mairone, Marc Mukasey of Bracewell & Giuliani, meanwhile depicted his client as a "decent, hardworking" woman who came into Countrywide in 2007 as the "new girl" and was now being forced to face a "preposterous" lawsuit.
"Rebecca is fighting this case all by herself as the allegations are false," Mukasey said.
The case is U.S. ex rel. O'Donnell v. Bank of America Corp et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-01422.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Pending home sales fall 1.6% in August

By Ruth Mantell

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Sales contracts on homes fell 1.6% in August -- a third month of declines -- led by drops in three of four U.S. regions, according to data released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors. NAR cited higher interest rates and prices, among other factors. "Moving forward, we expect lower levels of existing-home sales, but tight inventory in many markets will continue to push up home prices in the months ahead," said Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist. Despite the recent drop, the pending-home sales gauge in August was up 5.8% from the year-earlier period. By region, pending home sales in August fell 3.5% in the South, 1.6% in the West and 1.4% in the Midwest. Meanwhile, pending sales rose 4% in the Northeast. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed. Sales are typically finalized within one or two months of signing.

Read the full story:
Housing gets a break from skyrocketing rates

Forget Recovery: Barclays Is Shutting Down Its Wealth Management Businesses In 130 Countries!! Q3 Earnings Surprises Incoming!!

Q3 2013 Earnings\Financials: The Party is Over

It’s once again earnings season and a great deal of attention will be focused on financials. Over the past three months, the equity market values of most of the largest universal banks have traded off as investors have started to appreciate that the party is ending in terms of new mortgage originations driven by refinance transactions.  As I noted in the last post, the guidance from all of the big banks is decidedly negative for Q3 because of the prospective decline in revenue and transaction volumes in mortgages.

While refinance transactions are falling rapidly, mortgage loan purchases volumes are not growing nearly enough to make up for the drop in overall volumes.  The chart below shows the total loan originations, refinance and purchase volumes for all lenders from the Mortgage Bankers Association through Q1 2013:

…

So when we actually start the Q3 earnings cycle for financials, watch for the word “surprise” in a lot of news reports and analyst opinions.  Nobody seems to want to take notice of the very public guidance coming from some of the largest names in the banking complex because of what it implies for housing.  But just to show you that God has a sense of humor; Bank of America and Citi have actually outperformed their asset peers in the TBTFgroup over the last three months.  Hey, that’s what we need, an index comprised of TBTF banks.  Be a useful surrogate for the credit quality of the United States.

See you at Americatyst 2013 in Austin TX next week.

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-09-26/q3-2013-earningsfinancials-party-over

Barclays Is Shutting Down Its Wealth Management Businesses In 130 Countries

(Reuters) – Barclays Plc will stop offering wealth management services in about 130 countries by 2016 and cut jobs in the unit as part of an effort to rein in costs and boost profit.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/barclays-wealth-management-services-closures-2013-9#ixzz2g04MmUbA

Piling On The JCPain: Citi Lowers JCP Target To $7, Questions “Adequate Cash For 2014/15″, Sees $1/Share Floor

… it is the turn of Citi’s Deborah Weinswig which after reviewing its JCPenney cash burn analysis, goes for the jugular with phrases such as “We think adequate cash for 2014/2015 is in question”, “The turnaround is taking longer than we anticipated, and we are concerned  about a softening macro environment combined with deteriorating vendor relationships”,  and of course “We maintain our EPS ests. but are lowering our target price to $7, down from $11 prev., based on an EV/Sales valuation methodology using our 2015 sales estimate.” And it gets worse: “Where’s The Floor? — As a supplement to our EV/Sales valuation methodology, we have conducted a basic liquidation valuation, yielding $324M total value, or $1/share.” Well, as long as there is a “floor”…

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-26/piling-jcpain-citi-lowers-jcp-target-7-questions-adequate-cash-201415-sees-1share-fl

Forget Recovery: This Is What Total European Monetary Collapse Looks Like

Presented without commentary (if confused – wink wink Mario Draghi - Ray Dalio will explain).

Source: Goldman, ECB

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-26/forget-recovery-what-total-european-monetary-collapse-looks

This is how ICAP manipulated Libor rates.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/abd442f0-2600-11e3-8ef6-00144feab7de.html#axzz2g05CosVV

Bad Government Policy Has Created the Worst Inequality In World History … And It Is Destroying Our Economy

by WashingtonsBlog

 

It’s Not an Accident … It’s Policy

Defenders of the status quo pretend that the unprecedented inequality America is experiencing is something we can’t control … like a force of nature.

In fact, inequality is rising due to bad policy.

Nobel prize winning economist Joe Stiglitz said this month:

Inequality is not inevitable. It is not … like the weather, something that just happens to us. It is not the result of the laws of nature or the laws of economics. Rather, it is something that we create, by our policies, by what we do.

We created this inequality—chose it, really—with [bad] laws …

Why is Inequality Going Through the Roof?

The world’s top economic leaders have said for years that inequality is spiraling out of control and needs to be reduced. Why is inequality soaring even though world economic leaders have talked for years about the urgent need to reduce it?

Because they’re saying one thing but doing something very different. And both mainstream Democrats and mainstream Republicans are using smoke and mirrors to hide what’s really going on. (Indeed, leading economist Steve Keen says that faulty economic models are deployed to distract us from the growing inequality.)

And it’s not surprising … Nobel winner Stiglitz says that inequality is caused by the use of money to shape government policies to benefit those with money. As Wikipedia notes:

A better explainer of growing inequality, according to Stiglitz, is the use of political power generated by wealth by certain groups to shape government policies financially beneficial to them. This process, known to economists as rent-seeking, brings income not from creation of wealth but from “grabbing a larger share of the wealth that would otherwise have been produced without their effort”

Rent seeking is often thought to be the province of societies with weak institutions and weak rule of law, but Stiglitz believes there is no shortage of it in developed societies such as the United States. Examples of rent seeking leading to inequality include

• the obtaining of public resources by “rent-collectors” at below market prices (such asgranting public land to railroads, or selling mineral resources for a nominal price in the US),

• selling services and products to the public at above market prices (medicare drug benefit in the US that prohibits government from negotiating prices of drugs with the drug companies, costing the US government an estimated $50 billion or more per year),

• securing government tolerance of monopoly power (The richest person in the world in 2011, Carlos Slim, controlled Mexico’s newly privatized telecommunication industry).

(Background here, here and here.)

Stiglitz says:

One big part of the reason we have so much inequality is that the top 1 percent want it that way. The most obvious example involves tax policy …. Monopolies and near monopolies have always been a source of economic power—from John D. Rockefeller at the beginning of the last century to Bill Gates at the end. Lax enforcement of anti-trust laws, especially during Republican administrations, has been a godsend to the top 1 percent. Much of today’s inequality is due to manipulation of the financial system, enabled by changes in the rules that have been bought and paid for by the financial industry itself—one of its best investments ever. The government lent money to financial institutions at close to 0 percent interest and provided generous bailouts on favorable terms when all else failed. Regulators turned a blind eye to a lack of transparency and to conflicts of interest.

***

Wealth begets power, which begets more wealth …. Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office. By and large, the key executive-branch policymakers on trade and economic policy also come from the top 1 percent. When pharmaceutical companies receive a trillion-dollar gift—through legislation prohibiting the government, the largest buyer of drugs, from bargaining over price—it should not come as cause for wonder. It should not make jaws drop that a tax bill cannot emerge from Congress unless big tax cuts are put in place for the wealthy. Given the power of the top 1 percent, this is the way you would expect the system to work.

Bloomberg reports:

The financial industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars every election cycle on campaign donations and lobbying, much of which is aimed at maintaining the subsidy [to the banks by the public]. The result is a bloated financial sector and recurring credit gluts.

Indeed, the big banks literally own the Federal Reserve. And they own Washington D.C. politicians, lock stock and barrel. See this, this, this and this.

Two leading IMF officials, the former Vice President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, and the the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Moody’s chief economist and many others have all said that the United States is controlled by an “oligarchy” or “oligopoly”, and the big banks and giant financial institutions are key players in that oligarchy.

Economics professor Randall Wray writes:

Thieves … took over the whole economy and the political system lock, stock, and barrel.

No wonder the government has saved the big banks at taxpayer expense, chosen the banks over the little guy, and said no to helping Main Street … while continuing to throw trillions at the giant banks.

No wonder crony capitalism has gotten even worse under Obama.

No wonder Obama is prosecuting fewer financial crimes than Bush, or his father or Ronald Reagan.

No wonder:

All of the monetary and economic policy of the last 3 years has helped the wealthiest and penalized everyone else. See this, this and this.

***

Economist Steve Keen says:

“This is the biggest transfer of wealth in history”, as the giant banks have handed their toxic debts from fraudulent activities to the countries and their people.

Stiglitz said in 2009 that Geithner’s toxic asset plan “amounts to robbery of the American people”.

And economist Dean Baker said in 2009 that the true purpose of the bank rescue plans is “a massive redistribution of wealth to the bank shareholders and their top executives”.

Moreover, it is well-documented that quantitative easing increases inequality (and see this and this.) Quantitative easing doesn’t help Main Street or the average American. It only helps big banks, giant corporations, and big investors.

Without the government’s creation of the too big to fail banks (they’ve gotten much bigger under Obama), the Fed’s intervention in interest rates and the markets (most of the quantitative easing has occurred under Obama), and government-created moral hazard emboldening casino-style speculation (there’s now more moral hazard than ever before) … things wouldn’t have gotten nearly as bad.

As I noted in March 2009:

The bailout money is just going to line the pockets of the wealthy, instead of helping to stabilize the economy or even the companies receiving the bailouts:

• Bailout money is being used to subsidize companies run by horrible business men, allowing the bankers to receive fat bonuses, to redecorate their offices, and to buygold toilets and prostitutes

• A lot of the bailout money is going to the failing companies’ shareholders

• Indeed, a leading progressive economist says that the true purpose of the bank rescue plans is “a massive redistribution of wealth to the bank shareholders and their top executives”

• The Treasury Department encouraged banks to use the bailout money to buy their competitors, and pushed through an amendment to the tax laws which rewards mergers in the banking industry (this has caused a lot of companies to bite off more than they can chew, destabilizing the acquiring companies)

As I wrote in 2008:

The game of capitalism only continues as long as everyone has some money to play with. If the government and corporations take everyone’s money, the game ends.The fed and Treasury are not giving more chips to those who need them: the American consumer. Instead, they are giving chips to the 800-pound gorillas at the poker table, such as Wall Street investment banks. Indeed, a good chunk of the money used by surviving mammoth players to buy the failing behemoths actually comes from the Fed.

Subsidies to Giant, Wealthy Corporations

Massive subsidies to big corporations is also part of the problem. Indeed, some financial analysts say that the taxpayer subsidy to the giant banks alone is $780 billion per year.

The average American family pays $6,000/year in subsidies to giant corporations.

Goosing the Stock Market

Moreover, the Fed has more or less admitted that it is putting almost all of its efforts into boosting the stock market.

Robert Reich has noted:

Some cheerleaders say rising stock prices make consumers feel wealthier and therefore readier to spend. But to the extent most Americans have any assets at all their net worth is mostly in their homes, and those homes are still worth less than they were in 2007. The “wealth effect” is relevant mainly to the richest 10 percent of Americans, most of whose net worth is in stocks and bonds.

AP writes:

The recovery has been the weakest and most lopsided of any since the 1930s.After previous recessions, people in all income groups tended to benefit. This time, ordinary Americans are struggling with job insecurity, too much debt and pay raises that haven’t kept up with prices at the grocery store and gas station. The economy’s meager gains are going mostly to the wealthiest.

Workers’ wages and benefits make up 57.5 percent of the economy, an all-time low. Until the mid-2000s, that figure had been remarkably stable — about 64 percent through boom and bust alike.

David Rosenberg points out:

The “labor share of national income has fallen to its lower level in modern history … some recovery it has been – a recovery in which labor’s share of the spoils has declined to unprecedented levels.”

The above-quoted AP article further notes:

Stock market gains go disproportionately to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans, who own more than 80 percent of outstanding stock, according to an analysis by Edward Wolff, an economist at Bard College.

Indeed, as we reported in 2010:

As of 2007, the bottom 50% of the U.S. population owned only one-half of one percent of all stocks, bonds and mutual funds in the U.S. On the other hand, the top 1% owned owned 50.9%.***

(Of course, the divergence between the wealthiest and the rest has only increased since 2007.)

Professor G. William Domhoff demonstrated that the richest 10% own 98.5% of all financial securities, and that:

The top 10% have 80% to 90% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America.

Tyler Durden notes:

In today’s edition of Bloomberg Brief, the firm’s economist Richard Yamarone looks at one of the more unpleasant consequences of Federal monetary policy: the increasing schism in wealth distribution between the wealthiest percentile and everyone else. … “To the extent that Federal Reserve policy is driving equity prices higher, it is also likely widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots….The disparity between the net worth of those on the top rung of the income ladder and those on lower rungs has been growing. According to the latest data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, the total wealth of the top 10 percent income bracket is larger in 2009 than it was in 1995. Those further down have on average barely made any gains. It is likely that data for 2010 and 2011 will reveal an even higher percentage going to the top earners, given recent increases in stocks.” Alas, this is nothing new, and merely confirms speculation that the Fed is arguably the most efficient wealth redistibution, or rather focusing, mechanism available to the status quo. This is best summarized in the chart below comparing net worth by income distribution for various percentiles among the population, based on the Fed’s own data. In short: the richest 20% have gotten richer in the past 14 years, entirely at the expense of everyone else.

***

Lastly, nowhere is the schism more evident, at least in market terms, than in the performance of retail stocks:

Saks chairman Steve Sadove recently remarked, “I’ve been saying for several years now the single biggest determinant of our business overall, is how’s the stock market doing.” Privately-owned Neiman- Marcus reported “In New York City, business at Bergdorf Goodman continues to be extremely strong.”

In contrast, retail giant Wal-Mart talks of its “busiest hours” coming at midnight when food stamps are activated and consumers proceed through the check-outs lines with baby formula, diapers, and other groceries. Wal-Mart has posted a decline in same-store sales for eight consecutive quarters.

As CNN Money pointed out in 2011, “Wal-Mart’s core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago …” This trend has only gotten worse: The wealthy are doing great … but common folks can no longer afford to shop even at Wal-Mart, Sears, JC Penney or other low-price stores.

Durden also notes:

Another indication of the increasing polarity of US society is the disparity among consumer confidence cohorts by income as shown below, and summarized as follows: “The increase in equity prices has raised consumer spirits, particularly among higher-income consumers. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence index for all income levels bottomed in February/March of 2009. The recovery since then has been notable across the board, but nowhere as much as for those making $50,000 or more.”

Business Week notes:

Barry Ritholtz, [CIO of Ritholtz Wealth, and popular financial blogger], says millions of potential investors may conclude, as they did after the Great Depression, that the market is a rigged game for insiders. Such seismic shifts in popular sentiment can have lasting effects. The Dow Jones industrial average didn’t regain its September 1929 peak of 355.95 until 1954. “You’re going to lose a generation of investors,” says Ritholtz. “And that’s how you end up with a 25-year bear market. That’s the risk if people start to think there is no economic justice.”

As Elizabeth Warren correctly notes, Americans know that the system is rigged against them. See this.

Indeed, 70% of Americans know that the government’s economic policies have thrown money at the banks and hosed the people.

In such an environment, the average American has largely gotten out of stocks and other investments.

Over-Financialization

When a country’s finance sector becomes too large finance, inequality rises. As Wikipedia notes:

[Economics professor] Jamie Galbraith argues that countries with larger financial sectors have greater inequality, and the link is not an accident.[66][67]

Government policy has been encouraging the growth of the financial sector for decades:

(Economist Steve Keen has also shown that “a sustainable level of bank profits appears to be about 1% of GDP”, and that higher bank profits leads to a ponzi economy and a depression).

Unemployment and Underemployment

A major source if inequality is unemployment, underemployment and low wages.

Government policy has created these conditions. And the pretend populist Obama – who talks non-stop about the importance of job-creation – actually doesn’t mind such conditions at all.

The“jobless recovery” that the Bush and Obama governments have engineered is a redistribution of wealth from the little guy to the big boys.

The New York Times notes:

Economists at Northeastern University have found that the current economic recovery in the United States has been unusually skewed in favor of corporate profits and against increased wages for workers.

In their newly released study, the Northeastern economists found that since the recovery began in June 2009 following a deep 18-month recession, “corporate profits captured 88 percent of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1 percent” of that growth.

The study, “The ‘Jobless and Wageless Recovery’ From the Great Recession of 2007-2009,” said it was “unprecedented” for American workers to receive such a tiny share of national income growth during a recovery.

***

The share of income growth going to employee compensation was far lower than in the four other economic recoveries that have occurred over the last three decades, the study found.

Obama apologists say Obama has created jobs. But the number of people who have given up and dropped out of the labor force has skyrocketed under Obama (and see this).

And the jobs that have been created have been low-wage jobs.

For example, the New York Times noted in 2011:

The median pay for top executives at 200 big companies last year was $10.8 million. That works out to a 23 percent gain from 2009.

***

Most ordinary Americans aren’t getting raises anywhere close to those of these chief executives. Many aren’t getting raises at all — or even regular paychecks. Unemployment is still stuck at more than 9 percent.

***

“What is of more concern to shareholders is that it looks like C.E.O. pay is recovering faster than company fortunes,” says Paul Hodgson, chief communications officer for GovernanceMetrics International, a ratings and research firm.

According to a report released by GovernanceMetrics in June, the good times for chief executives just keep getting better. Many executives received stock options that were granted in 2008 and 2009, when the stock market was sinking.

Now that the market has recovered from its lows of the financial crisis, many executives are sitting on windfall profits, at least on paper. In addition, cash bonuses for the highest-paid C.E.O.’s are at three times prerecession levels, the report said.

***

The average American worker was taking home $752 a week in late 2010, up a mere 0.5 percent from a year earlier. After inflation, workers were actually making less.

AP pointed out that the average worker is not doing so well:

Unemployment has never been so high — 9.1 percent — this long after any recession since World War II. At the same point after the previous three recessions, unemployment averaged just 6.8 percent.

– The average worker’s hourly wages, after accounting for inflation, were 1.6 percent lower in May than a year earlier. Rising gasoline and food prices have devoured any pay raises for most Americans.

– The jobs that are being created pay less than the ones that vanished in the recession. Higher-paying jobs in the private sector, the ones that pay roughly $19 to $31 an hour, made up 40 percent of the jobs lost from January 2008 to February 2010 but only 27 percent of the jobs created since then.

Alan Greenspan noted:

Large banks, who are doing much better and large corporations, whom you point out and everyone is pointing out, are in excellent shape. The rest of the economy, small business, small banks, and a very significant amount of the labour force, which is in tragic unemployment, long-term unemployment – that is pulling the economy apart.

Money Being Sucked Out of the U.S. Economy … But Big Bucks Are Being Made Abroad

Part of the widening gap is due to the fact that most American companies’ profits are driven by foreign sales and foreign workers. As AP noted in 2010:

Corporate profits are up. Stock prices are up. So why isn’t anyone hiring?

Actually, many American companies are — just maybe not in your town. They’re hiring overseas, where sales are surging and the pipeline of orders is fat.

***

The trend helps explain why unemployment remains high in the United States, edging up to 9.8% last month, even though companies are performing well: All but 4% of the top 500 U.S. corporations reported profits this year, and the stock market is close to its highest point since the 2008 financial meltdown.

But the jobs are going elsewhere. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, says American companies have created 1.4 million jobs overseas this year, compared with less than 1 million in the U.S. The additional 1.4 million jobs would have lowered the U.S. unemployment rate to 8.9%, says Robert Scott, the institute’s senior international economist.

“There’s a huge difference between what is good for American companies versus what is good for the American economy,” says Scott.

***

Many of the products being made overseas aren’t coming back to the United States. Demand has grown dramatically this year in emerging markets like India, China and Brazil.

Government policy has accelerated the growing inequality. It has encouraged American companies to move their facilities, resources and paychecks abroad. And some of the biggest companies in America have a negative tax rate … that is, not only do they pay no taxes, but they actually get tax refunds.

And a large percentage of the bailouts went to foreign banks (and see this). And so did a huge portion of the money from quantitative easing. More here and here.

Capital Gains and Dividends

According to a study published last month by a researcher at the U.S. Congressional Research Service:

The largest contributor to increasing income inequality…was changes in income from capital gains and dividends.

Business Insider explains:

Drastic income inequality growth in the United States is largely derived from changes in the way the U.S. government taxes income from capital gains and dividends, according to a new study by Thomas Hungerford of the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.

Essentially, what Democrats have been saying about income inequality — that it’s in a large part due to favorable taxation and deduction policies for high income Americans — is largely right

***

The study … conclusively found that the wealthy benefitted from low tax rates on investment income, which in turn caused their wealth to grow faster.

Essentially, taxing capital gains as ordinary income would make the playing field more fair, and reduce over time income inequality.

Joseph Stiglitz noted in 2011:

Lowering tax rates on capital gains, which is how the rich receive a large portion of their income, has given the wealthiest Americans close to a free ride.

Indeed, the Tax Policy center reports that the top 1% took home 71% of all capital gains in 2012.

Ronald Reagan’s budget director, assistant secretary of treasury, and domestic policy director all say that the Bush tax cuts were a huge mistake. See this and this.

Choice For US Is Between Spending, Inflation & Detroit – Ron Paul

U.S. 5 Year Silver Market Investigation Ends – No LIBOR Style Manipulation

by GoldCore

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,332.50, EUR 987.92 and GBP 830.22 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,320.25, EUR 977.67 and GBP 825.36 per ounce

Gold rose $10.60 or 0.8% yesterday, closing at $1,333.10/oz. Silver gained $0.11 or 0.51%, closing at $21.76. Platinum rose $4.19 or 0.3% to $1,422.49/oz, while palladium climbed $3.22 or 0.4% to $720.22/oz.

Gold and silver have consolidated on yesterday’s gains and silver is up nearly 1% to $22/oz. Both rose yesterday for the first time in four sessions on fears that U.S. budget negotiations have stalled, increasing the risk of a U.S. government shutdown.

While a shutdown is unlikely, the politicians are likely to again raise the U.S. debt ceiling to close to  $18 trillion, storing up much greater problems for the U.S. and global economy in the long term.

Silver in USD with Resistance and Support – 5 Year  (Bloomberg)

Silver’s support is at $20/oz and a fall below that level could see silver test the next level of support  at $18.40/oz mark. Resistance is at $25/oz and a breach above resistance should see silver quickly test the next level of resistance at $35/oz (see chart above).

Expectedly, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has closed the investigation that was publicly confirmed five years ago, in September 2008, concerning silver manipulation by Wall Street banks.

The Division of Enforcement is not recommending charges to the CFTC in the silver investigation. Despite the five year investigation, no report of the investigation or its findings is being released to the public.

The CFTC statement said that “based upon the law and evidence as they exist at this time, there is not a viable basis to bring an enforcement action with respect to any firm or its employees related to our investigation of silver markets”.

In September 2008, the CFTC confirmed that it was investigating complaints of misconduct in the silver market. At that time the Commission had received complaints regarding silver prices. These complaints were focused on whether the silver futures contracts traded on the COMEX were being manipulated.

By reference to publicly available information concerning large traders with short open positions in the silver futures contracts, the complaints alleged that the concentrated large shorts in the silver market were responsible for manipulating silver futures prices.

The decision may highlight the great difficulty that U.S. regulators face in proving a case of market manipulation, even after the CFTC was given greater powers to crack down on trading malfeasance after the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reforms.

Incredibly, only once in its 36 year history has it successfully concluded a manipulation prosecution. This was a 1998 case concerning electricity futures prices. Occasionally, the CFTC has levied heavy fines for trading rule violations.

The closing of the probe was a rare bright spot for Wall Street commodities players and banks during a year in which the U.S. power market regulator has leveled record fines against two big banks, and the Federal Reserve is considering whether to rein in Wall Street’s ability to operate in physical metal and wider commodity markets.

Gold in USD with Resistance and Support – 1 Year  (Bloomberg)

Democrat commissioner Bart Chilton, who had championed the silver inquiry, said he was disappointed.

“For me, there’s not been a more frustrating nor disappointing non-policy-related matter at the CFTC,” he said in a statement after the agency’s announcement.

The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, an advocacy group that believes the Federal Reserve and banks are colluding to keep gold and silver prices artificially low, said it was not surprised by the CFTC decision.

“We believe that the U.S. government is part of the trading operation. In essence, you are not going to have the CFTC turn against its own government,” GATA Chairman Bill Murphy said.

“We are not even slightly surprised and had expected this.”

A JP Morgan spokesperson declined to comment.

The CFTC findings that there has been no manipulation of the silver market came a day after the Federal Reserve itself had expressed concerns about ‘suspicious’ trading in the gold market and a day after there were further revelations and developments regarding LIBOR interest rate market manipulation and rigging.

The world’s largest interdealer broker, ICAP, has been fined $87 million (€64.4m) by U.S. and UK regulators over its role in the Libor rate rigging scandal. The CFTC and UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ordered ICAP to pay $65m and £14m respectively to settle allegations of wrongdoing.

The scandal, which has laid bare market manipulation and the failings of regulators and bank bosses, has already seen three banks fined $2.6 billion, four individuals charged, scores of institutions and traders grilled and a spate of lawsuits launched.

Banks and brokers have faced allegations that their employees actively colluded with traders seeking to fix rates for personal gain – and were handsomely rewarded.

Silver Prices/ Fixes / Rates / Volumes – (Bloomberg)

Silver’s fundamentals remain very sound, with a very small finite supply of above ground, investment grade silver coins and bars and robust and increasing industrial and store of value demand – particularly in Asia.

We continue to believe silver will rise to its real record high or inflation adjusted high of $140/oz in the coming years.

It remains an important diversification for all looking to protect their wealth from “bail-ins” or deposit confiscation and currency devaluations.

The Smell of Collapse is in the Air – Part 2

This is a continuation from Part 1.

CAUTION! Before you continue…

• If you believe that total government debt can grow FOREVER and more rapidly than the underlying economy, this article is NOT for you.
  
• If you believe that governmental deficit spending, QE, and bond monetization can continue FOREVER without major consequences, this article is NOT for you.
  
• But if you are sane enough to know that our current economic policies will produce a “train wreck,” read on…
  

The U.S. economy is being overwhelmed by a loss of faith and trust in politicians, government, and bankers, excessive debts, artificially low interest rates, unsustainable deficit spending, expensive wars, QE (money printing) to infinity, “Inflate or Die” monetary policy, potential derivatives implosion, Obamacare and so much more. A slow-motion collapse is occurring and most of us do not see it. Consider these thoughts from insightful writers:

Collapse Indicated by Stalling Growth in Global Financial Reserves

Hugo Salinas Price:

“As it is, the US can only continue to monetize government debt. Higher dollar interest rates are inevitable and will cause further government deficits; the debt overhang in both the US and Euro Zone is so great that a rise of a few points in interest rates will explode the deficits, and so on and so forth.

Bottom line: Stalling growth in International Reserves tells me that a world financial collapse is in the offing.”

Collapse Indicated by Loss of Trust in Western Economic Systems

David Stockman:

“There is no honest pricing left at all anywhere in the world because central banks everywhere manipulate and rig the price of all financial assets. We can’t even analyze the economy in the traditional sense anymore because so much of it depends not on market forces, but on the whims of people at the Fed.”

“The Blackberry Panic of September 2008, in which Washington policy makers led by former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson, panicked as they saw Wall Street stock prices plummet on their mobile devices, had very little to do with the Main Street economy in the United States. The panic and bailouts that followed were really about protecting the bonuses and incomes of very wealthy and politically well-connected managers at banks and other heavily leveraged businesses that were eventually deemed too big to fail. What followed was a massive transfer of wealth from the taxpayers and middle-class savers, in the form of bailouts and zero interest rates on bank deposits imposed by the Fed, to the so-called One Percent.”

“I think the political realities of the situation make the most likely scenario one in which there will be some kind of real financial collapse and disorder that will require a total reconstruction of the system.”

The Burning Platform:

“Despite the frantic efforts of the financial elite, their politician puppets, and their media propaganda outlets, collapse of this aristocracy of the moneyed is a mathematical certainty. Faith in the system is rapidly diminishing, as the issuance of debt to create the appearance of growth has reached the point of diminishing returns.”

“We are witnessing the beginning stages of political collapse. The government and its leaders are being discredited on a daily basis. The mismanagement of fiscal policy, foreign policy and domestic policy, along with the revelations of the NSA conducting mass surveillance against all Americans has led critical thinking Americans to question the legitimacy of the politicians running the show on behalf of the bankers, corporations and arms dealers.”

“We are supposedly five years past the great crisis. Magazine covers proclaimed Bernanke a hero. If we are well past the crisis, why are the extreme emergency measures still in effect? If the economy is growing and jobs are being created, why do we need $85 Billion of government debt to be monetized each and every month?”

“Just the slowing of debt creation will lead to collapse. Bernanke needs a Syrian crisis to postpone the taper talk. Those in control need an endless number of real or false flag crises to provide cover for their printing presses to keep rolling.”

Bill Fleckenstein:

“Since April, the 10-Year has gone from about 1.6% to as high as 3% recently. Now we have to see when this rally in bonds stops. The bond market will then roll over and then the Fed won’t have the tapering as an excuse. It means the bond market has ceased to price in the scenario that the Fed wants, and the bond market is not responding to the Fed’s moves in the short-run. In the old days we would call that ‘losing control of the bond market.’ And if that starts to happen, all hell is going to break loose.”

Michael Pento:

“The 10-Year went from 1.4% to 3%, and that made Mr. Bernanke panic. The average on that (10-Year) yield is 7% in the modern era since 1971 when we closed the ‘gold window.’ So, if the average is 7%, and the United States of America, this once great land, can’t (even) tolerate a 3% yield on the 10-Year Note, that means the Fed can never unwind QE.

That’s enough to cuff Mr. Bernanke’s hands. So the Fed is indeed trapped as you indicated. They cannot significantly bring down QE. That means a perpetual increase in the Fed’s balance sheet. That (also) means an inexorable rise in asset bubbles like stocks, bonds, and real estate, and it’s going to end (very) badly.”

Hank Paulson Interview:

“Paulson believes there will be another financial crisis.”

“It’s a certainty. As long as we have markets, as long as we have banks, no matter what the regulatory system is, there will be flawed government policies. Those policies will create bubbles.”

Alternate Interpretation: As long as we have Treasury Secretaries who represent the interests of Goldman Sachs and Wall Street bankers instead of the US economy, then we can be certain of another financial crisis.

Collapse in Retirement Income

Dennis Miller:

“While the Federal Reserve holds down interest rates and floods the banking system with money, it’s destroying the retirement dreams of several generations. The Employee Benefit Research Organization reports that 25 – 27% of baby boomers and Generation Xers who would have had adequate retirement income – under return assumptions based on historical averages – will run out of money if today’s low interest rates are permanent.”

In addition to the problem of low yielding investments caused by the historically low interest rates created by the Fed, even more retirees will run out of money, much sooner, when the inevitable inflation in food and energy prices smacks the U.S. economy, and especially retirees.

Discussion

1. It seems clear that we are losing faith in our politicians, our leaders, and our financial systems. Approval levels for congress and the President of the United States are low. Too-Big-To-Fail banks and “banksters” are despised and openly criticized.
   
2. The Federal Reserve is losing credibility; more and more people are realizing that QE is good for the bankers and the wealthy, but that it does little for “Main Street” people except drive up the prices they pay for food and energy.
   
3. The American public is generally opposed to war in the Middle East but that seems to matter little to the political and financial elite who will profit from the war.
   
4. Most people, so it appears, know that inflation is much higher than officially stated, and that inflation will become far worse than it is today. (When was the last time you saw a cup of premium coffee or a gallon of gasoline for less than $1?)
   

Consider this verse from “Desolation Row” – by Bob Dylan (in the 1960s). Does it describe our currently collapsing financial and political systems?

“They’re selling postcards of the hanging
They’re painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They’ve got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they’re restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row”

Read more from Desolation Row.

Read: This Crazy Extend & Pretend Economic World
Read: Going Dark! Economic Cycles Point Downward
GE Christenson
aka Deviant Investor