Here’s a new video just out from another SwarmUSA supporter –
Posts Tagged ‘the Fed’
Open Your Eyes – New Video from Swarm USA Supporter
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010Economic Reality Check
Monday, March 15th, 2010SwarmUSA strikes again …
Oh, come on.. it can’t be that bad, CAN it?
…
whatever you say.
http://www.swarmusa.com/vb4/content.php/247-Economic-Reality-Check
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered…I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies… The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
Thomas Jefferson, 3rd president of US (1743 – 1826)
Dylan Ratigan, Eliot Spitzer on the Lehman Report
Sunday, March 14th, 2010A good discussion of what’s in the report and what comes next from Ratigan and Spitzer.
So Let Me Get This Right: Lehman & Geithner & Fraud Oh My!
Friday, March 12th, 2010How much more evidence does it take to get any ACTION around here?
It is not getting better. It is getting worse. The facts are falling out onto the streets and no one is doing a single thing about them. (Other than ignoring them and adding more piles of dung to the propaganda machinery of the major media outlets, bla bla bla). At what point do we finally say enough is enough? Is there anyone left out in our public sector/goverment willing to DO anything??? It appears the answer is no. Pretty amazing. Pretty sad. Pretty much makes it plain that the corruption is so deep and wide spread that we are Done. D – O – N – E. Stick a fork in us.
NY Fed Implicated in the Accounting Fraud at Lehman
Quite a bombshell from Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism tonight.
I wonder if the US mainstream media will ignore and dismiss it as they did the exclusion of the Wall Street banks from European debt sales in response to their fraudulent CDO sales. Is there a ‘reverse gear’ on the Voice of America?
In response, let’s see if Chris Dodd puts the Consumer Protection section of the financial reform legislation under the control of a private organization,the Fed, which is owned by the institutions it is supposed to be regulating, and which is now implicated in the failure and fraud that helped to trigger the recent financial crisis.
The senior Republicans on the committee have insisted that it be. Originally Senator Dodd seemed to be going along with that in the spirit of bipartisan support for the monied interests and the financial lobbyists. That would be the perfect Orwellian twist to an increasingly surreal decline in the observance of the Constitution and the rule of law.
And then of course there is Turbo Tim, knee deep again in messy conflicts of interest and crony capitalism. The “CEO defense” claiming attention deficit disorder and blissful aloofness is in fashion among highly paid US executives. Considering Mr. Geithner’s record, even in the execution of his own tax returns, the incompetence defense might be plausible. But it then calls into question the judgement of the person who subsequently appointed Tim to be the head of the most powerful financial organization on earth, the US Treasury.
Call the New Yorker. Time for another media PR blitz, but this one is for the Chief.
Naked Capitalism
NY Fed Under Geithner Implicated in Lehman Accounting Fraud
Quite a few observers, including this blogger, have been stunned and frustrated at the refusal to investigate what was almost certain accounting fraud at Lehman. Despite the bankruptcy administrator’s effort to blame the gaping hole in Lehman’s balance sheet on its disorderly collapse, the idea that the firm, which was by its own accounts solvent, would suddenly spring a roughly $130+ billion hole in its $660 balance sheet, is simply implausible on its face. Indeed, it was such common knowledge in the Lehman flailing about period that Lehman’s accounts were such that Hank Paulson’s recent book mentions repeatedly that Lehman’s valuations were phony as if it were no big deal.
Well, it is folks, as a newly-released examiner’s report by Anton Valukas in connection with the Lehman bankruptcy makes clear. The unraveling isn’t merely implicating Fuld and his recent succession of CFOs, or its accounting firm, Ernst & Young, as might be expected. It also emerges that the NY Fed, and thus Timothy Geithner, were at a minimum massively derelict in the performance of their duties, and may well be culpable in aiding and abetting Lehman in accounting fraud and Sarbox violations.
We need to demand an immediate release of the e-mails, phone records, and meeting notes from the NY Fed and key Lehman principals regarding the NY Fed’s review of Lehman’s solvency. If, as things appear now, Lehman was allowed by the Fed’s inaction to remain in business, when the Fed should have insisted on a wind-down (and the failed Barclay’s said this was not infeasible: even an orderly bankruptcy would have been preferable, as Harvey Miller, who handled the Lehman BK filing has made clear; a good bank/bad bank structure, with a Fed backstop of the bad bank, would have been an option if the Fed’s justification for inaction was systemic risk), the NY Fed at a minimum helped perpetuate a fraud on investors and counter parties.
This pattern further suggests the Fed, which by its charter is tasked to promote the safety and soundness of the banking system, instead, via its collusion with Lehman management, operated to protect particular actors to the detriment of the public at large.
And most important, it says that the NY Fed, and likely Geithner himself, undermined, perhaps even violated, laws designed to protect investors and markets. If so, he is not fit to be Treasury secretary or hold any office related to financial supervision and should resign immediately…
Read the rest of the story here.
My Budget 360: How About we let the Average Aerican Borrow from the Federal Reserve at 0 Percent and Cut Out the Loan Shark?
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010Oh yeah – this is just exactly right. Thank You MyBudget360.com for this excellent piece. And yes, it does boggle the mind. Indeed it does…
Breaking the American Bank – Banking Propaganda and Using the American Middle Class as a Credit Card for Wall Street Excess. How About we let the Average American Borrow from the Federal Reserve at 0 Percent and cut out the Loan Shark?
from My Budget 360 by mybudget360
Banks are showing their true colors and what little regard they have for the average American. As they advertise with cute and friendly faces assuring consumers they are looking out for their best interest, behind their backs they send in a locust of lobbyist onto Washington to do everything in their power to gut any sensible financial regulation. The vultures are picking off every piece of what used to be the middle class. This is the model of the new banking and financial system that many will have to contend with. Americans have seen their access to loans and credit contract at the fastest pace in history while banks have now opened up an unlimited credit card with the taxpayer paying the bill for too big to fail. Banks are doing their best to create a narrative that “if we didn’t bailout the banks then the world would have ended storyline” but the vast majority of Americans did not support the banking bailout.
If you want to see how quickly credit is contracting take a look at this:
The chart above merely highlights what you already know. Banks no longer trust the average American. While they based all their bailouts on the idea that taxpayer money was needed to keep banks lending this has been a lie. In fact, banks need the money to plug the hole that their toxic assets are burning on their balance sheets. You can also look at the amount of credit card offers you are getting in the mail to gauge how quickly the market has changed. No longer do banks want to give credit out (that is, unless it is government backed like mortgages which they are all the more willing to lend out).
The U.S. has over 8,000 banks with the large concentration of assets in 10 banks. These banks continue to use bailout funds to plug the problems from the boom years. But this is not in the best interest of average Americans. If Wall Street and politicians were honest, the bailouts would have been labeled as a massive charity to the elite of the country who made disastrous bets over the past decade. The public takes the lumps while Wall Street actually gets richer. While banks don’t want to reel in their spendthrift ways, Americans are pulling back:
Americans are now having to save more and more of their money as is expected in a tough economy. Yet banks are back to gambling in the stock market while shutting down lending to consumers. Banks are playing the poor me card by arguing that with too much tight regulation, they can’t make loans because they are worried about future balance sheet problems. Thanks for telling us after you took the public money under false pretenses! But this is all a political ploy to steal from the working class. With so many people just unable to even service the debt and rising bankruptcies, banks are now going after good customers who pay their bills on time each month just because they are running out of “options.” Don’t be fooled. They are reaping billion dollar profits because they are using excuses to squeeze the golden goose dry. How about we allow the typical American to borrow at the subsidized low rate from the Federal Reserve directly? Why in the world do we need banks to operate as loan sharks in between? What we need is to transform the banking industry into a utility model. A model designed to serve the people, not the banks. After all, why should they get the privilege of borrowing at criminally low rates while everyone else has to pay the interest and subsidize their gambling adventure?
Even after all the correction in the market American households still carry an inordinate amount of debt:
A giant portion of income simply goes to pay off debt. A large part of the debt is interest or money the banks can suck out of the neck of middle class Americans. Banks live off this margin. Take for example a $100,000 30 year fixed rate mortgage at 6 percent:
Principal: $100,000
Total Interest: $115,838
In the end, you are paying more than the initial cost and all that interest goes to who? What purpose does it serve? Banks are delusional and want the public to believe in the propaganda that they need to charge a higher rate because of “risk” in the loan. Are they kidding? We already know that they are being supported by the entire Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. They can make the most insane kind of bets and ultimately the taxpayer will eat the bill. And keep in mind many of these banks are borrowing at low levels from the Federal Reserve. Why not allow the public to keep some of that interest? How is this bad? If banks were lending their own money it would be a different story but they are not. They are creating a dishonest narrative and most Americans are not buying it because they operate in reality and not some parallel universe where you can create something out of nothing.
Just think of the billions charged in overdraft fees. This is criminal. Why not just default debit cards to stop once the account is dry? Instead they want people that charge a $2 burger a $39 over draft “convenience fee” for this nonsense. Are you kidding? Most people don’t want this. They find out the hard way and now billions have left the wallet of consumers for this nice little loan shark fee. $39 can buy you lunch for a few days so this is nothing to laugh at when 38,000,000 Americans find themselves on food assistance. The bulk of the billions are paid by the poor. Good job banks for helping your fellow Americans. Yet banks are leeches sucking the productive life blood out of the economy with gimmicks like this. Time to break the banks up and turn them into utilities.
Take for example JP Morgan. They announced a Q4 profit of $3.28 billion. Where did they make their money?
“(Huff Po) JPMorgan’s biggest trouble spots were in consumer banking and credit card lending. The bank’s retail financial services division, which includes its mortgage operations, lost $399 million. That was worse than the final quarter in 2008, when credit markets had essentially shut down because of the collapse of banks including Lehman Brothers.
The company reported increases in mortgages that were charged off, or classified as uncollectible, including prime mortgages, the highest quality home loans. It also reported an increase in home equity loan charge-offs.”
Wait. So mortgages are being charged off as foreclosures remain high. And this has spread to so-called prime mortgages as the unemployment and underemployment rate remains at 17.9 percent. So let us write off mortgages to average Americans. Where in the world did they get those billions? Maybe they made good money in their credit card unit:
“The credit-card lending division lost $306 million during the final three months of 2009. Results would’ve been worse had the bank not had a payment holiday in the period.”
More losses here? So we’ve ruled out credit cards and mortgages which have become the life blood for Americans. We’re running out of places to look for where they can make a $3 billion profit:
“Despite the ongoing problems with consumer banking, JPMorgan is still performing well because of its robust investment banking unit. As long as stock and bond markets continue to improve, the bank will be able to churn out profits and reward its employees handsomely.
JPMorgan’s investment bank earned $1.9 billion during the fourth quarter, while its asset management division generated $424 million in net income.
Fees from financing debt and stock offerings continued to surge in the fourth quarter. Debt financing fees jumped 58 percent to $732 million from the same quarter a year earlier, while stock financing fees climbed 66 percent to $549 million.”
And there you have it. We are financing Wall Street’s wonderful gambling casino once again while the traditional banking model has collapsed. How this isn’t the number one priority for the government and the people to fix is simply astounding. How we have had no serious financial reform after 26 months of the Great Recession boggles the mind.
Jesse’s Cafe – Beware the Ides of March – Markets
Sunday, February 28th, 2010Plenty to think about as we roll into the new month and Jesse covers some fertile ground here which has been on my mind a lot of late. The sheer volume of insanity seems to be rising around us as a wild cognitive dissonance takes over the landscape of reason.
In the past week alone I have had a half dozen examples of such high handed craziness that it’s impossible to call these just aberations any longer. No longer coming from just a few of the rogue institutions, but now seeming to spread across the playing field as one lender after another informs the distressed homeowner that it will take thousands of dollars in ‘up front cash contributions’ to be ‘considered’ for loan modification or other relief…
Because… as we all know, distressed homeowners are the logical place to find large sums of cash – right?
Particularly unemployed homeowners…
27 February 2010
Pictures of a Market Crash: Beware the Ides of March, And What Follows After
There are a fair number of private and public forecasters with whom I speak that anticipate a significant market decline in March. As you know I tend to agree, but with the important caveat that we are in a very different monetary landscape than the last time the Fed engaged in quantitative easing, the early 1930’s.
The biggest difference is the lack of external standards. This introduces an element of policy decision that has been discussed here on several occasions. In other words, the Fed retains the option, albeit with increasing difficulty, to create another bubble, and levitate stock market prices in the face of deteriorating economic fundamentals.
The dollar was formally devalued by around 40% in 1933. We may yet see that done this time, but more gradually and informally. This is what makes gold controversial today; it exposes the financial engineering. So they feel the need to manage it, to denigrate it as an alternative to their paper. They want to have their cake, and eat it too.
Let’s review where we are today.
The Bear Market of 2007-2009, marked by the Crash of 2008, has been a massive decline in equity prices precipitated by the bursting of the credit bubble centered around housing prices and packaged debt obligations of highly questionable valuations. The cause of the bubble was easy Fed monetary policy and the loosened regulation of the financial sector, which reopened the door to old frauds with new names.
Even today, I think most people do not appreciate the sheer magnitude of the decline, and the damage it has done to the real economy. This is the result, I believe, of three factors:
1. An extraordinary expansion of the Monetary Base by the Federal Reserve not seen since the aftermath of the Crash of 1929, and a swath of financial sector support programs from the Fed and the Treasury, resulting in a spectacular fifty percent retracement rally from the stock market bottom. This is the narcotic that permits the country to not notice that a leg is missing.
2. A comprehensive program of perception management by the government in conjunction with the financial sector to sustain consumer confidence and reduce the chance of further panic. In other words, a web of well-intentioned deceit, subject to abuse.
3. An understandable preoccupation by the individual with the details of breaking news, and a short term focus on particular events, diversions, and controversies, bread and circuses, without a true appreciation of the ‘big picture,’ in part because of some very effective public relations campaigns and a natural human reluctance to face hard problems.
This is resulting in a remarkable case of cognitive dissonance in which some of the victims of a spectacular man-made calamity are opposing remedies and aid as too costly and impractical, even as they walk around amongst the bleeding carnage.
For those who read the contemporary literature in the early Thirties, this is nothing new. In the early Thirties there was no sense, except for a few notable exceptions, of the magnitude of what had so recently happened. There was the sense of life goes on which seems almost eerie now to a modern reader. Indeed, Herbert Hoover could dismiss a delegation of concerned citizens with the advice that they were too late, the crisis was past, and all was well. Sound familiar?
The parallels with the Thirties and the Teens (today) are many, and uncanny.
There is the reformer President, elected to redress the extremely pro-business policies of his Republican predecessor. In the Thirties they had FDR who was a decisive and experienced leader. In the Teens the US has a relatively inexperienced community organizer, more influenced by the Wall Street monied interests, and a past history of ‘playing safe,’ who is trying to manage through indirection and persuasion.
There is a Republican minority in the Congress which opposes all new programs and actions despite giving lip service in order to delay and debilitate. In the Thirties the Republicans were over-ridden by a powerful, activist President, who created a “New Deal” set of legislation, much of which was later overturned by a Supreme Court which had been largely seated by the previous Republican Administrations.
Indeed, the remaining New Deal programs that were successful, the reforms of Glass-Steagall and the safety net of Social Security, are being overturned or are under attack in an almost bucket list fashion.
So what next?
Another leg down in the economy and the financial markets is a high probability.
Although one cannot see it just yet in the fog of corrupted government statistics, the economy is not improving and the US Consumers are flat on their back, scraping by for the most part, except for the upper percentiles who were made fat by the credit bubble, and are still extracting rents from it through officially sanctioned subsidies.
This was no accident; there is a consciousness behind it.
There are far too many otherwise responsible people who are not taking the situation with the high seriousness it deserves. Some would even like to see the US economy collapse, inflicting serious pain and deprivation because it may:
1.suit their investment positions and feed their egos because they think themselves above it all,
2. satisfy their ideological and emotional needs to see punishment administered, almost always to others, for the excesses of the credit bubble, especially if they are relatively weak, unwitting victims, and
3. the sheer nastiness and immaturity of a portion of the population which wallows in stereotypes, childish behaviour, and disappointment with their own lives. They tend to find and follow demagogues that feed their bitter hatreds.They know not what they do, until they do it, and see the results. It is often a good bet to assume that people will be irrational, almost to the point of idiocy and self-destruction. And some of them never wake up until they are overrun, and then will not admit their error out of a stubborn sense of pride and embarrassment.
It seems likely that there will be a new leg down in financial asset valuations, as reality overcomes often not-so-subtle propaganda and disinformation. It may start in March, or it may be a ‘market break’ that provides a subtle warning for a large decline that begins in September 2010, with multi year progression to lows that are, as of now, almost unimaginable, at least in real terms. I cannot stress this issue of nominal versus real enough. As inflation comes, it will initially be in a ’stealth’ manner, with the backing of the currency eroding slowly but steadily, and largely unrecognized for some time. It is not enough to try and count the dollars; one also has to consider the value behind them, the quality of the wealth, and its vitality. This is the case for stagflation.
The Fed is acting to mask quite a bit of this. One would hope that they would also not re-enact the policy error of their predecessors and raise rates prematurely out of fear of inflation before the structural healing can occur.
The debt incurred during the credit bubble cannot be paid and must be liquidated. So far we have largely seen transference of debt obligations from insiders to the public. Ironically these same insiders are lobbying to maintain these subsidies and transfers, and also to take a hard line against any further remediation of the consequences of the collapse, which they caused, on the public, to have more for themselves. Their greed and hypocrisy know no bounds.
But the policy error might not be caused by the Fed’s direct action, but replicated by a governmental failure to stimulate the economy effectively AND to reform the highly inefficient and impractical financial system. The purpose of stimulus is to provide a cushion for structural reform and healing to occur, after an external shock, or even a period of reckless excess and lawlessness. The natural cycle can be disrupted beyond its ability to repair itself. But stimulus without reform is the road to further deterioration and addiction.
As it stands today the global trade system is a farcical construct that favors national elites and multinational corporations. Public policy discussion has been trumped by a handful of economic myths and legends that, even though disproved every day, nevertheless remain resilient in public discussions and reactions. This is because they have become familiar, and because they are the instruments of deception for certain groups of disreputable economists and policy influencers.
A more serious market crash might cause people to recognize the severity of their problems, and the thinness of the arguments of the monied interests for the status quo which is most clearly unsustainable. But a sizable minority of the population is always highly suggestible; demagogues rely on this.
The eventual outcome for the US is difficult to forecast with any precision now because there are multiple paths that events might take at several key decision points. Some of them might be rather disruptive and upsetting to civil tranquility. Game changers.
But as the dust continues to settle, the probabilities will continue to clarify.
“Suffering can strengthen our endurance. Endurance encourages strength of character. Character supports hope and confidence even during hard times and trials. And hope does not disappoint us in the end, because God has given us the Spirit and filled our hearts with His love.” Romans 5:3-5
It is right to be cautious, and it is human to be afraid. But let us not allow our fears and trials to turn us from our genuine humanity in God’s grace no matter how dire the day, even if it may drive some of the world once again into the jaws of desperation and madness. And if you stumble, gather yourself up and go forward again without turning from the way. For what is the profit to gain some small and temporary advantage in this world, but to lose your self, forever.
Posted by Jesse at 10:46 AM
Liars and Crooks and Thieves, Oh MY!
Thursday, January 7th, 2010Today’s stories of the cover-up of the AIG payouts to the leading banks by then head of the NYFed (now Treasury Secretary!?) Geithner leave little to the imagination…
The head of our Treasury is a lieiing sack of turd but hey, America, it’s all good and we are in the midst of a recovery! Oh, er, well, uhm.. at least Goldman Sachs, Timothy, Ben, Ken Lewis and those folks are! Recovering, that is… From their decade long binge – slipping off quietly to maintain the front running of the markets to their own ends – Ah, but don’t be so harsh a judge. After all, they have you, the American Tax Payer in MIND. They do indeed – you are getting lined up for “Plan C” wherein the Fed and Treasury will quietly bail out the imploding 3Trillion dollar Commercial real estate collapse – and then use tax payers monies to fund paying off all the banks and their insider (read: each other) investors for the negative equity in all of the residential real estate.
Life is good in the promised land.
Very good indeed – for those in the top 3 percent… doncha know?
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Geithner’s dubious AIG cover up
By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns
Let me add a few words to Yves’ last post because I don’t think she was explicit enough about what’s going on here. This was looting and a cover-up plain and simple.
A quick review: Damaging e-mails have revealed that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged AIG to withhold crucial information about the deterioration of its financial condition in the lead up to its demise. This will put further political pressure on Geithner, who has already been exposed for his dubious role in the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.
Bloomberg leads into the story saying:
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show.
AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public on Dec. 24, 2008. The e-mails were obtained by Representative Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
These were not e-mails revealed willingly, but rather as a result of oversight and investigation. At issue is whether the 100 cents on the dollar payments by AIG to its credit default swap counterparties were a backdoor bailout. Most market watchers believe that AIG counterparties would have received significantly less on the free market, exposing them to tens of billions in losses instead of taxpayers (see CW story from March 2009 on this issue). So, in a very real sense, many believe taxpayers were defrauded by the government’s handling of the AIG affair. This latest revelation only adds to that belief.
Moreover, in regards to Tim Geithner personally, this revelation is extremely damaging. Not only did he, Paulson and Bernanke mishandle the Lehman bankruptcy which triggered the panic central to the financial crisis, but he has now been personally implicated in withholding – covering up, if you will – vital evidence on the looting of taxpayers to the benefit of financial companies, some of whom are not even domestic institutions. (See my definition of terms.) You have to see this in a negative light.
I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you that he had direct oversight responsibilities for money center banks as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In the past, in testimony before Congress he has denied that he was, in fact, responsible for these institutions, saying “I’m not a regulator.”
I’ve never been a regulator, for better or worse. And I think you’re right to say that we have to be very skeptical that regulation can solve all of these problems. We have parts of our system that are overwhelmed by regulation.
Overwhelmed by regulation! It wasn’t the absence of regulation that was the problem, it was despite the presence of regulation you’ve got huge risks that build up.
This is just nonsense. Jo Becker and Gretchen Morgenson put it this way in April:
An examination of Mr. Geithner’s five years as president of the New York Fed, an era of unbridled and ultimately disastrous risk-taking by the financial industry, shows that he forged unusually close relationships with executives of Wall Street’s giant financial institutions.
His actions, as a regulator and later a bailout king, often aligned with the industry’s interests and desires, according to interviews with financiers, regulators and analysts and a review of Federal Reserve records.
In a pair of recent interviews and an exchange of e-mail messages, Mr. Geithner defended his record, saying that from very early on, he was “a consistently dark voice about the potential risks ahead, and a principal source of initiatives designed to make the system stronger” before the markets started to collapse.
Mr. Geithner said his actions in the bailout were motivated solely by a desire to help businesses and consumers. But in a financial crisis, he added, “the government has to take risk, and we are going to be doing things which ultimately — in order to get the credit flowing again — are going to benefit the institutions that are at the core of the problem.”
He was on the job when these firms levered up and took reckless risks that endangered our financial system. For him to absolve himself of responsibility is a disgrace. And to add insult to injury, we now learn that he urged a systemically important company to withhold evidence of his looting of taxpayers.
Tim Geithner must go.
***
To which I can only add: Tim is not the ONLY one who must go – They ALL must go!
On the Trail of Ron Paul
Saturday, August 8th, 2009It all began a long time ago, this love affair (intellectually speaking) I have with Ron Paul of Texas… He just gets it. What can I say? and now to hear that his son gets it too… icing on the cake. Not to mention the clarity with which they both speak; overcoming even the patronizing opacity of the media interviewer…
In comparison, watching Nancy Pelosi talk about “The Secrets of the Temple” and act as if we were all right on page with her all these years – was a bit of a comeuppance for me – Someone who has studied the myths and truths of the history of this nation… Well, to see her act as if this was now ’status quo’ -
The people like me who have done the research and read the books – Creature [from Jekyll Island], Secrets, Money – to look up and see Ms Pelosi acting as if the deceptive monetary practices of the past one hundred years have instantaneously become simply “common knowledge” was a bit of a shock, to put it mildly.
You know, suddenly the “Our money supply is controlled by a powerful secret cabal that is not secret, that we actually all know about, thank you very much… – and we all agree…”
The last 20 years or more that Ron Paul has been the lone wolf in this arena of honestly addressing the American monetary system dissolves like so much ice on a hot day…
And Nancy, well she’s been advertising on the street corners that the Fed is a private ‘non governmental non quasi governmental organization’ all along – had been on the same page for eons. Hint: if everyone knows this wouldn’t some change have taken place by now?
No – today what has been fringe … went mainstream…
was never not, er, “in”
Tell me that’s not just beyond weird.
So to see my old heros coming back and coming on in a new generation.. well that was a sweet breath of ocean and jasmine breeze. thanks guys.
And then they went and did this!
Sweet.
Uh HUH! 
The Never Ending Pointless Debate – While the Banks Still Call the Shots
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009The government says they are supporting short sales and loan modifications for homeowners – yet less than 3 percent of all loan modifcations at this time include any reduction in principle on mortgages as housing values continue to fall.
Meantime short sales falter as banks add new “home owner contribution” requirements, strip agent commissions and demand “out side of escrow pay offs” which exceed the Fannie and Freddie Guidelines for junior liens… “We’ll kill your short sale over $5,000.00 in additional payment that we know must not appear on the HUD or in the escrow records (where it would violate the law and force the superior lien holder to cancel the contract”).
Arguing ideals is pointless – political ideals and reality are vastly different things. In our country right now there are banks and there are the government agencies which are run by the banks- the idea that republican and democrat mean anything at all beyond two sides of the same power monopoly is ignorance. There is no free system here anymore – there is so much corruption on so many levels that it is impossible to call any of it by any real politically correct name other than corrupted.
The man who warned us about all of this coming into being was Eisenhower but we didn’t listen. Now the powers that be can pit the people against each other as republican, democrats, gays, straights, religious, non religious and so on into the vast forever of stupid people ignorant of the controlling systems where all monetary and political decisions are made behind closed doors to benefit those making the decisions.
So long as the people are willing to squabble over the crumbs and remain ignorant of the power brokers moves there is no future other than the one where the entire nation is brought to its collective knees at the mercy of the “lenders” and the governments who fail to regulate them. Case in point: the easy money lending practices of the past decade were put in place purposefully by the Fed in order to shift the collapsing tech bubble into a new consumer bubble – sustaining the unsustainable consumption which powered the machinery of the profits the lenders and money printers needed while they ensnared the entire nation in unsupportable debt.
Now as the money supply is stripped from the people and given directly to those same “lenders” who front loaded and made billions in the past decade on fees and points the small businesses and people of the country are left with no credit and no cash flow. These are not accidental occurrences.
These are not simply “symptoms” of something not working. This is the direct result of a flawed money system which gives power to those in control and strips it from the people. How else in the world could a corrupt institution like the “now defunct” Countrywide Home Mortgage be able to demand “contributions” from sellers who are jobless and homeless when a buyer presents to purchase the property at a short sale?
How else can a lender like B of A demand a cash or promissory note contribution from a seller on a short sale and state clearly that the offer price is perfectly acceptable but the offer is denied unless and until the homeowner provides this additional contribution? And this on purchase money mortgages in the State of California where (like most sane states) the lender is forbade from pursuing the collection of their debt BEYOND THE PROPERTY?
Yet this is now happening all over the country in record numbers – where documented hard ships of the homeowners make absolutely no difference in the eyes of the “lender” who has been given billions in taxpayer bailout funds and is still not satisfied – even when it is a proven fact that a short sale will provide the lender with the highest possible return on their investment when compared to a foreclosure and subsequent REO sale?
It is amazing how much ignorance parades as knowledge in these times – where people are willing to defend irrational and long proven unsound money policy (print print print) rather than do the ONE thing that can and must be done:
Make the banks suffer the losses they incurred. Make the investors and derivative funds take the losses they incurred. Let the lenders and investors who played this insane gamble of leveraging the average American household up to its eyes take the hit and take the fall.
Right now the lenders and bankers are the ONLY ones NOT taking the hit – the homeowners are taking the hit – the local governments are taking the hit – the local businesses are taking the hit – but the banks are sitting on trillions of newly created dollars, cooking the books to the point that the OTS has SAID they were cooking the books and STILL NO ONE is being prosecuted and no one is calling the bluff.
The FDIC is now offering ReFi and loan mods with 125 percent Loan to Value in a market where the values are still falling! This is LUNACY. If you want to solve the problem for the PEOPLE of this nation then do the ONE thing no one is willing to do: make the banks take the same write down everyone else is being force fed and let them fail.
It is much easier to have a healthy financial institution (there are a few left, you know, who did NOT get into this insane derivatives game) take over the failed banks and RUN THEM CORRECTLY than it is to keep feeding FRNs to the incompetent banks and expecting things to get better!
Why is this so hard to understand? Because the vast majority of Americans have not taken the time to even research or understand their own country’s monetary system. We are a private money system run by a private money institution.
The FED which has, I notice in recent years been named a “quasi government organization” – really ? What the HELL is THAT? Is it something like the Halliburton corporation being owned by the VP and being allowed to over charge and strip resources directly out of the defense budget at the detriment of our own soldiers overseas?
Is it something like the vast federal prison system run by nested corporations owned at the highest levels by members of elite families like BUSH and others who can hire out labor of American prisoners to great profit while ignoring crowded conditions, vast and systemic corruption by prison guards, and even death of inmates in a country where some 60 percent of short term prison inmates are doing time for TRAFFIC OFFENSES?
Americans think that the problems they face are caused by their ignorant neighbors getting a loan they could not afford. That is not the problem. The problem is that the vast networks of power and corruption are so broad and so deep and so entrenched that when a financial collapse threatens, these same corrupt power brokers determine that the solution is to give the people and institutions that CAUSED the near collapse all the future earnings of the American people and the people are so ignorant that they don’t even understand what just happened to them.
This idea that the markets of this country are “free” is the biggest joke ever foisted on the American people – and they keep falling for it. Your money is all tied up in 401Ks the Government tells you is the only place you can put your retirement funds so you do it – then the banksters start playing in the derivatives markets and crash the markets and poof all your money is gone – but no one is bailing YOU out – how gullible are you?
But hell, I am just another crazy radical with sideways ideas – go back to blaming the farm workers who were easily conned into signing on contracts they couldn’t read, or the greed of consumers who ended up indebted to credit cards charging 29 percent interest when the market rates are something like 3 percent – But don’t you yourself make any consumer loans to anyone at such interest rates or you will go to jail for violating the usury laws – hmmmm.
Now let’s get back to arguing over the democrats and republicans, progressives and socialists, gays and lesbians, marriage or living togethers, anything to keep our eye off the ball that is in motion and about to swing so hard that the vast majority of Americans will be so caught of guard as to find themselves losing so much so fast (look around at the “minority” of Americans this has already happened to) that they will not know what hit them.
