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"Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves."
Norm Franz in Money and Wealth in the New Millennium, 2001

Commentary: "Docs Show White House, DHS, Pentagon Behind Occupy Crackdown To Protect Banks" [05/16/12] "As more and more information is released on the nationwide crackdown on the Occupy Protests, the latest documents show that not only did US anti-terrorism units worked alongside Wall Street’s secret spy centers to coordinate a campaign to crush the movement but the White House and Democrats joined in protecting the elite’s campaign of financial terrorism from the rage of protestors. The revelations come through new documents obtained through Freedom of Information Request’s filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) on behalf of filmmaker Michael Moore and the National Lawyers Guild. As I previously reported, documents which only being to scratch the surface of the crackdown, show anti-terrorism agencies coordinating the crackdown. Just released documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act provide definitive proof that anti-terrorism law enforcement officers from several agencies are coordinating with the US Park Police and local police to direct the brutal crackdown on Occupy Wall Street protestors nationwide. Washington’s Blog highlights some of the revelations. [...]"  

Commentary: "Germany's Gold - A Conflict With Repatriating It's Reserves From NY Fed/London And France" [05/16/12] "It seems there is a conflict/disagreement happening between the Central Bank of Germany (Bundesbank) and members of the Parliament and members of Germany's Federal Audit office (the Bundesrechnungshof) about Germany's gold. It seems Germany's gold has not been fully accounted for in at least five years. Now, members of the Parliament are standing up saying "They want the people's gold, back in the country." They also are out right saying "They don't think it is there any more either." It seems they think the Federal Reserve and London may have sold their gold. The Central Bank of Germany is saying "We are not to question another Central Bank of the World. If the Federal Reserve says the gold is there, then it is" [...]"  

Commentary: "JPMorgan Estimates Immediate Losses From Greek Exit Could Reach 400 Billion" [05/16/12]   "While our earlier discussion of the implications of Greece's exit from the Euro are critical reading to comprehend the real-time game of chicken occurring in front of our eyes, JPMorgan's somewhat more quantifiable estimates of the costs and contagion, given the results of the Greek election have raised market expectations of an exit of Greece from the Euro, also provide key indicators and flows that should be monitored. Identifying what has gone wrong with Greece's co-called 'adjustment' program, they go on to identify key transmission mechanisms to Spain and Italy, how it could potentially improve (Marshall-Plan-esque) and most critically, given the exponentially growing TARGET2 balances, if and when Germany throws in the towel. [...]"  Related: "Dimon Suggests That Billions Lost In Derivatives Fraud Is "Standard Banking Practice" "Jamie Dimon, Chairman of JPMorgan Chase is hoping that the American public will be sympathetic toward the recent $2 billion in losses that the financial firm has incurred because of their investments in derivatives. Dimon suggests that: Hey, everybody makes mistakes — sure, we lost $2 billion, but we’ve still got billions more, and we’ll figure out this one ourselves without the need for any further regulations, thank you. This assertion is simply an attempt at distracting the American perspective on this debacle. Since the repeal of Glass-Stegall, and the deregulation of the banks, the US economy has suffered at the hands of the banking cartels. The mega-banks are doing a great job at destroying the financial system, yet Dimon wants to shift the attention to this mishap as something that could happen to anyone... [...]" 

Commentary: "JPMorgan Chase Has Lost $20 Billion On Its Bad Trade, Taking Into Account Share Price " [05/15/12] "By now you may have heard that JPMorgan Chase lost $2 billion on a bad trade. Multiply that by 10, and you're starting to get a better idea of how much it has really lost. That's because the share price of the biggest U.S. bank by assets has tumbled by more than 11 percent since it announced the trading loss, shaving about $17.5 billion from its market value. JPMorgan shares were down another 2 percent on Monday, following a 9 percent tumble on Friday. Shareholders aren't necessarily upset about the $2 billion loss itself. The bank has lost more money than that at different times in other businesses, the New York Times reminded us this morning, without causing much of a ruckus. [...]"  Related: "Derivatives Cassandra On JPMorgan: It's 'Happening All Over Again'" "... JPMorgan's $2 billion $2 billion trading loss suggests the need for derivatives regulation is as urgent as ever. [...]"  Note: Such irony that the home of the CDO and derivative concept would become the eventual victim of the monster they created. It's estimated that the total amount of derivatives in the 'industry' amount to about $1.5 Quadrillion. That's an astronomical con job by some pretty insidious individuals.

Commentary: "Warren: JPMorgan Debacle Shows 'Banks Cannot Regulate Themselves'" [05/15/12] "The era of self-regulation on Wall Street needs to end now, Elizabeth Warren says. The Democratic candidate for Massachusetts Senate told CBS News Monday that America has to say "no, the banks cannot regulate themselves." The comments were made in reference to JPMorgan Chase’s $2 billion trading loss on Thursday. Dimon has been an outspoken critic of certain aspects of financial reform. In particular, he's focused in on the the Volcker Rule, a provision aimed at curbing the practice of banks taking risks with their own money. Although the rule remains unwritten, some have argued a strong enough version could have stopped such a loss. "What has happened here is not just about JPMorgan Chase," said Warren, who also called the idea that banks need not be watched by regulators "fundamentally wrong" and "dangerous."  [...]"  

Commentary: "Merkel Tells Greece To Back Cuts Or Face Euro Exit: World Braces for Euro Split" [05/15/12] "Raising the spectre of a Greek exit, the German chancellor said “solidarity for the euro” was threatened by the ongoing political crisis in Athens. Stock markets around the world fell sharply with fears mounting that a euro break-up could lead to renewed financial turmoil. The FTSE-100 index of Britain’s major companies fell by two per cent to 5465, with bank shares hit particularly hard. The cost of Spanish government borrowing also hit a record high since the single currency was introduced because of concerns that the crisis will spread. Today, François Hollande, the new French president, will be sworn in and, in an indication of the concern gripping Europe, will almost immediately travel to Berlin to hold talks with Mrs Merkel that will be dominated by Greece’s plight. Attempts to form a new government in Athens have been thwarted for the past nine days, although the country’s president will meet all major parties this afternoon to discuss the forming of a “technocratic” administration rather than a coalition. [...]"  Related: "Greece On Fire: 'Disaster Looms, With Or Without Euro'"   [6:41] "Last week was a truly hectic one for the EU, with violent anti-austerity demos and political deadlock again casting doubts over the future of the euro. In Spain, as many as hundreds of thousands marched in nationwide protest. They chanted slogans and waved banners demanding an end to cuts and painful austerity. In Italy, violent anti-austerity clashes erupted in the city of Naples, after yet another suicide apparently caused by an aggressive government taxation program. But above all that, is the political turmoil in Greece [...]" | "Nigel Farage: Escape Euro Prison"   [5:11] "It's D-Day for the euro, with intense talks among EU leaders in Brussels suffering its first setback. Britain and Hungary refused to accept EU-wide treaty changes, leaving the rest of the club to work out their own currency-saving solutions. The UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage believes, that Eurozone countries are now trapped inside economic prison called euro. [...]" | "Russia Today: Nigel Farage on Greek Crisis"   [3:23] | "Nigel Farage: Europe Is On Course For Fascist Revolution"   [7:33]   

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Central Bank Monarchs (E287)" [05/14/12] [25:47] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert discuss the alleged meritocracy of old Etonians running the world (into the ground) while the rest of us remain wards of the state - from the President of France to PhDs on foodstamps. In the second half of the show Max talks to John Titus, producer of the new documentary, Bailout."

Commentary: "JPMorgan Resignations: Three Executives At Bank Reportedly Will Resign" [05/14/12] "Three high-ranking executives at JPMorgan Chase are expected to leave their jobs this week after a trading blunder cost the bank $2 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. The Journal, citing people familiar with the situation, reported that one of the executives is Ina Drew, who for seven years has run the risk-management division at the bank responsible for the loss. The other two identified by the newspaper are an executive in charge of the London desk that placed the trades and a managing director on that team. The bank did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press. [...]"  

Bankers In The Cross Hairs: "At Least 100,000 March In Spain Over Austerity" [05/13/12] "At least 100,000 Spaniards angered by grim economic prospects and the political handling of the international financial crisis turned out for street demonstrations in the country's cities Saturday, marking the one-year anniversary of a movement that inspired similar pressure groups in other countries. Tens of thousands of protesters in Madrid flooded into the central Puerta del Sol plaza in the evening and aimed to stay for three days. But authorities warned they wouldn't allow anyone to camp out overnight, and up to 2,000 riot police were expected to be on duty. [...]"  Related: "Europe On The Brink Of Armed-Revolution"  [7:00] "The chorus of anti-austerity voices grows louder in Greece as Athens scrambles to form a coalition government. While eurocrats prepare to give Greece the boot, political analyst Alessandro Politi told RT speculators are Europe’s real enemy.[...]" | "‘Occupy’ Protesters Rally Against ‘Predatory Capitalism’ In London" "Several hundred Occupy protesters took to the streets of the City of London on Saturday, calling for an end to “predatory capitalism” after their movement declared a global day of action. Demonstrators gathered in London’s financial heart as Spain’s linked movement of “indignados” held marches in 80 towns and cities, and Occupy organisers promised protests in cities including Moscow, New York and Athens. The demonstrators, some waving the movement’s trademark tents or wearing white “V for Vendetta” masks, held banners proclaiming “normal predatory capitalism”, “we expect political democracy” and “shut down the 1 percent”. [...]" | "Tax Collection Violence In Italy: Mail Bombs In Rome, Police Clashes In Naples, Molotov Cocktails In Livorno"   "Violent protests against the hated Equitalia, the Italian tax collection agency, are making headlines in several cities in the past few days. In Rome mail bombings have been ongoing since December. Via Google Translate, this time in Italian, please consider a trio of articles. [...]" 

Commentary: "Make The Bankers Pay: Iceland, Ireland Pushing Back Against Neo-Feudalism" [05/13/12] "Across the dominion of the corporate-financiers on Wall Street and in the city of London, the reckless Ponzi schemes destroying the West's economy and plunging it into an economic depression have left politicians, the bought-and-paid-for servants of corporate-financier hegemony, wringing the public dry to cover losses. In reality, when an enterprise fails because of criminality, incompetence or both, citizens should not be forced to pass the hat around to "bail them out." They are declared bankrupt, their assets (if they have any) are stripped, often if fraud is involved, executives and board members go to jail, and society attempts to fill the void with sounder enterprises run by more reputable people... [...]"  

Commentary: "Amid Mass Unemployment, Corporate Profits Surge" [05/13/12] "Amid deepening poverty and unemployment for masses of American working people, the largest US corporations once again posted record profits last year. Fortune magazine released its ranking of the 500 biggest US corporations Monday, which showed that they received a record-breaking $824 billion in combined profits in 2011, up 16 percent from 2010. But despite having more money than ever, companies are refusing to invest and hire. Instead, they are paying out record bonuses to executives and hoarding what remains in cash. The average CEO took home $12.14 million in 2011, up from $12.04 million in 2010 and $10.36 million in 2009, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute published earlier this month. [...]"  

Commentary: "JPMorgan Sought Loophole On Risky Trading" [05/12/12] "Soon after lawmakers finished work on the nation’s new financial regulatory law, a team of JPMorgan Chase lobbyists descended on Washington. Their goal was to obtain special breaks that would allow banks to make big bets in their portfolios, including some of the types of trading that led to the losses now rocking the bank.  [...]"  

Commentary: "JP Morgan Suffers ‘Massive’ Losses: $4.2 Billion Probable; May Spread to Entire Sector" [05/12/12] "In an unexpected after- hours call with investors CEO Jamie Dimon said JPMorgan was facing massive losses – legal losses of $4.2 billion were reasonably possible, he said — with trading losses totaling $800 million in the second quarter. And Dimon said it could take until the end of the year to restructure the portfolio. Although information was still coming together at the time of writing, the Fast Money traders say developments look like they’re a game changer. … “I can almost guarantee it’s not just JPMorgan.” adds trader Guy Adami. “JPMorgan looks like it’s going to bring down the entire space,” adds Steve Grasso. In other words, all the traders are expecting financials to sell-off broadly on Friday. “The sector hasn’t been doing well anyway,” explains Steve Grasso. “The group has been breaking down. This feels like it could be a nail in the coffin.” CEO Jamie Dimon: …”egregious mistakes” …”self inflicted” …”could easily get worse [...]" (thanks to JP Morgan's Blythe Masters, who created Credit Default Swaps and other derivatives to begin with) Related: "Fitch Downgrades JPMorgan Chase & Co." | "Bank Regulations Get Fresh Support" "Leading members of Congress on Friday demanded that federal regulators strengthen proposed banking rules and scrutinize trading closely in the wake of JPMorgan Chase’s disclosures of trading losses.  “The fact that this can happen at a bank with a solid reputation like JPMorgan is evidence that our banking regulators must remain vigilant,” said Senator Tim Johnson, the South Dakota Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, “and why opponents of Wall Street reform must not be allowed to gut important protections for the financial system and taxpayers.” The bank has been a leader of industry lobbying against new strictures on trading practices. [...]"  Note: No, actually, JP Morgan has been a party to the creation of every financial disaster to ever happen ... leading the industry in screwing the population. More reincarnated retreads faced with dissolution of their own paradigm because of their limitless greed. JP Morgan’s operations straddle the world of banking…and the far murkier world of ‘shadow banking’. Shadow banking is where investment banks, hedge funds, leverage, repos and hypothecated assets, using someone else's funds to cover your own ventures, all come out to play.

Commentary: "JP Morgan Trader 'London Whale' Blows $13bn Hole In Bank's Value" [05/12/12] "Shockwaves spread across markets after $2bn trading loss at US bank, which had campaigned to water down regulations. The City trader at the centre of a $2bn trading loss at JP Morgan Chase had returned to his home in Paris on Friday as the repercussions of the loss spread across the markets. Some $13bn was wiped off the value of America's largest bank after it admitted the scale of the trading activities of Bruno Iksil – nicknamed the London Whale for his bullish trading – and his colleagues in the bank's little known "chief investment office". The US Securities and Exchange financial watchdog was said to have begun reviewing the losses, the rating agency Standard & Poor's revised its outlook on the bank from stable to negative and Fitch Ratings downgraded it from A-plus to AA-minus. A graduate in engineering from the École Centrale in Paris 20 years ago, Iksil had become so well known in the opaque $10tn market for credit default swaps – a complex type of insurance product – that he was nicknamed the "London Whale" and also known as Voldemort, after Harry Potter's nemesis. Iksil is thought to be one of the highest-paid bankers in London and his New York-based boss, Ina Drew, whose pay has to be published, received $14m last year. The Financial Services Authority has been informed and will liaise closely with the bank, which had earned an unrivalled reputation for navigating successfully through the 2008 banking crisis. Before the shock announcement, JP Morgan chief executive Jamie Dimon had been crucial in persuading the US government to water down new regulations, in particular the so-called Volcker rule that aims to limit risk-taking by banks considered "too big to fail". [...]"  Note: JP Morgan was easily able to 'navigate the 2008 financial crisis' ... because they were a party to causing it and could steer things in any direction that wished, using how ever many patsies they wanted to use.

Commentary: "Economic Downturn Continues To Spur On Suicides Across Europe" [05/12/12] "The number of suicides increased by about 40 percent in the second half of 2011 and has continued to pose a problem in Greece. NPR has stated that about 30 percent of Greek families live below the poverty line. ... Italy has also been at the front of headlines recently for a rash of suicides intimately connected with economic problems. Just this week, three people committed suicide, leaving tragic notes that revealed their despair at their inability to find new employment. There have been 34 suicides related to economic hardships in Italy since January, according to NBC News. The Italian government owes many entrepreneurs up to $90 million and “some have been waiting to be paid for up to two years.” And these suicides are often committed by businessmen who have watched their businesses fail, or male family members who have lost a significant source of income. An association near Asolo in Italy started a crisis helpline for those who have felt distress, but family members of potential suicide cases are more likely to call in asking for help than the men who are at risk. And the Mediterranean region is not the only area to be hit by rising suicide numbers in the world. Both Ireland and the United Kingdom have experienced a rise in the number of suicides over the last few years, according to the BBC, quoting a 2011 Lancet report that pinned a rise in suicides in the UK at a 10 percent increase between 2007 and 2009. And while many people have been affected by unemployment and rising rates of depression and suicide in the eurozone, there has also been a major backlash towards continued austerity measures. Greek voters have summarily rejected any continued austerity measures. The newly-elected French president, François Hollande, has also demanded that new growth initiatives be put in place with a shift away from austerity measures that cut off families in need of assistance, as the Telegraph cites. [...]"  

Concepts and Practices: "Economics By And For Human Beings" [05/12/12] "Economics puts parameters on people’s utopias.” Yes. That’s exactly it. That’s why the politicians hate economics. That’s why the media are so... selective in which economists they call on to talk about policy. That’s why the economics departments in colleges are put down by the sociologists, philosophers, literature professors and just about everyone else who has romantic longings for a coerced utopia. “The teachings of the principles of economics should inform as much on what not to do, perhaps even more than providing a guide to public action.” ...It’s been going on for hundreds of years. Every generation for the past 500 years has seen the battle wage between those who want to use the power of the state to contort and distort the world to fit some daydream on one hand and the economists who have seen the futility in this manipulation and warn against it on the other. [...]"  

MSM: "Banks Prepare For The Return Of The Drachma" [05/12/12] "Banks are quietly readying themselves to start trading a new Greek currency. Some banks never erased the drachma from their systems after Greece adopted the euro more than a decade ago and would be ready at the flick of a switch if its debt problems forced it to bring back national banknotes and coins. From the end of the Soviet Union - which spawned currencies such as the Estonian Kroon and the Kazakh Tenge - to the introduction of the euro, they have had plenty of practice in preparing their systems to cope with change. Planning behind the scenes has been underway since Europe's debt crisis erupted in Greece in 2009, said U.S.-based Hartmut Grossman of ICS Risk Advisors who works with Wall Street banks. "A lot of the firms, particularly in Europe and also here, have been looking at that for a long time," said Grossman, who added that the latest Greek political crisis had brought matters "to a little bit of a head". "But there really has been contingency planning at all of the financial institutions for that to happen ... Greece leaving the euro zone is not a new idea," he said. [...]"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: I Steal, Therefore I Am (E286)" [05/11/12] [25:46] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert discuss MF Global’s fraud playbook, Jamie Dimon’s give and take, take, take and the fact that nine out of ten tapeworms bear an uncanny resemblance to the JP Morgan CEO. In the second half of the show Max talks to Chris Whalen, senior managing partner of Tangent Capital, about fascism, too big to fail and Jamie Dimon’s problem. 

Beyond 2012: "S&P Opens The Pandora’s Box: The Wall Of Refi Worry Is $46 Trillion Tall" [05/11/12] "In what S&P calls a ‘Perfect Storm’, the next four years will see a minimum of $30 trillion in companies’ refinancing needs related to maturing bonds and loans and further they expect $13-$16 trillion more debt will be required to finance growth. With bond portfolios over-stuffed with corporate debt (since angst over sovereign risk has skewed asset allocation away from that cohort) the rating agency is concerned that ongoing bank deleveraging, these huge debt re-funding requirements, and the diminishment of central banks and governments to do anything about it leave serious problems with a credit overhang so large. [...]"  

Commentary: "ICBC Gets Approval To Take Over US Bank" [05/10/12] "Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has been given the nod to take over a US bank, the first such US approval for a Chinese firm. The US Federal Reserve approved state-owned ICBC's plans to acquire the US subsidiary of Bank of East Asia. This comes just days after high-level economic talks between the US and China in Beijing. The Fed also gave permission to two other Chinese banks to increase their presence in the US. "It is a pretty significant step. There has been a lot of backlash about Chinese state-run companies acquiring overseas assets," Stephen Joske of Australia Super, an institutional investor in Beijing, told the BBC. "The permission [given] to ICBC is a clear message that things may be returning to normal and that fears about Chinese state-run firms may be moderating." [...]"    Related: "Federal Reserve Approves Expansion Of Three Chinese Banks In US" "The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it approved the expansion of the U.S. operations of three of China’s largest banks, including the first acquisition of a U.S. bank by a Chinese bank. The Fed said it had approved applications from the Bank of China Ltd. and Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. to establish new branches. The central bank also approved an application by China’s largest bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd., to become a bank holding company through its acquisition of The Bank of East Asia. [...]"  

Commentary: "Germany Threatens To Cut Off Greece Bailout Payments If Austerity Measures Aren’t Enacted" [05/09/12] "Leading German politicians warned Greece on Tuesday that the country would not receive a cent more aid unless it fulfills all the conditions of its international bailout. An election on Sunday in Greece failed to deliver a parliamentary majority for the two big pro-bailout parties, plunging the country into political limbo and increasing the risk that another vote may be required to resolve the impasse. On Tuesday, the leader of the Left Coalition party, which benefited from rising anger over austerity to take second place in Sunday’s poll, declared Greece’s policy pledges under its EU/IMF rescue null and void. As Europe’s largest economy, Germany has contributed the biggest share of the financial guarantees under Greece’s bailout, which is paid out in installments on the condition that Athens meets specific savings goals. “The agreements must be respected. I don’t think we can or should renegotiate,” said Martin Schulz, a German politician and president of the European Parliament, on a visit to Berlin. Gerda Hasselfeldt, a senior member of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), echoed Schulz in warning Greece against any backsliding. “Our position is unchanged. Aid can only flow if the conditions are met,” Hasselfeldt told reporters. Greece must push a new round of spending cuts through parliament next month to qualify for an 11.5 billion euros aid installment that it needs to avoid bankruptcy. The post-election deadlock has raised questions about whether that timeline can be met. The vote in Greece and the victory of Socialist Francois Hollande in a French presidential election at the weekend underscored a growing backlash in Europe against austerity measures favored by Berlin as the way out of the single currency bloc’s debt crisis.  [...]"

Commentary: "JPMorgan Chase Whistleblower: ‘Essentially Suicide’ to Stand Up to Bank" [05/09/12] "When Linda Almonte alerted her boss at JPMorgan Chase about potential fraud in a major deal she was helping to close, she expected him to applaud her great catch. Instead, he fired her. “We went down fast,” said Almonte, 41, about her family. She had been making $100,000 a year as a division vice president at Chase, enough to support her stay-at-home husband, their four kids, ages 12 to 22, and rent a three-bedroom house in San Antonio, Texas. Her move at Chase amounted to “essentially suicide,” Almonte told The Huffington Post. No bank in town would hire her after word spread that she had stood up to the banking giant, she said. After more than a year of fruitless job hunting, Almonte and her family left town, landing at a hotel near Disney World, paying $300 a week for a two-bedroom with a kitchenette. [...]"  

Commentary: "Europe Finally Gets It: Austerity Isn't the Answer" [05/08/12] "Paul Krugman is applauding France and Greece for the results of their elections: "Time is clearly running out for the strategy of recovery through austerity—and that’s a good thing," writes the longtime critic of austerity measures in the New York Times. Austerity measures depend on a false "confidence fairy" that asserts that "consumer and business spending will rise if government spending is cut." Just look at Ireland, whose borrowing costs remain higher than Spain and Italy's despite following the strategy. In short, "Europe’s voters are wiser than the Continent’s best and brightest," Krugman writes. So how do we address Europe's financial troubles? Leaders could ditch the euro, but that would be disastrous for dreams of a united continent. Instead, it's time for "expansionary policies": Europe's Central Bank should "drop its obsession with inflation and focus on growth." That may not gel with German claims that its austerity measures saved its economy—but that story's not true. It was an "inflationary boom" among its neighbors that boosted Germany, and such a boom would help those neighbors now. [...]" 

Commentary: "Euro Drops To 3-Month Low After Greek, French Elections" [05/07/12] "The euro fell to a three-month low after Socialist Francois Hollande was elected president of France and as Greek voters flocked to anti-bailout parties, stoking concern austerity efforts in Europe may be derailed. The 17-nation currency slid for a sixth day, its longest series of losses since September 2011, after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party had its worst election result in more than half a century in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. The yen and the dollar rose versus most of their major peers as Asian stocks extended a global rout, boosting demand for haven currencies. “There are major concerns about the euro,” said Marito Ueda, senior managing director in Tokyo at FX Prime Corp. (8711), a currency margin company. “What’s common to both Greek and French voting is that people aren’t feeling good about austerity measures, which are the crux to a resolution of Europe’s debt problems.”  [...]" 

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Bribe Masters on Shopping Spree (E284)" [05/06/12] [25:46] "We discuss how a good morning for Vietnam turned out to be a bad day for America as more families moving into self-storage units while Chinese are spending big money on European shopping sprees. In the second half of the show Max talks to Reggie Middleton of BoomBustBlog about the tech sector and austerity versus stimulus. P.S. – note the sheep-like, herd like behaviour of the Morons of Youtube, who read each other’s comments and start baaahhhing wildly in a symphony of stupid. Must be American for they are definitely imbeciles about their history. SHRIEK – China is not communist! Blah Bah Blah!” Apparently they don’t know that is why we went into Vietnam is to stop the spread of communism. Doesn’t matter if it really is communist or not, the point is that it was our STATED AIM of going in and going broke. And that is what the Vietnamese government and the Chinese government calls themselves. And yet those countries ended up rich and booming, and we ended up broke and dilapidated. Just because you’re baahhing louder than every other sheep on the page doesn’t mean you’re any less sheep-like than they are.

Commentary: "Bill Black: Geithner Channels Greenspan And Airbrushes Fraud Out Of Our Crises" [05/06/12] "On April 25, 2012, Treasury Secretary Geithner made remarkable statements about the role of elite financial fraud and greed in producing our recurrent, intensifying financial crises. In this first installment I focus on the first of five problems with Geithner’s claims: (1) he does not understand the causes of prior crises, (2) he does not understand the causes of the ongoing crisis, (3) he does not understand that if he were correct about the first two points our nation would be in even greater peril and the urgency of Geithner leading a radical transformation of finance and regulation would be greater still, (4) he is not correct that we are prosecuting the elite criminals who drove the ongoing crisis, and (5) the media continues its nine-year pattern of failing to challenge Geithner’s fictions and his failures to lead the radical transformation that he should be desperately seeking given his stated beliefs about the causes of financial crises. [...]"  

Documentary: "Inside Job" [05/05/12] HD Version [108:00] "Inside Job' provides a comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics, the film traces the rise of a rogue industry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia. It was made on location in the United States, Iceland, England, France, Singapore, and China.  [...]"

Commentary: "JOBS Act Is A Fraud-Enhancing Gift To Wall Street Criminals" [05/05/12] "As white-collar criminologists (and a former financial regulator and enforcement head) and experts in ferreting out sophisticated financial frauds, our careers and research focus on financial fraud by the world’s most elite private sector criminals and their political cronies. Therefore, we write to thank Congress and the President for preparing to adopt a JOBS Act that will provide us with job security for life. We will be the personal beneficiaries of Congress’ decision to adopt the law without the pesky hearings that would allow critics to launch devastating attacks on the proposed bill based on a brutally unfair tactic – the presentation of facts. Unfortunately, in our professional capacities, we must oppose the bill. This bill is an atrocity. The “Jumpstart Our Business Startups” Act, the comically forced effort to create a catchy acronym, is the most cynical bill to emerge from a cynical Congress and Administration. It is an exemplar of why Congressional approval ratings are well below those of used car dealers. The JOBS Act is something only a financial scavenger could love. It will create a fraud-friendly and fraud-enhancing environment. It will add to the unprecedented level of financial fraud by our most elite CEOs that has devastated the U.S. and European economies and cost over 20 million people their jobs. Financial fraud is a prime jobs killer. [...]"  

Beyond 2012: "First US Public Pension Fund Applies For Bankruptcy" [05/04/12] "It's a high-profile milestone out of a not-so-high-profile place. The Northern Mariana Islands' public pension fund sought bankruptcy protection last month, a notable move in that it's the first such US fund to do so. The Wall Street Journal paints a picture of a complicated road to collapse for the Pacific Ocean territory, complete with a prominent Merrill Lynch fund adviser who went missing while fishing last year, a perhaps overly generous approach (when pensioners die, their kids can collect part of the payments), and a lawsuit against Merrill Lynch itself. Here's how dire the territory's financial situation is: It's considering allowing Japan to unload tsunami debris on one of its unoccupied islands. And about 10% of the 53,000 residents collect a pension or are owed one when they retire—and the Journal notes that the money is a big deal to many, who don't receive Social Security payments. Retirees sued Merrill in 2009, upset over what it saw as bad advice: The median public pension fund had 61% of assets invested in stocks before the financial crisis; the islands' fund had closer to 75%. The fund's board instead faults the government's contributions ("Cadillac pension benefits with Pinto payments," proclaimed the chair) but the board has also been accused of having an "undeserved reverence" for Merrill. Island officials predict that the fund will be cash-less by 2014. [...]"  

Documentary: "PBS Frontline Details US Financial Fraud – ‘Money, Power, & Wall Street’" [05/03/12] 4 episodes - 4 hours Note: Good job.

Commentary: "Treasury Dept. Fails to Implement Two-Thirds of Post-Bailout Recommendations" [05/02/12] "When the George W. Bush administration bailed out Wall Street four years ago, it created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and a special inspector general (SIGTARP) to advise the Department of the Treasury on the rescue. It turns out, though, that Treasury officials have largely ignored what SIGTARP had to say on preventing waste, abuse and fraud involving taxpayer dollars. According to the special inspector general’s latest report to Congress, the Treasury Department has failed to fully implement two-thirds of SIGTARP’s 96 recommendations. In many instances, the new special inspector general, Christy Romero, and others in her office haven’t been able to get an answer on why the recommendations weren’t heeded. “Treasury should explain why they are not adopting recommendations that could prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in TARP,” Romero told National Journal. “Whatever their reason, it’s not good enough.” [...]"  

Commentary: "Bank of America Laying Off Elite Bankers" [05/02/12] "Bank of America plans to lay off 2,000 of its highest paid employees in its investment banking, commercial banking, and non-US wealth management units, sources tell the Wall Street Journal. Those operations just happen to be the ones that expanded with BofA's acquisition of Merrill Lynch, which has been the bank's top profit center since the financial crisis. The move is part of CEO Brian Moynihan's aggressive plan to cut costs. The cuts will be on top of the 30,000 layoffs Bank of America announced last fall. Odds are this isn't the last high-level blood-letting we'll see, either; a report yesterday predicted that Wall Street will be laying off a lot of senior bankers in the near future. [...]"  

Historical Research: "International Bankers And WWII" [05/01/12] "WWI had added incredible sums to the coffers of the international bankers, who began setting up privately controlled central banks on the pattern of the Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve. Rothschild had once said: “Give me control over a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws.” Taking over the central banks of nations has been one of the most crucial elements in the strategy of international bankers over the past two centuries to bring about a New World Order. In his book, Pawns in the Game, Guy Carr wrote: “Since the great war, the international bankers had set up 26 central banks.” As WWI had been successfully managed with unprecedented profits and unprecedented control of the elite over nations, the next world war would lead much further to the goal of one world government. To bring about the next world war both Soviet Russia and Germany were developed by the banking elite and then a clash brought about between them. The British government, which has been under the control of the bankers after Waterloo, which made Rothschild the undisputed master of English money line, always does their bidding. The US had come under deeper and enduring control of the bankers because of the privately owned Federal Reserve and WWI, which was to be used to bring about the desired result. [...]"  

Commentary: "Romney And His Chinese Investments" [05/01/12] "The news buzzed this week with reports of Mitt Romney having investments in Romney’s trust with Huawei, a Chinese company. The specific articles running were about Mitt making money off of Huawei. Huawei is involved in making spy cameras. Although some journalist are poo-dooing Romney’s investments, claiming Romney did not know what is in his blind trust; for some reason the New York Times and the Obama administration were able to learn. Romney has ownership in a company and profits Romney is making in helping China spy on dissidents in China, set off a bit of a buzz. [...]"  

MSM: "Senior Executive At Goldman Sachs: ‘Surprise Contender’ To Become The Next Governor Of The Bank Of England" [04/30/12] "It is understood Mr O'Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and formerly its chief economist, has been approached by Treasury officials and remains a potential candidate to take over the job when Sir Mervyn King steps down in June next year. The appointment will ultimately be made by the Chancellor, who has stated that the formal recruitment process will not begin until the autumn of this year. Mr O'Neill, 55, has a strong background in economics and in 2001 coined the term BRICs, which is now widely used to refer to the growth markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China. While his reputation as a respected City figure would not be in doubt, his links with Goldman could make him a problematic candidate for George Osborne, at a time when bank bonuses and excessive pay are subject to intense public scrutiny. However, Mr O'Neill does not fit into the stereotype of a top City executive from an elite background. The son of a postman, he grew up in Manchester and attended a comprehensive school. A lifelong Manchester United fan, he was a member of the Red Knights consortium which considered making an offer to buy the football club from the Glazer family in 2010. Mr O'Neill said today: "No comment, sorry."  [...]"  

Interviews: "Former Bank Regulator Bill Black: Our System Is So Flawed That Fraud Is Mathematically Guaranteed" [04/29/12] [58:29] "Bill Black is a former bank regulator who played a central role in prosecuting the corruption responsible for the S&L crisis of the late 1980s. He is one of America's top experts on financial fraud. And he laments that the US has descended into a type of crony capitalism that makes continued fraud a virtual certainty - while increasingly neutering the safeguards intended to prevent and punish such abuse. In this extensive interview, Bill explains why financial fraud is the most damaging type of fraud and also the hardest to prosecute. He also details how, through crony capitalism, it has become much more prevalent in our markets and political system. A warning: there's much revealed in this interview to make your blood boil. For example: the Office of Threat Supervision. In the aftermath of the S&L crisis, this office brought 3,000 administration enforcements actions (a.k.a. lawsuits) against identified perpetrators. In a number of cases, they clawed back the funds and profits that the convicted parties had fraudulently obtained. Flash forward to the 2008 credit crisis, in which just the related household sector losses alone were over 70x greater than those seen during the entire S&L debacle. So how many criminal referrals did the same agency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, make? Zero. [...]"  Note:  "“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." - Frederic Bastiat

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Vicious Circle of Bankster Huddles (E277)" [04/27/12] [25:45] "We discuss huddles and cuddles with the Goombahs of Wall Street and the technical violations that cannot be called by name. In the second half of the show Max talks to Rolling Stone journalist, Matt Taibbi, about the Wall Street mafia, their small and big time rackets and the process of writing these crime stories for a wide audience." 

MSM: "SEC Moves To Shutdown Agency That Cut US Credit Rating Twice" [04/26/12] " The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against Egan-Jones Ratings Company (EJR) and its owner and president Sean Egan for material misrepresentations and omissions in the company’s July 2008 application to register as a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO) for issuers of asset-backed securities (ABS) and government securities. EJR and Egan also are charged with material misrepresentations in other submissions furnished to the SEC and violations of record-keeping and conflict-of-interest provisions governing NRSROs. [...]"   Related: "Egan Jones Downgrades USA From AA+ To AA, Outlook Negative"

Commentary: "Russia And Mexico Both Buy Nearly $1 Billion Worth Of Gold In March" [04/26/12] "Gold has recently displayed short term correlations with paper assets such as equities and bonds but these correlations will again be shown to be fleeting as gold's long term inverse correlation with paper assets will reassert itself in the coming months. Mexico, Russia and Central Banks Continue Diversifying into Gold. While gold demand from the western investors and store of wealth buyers has fallen in recent months, central bank demand continues to be very robust and this is providing strong support to gold above the $1,600/oz level. ... Central banks are expanding reserves due to concerns about the dollar, euro, sterling and all fiat currencies. There is an increasing realisation amongst central bankers that gold is a less risky alternative to most paper currencies and a recent survey showed that that majority of central bank reserves managers were favourable towards gold. [...]" 

Commentary: "Top Bank Economist: "The Financial System Is Increasingly Being Rigged" [04/26/12] [7:21] "Stephen King, the top economist at UK bank HSBC, is out with a new note on the popular topic of “financial repression.” [...]" 

Commentary: "The Hidden Role of Gold at the IMF" [04/25/12] "This highlights the most interesting but least discussed aspect of the international monetary system—the hidden role of gold. The organization itself has the third largest gold hoard in the world, over 2,800 tons, just behind the United States and Germany. It's interesting that the International Monetary Fund still has this much gold since it officially stopped counting gold as an international reserve asset in 1973. However, individual nations continue to include gold in their reserves for internal purposes.  [...]" Related: "Money Dramas and the IMF" "You know it’s a crazy old world when the US dollar acts as a beacon of safety in a sea of risk. But the dollar has one important attribute: it’s liquid. For investors who are worried that rising government bond yields in Spain and Italy are a sign of more crisis ahead, the dollar is as good a place to hide out as any currency, and better than most, at least when it comes to liquidity. Europe is doomed. It has been since 2007. That’s when the rot in the global financial system begin moving from the dodgy outskirts (subprime lenders in America) on its long and winding path to the very heart (the US dollar as a global reserve currency). Every stop in between—Lehman Brothers, Greece, Italy, Spain, China—takes us one step closer to the end of the line for government money not backed by real assets. We’re only mentioning that fact again (the end of fiat money) because it gets lost in the day to day noise from markets. This noise can lull you to sleep. But never forget we’re in the middle of what history will see as the defining monetary event of the era, the shift in global power that results when an Empire and a currency collapse. The battle for control of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is one example of the global monetary power struggle. The IMF (like the World Bank) is a kind of weapon wielded by European and American banking interests to get what they want around the globe. In January, IMF director Christine Lagarde said the agency would need close to US$600 billion to help “innocent bystanders” affected by the European debt crisis. [...]" 

MSM: "Russian Stock Market Has Suspended Trading" [04/24/12] "The technical suspension of trading to be extended. The situation has been recognized as an emergency. Further actions will be announced shortly.  [...]"  

Commentary: "Rothschilds Want Iran’s Banks - Economy" [04/23/12] "Could gaining control of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran (CBI) be one of the main reasons that Iran is being targeted by Western and Israeli powers? As tensions are building up for an unthinkable war with Iran, it is worth exploring Iran’s banking system compared to its U.S., British and Israeli counterparts. Some researchers are pointing out that Iran is one of only three countries left in the world whose central bank is not under Rothschild control. Before 9-11 there were reportedly seven: Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea and Iran. By 2003, however, Afghanistan and Iraq were swallowed up by the Rothschild octopus, and by 2011 Sudan and Libya were also gone. In Libya, a Rothschild bank was established in Benghazi while the country was still at war. Islam forbids the charging of interest, a major problem for the Rothschild banking system. Until a few hundred years ago, charging interest was also forbidden in the Christian world and was even punishable by death. It was considered exploitation and enslavement. Since the Rothschilds took over the Bank of England around 1815, they have been expanding their banking control over all the countries of the world. Their method has been to get a country’s corrupt politicians to accept massive loans, which they can never repay, and thus go into debt to the Rothschild banking powers. If a leader refuses to accept the loan, he is oftentimes either ousted or assassinated. And if that fails, invasions can follow, and a Rothschild usury-based bank is established. [...]" 

Trends: "Dutch Government On Brink Of Collapse" [04/22/12] "As the economic and technical data points to financial Armageddon looming in Spain Dutch politicians are deadlocked over the decision to implement brutal austerity measures to secure an economic bailout or to tell the bankers to shove it and take the path of Iceland. Dutch politicians have announced they can not come to an agreement on austerity limits required to secure the bailout to save the Dutch economy. After failing to come to an agreement with the Prime Minister, Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders announced that his party no longer supports the government and is now calling for new elections to be held as soon as possible. [...]"  Related: "Dutch Austerity Talks Fail as Geithner Prods Europe" "More uncertainty loomed for the euro zone on Saturday after the prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, said he expected new elections to take place following the collapse of talks on new austerity measures.  [...]" 

MSM: "Czechs Protest Austerity Measures" [04/22/12] "Tens of thousands of Czechs have taken to the streets in the capital city of Prague in one of the biggest anti-government demonstrations since the fall of communism to protest against austerity measures. [...]"  

Commentary: "Spain Is About To Enter A Full-Scale Collapse" [04/22/12] "The perfect storm of an economic collapse fueled by an all out housing and mortgage crash, a sovereign debt crisis, and a run on the over-leveraged unregulated Spanish banks is hammering Spain right now. The IMF and the ECB knows that Spain is too big to bail out which is really bad news considering the economic data and technical indicators show irrefutable evidence that Spain is about to enter a full-scale collapse which will in turn send the dominoes falling across Europe. [...]"  Related: "Spain Bans Cash Transactions Over 2,500 Euros" Translated [04/16/12]  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Corpse of Economy & Interview with Alec Empire (E278)" [04/22/12] [25:45] "We discuss Dr Bernanke’s hologram and his real tsunami of money. In the second half of the show Max talks to Alec Empire of Atari Teenage Riot about copyright, Anonymous and free speech and the armed government goons sent to shakedown grannies.." 

Commentary: "Glass-Steagall Repeal Caused Collapse, Former Citigroup Chairman Says" [04/22/12] "Richard Parsons, speaking two days after ending his 16-year tenure on the board of Citigroup Inc., where he had served as chairman since 2009, said at a Rockefeller Foundation forum Thursday that, "To some extent what we saw in the 2007, 2008 crash was the result of the throwing off of Glass-Steagall. [...]"  

Max Keiser: "Matt Taibbi: Talking Gangster Banks with Max Keiser (E277)" [04/22/12]   [25:44] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert discuss huddles and cuddles with the Goombahs of Wall Street and the technical violations that cannot be called by name. In the second half of the show Max talks to Rolling Stone journalist, Matt Taibbi, about the Wall Street mafia, their small and big time rackets and the process of writing these crime stories for a wide audience. [...]"  

Commentary: "Derivatives: The Unregulated Global Casino For Banks" [04/22/12] "SHORT STORY: Pick something of value, make bets on the future value of "something", add contract & you have a derivative. Banks make massive profits on derivatives, and when the bubble bursts chances are the tax payer will end up with the bill. This visualizes the total coverage for derivatives (notional). Similar to insurance company's total coverage for all cars. LONG STORY: A derivative is a legal bet (contract) that derives its value from another asset, such as the future or current value of oil, government bonds or anything else. Ex- A derivative buys you the option (but not obligation) to buy oil in 6 months for today's price/any agreed price, hoping that oil will cost more in future. (I'll bet you it'll cost more in 6 months). Derivative can also be used as insurance, betting that a loan will or won't default before a given date. So its a big betting system, like a Casino, but instead of betting on cards and roulette, you bet on future values and performance of practically anything that holds value. The system is not regulated what-so-ever, and you can buy a derivative on an existing derivative. Most large banks try to prevent smaller investors from gaining access to the derivative market on the basis of there being too much risk. Deriv. market has blown a galactic bubble, just like the real estate bubble or stock market bubble (that's going on right now). Since there is literally no economist in the world that knows exactly how the derivative money flows or how the system works, while derivatives are traded in microseconds by computers, we really don't know what will trigger the crash, or when it will happen, but considering the global financial crisis this system is in for tough times, that will be catastrophic for the world financial system since the 9 largest banks shown below hold a total of $228.72 trillion in Derivatives - Approximately 3 times the entire world economy. No government in world has money for this bailout. Lets take a look at what banks have the biggest Derivative Exposures and what scandals they've been lately involved in. [...]"  Note: Interesting breakdown on which banks are involved with how much.

MSM: "Goldman Sachs Facing A New Insider Trading Probe" [04/22/12]   "Federal prosecutors in California are investigating a Goldman Sachs employee for insider trading, according to prosecutors and defense lawyers who attended a hearing in U.S. federal court in New York on Thursday. The employee is suspected of giving inside information on two public companies to former Galleon Group co-founder Raj Rajaratnam, who was convicted last year in one of the largest insider trading cases in Wall Street history. The investigation of the Goldman employee was divulged during a hearing involving the insider trading case against former Goldman board member Rajat Gupta. Gary Naftalis, the lawyer for Gupta, commenting on the newly disclosed investigation, said that Assistant US Attorney Reed Brodsky asked him not divulge details of the matter. [...]"  

Beyond 2012: "Smart Phones To Replace All Cash Payments In 5 Years" [04/21/12] "UK: Any mobile phone can be turned into a ‘tap and go’ credit card under a payment system unveiled today. Advocates of the technology argue it could mean the end of small cash payments within five to ten years. The system, which can be used to make purchases up to £15, involves sticking a smart card or PayTag – about a third of the size of a normal credit card – to the back of a handset. To make a payment, the phone is tapped on a specially adapted till. The tag, which contains a microchip, communicates with the till terminal via an antenna to confirm the credit card account of the customer and authorise a payment without the need to enter a PIN. The system is being launched by Barclaycard, which says it comes with 100 per cent fraud protection, but it is likely to be adopted by other major banks. Previously, only a few hi-tech handsets could be used for tap and go payments, but the new tag means any phone could be. [...]"  

Trends: "Citigroup CEO, Directors Sued For Outsized Executive Pay Packages" [04/21/12] "Days after being rebuked by shareholders, Citigroup Inc Chief Executive Vikram Pandit and the bank's directors have been sued for allegedly awarding outsized pay to top executives. The complaint filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court accuses directors of breaching their fiduciary duties by awarding more than $54 million of compensation in 2011 to the executives, including $15 million to Pandit, though the bank's performance did not necessarily justify it. At Citigroup's annual meeting on Tuesday, about 55 percent of shareholders participating in an advisory vote rejected Pandit's pay package. That marked the first time that investors had rejected a compensation plan at a major U.S. bank. That vote "has cast doubt on the board's decision-making process, as well as the accuracy and truthfulness of its public statements," the complaint said. "Absent this (lawsuit), the majority will of the company's stockholders shall be rendered meaningless." Spokeswomen for Citigroup did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Shareholders won the right to vote on executive pay at most public companies under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. Many analysts remained skeptical the "say on pay" votes would matter much. Richard Parsons, a Citigroup director retiring as chairman of the New York-based bank, called the rejection of Pandit's pay package a "serious matter" that the board would address. [...]"  

Commentary: "How the Goldman Vampire Squid Just Captured Europe" [04/19/12] "The Goldman Sachs coup that failed in America has nearly succeeded in Europe - a permanent, irrevocable, unchallengeable bailout for the banks underwritten by the taxpayers. In September 2008, Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, managed to extort a $700 billion bank bailout from Congress. But to pull it off, he had to fall on his knees and threaten the collapse of the entire global financial system and the imposition of martial law; and the bailout was a one-time affair. Paulson's plea for a permanent bailout fund - the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP - was opposed by Congress and ultimately rejected. By December 2011, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, former vice president of Goldman Sachs Europe, was able to approve a 500 billion euro bailout for European banks without asking anyone's permission. And in January 2012, a permanent rescue funding program called the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) was passed in the dead of night with barely even a mention in the press. The ESM imposes an open-ended debt on EU member governments, putting taxpayers on the hook for whatever the ESM's eurocrat overseers demand. The bankers' coup has triumphed in Europe seemingly without a fight. The ESM is cheered by euro zone governments, their creditors and "the market" alike, because it means investors will keep buying sovereign debt. All is sacrificed to the demands of the creditors, because where else can the money be had to float the crippling debts of the euro zone governments? There is another alternative to debt slavery to the banks. But first, a closer look at the nefarious underbelly of the ESM and Goldman's silent takeover of the ECB. [...]" Related: "Goldman Sachs Rules The World; Bank of England Next" "Speculation that Canadian Central Bank head Mark Carney has been tapped to become the next Governor of the Bank of England brings with it the possibility of virtually complete domination of Europe by Goldman Sachs – the very same financial terrorists who helped cause the economic collapse in the first place. “Mark Carney, the governor of Canada’s central bank, has been informally approached as a potential candidate to replace Sir Mervyn King as head of the Bank of England in June next year,” reports the Financial Times. “One of the world’s most respected central bankers, Mr Carney, 47, now heads the Financial Stability Board, which oversees global financial regulation. He was approached recently by a member of the BoE’s court, the largely non-executive body that oversees its activities, according to three people involved in the process.” Carney is also a 13-year Goldman Sachs veteran and was involved in the 1998 Russian financial crisis which was exacerbated by Goldman advising Russia while simultaneously betting against the country’s ability to pay its debt. Although the appointment would see the highly unusual precedent of a foreigner heading up the 318-year-old central bank, according to one observer, “As a Canadian national he is a subject of the Queen…That is important.” Carney’s possible ascension to become the next BoE head, although denied by the Bank of Canada, would be the cherry on the cake for Goldman Sachs’ financial overthrow of Europe in their bid to exploit the financial crisis to centralize power into an EU superstate. Last year, former EU Commissioner Mario Monti was picked to replace Silvio Berlusconi, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Italy. Monti is an international advisor for Goldman Sachs, the European Chairman of David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission and also a leading member of the Bilderberg Group. “This is the band of criminals who brought us this financial disaster. It is like asking arsonists to put out the fire,” commented Alessandro Sallusti, editor of Il Giornale. [...]" 

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Eating Kamikaze Blowfish with Mrs. Watanabe and Peter Schiff (E276)" Link Fixed [04/18/12] [25:45] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert discuss the Fukushima of Central Bank quantitative easing policies and the blowfish that is more deadly than a Goldman Sachs CDO. In the second half of the show Max talks to investor, author and radio show host, Peter Schiff about gold, the dollar and Japanese monetary policy." 

Interviews: "Peter Schiff: Ben Bernanke Completely Clueless" [04/17/12] [5:59] Note: At least. Related: "Peter Schiff Says 1-2 Years At Most Before The Big Crash Comes" [12:37]  Link Fixed "We caught up with Peter Schiff of EuroPacific Capital at FreedomFest's Global Economic Summit in the Bahamas. Peter is never shy about voicing his opinion about the impending crash of the US Dollar and the fiat monetary regime. While he's been warning us about the inevitable collapse, he's putting himself on the line now and believes that time is running short. He expects the event to occur within the next 1-2 years and believes that in addition to living on borrowed money, the government is also living on borrowed time. [...]"  Note: Feb 2012 Interview.

MSM: "US Choice Is New World Bank Chief" [04/17/12] "The Korean-American health expert is president of Dartmouth College in the US state of New Hampshire. He faced a strong challenge for the post, which has traditionally gone to an American, from Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Dr Kim will succeed Robert Zoellick, serving a five-year term beginning on 1 July, the World Bank said in a statement. [...]" 

Commentary: "Connecting The Dots: Major Wealth Contraction And Civil Unrest" [04/17/12] [6:14] "Dr. Elliott cites Marc Faber, whom in an interview with CNBC told how the massive printing and stimulus around the world could cause a wealth reduction of 50%, causing massive civil unrest. [...]" 

MSM: "Spain Bans Cash Transactions Over 2,500 Euros" Translated [04/16/12]   "Secretary of State for Finance, Michael Ferre, stated on Thursday that both the payer and the recipient of cash payments in excess of 2,500 euros will be sanctioned by the measure including the Government's draft bill to be approved tomorrow the Council of Ministers. During a luncheon organized by the Association of Financial Journalists (APIE), Ferre has not specified whether the fine, initially set at 25% of the cash payment made will be split between payer and receiver or if everyone has to bear the 25% of that amount. "Tomorrow I know," said Ferre, who explained that the Treasury set the limit at 2,500 euros because it believes that this figure mark certain operations (wherein an) "entity" should not be paid with "a wad of cash." Also explained that we have studied a range that began with the limit set by Italy (1,000 euros) and ended in the French (3,000 euros). "For us it is more reasonable 2,500 Euros," he asserted. Other crimes: he explained that the fine does not relieve 25% of other crimes that can be detected as false invoices or undeclared income, among other things. "It's a mechanism, an additional sanction," he underlined. The measure, included in the draft law approved by the Government tomorrow, will take effect "immediately", but must be accompanied by others which will be operational in 2013 because it is better to match the beginning of a calendar year to be "more digestible".  [...]" 

MSM: "Hungarian PM Attacks EU ‘Blackmail’ Over IMF Loan" [04/15/12] "Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban attacked the European Union for imposing political conditions on an EU-IMF loan desperately needed by Budapest, in an interview on Friday. “Creating political conditions — for example over the justice system — would amount to blackmail, which is unacceptable within the European Union,” Orban told national radio MR1 in his weekly interview. “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) does not set financial conditions, but the EU is flirting with the idea of imposing political conditions,” Orban added. Hungary asked the International Monetary Fund and European Union for a 15-20 billion euro ($20-26 billion) credit line last November, as the forint dropped to record low levels against the euro and borrowing costs rose to record highs. But Brussels later warned that any money would depend on Budapest proving its commitment to democratic principles. Orban’s government has come under fire for a series of laws as well as a new constitution that critics say curb the independence of its central bank and judiciary, and limit press freedoms, among other things. Last month, the European Commission gave Hungary one month to bring two controversial laws — on the judicial system and its data protection authority — in line with EU principles or face court action. On Friday, Brussels appeared reluctant to get drawn into a new argument with Orban. “I will not react to the Hungarian prime minister’s declarations,” said Commission spokesman Olivier Bailly. “We are analysing the response we received from the Hungarian authorities (to Brussels’ concerns), we will inform you of the commissioners’ response as soon as the evaluation has been made and a decision has been taken.” Orban is due to meet with Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels on April 23. [...]"  

World Politics: "Soros: If Germany Persists, Europe Is Over" [04/15/12] "George Soros has gone to Berlin to tell the Germans that their policies are leading to the disintegration of not just the Euro, but Europe itself. Yesterday in a panel on the "Future of Europe" at a conference organized by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Soros said: The Euro has really broken down. It has sprung defects, some of which could have been anticipated and some were anticipated. But some actually couldn't. Effectively, heavily indebted countries [in Europe] have ended up in the position of a third world country that is heavily indebted in a foreign currency. And that is only one of the unanticipated results of how things worked out [with the Euro]. Soros went on to say that Europe is simultaneously suffering from a Euro Crisis, a sovereign debt crisis, a balance of payments crisis, a banking crisis, a competitiveness crisis and suffering from other serious structural defects. [...]" 

MSM: "Financial Crisis Leads To Suicide Surge In Europe" [04/15/12] "... The economic downturn that has shaken Europe for the last three years has also swept away the foundations of once-sturdy lives, leading to an alarming spike in suicide rates. Especially in the most fragile nations like Greece, Ireland and Italy, small-business owners and entrepreneurs are increasingly taking their own lives in a phenomenon some European newspapers have started calling “suicide by economic crisis.” A complete picture of the phenomenon across Europe is elusive, as some countries lag in reporting statistics and coroners are loath to classify deaths as suicides, to protect surviving family members. But it is clear that countries on the front line of the economic crisis are suffering the worst, and that suicides among men have increased the most.  [...] 

MSM: "Iceland Forgives Mortgage Debt for Entire Population: Puts Bankers and Politicians on "Bench of Accused" " [04/14/12] [0:32] "The government of Iceland has forgiven the mortgage debt for much of its population. This nation chose a very different way of stopping the crisis from the rest of European countries. It decided to hear the requests of the population and to put politicians and bankers on the bench of the accused three years after their financial excesses would sank one of the most prosperous economies in 2008.  [...]"  Note: Interesting, bold move.

Commentary: "Bernanke’s Warning: We Stand On The Precipice Of Economic Destruction" [04/14/12] "It’s a great situation for the warheads in the Pentagon and the military industrial complex. Excluding Social Security and other “trust funds” (no pun intended), the Pentagon spends most of this money. Flush with trillions, they are free to continue and expand the wars necessary for the globalists to extend their reach (as they are now doing in Africa). The debt wrecking ball is doing a fine job of destroying the middle class and making sure America becomes another third world cesspool like Mexico and eventually sub-Sahara Africa. As of last year, the debt officially exceeded 100% of the nation’s gross domestic product, in other words the debt is now as big as everything we produce in America. In order to pay off this staggering debt, the Federal Reserve will print more money out of thin air and expand the money supply which will lead to more inflation that will whittle away at the middle class and the living standards of all Americans. [...]"  

Commentary: "Spain: An Overdose of Pain" [04/14/12] "Spain could be the next European economy brought down by German-led mismanagement of the euro-zone crisis. It need not turn out that way. But it surely will unless Chancellor Angela Merkel and her political allies inside and outside Germany acknowledge that no country can pay off its debts by suffocating economic growth. Austerity, the one-size-fits-all cure prescribed by Ms. Merkel, is not working anywhere. After weeks of misleading calm, and despite huge injections of liquidity by the European Central Bank, countries are slipping back into recession, unemployment is climbing and deficit forecasts are worsening. Bond markets are especially jittery about Spain and Italy, two of Europe’s largest economies. Spain is already wracked by a depression-level unemployment rate of nearly 25 percent (and approaching 50 percent for those ages 16 to 24). But it is in for even higher levels of misery under the austerity budget that Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy unveiled at the end of March, after the European Union rebuffed his pleas for more fiscal flexibility in the face of a worsening recession.  [...]" 

MSM: "Goldman To Pay $22 Million To Settle SEC, FINRA Charges" [04/13/12] "The case stems from a practice at Goldman that came to light several years ago known as “huddles,” where stock research analysts met with the firm’s traders to share their best trading ideas. Those ideas were then passed along to preferred clients. [...]"  

Legal Case: "Code Not Physical Property, Court Rules in Goldman Sachs Espionage Case" [04/13/12] "Former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov, who downloaded source code for the investment firm’s high-speed trading system from the company’s computers, was wrongly charged with theft of property because the code did not qualify as a physical object under a federal theft statute, according to a court opinion published Wednesday. [...]"  

Beyond 2012: "Royal Canadian Mint To Create Digital Currency" [04/12/12] "The Royal Canadian Mint wants to get rid of pocket change — and it’s enlisting hacker-types for help. Less than a week after the government announced the penny’s impending death, the Mint quietly unveiled its digital currency called MintChip. Still in the research and development phase, MintChip will ultimately let people pay each other directly using smartphones, USB sticks, computers, tablets and clouds. The digital currency will be anonymous and good for small transactions — just like cash, the Mint says. To make sure its technology meets the gold standard in a world where digital transactions are gaining steam, the Mint is holding a contest for software developers to create applications using the MintChip.  [...]"  Related: "Don't Bank On Digital Currency 'Bitcoin' Replacing The Dollar" "For small businesses, Bitcoin seems like the solution to household credit card woes. Instead of enabling merchants to process credit card payments from Visa or MasterCard, Bitcoin bypasses the system entirely in favor of device-to-device transactions using near-field communications technology. Bitcoin’s new currency doesn’t require a third-party processor or a plug-in dongle. Because of this, Bitcoin can afford to charge users much less per transaction. At the moment, the average Bitcoin transaction fee is .99%, while Square and PayPal’s processing apps charge 2.75% and 2.7% per swipe of your credit card. Like any currency, bitcoins can also be exchanged for U.S. dollars through a processing service. The current rate is $4.904 per 1 bitcoin. But that’s not saying it has to be exchanged in order to be successful. In Africa, where inflation is out of control, many merchants are choosing to hang onto their bitcoins so that they don’t have to push around wheelbarrows full of $100 trillion notes. Additionally, Bitcoin is poised to take over the black market, and for the obvious reason: it offers shady merchants a way to earn their living completely off the government radar. So what’s holding Bitcoin back from shaking up the global economy? Well, security for starters. Unlike your credit card, Bitcoin currently provides no protection or compensation in the event of fraud. Recently, a hacker managed to raid several Bitcoin “bank” accounts – the credit and debit accounts of “rich” Bitcoin users – around the world and got away with $228,845. Now that money is gone. In theory, security analysts should be able to trace IP activity while the raids happen, thereby snaring the thieves. But masking programs have enabled this particular thief to remain anonymous so far. [...]"  

MSM: "Risk Of The 30 Most Systemically Important Financial Institutions In The World Has Risen Over 30% In The Last Three Weeks" [04/12/12] "The risk of the 30 most systemically important financial institutions (SIFI) in the world has risen over 30% in the last three weeks as the effects of LTRO fade and encumbrance becomes the new reality. This less-manipulated, government-bank-reacharound-driven bond-market sense of reality has retraced almost 40% of its improvement from its peak last November at 311bps to its best level mid-March at 171bps. The current 226bps level is extremely elevated and as one would expect is dominated by European and US banks (with US banks on average trading wider than Europeans – which may surprise many but Europeans dominate the worst names – most specifically the Spanish banks). [...]"  

MSM: "Swiss Court Blocks Release Of Bank Account Data To US" [04/12/12] "A top Swiss court has blocked the handover of information about a Credit Suisse client to US authorities. [...] In this latest ruling, the court said that the US Internal Revenue Service needed to present clear evidence of fraudulent intent when requesting information on account holders."  

MSM: "Las Vegas Sands' Adelson Says Plans $35 Bln On Spain Casino Investment" [04/12/12]   [0:00] "U.S. billionaire Sheldon Adelson said on Wednesday that he plans to spend $35 billion on a mini-Las Vegas strip in Spain, where he is courting the country's two top urban areas, Barcelona and Madrid, with plans for a casino complex. [...]"  Note: Perhaps Adelson is trying to get his money back from backing Gingrich by plundering money from what remains from the Spanish economy.  Related: MSM: "Spanish Debt Turns Global Markets Jittery" [04/11/12] "Rising fears about Spain's economy combined with worries that growth is slowing in the US triggered a sell-off on world markets on Tuesday. Spain's borrowing costs pushed closer to unsustainable levels as markets fretted that it will fail to keep up with repayments on its debt mountain as its economy struggles. In European markets, traders returning from Easter breaks reacted to disappointing job figures in the US which suggested the recovery in the world's biggest economy may be starting to lose momentum. [...]"  

Commentary: "Panic Selling Rocks European Markets As Debt Crisis Reignites" [04/12/12] "The realization that sleight of hand and parlor tricks of the central planners can longer mask chronic malfeasance have manifested in an ugly way in Europe. Yesterday we say a bloodbath in Italian stocks as the realization manifested that banker bailout forced upon the people of Greece doesn’t change the fundamental issues that have pushed Greece to the brink of an all out civil war. Instead, investors are realizing that the events in Greece are simple a prelude to what will soon come to fruition across the rest of Europe. Clearly this was evident by the massive amount of money being dumped into the relative safety of the GOLD Swiss Franc. So much in fact that the Swiss 2 year bond yield went negative yesterday. On the other side of the Atlantic trading volume hit a 4 year low as US stock markets which had their worse drop of 2012 as investors blame the woes of Europe and China. Back in Europe the global banking cartel has set their sights on Italy and Spain singling out the two nations as the next likely candidates to receive the poison pill from Greece. Of course the central planners will use the crisis to demand the power to perform more parlor tricks but as we have seen from Greece this crisis will take more than sleight of hand to fix. These nation’s need to follow the path of Iceland and tell the banker’s you got us into this mess so take it and shove it. [...]"  

MSM: "S&P Downgrades U.S. Credit Rating For First Time" [04/11/12] "Standard & Poor’s announced Friday night that it has downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time, dealing a symbolic blow to the world’s economic superpower in what was a sharply worded critique of the American political system. Lowering the nation’s rating to one notch below AAA, the credit rating company said “political brinkmanship” in the debate over the debt had made the U.S. government’s ability to manage its finances “less stable, less effective and less predictable.” It said the bipartisan agreement reached this week to find at least $2.1 trillion in budget savings “fell short” of what was necessary to tame the nation’s debt over time and predicted that leaders would not be likely to achieve more savings in the future. It’s always possible the rating will come back, but we don’t think it’s coming back anytime soon,” said David Beers, head of S&P’s government debt rating unit. The decision came after a day of furious back-and-forth debate between the Obama administration and S&P. Treasury Department officials fought back hard, arguing that the firm’s political analysis was flawed and that it had made a numerical error in a draft of its downgrade report that overstated the deficit over 10 years by $2 trillion. Officials had reviewed the draft earlier in the day. “A judgment flawed by a $2 trillion error speaks for itself,” a Treasury spokesman said Friday night. The downgrade to AA+ will push the global financial markets into uncharted territory after a volatile week fueled by concerns over a worsening debt crisis in Europe and a faltering economy in the United States. [...]"  

MSM: "Bank Of America Sues Itself In Unusual Foreclosure Case" [04/11/12] "Over the past two years, the nation's largest banks and the Obama administration have repeatedly vowed to clean up the foreclosure fraud mess. In February, banks agreed to pay $25 billion and overhaul their foreclosure processes as part of a 50-state investigation into bank wrongdoing, resulting from practices that included robo-signing. But in Florida's Palm Beach County alone, Bank of America has sued itself for foreclosure 11 times since late March, according to foreclosure fraud activist Lynn Szymoniak, who forwarded one such foreclosure filing, dated March 29, 2012, to The Huffington Post. (A white-collar crime expert, Szymoniak was recently awarded $18 million for her work helping the government recover $95 million as a result of bank foreclosure problems in North Carolina.) In the March 29 filing, Bank of America is seeking to foreclose on a condominium and names the condo owner and Bank of America as defendants in the suit. The company is literally seeking damages from itself in order to foreclose on the condo owner. "We are servicing the first mortgage on behalf of an investor and we own the second mortgage," Bank of America spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens told HuffPost. "Naming the second-lien holder in the suit is necessary to eliminate the junior interest," Bauwens said. [...]"  

Commentary: "Tax Bill Is Beginning of Formal Debt Criminalization" [04/09/12] "The United States Congress is steadily headed to a place where those who owe money to the US government shall be treated criminally. This phenomenon is advancing domestically and now, increasingly, internationally. The first shot in this latest campaign took place in 2010 when US President Barack Obamasigned into law The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. It demanded, basically, that foreign banks withhold up to 30 percent of the income that an American abroad might earn. This bill isn’t working so well because overseas banks are not cooperating (a state of affairs that was certainly expected). [...] The arguments over just why the US instituted its controversial income tax back in 1913 is gradually fading away as the lineaments of the New World Order are becoming increasingly evident. Taxes are a method of government control. They force people to reveal intimate details of their personal lives and make it difficult for entrepreneurial activity as well. This conclusion is only available to those who discern, as we do, a malign intelligence behind the world’s woes, one gathering a coming storm that is supposed to transform the West and the rest of the world into a globalist plantation. What’s going on can’t be overemphasized for those who have long given up on the idea that the nefarious trends now afflicting our life and times are mere  coincidence, however grim. For those who can bear to look, the patterns are evident and obvious. There is a power elite: It certainly seems so. These dynastic families want to run the world and use their apparent control over 150 central banks around the world as a kind of war chest. These families and their enablers and associates use dominant social themes to frighten the masses into giving up wealth and power to specially created globalist facilities: The UN, IMF, WHO, etc. The nexus of this elite seems to be located in the City of London with proximate facilities in Washington DC, Tel Aviv, the Vatican and Brussels, among other places. It works like a crime family, using various locations for various functions. Israel may be used for Intel operations but the US without a doubt is this entity’s “muscle.” That’s the reason so much of the current “new world” enforcement activity is coming out of the US. The US, on behalf of the elites, is the cop-on-the-beat, the international enforcer of the increasingly evident globalist paradigm."  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Anti-Bank Currency (E272)" [04/08/12] [25:45] "We discuss getting Zhou Tonged and Jamie Dimon-ed in financial markets. They also discuss bucket shop derivatives, a debit card repo scam and a compound of morons and regulatory flatulence. In the second half of the show Max talks to Michel Bauwens of the P2P Foundation about bitcoin in the virtual world and about pseudo abundance and artificial scarcity in the real world." 

Legal Case: "Toxic Swaps Exempt From Securities Act" [04/08/12] "The Securities and Exchange Commission has permanently exempted security-based credit default swaps cleared through central counterparties from all requirements of the Securities Act, except for its anti-fraud provisions. The commission has already exempted such swaps under temporary rules designed to encourage clearing agencies to act as central counterparties to maintain liquidity in the swaps market while reducing systemic default risks. Those rules allowed clearing agencies to engage in the practice of 'novation', in which the obligation between a buyer and seller is replaced by a central counterparty as the seller to the buyer and the buyer to the seller. In 'novation', the risk of poor credit by either part is replaced by the creditworthiness of the central counterparty. The practice was adopted during the financial meltdown of 2008-2009 to keep still-active credit default swap agreements from collapsing as the creditworthiness of participants collapsed along with the financial markets. The exemption applies only to security-swaps traded through registered or otherwise exempt clearing agencies, and does not apply to any securities that may actually be exchanged to settle the swap. In most swaps, the underlying securities are not actually sold, rather their cash flow, principal or value, are temporarily traded. The permanent rules are effective April 16. [...]"  

UK: "Rothschilds To Merge British And French Banking Ops" [04/07/12] "The Rothschild dynasty is to merge its British and French banking operations to secure long-term control of the business and to boost the firm's financial strength ahead of the introduction of tougher capital requirements for banks. The 200-year-old banks will be reunited under a single shareholding that will bring together the fortunes of the French and English sides of the renowned family as they attempt to safeguard the business against the effects of new regulation and the fallout from the global financial crisis. Paris Orleans, the Rothschild Group's Paris-based holding company, will convert into a French limited partnership, securing the families' control of the bank against potential takeovers. The new partnership will then buy out minority investors in NM Rothschild & Sons, the UK business, as well as outstanding minority interests in the French operations. David de Rothschild will become chairman of the partnership and said the new structure would help the bank "better meet the requirements of globalisation in general and in our competitive environment in particular, while ensuring my family's control over the long term". Mr de Rothschild is a descendant of Baron James de Rothschild, who established the family's Paris-based bank 200 years ago. Changing the ownership structure is aimed at helping Rothschild meet the Basel III capital standards that will require banks to maintain a minimum core capital ratio of 7pc. Rothschild said its regulatory capital would be "significantly enhanced" through the merger.  [...]" 

MSM: "Multiple Reports Of A JPMorgan Trader With An Epic Position In Credit Default Swaps" [04/06/12] "Both Bloomberg and WSJ have stories this evening about a credit derivatives trader in London, who works for JPMorgan, with a position so large he's apparently rattling the market. According to WSJ, the trader identified as Bruno Michel Iksil is so big, he's being referred to as the 'London Whale'. Mr. Iksil has taken large positions for the bank in insurance-like products called credit-default swaps. Lately, partly in reaction to market movements possibly resulting from Mr. Iksil's trades, some hedge funds and others have made heavy opposing bets, according to people close to the matter. Those investors have been buying default protection on a basket of companies' bonds using an index of the credit-default swaps, or CDS. Mr. Iksil has been selling the protection, placing his own bet that the companies won't default. [...]"  

MSM: "It Speaks" [04/06/12] "British born Blythe Masters, inventor of the CDO and derivative nightmare . . . lying through her gritted teeth about silver market manipulation. [...]"  Note: For someone who destroyed the entire world economic system, she has a lot of gall even showing her face. See Creation of Credit Derivatives

Max Keiser: "Boomers Wave Bye-Bye To Retirement Savings" [04/05/12]   [1:33]  "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss Ben Bernanke's 'happy dust' and Angela Merkel's 'red lines' cause ire in BRICS trade partners. In the second half of the show Max talks to Jim Rickards about a BRICS currency, gold and the fog of currency war.  [...]"  

MSM: "JPMorgan Pays $20M Slap on Wrist Over Lehman" [04/05/12] "Federal regulators have filed their first action related to the momentous, crisis-sparking collapse of Lehman Brothers, but it won't amount to much. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today filed a civil case against JPMorgan Chase, accusing it of overextending credit to Lehman, the New York Times reports. But JPMorgan settled the complaint without admitting wrongdoing, and will pay a fine of just $20 million—relative chump change for an outfit of JPMorgan's size. “The firm cooperated with the investigation and is pleased to have resolved this matter with the CFTC," said JPMorgan in a statement. Regulators say JPMorgan counted customer money when determining how much money it could lend Lehman, which is against the law. Moreover, the Times notes that the customer funds were held in a JPMorgan account, so it should have known that it wasn't Lehman's money. The bank is also accused of withholding other customer funds from authorities. JPMorgan played a key role in Lehman's collapse by demanding more than $8 billion in collateral a week earlier, something Lehman's estate has filed a lawsuit over. [...]"  

MSM: "IMF: Global Economic Recovery Far From Robust" [04/04/12] "The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that the recovery of the global economy is far from robust. Speaking at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday, the IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said that it was still too early to feel secure regarding the international economy, although, Europe was on the road to financial stability and the United States was seeing signs of better growth and lower unemployment. She warned that the financial system in Europe was still ‘under heavy strain’ and that debt levels were ‘too high.’ "The recovery is still very fragile…What is crucial at this point is that policymakers use the breathing space to finish the job, and not lapse into complacency or insularity," Lagarde said.  [...]" 

MSM: "Royal Bank Of Canada Accused Of 'Wash Sales Fraud'" [04/03/12] "Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), one of the country's largest banks, has been accused of "multi-hundred million dollar" fraud over derivatives trading by a US regulator. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed civil charges against RBC, saying the bank made "unlawful non- competitive trades" with itself. [...] Both sides of the so-called wash sales were controlled by RBC, the CFTC alleged. RBC called the allegations "baseless". The Canadian bank said the trades had been vetted in advance by the CFTC and futures exchanges back in 2005 with no objections being lodged against them. The trades in question are exchange-traded stock futures contracts. The CFTC said that between June 2007 and May 2010, RBC traded hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of narrow based stock index futures and single stock futures with two of its subsidiaries that RBC reported as "block" trades on electronic futures trading platform, OneChicago. The regulator said that the trades were not negotiated "at arm's length between the counter parties to the trades, as required by law", but designed and controlled by a small group of senior RBC staff. [...]"  

MSM: "AFA Foods Files Bankruptcy Citing ‘Pink Slime’ Coverage" [04/03/12] "AFA Foods, a ground-beef processor owned by Yucaipa Cos., sought bankruptcy court protection with a plan to sell some assets after media coverage of “pink slime” cut demand for its products. The company, based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, listed assets of $219 million and debt of $197 million in Chapter 11 papers filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is among food activists who have criticized the use of what they dubbed “pink slime,” a filler produced by treating finely ground beef scraps with ammonia hydroxide to kill pathogens. Beef Products Inc. last week temporarily suspended production at three plants because of consumer concerns. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said March 28 that the product, referred to in the industry as lean, finely textured beef, is safe to eat. “Ongoing media attention has called into question the wholesomeness” of the meat, and has “dramatically reduced the demand for all ground beef products,” AFA interim Chief Executive Officer Ron Allen said in court papers.  [...]"  

Commentary: "The SEC May Be Ready To Sue Goldman For A Subprime Mortgage Deal That Cost Taxpayers $545 Million" [04/03/12] "We know that Goldman Sachs got a Wells Notice from the SEC in February, which means that they're being investigated for something. We just don't know what for... yet. What we do know (from the notice) is that the deal being investigated took place in late 2006 and was worth about $1.3 billion. It also said the deal was made of subprime residential mortgage loans. Using that information, Fortune went digging — and if they're right then Goldman is going to catch fire for "Fremont Home Loan Trust 2006-E (FHLT 2006-E), a bundle of more than 5,000 mortgages that has cost investors, including mortgage guarantor Freddie Mac and by extension U.S. taxpayers, an estimated $545 million." Fortune reports that Fremont is the only deal Goldman did that fits the criteria laid out in the Wells Notice. Another piece of evidence they're citing is the fact that the Federal Home Finance Agency brought a lawsuit against Goldman for FHLT 2006-E (and other loans), alleging that an outside auditor told the bank the loans were no good, but Goldman went ahead and sold them anyway. The SEC would neither confirm nor deny any of this. The details are not pretty. Just look at these facts (from Fortune): [...]"  

MSM: "Goldman Sachs Tied To Under-Age Sex Trafficking Site" [04/02/12] "The biggest forum for sex trafficking of under-age girls in the United States appears to be a Web site called Backpage.com.  This emporium for girls and women — some under age or forced into prostitution — is in turn owned by an opaque private company called Village Voice Media. Until now it has been unclear who the ultimate owners are. That mystery is solved. The owners turn out to include private equity financiers, including Goldman Sachs with a 16 percent stake. Goldman Sachs was mortified when I began inquiring last week about its stake in America’s leading Web site for prostitution ads. It began working frantically to unload its shares, and on Friday afternoon it called to say that it had just signed an agreement to sell its stake to management. “We had no influence over operations,” Andrea Raphael, a Goldman Sachs spokeswoman, told me. Let’s back up for a moment. There’s no doubt that many escort ads on Backpage are placed by consenting adults. But it’s equally clear that Backpage plays a major role in the trafficking of minors or women who are coerced. In one recent case in New York City, prosecutors say that a 15-year-old girl was drugged, tied up, raped and sold to johns through Backpage and other sites. Backpage has 70 percent of the market for prostitution ads, according to AIM Group, a trade organization. Village Voice Media makes some effort to screen out ads placed by traffickers and to alert authorities to abuses, but neither law enforcement officials nor antitrafficking organizations are much impressed. As a result, pressure is growing on the company to drop escort ads. [...]"  Related:"Financiers and Sex Trafficking"  

Commentary: "How Wall Street Manipulates & Manufactures Atrocities" [04/01/12] "An attempted color revolution backed by Wall Street unfolded in Bangkok, Thailand in 2010, leaving 91 dead. Since then, Wall Street as well as its proxies inside of Thailand have attempted to blame all 91 deaths on the Thai military despite overwhelming evidence proving armed militants were involved in the protests - this foreshadowed the techniques now being used on a larger scale in Syria. High profile deaths including those of foreign journalists caught in the crossfire have become political points of leverage for Wall Street's media machine (a technique also reused in Syria) and their Thai proxy, billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra. Unfortunately the same craven political stunt employed at the expense of fallen Reuters journalist Hiro Muramoto who was killed during the April 10, 2010 night ambush of Thai troops, is now being used regarding the death of an Italian journalist by the Thai police currently headed by Thaksin Shinawatra's own brother-in-law. Police General Priewpan Damapong was appointed as head of Thailand's police shortly after Thaksin's own sister took office last July, with much support from Wall Street & London and demonstrating a breathtaking display of third-world nepotism. Damapong, it should be noted, also just recently, and very eagerly, backed claims by both the US and Israel regarding the false flag Bangkok bombing pinned on Iran - illustrating just how interconnected these geopolitical ploys are regardless of geographic distance. [...]"   Related: "Mafia Banker 'Held In Thailand'" "An Italian banker convicted for having links to the mafia has been arrested in Thailand, authorities say. Vito Palazzolo, 64, was given nine years in jail for laundering money for the Sicily-based Cosa Nostra. He was implicated in the so-called Pizza Connection, a mafia operation that smuggled drugs into the US during the 1970s and early 1980s, and used pizza restaurants as a front. Palazzolo has always denied the charges and says he will fight extradition. He has spend decades on the run, most of the time in South Africa. The South African government had refused to allow his extradition back to Italy. The Italian authorities say they tracked him to Thailand by monitoring his family's use of social-networking websites. The authorities say he laundered tens of millions of dollars for the Cosa Nostra while he was working as a banker in Switzerland. Palazzolo has previously said he processed funds for the mafia group in 1982, but argued that he had been threatened. [...]" | "Thailand Blast Death Toll Reaches 9"  "The death toll from Thailand blasts has reached 9 people, while 112 others were injured, 10 of them are in critical condition, rescuers report. Three bombs ripped through a business center in the city of Yala. One was placed in a car boot while two others were attached to a bike. The finger of suspicion points to Islamist insurgents who have been fighting for the independence of Thailand’s three south-western provinces for the last 8 years. [...]"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Kamikaze Banking (E269)" [04/01/12] [25:45] "We discuss global economic passengers strapping on the parachutes to protect themselves from central bankers going berserk and the rich getting richer. In the second half of the show Max talks to Aaron Krowne of ML-Implode.com about transferring fraudulent mortgages to the Federal Housing Administration and getting SLAPPd for reporting on it." 

Commentary: "Colleges Withhold Transcripts From Grads in Loan Default" [04/01/12] Unable to find a job as a music teacher in the current economic crisis, he eventually went into default on his loans, which included Stafford, Perkins and private bank loans. Then this year, he decided to go on to earn a PhD, which would make it possible for him to get hired in his field. He applied to a top-rated university in the Northeast, but when it was time to send his school transcripts, Temple froze him out. “They said as long as I was in default on my loans, they would not issue a transcript!” says Rodriguez. A spokesman from Temple confirms that it is school policy to withhold official transcripts from graduates who are in default on their student loans. As it turns out, the school is not alone; this is the position taken by most colleges and universities, though there is no law requiring such an extortionate position. They do this despite the fact the colleges themselves are not out the money. They have received the students’ tuition payments in full and are in effect simply acting as collection agencies for the federal government. [...]" 

Beyond 2012: "The End Is Coming: January 1, 2013" [03/30/12] "Jan. 1, 2013, seemed a long way off in the Chicken Summer of 2011. That’s when Congress reached a deal that ended, or rather postponed, the debt-ceiling crisis by declaring that automatic cuts in federal spending would be triggered at the beginning of 2013, unless a bipartisan supercommittee came up with a sweeping plan for reducing the deficit. (Predictably, it didn’t.) Even last August some House Democrats worried that their party had given away too much. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, Mo., called the debt deal a “sugar-coated Satan sandwich.” Steve Cohen of Tennessee was even more imaginative. “I fear it’s a Trojan horse,” he said in floor debate on Aug. 1. “And if you look inside that Trojan horse, it’s Scylla and Charybdis inside, the whirlpools and the shoals.” Now the Trojan horse with the roiling belly is staring us in the eye. With the attention of the political class fixated on the presidential campaign, Washington is in danger of getting caught in a suffocating fiscal bind. If Congress does nothing between now and January to change the course of policy, a combination of mandatory spending reductions and expiring tax cuts will kick in—depriving the economy of oxygen and imperiling a recovery likely to remain fragile through the end of 2012. Congress could inadvertently send the U.S. economy hurtling over what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently called a “massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases.” [...]"  

MSM: "Co-Chairman of World's 2nd-Largest Property Firm Arrested in Corruption Probe" [03/30/12] "Hong Kong anti-graft investigators arrested the billionaire co-chairmen of Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. (16), the city’s biggest developer, in one of the former British colony’s highest-profile corruption cases in decades. Thomas and Raymond Kwok were detained by the Independent Commission Against Corruption, Sun Hung Kai said late yesterday. Rafael Hui, a former No. 2 official in the government, was also arrested, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because of the ongoing probe.  The arrests mark one of the highest-level investigations in the ICAC’s 38-year history and come four days after a Hong Kong leadership election in which close ties between government and business emerged as a key campaign theme. Current Chief Executive Donald Tsang is being probed separately by the ICAC for accepting trips on the yachts and planes of tycoons.  [...]" 

Commentary: "The Global Elite Are Hiding 18 Trillion Dollars In Offshore Banks" [03/29/12] "In recent days, the fact that Mitt Romney has millions of dollars parked down in the Cayman Islands has made headlines all over the world. But when it comes to offshore banking, what Mitt Romney is doing is small potatoes. The truth is that the global elite are hiding an almost unbelievable amount of money in offshore banks. According to shocking research done by the IMF, the global elite are holding a total of 18 trillion dollars in offshore banks. And that figure does not even count any money being held in Switzerland. That is a staggering amount of money. Keep in mind that U.S. GDP in 2010 was only 14.58 trillion dollars. So why do the global elite go to such trouble to hide their money in offshore banks? Well, there are two main reasons. One is privacy and the other is low taxation. Privacy is a big issue for those that are involved in illegal enterprises such as drug running, but the biggest reason why people move money into offshore banks is in order to avoid taxes. Some set up bank accounts in foreign nations because they want to legally minimize their taxes and others set up bank accounts in foreign nations because they want to illegally avoid taxes. You would be absolutely amazed at what some large corporations and wealthy individuals do to get out of paying taxes. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the rest of us don't have the resources or the knowledge to play these games, so we get taxed into oblivion. [...]"  

Commentary: "Insider Trading 9/11 ... The Facts Laid Bare" [03/28/12] | Pg 2 | Pg 3  | "Is there any truth in the allegations that informed circles made substantial profits in the financial markets in connection to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, on the United States? Arguably, the best place to start is by examining put options, which occurred around Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to an abnormal extent, and at the beginning via software that played a key role: the Prosecutor's Management Information System, abbreviated as PROMIS. PROMIS is a software program that seems to be fitted with almost "magical" abilities. Furthermore, it is the subject of a decades-long dispute between its inventor, Bill Hamilton, and various people/institutions associated with intelligence agencies, military and security consultancy firms. One of the "magical" capabilities of PROMIS, one has to assume, is that it is equipped with artificial intelligence and was apparently from the outset “able to simultaneously read and integrate any number of different computer programs or databases, regardless of the language in which the original programs had been written or the operating systems and platforms on which that database was then currently installed."[...]"  Related: See below.

Commentary: "Keiser Report: 9-11 Insider Trading and Germany's Elusive Gold Reserves" [03/28/12]   [12:32] "Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, talk to independent journalist, Lars Schall, about his recently published investigation into insider trading around the 9-11 terrorist attack as well as his pursuit of Germany's elusive gold reserves. [...]"  

MSM: "Mormon Bishop Stiffed Investors Of $400,000 In TARP Ponzi Scheme" [03/28/12] "A federal grand jury has charged former Mormon bishop Julius C. Blackwelder with running a ponzi scheme that allegedly bilked investors out of $400,000. According to a release from The Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), Blackwleder, 59, supposedly told investors he using a line of credit from Bank of America, a recipient of TARP funds, to finance a fund called "Friend's Investment Group." Instead, Blackwelder allegedly "used investors' money to pay his own expenses, which included repaying earlier investors in the scheme, building a waterfront home in Stratford, and repaying personal bank loans," including the line of credit from BofA. Blackwelder, formerly a Bridgeport resident and now residing in Utah, is charged with with nine counts of money laundering and mail and wire fraud in connection with the alleged investor fraud scheme. [...]"  Related: MSM: "Park Romney: Mormonism Is a Fraud" "Not all Romneys are as enamored of Mormonism as Mitt. Take Park Romney, Mitt's cousin. He used to be a Mormon high priest, but finally left the religion. "I became convinced that it's a fraud," he tells the BBC. He doubts many aspects of the religion, such as founder Joseph Smith's prophecies, including those based on Smith's translation of an Egyptian scroll he said he purchased from a traveling mummy exhibit. The translation, which became part of the Mormon book of Abraham, has been discredited by Egyptologists. "There's compelling evidence that the Mormon Church leaders knowingly and willfully misrepresent the historical truth of their origins and of the church for the purpose of deceiving their members into a state of mind that renders them exploitable," says Park Romney, 56.  [...]" 

MSM: "UK Queen Accused Of Drug Trafficking" [03/28/12] "The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined the British queen’s bank, Coutts Bank, 8.75 million pounds for failing to carry out correct checks on “politically exposed persons” and prevent money laundering. “The failings at Coutts were serious, systemic and were allowed to persist for almost three years. They resulted in an unacceptable risk of Coutts handling the proceeds of crime,” the FSA said in a statement posted on its official website. The news comes less than a week after a fringe candidate for April’s French presidential election said the British queen owed her fortune to drugs money laundered by “Jewish bankers in The City.” On 21 March, Jacques Cheminade, an independent presidential candidate running in the French election, said, “a part of the fortune of the Queen of England comes from drug trafficking.” “No, not any property, there are several other sources. But it is a series of trafficking in which, yes, there is trafficking drugs,” Cheminade said on television LCP French National Assembly. [...]"  Related: See below.

UK: "Queen's Bank Fined £8.75m Over 'Unacceptable Risk' Of Money Laundering" [03/27/12] "Coutts, the exclusive private bank used by the Queen, has been fined £8.75m for failing to protect against money laundering, by the Financial Services Authority. The FSA fined Coutts & Company, after finding "significant, widespread and unacceptable" failures in standards. Tracey McDermott, acting director of enforcement and financial crime, said: “Coutts’ failings were significant, widespread and unacceptable. Its conduct fell well below the standards we expect and the size of the financial penalty demonstrates how seriously we view its failures." According to the review by the financial watchdog Coutts was not taking "reasonable care" to maintain controls against money laundering which meant the bank faced an "unacceptable risk" of "handling the proceeds of crime." [...]"  

MSM: "Study: 18,520 Cases Of Black Swan Stock Market Manipulation In Last 5 Years" [03/27/12] "Researchers planning a system to completely computerize stock market trading uncovered 18,520 instances of stock market manipulation between 2006 and 2011. Mix tens of thousands of start of the art high-speed computers into the equation, with the ability to execute tens of thousands of trades per second and running highly complex algorithms designed to prey on this herd mentality, and you suddenly enter the shadowy underworld of Wall Street known as High Frequency Trading (HFT). These trading bots take advantage small differences in prices on the markets along with flaws in the market exchanges while roaming in a realm were executing a trade a few milliseconds faster than the next guy is equivalent to humans having insider information days in advance. As much as these automated borgs enjoy snacking on the savory taste of the retail investor’s life savings the real feast comes from cannibalizing their own kind. By flooding the system with thousands of sell orders, often spoofed or cancelled, in just mere milliseconds, they trigger other bots to into panic and drive the price of whatever shares they target either up or down. In less time than a human can even react these bots earn their wage for the day and have changed the trajectory of the the shares they have targeted in a manner invisible to the human eye. Only by using other computers and examining the sequence of trades in the aftermath can one detect the ulfrafast financial black swan event that has just occurred. On March 23rd, the real-time data feed company NANAX did just that in catching high frequency traders using the same sophisticated computer trading algorithms to manipulate and crash silver prices. [...]" 

MSM: "Shot Russian Banker Was Due To Give Evidence - Lawyer" [03/27/12] "A Russian banker shot five times close to London's financial district had been days away from giving evidence to an investigation into the attempted murder of a former business associate, his lawyer has said. German Gorbuntsov, who at the height of his business empire owned four Russian banks, was walking towards his apartment block near the Canary Wharf banking district when a gunman opened fire on Tuesday evening, leaving him badly injured. London police said on Saturday they were keeping an open mind about the motive of the attack. Gorbuntsov's lawyer, Vadim Vedenin, said the 45-year-old remained in a medically induced coma to give him a chance to recover, and that doctors were hoping to revive him in about three days. [...]"  

Commentary: "U.S. Government War on Cash" [03/26/12] "The United States stopped printing large denomination notes in 1945 and officially discontinued their issuance in 1969, when the Fed began removing them from circulation. Since then the largest currency note available to the general public has a face value of $100 ... the Federal Reserve has steadfastly refused to issue notes of larger denomination. This has made large cash transactions extremely inconvenient and has forced the American public to make much greater use than is optimal of electronic-payment methods. Of course, this is precisely the intent of the US government. The purpose of its ongoing breach of long-established laws regarding financial privacy is to make it easier to monitor the economic affairs and abrogate the financial privacy of its citizens, ostensibly to secure their safety from Colombian drug lords, Al Qaeda operatives, and tax cheats and other nefarious white-collar criminals [...] Oscar Swartz, the founder of Sweden's first Internet provider, a supporter of the phasing out of cash, argues that without the adoption of anonymous payment methods, people who send money and make donations to various organizations can be "traced every time." But, of course, what the artless Mr. Swartz does not see is that this is the whole point of a cashless economy — to make even the most intimate economic affairs of private citizens transparent to the state and its fiscal and monetary apparatchiks, who themselves hate and fear transparency like vampires do sunlight. And then there are the benefits that accrue to the government- privileged banking system from the demise of cash. One Swedish small businessman shrewdly noted the connection. While he gets charged 5 kronor (80¢) for every credit- card transaction, he is prevented by law from passing this on to his customers. In his words, "For them (the banks), this is a very good way to earn a lot of money, that's what it's all about. They make huge profits.[...]"  

MSM: "Tungsten Filled 1 Kilo Gold Bar Discovered In UK" [03/26/12] "In the biggest news we've broke since the JP Morgan whistle-blower stepped forward, Australian Bullion Dealer ABC Bullion has contacted SD to advise that one of its suppliers has provided them photographic evidence of a tungsten filled 1 kilo gold bar discovered this week. The bar passed a hand-held xrf scan which showed 99.98% pure AU. The tungsten was only discovered when the bar was physically cut in half. After numerous reports of 400oz tungsten filled bars being discovered in Hong Kong, this is the first documented and verified report with photographic evidence that has been made public. [...]"  

MSM: "U.S. Tax Breaks Valued at More Than $1 Trillion" [03/25/12] "The value of U.S. tax breaks exceeds $1 trillion, which may give both parties potential areas to cut costs and alleviate the cost of changing the tax code, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a study. The Congressional Research Service report found the biggest tax break is likely to be valued at $164 billion annually in 2014 and is on employer-provided health insurance, while employer-provided pensions are the second-biggest exclusion at about $163 billion, the newspaper said. The study said the most that might be gained in additional tax revenue from eliminating tax breaks was $150 billion, because of political opposition and technical hurdles, the newspaper said.  [...]"  

Commentary: "Email Shows Corzine Ordered Funds Transfer As MF Global Collapsed" [03/25/12] "It has been learned that CEO Jon S. Corzine personally ordered the transfer of $200 million out of a customer fund to cover an overdraft at one of the firm’s own accounts with JPMorgan Chase.  Bloomberg News reported on Friday that an internal email sent by the firm’s treasurer and dated three days before the company collapsed at the end of October described the transfer as being “Per JC’s direct instructions.” Corzine, a former governor of new Jersey, had testifed before a congressional committee in December that “I did not instruct anyone to lend customer funds to anyone.” “I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date,” Corzine told the investigators at that time. [...]"  

Commentary: "High Frequency Trader Computer Glitch Halts Apple Stock Trade" [03/24/12] "Bats Scrapping IPO Is Gift to Critics of Modern Market Structure [...] The decision by Bats Global Markets Inc (BATS)., the third-largest U.S. equity exchange operator, to cancel its initial public offering emboldened brokerage and fund executives who say the way stocks trade in America doesn’t work. Bats, founded by a high-frequency trader in 2005 and nurtured by the world’s top securities firms, withdrew the IPO yesterday after errors on its own computers kept the stock from trading and forced a halt in Apple Inc. (AAPL) Pulling the IPO capped a day of embarrassments for the Lenexa, Kansas-based company, which rose to prominence with the electronic trading industry. “This tells you the system we’ve created over the last 15 years has holes in it, and this is one example of a failure,” Joseph Saluzzi, partner and co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading LLC in Chatham, New Jersey, said in a phone interview. “When the exchange blows itself up, that’s not a good thing.” ... A Bats computer that matches orders in companies with ticker symbols in the A-BFZZZ range “encountered a software bug related to IPO auctions” at 10:45 a.m. New York time, the company said in an e-mailed statement explaining its trading problems. The glitch made existing customer orders for those symbols unavailable for trading, the document said. Bats alerted users that it was investigating system problems. ...  The malfunctions will refocus scrutiny on market structure in the U.S., where two decades of government regulation have broken the grip of the biggest exchanges and left trading fragmented over as many as 50 venues. Bats, whose name stands for Better Alternative Trading System, expanded in tandem with the automated firms that now dominate the buying and selling of American equities. [...]"  

Commentary: "Wave of Banking Resignations Likely Foreshadows Financial Collapse" [03/24/12] "... Initially, one might suspect that these individuals, acting on some sort of insider information (which they are obviously doing), are exiting the ranks of institutions that will soon be the focus of a massive investigation by relevant authorities. One might logically suspect that the rats are jumping ship to save their own skins which will be all the more in danger if they remain in their positions when the investigation begins. However, although this may be one of the first reasons for such resignations that come to mind, upon further examination, one finds some major holes in this theory. For instance, if one has been part of a major crime (as the vast majority of these institutions have been), it is not likely that the mere prospect of being retired or employed by another institution would prevent prosecution once that crime has come to light. In fact, one might be better served by remaining on board so as to be in an even better position by which to cover up evidence and confound the investigators. That is, if one did not think the effort completely hopeless. Keep in mind, many individuals who were in a position to provide or deny evidence regarding the record put options on American Airlines, United Airlines, and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter shortly before 9/11, would not have been able to remain stone silent if they had not remained in their position so that they could be deputized during the investigation. [...]"  

Commentary: "Central Bankers Gather in Fearful DC Huddle" [03/24/12]   " It is all falling down about their heads and now they are meeting in Washington DC, fearfully, to try to decide what to do next. Nothing the money printers have done has stemmed the growing, global depression. But they have to do something. The system itself seems in jeopardy. These meetings are reported as if they are pleasant business get-togethers, but they are more like evidences of a criminal conspiracy. The reason they fly in from far and wide is probably because they don't want to use electronic communications for fear of being overhead or tapped. This is not how it is presented in the mainstream media, of course. The paid-for media will position today's meeting as a convocation of great minds, technocrats dedicated to the highest ideals – administering private funds for the greater public good. It's a kind of power elite dominant social theme, that the good, gray bankers are selflessly carving out careers that aim their talents at providing systemic financial stability. Billions around the world profit from their calming hands at the tiller of the financial system. In fact, this perspective is nothing but a fear-based elite promotion. The idea is that if these good, gray men were NOT available, the world would crash and burn as surely as if it had been smashed by a large comet. Nothing could be further from the truth. Monopoly fiat central banking is ITSELF the main source of instability in the world today and has been a growing problem ever since it was invented some 500 years ago. Today, central bankers wrap themselves in the flag of the state. Most central banks – and there are some 150 around the world – are carefully mercantilist, relying on state mandates to provide their chicanery with legitimacy. [...]"

Commentary: "Traders Caught Using NASDAQ Exploit To Manipulate Silver Prices" [03/24/12] "Hedge funds caught red-handed using flaws in the NASDAQ market exchange to manipulate the price silver using high-speed computer trading algorithms. [...] There was a time when catching the silver “whack-a-mole” algo, or process, or intervention, or manipulation, or whatever one wants to call it, in action was a myth: an urban legend, perpetuated by silver conspiracy theorists. Until today that is. Courtesy of Nanex we now have direct evidence of just what the reflexive market (in which derivative products such as ETFs influence underlying assets) goes to town by taking silver to the woodshed at a whopping 75,000 times per second! From the broken market sleuths at Nanex: “On March 20, 2012 at 13:22:33, the quote rate in the ETF symbol SLV sustained a rate exceeding 75,000/sec (75/ms) for 25 milliseconds. Nasdaq quotes lagged other exchanges by about 50 milliseconds. Nasdaq quotes even lagged their own trades – a condition we have jokingly referred to as fantaseconds.” Translation: so desperate was the desire to crush silver at precisely 13:22;33, that the Nasdaq order flow directive ended up moving faster than light. Frankly, we don’t know about you, but when someone is willing to bend the laws of relativity, just to get a cheaper price in silver, to perpetuate a failing monetary system or for any other reason, we quietly step aside… [...]"  

Commentary: "IMF Banksters Worst Fear: Egyptians Launch Campaign To Repudiate Mubarak's Debt's" [03/23/12] "Mubarak contracted the debt so Mubarak should pay. Let the international banksters like IMF and WB who lent the money to Mubarak go collect it from him. Third world debt repudiation is the criminal banksters worst nightmare. Argentina did it successfully in the 90 and now there are Egypt, Pakistan Philippians even India is a possible candidate for debt repudiation. [...]"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Unbanked & Unworthy (E265)" [03/23/12] [25:45] "We discuss the great ‘unbanked’ masses dumping gold believing in a ‘recovering economy’ and an end to money printing while banks and insiders buy gold and mortgage backed securities in preparation for more quantitative easing by the Fed. In the second half of the show Max talks to Mark Melin of Uncorrelated Investments about MF Global, JP Morgan and the future of the futures market. They also discuss the Charles Mansons of the futures industry and the branch office of the too big too fail banks formerly known as the SEC." 

Commentary: "US Taxpayers Commence Bailing Out ECB Through IMF, With Greece As Intermediary" [03/22/12] "The US Taxpayer is unknowingly funding the bailout of more banks in Europe and Greece through the International Monetary Fund. Over the past few month we have made it expressly clear that as part of its bailout of European banks, all Greek “bailout” funding in the form of super senior first lien debt funded by the Troika (since the Greek balance sheet now has 7 distinct debt classes), which counts the IMF among its backers, which in turn means you, US taxpayers, will go to European banks and most importantly, that most undercapitalized hedge fund of all, the ECB, LLC. Said funding has now officially commenced. There are those Greeks who may read the following headline from Reuters with delight “Greece receives first tranche of new bailout aid”, at least until they get to the following part: “Greece has received the first 7.5 billion euros of aid from its new EU/IMF bailout, with the bulk of the payment going to repay bonds held by the euro zone’s central banks, government officials said on Tuesday.” So while the Greek may particularly care that not only will they not see much if any of the actual bailout cash, and in fact will soon have to start using their gold to fill the capital shortfall as reported here, we are curious what the response will be from US taxpayers, who are on the hook for about 17% of IMF funding, as the money starts trickling in, however not for some old-fashioned concepts such as stimulating jobs, but simply to indirectly, with Greece as a conduit, bailout Europe’s insolvent central banks. [...]"  

MSM: "US Grip On World Bank Challenged" [03/22/12] "The Nigerian finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and former Colombian finance minister, Jose Antonio Ocampo, are reportedly being put forward to replace Robert Zoellick who is retiring. Ever since the World Bank was established at the Bretton Woods conference after the Second World War, an American has always led it. The understanding also upholds the traditional that a European always heads the International Monetary Fund, created in the wake of the same conference. Leaders of developing economies have called for a break in the tradition but have so far failed to get enough support from other countries. Sources told Reuters that Mr Okonjo-Iweala and Mr Ocampo have gathered support from key countries such as South Africa and Brazil. Mr Okonjo-Iweala was managing director of the World Bank until last year when he left to become Nigeria's finance minister.  [...]"  

MSM: "The Dallas Fed Is Calling For The Immediate Breakup Of Large Banks" [03/22/12] "It's hard not to think it's a big deal when a branch of the Federal Reserve system calls for the breakup of major American banks. The bank has just released its annual report, and the title of the letter is: Choosing the Road to Prosperity Why We Must End Too Big to Fail—Now. Here's the full letter from Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, generally known as one of the most hawkish and conservative Fed Presidents. [...]"  

MSM: "Goldman Loses Bid To End Lawsuit Over Risky CDO" [03/22/12] "Goldman Sachs Group Inc lost its bid to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of defrauding investors by selling risky debt linked to subprime mortgages that it planned to bet against. The decision by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in New York keeps alive a hedge fund's claims over a $2 billion offering of collateralized debt obligations, amid intense scrutiny over Goldman's activities before and after the 2008 financial crisis. Marrero said the hedge fund Dodona I LLC may pursue nearly all its claims against Goldman, including that the Wall Street bank recklessly or intentionally sold the Hudson Mezzanine Funding CDOs to offload subprime risk on unsuspecting investors. "Goldman's sudden -- and prescient -- shift to reducing subprime risk supports the inference that it possessed some unique insight" about the "bittersweet potion" of CDOs it was selling, Marrero wrote in a 64-page decision. A Goldman spokesman, Michael DuVally, declined to comment. Richard Klapper, a lawyer for the bank and co-defendants Peter Ostrem and Derryl Herrick, who were Goldman structured finance executives, did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Lawrence Lederer, a lawyer representing Dodona, called Marrero's decision "extremely well-reasoned, measured, and very substantially supported. We are eager to ultimately try the case on behalf of our client and other investors in the Hudson CDOs." [...]"  

Commentary: "Manager Reveals Secrets of Mormon Church Slush Fund" [03/22/12] "You can learn a lot from a resume. Especially a resume that belongs to the Senior Portfolio Manager at Ensign Peak Investments. Mormon Mafia were influential in the sale of most of the Mormon Church owned businesses. Instead of the money ending up in the hands of General membership funds, it was placed in a separate slush fund with no accountability to the General Membership. There, if the resume of one Doug Van Woerkom, CFA , Senior Portfolio Manager at Ensign Peak, is accurate, the Mormon Mafia have been free to plunder Church assets as they see fit. Consider the following: [...] The Mormon Church permitted the near bankruptcy of Beneficial Life, a once prosperous insurance company, through the purchase of mortgage backed securities. I believe they bought their portfolio from Mitt Romney and Bain Capital. Why the Church would wager a century of successful business management on worthless paper only makes sense to those that understand how Pirates and Plunderers truly operate. Anyway, they must have lost all the money in this portfolio, so Doug was given a new pile of money to lose. [...] "  

Legal Case: "Millennium Ponzi Scam Isn't a JPMorgan Problem" [03/21/12] "A group of investors burned by the Millennium Ponzi scheme cannot sue JPMorgan Chase for allegedly aiding and abetting the fraud, the 9th Circuit ruled Tuesday. The federal appeals court in San Francisco affirmed dismissal of a consolidated action that sought to hold JPMorgan Chase responsible for the alleged sins of its Washington Mutual subsidiary. The Securities and Exchange Commission said in a 2009 complaint that Canadian attorney William J. Wise and his partners had duped 375 investor out of some $68 million since July 2004. The scheme, operating out of Wise's Caribbean-based Millennium Bank, allegedly misled investors into buying high-yield certificates of deposit issued by subsidiaries in Switzerland, offering returns that were up to 321 percent higher than legitimate bank-issued CDs. [...]"  

MSM: "Bernanke: If A European Sovereign Default Triggers CDS, Then US Banks Would Come Out On Top" [03/21/12] "U.S. financial institutions would be net recipients of credit default swap payouts in the event of a large-scale European sovereign default, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will say to Congress tomorrow. Bernanke said American banks' exposure to stresses in Europe's banking sector remained a "concern," despite U.S. firms' moves to allocate offsetting capital. In his full remarks, Bernanke details those actions. One caveat is that CDS counterparties could squelch on their obligations, he says. However: "such risk is mitigated by the fact that the counterparties to large U.S. dealer banks for sovereign CDS trades are dispersed, primarily across large financial institutions," he says. [...]"  

MSM: "US Economic Model Broken, Says Survey" [03/21/12] "Almost two-thirds of working-age adults believe the US economic model “no longer works for the majority of Americans” according to research. Of those who thought the system no longer worked, 51 per cent said they were not prepared to take risks with savings, showing how concerns about economic fairness lead to caution about the risky investments that the system depends on.  [...]"  

Commentary: "British 2012 Budget To 'Institutionalise Poverty'" [03/21/12] "A tighter squeeze on public sector pay and tax cuts for high earners is completely unacceptable, says Mark Serwotka. George Osborne will "institutionalise poverty" in Britain's poorest areas with a budget that is set to tighten the squeeze on public sector pay while reducing the tax rate for high earners, the leader of the UK's largest civil service union has warned. Mark Serwotka, one of the government's strongest critics and the general secretary of the PCS union, said that paying lower salaries to public employees in struggling parts of the country could trigger an "explosion" on pay in the wake of a two-year pay freeze. Pledging to join pensioner groups and activiss such as UK Uncut in forming an opposition to austerity measures, Serwotka said that cutting the top rate of income tax from 50p to 45p would give a "very arrogant" demonstration of the government's priorities. [...]"  

MSM: "Polish Police Confiscate $100 Million In Fake US Treasury Bonds" [03/20/12]   "The Polish police say they have confiscated counterfeit US treasury bonds worth 100 million dollars. "Yesterday afternoon agents of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau apprehended an international group consisting of eight people: two Italians, two Ukrainians, a woman from Moldova and three Poles. This group attempted to put counterfeit US treasury bonds worth 100 million US dollars on the market here in Poland,” Poland’s Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) said in a statement issued on Monday. "This is the largest operation ever of its kind in Poland and involves the largest amount of US treasury bonds," the CBA added. So far no other details have been released. The authorities said the suspects would be questioned in Lublin. In February, the Italian police seized six trillion dollars (4.6 trillion euros) of counterfeit US treasury bonds, an amount equal to more than a third of the United States’ public debt.  [...]" 

MSM: "JPMorgan Shuts Down The Account Of The Vatican Bank Due To Lack Of Transparency" [03/20/12] "JPMorgan Chase's Milan branch is shutting down the Vatican bank's account due to concerns about a lack of transparency, Reuters reported citing Italian newspapers. The Vatican bank, also known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), is having its account phased out and closed by March 30. That's because it apparently "failed to provide sufficient information on money transfers," Reuters reported citing media reports.  [...]"  

MSM: "In Sweden, Cash Is King No More" [03/19/12] "Sweden was the first European country to introduce bank notes in 1661. Now it's come farther than most on the path toward getting rid of them. "I can't see why we should be printing bank notes at all anymore," says Bjoern Ulvaeus, former member of 1970's pop group ABBA, and a vocal proponent for a world without cash. The contours of such a society are starting to take shape in this high-tech nation, frustrating those who prefer coins and bills over digital money. In most Swedish cities, public buses don't accept cash; tickets are prepaid or purchased with a cell phone text message. A small but growing number of businesses only take cards, and some bank offices — which make money on electronic transactions — have stopped handling cash altogether. "There are towns where it isn't at all possible anymore to enter a bank and use cash," complains Curt Persson, chairman of Sweden's National Pensioners' Organization. He says that's a problem for elderly people in rural areas who don't have credit cards or don't know how to use them to withdraw cash. The decline of cash is noticeable even in houses of worship, like the Carl Gustaf Church in Karlshamn, southern Sweden, where Vicar Johan Tyrberg recently installed a card reader to make it easier for worshippers to make offerings. [...]" 

Commentary: "Taiwan Takes On Goldman Sachs" The Young Turks [03/19/12]   [3:13] "Taiwan is weighing in with a different type of analysis on the Greg Smith resigning from Goldman Sachs letter. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian play the video and discuss this unique spin on this story.  [...]"  

MSM: "Person At Goldman Sachs Caught On A Wiretap Leaking Secrets About Intel And Apple" [03/18/12] "Lawyer Gary Naftalis, in a heated exchange with U.S. prosecutor Reed Brodsky during a pre-trial hearing, said the Goldman person leaked confidential information about the two companies to Raj Rajaratnam, the Galleon Group hedge fund founder convicted of insider-trading charges last year. Gupta, the best-known corporate executive accused in a sweeping prosecution of insider-trading at hedge funds in recent years, denies criminal charges that he tipped Rajaratnam with Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble Co secrets between 2007 and 2009. His trial is scheduled to begin in May. "In a letter he (Brodsky) said the government had a person who provided confidential information to Raj Rajaratnam about Apple and Intel," Naftalis said. "There is also wiretap evidence, substantial evidence of another source at Goldman Sachs." Naftalis told U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff the defense believed "there is a much more circumstantial case that person should be sitting in the box rather than us." [...]"  

Commentary: "Goldman Sachs: Making Money by Stealing It" [03/18/12] "Goldman symbolizes master of the universe of financial manipulation (Reuters April 16, 2011) It's been involved in nearly all financial scandals since the 19th century. It makes money the old-fashioned way, through market manipulation, the scamming of investors, bribing political Washington, having its executives in top administration posts, and getting open-ended low or no interest rate bailouts when needed. How can it be operating like a crime family. It's business model involves grand theft. Customers are defrauded, not helped. Politicians are bought like toothpaste. Laws are subverted and ignored. Others are discarded or rewritten at its behest. Economies are wrecked for profit. [...]"  

Commentary: "Documents In Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Highlight Lawlessness Of The Banks" [03/18/12] "The settlement, reported to be worth $25 billion, was announced February 9 and hailed by President Obama as a serious rebuke to the banks and boon to distressed homeowners. (See: “Obama administration brokers pro-bank mortgage fraud settlement”). It is nothing of the kind. It quashes investigations by 49 state attorneys general into wholesale fraud and illegality committed by the five biggest mortgage servicers in their rush to foreclose on homeowners and seize their houses. The abuses first surfaced in the fall of 2010, amid reports of “robo-signing” of foreclosure papers and court submissions. It was revealed that bank employees and contractors routinely vouched for the accuracy of documents affirming the banks’ title to targeted homes without having ascertained the facts or having even read the documents they were signing. The process was rife with forgeries, fraudulent notarizations, inflated job descriptions of the signers and other violations of the law. [...]"  

MSM: "Cameron meets Goldman Sachs, other CEOs in NY" [03/17/12] "British Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday discussed financial regulation and the global economic situation with senior American financiers in New York, including Goldman Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein. During a lunch at the New York Stock Exchange as part of a three-day trip to the United States, Cameron met Morgan Stanley's James Gorman, BlackRock's Larry Fink, George Soros and other leading figures from the world of finance. Cameron's office issued a list of attendees but gave no further details of the content of the meeting. [...]"  Note: Almost by definition ... they are in a conspiracy of some nature. It also points to who is running the financial world for their own ends ... how ironic that every basic element of their paradigm has no real value except in their own dreams.   Related: And while he was in NY: "Cameron Declares Afghanistan A Success At 9/11 Memorial"  "David Cameron rounded off his visit to the US by laying a wreath at Ground Zero in New York, where he declared that the "site of the September 11 attacks showed why British and US forces were deployed in Afghanistan." Standing next to the water memorial on the site of the north tower, the prime minister said the Nato mission in Afghanistan had succeeded and would draw to a close over the next two years. [...]"  Note:  These people live in their own little world ... and have no integrity.

Commentary: "Bloomberg Visits Goldman Sachs to Show his Support After Whistleblower Revelations" [03/17/12] "Billionaire bankster and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently visited Goldman Sachs headquarters to show his support for one of the most corrupt companies in the history of America. The visit comes after a departing employee became a major whistleblower and exposed the culture of corruption that is at the core of Goldman Sachs. [...]"  Note: Another reincarnated retread fool.

Commentary: "One Half of Italy's New Sales Tax Receipts Go Directly to Morgan Stanley in New York" [03/17/12] "The cost, equal to half the amount to be raised by Italy’s sales tax increase this year, underscores the risk derivatives countries use to reduce borrowing costs and guard against swings in interest rates and currencies can sour and generate losses for taxpayers. Italy, with record debt of $2.5 trillion, has lost more than $31 billion on its derivatives at current market values, according to data compiled by the Bloomberg Brief Risk newsletter from regulatory filings. [...]"  

Commentary: "Comment Posted on U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Website" [03/17/12] "Hello, I am a current JPMorgan Chase employee. This is an open letter to all commissioners and regulators. I am emailing you today b/c I know of insider information that will be damning at best for JPMorgan Chase. I have decided to play the role of whistleblower b/c I no longer have faith and belief that what we are doing for society is bringing value to people. I am now under the opinion that we are actually putting hard working Americans unaware of what lays ahead at extreme market risk. This risk is unnecessary and will lead to wide-scale market collapse if not handled properly. With the release of Mr. Smith’s open letter to Goldman, I too would like to set the record straight for JPM as well. I have seen the disruptive behavior of superiors and no longer can say that I look up to employees at the ED/MD level here at JPM. Their smug exuberance and arrogance permeates the air just as pungently as rotting vegetables. They all know too well of the backdoor crony connections they share intimately with elected officials and with other institutions. It is apparent in everything they do, from the meager attempts to manipulate LIBOR, therefore controlling how almost all derivatives are priced to the inherit and fraudulent commodities manipulation. They too may have one day stood for something in the past in the client- employee relationship.  [...]   I wish to remain anonymous as of now as fear of termination mounts from what I am about to reveal. Robert Gottlieb is not my real name; however he is a trader that is involved in a lawsuit for manipulative trading while working with JPMorgan Chase. He was acquired during our Bear Stearns acquisition and is known to be the notorious person shorting in the silver future market from his trading space, along with Blythe Masters, his IB Global boss. However, with that said, we are manipulating the silver futures market and playing a smaller (but still massively manipulative) role in manipulating the gold futures market. We have a little over a 25% (give or take a percentage) position in the short market for silver futures and by your definition this denotes a larger position than for speculative purposes or for hedging and is beyond the line of manipulation. [...]"  Note: Interesting read.  

MSM: "Iran's Banks To Be Blocked From Global Banking System" [03/16/12] " ... Almost all banking transactions pass through Belgium-based Swift, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is sometimes called the "glue" that holds the financial system together. Swift will pull the plug at 1600 GMT on Saturday, in what is all but the final blow to Iranian business dealings.  [...]" Note:  If SWIFT does it before 20 March, this is probably the real reason: Last week, the Tehran Times noted that the Iranian oil bourse will start trading oil in currencies other than the dollar from March 20. This long-planned move is part of Ahmadinejad’s vision of economic war with the west. “The dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme is nothing more than a convenient excuse for the US to use threats to protect the ‘reserve currency’ status of the dollar,” the newspaper, which calls itself the voice of the Islamic Revolution, said." SWIFT is going to pull the plug on Iran on 17 March, three days before the opening of the oil bourse.

Commentary: "320 Resignations From World Banks, Investment Houses, Money Funds" [03/16/12] "Some big names on Wall Street are eager to step out of the spotlight after enduring years of financial-crisis turbulence and negative attention from politicians and protesters"  [...]" Note: An interesting list.

Commentary: "An Insider’s View Of Wall Street Criminality" [03/16/12] "Greg Smith, an executive director at Goldman Sachs, announced his resignation Wednesday in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, denouncing the bank's “toxic” culture of avarice and fraud. Smith headed the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In his column, entitled “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs,” he describes a corporate environment that encourages and rewards big short-term returns gained through the bilking of clients and the general public. “It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off,” he writes. Speaking of one’s clients as “muppets” and describing deal-making as “ripping eyeballs out” are commonplace at Goldman, according to Smith. The way to advance at the Wall Street giant, he writes, is to persuade your clients “to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of,” get your clients “to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman,” and trade “any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.” The column describes an operation in which laws and regulations requiring financial institutions to deal honestly with their clients and protect their interests are routinely violated. The insider’s indictment of Goldman Sachs highlights a broader process—the criminalization of American capitalism as a whole. It confirms from the inside that three-and-a-half years after Wall Street’s manic pursuit of super-profits triggered a global financial meltdown and the deepest slump since the Great Depression, nothing has changed in the boardrooms of corporate America. The same fraudulent and often illegal practices that enriched the financial aristocracy and plundered the rest of society continue unabated. The criminals at the top, having been bailed out with trillions of taxpayer funds, are making more money than ever, while millions of ordinary people are being driven into poverty and homelessness. [...]"  Related: "Goldman Sachs Launches Counterattack on Greg Smith" "Goldman has been quick to push back on Smith's claims, portraying him as just a disgruntled employee. Some employees told Fox Business' Charlie Gasparino that Smith doesn't know what he's talking about because he "never made more than $750,000 a year." [...]" 

MSM: "China Becomes Top Investor In Germany" [03/16/12] "China was the top foreign investor in Germany in 2011, ahead of the United States, Switzerland and France, the government development agency Germany Trade & Invest said on Thursday. China invested in 158 projects, while the US invested in 110, Switzerland in 91 and France in 53, GTAI said in a statement. Nevertheless, Europe accounted for around half of total foreign investment in Germany, the agency added. One in five investment projects -- the majority of which involved the setting up of new sites in Germany -- was in the mechanical engineering or automotive sectors and 13 percent were in new technologies, while renewable energy accounted for around six percent of projects. [...]"  

Commentary: "Matt Taibbi: Bank Of America Is Too Crooked To Fail" Rolling Stone [03/15/12] "At least Bank of America got its name right. The ultimate Too Big to Fail bank really is America, a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless fraud and criminal conspiracies we'll all be paying for until the end of time. Did you hear about the plot to rig global interest rates? The $137 million fine for bilking needy schools and cities? The ingenious plan to suck multiple fees out of the unemployment checks of jobless workers? Take your eyes off them for 10 seconds and guaranteed, they'll be into some shit again: This bank is like the world's worst-behaved teenager, taking your car and running over kittens and fire hydrants on the way to Vegas for the weekend, maxing out your credit cards in the three days you spend at your aunt's funeral. They're out of control, yet they'll never do time or go out of business, because the government remains creepily committed to their survival, like overindulgent parents who refuse to believe their 40-year-old live-at-home son could possibly be responsible for those dead hookers in the backyard. [...] It's been four years since the government, in the name of preventing a depression, saved this megabank from ruin by pumping $45 billion of taxpayer money into its arm. Since then, the Obama administration has looked the other way as the bank committed an astonishing variety of crimes – some elaborate and brilliant in their conception, some so crude that they'd be beneath your average street thug. Bank of America has systematically ripped off almost everyone with whom it has a significant business relationship, cheating investors, insurers, depositors, homeowners, shareholders, pensioners and taxpayers. It brought tens of thousands of Americans to foreclosure court using bogus, "robo-signed" evidence – a type of mass perjury that it helped pioneer. It hawked worthless mortgages to dozens of unions and state pension funds, draining them of hundreds of millions in value. And when it wasn't ripping off workers and pensioners, it was helping to push insurance giants like AMBAC into bankruptcy by fraudulently inducing them to spend hundreds of millions insuring those same worthless mortgages. But despite being the very definition of an unaccountable corporate villain, Bank of America is now bigger and more dangerous than ever. [...]"   

Commentary: "J.P. Morgan Chase's Ugly Family Secrets Revealed" Rolling Stone [03/15/12] " ... Almonte came to Chase in the summer of 2009 as a mid-level executive in the credit card services division's offices in San Antonio, and was quickly put in charge of preparing the documentation for this enormous sale of credit card judgments. When Chase regional offices from places like southern California and Illinois began sending in the papers for these "judgments," Almonte very soon found out that something was seriously wrong. From Horwitz's piece: Nearly half of the files [Linda's] team sampled were missing proofs of judgment or other essential information, she wrote to colleagues. Even more worrisome, she alleged in her wrongful-termination suit, nearly a quarter of the files misstated how much the borrower owed. In the "vast majority" of those instances, the actual debt was "lower that what Chase was representing," her suit stated. Linda subsequently found an enormous range of errors. Some judgments, she told me, were not judgments at all. In some cases, she said, Chase actually owed the customer money. When she brought these concerns to her superiors, what do you think their response was? They told her and others to shut up and just sell the stuff anyway. Her boss, Jason Lazinbat, allegedly told her "she had better go along with the plan to sell the misrepresented asset." [...]"  

MSM: "Goldman Banker Quits In Disgust, Blasts Firm For “Ripping Off” Clients" [03/15/12] "Another PR disaster is unfolding for Goldman Sachs (GS), the Wall Street investment bank that has already borne the brunt of popular wrath in the aftermath of the financial crisis. A senior executive at the firm, Greg Smith, quit today in spectacular fashion, announcing his resignation in a scathing New York Times editorial in which he accused the firm of gleefully "ripping off" its clients and succumbing to short-term greed. Within today's Goldman Sachs, Smith says, senior bankers often refer to the firm's clients as "muppets." The firm has lost the culture of integrity, teamwork, and humility that once made it great, Smith says, and instead has become a place that is "as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it." "It makes me ill how callously people [in the firm] talk about ripping their clients off," Smith continues... "Leadership [at the firm] used to be about ideas, setting an example, and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence." To say this is a devastating indictment of Goldman is an understatement. Outside observers have been saying similar things about the firm for years, but Goldman's response has been that it always puts its clients first and that outsiders--including Congress-people--just don't understand its business. But now an insider has said the same thing. [...]"  Related: "Former Fed Chief: Goldman Has Changed For The Worse"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: White Man's Debt Burden (E261)" [03/14/12] [25:45] "We discuss how a video not featuring Justin Bieber went viral and how Max Keiser started a gold stampede. They also talk about “the white man’s debt burden” of Uganda’s resources and Afghanistan’s “crony capitalism”. In the second half of the show, Max talks to David Morgan about silver circles, ounces and manipulation."

MSM: "Fed Bank Stress Test: Wipes Some Banks Out" [03/14/12] "Citigroup was one of four large U.S. banks that flunked ' stress tests' aimed at seeing how they would hold up in a new economic crisis, Federal Reserve data showed Tuesday. Three others — Ally, Suntrust and MetLife — also failed the tests, while 15 other large bank holding companies passed the exercise, the Fed said. As a group, though, the 19 came through strongly, said the Fed, thanks to pressure for them to boost capital over the past three years as the financial sector digs its way out of the deep 2008-2009 recession. “In fact, despite the significant projected capital declines, 15 of the 19 bank holding companies were estimated to maintain capital ratios above all four of the regulatory minimum levels under the hypothetical stress scenario,” the Fed said. The exercise opened the door for some of the most capital-flush banks to immediately announce new or higher dividend payments to shareholders, after the Fed prevented or limited such payouts by a number of the banks last year following a similar examination.  [...]"  Related: See below.

MSM: "Fed Stress-Testing Banks Against 13% Unemployment, 50% Drop In Stock Market" [03/13/12] "The supervisory stress scenario for CCAR 2012, which was designed in November 2011, depicts a severe recession in the United States, including a peak unemployment rate of 13 percent, a 50 percent drop in equity prices, and a 21 percent decline in housing prices. The supervisory stress scenario is not the Federal Reserve's forecast for the economy, but was designed to represent an outcome that, while unlikely, may occur if the U.S economy were to experience a deep recession at the same time that economic activity in other major economies contracted significantly. [...]" Related: "Fed Unveils Doomsday Scenario For Banks" "The Federal Reserve [cnbc explains] released its "worst-case scenario" bank stress test criteria Monday and said it will release full results Thursday at 4:30 p.m. ET. The Fed will look at how the nation's 19 largest banks would survive a world with a 13 percent jobless rate, a 50-percent drop in stocks, a 21-percent decline in housing prices and a significant contraction of other major world economies. The Fed conducts the tests on banks every year, but this is the first time since 2009 that it will release its results to the public. In 2009 the Fed found billions in insufficient funds on bank balance sheets. The tests are designed to make sure banks have enough cash and cash-like securities to withstand catastrophic losses in a financial crisis. [...]"  Note: Yeah, they wouldn't like having to bail them out ... again ...would they?

Commentary: "Biderman: Fed Helping Wall Street And Corporate America Rig The Stock Market" [03/12/12] [4:28] "TrimTabs President & CEO Charles Biderman explains why stock market numbers are better than reality in this election year. [...]"  

MSM: "At Lunch, Bloomberg and Obama Discuss Future" [03/12/12] "They traded thoughts about education, ruminated on the state of immigration and discussed the federal deficit.  [...] Mr. Bloomberg, confronting the end of his career in elected office, is grappling with how to exert the kind of influence over public discourse that he has had as mayor of the nation’s largest city. The lunch invitation is striking because Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Obama are thought not to be particularly close — nor to have an especially warm relationship. But the White House seems intent on courting Mr. Bloomberg. "  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Hackers & Pirates – True GDP Boosters (E260)" [03/10/12] [25:57] "We discuss hackers and pirates as true GDP boosters and independent artists being censored by the financial industry. In the second half of the show, Max talks to independent journalist Teri Buhl about a crowd-funded investigation, “Swinging in New Canaan” into swinging and scamming in the hedge fund capital of the world, New Canaan, Connecticut."

Commentary: "Greece Debt Crisis Triggers Massive Credit Default Contract Swap Worth Billions" [03/10/12] "It’s for real this time. The International Swaps and Derivatives Association determined today that Greece’s bond swap has triggered a credit event. That will lead to payouts of credit default swaps—essentially, insurance contracts on holdings of Greek bonds under Greek law—that investors purchased to hedge against the risk of holding Greek sovereign debt. While expected, this is the icing on the cake of the first developed market default in 60 years. An auction related to outstanding CDS transactions will be held on March 19. The committee asks that any investor wanting to participate in the auction notify ISDA immediately. Provocation of a credit event has been a contentious topic in Europe during the last few months. On one hand, sovereign CDS contracts are the only securities that allow investors to hedge and speculate directly against governments. Because the market is so opaque and because many financial institutions are on both sides of this trade, credit default swaps have compounded concerns about the contagion that would occur as a result of a financial shock. While the market for Greek CDS is relatively small, some traders and officials had been fearful that a credit event was still not fully priced in, and could have some negative consequences. On the other hand, attempts to subvert existing CDS contracts would have also compromised investors’ faith in EU leaders’ willingness to stick to market rules. Analysts had feared that this distrust for sovereign credit default swaps would have spread into the corporate CDS market, destroying a major industry with far-reaching consequences. It had become apparent in recent weeks that Greece was not going to significantly reduce its debt burden without forcing investors to participate in a structured default. Earlier proposals to keep the deal “voluntary” would likely not have received sufficient participation from investors to significantly reduce Greece’s outstanding public debt.  [...]"  Note: Derivatives and CDS are pathologically unethical concepts.

MSM: "Moody’s Declares Greece In Default" [03/10/12] "Moody’s Investors Service considers Greece to have defaulted per its default definitions. The announcement comes despite Athens reaching a deal with private creditors for a bond exchange that will shave €107 billion from its €350 billion debt. [...] The US-based credit rating agency issued a statement on Friday, saying that “even as 85.8 percent” of the holders of Greek government bonds had agreed to the plan, the “exercise of collective action clauses that Athens is applying to its bonds will force the remaining bondholders to participate.” “According to Moody’s definitions, this exchange represents a ‘distressed exchange’ and therefore a debt default. “The exchange amounts to a diminished financial obligation relative to the original obligation,” the statement added.
Moody’s also said the debt swap deal “has the effect of allowing Greece to avoid payment default in the future.” On Friday, the Greek government announced that a large majority of private creditors had signed on to a debt exchange plan expected to cancel about 107 billion euros (143 billion dollars) in Greek government bonds. On February 24, Greece had formally offered private creditors the deal, which is expected to reduce the country’s debt of about 350 billion euros (469 billion dollars). The deal is part of the second bailout package for Greece approved by eurozone finance ministers during a meeting in Brussels on February 20."  Related: "Fitch Downgrades Greece To 'Restricted Default'"   

MSM: "Stanford Guilty In $7B Ponzi Scheme" [03/09/12] "Flamboyant financier Allen Stanford once told ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross he would "die and go to hell" if his $7 billion investment empire was a Ponzi scheme. The 61-year-old may not be going to hell, but he could well be spending the rest of his life in prison. On Tuesday, a federal jury in Houston convicted Stanford of all but one of 14 charges of fraud and obstruction. Each fraud count carries a sentence of up to 20 years. The same jury is now deliberating how much money Stanford must forfeit.  [...]"  

Commentary: "Switzerland Wants Its Gold Back From The New York Fed" [03/08/12] "Switzerland is joining the Germans in demanding that their physical gold being stored at the Fed be returned. Earlier today, we reported that Germans are increasingly concerned that their gold, at over 3,400 tons a majority of which is likely stored in the vault 80 feet below street level of 33 Liberty (recently purchased by the Fed with freshly printed money at far higher than prevailing commercial real estate rates for the Downtown NY area), may be in jeopardy,and will likely soon formally inquire just how much of said gold is really held by the Fed. As it turns out, Germany is not alone: [...] Earlier today, we reported that Germans are increasingly concerned that their gold, at over 3,400 tons a majority of which is likely stored in the vault 80 feet below street level of 33 Liberty (recently purchased by the Fed with freshly printed money at far higher than prevailing commercial real estate rates for the Downtown NY area), may be in jeopardy,and will likely soon formally inquire just how much of said gold is really held by the Fed. As it turns out, Germany is not alone: as part of the “Rettet Unser Schweizer Gold“, or the “Gold Initiative”: A Swiss Initiative to Secure the Swiss National Bank’s Gold Reserves initiative, launched recently by four members of the Swiss parliament, the Swiss people should have a right to vote on 3 simple things: i) keeping the Swiss gold physically in Switzerland; ii) forbidding the SNB from selling any more of its gold reserves, and iii) the SNB has to hold at least 20% of its assets in gold. Needless the say the implications of this vote actually succeeding are comparable to the Greeks holding a referendum on whether or not to be in the Eurozone. And everyone saw how quickly G-Pap was “eliminated” within hours of making that particular threat. Yet it begs the question: how many more international grassroots outcries for if not repatriation, then at least an audit of foreign gold held by the New York Fed have to take place, before Goldman’s (and New York Fed’s) Bill Dudley relents? And why are the international central banks not disclosing what their people demand, if only to confirm that the gold is present and accounted for, even if it is at the Federal Reserve?" 

Commentary: "Goldman Secret Greek Loan Used American TARP Money" [03/08/12] "Greece’s secret loan from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was a costly mistake from the start. On the day the 2001 deal was struck, the government owed the bank about 600 million euros ($793 million) more than the 2.8 billion euros it borrowed, said Spyros Papanicolaou, who took over the country’s debt-management agency in 2005. By then, the price of the transaction, a derivative that disguised the loan and that Goldman Sachs persuaded Greece not to test with competitors, had almost doubled to 5.1 billion euros, he said. Papanicolaou and his predecessor, Christoforos Sardelis, revealing details for the first time of a contract that helped Greece mask its growing sovereign debt to meet European Union requirements, said the country didn’t understand what it was buying and was ill-equipped to judge the risks or costs. “The Goldman Sachs deal is a very sexy story between two sinners,” Sardelis, who oversaw the swap as head of Greece’s Public Debt Management Agency from 1999 through 2004, said in an interview. Goldman Sachs’s instant gain on the transaction illustrates the dangers to clients who engage in complex, tailored trades that lack comparable market prices and whose fees aren’t disclosed. Harvard University, Alabama’s Jefferson County and the German city of Pforzheim all have found themselves on the losing end of the one-of-a-kind private deals typically pitched to them by securities firms as means to improve their finances. [...]" 

Commentary: "America’s Narcobank: Wachovia Bank Was BCCI With A Drawl" [03/07/12] "This is a story about financial fraud, drug money, and a global crime network that links BCCI, known as the Bank of Crooks & Criminals Incorporated, with North Carolina’s Wachovia Bank. While Art Nadel's Ponzi scheme was at its peak, between 2003 and 2007, Wachovia Bank was engaged in more continuing criminal activity than in all six seasons of The Sopranos.  Wachovia helped Nadel—who had recently been playing piano lounges around Sarasota for a living— masquerade as a "hedge fund advisor," even though the bank knew he was nothing of the kind, the suit alleges. [...] Every night, working from lists of names and phone numbers, telemarketing boiler rooms called World War II veterans, retired schoolteachers and thousands of other elderly Americans, posing as government and insurance workers updating their files. They tricked people like Richard Guthrie, 92, a World War II veteran in Iowa, into revealing their banking information. Guthrie lived alone since his wife died. His children had moved away from the farm.[...]"  

MSM: "Stock Market Suffers Worst Sell Off Of Year, Losing Battle Against Reality" [03/07/12] "All at once, after rallying relentlessly all year, stocks caught a case of the heebie-jeebies on Tuesday over a bunch of well-known risks to the global economic recovery and suffered their worst one-day selloff of 2012. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 203.66 points, or 1.6 percent, to 12759.16, its worst percentage loss since December 8 and its worst point loss since November 23. [...] The bond market has for weeks been signaling a weaker economic outlook than the stock market has. The bond market usually wins these arguments. " 

MSM: "Illinois State ‘On Brink Of Collapse" [03/06/12] "Illinois’ financial problems are forcing it to choose between its pensions and its teeth. Governor Pat Quinn says the state needs to face its “rendezvous with reality” and tackle its dysfunctional budget habits. Top of the list, Mr Quinn says, is to slash spending on Medicaid, a federal programme that provides healthcare to poor Americans. To save a system he says is “on the brink of collapse”, Mr Quinn proposes cutting $2.7bn from Illinois’ $11.5bn Medicaid bill. Few would dispute that the state needs to change its behaviour. [...]"  Note: Obama just removed the G20 Conference (and all the revenue) from Chicago to Camp David ... it must make the governor feel great, huh? 

Commentary: "Killing Livelihoods And A $2.5 Billion Industry, The Feds Attack Internet Gambling" 6 Pages [03/05/12] "... In the poker world, April 15, 2011 is known as ' Black Friday'. That's the day the U.S. Department of Justice seized the assets and shut down the three biggest companies serving the American market, charging them with bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling. [...] Hardly anyone noticed when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act passed in 2006. Moralists and casinos, who were trying to protect their turf, had been pushing it for years without luck. That's when senators Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) and Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) got the bright idea to stuff it in a port security bill as a last-minute amendment. In true Washington fashion, most legislators never read the final bill. Many didn't even know an anti-gambling measure was in it. But in one secretive stroke, the two senators had declared war on poker. The amendment didn't actually outlaw online play. Kyl and Frist preferred their attack on the American pastime to remain surreptitious. Going after individual players would have meant a huge backlash. Instead, they targeted the financial institutions that handled the sites' money and made it illegal to ' deal in gambling proceeds'... But because the feds were squeezing banks and credit-card companies, finding payment processors to handle their money grew increasingly difficult. ... "By early 2007, suddenly the payment options are becoming much more tricky for PokerStars and Full Tilt," says Melinda Sarafa, a New York lawyer who has represented gamblers. "That's where they're starting to look into alternative providers." The feds' squeeze was working. By 2009, an audit of Absolute Poker revealed that almost one-third of its revenue went to disguising the money trail. Says Sarafa: "The allegation is that the companies tried to find banks that were essentially in distress, providing them with a very lucrative lifeline, and that the transactions were disguised as other types of transactions, so it wouldn't raise regulatory eyebrows." [...]" "  Note: Interesting story and overview. I don't gamble. It's a waste of precious resources. That's my perspective.

Commentary: "Matt Taibbi: Bank of America is a “Raging Hurricane of Theft and Fraud" [03/05/12] "Matt Taibbi speaking at an Occupy Wall Street day of action, February 29th, 2012. He wrote this article for OWS, and passed it out to the crowd.  [...] "There are two things every American needs to know about Bank of America. The first is that it’s corrupt. This bank has systematically defrauded almost everyone with whom it has a significant business relationship, cheating investors, insurers, homeowners, shareholders, depositors, and the state. It is a giant, raging hurricane of theft and fraud, spinning its way through America and leaving a massive trail of wiped-out retirees and foreclosed-upon families in its wake. The second is that all of us, as taxpayers, are keeping that hurricane raging. Bank of America is not just a private company that systematically steals from American citizens: it’s a de facto ward of the state that depends heavily upon public support to stay in business. In fact, without the continued generosity of us taxpayers, and the extraordinary indulgence of our regulators and elected officials, this company long ago would have been swallowed up by scandal, mismanagement, prosecution and litigation, and gone out of business. It would have been liquidated and its component parts sold off, perhaps into a series of smaller regional businesses that would have more respect for the law, and be more responsive to their customers. But Bank of America hasn’t gone out of business, for the simple reason that our government has decided to make it the poster child for the “Too Big To Fail” concept. Because it is considered a “systemically important institution” whose collapse would have a major, Lehman-Brothers-style impact on the economy, two consecutive presidential administrations have taken extraordinary measures to keep Bank of America in business, despite a staggering recent legacy of corruption schemes, many of which were simply overlooked by regulators. This is why the question of whether or not Bank of America should remain on public life support is so critical to all Americans, [...]"  

Commentary: "Wall Street Species: One Out Of Every Ten Wall Street Employees Is A Psychopath, Say Researchers" [03/04/12] " One out of every 10 Wall Street employees is likely a clinical psychopath, writes journalist Sherree DeCovny in an upcoming issue of the trade publication CFA Magazine (subscription required). In the general population the rate is closer to one percent. "A financial psychopath can present as a perfect well-rounded job candidate, CEO, manager, co-worker, and team member because their destructive characteristics are practically invisible," writes DeCovny, who pulls together research from several psychologists for her story, which helpfully suggests that financial firms carefully screen out extreme psychopaths in hiring. To be sure, typical psychopathic behavior runs the gamut. At the extreme end is Bateman, portrayed by Christian Bale, in the 2000 movie American Psycho, as an investment banker who actually kills people and exhibits no remorse. When health professionals talk about "psychopaths," they have a broader range of behavior in mind. A clinical psychopath is bright, gregarious and charming, writes DeCovny. He lies easily and often, and may have trouble feeling empathy for other people. He's probably also more willing to take dangerous risks -- either because he doesn't understand the consequences, or because he simply doesn't care. [...]"  Note: As Chris Hedges points out in his book "Empire of Illusions", the nature of corporations themselves is psychopathic, and these people are but another extension of "the corporation" and a clinical perspective of life.. It's much higher than 1 out of 10, because psychopathic behavior is a spectrum, not always a sharply delineated manifestation. Besides, if one works in a psychopathic environment where all the people act the same, soon one becomes enmeshed in wanting to be accepted in the group, so the behavior proliferates. 

Commentary: "Why Anti-Authoritarians Are 'Diagnosed' As "Mentally Ill" [03/04/12] "In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with hundreds of people previously diagnosed by other professionals with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety disorder and other psychiatric illnesses, and I am struck by (1) how many of those diagnosed are essentially anti-authoritarians, and (2) how those professionals who have diagnosed them are not. Anti-authoritarians question whether an authority is a legitimate one before taking that authority seriously. Evaluating the legitimacy of authorities includes assessing whether or not authorities actually know what they are talking about, are honest, and care about those people who are respecting their authority. And when anti-authoritarians assess an authority to be illegitimate, they challenge and resist that authority-sometimes aggressively and sometimes passive-aggressively, sometimes wisely and sometimes not. Some activists lament how few anti-authoritarians there appear to be in the United States. One reason could be that many natural anti-authoritarians are now psychopathologized and medicated before they achieve political consciousness of society's most oppressive authorities. [...]"  

Commentary: "The Trillions The Government Doesn’t Account For" [03/03/12] "... Given this history, consider the Treasury Department’s decision to not accrue for Social Security and Medicare promises. The current cost of these programs is calculated each year by the Government Accountability Office, and described in great detail in appendices. But Treasury’s “Citizen’s Guide” to the GAO financials does not accrue for Social Security or Medicare promises, even though it does accrue for the cost of retirement promises to federal employees and veterans. This decision is embraced by virtually every one of our elected leaders and accepted by virtually all of our journalists. The $1.3 trillion budget deficit would be $4.2 trillion if the change in the current cost of Social Security and Medicare promises during fiscal 2011 were included. Why is this cost excluded? It is not because the promises are immaterial. Remember that 5 percent threshold? The current costs of Medicare and Social Security total $33.8 trillion, which is more than 1,400 percent of the federal government’s 2011 revenue. Instead, the legal reason for this exclusion is that the government follows “obligation-based” accounting standards, which require the recognition of future promises not when they become material but only when they are legally binding. [...]"  

MSM: "Keiser Report: Copyright Dictatorship (E256)" [03/02/12]   [25:45] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss pirating Repo Man and jack-booted accountants here to help you. In the second half of the show, Max talks to J.S. Kim of SmartKnowledgeU.com about silver, gold and market manipulation. [...]"

MSM: "Next Leg Of The Ponzi Revealed -  Foreign Central Banks Will Buy U.S. Equities" [03/03/12] "In other words, while the Fed’s charter forbids it from buying US equities outright, it certainly can promise that it will bail out such bosom friends as the Bank of Israel, the Swiss National Bank, and soon everyone else, if and when their investment in Apple should sour. Luckily, this means that the exponential phase in risk is approaching as everyone will now scramble to frontrun central bank purchases no longer in bonds, but in stocks outright, leading to epic surges in everything risk related, then collapse and force the Fed to print tens of trillions to bail everyone out all over again, rinse repeat, until this chart becomes asymptotic. We say luckily, because it means that the long overdue systemic reset is finally approaching. [...]"  Related:  "Israel to Begin Investing Reserves in U.S Equities Today" "The Bank of Israel will begin today a pilot program to invest a portion of its foreign currency reserves in U.S. equities. The investment, which in the initial phase will amount to 2 percent of the $77 billion reserves, or about $1.5 billion, will be made through UBS AG and BlackRock Inc. (BLK), Bank of Israel spokesman Yossi Saadon said in a telephone interview today. At a later stage, the investment is expected to increase to 10 percent of the reserves.  [...]"  Note: Gee, if the US is already giving them more than $70 billion a year, they really need no more funds until the country disappears. Besides, what's the payback? More techno-death on the planet? 

MSM: "FBI Building Insider Trading Cases on 120 People" [03/01/12] "Federal authorities are seeking to build insider trading cases against roughly 120 individuals on and off Wall Street in an expanding criminal insider trading investigation that has shaken the financial and corporate worlds. The disclosure – the first time authorities have quantified the number of people under scrutiny – comes on the heels of a string of successful prosecutions of insider trading. Since late 2009, prosecutors have charged 66 individuals at hedge funds and other companies with insider trading and won 57 convictions or guilty pleas. “We’ve identified them, and now of course we have to build a case around that,” David Chaves, a senior FBI agent, said Monday in an interview following a presentation to reporters at FBI headquarters in Manhattan. [...]"  Related: "Goldman Manager Investigated For Insider Trading Role: Report" "Federal authorities are investigating David Loeb, a managing director of Goldman Sachs Group Inc, as part of an insider trading probe focusing on technology stocks and the company's hedge fund clients, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people close to the matter. Loeb, 41, would be the latest Goldman official to be investigated after Rajat Gupta, a former Goldman director, who faces trial in May for insider trading. Goldman technology analyst Henry King is also under investigation, the WSJ reported. Loeb, who deals with many technology hedge fund employees, worked closely with King, the paper said citing the sources. Documents filed in the case against Gupta referenced an insider at Goldman other than Gupta who provided inside information to a hedge fund client. That person is said to be Loeb, the WSJ reported.  [...]" 

Commentary: "How Goldman Sachs Helped Mask Greece's Debt" [03/01/12] "There are those who remember that back in February 2010, before the world realized just how broke Greece was, the public’s deplorably short attention span was briefly focused on none other than Goldman Sachs, which as so often happens, was at the heart of the scheme enabling Greece to skirt by Maastricht regulations and mask the fact that its debt and deficits were both far worse than represented publicly. There are also some who remember that back in February 2010, it was none other than the Federal Reserve that tasked itself with uncovering whether Goldman did anything “illegal” by engaging in currency swaps to make the Greek economy appear rosier than it was: “We are looking into a number of questions related to Goldman Sachs and other companies and their derivatives arrangements with Greece,” Bernanke said in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee…. Greece in 2001 borrowed billions, with the aid of Goldman Sachs in a deal hidden from public view because it was treated as a currency trade rather than a loan….Goldman Sachs spokesman Michael DuVally declined to comment on the Fed’s probe. “As a matter of policy we don’t comment on legal or regulatory matters,” DuVally said. Goldman Sachs had defended the transactions in a statement posted on its Website Sunday. The firm said they had a “minimal effect” on Greece’s overall fiscal situation.” Maybe, just maybe it is time, two years later, for the world to hear something, anything, from the Fed as to what its seemingly quite extensive investigation into Goldman’s has yielded. [...]"  

Commentary: "Irish EU Treaty Vote Threatens Chaos" [03/01/12] "Ireland has shocked Europe with plans for a referendum on the EU’s fiscal treaty, a move that risks an unprecedented fragmentation of the eurozone and a major clash with Germany. Premier Enda Kenny said Dublin was acting on legal advice from Ireland’s attorney-general that “on balance” the fiscal compact requires a vote under the country’s constitution. “It gives the Irish people the opportunity to reaffirm Ireland’s commitment to membership of the euro,” he told ashen-faced members of the Dail. All three major parties back the treaty but analysts say there is a high risk of rejection by angry voters in the current fractious mood. The compact gives the EU intrusive powers to police the budgets of debtor states, and has been denounced as feudal bondage by Sinn Fein and Ireland’s vociferous eurosceptics. The Irish voted “No” to both the Nice and Lisbon treaties before being made to vote again. Dublin has ruled out a second vote this time. [...]" 

MSM: "Iran Moves Further To End Petrodollar, Announces Will Accept Payment In Gold Instead Of Dollars" [02/29/12] "Much has been spun in recent weeks to indicate that as a result of collapsing trade, Iran's economy is in shambles and that the financial embargo hoisted upon the country by the insolvent, pardon, developed world is working. We had a totally different perspective on things "A Very Different Take On The "Iran Barters Gold For Food" Story" in which we essentially said that Iran, with the complicity of major trading partners like China, India and Russia is preparing to phase out the petrodollar: a move which would be impossible if key bilateral trade partners would not agree to it. Gradually it appears this is increasingly the case following a just released Reuters report that "Iran will take payment from its trading partners in gold instead of dollars, the Iranian state news agency IRNA quoted the central bank governor as saying on Tuesday."  [...] China and India, two of the largest consumers of Iranian oil, have said they will continue imports, but Japan and Korea have announced cuts to quotas following pressure from the United States. As a result the value of Iran's rial has plummeted, pushing the price of goods sharply higher across the country.[...]"  

MSM: "S & P Declares Greece In Default" [02/29/12] "Greece became the first euro-zone member officially to be rated in default, 13 years after the single European currency was adopted to strengthen the European Union. Standard & Poor’s cut Greece’s long-term credit rating to selective default from double-C. The move was expected, as S&P said this month that it would consider Greece in default if it added “collective-action” clauses to its sovereign debt, effectively forcing all bondholders to accept a bond-swap offering. Greece’s Parliament approved that measure last week. Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings also are likely to place Greece in default. The ratings companies deem an issuer in default any time it fails to pay back creditors in full and on time. The bigger question remains whether the action triggers payments on credit-default-swap contracts, a form of insurance against a bond default or restructuring. The net payments that would change hands between buyers and sellers of credit-default swaps on Greece wouldn’t total more than an estimated $3.2 billion, according to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. A committee convened by the organization that oversees those contracts, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, has been asked by an unidentified entity to decide whether Greece’s restructuring should trigger the payouts. [...]"  

Interview: "Leading Economist: “We’re In a No Win Situation… This Is End of the World Type Stuff" [02/28/12] [8:08] "If you’re not yet convinced that the path we’re on leads to catastrophe, then consider watching the following interview with Daniel Ameduri (Future Money Trends) and John Williams (Shadow Stats). Ameduri asks the questions no mainstream reporter would dare to ask about the state of our economic, financial and monetary system and what the end result will look like. Economist John Williams responds by laying out a grim picture of how we got here and the impact we’ll soon experience in every facet of our lives. This is an interview that shouldn’t be missed. One of the leading experts on statistical analysis and economic theory in our country is giving us an outline of what’s coming and how to get ready for it. [...]"  Note: There are game limitations with all this, especially with respect to the amount of 'time' remaining here, since anything outside this year, specifically, will not manifest for the reincarnated retreads, who will be denied all they have amassed, in the end, and have to 'start over' on another world.

UK: "IMF Loansharks Smell Blood: Britain Has Run Out Of Money, Chancellor Warns" [02/28/12] "British Chancellor George Osborne has delivered a stark pre- budget assessment of the nation's finances, saying the country is "out of money." Osborne admitted his Coalition government could do little to stimulate the economy and told The (London) Daily Telegraph, "The British Government has run out of money because all the money was spent in the good years. The money and the investment and the jobs need to come from the private sector."  [...]"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report:(E254)" [02/10/12] [26:48] "Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert discuss market-participating rally monkeys, market-regulating surrender monkeys, economic policy-making suicide monkeys and Greek-ministry-website-hacking cheeky monkeys. In the second half of the show, Max talks to David Hales about ending top down Central Bank-imposed financial and economic systems with peer-to-peer economics. ...]" Note: Lower your volume before accessing report.

MSM: "G20 To Europe: Show Us The Money" [02/27/12] "Leading economies told Europe it must put up extra money to fight its debt crisis if it wants more help from the rest of the world, piling pressure on Germany to drop its opposition to a bigger European bailout fund. [...] German lawmakers, who vote on Monday on a second Greek bailout package, have argued that imposing fiscal discipline on indebted countries is far more important to regaining the confidence of markets and reviving economic growth than bigger rescue funds. Geithner disagreed. While Europe's actions so far have reduced the risks of a "catastrophic" financial crisis, more must be done, he said. [...] The G20 is racing to line up massive international resources worth nearly $2 trillion - including existing and new funds - possibly by late April. That would help to draw a line under the financial crisis that erupted in 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed, spawned the deepest U.S. recession since the 1930s and now has engulfed Europe's deeply indebted countries.[...]"  

UK: "HSBC Set To Reveal Huge Profits And Bonuses" [02/27/12] "Profits of more than £14 billion and a pay package worth up to £12.5 million for its chief executive are set to be revealed by HSBC . City analysts estimate that profits for 2011 could hit 22.3 billion US dollars (£14.1 billion), which would be among the biggest ever reported by a British company and close to its record of 24 billion US dollars set in 2007. Chief executive Stuart Gulliver could be awarded a total package worth up to £12.5 million as his £1.25 million salary will be boosted by a £3.75 million bonus and long-term incentives potentially worth up to £7.5 million. The final element will be in shares and cannot be sold until he retires or leaves HSBC. The banking giant makes an estimated 90% of its money outside Britain and has benefited from its exposure to emerging markets in Asia. It is expected to say that it will focus its efforts on growing economies such as China, while maintaining its market share in lower growth areas such as Europe [...]"  

MSM: "The Colonization Begins: Germany May Send 160 Tax Collectors To Greece" [02/26/12] "More than 160 German financial services executives are willing to come to Greece in order to strengthen the Greek tax mechanism, according to a report to be published in the German magazine 'Wirtschafts Woche', which will be released on Monday. The magazine cites German deputy finance minister Hans Bernhard Beus, who explains that a key factor is the knowledge of a foreign language - some of them speak Greek - while the return to active duty of retired tax collectors should not be ruled out. Many come from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, whose finance minister, Norbert Walter-Borjans, compares Greece's with 90s East Germany, noting that even the East Germans at the time were suspicious towards the West. "In Greece suspicion will be greater, in part because of the inappropriate language used by some in Germany," he said. The article also refers to a confidential report from the European Commission, according to which the mechanism of tax collection in Greece is especially problematic [...]"  

MSM: "Debt Doomsday May Come Sooner Than Expected" [02/25/12] "The federal government could hit the debt ceiling sooner than expected — and possibly around the November election — according to a report out Friday. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill had hoped that last summer’s deal to end the nasty fight over lifting the debt ceiling would ensure the issue wouldn’t resurface until at least 2013. But the Bipartisan Policy Center said Friday that the debt-limit doomsday could come earlier than that. Analysts from the Bipartisan Policy Center projected that the United States will hit its $16.4 trillion debt ceiling between late November 2012 and early January 2013 due to lower-than-expected corporate tax revenues and the recent extension of the payroll tax holiday. [...]"  Related: "America’s Per Capita Government Debt Worse Than Greece" "The office of Senator Jeff Sessions, ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, sends along this chart, showing that ‘America’s Per Capita Government Debt Worse Than Greece,’ as well as Ireland, Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain… [...]"  

Canada: "Bank Of Canada Warns Home Equity Loans Pose Threat To Financial Security " [02/24/12]   "Canadians are becoming increasingly vulnerable to a housing correction, exposing them to a perfect storm of high debt and falling assets, the Bank of Canada warns. In a book of four research papers released Thursday, the central bank suggests many Canadians have constructed their finances on a house of cards, with ever rising home values the key and vulnerable support. The bank economists point out that home prices have risen sharply in the past dozen or so years along with debt, as households needed both bigger mortgages to buy homes and used equity from higher home values to finance other purchases. [...] The bank does not suggest a U.S.-style housing collapse for Canada is in the offing, nor does Alexander. A big part of the problem south of the border was due to easy credit conditions, something Canadian banks have avoided. But the bank's economists are clearly concerned nevertheless about the pitfalls from the steady increase in household debt, which has risen as a percentage of income from 110 per cent in 1999 to 153 per cent currently. [...]"

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Rich Guys Totally Observe You (E253)" [02/10/12] [25:45] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss Lloyd Blankfein's suicide twinkie vest, Iceland's parliamentary pelting, manipulation of Libor rates and rampant foreclosure abuse. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Shir Hever about price tagging in Area C of the West Bank and about destroying the competition in Gaza.[...]" 

Commentary: "How The Government Enables Wall Street Parasites To Cash In On The Crisis" [02/24/12] "As the Obama administration concludes a settlement with five major banks, quashing state investigations into rampant fraud related to home foreclosures, speculation in the mortgage-backed securities that caused the 2008 meltdown is once again picking up. Saturday's New York Times reported that Greg Lippmann, a former Deutsche Bank trader who made millions of dollars personally and $1.5 billion for Deutsche Bank by betting against mortgage-backed securities, at the same time his bank was selling them to clients, is back in business buying and selling these toxic assets. The article noted that others resuming trading in these assets include American International Group (AIG), the insurance giant that was bailed out by the government to the tune of $100 billion, and a former mortgage team from Lehman Brothers, the Wall Street investment bank whose collapse triggered the global financial panic on September 15, 2008. [...]"  

Legal Case: "SEC Sues Chinese Coal Executives" [02/24/12] "The SEC claims the chairman of the board and the CEO of Puda Coal duped investors into investing in an empty shell after swiping the company's assets in a reverse merger [...] In a reverse merger, companies buy an empty corporate shell and use it to short-circuit the public registration process. The SEC says in its federal complaint that Puda Coal Chairman Ming Zhao colluded with former CEO Liping Zhu to steal and sell Puda Coal's only revenue-producing asset, the Shanxi Puda Coal Group.[...]"    

Commentary: "Fed Rule Writing Shrouded in Secrecy" [02/22/12] "The Federal Reserve has been busily rewriting the rules of the financial system for years now, and it's been doing almost all of it behind closed doors. The Fed has held 47 votes on new regulations since Dodd-Frank was passed in July 2010, and only two of those were at public meetings; in the rest, votes were cast via email, and the details of those votes disclosed to the public only last week when the Wall Street Journal requested them. The Journal notes that while the closed meetings are legal, they do represent a sea change: In the 1980s and 1990s, the Fed held as many as 31 public meetings annually. Fed officials say public meetings tend to be scripted affairs that shine little light on the process anyway, and note that they're still giving the public as many as 90 days to comment on rules. But among the Fed's recent discloses was a dissent from one Fed governor on a regulation related to the Volcker rule; it was made public Feb. 14, the day after the public comment period on the proposal had closed, depriving public commenters of a valuable perspective. "I can't think of any justification" for that, says the official directing the Fed's rule-writing work [...]" 

MSM: "Greek 'Rescue' Leaves Risk of Default Alive in Europe as Austerity Deepens" [02/22/12] "Europe is still struggling to avoid the threat of default as investors warned Greece will soon risk violating the terms of its second bailout in three years. Seven months of negotiations ended in the pre-dawn hours in Brussels with Greece winning 130 billion euros ($172 billion) in aid it needs to avoid a March bankruptcy. Any respite may prove temporary after it signed up to a program of austerity and economic reform aimed at slashing debt to 120.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2020 from about 160 percent last year.  [...]"  

Commentary: "China’s War Chest: China Sets Up Fund To Bankroll Takeovers" [02/21/12] "Boasting $3.2 trillion in foreign currency reserves, China has created a new fund aimed at financing takeover bids abroad. The fund also seeks to boost China’s currency in global financial markets. In its drive to step up overseas investment, the Chinese government has set up a new fund worth 12 billion yuan ($1.9 billion), Shanghai International Group said in a statement Friday. Shanghai International said it was responsible for running the fund, describing it as China’s “biggest ever fund of its kind.” [...]"  

Commentary: "Leaked Memo Blows The Lid Off Of The Entire Greek Bailout" [02/21/12] "At least Europe is no longer in denial about the effects of austerity in Greece, and the ability for the country to improve its economic situation via drastic cuts. Peter Spiegel at FT has obtained a confidential 10-page memo distributed to senior officials in Europe over the last week, which lays it out the truth: It warned that two of the new bail-out’s main principles might be self-defeating. Forcing austerity on Greece could cause debt levels to rise by severely weakening the economy while its €200bn debt restructuring could prevent Greece from ever returning to the financial markets by scaring off future private investors. “Prolonged financial support on appropriate terms by the official sector may be necessary,” the report said. What's more -- and this Spiegel puts in a follow-up blog post -- all the economic assumptions being used are too rosy, further rendering prospects of a successful bailout unlikely. He also has some excerpts from the note, including reasonable downside expectations if things don't go swimmingly: [...]"  

MSM: "Greece Awaits Bailout Decision" [02/21/12] "Eurozone governments hoped to sign off on Monday a long-awaited rescue package for Greece, saving it from a potentially calamitous bankruptcy next month, but several key points of division remained, senior officials said. Finance ministers meeting in Brussels were still wrangling over how to further reduce Greece's debt load and impose even tighter control over the country's spending, and the meeting was expected to stretch late into the night. Rich countries like Germany and the Netherlands and the International Monetary Fund want to be sure that Athens can eventually survive without aid. But after months of delays, time for Greece is running out. The country needs to secure the euro130 billion ($170 billion) bailout so it can move ahead with a related euro100 billion ($130 billion) debt relief deal with private investors. That deal needs to be in place quickly if Athens is to avoid a disorderly default on a bond repayment on March 20. [...]"  

Commentary: "SEC Widens Probe Of Exchange-Traded Funds" [02/21/12] "U.S. securities regulators have widened their inquiry into the trillion-dollar market for exchange- traded funds, according to a person familiar with the matter. Prompted by a delay in a big trade at a popular ETF, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is taking a closer look at a possible connection between high-frequency traders and hedge funds jumping in and out of ETFs, and instances where ETF trades fail to settle on time, this person said. [...]"  

Commentary: "How Credit Ratings Agencies Rule The World" [02/20/12] "Britain's credit rating took a knock this week, when Moody's expressed a 'negative outlook' for the national economy. But who are the mysterious agencies who take it upon themselves to grade everything from countries to corporations – and how much power do they really wield? [...]"  

10 High Profile Resignations At Banks Across The World In The Past 2 Weeks: [02/20/12] World Bank CEO Zoellick resigns | Anz Bank CFO Australia resigns | Credit Suisse Chief Joseph Tan resigns | Kuwait Central Bank CEO resigns | Slovenia TWO largest Banks CEO's (2) resign | Bank of India CEO Chaturvedi resigns

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Rich Guys Totally Observe You (E251)" [02/10/12] [25:46] "We discuss the riches made monitoring the population and the pittance paid for agreeing to be monitored. The also discuss the Serious Organised Crime Agency threatening to monitor Stacy for following a link while Max envisions a future in which granny gets it. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Charles Hugh Smith of OfTwoMinds.com about social fractals, tanking energy consumption and a citizenship futures market. [...]" 

Interviews: "Nigel Farage Speaks to Greece: You're Being Destroyed by the "Economic Prison" of the Euro " [02/19/12]   [6:59] "UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage interviewed by Greek Television. The EURO and the EU dictatorship is destroying Greece [...]" 

Commentary: "Record $6 Trillion of Fake U.S. Bonds Seized In Switzerland Mafia Probe" [02/18/12] "Italian anti-mafia prosecutors said they seized a record $6 trillion of allegedly fake U.S. Treasury bonds, an amount that’s almost half of the U.S.’s public debt. The bonds were found hidden in makeshift compartments of three safety deposit boxes in Zurich, the prosecutors from the southern city of Potenza said in an e-mailed statement. The Italian authorities arrested eight people in connection with the probe, dubbed “Operation Vulcanica,” the prosecutors said. The U.S. embassy in Rome has examined the securities dated 1934, which had a nominal value of $1 billion apiece, they said in the statement. “Thanks to Italian authorities for the seizure of fictitious bonds for $6 trillion,” the embassy said in a message on Twitter. The financial fraud uncovered by the Italian prosecutors in Potenza includes two checks issued through HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) in London for 205,000 pounds ($325,000), checks that weren’t backed by available funds, the prosecutors said. As part of the probe, fake bonds for $2 billion were also seized in Rome. The individuals involved were planning to buy plutonium from Nigerian sources, according to phone conversations monitored by the police. The fraud posed “severe threats” to international financial stability, the prosecutors said in the statement. HSBC spokesman Patrick Humphris in London declined to comment when contacted by telephone. The U.S. Secret Service assisted the Italian authorities, spokesman Edwin Donovan said.  [...] Creating fake Treasuries is a “common scam, especially in Italy,” he said. The tipoff was the “astronomical” face value of each bond, he said. Fake bonds in high denominations are more common in Europe, where people are less familiar with the face value of U.S. Treasury bonds than in the U.S., he said. Zurich’s public prosecutor’s office provided material to their Italian counterparts in Potenza in 2011, according to Corinne Bouvard, a spokeswoman for the senior public prosecutor’s office of the canton of Zurich. The Swiss part of the investigation ended on July 22, she said. [...] "  Related: "Why Were The Trillions In Fake Bonds Held In Chicago Fed Crates?" "While there is precious little in terms of detail coming out of the latest and literally greatest "fake" bond story in history, the BBC has been kind enough to release the pictures of the boxes that the supposedly fake bonds were contained in. While we reserve judgment on the authenticity of the bonds, what we wonder is whether the boxes were also fake. Because while we can understand why someone would counterfeit the Treasury paper itself, what we don't get is why someone would go the extra effort to also create a "fake" compartment in which to store it. In this case a compartment that is property of the "CHICAGO FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM." Perhaps Fed uberdove and Chicago Fed President Charles Evans will be kind enough to explain why Versailles Treaty Chicago Fed crates are floating around in Europe (and filled with $6 trillion in supposedly fake bearer bonds)? [...]" | "$2 Trillion In Fake U.S. Bonds Seized In The Southern Philippines." 2011 "Officials said today they have seized more than $2 trillion in counterfeit U.S. Federal Reserve bonds and arrested one suspect in the southern Philippines. Police also showed reporters stacks of counterfeit Japanese yen and Argentine peso notes in various denominations, a few fake one-dollar bills and some other currencies seized Saturday. Police and staff from the U.S. Embassy arrested a Filipino man in the southern city of Cagayan de Oro with the falsified currencies and U.S. bonds along with German and Argentine bonds — a total counterfeit haul of $2,157,044,400,000.  [...] The fakes were of "very good quality" but some of the bond denominations do not exist, said David Popp, a U.S. Treasury Department representative. The U.S. bonds, totaling more $2 trillion, were in denominations ranging from tens of thousands of dollars to $500 million. The bonds of other countries were in denominations as small as $30. [...] The raid follows two other large-scale seizures in Mindanao in December 1999 and February 2000, when a combined $110 billion in "good quality" fake bonds and currency were found. [...]" 

Commentary: "Statements by James Blackheath, House of Lords"  [02/18/12] "Video Of Blackheath's Speech" [11:10]  16 Feb 2012 : Column 1016 5.20 pm... "I have been engaged in pursuit of this issue for nearly two years and I am no further forward in getting to the truth. There are three possible conclusions which may come from it. First, there may have been a massive piece of money-laundering committed by a major Government who should know better. Effectively, it undermined the integrity of a British bank, the Royal Bank of Scotland, in doing so. The second possibility is that a major American department has an agency which has gone rogue on it because it has been wound up and has created a structure out of which it is seeking to get at least €50 billion as a pay-off. The third possibility is that this is an extraordinarily elaborate fraud, which has not been carried out, but which has been prepared to provide a threat to one Government or more if they do not make a pay-off. These three possibilities need an urgent review. In April and May 2009, the situation started with the alleged transfer of $5 trillion to HSBC in the United Kingdom. Seven days later, another $5 trillion came to HSBC and three weeks later another $5 trillion. A total of $15 trillion is alleged to have been passed into the hands of HSBC for onward transit to the Royal Bank of Scotland. We need to look to where this came from and the history of this money. I have been trying to sort out the sequence by which this money has been created and where it has come from for a long time. It starts off apparently as the property of Yohannes Riyadi, who has some claims to be considered the richest man in the world. He would be if all the money that was owed to him was paid but I have seen some accounts of his showing that he owns $36 trillion in a bank. It is a ridiculous sum of money. However, $36 trillion would be consistent with the dynasty from which he comes and the fact that it had been effectively the emperors of Indo-China in times gone by. A lot of that money has been taken away from him, with his consent, by the American Treasury over the years for the specific purpose of helping to support the dollar. Mr Riyadi has sent me a remarkable document dated February 2006 in which [...] Either we have a huge amount of tax uncollected on profits made or we have a vast amount of money festering away in the European banking system which is not real money, in which case we need to take it back. I ask for an investigation and for noble Lords to support my plea."  Note: The material "16 Feb 2012 : Column 1016 5.20 pm Lord James of Blackheath" is near the bottom of the page at the link. Related: Flashback: "Did Somebody Just Try to Buy the British Government?" 2010 [11:22] Note: It’s in the Lords Hansard. Scroll down to 1 Nov 2010 : Column 1538. | "Mystery of Fake U.S. Bonds Fuels Web Theories " 6/2009 NYT "Ever since two middle-aged men with Japanese passports were caught in Italy this month trying to smuggle a purported $134.5 billion in United States government bearer bonds into Switzerland, the Internet has been abuzz with theories. Was the Japanese government, or some other creditor nation, secretly trying to dump Treasury bonds to drive down the value of the dollar? Had the Italian mafia stolen the equivalent of 1 percent of the American gross domestic product, using the paper, which supposedly was instantly convertible into cash, to run a giant scam?  [...]" More 

MSM: "Fed Member: US Banks Must Be Broken Up For Stability" [02/18/12] "Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said on Wednesday that the largest American banks still posed a major risk to the US and were "too dangerous to permit". In a speech in New York, Mr Fisher said: "Downsizing the behemoths over time into institutions that can be prudently managed and regulated across borders is the appropriate policy response. Then, creative destruction can work its wonders in the financial sector, just as it does elsewhere in our economy." He warned that the US banking had "become more concentrated" with five of the largest banks accounting for half the industry's assets. "Sustaining too big-to-fail-ism and maintaining the cocoon of protection of SIFIs [systemically important financial institutions] is counter-productive, expensive and socially questionable. Perhaps the financial equivalent of irreversible lap-band or gastric bypass surgery is the only way to treat the pathology of financial obesity, contain the relentless expansion of these banks and downsize them to manageable proportions," said Mr Fisher. Since the financial crisis regulators have frequently discussed the problem of too-big-to-fail banks. In the UK, the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) last year recommended reforms designed to reduce the risk posed to the British economy by the country's largest banks.  [...]"    Note: All of this bespeaks of a time that would never come, since the game is essentially over .... Nationalization of the Fed would be the next step, but they want to stay in charge.

MSM: "Vatican Told To Pay Taxes As Italy Tackles Budget Crisis" [02/18/12] "End of controversial property tax breaks leaves the Pope facing €600m-a-year bill [...] After several years of scandal in which the Catholic Church has faced allegations of financial impropriety, paedophile priests and rumours of plots to kill the Pope, the Vatican is now facing a new €600m-a-year tax bill as Rome seeks to head off European Commission censure over controversial property tax breaks enjoyed by the Church. As the EC heads closer to officially condemning the fiscal perks enjoyed by the Catholic Church and introduced by the Berlusconi administration, Prime Minister Mario Monti has written to the Competition Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, saying that the Vatican will resume property tax, or Ici, payments. [...]"  

MSM: "Traders Suspended In Growing Scandal Of 'Manipulation Of Rates'" [02/18/12] "Swiss bank UBS has suspended some of its traders in connection with a growing scandal over the alleged manipulation of rates which determine how much we pay for loans and mortgages. An unspecified number of traders at UBS were suspended last year and another group followed in late January, according to reports. This is the latest twist in an international probe which has been dragging on for over a year. Regulators are investigating allegations that banks have been manipulating crucial interbank lending rates which help determine how much we pay for mortgages and loans.  [...]" 

MSM: "China Wants Say In World Bank Choice" [02/17/12] "China has said that the next World Bank president should be chosen on merit, seeking to challenge a tradition that the bank’s chief be a US citizen, though it did not suggest a candidate. Robert Zoellick said on Wednesday that he would step down in June at the end of a five-year term as bank president. Speculation has focused on Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, and Larry Summers, former White House chief economic adviser, as potential successors. Emerging markets have said before that there is no justification for the custom of reserving the bank’s top position for an American. Some wonder whether China, the world’s second-largest economy, might put forward a candidate. “China hopes that the next president of the World Bank will be selected based on the principle of merit in an open and fair competition,” Liu Weimin, foreign ministry spokesman, said in a news briefing. That was also China’s position last year when the International Monetary Fund was searching for a new chief, a job which has traditionally gone to a European. However, Beijing did not proposed a candidate for that position and, in the end, it supported the appointment of France’s Christine Lagarde. [...]" 

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Tombstone Austerity & the John Brown Moment (E249)" [02/15/12] [25:45] "We discuss tear gas and deja vu for financial crimes and tombstone austerity. In the second half of the show, Max talks to James Howard Kunstler of Kunstler.com about the John Brown moment in America and the control fraud of media.[...]" 

MSM: "States, Cities Gutted Spending in 2011" [02/14/12] "The final three months of 2011 saw states, cities, and school districts making their biggest spending cuts in a decade, USA Today reports. Spending dropped 1.6% from the same period the year before, plummeting by $26 billion. The result: States are seeing their smallest shortfalls in years, and in some cases they're even seeing surpluses. The cuts' biggest targets were Medicaid; public-sector jobs, which were cut by 3.4% since August 2008; and infrastructure spending, which dropped 4% in 2010 and 2011. The data marks a reversal of a trend toward overall spending growth since the recession. Now, "the majority of states have a stable to positive outlook," says an analyst. States kept their expectations low, planning for a lower-than-forecast 1.9% boost in general fund revenue. What's more, "states and local governments did not have a recession, and certainly not the deep recession the private sector experienced," notes an expert. And with federal stimulus cash shrinking, sales tax has regained its position as the biggest source of state income. [...]"

Legal Case: "Big Changes in Store for EU Derivatives Trading" [02/14/12] "Traders in most European over-the-counter derivatives will have to use a central counterparty to clear their trades under sweeping reforms approved by the European Commission and the European Parliament. [...] 

Buffoonery: "Congress Debt Ceiling Debacle May Repeat Before Presidential Election" [02/14/12] "Last year's torturous congressional debate over raising the federal debt ceiling eventually resulted in a deal that President Barack Obama and congressional leaders believed would keep the federal government funded through the 2012 elections. Not so fast. In what one top congressional aide calls a "nightmare scenario," the federal government could wind up hitting the debt ceiling at the height of the presidential campaign. The Treasury Department is now contemplating the prospect of invoking "extraordinary measures" to keep the government funded through November. Barring a major economic shock -- a financial meltdown in Europe, for instance -- the emergency measures should be enough to get the federal government past the election. But even under a rosy scenario, the next Congress will be forced to raise the debt ceiling as one of its first orders of business in 2013, if the lame duck outgoing body doesn't do it. And if the Treasury does have to invoke "extraordinary measures" before the election, it's easy to imagine a re-run of last year's political circus, magnified many times over. [...]"  Note: I seriously wonder if we'll even make it that far.

Commentary: "National Mortgage Settlement: Some States Using Mortgage Deal Funds To Close Budget Gaps" [02/13/12] "Well, that was fast. Two states have already announced that they won't be using all of their share of the $25 billion allocated in Thursday's historic foreclosure settlement to pay its intended recipients -- the homeowners and borrowers who saw the housing market collapse beneath their feet. Instead, in some areas, a share of those dollars is likely to be diverted to state budgets, in a bid to offset some of the massive deficits that states have been struggling with since the economic downturn, according to reports. In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker and state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen have announced plans to use $25.6 million of the settlement money -- about 18 percent of the $140 million Wisconsin will get in total -- to plug holes in the state's budget, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. As the MJS notes, this is a reversal of Walker's previous opposition to using legal settlements to close budget gaps. Meanwhile, in Missouri, state Attorney General Chris Koster has said that he plans to put $40 million of Missouri's settlement money -- about 20 percent of the total $196 million -- into the general state fund, apparently in response to Governor Jay Nixon's call for a stronger college and university budget, Stateline reported. [...]"  

Commentary: "The Cost Of The Combined Greek Bailout Just Rose To €320 Billion In Secured Debt, Or 136% Of Greek GDP" [02/13/12] "Some of our German readers may be laboring under the impression that following the €110 billion first Greek bailout agreed upon and executed in May 2010, the second Greek bailout would cost a “mere” €130 billion. Alas we have news for you – as of this morning, the formal cost of rescuing Greece for the adjusted adjusted adjusted second time has just risen to €145 billion, €175 billion, a whopping €210 billion, bringing the total explicit cost of all Greek bailout funds to date (and many more in store) to €320 billion. Which incidentally is a little more than Greek GDP (which however is declining rapidly) at 310 billion, only in dollars. So as of today, merely the ratio of the Greek DIP loan (Debtor In Possession, because Greece is after all broke) has reached a whopping ratio of 136% Debt to GDP. This excludes any standing debt which is for all intents and purposes worthless. This is secured debt, which means that if every dollar in assets generating one dollar in GDP were to be liquidated and Greece sold off entirely in part or whole to Goldman Sachs et al, there would still be a 36% shortfall to the Troika, EFSF, ECB and whoever else funds the DIP loan (i.e., European and US taxpayers)! Another way of putting this disturbing fact is that global bankers now have a priming lien on 136% of Greek GDP - the entire country and then some now officially belongs to the world banking syndicate.  [...]" 

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: (E248)" [02/10/12] [25:00] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert discuss the gold standard extremism and how your dollar got to be worth just 3.8 cents. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Francine McKenna of reTheAuditors.com about the crimes and illegitimate activity of the MF Global collapse. [...]" 

MSM: "Rothschild Loses Libel Case, And Reveals Secret World Of Money And Politics" [02/12/12] "It began on Mr Rothschild's private jet from the World Economic Forum in Davos to Moscow, where they met Mr Deripaska, the aluminium plant manager who became the richest oligarch of them all, and continued on Mr Deripaska's private jet to his chalet in Siberia, where "to beat jet lag" they were whipped with birch leaves before plunging themselves into icy water – a traditional Siberian banya. Less salacious, but seemingly more sordid, was an earlier dinner at Cantinetta Antinori, a fashionable Tuscan restaurant in Moscow. Mr Deripaska, the Mail had claimed, was dining with executives from the US aluminium giant Alcoa, negotiating a £250m deal to buy two of Mr Deripaska's aluminium plants, at which a stumbling block was an EU import tariff on Russian aluminium. Enter Lord Mandelson, then a lowly Mister, but at the time the EU Trade Commissioner. The deal is done, costing several hundred British jobs, and the tariffs come down. Mr Rothschild claimed the trip was "purely recreational", and Associated Newspapers had to admit during litigation that it couldn't be sure that Mr Mandelson had joined Mr Deripaska at dinner or whether aluminium tariffs were discussed, and in fact the deal had been struck before Mr Mandelson and Mr Rothschild arrived in Moscow. But for Mr Justice Tugenhadt, recreation it was not.The banker and Bullingdon boy has lost his libel case against the Daily Mail, which he sued for "substantial damages" over its account of his and Mr Mandelson's extraordinary trip to Russia in January 2005. Mr Rothschild claimed he was subjected to "sustained and unjustified" attacks in the May 2010 article, which portrayed him as a "puppet master", dangling his friend Lord Mandelson in front of the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to ease the passage of colossal business deals. [...]"  

Concepts and Practices: "Warren Buffett: Gold Has No Value" [02/12/12] "Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has dismissed gold as a valueless asset saying that it has no inherent value. In an article for Fortune magazine, Buffett said that gold investors were pinning their hopes on future demand. He warned that gold was a self-inflating bubble, created by investors desperate for a viable alternative to property and shares. The infamous investor warned that investors in gold would be left with egg on their face when the price eventually crashed. "Bubbles blown large enough inevitably pop," he said. "And then the old proverb is confirmed once again: "What the wise man does in the beginning, the fool does in the end." Buffett's attack comes as private bank Coutts predicts that the gold price will hit "new highs" by the end of 2012. In a report from the bank, that counts the Queen among its clients, gold is confirmed as a "key asset in investment portfolios". Coutts said: "The easing of global monetary conditions in response to the liquidity squeeze in the latter part of 2011 has boosted gold. "Some further stimulus measures could now be postponed by an improving economic outlook, at least in the US. Nonetheless, negative real returns, adjusted for risk, are undermining confidence in major currencies as a store of value. We expect gold prices to hit new highs by year end." Meanwhile, gold fell more than 1 pc on Friday, hurt by a slide in the euro after a Greek party leader said he couldn't back the 130-billion euro bailout deal the country needs to avoid going bankrupt, which comes at the cost of painful austerity measures. [...]"  Note: Well, it can't be an asset unless it has intrinsic value of some kind, Warren. The physical properties of gold, no matter which isotope, make it a valuable resource everywhere.

MSM: "Geopolitical Risk and Opportunity: Outlook 2012" Merrill Lynch [02/12/12] [15:53] "Massive shifts in the geopolitical landscape will continue into 2012. Our panel of experts discusses the major events shaping world economies in the coming year. [...]"  

MSM: "S&P Downgrades 34 Italian Banks" [02/11/12] "Rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded 34 Italian banks on Friday, including heavyweights UniCredit (CRDI.MI) and Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP.MI), citing a reduced ability to roll over their wholesale debt and expected weak profitability. The move follows S&P's downgrade of Italy's sovereign rating last month to BBB+, part of a mass downgrade of nine euro zone countries. In a statement, S&P said its so-called Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment had worsened to group 4 from group 3 -- out of 10 groups -- reflecting its more negative view on Italy's banking system. "Italy's vulnerability to external financing risks has increased, given its high external public debt, resulting in Italian banks' significantly diminished ability to roll over their wholesale debt," it said. [...]" 

Commentary: "Europe's Top-Secret Plan For Solving The Crisis Is Completely Worthless" [02/10/12]   "At last, European leaders have revealed their top-secret plan for solving the euro’s crisis. And it is – drum roll – a version of the “Tobin tax,” a levy on financial transactions first suggested in 1972 by the Nobel laureate economist James Tobin. Now, 40 years later, the European Commission has proposed – and French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have endorsed – a turnover tax on all financial transactions, varying from 0.1% on stocks to 0.01% on financial derivatives like futures and credit-default swaps. If the tax can’t be imposed globally or even Europe-wide, France and Germany will go it alone. Given Sarkozy’s enthusiasm for the tax, there is even talk of France adopting it unilaterally. But how, exactly, a tax on financial transactions would help to cure Europe’s ills is unclear. According to the European Commission’s own estimates, it would raise only about €50 billion ($65.7 billion) a year, even if imposed throughout the European Union. This is a pittance compared to the eurozone’s debts and deficits, and would fall far short of funding Europe’s permanent rescue facility, the European Stability Mechanism, which is supposed to be capitalized to the tune of €500 billion. Moreover, the Commission’s €50 billion estimate surely overstates the prospective receipts. If France imposes the tax unilaterally, trading in equities and derivatives will simply migrate to Frankfurt. If it is limited to the eurozone, transactions will move to London. And if it is adopted by all EU member states – a fanciful scenario, given British resistance – the market will simply migrate to New York and Singapore. European leaders claim that they can create mechanisms to ensure that their residents pay the tax, regardless of where trades are booked. But banks are widely reported to be devising new instruments to enable their clients to avoid the tax. On whom would you bet – the tax authorities or the financial engineers? [...]"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Black Holes & Gold Hills (E247)" [02/10/12] [25:42] "We discuss the latest discoveries of blackholes in the financial universe and the populations growing permanently poorer as a result. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Dr. Yanis Varoufakis about financial horror, a currency from which you can’t escape and the Greek situation. [...]" 

Commentary: "The Insiders Are Selling Heavily" [02/10/12] "Corporate insiders are now selling their companies’ stock at a rate not seen since late last July. That’s a scary parallel indeed, since that late-July spike in selling came just days before one of the more painful two-week periods in the stock market in years. In early August, as you may recall, the U.S. government lost its triple-A credit rating, and the bottom dropped out of the stock market. Between the last week of July and the second week of August, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 2,000 points. To be sure, heavy insider selling doesn’t always lead to this much market weakness, or this immediately. And there were a lot of other things going on last summer that aren’t present today. Still, on the theory that corporate insiders — officers, directors and largest shareholders — know more about their firms’ prospects than do the rest of us, it can’t be good news that they are selling at such a heavy pace. Consider a ratio calculated by Argus Research of the number of shares insiders have sold in the open market to the number that they have bought. Last week, according to the latest issue of Argus’ service, the Vickers Weekly Insider Report, this sell-to-buy ratio stood at 5.77-to-1. And among insiders at companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange, this ratio was even more lopsided at 8.2-to-1. Making these recent readings even more worrisome, according to Argus Research, is that they came on markedly stepped-up activity among corporate insiders. This increases our confidence that the ratio accurately reflects prevailing sentiment among a broad cross-section of the insiders.  [...]"  

MSM: "Romanian Government Collapses Amid Public Outrage Over Austerity" [02/09/12] "The Romanian government collapsed Monday after weeks of protests over biting cuts meant to keep outside funding flowing to the troubled nation. Prime Minister Emil Boc said he and his Cabinet were resigning “to defuse political and social tension,” the Associated Press reported. Opposition leaders are calling on President Traian Basescu to step down as well. Crin Antonescu, who heads the opposition Liberal Party, called it “the most corrupt, incompetent and lying government” since the 1989 revolt against communism, the report said. Austerity has become the watchword in Europe, where governments have been cutting back and trying to rein in debt to help restore faith in the battered euro currency. Spain, for example, crafted a nearly $20-billion package of cuts and tax increases and even cut back on puentes, an extra vacation day slipped in when holidays fall on a Tuesday or Thursday to make a long weekend, Lauren Frayer reported for The Times. Such austerity cuts are often a tit-for-tat for strapped nations' financial survival: Romania made sweeping cuts to secure a $26-billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the World Bank to keep paying salaries as its economy shrank. Sales taxes were hiked from 19% to 24%. Government workers took a 25% pay cut.  But in Romania and elsewhere, such deep cuts are deeply unpopular. Italy was racked with strikes in December before its lawmakers hiked taxes and put off pension payments. In Greece, workers clad in black are holding marches almost daily, Anthee Carassava has reported for The Times. Greeks argue that the austerity measures just aren’t fixing its tottering economy: "One minute we're being told to do one thing; then, they tell us something else. Then, they modify that with something different, and in the end, it's scrapped and replaced with something even more brutal," said Nikos Tassos, a carpet salesman in Marathon. "It's nerve-racking," he said. "Does anyone really know where this is all heading?" [...]" 

Commentary: "Greece: 'There's No More Left To Cut' - Thousands Of Greeks Protest Over The 'Asphyxiating Pressure'" [02/09/12] " ... Several thousand demonstrators from the public and private-sector unions braved the heavy rainfall, gathering outside Parliament to voice their opposition at the latest proposed measures to secure a €130bn (£108bn) bailout package. Minor clashes broke out when protesters tried to remove a cordon near the parliament building. Police sprayed tear gas and at times clashed with strikers, whose anger intensified overnight when a further 15,000 job cuts were announced. Since the onset of the crisis, the austerity drive has sent unemployment to a record high of 18.2 per cent and the country's finances into a spiral of recession. Despite the deepening pain, crowds at protests have increasingly dwindled.  [...]"  Related: "Greece Axing 15K Public Jobs" [02/08/12] "As politicians in the US debate the merits of smaller government, Greece's creditors are forcing it to shrink its public sector. Greece has agreed to cut 15,000 government jobs by the end of this year, and 150,000—a fifth of the total—by the end of 2015. Greece's constitution protects public sector workers from being fired, so the cuts will have to come from forced retirements, and from the shrinking or even elimination of some public sector entities, the New York Times notes.  [...]"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: It’s All Legal, Folks! (E246)" [02/08/12] [25:45] "We discuss the supercommittee that runs America, the perils of Draghi’s “blitz” and the IMF turnaround on austerity for Greece. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Gonzalo Lira about austerity, printing and running.[...]" 

UK: "Chancellor George Osborne Takes On 'Anti-Business Culture' " [02/08/12]   "Chancellor Of The Exchequer George Osborne has vowed to fight an "anti-business culture" in the UK, warning that the row over bonuses and pay threatens to undermine the jobs and prosperity provided by the free market economy. The chancellor's comments came as Labour sought to keep up the pressure on David Cameron over "excessive" City pay, using a House of Commons debate to demand a repeat of the tax on bankers' bonuses. Shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna dismissed suggestions that Labour was being "anti-business" by focusing on the massive rewards handed out to some of those at the top of the financial sector. Large bonuses in banks bailed out by the taxpayer should be paid only when they reflect "genuinely exceptional performance", he said. [...]"  

Commentary:  "Obama Freezes Iranian Government, Central Bank Assets in U.S." [02/07/12] "Obama has ordered new sanctions on the Islamic republic, including its Central Bank, in a move to enforce a law he signed in December. In a letter to Congress Monday, Obama said the tougher sanctions are warranted “particularly in light of the deceptive practices of the Central Bank of Iran and other Iranian banks.” He said the problems included the hiding transactions of sanctioned parties, the deficiencies of Iran’s anti-money laundering regime and the unacceptably high risk posed to the entire international financial system posed by Iran’s activities. The Central Bank sanctions were included as an amendment in the wide-ranging defense bill Obama signed into law at the end of 2011. The White House said Obama signed the executive order approving the sanctions on Sunday, well ahead of the six-month window he was afforded in the defense bill. Obama’s fresh swipe at Tehran come as the White House tries to both ratchet up pressure on the Islamic republic to abandon its nuclear program and dissuade Israel from launching a unilateral strike on Iran, a move that could roil the Middle East and jolt the global economy. [...]"  Related: "Executive Order -- Blocking Property of the Government of Iran and Iranian Financial Institutions"  

MSM: "Nigel Farage: 'For Greece It's Diplomacy At Gunpoint, And Portugal Is Next'" [02/06/12] [2:35] " Brussels, 1 February 2012 [...]"  Note: Transcript

MSM: "States Seek Currencies Made of Silver and Gold" [02/05/12] "A growing number of states are seeking shiny new currencies made of silver and gold. Worried that the Federal Reserve and the U.S. dollar are on the brink of collapse, lawmakers from 13 states, including Minnesota, Tennessee, Iowa, South Carolina and Georgia, are seeking approval from their state governments to either issue their own alternative currency or explore it as an option. Just three years ago, only three states had similar proposals in place. “In the event of hyperinflation, depression, or other economic calamity related to the breakdown of the Federal Reserve System … the State’s governmental finances and private economy will be thrown into chaos,” said North Carolina Republican Representative Glen Bradley in a currency bill he introduced last year. [...]" 

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: The Vaporized And The Deleted (E245)" [02/05/12] [25:44] "We discuss the vaporized and the deleted – the new American soap opera in which the assets, wealth, jobs and economy of the 99% have been stolen. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Daniel Collins of TheChinaMoneyReport.com about China’s imports of gold and their recent purchases of Germany’s legendary mittelstands. [...]" 

Commentary: "Counterfeit Value Derivatives: Follow the Bouncing Ball" [02/05/12] "Here is how the counterfeit value derivative con works. It’s a game of “I pretend, you pretend, we all pretend, and the taxpayer will pay in the end”.  [...]"  Note: Very succinct.

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Chutzpah Economics (E244)" [02/04/12] [25:45] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss chutzpah economics, unrequited transfers and shakedowns. In the second half of the show, Max talks to economist, Saifedean Ammous, about the standoff between Egypt and the IMF debt pushers as well as the war against the online free market by Hollywood middlemen. [...]" 

Commentary: "S.E.C. Is Avoiding Tough Sanctions for Large Banks" [02/04/12] "Even as the Securities and Exchange Commission has stepped up its investigations of Wall Street in the last decade, the agency has repeatedly allowed the biggest firms to avoid punishments specifically meant to apply to fraud cases. By granting exemptions to laws and regulations that act as a deterrent to securities fraud, the S.E.C. has let financial giants like JPMorganChase, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America continue to have advantages reserved for the most dependable companies, making it easier for them to raise money from investors, for example, and to avoid liability from lawsuits if their financial forecasts turn out to be wrong.  [...]"  

Commentary: "Greece Warns It Will Soon Be In “Condition Of Absolute Poverty" [02/03/12] "And while the bankers (on both sides of the table) haggle about how to best leech Greece even dryer (with a solution due any hour, day, week now), the actual people are starting to wave the white flag of surrender. Because the opportunity cost of every additional coupon payment is having a direct, immediate and increasingly more dire impact on virtually every aspect of the economy. Kathimerini reports that “about 160,000 jobs will be lost this year in the commerce sector, according to the National Confederation of Greek Commerce (ESEE) as the constant decline in disposable income has led to a sharp drop in turnover and a steep rise in the number of enterprises shutting down.” Indicatively, the latest Greek employment figures per the IMF, show that 4.156MM people are employed. So commerce alone is about to lead to a 4% drop in total jobs. As the chart below shows, net of just this sector, Greek jobs are about to go back to 2010 levels. What this means for the Greek unemployment rate, and for GDP we leave to our readers, although the ESEE does a good job of summarizing what to expect: the “ESEE warns that soon Greece will be in a condition of absolute poverty.” And that, ladies and gents, is how Europe slowly but surely reentered the Feudal age, and what every other country in the European periphery that has a massive debt load, and no surplus (actually make that every country in the world), has to look forward to: absolute poverty, aka debt slavery. [...]" 

Commentary:  "European Fiscal Pact: Int’l. Financial Dictatorship" [02/02/12] "Monday’s meeting of the European Union in Brussels resulted in agreement of 25 of the 27 member states to inflict upon themselves and their hapless and increasingly powerless citizenry the tools of international fiscal dictatorship. The purpose of the “fiscal pact” is to enforce “budgetary discipline” so that the present euro crisis can be contained and future such crises averted. In the short run that means granting the European Central Bank (ECB) additional power to expand its reserves so that bailouts to failing countries can continue, subject to enforcement rules. In the longer run, the pact puts in place the primary tool of coercion, the European Stability Mechanism, to be effective in July. European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said that initially the ESM will be limited to just €500 billion ($650 billion) but that the ultimate number “will be reassessed down the line.” Critics say that’s the entire purpose of the ESM: to set up the mechanism of control under the guise of providing bailout funds to members in need while installing ruling class elites (bankers with ties to Goldman Sachs) out of reach of the taxpayer class. Angela Merkel, German Chancellor and mouthpiece for the ESM, was clear: “It is an important step forward to a stability union. For those looking at the union and the euro from the outside, it is very important to show this commitment.” [...]" 

MSM: "Wall Street Lobbyists Could Severely Weaken Derivative Regulation" [02/01/12] "Some of the country's largest banks -- including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America -- are lobbying Congress to grant regulatory exceptions for derivatives traded outside the U.S. Each of these banks has at least half its assets in overseas operations, according to Bloomberg, meaning that hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of trading could lie outside the scope of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill if the lobbyists are successful. [...]"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Starving The Economy (E243)" [01/28/12] [25:51] "We discuss banking zombies and clowns and their magical thinking on zero rates while starving the economy of interest income. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Ned Naylor-Leyland about the silver, gold, backwardation, manipulation and more. [...]" 

MSM: "Blythe Masters to Take Over as Chair of GFMA " [02/01/12] "We reported earlier that Monday's A.M. City reports that Blythe Masters is leaving JP Morgan to take over as the Head of Rates and Commodities at Deutsche Bank. Tyler Durden has contacted The Doc to advise he believes that Blythe is taking over for Deutsche Bank's Michele Faissola as head of the GFMA, and will also retain her role as head of Commodities at JPM. Rather than fleeing a sinking ship, apparently JP Morgan is attempting to widen their PM suppression influence into Europe.  [...]"  Note: She is the one who created CDOs and derivatives in the first place. I call her The Galactic Bitch, because she essentially caused the destruction of the entire economy of the planet.

MSM: "Germany's Desperate Plans Spark Fears Over 'Economic Occupation' In Europe" [02/01/12] "Greece roundly rejected a German plan, revealed last week, to hand power over the country's budget to the European Union as its failure to push through economic reforms continues to endanger the stability of the eurozone. That same weekend, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that she would be prepared to actively campaign for her French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, as he prepares to fight off a strong challenge from Francois Hollande - his socialist rival who has promised to renegotiate the EU's hard-won agreement over a continent-wide fiscal compact. Sarkozy dismissed the reports, saying that he was unaware that Merkel was able to vote in France. The damage may have been done. Both incidents highlight the concern that a new fiscal union is creating a momentum that will inevitably lead to an erosion of sovereignty in individual countries in the eurozone, and that electorates will begin to lose influence over their economic affairs. While appearing rational from a Northern European perspective, such reports play into a long-running suspicion in the periphery that the economic dominance of Germany may lead to it imposing its own social and economic models on the south. It is a dangerous game.  [...]" 

MSM: "Royal Bank of Scotland Ex-CEO Stripped Of Knighthood Over Financial Crisis" [02/01/12] "Former Royal Bank of Scotland chief Fred Goodwin, who led the bank into near collapse, has been stripped of his knighthood, the British government said Tuesday. The Cabinet Office said the knighthood had been "cancelled and annulled" because Goodwin had brought the honours system into disrepute. Revoking knighthoods is rare, but the government said "the scale and severity of the impact of his actions as CEO of RBS made this an exceptional case." Since he left RBS in 2008 with a multimillion-dollar pension as the bank was foundering, Goodwin has become, in the view of many Britons, a high-profile public villain of the financial crisis. [...]"  Note: Now he's called "Sir Fucksupalot".

Commentary: "Canadian Lawful Access Bills: 'Enormous Financial Burden' For Business" [02/01/12] "Better ways to interpret data, not more access to private information, is what law enforcement agencies need, according to opponents of the so-called “lawful access” bills – a set of proposed laws that would make it easier for police to access and track information about individuals through communication technologies such as the Internet, smartphones and other mobile devices. Last Friday, privacy advocates in academia, government, and public sectors got together in a symposium to explain why the bills should be strongly opposed. “My two main issues with these bills are that: 1) The powers given to the police and lack of judicial oversight erodes civil rights; and 2) this will be an enormous financial and management burden for telcos, ISPs (Internet service providers), social networks and other business,” said Ann Cavoukian, information and privacy commissioner of Ontario. Cavoukian, who has long espoused embedding privacy safeguards in technology and business processes through such initiatives as Privacy by Design and Privacy by Re-design, spearheaded last Friday's event that was aptly called Beware of ‘Surveillance by Design:' Stand up for freedom and privacy. [...]"  

MSM: "SEC Probes Deutsche Bank's 'Crap' Subprime CDOs" [02/01/12] "The Securities and Exchange Commission investigates a Wall Street behemoth over claims that it assembled and sold a package of subprime mortgage-backed securities at the behest of hedge fund king John Paulson without telling other investors that Paulson planned to short it. Sound familiar? Almost two years ago, Goldman Sachs was in the SEC's cross hairs over such an allegedly fraudulent scenario and ended up settling charges for $550 million, but not without becoming the poster boy for Wall Street shenanigans that helped crash the economy. Now, it's Deutsche Bank that is being probed by the SEC, Der Spiegel reports, for allegedly letting Paulson help pick "junk" mortgage-backed securities that went into a collateralized debt obligation without telling other investors that the hedge funder was shorting the CDO, called START. Deutsche Bank was the fourth-largest issuer of CDOs in the United States, but it has largely avoided the glare of a federal investigation while its competitors, including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan, have all been probed by the SEC over how they marketed deals involving subprime mortgage-backed securities. The agency has come under criticism for that lapse, with particular focus on the fact that the SEC's enforcement chief, Robert Khuzami, previously worked as the general counsel at Deutsche Bank when it was packaging such CDOs. The bank gained a certain infamy for its role in packaging START, as well as other CDOs, during hearings led by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) last year. It was revealed then that Deutsche banker Greg Lippman once advised a colleague to buy protection for the bank against START, emailing him: "Start is crap you should short because I bet we'll have to ... buyback cash ones next year." [...]"  

MSM: "Canada Housing Market Beginning To Resemble U.S.'s Subprime Mess" [02/01/12] "Canada’s financial regulator is growing worried that Canadian banks are following their American counterparts into the “subprime” mortgage market that blew up the financial system in 2008. According to documents obtained by Bloomberg under access to information laws, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) is concerned Canadian banks are becoming less strict in their issuance of mortgages, handing out house loans to people who can’t prove their income and to recent immigrants. These loans “have some similarities to non-prime loans in the U.S. retail lending market,” the OSFI reportedly wrote. However, the situation in Canada is not as out of hand as it had become in the U.S. prior to the housing market collapse. At the peak of the U.S. housing bubble, in 2006, about one-third of all mortgages issued in the U.S. were in the “subprime” category; by comparison, only about five per cent of Canadian mortgages go to recent immigrants and people with undocumented incomes. “It just speaks to the general easing in lending standards, which has contributed to a booming housing market,” economist David Madani of Capital Economics told Bloomberg. [...]"  

MSM: "Auction 2012: How The Bank Lobby Owns Washington" [01/31/12] [8:21] "Auction 2012 is a weeklong series in collaboration with "The Dylan Ratigan Show" and United Republic. When Washington puts policy on the auction block, bankers are consistently the highest bidders. The industry's most striking victory has been the watering down of post-financial crisis reforms, to the point that banks are now bigger than ever and the bonuses keep flowing. But Wall Street's campaign spending and lobbying power is so intimidating that banks have repeatedly stuck the public with the tab for their losses and no one in Washington stops them. [...]"  

MSM: "Sarkozy Announces French Financial Transaction Tax" [01/31/12] "French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced plans to introduce a tax on financial transactions. The 0.1% levy will be introduced in August regardless of whether other European countries follow suit. The tax is part of a package of measures set out by the president to promote growth and create jobs. "What we want to do is create a shockwave and set an example that there is absolutely no reason why those who helped bring about the crisis shouldn't pay to restore the finances," he said.  [...]"  

MSM: "Czechs And UK Refuse EU Agreement" [01/31/12] "Twenty-five of the 27 EU members agree to sign a fiscal pact setting up stricter rules to try to prevent future debt crises, with the UK and Czech Republic refusing. [...]"  

MSM: "Congress Moves to Ban Its Own Insider Trading" [01/31/12] "Soon, insider trading may be illegal for lawmakers, too. In an effort to boost its historically low approval rating, the Senate will today hold a procedural vote allowing it to later this week pass a bill banning Congress from trading on nonpublic info, or giving that info to others to trade on, the AP reports. Similar legislation is in the works in the House. The moves follow a series of reports on Congress' insider trading, including a November 60 Minutes piece throwing suspicion on John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, and Spencer Bachus. "We can start restoring some of the faith that's been lost in our government" by making Congress "play by the exact same rules as everyone else," says Kirsten Gillibrand, who wrote the Senate version. In the House, Eric Cantor is trying to expand the bill to hit not just stocks, but land deals and other investments as well. [...]"  Note: Now that the society is essentially over with, and they've got their millions.

MSM: "Freddie Mac Betting Against Struggling Homeowners" [01/31/12] "Freddie Mac, a taxpayer-owned mortgage company, is supposed to make homeownership easier. One thing that makes owning a home more affordable is getting a cheaper mortgage. But Freddie Mac has invested billions of dollars betting that U.S. homeowners won’t be able to refinance their mortgages at today’s lower rates, according to an investigation by NPR and ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit newsroom. These investments, while legal, raise concerns about a conflict of interest within Freddie Mac. “We were actually shocked they did this,” says Scott Simon, who heads the mortgage-backed securities team at the giant bond trading and investment firm called PIMCO. “It seemed so out of line with their mission, out of line with what Congress wanted them to do.” [...]" Related: "Bets Against Homeowners Must Stop, Freddie Mac Was Told" 

Commentary:  "Currency Warfare: What Are The Real Targets Of The E.U. Oil Embargo Against Iran?" [01/31/12]   "The end of Iranian oil exports to the European Union and the decline of the euro will directly benefit the United States and the American dollar. What the European Union is doing is merely weaken itself and giving the American dollar the upper hand in its currency rivalry against the euro. Moreover, should the euro collapse, the American dollar will quickly fill much of the void... Moreover, the rise in everyday prices, ranging from food to transportation, will not be limited to the European Union, but will have global ramifications. As prices rise on a global scale, the economies in Latin American, Caribbean, African, Middle Eastern, Asian, and Pacific countries will face new hardship...
  [...]" 

MSM: "Ratings Agencies Quizzed Over MF Global" [01/30/12] "Moody’s Investors Service “did not have any understanding” that MF Global, the failed futures broker, had placed a $6.3bn proprietary bet on the debt of troubled European sovereigns until about a week before the brokerage filed for bankruptcy, despite MF Global’s disclosure of the gamble some five months earlier in May. The revelation, made in a letter by the agency to Congress, comes as US lawmakers plan this week to grill executives at Moody’s and rival Standard & Poor’s on what they knew and when ahead of the broker’s collapse on October 31. The bankrupt brokerage is in lawmakers’ crosshairs due to some $1.2bn in missing customer funds. Three months after MF Global’s failure, investigators have yet to determine the whereabouts of the missing cash. S&P participated in a conference call on August 31 with MF Global’s top executives at which the agency was told that the brokerage’s regulators required it to boost the amount of capital held against those bonds, a disclosure MF Global made the next day to investors.  [...]"  

Commentary: "Elitist Rioters Run The Global Financial System, And They Are Using America To Create Hell on Earth" [01/30/12] "The elitist manipulators of human destiny and human history know that they have lost the trust of the people of the planet, but they're confident that an authoritarian global government will solve all their problems. They speak of a "new age" and a "new world order" and they plan to start World War III by attacking Iran which would mark the end of this dead age. Since war is the father of change, the mad men in the Western power elite need their big war with Iran to advance their plot for a new world order. Unleashing mass death, mass destruction, and mass misery upon the world is the only way these freaks can retain their absolute power over mankind in the new age that is already here. [...]" 

MSM: "At World Economic Forum, Fear of Global Contagion Dominates " [01/29/12] "They came, they feasted on smoked sturgeon and black truffle risotto, drank liquor paid for by global banks, endured dozens of security checks, and tried not to fall down in the snow. They talked about the perilous state of the global economy and the future of capitalism. Then, they headed back to their home countries -- many in chauffeured limousines, some by private jet. But as the people who run much of the planet wrapped up the annual festival of influence known as the World Economic Forum on Saturday, any sense of achievement was hard to discern. The participants arrived amid elevated unemployment in many economies, worries about government budget deficits, and fears that contagion from a financial crisis in Europe could infect the rest of the world. They went home with all of these worries intact, and perhaps reinforced. Nouriel Roubini, the economist who -- not for nothing -- is known as "Doctor Doom," noted that world leaders are divided on a great array of crucial issues, from arguments over trade imbalances and currency valuations to the threats posed by Iran and North Korea and the challenge of climate change.  [...] In private conversations here this week, senior officials from the United States, Europe and Asia expressed a mixture of resignation and alarm that Greece may yet default on its government debts, despite several efforts by eurozone members to cobble together a credible rescue. Some warned that such an outcome could spook investors into pulling funds out of larger economies such as Italy and Spain, raising the prospect of defaults in those countries. A few suggested this could eventually trigger the breakup of the eurozone and the end of its shared currency, an event that could produce panic rivaling that seen after the investment banking giant Lehman Brothers collapsed more than three years ago. In a riveting address here on Saturday, Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang recalled his place at the epicenter of the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, and the experience of the 2008 global credit pullback, asserting that the current situation is worse. "I've never been as scared as now about the world, what is happening in Europe," he said. [...] "  

MSM: "Close Ties to Goldman Enrich Romney’s Public and Private Lives" [01/29/12] "When Bain Capital sought to raise money in 1989 for a fast-growing office- supply company named Staples, Mitt Romney, Bain’s founder, called upon a trusted business partner: Goldman Sachs, whose bankers led the company’s initial public offering. When Mr. Romney became governor of Massachusetts, his blind trust gave Goldman much of his wealth to manage, a fortune now estimated to be as much as $250 million. And as Mr. Romney mounts his second bid for the presidency, Goldman is coming through again: Its employees have contributed at least $367,000 to his campaign, making the firm Mr. Romney’s largest single source of campaign money through the end of September. ... His federal financial disclosure statements show Mr. Romney and his wife, their blind trusts and their family foundation to be prodigious consumers of the bank’s services. In 2011, Mr. Romney’s blind trust and the couple’s retirement accounts held as much as $36.7 million in at least two dozen Goldman investment vehicles, earning as much as $3 million a year in income. Mrs. Romney’s trust had at least $10.2 million in Goldman funds — possibly much more — earning as much as $6.2 million.  [...]"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: The State of the Banana Republic (E242)" [01/28/12] [25:46] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss the State of the Banana Republic, the blowout at Apple with its profits “trapped” overseas and the gloomy State of the Stiff Upper Lip as UK family debts soar by nearly 50%. And, finally, Max and Stacy examine a proposal that bankers like Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein and JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon, should compete like strippers on the open job market. [...]" 

Commentary:  "The Silent Anschluss: Germany Formally Requests That Greece Hand Over Its Fiscal Independence" [01/28/12] "It was tried previously (several times) under "slightly different" circumstances, and failed. Yet when it comes to taking over a country without spilling even one drop of blood, and converting its citizens into debt slaves, Germany's Merkel may have just succeeded where so many of her predecessors failed. According to a Reuters exclusive, "Germany is pushing for Greece to relinquish control over its budget policy to European institutions [ZH: read ze Germans] as part of discussions over a second rescue package, a European source told Reuters on Friday." [...]"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Killing Hollywood (E241)" [01/28/12] [27:38] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss killing Hollywood, poor Chris Dodd and how Mubarak’s fall brought about an assault on the internet. In the second half of the show, Max interviews Mike Ruppert about SOPA, the NDAA and Iranian oil. [...]" 

MSM: "Insider Trading Bill To Receive Senate Vote Next Week" [01/27/12] "A Senate bill banning the trading of corporate stocks by members of Congress based on nonpublic political information will see a vote next week, according to Democratic sources working on the bill. "It'll be on the floor next week, either hotlined or an actual vote," one source said of the bill, known as the STOCK Act. Hotlining refers to the process of moving a bill through by unanimous consent. A separate Democratic aide said that negotiations over amendments were still ongoing, which would make hotlining more difficult. A Democratic leadership aide, meanwhile, would only say that a vote was "possible." The STOCK Act, authored by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.), would ban trading by members of Congress guided by nonpublic economic or political information. It would also improve disclosures of all stock trades and other financial maneuvers by members of Congress, by requiring them to publicly detail each transaction within 30 days. Lawmakers are currently granted a full year of secrecy before disclosing such financial activities. The bill received a big boost on Tuesday when Obama called for its enactment during the State of the Union address. [...]" 

MSM: "Tobin Tax: David Cameron Criticizes The Idea In Davos" [01/27/12] "Thursday, January 26, in his speech to World Economic Forum in Davos , British Prime Minister felt that the timing of the proposed Tobin tax was "madness" and that it would cost to Europe about 500,000 jobs. Cameron added that the Franco-German tax on financial trading could lower the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the euro zone by about 200 billion euros. He then insisted that Europe's political leaders are walking in the footsteps of British economic policy under penalty of being faced with a situation "dangerous". Asking Europe to make "bold decisions" to overcome the crisis, Cameron highlighted the efforts to be made in three areas in 2012: [...]"  

Legal Case: "Citigroup Faces New $1 Billion Lawsuit Over CDO Fraud" [01/26/12] "Citigroup Inc was sued for fraud by Loreley Financing over nearly $1 billion worth of collateralized debt obligations purchased in 2006 and 2007. Citigroup is accused of defrauding Loreley into purchasing "fraudulent investments that are now worthless," Loreley said in a complaint filed Tuesday in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. Citi used the CDOs to offload the risks of toxic mortgage-backed securities on its books and to help preferred clients "short" the housing market, the lawsuit claims. The case is Loreley Financing v. Citigroup Global Markets, 650212/2012, New York State Supreme Court. [...]"  

Commentary: "7 People Charged In The FBI's Insider Trading Probe" [01/26/12] "The FBI finally made a move in a mounting insider-trading investigation with three early- morning arrests. News of the probe has been leaked in the press the last two years, and those who have been following the headlines can see familiar names and financial firms in the news today—Level Global, Diamondback Capital, SAC Capital, etc. Overall, federal officials have charged seven individuals with securities fraud. Of the seven, three were arrested, one surrendered and three have been informants that are cooperating in the case. So who are these seven and what exactly are the FBI claiming they each did? Officials will publicize the information today in a press conference at 1 p.m., but we've already gone through the court complaint and various media reports to find out. [...]"  

MSM: "Capitalism Seen in Crisis by Global Investors Citing Widening Inequalities" [01/26/12] "International investors say capitalism is in crisis, with almost one in three backing radical changes to the system, according to a Bloomberg survey. As the global financial and business elite gather in Davos for their annual forum, a majority in the Bloomberg Global Poll agree that income inequality hurts the economy and that governments need to do something to address it -- ideas at the heart of “Occupy” protests worldwide. Those surveyed also voice reservations about the financial industry’s role in society, with seven in 10 seeing at least some truth in the argument that banks have too much power over governments. “Capitalism is in crisis because there is a huge and growing disparity in income/wealth distribution in Western economies, and an equally divisive generational disparity,” poll participant Michael Derks, chief strategist for FXPro Financial Services broker in London, said in an e-mail. [...]"  

Commentary:  "Iceland Declares Independence from International Banks" [01/25/12] "Iceland is free. And it will remain so, so long as her people wish to remain autonomous of the foreign domination of her would-be masters — in this case, international bankers. This is just the latest in the long drama since 2008 of global institutions refusing to take losses in the financial crisis. Threats of a global economic depression and claims of being “too big to fail” have equated to a loaded gun to the heads of representative governments in the U.S. and Europe. Iceland is of particular interest because it did not bail out its banks like Ireland did, or foreign ones like the U.S. did. [...]"  

MSM: "$10 Million In Software Stolen From NY Fed By Chinese Contractor" [01/25/12] "Software code is one of the most valuable assets. To this end, they have many tough security precautions to keep control of it. But government organizations also have valuable computer code. Just look at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. According to a report in Reuters, a Chinese hacker stole some of its software code. The estimated value: about $10 million. What’s worse is that the alleged hacker was a contractor for the NY Fed. Basically, he just used an external drive to snag the software code. The good news is that the hacker has been arrested and charged with one count of stealing federal government property (the maximum sentence is 10 years). And yes, the NY Fed says it will beef up its security. Yet this should be a wake-up call for other government agencies to make sure its intellectual property is much more secure. [...]"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Dangerous Species of Bankers (E240)" [01/24/12] [25:46] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss Google searching Davos; the Federal Open Market Committee getting high on its own money supply; bankers leaving the planet to live in parallel universes and the evidence for the manipulation of precious metals. [...]" 

Commentary:  "The Global Elite Are Hiding 18 Trillion Dollars In Offshore Banks" [01/24/12] "In recent days, the fact that Mitt Romney has millions of dollars parked down in the Cayman Islands has made headlines all over the world. But when it comes to offshore banking, what Mitt Romney is doing is small potatoes. The truth is that the global elite are hiding an almost unbelievable amount of money in offshore banks. According to shocking research done by the IMF, the global elite are holding a total of 18 trillion dollars in offshore banks. And that figure does not even count any money being held in Switzerland. That is a staggering amount of money. Keep in mind that U.S. GDP in 2010 was only 14.58 trillion dollars. So why do the global elite go to such trouble to hide their money in offshore banks? Well, there are two main reasons. One is privacy and the other is low taxation.  [...]"  

MSM: "International Criminal Court in The Hague to Go After Financial Human Rights Abuses and Financial Terrorism" [01/24/12] "An international tribunal to settle financial disputes throughout the world has opened in the Dutch city of The Hague on Monday. The tribunal’s name, PRIME Finance, stands for Panel of Recognized International Market Experts in Finance. The team of judges includes almost 100 people, whose work will be supported by international legal and market experts. The establishment of new legal institution has been supported by the City of The Hague and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, and will be housed in The Hague’s Peace Palace. It is also home to the United Nations International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. [...]"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Sinking Ship In Credit Sea (E239)" [01/24/12] [26:40] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss captains of the financial industry abandoning ship while tripping into TARP. In the second half of the show, Max talks to former oil market regulator Chris Cook about the imminent collapse of the oil market and the role of Goldman Sachs, BP and passive investors in driving the price of oil. [...]" 

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Scam On Epic Scale (E238)" [01/24/12] [26:58] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss 419 scams and Tim Geithner’s gimp. In the second half of the show, Max talks to financial blogger and semi-retired Wall Street executive Warren E. Pollock about MF Global, wealth confiscation and bank holidays.[...]" 

MSM: "IMF Seeks $600 Billion More In Funds" [01/19/12] "The International Monetary Fund is seeking to boost its war chest by $600 billion to help countries reeling from the euro zone debt crisis, but some nations insist Europe must first do more to support its ailing members, international financial sources said on Wednesday. Group of 20 officials will discuss increasing IMF resources at a meeting in Mexico City on Thursday and Friday, the first under Mexico's 2012 presidency of the group of developed and emerging economies. [...] Emerging market countries such as China and Brazil have said they are willing to contribute new resources to the Washington-based global lender in exchange for greater voting power. Emerging market powers have repeatedly argued in recent times that their power at the IMF should be increased to reflect their growing clout in the world economy. Getting more resources from advanced economies, such as the United States, is going to be difficult, if not impossible. With a strained budget at home, some U.S. congressional Republicans have threatened to yank $100 billion in U.S. money to the IMF if the funds are used to bail out more euro zone countries. The White House is unlikely to want to take on the issue as President Barack Obama seeks reelection this year."  

UK: "Ireland Facing A Decade Of Austerity" [01/19/12] "... Last week, a leading Citigroup analyst claimed that Ireland’s state debt was unsustainably high, advising the government to make preparations for the extension of financial support from the EU and the International Monetary Fund immediately before the current bailout programme runs out next year. Willem Buiter stated that it made “good business sense” to avoid borrowing on the open market at 8 percent, as Ireland would have to do. Ireland was “not like Greece”, but nonetheless required additional help to control its debt burden, he said. [...] Representatives of the so-called troika—the EU, IMF and European Central Bank (ECB)—have insisted that cuts in social protection and welfare form the “bulk of savings” for the state. Its estimates suggest that in next year’s budget, there will be cuts of €3.5 billion, including €2.25 billion in spending cuts and €1.25 billion in tax hikes. The Irish Times described such a prospect as “unprecedented for Ireland.”"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Economics of Suicide (E237)" [01/19/12] [26:27] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, cover the great unmentionables: Ron Paul, Vermin Supreme and blackstonesucks.com. In the second half of the show, Max and Stacy discuss Treasury Secretary Geithner trying to coax China into committing economic suicide and learning your maths in America by counting slaves.[...]" 

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Wall Street Gangsta! (E236)" [01/18/12] [25:44] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert discuss corruption with a clean face and Jamie "Spaghetti Face" Dimon. In the second half of the show, Max talks to investment adviser and blogger Michael Krieger about Ron Paul, the Fed and political futures.[...]" 

MSM: "FDIC Requires Big Banks to Have Breakup Plan" [01/18/12] "The largest banks must show how they would break up their assets if they were in danger of failing, under a rule approved Tuesday. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp voted to require banks with $50 billion or more in assets to submit so-called living wills. Seven banks with more than $250 billion in assets will have to show their plans by July 2012. The other 30 affected by the rule have until 2013. The FDIC also proposed a separate rule that would require banks with more than $10 billion in assets to conduct annual stress tests. The tests show how each bank is positioned to handle worsening economic conditions, such as increasing unemployment and falling home prices. The regulator put the rule out for public comment and is expected to finalize it by July. It will affect roughly 190 banks. Both rules were mandated under the 2010 financial overhaul. By requiring banks to have living wills, the government is trying to reduce the need for another Wall Street bailout like the one that took place during the 2008 financial crisis. The 37 banks affected by the rule hold roughly $4.1 trillion in insured deposits, or about 61 percent of U.S. insured deposits as of Sept. 30, 2011. The largest include JPMorgan Chase [JPM 34.91 -1.01 (-2.81%) ], Bank of America [BAC 6.48 -0.13 (-1.97%) ], Citibank [C 28.215 -2.525 (-8.21%) ], Wells Fargo [WFC 29.825 0.215 (+0.73%) ], U.S. Bank, PNC [PNC 61.24 -0.49 (-0.79%) ] and Bank of New York Mellon [BK 21.27 -0.18 (-0.84%) ]. Annual stress tests help the government monitor the financial strength of banks. The 19 largest U.S. banks already undergo annual stress tests, which are conducted by the Federal Reserve. The proposed stress tests would be in addition to those. Under the proposal, the banks would be required to submit reports on the results of their stress tests to regulators and to publish a summary of the results. The results show whether banks have enough cash and cash-like securities on their balance sheets to offset potential losses from risky loans. And they also show whether a bank is in position to withstand an economic downturn. [...]"  

MSM: "U.S. Treasury Dips Into Pension Funds To Avoid Debt Limit" [01/18/12] "The U.S. Treasury on Tuesday started dipping into federal pension funds in order to give the Obama administration more credit to pay government bills. The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on Wednesday on the Obama administration's request to raise the country's legal debt limit to $16.394 trillion. However, unless the lower chamber and the Senate are able to shore up enough votes to block the White House request, the debt limit will be increased by $1.2 trillion next Friday and a repeat of last year's debt ceiling debacle will be averted.  [...] Geithner said Treasury started suspending reinvestments in a federal pension fund known as the G-Fund -- a tool Treasury has had to employ six times over the past 20 years in order to keep the country below the statutory debt limit. The Treasury Department has already tapped another seldom-used fund in order to allow the government to continue borrowing without running afoul of the country's laws. "  

MSM: "U.S. Lawmakers Proposed $1 Trillion In New Spending Last Year" [01/18/12] "Despite endless talk of spending cuts and fiscal restraint in Washington over the past year, lawmakers continued to act as though the government doesn't spend nearly enough. They introduced 874 bills in the House and Senate that would have boosted annual federal spending by more than $1 trillion if they'd all been signed into law, according to an analysis done for IBD by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. In contrast, lawmakers offered up just 215 bills to cut spending last year that would have reduced federal outlays by about half a trillion had they all been signed into law. [...]"  Note: It's interesting that Ron Paul wants to cut that same $1 trillion ... except that he is taking it out of the social programs and safety nets that the public has grown to depend on for their existence. Regardless, there will be NO cuts during 2012 because it's an 'election year' ....

Commentary: "Financial Clearing Houses: The Next Casualty Of The Crisis" [01/17/12] "Clearing houses -- the plumbers of high finance -- could become the next casualties of the crisis as regulators insist that banks run their riskiest and private trades through them. At the moment banks conduct over-the-counter trades between themselves: one to one dealings often involving multimillion-euro bets on differences in interest or other rates, the scale and complexity of which can be difficult to track. But with the financial crisis still raging and banks, hedge funds and governments alike faced with unforeseen levels of debt, regulators are now forcing this shadowy, $600-trillion industry into the light. The question being asked by industry insiders is whether the clearing houses, also known as central counterparties (CCPs), are any more secure. "What happens if they go bust? I can tell you the simple answer: mayhem. As bad as, conceivably worse than, the failure of large and complex banks," Paul Tucker, deputy governor of the Bank of England, said in October. Clearing houses, such LCH.Clearnet, Deutsche Boerse's Eurex Clearing and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's CME Clearing, sit between the parties at either end of a trade. They protect companies from default because they hold collateral on behalf of their numerous members that can be used to reimburse individual firms if one member becomes insolvent -- a standard model used in various exchange-traded markets around the world. But in taking on over-the-counter (OTC) products the concern is that the clearing houses will not have sufficient collateral to cover the scale of possible future positions. [...]"  

Commentary:  "Everything You Need To Know About Wall Street, In One Brief Tale"  Matt Taibbi [01/17/12] " If there was ever a news story that crystalized the moral dementia of modern Wall Street in one little vignette, this is it. Newspapers in Colorado today are reporting that the elegant Hotel Jerome in Aspen, Colorado, will be closed to the public from today through Monday at noon. Why? Because a local squire has apparently decided to rent out all 94 rooms of the hotel for three-plus days for his daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. The hotel’s general manager, Tony DiLucia, would say only that the party was being thrown by a "nice family," but newspapers are now reporting that the Daddy of the lucky little gal is one Jeffrey Verschleiser, currently an executive with Goldman, Sachs. At first, I couldn't remember how I knew that name. But then I looked it up and saw an explosive Atlantic magazine story, published last year, called, "E-mails Suggest Bear Stearns Cheated Clients Out Of Millions." [...]" 

MSM: "Iran Rial Slides, 'Dollar' Text Messages Appear Blocked" [01/16/12] "Iran's currency has slid 20 percent against the dollar in the last week despite central bank intervention, and Iranians concerned about the economy said on Tuesday attempts to send text messages using the word "dollar" appeared to be blocked. The central bank reportedly pumped $200 million dollars into the market last Wednesday after new and much tougher U.S. sanctions prompted nervous Iranians to change rials into hard currency, accelerating a rise in the price of dollars on the open market. [...]" Related: "US Seeking To 'Close Down' Iran Central Bank" [01/13/12] below.

Commentary: "European Leaders Use Debt Downgrades To Argue For Austerity, And For Stimulus" [01/15/12] "European leaders sought to limit damage from a ratings agency’s downgrade of nine countries on Friday, or even turn the news to their advantage, saying that it showed the need to impose more austerity or else do more to stimulate growth. Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, said Saturday that the downgrade by Standard & Poor’s meant the euro area must speed up measures to create a more centralized currency union. “We are now challenged to implement the fiscal pact quickly,” Mrs. Merkel said in a statement Saturday, a day after S.& P. downgraded France, Austria and seven other countries — but not Germany. She added that leaders should not water down the agreement and instead quickly pass other measures they have agreed to, like limits on debt. In Italy, Prime Minister Mario Monti used the downgrades to bolster his argument that austerity alone would not solve the euro crisis. Europe needs to support “national efforts in favor of growth and employment,” Mr. Monti told the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, according to Bloomberg News.  [...]"   Note: Since the result of the downgrades is something the banks want, it smacks of background collusion between the rating houses and banks. Related: See below.

Webster Tarpley: "World Crisis Radio Update" [01/15/12]  MP3 Audio [120:00] Select Jan 14, 2012 podcast and click play arrow to listen, or download. Also available as two segments.   Europe  (Map)  European Financial situation, and more updates on the political arena. Related: See stories above and below, and in News and Developments.

MSM: "S&P Downgrades Eurozone Countries As Investors Avoid Eurozone Government Debt" [01/14/12]   "...S&P emphasized that more downgrades were likely. It has placed 14 eurozone countries on negative outlook, including France -- the second-largest economy in Europe -- Belgium, Italy, Spain and even the AAA-rated Netherlands and Finland. Just Slovakia and Germany -- Europe's largest economy and the leader in the eurozone debt crisis talks -- escaped from a negative outlook. Unlike during S&P's downgrade of the U.S.'s credit rating, which investors largely ignored as they continued to buy U.S. debt, European investors this time have preempted the rating cuts by already pulling investments out of the eurozone. [...]" 

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Death by Thousand Revelations (E235)" [01/14/12] [25:46] "Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert discuss death by a thousand revelations and destroying the City to save the City. In the second half of the show, Max talks to author Nomi Prins, a former investment banker, about the role of JP Morgan in Jon Corzine’s MF Global crime. [...]" 

MSM: "US Seeking To 'Close Down' Iran Central Bank" [01/13/12] "The latest round of American sanctions are aimed at shutting down Iran's central bank, a senior US official said Thursday, spelling out that intention directly for the first time. "We do need to close down the Central Bank of Iran (CBI)," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity, while adding that the United States is moving quickly to implement the sanctions, signed into law last month. The sanctions, broadly aimed at forcing Tehran to shift course on its nuclear program, targeted Iran's crucial oil sector and required foreign firms to make a choice between doing business with Iran or the United States. Foreign central banks that deal with the Iranian central bank on oil transactions could also face similar restrictions under the new law, which has sparked fears of damage to US ties with nations like Russia and China. "If a correspondent bank of a US bank wants to do business with us and they're doing business with CBI or other designated Iranian banks... then they're going to get in trouble with us," the US official said. There are fears that increased sanctions on Iran's central bank could force the global price of oil to suddenly soar, and actually give Tehran a financial windfall on its existing oil sales. Rising oil prices could also crimp the fragile economic recovery in the United States and inflict pain on American voters in gas stations -- at a time when Obama is running for reelection next year.  [...]"  Note: More violations of international law. One country cannot legally 'pass laws' in some delusional reverie, seeking to enjoin another country in this manner.

Commentary:  "The New WH Chief Of Staff And Citigroup" [01/13/12] " Here is what Lew was doing in 2008 at the time the financial crisis exploded, as detailed by an excellent Huffington Post report from last year: [Lew] oversaw a Citigroup unit that profited off the housing collapse and financial crisis by investing in a hedge fund king who correctly predicted the eventual subprime meltdown and now finds himself involved in the center of the U.S. government’s fraud case against Goldman Sachs. ... It is his few years at Citi — in particular the one year he spent at its then-$54 billion proprietary trading, hedge fund and private equity unit — that’s likely to raise the most eyebrows in the coming weeks as Lew faces a Senate confirmation hearing. Especially his unit’s investments in a hedge fund that bet on the housing market to collapse — a reality suffered by millions of American homeowners. In particular, the Citigroup fund run by Lew, Citi’s Alternative Investments, invested heavily in the hedge fund of John Paulson, “who made billions off the deterioration of the housing industry by making bearish bets on securities tied to home mortgages — particularly subprime home mortgages.” One of Paulson’s largest bets at the time involved Goldman Sachs, which the SEC has now charged with “defrauding investors by creating and selling exotic securities tied to subprime home mortgages in 2007 without disclosing that they were handpicked by a hedge fund [Paulson] that was betting on them to fail.” [...]" 

MSM: "EU Threatens Hungary Over Refusal To Implement Austerity Policies And 'Authoritarian' New Constitution" [01/13/12] "The European Union has stepped up pressure on Hungary over the country's refusal to implement austerity policies and threatened legal action over its new constitution. The warnings escalated the standoff between Budapest and the EU, as Hungary negotiates fresh financial aid from Europe and the International Monetary Fund. Over the past months, the country's credit rating has been cut to junk by all three major rating agencies, unemployment is 10.6 percent and the country may be facing a recession.  [...]"  

Commentary: "Full-Blown Civil War Erupts On Wall Street – Financial Elite Start Turning On Each Other" [01/12/12] "Finally, after trillions in fraudulent activity, trillions in bailouts, trillions in printed money, billions in political bribing and billions in bonuses, the criminal cartel members on Wall Street are beginning to get what they deserve. As the Eurozone is coming apart at the seams and as the US economy grinds to a halt, the financial elite are starting to turn on each other. The lawsuits are piling up fast. Here’s an extensive roundup: Time to put your Big Bank shorts on! Get ready for a run… The chickens are coming home to roost… The Global Banking Cartel’s crimes are being exposed left & right… Prepare for Shock & Awe… First up, this shockingly huge $196 billion lawsuit just filed against 17 major banks on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Bank of America is severely exposed in this lawsuit. As the parent company of Countrywide and Merrill Lynch they are on the hook for $57.4 billion. JP Morgan is next in the line of fire with $33 billion. And many death spiraling European banks are facing billions in losses as well. [...]" 

Commentary: "Goldman's Latest PR Headache Has To Do With Islamic Bonds" [01/12/12] "Goldman Sachs is facing fresh controversy, this time in the Islamic world, Reuters reports. The claim sparking the outrage: in the prospectus for an Islamic bond, Goldman cited at a number of religious scholars as potentially approving the issuance. Now, three of those scholars have yet to reply to requests for approval and two say they have not even seen the prospectus for the transaction. Goldman's advisor on the deal, Asim Khan, said this did not impact the sharia credentials of the issuance, because the scholars in question were only listed as potential approvers. However, this is not the first controversy the transaction has encountered: Goldman's first sukuk, also the first by any U.S. bank, is already facing suggestions that it may contravene religious principles by using proceeds to lend money to clients for interest, accusations rejected by the bank's adviser. In order to conform to Islamic prohibitions against interest income, a so-called sukuk must represent ownership in assets and payments should be tied to the profitability of those assets. At maturity, the sukuk purchaser is due not the principal paid initially, but the current market-value of the assets. Because of these complexities, scholars have different interpretations of what can qualify as an Islamic bond, with some dismissing them outright, while others take a much more permissive view. [...]"   

Commentary:  "BofA, Citigroup Are Rumored Targets Of A New York Insurance Fraud Probe" [01/12/12] "Looks like our prediction that shady force-place insurance practices would be the next big scandal to come out of the mortgage crisis is finally ringing true. Bank of America and Citigroup are at the center of a New York state probe into claims they are among several big banks that have been overcharging consumers for insurance, Reuters reports. If you're scratching your head, here's the deal with force-place insurance:  When homeowners stop paying their home insurance, banks get to charge them with their insurance policy of choice. Usually, they'll send several notices to consumers in advance before finally implementing the new policy. These force-placed policies cost as much as 10 times the market price and although they're meant to protect the investors in mortgage- backed securities, they often just drive people into foreclosure. And when mortgage servicers own the insurer, both parties can drive up fees, essentially screwing over both investors and homeowners. Reuters's source claims JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo are wrapped up in the investigation as well, which is being spearheaded by the New York State Department of Financial Services.  The department is looking into whether the policies the banks issued to homeowners were issued by their own affiliates – violating antitrust law – and whether they took kickbacks for pushing policies from affiliated insurers.  Requests for comment sent to Citigroup, and Wells Fargo were not immediately returned Wednesday.
Spokespersons for Bank of America and Chase declined to comment.  [...]" 

MSM: "Chicago Mob Linked Alexi Giannoulias Heads Back To Banking With Post At BNY Mellon" [01/12/12] "The banker-turned-politician, who won a statewide race for Illinois treasurer and then lost to Republican Mark Kirk in a bid for President Barack Obama's former Senate seat, is joining the Chicago office of Bank of New York Mellon Corp. as senior adviser for strategic relationships. In the newly created post, Mr. Giannoulias, 35, will take on a business-development role for the New York-based bank's new wealth-management business in Chicago. [...]" 

MSM: "Greece Spends Bailout Cash On European Military Purchases" [01/11/12] "As Greek standards of living nose-dive, loans to households and businesses shrink still further, and Troika-imposed PSI discussions continue, there is one segment of the country's infrastructure that is holding up well. In a story on Zeit Online, the details of the multi-billion Euro new arms contracts are exposed as the European reach-around would be complete with IMF (US) and Europe-provided Greek bailout cash doing a full-circle into American Apache helicopters, French frigates, and German U-Boats. [...]"  Note: Now THAT is some existential journey that Greece is making. The whole money thing, with the accompanying discord caused by imposed austerity measures, has them so anxious that instead of using some imagination (they haven't any) they grab for the means to dispatch other people ... weapons .... such a childlike and immature approach, always present, here on Planet Stupid ...

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Hollywood Cons Congress (E234)" [01/11/12] [25:46] "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss copyright and how Hollywood cons Congress by using Wall Street accounting. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Amir Taaki about hackers, piracy, technology and bitcoin.[...]" 

Commentary: "Bill Cohan: Wall Street Is A Cartel And Has Been Since The 1940's" [01/10/12] "After most recently addressing his ire at the mental instability of the executives running Wall Street's major institutions, Bill Cohan this week examines the shrinking competition among the largest Wall Street firms and makes a well-argued case that it represents a pattern of behavior stretching back to the 1940's. Specifically, Cohan dissects a 1947 anti-trust case that was brought against 17 firms for colluding to set prices for investment banking services. While the suit was thrown out in 1953 for what a judge deemed undue reliance on circumstantial evidence, Cohan thinks the government's argument "was spot on": [...]" 

MSM: "Blankfein: Romney's Gonna Win" [01/10/12] "The CEO of Goldman Sachs is apparently predicting Mitt Romney to win the Republican nomination and be well positioned to take the presidency, the New York Post reports. Lloyd Blankfein's forecast measures on the Who-Cares-Meter because Goldman Sachs successfully bet against subprime-mortgage debt (while a client allegedly created it) and picked Barack Obama to win the presidency. But Blankfein does have a horse in this race: He hates the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law, which critics say hurts big banks and ignores issues that led to the 2008 economic meltdown. “Goldman Sachs will not support Obama,” Blankfein was heard muttering at a dinner recently. The Post sounds confident that Blankfein's word—heard through the grapevine—is gold, but then he's under investigation for allegedly misleading a Senate committee looking into the firm's activities. [...]"  Note: He's blank, but he's not fine. He's a sequential (reincarnated retread) incarnation, doing his power and wealth trip. Blankfein knows a scoundrel when he sees one. Romney .. worth a quarter of a billion and wants to 'run it all' ... exactly the kind of sociopath who should not run anything. Things that he has managed have ruined a lot of people's lives ... what a loser and a parasite. 

MSM: "Iran, Russia Replace Dollar with National Currencies in Trade Exchanges" [01/09/12] "Speaking to FNA, Tehran's Ambassador to Moscow Seyed Reza Sajjadi said that the proposal for replacing US Dollar with Ruble and Rial was raised by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Astana on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting. "Since then, we have acted on this basis and a part of our interactions is done in Ruble now," Sajjadi stated, adding that many Iranian traders are using Ruble for their trade deals. "There is a similar interest in the Russian side," the envoy stated, adding that that Moscow is against unilateral sanctions on Iran outside the UN Security Council, specially the recent sanctions against Iran's Central Bank (CBI). "The move (imposing sanction on the CBI) is unacceptable. Russians have clearly announced that they will not accept these sanctions and Iran's nuclear issue is resolvable just through negotiations." [...]"  

Flashback: "William K. Black Describes Fraud And Liars Loans In The Economic Crisis" [01/09/12] [8:06]   Note: Excellent testimony in front of Congress by William K. Black .... he's the only one who laid out the bottom line truth about that nature of the crisus, out of all those who testified that day. "Actions by SEC members were acts of criminal negligence, except that the acts are not considered criminal when you are (doing your job as in your capacity as a federal employee)." See 2:31 through 3:12. This would have to mean that that various parts of the federal government itself are criminally corrupt, logically, and of course it's exactly the way it is. Note the impatience on the part of the Congressman as it rises as the truth is spoken by Black. Government And FED Complicity on Banking Mortgage Fraud.

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Spiral Of Debt Towards The Paranormal (E233)" [01/08/12] [25:45] "In this episode, we discuss Brits using payday loans to pay off interest only mortgages while Greeks bury their cash for fear of being Gaddafi’d by the banksters. In the second half of the show, Max talks to David Morgan of Silver-Investor.com about silver, Sprott and bonds.[...]" 

MSM: "Uncle Sam Goes After Swiss Bankers" [01/07/12] "Federal prosecutors claim three Swiss bankers conspired to help U.S. taxpayers hide more than $1.2 billion from the tax man. Defendants Michael Berlinka, Urs Frei and Roger Keller worked as client advisors at Wegelin & Co., the oldest private Swiss bank, and an institution that provides private banking, asset management and other services to well-heeled clients around the world, according to the 45-page complaint. Uncle Sam says the three men and unnamed co-conspirators opened and serviced undeclared accounts for at least 100 U.S. taxpayers at Wegelin [identified in the complaint as "Swiss Bank A"] from 2005 through 2010. These bank and securities accounts were "undeclared" because they were purposefully not reported to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, the government says. A common technique for keeping such accounts under the radar is by creating and selling to U.S. taxpayers sham corporations and foundations, which are used as vehicles for holding the undeclared account. Prosecutors said that in addition to doing a lucrative business in such undeclared accounts, Berlinka, Frei and Keller, aided by accomplices, opened dozens of new undeclared accounts for U.S. taxpayers in 2008 and 2009 after UBS AG, another giant Swiss bank, closed its undeclared accounts business for U.S. taxpayers after "widespread news reports in Switzerland the United States that the IRS was investigating UBS for helping U.S. taxpayers evade taxes and hide assets in Swiss bank accounts." [...]" 

Commentary:  "Why Banks Shun 30 Million Americans " [01/07/12] "They are 30 million consumers, representing a quarter of U.S. households, who earn a collective $1.3 trillion a year. But banks don’t want to serve them, because they lose money. And the nonfinancial institutions who do serve them may not be offering them much value in the long term. Welcome to the world of the unbanked and underbanked, who in a weird twist may have fewer banking options after Congress passed legislation aimed at protecting them from high bank fees. So who will serve these consumers, who either use no mainstream financial services or have a checking or savings account but also utilize nonbank financial services such as check cashers, payday lenders, and pawnbrokers? A huge opportunity awaits someone. In the good old days, banks would have stepped in. They received substantial revenue from interchange and overdraft fees, which essentially subsidized checking and savings accounts. But financial reform passed by Congress in 2010 brought the so-called Durbin amendment, which slashed banks’ profits on debit card transactions, and Regulation E, which severely limited the overdraft fees that banks could charge. In response, many banks have instigated high fees that effectively discourage low-income customers from opening (or keeping) accounts. It’s not by accident. To get a sense of why banks aren’t terribly interested in serving low-income customers, take a look at the following example. Imagine it’s 2007, pre-crisis and pre-regulation.  [...]" 

Interviews: "Capital Controls Coming in the US: Governments Will Become More Desperate As Debt Piles Up" [01/06/12] " Martin Armstrong of Armstrong Economics - wide-ranging interview covering the possibility of capital controls in the US, stagflation in the near-term, and why gold is likely to head lower before heading much higher. [...]"  

Commentary:  "Code, Scan, Trade And Profit. A New Wave Of Computer Enabled Insider Trading" [01/05/12] "Rumors are circulating about a new Wall St. research service scam that goes like this… Research reports are written with both recommendations and coded phraseology that enables pre-market manipulation. The way it works – a report that gives recommendations also contains coded phraseology that programs trading bots on the exchange that ‘read’ the report and make various trades. Certain word, symbol and number combinations in the report are picked up by the bots who put on the trades based on the coded info. In the following research report – the report spells out a recommendation – that will make the trades put on as the result of the previous report profitable. Let’s say in January, the research says “We love tech. and big pharma” but hidden in the report is coded info that was picked up by trading bots who went long Co. X. The following report recommends Co. X, making those pre-trades profitable (while containing new coded messages for the trading bots in anticipation of the next report). This ‘research’ service is sold to traders for a hefty fee. It’s inside info that is virtually impossible to detect available to a firm’s best clients on a regular basis. Simply buy the service and enable your computer software that ‘reads’ the research to pick up the code that will trigger what trades will be profitable when the next report is published.  [...]"  

MSM: "MF Global Sold Assets To Goldman Before Collapse" [01/05/12] "MF Global unloaded hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of securities to Goldman Sachs in the days leading up to its collapse, according to two former MF Global employees with direct knowledge of the transactions. But it did not immediately receive payment from its clearing firm and lender, JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM - News), one of the sources said. The sale of securities to Goldman occurred on October 27, just days before MF Global Holdings Ltd (Other OTC:MFGLQ.PK - News) filed for bankruptcy on October 31, the ex-employees said. One of the employees said the transaction was cleared with JPMorgan Chase. At the same time MF Global, which was run by former Goldman Sachs head Jon Corzine, was selling securities to Goldman to raise badly needed cash, the futures firm was also drawing down a $1.2 billion revolving line of credit it had with JPMorgan, according to one of the former MF Global employees. JPMorgan spokeswoman Mary Sedarat said the bank did not withold money because of the line of credit. She declined further comment on details of the transactions. [...]  "  

MSM: "Euro Breakdown Starts Now" [01/04/12] " Welcome to the year that the Eurozone begins its breakup and slides into certain doom—or so says one economic think tank in Europe. There is a 60% chance that "at least one country (and probably more) will leave" the euro in 2012, the head of the Centre for Economics and Business Research says. He adds that Greece's departure seems "pretty certain" and Italy will "more likely than not" follow suit, the Telegraph reports. CEBR gives the euro currency a 99% chance of failing over the next 10 years, and warns that a global depression may follow. Along the way, the think tank says, French and German banking systems could seek bailouts and even be nationalized, the Financial Post reports. For now, European leaders are trying to give Spain and Italy time to gain control over their debt. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday that 2012 will be turbulent but that she will "do everything to strengthen the euro," Bloomberg reports. [...]"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: From Russian Oil with Love (E231)" [01/04/12] [25:46] "We present an Eastern European special looking at Swiss franc mortgages in Hungary, bank runs in Latvia and the wisdom of austerity. In the second half of the show, Max talks to economist, Professor Constantin Gurdgiev, about the outlook for the Russian economy and banking sector in the event of a Eurozone collapse and also about what austerity has done for Ireland.[...]" 

Commentary:  "World's Biggest Economies Face $7.6 Trillion Bond Tab" [01/04/12] "Governments of the world’s leading economies have more than $7.6 trillion of debt maturing this year, with most facing a rise in borrowing costs.  Led by Japan’s $3 trillion and the U.S.’s $2.8 trillion, the amount coming due for the Group of Seven nations and Brazil, Russia, India and China is up from $7.4 trillion at this time last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Ten-year bond yields will be higher by year-end for at least seven of the countries, forecasts show. [...]" 

UK: "As Chances For Bank Loans Shrink, Britain's Small Firms Struggle" [01/03/12] "In Britain, the credit squeeze has sent businesses scrambling for alternative financing and fostered lending that bypasses the big banks. Scared by the euro debt crisis and a flat-lining economy, banks have been tightfisted with their money, refusing to issue many of the loans that companies desperately need to keep their operations running smoothly or to take them to the next level. That has added to concern that the world may be heading for another credit crunch hard on the heels of the last one, which was triggered by the 2008 financial crisis and helped tip the global economy into recession. [...]" 

Max Keiser - On The Edge: "Annual New Year’s Eve Economic Forecast With Karl Denninger" [01/02/12]   [23:01] "Karl Denninger returns to On the Edge for his annual New Year’s Eve forecast. First, he lists what he sees as the biggest stories of 2011 and forecasts the biggest trends, for 2012. Karl Denninger is the former CEO of MCSNet, a regional Chicago area networking and Internet company that operated from 1987 to 1998. [...]"  

Europe: "France's Future Hangs In Balance In 2012: Sarkozy" [01/02/12] "French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned on Saturday that the country's future hung in the balance in 2012 amid the eurozone debt crisis but said ratings agencies would not decide French policy. "France's destiny could once again be tipped" in 2012, Sarkozy said in a televised New Year's address. "Emerging from the crisis, building a new model for growth, giving birth to a new Europe -- these are some of the challenges that await us." "This crisis... probably the most serious since World War II, this crisis is not over," Sarkozy said.  [...]"  Related: "Papademos Warns Greeks Of Another Difficult Year Ahead" "... A very difficult year, marked by necessary but painful measures, is ending... a very difficult year is around the corner," Papademos said in his New Year's message. "We must pursue our efforts with determination... so that the crisis does not lead to a disorderly and catastrophic collapse. So that we can keep the euro," he said. Papademos -- who took the helm of a unity government in November to implement EU- and IMF imposed austerity measures to try to save the indebted nation from bankruptcy, said the first quarter will be particularly crucial. "We are living through the worst post-war national and international crisis.  [...]"| "Italian President Urges Sacrifices To Save Economy" "President Giorgio Napolitano on Saturday called on Italians to make sacrifices to prevent the "financial collapse of Italy". "Sacrifices are necessary to ensure the future of young people, it's our objective and a commitment we cannot avoid," he said in a New Year's speech to the nation. The eurozone's third largest economy, Italy sparked fears in 2011 that its toxic mix of low growth, high debt and spiraling borrowing costs could force it to seek a bailout like fellow eurozone members Greece, Ireland and Portugal. "No-one, no social group, can today avoid the commitment to contribute to the clean up of public finances in order to prevent the financial collapse of Italy," he said. "The sacrifices will not be in vain," he added, "especially if the economy begins to grow again."  [...]" | 

MSM: "Mystery Of The Missing $2 Million In Gold Bullion" [01/01/12] "The head of an insolvent mortgage company unloaded $2.2 million in gold and silver from his car at a Rexdale parking lot at night, according to his own testimony, and handed it to a man who has since disappeared. Court documents also tell of gold bullion and thousands of silver coins being ferried around the city in private cars, with no added security, from downtown banks to outlying business offices. [...]"  

Max Keiser: "Keiser Report: Outrageous Predictions for 2012 (E230)" [01/01/12] [25:40] "In this episode Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, present a New Year’s special featuring outrageous predictions, bloopers and Berlusconi’s 2012 Bunga Bunga Guide to finance. They look back to some 2010 predictions that came true in 2011 and look at the future of European bank runs, rising US treasury yields and the Jim Rogers – Marc Faber Chinese showdown. [...]" 

  

 

 

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