CORRUPTION USA- HOW WALL STREET PAID FOR ITS OWN FUNERAL

CORRUPTION-US: How Wall Street Paid For Its Own Funeral
By Marina Litvinsky

WASHINGTON, Mar 4 (IPS) - A new report says that Wall Street has only itself to blame for the misguided deregulation that led to the current deepening financial crisis.

Issued Wednesday by Essential Information and the Consumer Education Foundation, the report documents billions of dollars spent by the financial sector on what would eventually be their own downfall.

The 231-page report, "Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America," shows that the financial sector invested more than 5 billion dollars on purchasing political influence in Washington over the past decade, with as many as 3,000 lobbyists winning deregulation and other policy decisions that led directly to the current financial collapse.

"The report details, step-by-step, how Washington systematically sold out to Wall Street," said Harvey Rosenfield, president of the California-based non-profit organisation Consumer Education Foundation.

"Depression-era programmes that would have prevented the financial meltdown that began last year were dismantled, and the warnings of those who foresaw disaster were drowned in an ocean of political money," he said. "Americans were betrayed, and we are paying a high price - trillions of dollars - for that betrayal."

According to the report, government regulators, Congress and the executive branch have, on a bipartisan basis, spent the past three decades steadily eroding the regulatory system that restrained the financial sector from acting on its own worst tendencies.

From 1998-2008, Wall Street investment firms, commercial banks, hedge funds, real estate companies and insurance conglomerates made political contributions totalling 1.725 billion dollars and spent another 3.4 billion on lobbyists - a financial juggernaut aimed at undercutting federal regulation.

"Congress and the Executive Branch responded to the legal bribes from the financial sector, rolling back common-sense standards, barring honest regulators from issuing rules to address emerging problems and trashing enforcement efforts," said Robert Weissman of Essential Information and the lead author of the report.

"The progressive erosion of regulatory restraining walls led to a flood of bad loans, and a tsunami of bad bets based on those bad loans," he said. "Now, there is wreckage across the financial landscape."

The report documents a dozen distinct deregulatory moves that, in concert, led to the financial meltdown.

For example, the "rise of the culture of recklessness" was aided by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. The Financial Services Modernisation Act of 1999 formally repealed the 1933 statute and related laws, which prohibited commercial banks from offering investment banking and insurance services. Erasing them from the books helped create the conditions in which banks invested monies from checking and savings accounts into creative financial instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps - investment gambles that rocked the financial markets in 2008.

The report also said that banking regulators retained authority to crack down on predatory lending abuses, which would have protected homeowners and lessened the current financial crisis if the regulators hadn’t "sat on their hands." The Federal Reserve took just three formal actions against subprime lenders from 2002 to 2007. The Office of Comptroller of the Currency, which has authority over almost 1,800 banks, took three consumer-protection enforcement actions from 2004 to 2006.

Another deregulatory federal law that benefited mortgage lenders at the expense of the public deals with assignee liability. It states that with limited exceptions, only the original mortgage lender is liable for any predatory and illegal features of a mortgage - even if the mortgage is transferred to another party.

The report points out that this arrangement effectively immunised acquirers of the mortgage ("assignees") for any problems with the initial loan, and relieved them of any duty to investigate the terms of the loan. Wall Street interests could purchase, bundle and securitise subprime loans, including many with pernicious, predatory terms, without fear of liability for illegal loan terms.

The arrangement left victimised borrowers with no cause of action against anyone but the original lender, and typically with no defences against being foreclosed upon.

Other misdeeds that led to the financial crisis include prohibitions on regulating financial derivatives; a voluntary regulation scheme for big investment banks; and the repeal of regulatory barriers between commercial banks and investment banks.

The report presents data on financial firms’ campaign contributions and disclosed lobbying investments, which supports its claim that "political decisions were influenced by political expenditures and extraordinary lobbying," as Weissman put it.

For example, securities firms invested more than 504 million dollars in campaign contributions, and an additional 576 million dollars in lobbying, while commercial banks spent more than 154 million dollars on campaign contributions and invested 383 million dollars in officially registered lobbying.

Individual firms spent tens of millions of dollars each. During the decade-long period Goldman Sachs spent more than 46 million dollars on political influence buying; Citigroup spent more than 108 million; and the now defunct Merrill Lynch spent more than 68 million dollars.

According to the report, the financial contributions were bipartisan: about 55 percent of the political donations went to Republicans and 45 percent to Democrats, primarily reflecting the balance of power over the decade. Democrats took just more than half of the Wall Street’s 2008 election cycle contributions.

The financial sector also bolstered its political strength by placing Wall Street expatriates in top regulatory positions, including the post of Treasury Secretary held by two former Goldman Sachs chairs, Robert Rubin and Henry Paulson.

Financial firms employed a legion of lobbyists - maintaining nearly 3,000 separate lobbyists in 2007 alone. Insurance companies had 1,219 lobbyists working for them; Real estate interests hired 1,142.

These firms drew heavily from former government officials in choosing their lobbyists. Surveying 20 leading financial firms, the report found that 142 of the lobbyists they employed from 1998-2008 were previously high-ranking officials or employees in the executive branch or Congress.

"It’s very important to identify the causes of the crisis if we are to fix it and prevent it from occurring again," Weissman told IPS, speaking to the report’s relevance.

He adds that one of the ways through which many deregulatory moves were justified was the claim that they facilitated "financial innovation - a buzz word on Wall Street and Washington."

"Our review suggests that while there may be some innovations that are socially beneficial, in general (financial innovation has served as) a code word for complexity," he explained. "It has been a means for Wall St. to confuse consumers and investors, extract money from them and the overall economy, and build up a house of cards that has now tumbled down to disastrous effects."

The report calls on Congress to adopt the view that Wall Street has no legitimate seat at the table. "This time, legislating must be to control Wall Street, not further Wall Street’s control," it says.

"The first substantive recommendation we make is to undue the deregulatory decisions that we have profiled," said Weissman.

Other recommendations include prohibiting some forms of financial instruments, as well as a financial transaction tax to slow down speculation and curb the turbulence in the markets.

(END/2009)

WORLDS POOR SUFFERING MOST IN THE CREDIT CRUNCH

• Development goals under threat from global slump
• Shrinking GDP will see $4.6bn fall in EU aid flow
Comments (4)

* Ashley Seager
* The Guardian, Thursday 5 March 2009
* Article history

The credit crunch is hitting the income of the world's poorest people the most and will make the UN's Millennium Development Goals more difficult to achieve than ever, according to research released today. The Global Monitoring Report from Unesco estimates the 390 million poorest Africans will see their income drop by around 20% - far more than in the developed world.

The global financial crisis has seen a fall in commodity prices as well as a drop in investment flows to poorer countries. The report's authors - Kevin Watkins and Patrick Montjourides - estimate this will cost sub-Saharan Africa's poorest people $18bn (£12.8bn), or $46 per person.

"These numbers will bring the region's limited progress in poverty reduction to a shuddering halt," says Watkins.

Douglas Alexander, the international development secretary, is hosting a conference in London next week to discuss the future of the goals, such as reducing child mortality and poverty amid growing concern progress towards these, agreed with great fanfare in 2000, is grinding to a halt.

The study also highlights wider human development impacts, including the prospect of an increase of between 200,000 and 400,000 in infant mortality. Child malnutrition, already a rising trend, will be one of the main drivers of higher child death rates. "Millions of children face the prospect of long-term irreversible cognitive damage as a result of the financial crisis," says Montjourides.

The Unesco warning follows hot on the heels of one from the International Monetary Fund. It said the world's 22 poorest countries might need an additional $25bn aid this year to cope with the financial crisis. If the crisis is worse than the IMF expects, though, that could hit $140bn.

Unesco reckons poor countries will need around $7bn to meet key education targets which form part of the goals. That compares with the $380bn of public money pumped into banks by rich countries in the fourth quarter of 2008. "Aid donors could clearly do far more to protect the world's poorest people from a crisis manufactured by the world's richest financiers and regulatory failure in rich countries," says Watkins.

The report analyses the scope of many of the poor countries affected by the credit crunch to use tax and spending measures to help themselves combat it. The conclusion is their capacity to do so is very limited. Using a new indicator for fiscal capacity, the analysis estimates 43 out of 48 low-income countries lack the wherewithal to provide a pro-poor fiscal stimulus.

Fiscal constraints are especially marked in many of the countries furthest from the international goals, it adds. There is a real danger these countries, many of which have been making progress towards universal primary education, will suffer setbacks, it says. The at-risk group includes Mozambique, Ethiopia, Mali, Senegal, Rwanda and Bangladesh.

The report says aid budgets in rich nations are being squeezed because they are expressed as a share of GDP, which is contracting. It estimates the EU's commitment to provide 0.56% of GDP in aid by 2010 will actually mean a drop of $4.6bn.

Unesco wants a concerted international effort to limit the impact of the financial crisis on the poor. Suggested measures include an increase of more than $500bn in IMF special drawing rights, along with governance reforms to give developing countries an increased voice.

The authors also call for the EU to provide a $4.6bn aid adjustment premium. They argue increased aid should be directed towards social protection and safety nets for the most vulnerable.

URBAN WARFARE DRILLS LINKED TO COMING ECONOMIC RAGE

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, February 23, 2009

Urban warfare training drills are taking place across the country as top analysts as well as officials predict a potential “summer of rage” across Europe and America as civil unrest from the economic fallout builds.

Earlier this month, 150 U.S. troops from the U.S. Special Operations Command whizzed around the streets of New Orleans in military helicopters and even dropped bombs in what officials described as a “training event”.

An Iowa National Guard training exercise in Arcadia, Iowa, scheduled for April was originally billed as an “invasion” before public opposition caused the drill to be scaled back. The exercise included Guard troops patrolling streets, searching houses and confiscating firearms.

No less than 2,200 U.S. Marines were also involved in urban operations training in Richmond, VIrginia, throughout January, drills that involved landing troops in populated areas, allowing military pilots to “familiarize themselves with the area.”

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

Urban Warfare Drills Linked To Coming Economic Rage obamadecept_340x169

Military choppers hovered precariously low over parking lots as citizens were acclimated to seeing active duty military assets engaged in law enforcement style activities.

Watch a clip filmed by a startled Richmond resident who wasn’t even aware that Marines were conducting drills due to scant forewarning on behalf of authorities and the media.

Are such drills really for the purpose of preparing troops for foreign combat zones? Undoubtedly - but other factors indicate that the drills may very well also be aimed at preparing troops for dealing with mass civil unrest as the economic crisis worsens.

There’s no question that U.S. authorities have been closely observing riots that have toppled governments in Iceland and Latvia and also threatened to do so in several other European countries. The fact that they have contingency plans in place to deal with such scenarios should they unfold in America cannot be disputed.

Indeed, before a media exposé forced them into a denial, Northcom revealed that one of the duties of at least 20,000 active duty troops that are being placed inside the United States would be dealing with “civil unrest and crowd control”.

Meanwhile, millions of dollars that were set aside as part of the so-called bailout have in fact been handed over to local police departments and spent on military tools like armored vehicles, unmanned aerial surveillance drones and high-powered firearms for SWAT teams.

In addition, with many predicting that Mexico is on the verge of collapse as a result of the economic crisis and the out of control drug war, Texas officials have already established contingency plans to deal with an influx of immigrants, a program that would only address “law enforcement concerns” and not humanitarian needs.

HR 645, otherwise known as the National Emergency Centers Establishment Act, would mandate the expansion of FEMA detention camps which would likely to be used to detain illegal immigrants as well as rioting American citizens.

The prospect of widespread rioting at some stage this year is a scenario feared by many.

Police in the UK are preparing for a “summer of rage” and mass protests against the mishandling of the economic crisis by the government.

The U.S. Army War College in November released a white paper called Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development. The report warned that the military must be prepared for a “violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States,” which could be provoked by “unforeseen economic collapse,” “purposeful domestic resistance,” “pervasive public health emergencies” or “loss of functioning political and legal order.” The “widespread civil violence,” the document said, “would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.”

Numerous other public figures, including Senator Christopher Dodd, leading economist Nouriel Roubini, top trend researcher Gerald Celente, the head of the International Monetary Fund, the head of the World Trade Organization, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former national security director Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair have all warned of coming civil unrest and global instability.

Considering the expectancy for riots, it would be naive to dismiss the notion that the increasing amount of urban warfare drills taking place across the U.S. are not at least partially to prepare troops to undertake law enforcement duties should civil unrest as a consequence of the economic fallout threaten a collapse in social order.

GEITHNER FALLS FLAT ON HIS FACE

This was supposed to be a great week for Washington and Wall Street. The administration had leaked in advance that it was going to put a full-court press on for its stimulus and bailout programs. That led to intense anticipatory buying by the stock market bulls.

Monday night’s primetime news conference with President Barack Obama only heightened anticipation ahead of the main events on Tuesday: A big speech from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and testimony before Congress by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
Geithner's speech was full of grandiose talk and fluff.
Geithner’s speech was full of grandiose talk and fluff.

But shortly after Geithner opened his mouth, stocks began to fall. Then they fell further. By the end of the day, the Dow Jones Industrials had plunged 382 points, or almost 5%.

What the Heck Happened?

Why did the best laid plans of politicians and policymakers fail? What’s going to happen next? Those are questions every investor needs the answers to, and I’m going to provide them today.

Before I take the scalpel to Geithner’s gamble, let me explain exactly what the latest “plan” (and yes, I’m putting that in quotes for a reason) entails …

For starters, the Fed will be expanding its Term Asset-backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF. This is a program whereby the Fed will lend money to investors who buy securities that fund various types of loans.

The facility was originally designed to help the student loan, credit card, and auto loan securitization markets. Now, it’s going to cover commercial mortgages and most likely residential mortgages outside the purview of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Treasury will seed the TALF program with as much as $100 billion. The Fed can then provide additional leveraged funding, allowing for the purchase of as much as $1 trillion in assets.

Second, the Treasury is going to set up a public-private program to buy crummy assets from banks. Private investors would be offered loss caps and/or cheap financing to encourage them to participate. The idea is to avoid the excessively high cost of setting up a program completely funded by Uncle Sam. Early estimates of the size of the program run as high as $500 billion.

Third, there will be additional capital injections into U.S. financial institutions. Regulators will “stress test” bank portfolios, and inject capital into them if necessary through the purchase of convertible preferred securities.
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Finally, there was some fuzzier talk about foreclosure mitigation and prevention. The details weren’t entirely clear, but any program will probably build on existing loan modification programs under way at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and private banks.

So what’s the problem? I hardly know where to start.

But Here Are the
Three Biggest Problems …

Problem #1:
The plan wasn’t ready
for prime time!

Heading into this week’s events, the stock market had rallied significantly. Certain options market indicators were reflecting high levels of complacency. Wall Street investors clearly were betting that this time, the government would spell out exactly how, when, and why it would save the day.

But while Geithner’s speech was full of grandiose talk and fluff — it was extremely light on details. A separate “fact sheet” on the bailout efforts wasn’t entirely clear on how things would work, either.

The message that came through to the markets, loud and clear: Policymakers don’t even have the specifics of their plan hammered out yet!

Why on earth would you make a big deal about a huge bailout plan, leak details to the press for days, and suggest everything was tied up with a ribbon, then essentially announce a “plan to come up with a plan?”

I have no idea …

But the market clearly felt that’s exactly what the administration did. So investors dumped their stocks.

Problem #2:
The “same old, same old” efforts

These programs appear to be nothing more than expanded versions of efforts that have already had either limited success, or failed entirely.

A public-private effort to buy up bad debts that are clogging the system?
Paulson’s attempt to buy up bad debts was a total flop.
Paulson’s attempt to buy up bad debts was a total flop.

Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson floated a plan similar to that called the “Super SIV” back in late 2007. It never really got off the ground and was a total flop.

Another Fed program designed to support the securitization market and jumpstart credit extension?

We’ve been seeing versions of these for more than a year. Remember the TAF, the TSLF, the PDCF, and all the rest of those acronyms? Those programs have kept many “zombie” financial institutions alive.

But the origination and securitization of all kinds of loans has continued to plunge — and credit standards have continued to get tighter.

Just one of many examples:

Commercial loan originations dropped 80% year-over-year in the fourth quarter. EIGHTY PERCENT! Just think of the impact that’s going to have on the commercial real estate business, which I warned you almost two years ago in my Money and Markets column was destined to collapse.

And how about the supposedly new effort to mitigate foreclosures or modify mortgage loans?
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Banks, loan servicers, and other interested parties are ALREADY trying to do that. Payment reductions, re-amortization of delinquent balances, interest rate cuts, and other “solutions” are ALREADY being used widely. Temporary foreclosure moratoriums have ALREADY been implemented in several states.

But they’re NOT stemming the tide of foreclosures — or keeping home prices from falling further. Indeed, many borrowers who’ve had their loans modified are just redefaulting anyway.

Don’t just take my word for it …

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks, recently reported on the success rate of loans that were modified in the first quarter of last year. Some 36% had fallen behind on their payments again after just three months. After eight months, a whopping 58% were falling behind again!
Washington is talking a big game out of stemming foreclosures. But no interest rate or payment reduction can offset the complete loss of a borrower’s income.
Washington is talking a big game out of stemming foreclosures. But no interest rate or payment reduction can offset the complete loss of a borrower’s income.

Those findings jibe with private reports I have seen or read about. And that’s completely understandable: Some borrowers are so far underwater (they owe more than their homes are worth) that they see no reason to keep paying on their loans. Others are losing their jobs, and no interest rate or payment reduction can offset the complete loss of a borrower’s income.

So sure, Washington is talking a big game out of stemming foreclosures. But the numbers show the efforts aren’t really bearing fruit.

Problem #3:
Investors may finally be
starting to face reality

I think it’s finally dawning on investors that what Martin and I have been telling you all along is true. To reiterate from my January 30, Money and Markets column:

“This latest scheme to save the world will fail just like all the others. That is because nothing … NOTHING … can prevent a painful adjustment process.

“I wish that weren’t the case. But the time to prevent this painful correction and deleveraging process was a few years ago when the bubble was inflating.

“If regulators, policymakers, borrowers, and lenders hadn’t acted so stupidly then, we wouldn’t be in this mess now. But they did, we are, and no amount of Washington happy talk can change that fact.”

Personally, I believe we need to stop shoveling hundreds of billions of dollars more down the financial sector rat hole and get busy eliminating the dead weight.

* That means we should start nationalizing and carving up crummy banks that are just walking zombies anyway — instead of propping them up.

* That means we should also stop pretending the problem is that bad assets can’t be priced. Or that we need to eliminate mark-to-market accounting. Or that we should use taxpayer money to buy assets at inflated values.

Instead, we should acknowledge that the REAL problem is sellers are living in denial. Vulture investors are willing to bid for bad assets. But the banks don’t want to accept those bids because doing so might push them into insolvency.

So we end up with a paralyzed market.

That is EXACTLY what happened in the early stages of the downturn in the underlying housing market. The official gauges of house prices didn’t fall even as volume all but dried up. The dynamic: Buyers were dropping their bids … but sellers weren’t willing to accept them … and the result was paralysis.

But pretending that prices weren’t really falling didn’t help those sellers one bit. By hanging on and hoping for improvement, rather than just selling and getting it over with, they ended up losing even more money because the “real” market kept deteriorating. The same thing is going to happen with the banking industry if policymakers and executives keep sticking their heads in the sand.

For investors like you, the bottom line is clear: You can buy into the hype coming out of Washington and Wall Street. You can believe that there’s some magic bullet solution out there for all that ails us. Or you can acknowledge reality and take steps to prepare your portfolio for a very tough slog.

I trust you know which is truly the best course of action.

Until next time,

Mike

NAOMI KLEIN: BAILOUT IS "MULTI-TRILLION DOLLAR CRIME SCENE"

Naomi Klein: Bailout is ‘multi-trillion-dollar crime scene’

David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Raw Story
Wednesday, Nov 19, 2008

The Bush administration has already handed out almost half of the $700 billion in bank bailout money authorized by Congress but has not even filled the mandated oversight positions to review how it is being used.

Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, has described the handling of the bailout as “borderline criminal” because of this and other problems. Klein spoke to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on Monday to explain her accusations.

“We were all reassured that there was going to be transparency, accountability, legality,” Klein stated. “But now we’re finding out that, in fact, Henry Paulson has achieved his original goal by stealth, because there is no accountability, and lawmakers are very hesitant to challenge this. … Essentially, what the Bush administration has done is said, ‘We dare you to challenge us and be responsible for the Great Depression.’”

* A d v e r t i s e m e n t
*

Klein sees three areas of borderline illegality. The first is that rather than being used to get banks lending again, the bailout money “is instead going to bonuses, is instead going to dividends, going to salaries, going to mergers.”

The second is that, without Congressional authorization, “the Treasury Department pushed through a tax windfall for the banks, a piece of legislation that allows the banks to save a huge amount of money when they merge with each other. And the estimate is that this represents a loss of $140 billion worth of tax revenue for the US government.”

The third problem, which dwarfs the $700 billion bailout itself, is that “there’s another $2 trillion that’s been handed out by the Federal Reserve in emergency loans to financial institutions, to banks, that actually we don’t really know who they’re handing the money out to, because, apparently, it’s a secret.”

“If the Fed has accepted distressed assets as collateral in exchange for these loans,” stated Klein, “there’s a very good chance the taxpayers aren’t going to be getting this money back. … So that’s why we’re calling this the ‘trillion-dollar crime scene’ or the ‘multi-trillion-dollar crime scene.’”

Klein argued that Congress should be challenging violations of the bailout legislation, but instead “what they’re saying is, we can’t afford to enforce the law … that somehow, because there’s an economic crisis, legality is a luxury that Congress can’t afford.”

“I’m quite concerned,” Klein stated, “that what we’re seeing from Obama’s team is an accepting of this logic that they need to give the market what it wants, which is continuity, smooth transition, which is really just code for more of the same. … I think we should question all of it. Across the board, I think the assumptions are faulty.”

Klein is also concerned that rather than using the crisis as a mandate to fix the underlying problems, the world leaders at the recent G20 summit were talking about propping up the old system.

“Think about what these leaders could do if they really wanted to,” Klein suggested. “When you have a crisis like this, which so clearly shows the need for those types of regulations, when you have an election like there just was in the United States, where people have said clearly that this is a priority, the leaders have an opportunity to act. … But they blew that opportunity, and they actually called for less regulation.”

“This crisis isn’t over,” Klein warned, “and the same people who justified this bailout, who clamored for this bailout, are the very people who are going to turn around and say to Barack Obama, ‘We can’t afford for you to make good on your election promises. We can’t afford universal healthcare.’”

“The money has been given to the people who needed it least, and it’s going to be used to justify austerity measures imposed against those who need it most,” Klein concluded. “It’s going to be used to justify cuts to food stamps. It’s going to be used to justify cuts to Social Security, to health care, let alone being used to justify why more ambitious plans for a national health care program, for green energy are not affordable. So people have to be ready for this. You know, the next shock is yet to come.”

MANIPULATIONS,CORRUPTION AND LOOTING TAKES ECONOMY TO THE BRINK

Manipulations, Corruption And Looting Takes Economy To The Brink

Watching obvious criminal manipulations, COMEX becomes CRIMEX, Dubai Exchange, economic pundits avoid reality, eight years that changed America, regulation will protect the elite

What you are now witnessing is the slow motion destruction of the CRIMEX, formerly known as the COMEX, a commodities futures market which is supposed to provide a means for producers to hedge their products, but which has morphed into a rigged casino where commodities that don't exist are traded as if they did for prices that exist only in the fairytales woven by the Illuminati, who control the exchange. This destruction is what happens when the credibility and integrity of the market owners and managers of the CRIMEX, together with the credibility and integrity of the market regulators, the CFTC, move from near zero to negative infinity.

Not only do the owners and regulators do absolutely nothing about obvious criminal manipulations and illegal concentrations of short positions, but also we believe that they conspire with the criminal operators, which we refer to as "commercial shorts," to aid and abet their criminal mischief by divulging the precise nature of the trading positions of the "spec longs" who take the other side of the contracts, thus allowing pinpoint attacks on black-box formulations, especially where stops have been placed, thereby minimizing the cost of the manipulations by preventing the waste associated with overkill. Also, the owners and regulators change margin requirements, and whitewash investigations of obvious illegalities, whenever it serves to protect the commercial shorts, thus making a mockery out of the exchange and transforming what are supposed to be free markets into crony capitalist, corporatist fascist systems of syndicated piracy. This lack of integrity and criminal manipulation is the most pronounced in the gold and silver commodity markets, but many other types of commodities are under manipulation as well, especially oil, base metals and agricultural produce, meaning most of the rest of the exchange.

The despicable, nefarious dealings of the miscreant CRIMEX owners and regulators is quickly catching up to them in the precious metals markets of the exchange, and soon every one of the spec longs is going to pick up their toys and go home, and if the specs have any brains or sense of justice, they will take as much of the CRIMEX gold and silver with them when they leave by paying cash for it and taking delivery of it.

Since the end of October, when open interest for the December gold contract started a new series of decreases as the rollovers got off to any early start, the December open interest has fallen from 190,140 to this past Friday's 122,902, yet total open interest has fallen from 305,451 to 285,219 during that same period.

Thus, of the 67,238 December contracts that have been terminated in the rollover thus far, total open interest has plummeted by 20,232 contracts, meaning that many of the contracts are not being rolled over, and are being cashed out instead. If this 30% ratio persists, we could see gold open interest fall to under 250,000, a multi-year low, an astonishing drop of 58% from the peak of 593,953 contracts set on January 15, 2008.

This is an absolute disgrace for the CRIMEX owners and regulators, and we wish them well in the ensuing bankruptcies and criminal investigations that will occur after the exchange collapses. No one wants to play in a game where the owners and sponsors are in cahoots with certain privileged players to make sure they come out on top. In addition, we note that no commodities market can survive without speculators who provide balance to the markets by taking the other side of contracts and by keeping the pendulum of market momentum alternating between bulls and bears. Otherwise the markets lean to far to one side or the other, and then bubble and/or collapse due to the lopsided positions. Once the precious metals markets of the exchange collapse, all the other markets will soon follow, as everyone realizes that the whole system is rigged against them. The CRIMEX will soon be ostracized from participation by honest market players. The criminal manipulators will soon find themselves traipsing in and out of court in endless investigations, and they will be forced to sit in their bedrooms, lonesome, because their is no one left who wants to play with them.

In a stunning new development, the Dubai Multi-Commodities Center is now putting the finishing touches on the formation of an exchange traded fund for silver with a launch likely next month as demand for silver has surged in the past six months. What may be happening here is that the OPEC nations, and possibly also Russia, are setting up a counterbalance against the collapse of oil prices. You may recall from past issues that we discussed at length how we thought that sovereign wealth funds in oil-rich nations were tweaking gold and silver upward every time oil was smashed by the Illuminist manipulators. The message was, you leave oil alone, or we will send gold and silver to the moon and expose your destruction of the US economy by killing the canaries in the coal mines, thus ringing the gold and silver alarm bells loud and clear. This makes the Illuminists rabid, and induces collective myocardial infarctions among them, because precious metal suppression, especially of gold, is JOB ONE at the Fed. The failure to cap the price of gold was Paul Volcker's only regret as Fed Head during his handling of the inflationary crisis of the late 70's and early 80's, and the privately owned, Illuminist Fed does not intend to make the same mistake twice.

The Illuminati have made two major mistakes, and the Dubai exchange may be the OPEC solution to the oil takedown, which is the direct result of those mistakes. The first mistake is that the Illuminati gave OPEC a taste of 147 oil, and then pounded it down to 55. This will not be tolerated, especially after these nations got a chance to experience the huge profits generated by such lofty oil prices. The second mistake is the trashing of silver prices in the face of growing shortages at a time when the above-ground silver stocks are at an all-time low and headed even lower. The shortages are being caused by manipulated silver prices that are below the cost of production, thus causing a collapse in production, and the manipulation of base metals prices into the subbasement is adding to the loss of production because 70% of silver is produced as a by-product of base metal processing. Due to these criminal price manipulations, the gold to silver ratio is now 77 to 1, when historically is should be around 15 or 20 to 1. This huge price imbalance, growing shortage and all-time low levels of above-ground stocks has set up the greatest opportunity to corner a commodity market in the history of the world.

The Hunt Brothers would be drooling right now. When they were trying to the corner the market, it was much, much larger by many billions of ounces, and prices were being driven much, much higher, topping $40 per ounce, because there was far less manipulation of those markets than there is today (yes, believe it or not, we once had something bordering on free markets). The Dubai silver ETF may pick up where the Hunt Brothers left off. Since there are only about a billion ounces of above-ground silver stocks left, and because silver is trading at a ridiculous sub-10, ten billion could clean out the entire above-ground silver stock. This is chump change for these wealthy oil sheiks and their sovereign wealth funds. So get ready to rumble as the evil Illuminist scum and the price-gouging sheiks of OPEC prepare to "get it on" in an oil-silver showdown, complete with some very spectacular fireworks to come. Both oil and silver are headed much higher, and gold will tag along for the ride as silver vaults to new heights.

In the end we expect some sort of compromise, as $150 oil would take down the entire world economy, which is now teetering on the brink. We should soon see $80 to $100 oil and $15 to $20 silver. Silver may go much higher than that depending on how stubborn the Illuminists become about the price of oil. This is starting to get very interesting, so stay tuned, as one of the greatest financial battles of all time gets under way.

Instead of foolishly pumping money into insolvent, zombie banks, the sheiks may well have decided to go after the silver market. Imagine what will happen as those who require silver to make their products see the COMEX gold and silver being funneled to Dubai's ETF. All we can say is, if you were waiting for some precious metals fireworks, get ready, because it's coming. It is now time to load up on precious metals, especially silver. Oil will do well also. As some form of confirmation, we also note the growing open interest in the February gold options and futures contracts. Let the Battle of the Titans begin.

The WSJ again avoids reality in an op-ed piece by Judy Shelton, called “Stable Money is Key and How the G-20 Can Rebuild the Capitalism of the Future.”

She points out, and rightly so, “that foreign attendees will take the view that Wall Street greed and inadequate regulatory oversight by US authorities caused the global financial crisis – never mind that their own regulatory agencies missed the boat and that their own governments eagerly bought up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities for the higher yield over Treasuries.”

Ms. Shelton forgets that US interests asked, cajoled and strong-armed many nations into those purchases, as they did CDOs, SIVs and ABSs. Don’t you think they read the fine print and knew what they were buying – they are professionals? Behind the scenes there was a plan to spread the risk. Why would any sane government buy such toxic waste? Incidentally, where are the lawsuits and criminal actions? There are none because they were all in on the plan to distribute America’s problems, because if the US goes under they all go under. Regulatory agencies deliberately missed the boat because they were told to do so.

Then she has the temerity to tell us that “at the bottom of the world financial crisis” is international monetary disorder. Stating, “ever since the past WWII Bretton Woods system – anchored by a gold-convertible dollar – ended in August of 1971, the cause of free trade has been compromised by sovereign monetary – policy indulgence.” Spoken like a true internationalist Illuminist. This is what the WSJ and Barron’s have always been mouthpieces for – the Illuminists.

She goes on relating to sound money – perhaps even to a gold-based international monetary system. She says, “It’s hard to imagine a more universally accepted standard of value.”

Ms. Shelton admits that the nation of sound money and a new gold standard international monetary regime is appealing, neither will be part of any solution coming out of Washington or the G-20 this weekend or anytime soon. She goes on to say that fundamentally, our nation has only a sliver of bullion available to back tens of trillions in financial claims that are the crumbly bedrock for the entire global financial system.

Someone should make Ms. Shelton aware that in order to accommodate a gold standard for the world or the US all that has to be done is to officially increase the value of gold to where it belongs at $3,000 to $6,000 an ounce. Nations, particularly the US, do not want to do that because they have sold most of their gold in their efforts to suppress the gold price. That is why a gold standard is dismissed out of hand. She says the consensus is that concerted inflationary measures are the only possible solution. They would be wouldn’t they? She and all concerned know better. Every time in history re-inflation has been used it has been a failure.

That said don’t expect much in the way of public statements on a new currency. Along those lines there will only be leaks until they decide what can be done without weakening their control. Remember, part of what will happen is the further exposure that conventional economic doctrine is fatally flawed. What is disturbing is that many say that today’s problems are not the result of policies of the last 15 months. The greatest bubble in history began on August 15, 1971, and is littered with a trail of greed and power. Wall Street and banking led the looting of our country and Washington complied. Almost universally as well the media never questions decisions by the Treasury, Fed or Wall Street. They just report what the elitists want the public to hear. The revisionist falsehoods promulgated by the likes of Milton Friedman, Keynes and Ben Bernanke are enough to make real scholars cringe. The disinformation and distortion is startling. The public doesn’t know the difference and we never get to challenge them. Often what they have had to say are lies. Defending any of these liars from academia, Wall Street, such as Paulson, and government is a sacrilege. These people all participated in the rape of America over the past 31 years.

The best-laid plans often go astray. The elitists figured they’d have the time to lay off their losses over time. Banking analyst Meredith Whitney of Oppenheimer 1-1/2 years ago when she blew the whistle on Citigroup upset that plan. She still probably doesn’t realize that she changed the course of history.

These events have upset the elitists’ plans forcing them into policymaking out of desperation. In fact after 15 months the system is still out of control. We do not believe they will ever get a handle on it. No reform is on the way and only stopgap measures, such as creating more money and credit and having zero interest rates are the solution. Of course, they are not a solution. The powers are going to play this out to the bitter end. There is no stable money or monetary unit on the way. They just want you to think there is. They are scrambling now to create a major war, because they know if they do not they’ll be revolution.

Over the past eight years a major change has overcome America. As we have said before it is now socially and politically acceptable to lie and to mislead. Fascists have stolen our rights under our Constitution, from us and our leaders in Washington and Wall Street and banking are corrupt. There is no one left to complain too. There is no one there to protect us. Our Congress, courts, law enforcement, and regulatory agencies only protect the elite. We have just seen massive fraud by Wall Street and banking and our government allows American taxpayers to illegally bail them out.

Our protectors are looking the other way deliberately as we are looted of our assets and our freedom. This will continue until there is war or revolution. There is no meaningful change coming from Washington nor will the corruption and looting stop.

It seems now everyone is too big to fail except the average taxpayer. Each and every day brings us closer to the economic brink, even though our government is able without interruption to manipulate all world markets. This fraud will soon come to an end and we will have our vengeance.

The brainwashing of the American public has been successful but there will soon come a time via more hardship that they’ll finally wake Americans up. All those who have misled us and lied to us will be dealt with including those in our media.

At $1.25 quadrillion derivatives inhabit every part of our society and the world as well. We are at the beginning of the beginning of the horrible fallout we face caused by the Federal Reserve, Wall Street and banking. The $10 trillion plus that we have forecast as the bill for the taxpayers is but a drop in the bucket. Credit ratings are falling like stones and well they should. The only AAA rating left is for gold. You had best own it or you will regret it.

The terrorist scam is being thrown at us again. General Michael Hayden, director of the CIA says there are dangers during the presidential transition. That was because of a supposed spike in intercepted transmissions from terror suspects, which we do not believe. Then Caligula described the threat that gives it less validity and then the Lord of Spithead, the Home Office Security Minister in London called for a huge threat, which makes the credibility zero

THE PRE -PLANNED FINANCIAL/ECONOMIC 9-11

WHAT: A pre-planned collapse of the US (and global) financial and economic systems.

WHO: The same characters who perpetrated the original 911.

WHERE: New York City & DC, of course. Plus a sideshow in Washington state.

WHEN: The days surrounding September 11, naturally.

HOW: Instead of painted drones, missiles with wings & big fins, and fake airplanes, they used the much more stealthy short seller.

WHY: To remake the economic/financial order of the world into a "PPP".

WHY Really: Think about it ! And then ask yourself, "Cui bono?"

The 911 blueprint worked so magically for the world controllers that they were compelled to use virtually the same playbook. "If it ain't broke, why fix it?

So, what's the real deal here?

By analogy, let's take a quick look at the 911 timeline and stack it up against the new 2008 Financial "911", as it began to unfold earlier this year.

1. The Bear Stearns collapse that began in March 2008 is analogous to the 1st World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Just a warm up. This was preceded by a little failure back in January featuring Countrywide ­ the largest US mortgage lender.

2. The nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac marks the beginning of the new 911. Both in the DC area, they were the first to come down this time. Just as they struck at the heart of the military complex, this time they went for the jugular of the national real estate market. Remember ­ this is a financial 911.

3. Next came this year's version of the twin towers, building 7 and other assorted NYC landmarks in the form of Lehman Brothers, AIG, Merrill Lynch, as well as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs in their "new & improved" form. Basically took out the whole of American investment brokerage, heh?!

4. And, of course, we still have Washington Mutual out there in the boonies just like the one that "crashed" in a PA farm field. Update: WashMu is now history! As is another "little" bank by the name of Wachovia.

5. Their MO! What else, but controlled demolition? Throughout 2008, and especially this month of September, we have seen some of the world's largest banks, brokerage houses, mortgage lenders, insurance companies and investment brokers go bust, as each of them fell perfectly into their own footprint faster than you can say: C O N T R O L L E D D E M O L I T I O N ! ! !

6. The 700 billion dollar Bailout Plan is just like the Patriot Act, isn't it? Only this time it's maybe a 1 or 2 page document (in its original form) that conferred absolute authority on the Executive Branch to do just about anything they want with the taxpayer's money. And they want it rubber stamped now. Not tomorrow. NOW!!! Without discussion, or unnecessary congressional debate. Talk about Shock & Awe being used against the American people, and their elected representatives!?! "The Greatest Depression" never sounded more like "Weapons of Mass Destruction", eh?!?!

7. Now we know we can expect further gyrations, panics and precipitous declines in the market and elsewhere, just as we had anthrax attacks in the Capital, beltway snipers in Maryland in October of '02, the 3/11/04 train bombings in Madrid, and the 7/7/05 bombings in London. Not to mention the 50+ other synthetic terror events staged throughout the world to enforce compliance and create distraction.

8. The sudden and dramatic downfall of NY Gov Eliot Spitzer can also now be seen in its proper light. Having left the reservation one too many times, he simply could not be trusted to go with the flow. He had their numbers, their signatures (especially their MO's), their addresses --- the whole ball of wax, as well as his own reputation to burnish. Eliot, to seal his fate, wrote a masterful expose on the subprime mortgage fiasco/fraud that was published in the WashPo just weeks before his public humiliation. He had recently testified before Congress in fine revelatory fashion as well. The elimination of John O'Neil, Head of Security at the WTC complex, is quite similar, except that John O. ­ a great patriot ­ died on 911, having just been given the job.

9. To date, the most obvious and glaring example of this manipulated takedown is the case of a NY Senator. His letter to the FDIC contained confidential information that triggered the IndyMac bank collapse in July. California AG Jerry Brown was called to review the entire affair after the OTS Director explicitly blamed the letter for causing a run on the bank (3rd largest bank failure in US history). This episode is eerily reminiscent of Larry Silverstein's order to, "Pull it." just prior to the expertly controlled demolition of Building # 7on 911.

10. Just as 911 was perpetrated as a cover for: inaugurating the War on Terror, overtly advancing the NWO regime globally (in contrast to this previously covert operation), imposing a police state (Homeland Security) in the US (by gutting the US Constitution), UK and elsewhere, dominating and securing oil/gas reserves in the Middle East and Cacaucus (to include running energy pipelines through Afghanistan and stealing Iraq's oil wealth via military invasion), jump starting the Afghan opium trade, etc., the ECO/FIN 911 of '08 is a cover for many of these same agenda items. However, there is one little item that is particularly high on the current agenda. And that concerns the derivatives market, which in its totality approximates somewhere between 750 trillion and 1 quadrillion dollars of instruments as of 2008. In fact, the sub prime mortgage defaults are just a tip of the tip of the iceberg when compared to the real megilla ­ DERIVATIVES. This is what they're really worried about, and having to cover for. Except this is a quadrillion dollar megilla that can't be covered without unraveling the entire capitalistic system, and its fascist corpocracy and kleptocratic oligarchy.

11. And then there is the teenie-weenie matter concerning the Federal Reserve, and its collection agency ­ the IRS. The man standing behind this curtain has a lot at stake, especially in the form of mountains of evidence that will indict, and convict, the entire system. Lots of evidence was destroyed during and after 911, as will happen after many of these Wall Street firms are taken over, nationalized, liquidated, merged and disappeared. The veil, however, has already been lifted.

Does anyone see a pattern here?!

The real lesson to be gleaned from this analysis is that events of such enormity and consequence are rarely spontaneous and unchoreographed. Especially when they happen just weeks from an era defining presidential election. They have obviously been planning this one for a long time, and it has been fastidiously engineered to have a very definite effect and desired outcome ­ a permanent planetary plantation (PPP).

The execution, thus far, has been flawless. Even for those of us who stood there on the 1st 911, and knew it was a fraud while the buildings were coming down, this one is exceedingly more difficult to penetrate. However, penetrate we will, until every last conspirator is sitting before the TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION spillin' the beans. The ultimate and lasting effect of these inquiries will be a New World Order of our making, not theirs. The only remaining, $64,000 question will undoubtedly be, "What do we do with them after we head them off at the pass?"

For the uninitiated, it may take quite a lot to wrap your mind around this extremely complex and convoluted plot, but, please, just be patient. As this drama plays out, the true intentions of the primary perpetrators will become manifest as they unwittingly reveal themselves by their handiwork. As Eliot Spitzer, no - Eliot Ness, nee ­ Sherlock Holmes once alluded to ­ a fingerprint inadvertently left as evidence is impossible to erase.

You see, the short sellers, unlike the "airplanes", are still with us. Each one had a target to take down which they did with amazing speed and dexterity. And the myriad transactions that converged to topple their prey are all preserved somewhere, in some huge database, with multiple backups to serve as confirmation of trades of staggering amounts. AHHH! Nothing like computers, especially when they're not confiscated and shipped off to China for permanent disposal.

May all financial wizards and economic soothsayers, henceforth, be inspired to stare into their crystal ball and divine the upcoming financial and economic events of global proportions with the keenest of acumen and sleuthing. As we shine the LIGHT of our collective awareness on these rapidly unfolding schemes, we will serve as beacons of revelation, and hope to the world.

Remember ­ we now know the script. We know the major players involved. We know their MO: Controlled Demolition. We are able to watch the crimes being commit-

ted in real time. Each of us has now been thusly notified, and empowered, to serve as a vector of dissemination of this critical information. So -----> LET'S GET BUSY ! ! !

T. Anthony Michael 9/22/08

TAnthonyMichael@gmail.com

ONE NATION UNDER CAPITALISM: IT'S TIME FOR A CRUCIFIXION

One Nation under Capitalism: It’s Time for a Crucifixion

Published by cyrano2 at 1:17 pm under American Capitalism, American Empire, American Infantilization, American Nightmare, Bourgeois democracy, Capitalism, Capitalist Crises, Capitalist Lies, Capitalist Whores, Capitalist democracy, Collectivism, Communalism, Corporatism, Crony Capitalism, Cultural decay, Economic Collapse, False Consciousness, Finance Capital, Money Worship, Monopoly Capitalism, Savage Capitalism, Social Justice, Sociopaths in charge

By Jason Miller Print This Post

10/2/08

Proudly surveying our kingdom from atop the capitalist pyramid, we US Americans have deluded ourselves into believing we are at the pinnacle of cultural, social, political, and economic evolution. We fancy ourselves to be so exceptional that we are entitled to a perpetual blessing from “our” Christian God.

Break out the Haldol!

We have afflicted the globe with the fatal contagions of the American Way and corporatism. And all of us, to varying degrees, are culpable. From bicycle-peddling vegans to limo riding corporados, we are each complicit in perpetuating American capitalism, a system so rotten that were it a piece of decaying meat, starving maggots would reject it.

We would have far fewer amends to make if our nation’s impact were limited by the size of our population. Were that the case, we would be a mere blemish on the face of Mother Earth. But due to our extraordinary wealth and power, insatiable avarice, hostility towards life, and obscene appetites for consumption, the United States is more akin to a cankerous fist-sized boil, oozing pus and reeking with infection.

We’re gluttonous beyond belief, greedily devouring every morsel of meat and marrow and leaving the “dogs” of the rest of the world to gnaw hungrily on the hollow bones we thoughtlessly cast aside.

Spiritually we’ve struck a perverse Faustian bargain. Like the good doctor, we crave “more than earthly meat, cheese and drink.” But knowledge is not the object of our desire. What an insult to think that we’d relinquish our souls in exchange for something so hollow and meaningless. Big Macs, the NFL, NASCAR, McMansions, Hummers, American Idol, liposuction, and Viagra—we’ll settle for no less. Gloating over our seemingly endless supply of fast foods and hard-hitting dudes, heart-pounding races and expansive living spaces, monstrous cars and aspiring stars, and hot chicks and hard dicks, we glare contemptuously at the “rats” from other nations scurrying about our feet and fighting over the crumbs we don’t manage to inhale.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, Tant Mieux, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org

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For years we have satiated our desires with utter disregard for environmental cost, have ignored the abject suffering we inflict upon humans and animals, and have spilled a veritable ocean of blood to enable corporate plunder and to stomp anti-capitalist movements into the ground.

Yet when we finally reaped a bit of what we’d sown in September of 2001 and again in September of 2008, we wailed, wept, and gnashed our teeth as if we were the only people ever to have sustained staggering blows.

While both events are tragic, how can we express such righteous indignation that we’ve been wounded as a nation when we’ve been dishing out misery for years and have remained relatively unscathed?

And can we be so blinded by the shimmer of the gold and diamonds that we worship that we can’t see that these deep wounds to the very heart of capitalism (both the destruction of the World Trade Center and the current financial market crisis) are clarion calls to slay this formidable but staggering beast?

Capitalism has had its run and it has failed. Miserably.

Despite a number of ‘socialist’ measures implemented by the ruling elite to pacify the masses throughout the crisis-ridden history of American capitalism, we still have an obscene percentage of wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, poverty and homelessness, unemployment, imperial conquests, monopolies and oligopolies, and ‘recessions.’

And our collective psyche suffers from a host of maladies and malformations. We are alienated from nature, each other and ourselves. We value property over life. We buy far more than we need or could ever use. We measure success in dollars and cents. We are driven by greed and selfishness. We worship money and militarism.

As obviously dysfunctional, unjust, and destructive as our system is, many of us who oppose the $700 billion ‘bailout’ of the financial markets still soberly nod our heads in agreement when bourgeois economists insist that while the ‘bailout’ proposal is excessive, ‘something must be done to restore investor confidence and get credit flowing again.’

How about no? How about we do nothing?

Most of those who stand to benefit from a ‘bailout’ of any dollar amount are all about the ‘free market’ and ‘law of the jungle’ capitalism. It’s sad how quickly those in the moneyed class cast aside their ‘principles’ when adversity slaps them in the face.

‘Dog-eat-dog’ is their mantra when they’re fighting tooth and nail to cut spending on socially beneficial programs, rewarding mass firings by increasing stock values, pushing for increased regressive taxes and decreases on progressive taxes, and slaughtering millions of innocents in resource wars. But when these uber-predators become prey, they expect the rest of us to charge to their rescue.

So what of Paulson and the rest of the power elite who are coming to the working and middle classes on bended knee, begging for a hand-out? Let them twist in the wind and pray they start hurling themselves out of windows.

What of the financial markets, Wall Street, and the decaying socioeconomic infrastructure of American capitalism? Let them collapse.

What of the rest of us? Let us suffer as our victims have suffered for decades.

Motivated by pain and by the realization that our system is ecocidal, genocidal, and morally reprehensible, we of the working and middle classes can finally redeem ourselves by nailing our depraved god of American capitalism to the cross and starting to forge a just, egalitarian, democratic and humane socioeconomic order. Good for us and good for the rest of the planet!

Jason Miller is the associate editor of Cyrano’s Journal Online, founding editor of Thomas Paine’s Corner, and a corporate wage slave. He has experienced unemployment and homelessness, looks forward to meeting interesting people at the soup kitchen once his 401K has zeroed out and his job has been eliminated, and wonders when America’s wage slaves will finally unite and revolt.

THE 700 BILLION DOLLAR "BAILOUT" WONT WORK AND THE SYSTEM WILL IMPLODE

The Paulson Plan means you are going to eat it all, Paulson wants to keep the corrupt greed machine going, A Wall Street Bailout plan means you will pay for their mistakes, Administration trying to scare everyone into accepting bailout plan, Buyouts now like zombie marriages, derivative Death-Star on its way,

The name of the episode, appropriately enough, is "The Paulson Plan." The capsule for the episode reads as follows: Hanky Panky and Buck-Busting Ben decide to renovate the Goldilocks Matrix, giving it a major overhaul, and attempt to redefine the word: "fantasy." Indeed, The Paulson Plan, so-called, may be the most vivid product of a fertile imagination since "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Wizard of Oz," which quite frankly are more believable than the reasons given for the implementation of the "The Paulson Plan."

Oh, we must help the poor sheople by easing the credit-crunch so they can get more loans and get deeper into hock (like more loans is what they somehow need), and so their savings accounts and pensions plans can be saved as we hyperinflate the dollar. Oh, we are sooooo concerned about the welfare of the poor, helpless sheople! We have to save them from destroying themselves, because only we, the masters of the universe, know what is best for them. (Judy, get the barf-bag - quick!) You just don't understand. The corrupt, graft-laden, insider-trading-saturated, fraud-based, Ponzi-scheming system that we have used to rip you off and steal you blind for over a century must obviously be saved so we can keep screwing you ad infinitum. After all, isn't that what sheople are for, to be fleeced and sheered, fattened and slaughtered? You know your place. You are all bleating, ignorant sheople, so come lick our boots - and give us the damned money!!! Oh, there, there, now. We're sorry to take such an imperious tone with you. There, there, just give in to our demands like good little sheople and, in time, everything will turn out juuuuust fine --- NOT!

We know we have taxed you to death via the IRS and inflation of the money supply, we know we have manipulated all the markets and engaged in rampant insider-trading and loan fraud, thus stealing trillions of dollars of your hard-earned cash from you, we know we created Ponzi-scheme bubbles in dot.com stocks and real estate, we know we gave mortgages to people who could not afford homes in the first place, we know that we falsely rated stocks, bonds and derivatives and "cooked our books" to get you and our international friends to pay top dollar for crap, we know we lied to you about every economic statistic on the face of the planet, but, hey, we're all in this together now, and you have no alternative other than to accept our bailout plan (oh, let's call it a "rescue plan" instead) so thatyou can pay for all the economic carnage resulting from our debauchery.

And don't worry about any oversight when it comes to disbursing the piddling $700 billion, because it should be obvious, based on all the foregoing, that we can be trusted to handle the mere 700 billion as if it were -well - our own, which it will be if you approve the plan! Oh, but perhaps we should not mention that - you might construe that as some kind of silly old moral hazard, hahaha. And never mind that we told you we don't know if the plan will work, because we know it won't, but we didn't want to upset you any more than you already are. And have no concern that the 1.4 quadrillion dollar, roiling, boiling derivatives volcano is going to wipe out the entire world banking system with molten credit default swaps and interest rate swaps in a blaze of pyroclastic glory over the next several years, because, hey - we're working on it! And never mind that the problem is unsolvable. This is the United Goldilocks Matrix, where everything turns out juuuuust right!

Note first, how the Paulson Plan, which we will hereinafter refer to as PP (which is also a good acronym for Preposterous Poppycock), is a perfect example of Illuminist extortion aimed at stuffing a very rotten apple down the collective throats of our elitist marionettes in Congress, who, for the first-time in what must be over half a century, displayed some backbone in their denial of the initial proposal for the PP, albeit that their nixing of the PP was most likely motivated by political opportunism more so than by any true patriotism.

First, we saw Bear Stearns assassinated this March as an appetizer. The extortion got started with a bang on September 7, when Fannie and Freddie were nationalized, and then we were "shocked and awed" with a series of colossal commercial bank and investment bank failures, starting with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 10, at which time Merrill Lynch also went under and was purchased by Bank of America. Then AIG goes down on the 16th. Out comes the PP on the 20th. Then, to keep up the pressure, Washington Mutual implodes on the 25th and is acquired by JP Morgan Chase, followed by the vaporization of Wachovia on the 29th, which is acquired by Citigroup in the hours before the first vote on the PP is commenced. Now mind you that these banks have been insolvent from the outset of the credit-crunch in August of 2007, as we have reported to you over the past year. And here we are, with Congress about to recess to campaign for reelection just before the vote in November, and suddenly the whole system, which until now has been kept in a state of suspended animation, comes down to scare everyone into accepting the PP. How blatant and churlish can you get?

Along the way, we also saw Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley give up their investment bank charters for commercial bank charters while getting bailed out with equity injections from various Illuminist companies. Then banks and other financial institutions in Europe suddenly crumble, after unofficial weekend rumblings, with official announcements of bailouts/nationalizations made, right on cue, on Monday to bolster the PP, including Fortis (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemborg), Hypo Real Estate (Germany), Bradford and Bingley (UK), Glitner Bank (Iceland) and Unicredito (Italy).

Here is a little time line summarizing the action that occurred as a lead-up to the vote on the PP:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/27/wallstreet.useconomy3

Nevertheless, the PP gets nixed by the US House of Representatives in a "shocker," and suddenly the Dow plunges 777 points as punishment for our Congress having the audacity to deny the Illuminati because they were getting inundated with calls from constituents who were against the PP, sometimes by as much as 300 to 1. The message: give us the $700 billion or we will give you trillions worth of grief just prior to elections. As a side note, while we are not into numerology, when you get a 777-point punishment for nixing a $700 billion bailout plan, may we suggest there is some sort of message there. Also, as a side note, we had to laugh when Citigroup bought out Wachovia. It was like a zombie marriage made in heaven. The walking dead marrying another member of the walking dead. It's like mixing C-4 with TNT. What a conflagration that combination is going to suffer! We suppose, for now, that we technically have the Fed now leading the Big Five instead of the Big Four (the Big Five being JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and now Citigroup). We'll see how long that lasts. We expect to get back to the Big Four in the not-too-distant future. The Big Four will get vaporized later, as will the Fed, with everything being nationalized, as planned by the Illuminati all along.

Now we are hearing the moron, Illuminist bankers in Europe drone on about how doltish the Americans are for rejecting such an excellent plan. Then there is the Caligula Administration, whining that we don't like the plan any more than you do, but it must be passed or everyone will suffer great pain (as if that can somehow be avoided and as if they aren't drooling over the profits to be made when the money is doled out). Now, the Senate leaders are getting in on the act, blaming the House for defeating such a wonderful plan and causing trillions in losses in the stock markets (even though it was really just the PPT withdrawing its support and strengthening the yen, thereby allowing the financial markets to fall under the weight of their horrendous fundamentals, as well they should when left to themselves instead of being manipulated by our corporatist, fascist, elitist scum and their financial anti-gravity machines). The Senate is going to add some tax breaks to sweeten it for the House Republicans, but the House Democrats may then be put off. The Senate is thus trying to obfuscate what is the main issue - that the plan won't work, will ultimately increase our pain and fan the flames of hyper-stagflation and out-of-control, double-digit interest rates as everyone stampedes toward the exits, trying to unload their treasury paper all at the same time before it becomes worthless. Meanwhile, the bribes and threats are being thrown every which way as the Wall Street pirates and the usual government scalawags attempt to claim their booty.

This so-called rescue plan is a "disgrace," is "totally flawed" and there are many better, and far less expensive, alternatives, notes the respected economist Nouriel Roubini. Also noted by Mr. Roubini is the fact that credit and other financial markets have been deteriorating despite the prospects of approval for the PP, which shows you in spades that the plan won't work and will do little more than line the pockets of the Illuminists at the expense of the taxpayers who will get vaporized in the end. Rather than lay out all of his arguments in detail here, we provide you with the following web sites:

http://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monitor/253783/is_purchasing_700_billion_of_toxic_assets_the_best_way_to_
recapitalize_the_financial_system_no_it_is_rather_a_disgrace_and_rip-off_benefitting_only_the_shareholders_and_unsecured_creditors_of_banks

http://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monitor/253801/the_us_and_global_financial_crisis_is_becoming_much_more_severe_
in_spite_of_the_treasury_rescue_plan_the_risk_of_a_total_systemic_meltdown_is_now_as_high_as_ever

As Mr. Roubini points out, the government's purchase of bank assets is the route the Japanese took, and this led to a two-decade recession/depression which they still struggle with to this day. We will now follow them into financial oblivion unless by some miracle the elitists are stopped from implementing the PP, or the Derivative Death-Star detonates before they can complete their final raping of the sheople. Instead of having a brief one or two years of moderate depression, we will end up with one or two lost decades and the worst depression ever created in the history of mankind, not to mention a corporate, fascist police state.

The PP will temporarily put off, and greatly magnify, the final implosion of our economy which will be worse by an order of magnitude as the direct result of the implementation of the PP. The glowing, Quadrillion Dollar Derivative Death-Star insures that destruction is on its way. It is not "if," but "when." When it explodes, in the aftermath, a financial black hole will form as global markets implode, and will suck everything into one final crushing moment of complete annihilation. The PP will only serve to extend the period of elitist fraud, and they will continue to produce toxic waste and dump it on their sucker-dupes for vast fees, spreads and commissions as they speculate, gamble and re-leverage with all their newfound largesse, courtesy of the US taxpayer and the backing of nationalized Phonie and Fraudie along with the huge injection from the PP.

This all ties in with the Big Sting Two. They have beaten down commodities. Now, all they have to do is have the PPT drive up the stock market with the puffery provided by the PP, and they win. They will bail out through their dark pools of liquidity, Project Turquoise and Baikal, behind the public's back, and then use their sales proceeds to buy up all the tangible assets such as precious metals, commodities, real estate and domestic infrastructure at fraudulently manipulated and reduced prices. Such drastically reduced prices will also become available at an ever-accelerating pace as financial and business corporations continue to collapse and go into bankruptcy. After they have bailed out of all dollar-denominated paper assets, the Illuminati will let the stock and bond markets come-crashing down, the price of precious metals and other tangible assets will explode, they will clean up, and you, the sheople taxpayers, will get left holding the proverbial bag of worthless fiat paper for the nth time.

As the system implodes, the highly appreciated tangible assets of the Illuminists will be used to purchase property for pennies on the dollar as liquidations continue under the weight of what will be a complete systemic failure of the fiat money and credit system, after the elitists have had their fun. That is their hope, but we doubt they can hold it up long enough to complete their final rip-off of the sheople. This is why they fear the Derivatives Death-Star, and start mumbling to themselves every time someone in Congress brings that subject up. They must bail out before this Death-Star detonates, or they will be wiped out, hence their desperation to implement the PP. They intend to leave nothing but burned out corporate husks, the Fed and the Big Five included, when the Derivatives Death-Star detonates, and then you, the sheople, will be asked to nationalize the entire banking system. This is what happened to Germany in the aftermath of the Weimar Republic after hyperinflation had cut its swath of destruction. And we have relatives of some of the same players involved in the rebuilding of Nazi Germany as a fascist police state. Caligula's grandfather, Prescott Bush, helped finance the new Nazi fascist government through a banking concern he managed which was later shut down as an entity that collaborated with the Nazis. He was almost hanged for treason before his Illuminist buddies saved his neck. And now GHWB and Dubya are working off the same playbook as history repeats itself. The Fourth Reich is coming to a theatre near you, complete with Nazi death camps and a Nazi police state. As you watch the financial carnage going down all around you, perhaps you can now start to understand and appreciate that this is not business as usual and that we are not conspiracy quacks talking out of our back ends. You had better wake up and take action quickly, or you will be caught up in a new Holocaust.

Now, let's take a look at some of the new blather that was added to the PP to bring about the so-called compromise. First, we state categorically that the taxpayers will not make a single dime of profit from this scam. You are going to pay for this cess pool of toxic sewage at the "hold to maturity value," which means you will pay par less any principal reduction from payments received. And which paper do you think they are going to buy with your dollars? Do you think it will be the stuff worth 70 cents on the dollar, or will it be the stuff going for 10 cents or less on the dollar? We will not even insult your intelligence by answering that question. And if this toxic waste is worth pennies on the dollar now, what will it be worth when our economy finally comes down under the weight of our rabid profligacy, rampaging fraud, rampant speculation, raving lunatic leverage and roaring, outrageous deficits? You guessed it. A big fat goose egg. You will eat the whole thing - guaranteed.

THE RESSURECTIONISTS:BELTWAYS BIG MONEY CULTISTS BAIL OUT THE DEAD

The Resurrectionists: Beltway's Big Money Cultists Bail Out the Dead

Monday, 29 September 2008

I. The crisis of Wall Street's financial meltdown has demonstrated, once again, that although the Bush Faction thugs are criminals, killers, torturers, and thieves, without even the slightest competence in governing, they remain brilliant political tacticians. They may be willfully ignorant and brutally stupid in almost every other area, but when it comes to advancing their own narrow interests -- at the expense of the political opposition -- their low cunning cannot be denied. Just look how they have made the Democratic leadership the face of the Administration's bailout plan -- which is perhaps the most virulently unpopular government action in the last 100 years. This unconscionable giveaway to the greedy rich was cooked up in the poison kitchen of the Oval Office, long before the late summer collapses that triggered the public crisis -- yet at every turn, before every camera, who do we see fighting hard for the plan? Why, Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank, front and center, day after day, talking it up, defending the President and his wise counselor, the rapacious Wall Street profiteer Henry Paulson. When the bailout goes through, and ordinary Americans see that their own lives and livelihoods are still collapsing all around them, who are they going to blame? Why, the Democrats, of course. As usual -- as always -- the Democrats have handed their ostensible opponents a razor-sharp sword. You can hear it now: "That radical liberal feminist from San Francisco, that stubby little Massachusetts homo -- they're the ones who did this to you! Liberals and Jews and homos, they've stabbed you in the back again!" As always, this message will be sponsored by the very Wall Street wolves which the Democrats are now falling all over themselves to save. The Democratic sell-out will, once again, be used to discredit any notion of ameliorating the most savage effects of unrestricted corporate power: "See what happens when them libruls monkey with the free market?" Just as soon as the biggest fraudsters and grafters behind the meltdown have filled their coffers with enough taxpayer loot to feel safe again, the extremist sect of "free market fundamentalism" will raise its banner over Wall Street -- and Washington -- once again. In fact, this has already happened once in the last 20 years: hardly outside the living memory of many if not most of our media mavens and political operators. The Savings and Loan meltdown -- which, once again, saw the Bush Family in the thick of the muck -- resulted in a gargantuan bailout of, yes, fraudsters and grafters....like Neil Bush, for one. They wrecked vast financial institutions, devoured pensions, destroyed businesses, ruined the lives of millions of people -- and got away clean. What's more, the extremist doctrine of unregulated greed that led to the crisis was not only not discredited by this crimeful and shameful episode -- it was exalted to new heights a short time later... by a young, hip, "progressive" Democratic president elected on a platform of "hope and change," replacing a failed, incompetent, and highly unpopular Republican president named George Bush. Yes, it was Bill Clinton, "the Man from Hope," who oversaw the accelerated dismantling of nearly all of the remaining checks and balances on rapacious Big Money greed. It was Clinton who helped lay the groundwork for outright criminal enterprises like Enron and "legitimate" criminal enterprises like Hank Paulson's Goldman Sachs and all the other high flyers who gamed a system that suddenly had no rules, except one: make your pile and screw everybody else. (It was also Clinton who gave billions to Halliburton and other war profiteers in a vast "privatization" of the U.S. military, laying the foundation for the world-historical thievery of Bush's corporate cronies in the killing fields of Iraq; but that's another story.) And make no mistake: just as before, it will be the young, hip "progressive" candidate of hope and change taking over from a failed president named George Bush who will oversee and acquiesce in the resurrection of free market fundamentalism after a catastrophic failure of the cult's doctrine. In fact, Obama has joined the Democratic leadership in trying to keep the cult from losing its supremacy even now. He has joined John McCain in supporting the "breakthrough" on the bailout reached on Sunday. The young, hip, "progressive" candidate said that although it was unfortunate that American taxpayers and their descendants will have to endure further impoverishment and degradation just to keep rich, stupid, blind, greedy, slobbering gluttons in clover, the bailout plan "is a necessary step." Here we can see that the resurrection of the crony capitalist cult has already begun. For if one thing is true in this wild frenzy of elite panic (some of it genuine, some of it deliberately whipped up to scare the proles into falling in line), it is this: the bailout plan proposed by Bush and championed by the Democratic leadership is not a necessary step at all. It is a step, yes; but as dozens of the nation's top economists will tell you, it is the wrong step: it will not "solve" the current crisis, will not punish the perpetrators of this global grand theft, nor bring genuine relief to the millions of ordinary people who will go down in the fallout of this elite folly. However, if your primary goal is to ensure that the cult of coddled crony capitalism retains its divine dominion over national and world affairs, then, yes, the Bush-Obama-McCain-Pelosi-Paulson-Frank bailout proposal is indeed "necessary." II. Arthur Silber and Mike Whitney continue to be the most penetrating expounders of the reality behind the financial meltdown and the disastrous bailout plan. Whitney has produced a series of richly detailed pieces at CounterPunch, outlining the financial nitty-gritty of the crisis, and also pointing to the alternative approaches offered by some of the world's most learned economic experts. Silber has built a remarkable series of posts around Whitney's articles, bringing out the deeper implications of the crisis and its connections to the wider failures and atrocities of the bipartisan corporate-militarist state that now rules in place of the dead Republic. Silber demonstrates this once again in his latest piece on the crisis, pointing to Whitney's latest piece and drawing on other reports as well, to hammer home several hard truths that are going unnoticed in the media carnival surrounding the oh-so-"necessary" bailout. Silber zeroes in on a Washington Post piece that, in the paper's endearingly clueless fashion, essentially gives the game away: Both Republicans and Democrats are desperately trying to make it appear that they're looking out for the well-being of the indentured servants whose lives their rulers so carelessly dispose of. That's hardly surprising in light of the notably loud groundswell of rejection at the terms of this plan. But it wouldn't do to encourage the riffraff too much, and the Democrats understand very well indeed who is actually calling the shots here. [From the WP]: Democrats also made a number of concessions, abandoning demands that bankruptcy judges be empowered to modify home mortgages on primary residences for people in foreclosure. They also agreed not to dedicate a portion of any profits from the bailout program to an affordable housing fund... Let them live in tents! proclaim the Democrats. But the Democrats did succeed with certain of their demands, and in every case the solution proves to be utterly meaningless and toothless: The administration also agreed to Democratic demands that the financial services industry should help pay for the program. Under the agreement, the president would be required to propose a fee on the industry if the government has not recovered its money through sales of the assets within five years. "The president would be required to propose..." Required to propose, but it appears no one is required to impose. Tough language! And does anyone honestly believe that after all the accounting gimmicks, the shifting of funds here, there and everywhere on the impossibly incomprehensible books of many different firms, any of this will come to anything? ....As the Post article makes clear, the essence of the Bush administration proposal will soon be enacted: American taxpayers will be forced to pay for generations to solve a problem that cannot be solved, all so that the ruling class is spared any substantial degree of discomfort. He then points to Whitney's sobering analysis: The financial system is blowing up. Don't listen to the experts; just look at the numbers. Last week, according to Reuters, "U.S. banks borrowed a record amount from the Federal Reserve nearly $188 billion a day on average, showing the central bank went to extremes to keep the banking system afloat amid the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression." The Fed opened the various "auction facilities" to create the appearance that insolvent banks were thriving businesses, but they are not. They're dead; their liabilities exceed their assets. Now the Fed is desperate because the hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in the banks vaults have bankrupted the entire system and the Fed's balance sheet is ballooning by the day. The market for MBS will not bounce back in the foreseeable future and the banks are unable to roll-over their short term debt. The Federal Reserve itself is in danger. So, it's on to Plan B; which is to dump all the toxic sludge on the taxpayers before they realize that the whole system is cratering. It's called the Paulson Plan, a $700 billion outrage which has already been disparaged by every economist of merit in the country.... From Reuters: "Borrowings by primary dealers via the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, and through another facility created on Sunday for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch, and their London-based subsidiaries, totaled $105.66 billion as of Wednesday, the Fed said." See what I mean; they're all broke. The Fed's rotating loans are just a way to perpetuate the myth that the banks aren't flat-lining already. Bernanke has tied strings to the various body parts and jerks them every so often to make it look like they're alive. But the Wall Street model is broken and the bailout is pointless. Yes, as I noted above, it is pointless -- if your chief aim is to mitigate the now-unavoidable catastrophe in some fashion, and provide some alleviation to the innocent people harmed by it. But if you want to raise the rotting corpse of the Market Messiah, stick it high on a pole and worship it as a god, in hopes that its priests will give you money and power, then without a doubt, the bailout plan is -- what's that word again? -- necessary. (*Note: The picture above is via Silber, via Corrente.)