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Gary Edwards

Peter Beinart: How Ron Paul Will Change the GOP in 2012 - The Daily Beast - 2 views

www.thedailybeast.com/...ll-change-the-gop-in-2012.html

Banksters Ron-Paul Libertarians Peter-Beinart

shared by Gary Edwards on 30 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 30 Dec 11
     
    Not a big Peter Beinhart fan, but this article explains a large part of the Ron Paul phenom. After a life time as a big C Goldwater-Reagan Constitutional Conservative, this summer i made a full transition to big C Constitutional Libertarian. The tipping point for me was the GAO audit of the Federal Reserve, where they discovered $16.1 Trillion of taxpayer dollars missing from the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel management books. It went to a who's who of international Bankster Cartel members. None of the taxpayer funded "financial collapse of 2008" bailout dollars went to the purposes chartered by their legislation. That includees the TARP $850 Billion, the Obama Stimulous $1 Trillion, and the mega FRBC $16.1 Trillion. No bad debts were purchased and retired. No rotting mortgage securities were swept up and restructured. No shovel ready jobs either. And no one in government or banksterism having caused the financial collapse went to jail. Instead, the perps feasted on the bailout dollars. The debt remains on the books of international Banksters, collecting interest, thirsting for foreclosure. The Bankster Cartel members are flush with cash, but not lending. By law (The Federal Reserve Act of December 23rd, 1913), FRBC members must keep a significant amount of their assets on "reserve" at the Federal Reserve, at 6% interest. In exchange for managing this process and the exploding money supply, the taxpayers of the USA are obligated by law to pay the FRBC 1% per year of (assets under management" (the money supply). Take note: the FRBC takes the 1% per year payment for their services in the form of GOLD!! They will not take payment in the form of paper notes labeled legal tender "Federal Reserve Notes". They only take GOLD. My transition to Constitutional Libertarian begins with a strct reading of the Constitution (the How), the Declaration of Independence, (the Why), and belief in the Rule of Law, not man. The concept of achievi
Gary Edwards

$29,000,000,000,000: A Detailed Look at the Fed's Bailout by Funding Facility and Recip... - 0 views

ideas.repec.org/...wp_698.html

Liberty-Tryanny Liberty Banksters Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 16 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 16 Dec 11
     
    Stunning stuff.  No need to bailout the European Banks because the Federal Reserve has already done that!!! The Levi Institute of Economics has published the details of the Federal Reserve's International Bankster bailout from late 2007 to 2009.  It's far more than the $16.2 Trillion the GAO audit uncovered in July of 2010.  It's far more than the $7.77 Trillion Bloomberg discovered in their Freedom of Information action against the Federal Reserve.  Researching the "recipients" of the USA Federal reserve Bankster largess, the Levi Institute documents a whopping $29 Trillion has been distributed to Bankster coffers at near zero percent interest.   Note that no debt, and no loans of any kind has been purchased, retired, restructured or otherwise dealt with.  The bad loans remain on the books, including crushing interest payments that continue to escalate and accrue.  Debtors continue to fall deeper into debt.  Foreclosure and default loom over public, private and sovereign debtors.  So where did the money go?  $29 Trill is more than enough to retire the entire USA national debt, with interest, and, every mortgage both public and private in the USA. abstract: There have been a number of estimates of the total amount of funding provided by the Federal Reserve to bail out the financial system. For example, Bloomberg recently claimed that the cumulative commitment by the Fed (this includes asset purchases plus lending) was $7.77 trillion. As part of the Ford Foundation project "A Research and Policy Dialogue Project on Improving Governance of the Government Safety Net in Financial Crisis," Nicola Matthews and James Felkerson have undertaken an examination of the data on the Fed's bailout of the financial system-the most comprehensive investigation of the raw data to date. This working paper is the first in a series that will report the results of this investigation. The extraordinary scope and magnitude of the recent financial crisis of 2007-09 required an
Gary Edwards

Paul Craig Roberts-Obama Could Govern as a Dictator | Greg Hunter's USAWatchdog - 1 views

usawatchdog.com/ama-could-govern-as-a-dictator

Banksters Debt-Crisis Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Oct 13 - No Cached
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Oct 13
       
      If Congress is wooried about being black mailed into either voting for the an increased debt limit, or, facing an invocation of the Continuity of Government plan, why not opt instead to pass a resolution declaring the current "Continuity of Government" plan un Constitutional?  Which it is!!!!!!!
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Oct 13
     
    Interview with former Assistant Treasury Secretary, Paul Craig Roberts. He comments on the relationship between the Debt Limit Crisis, and the "Continuity of Government Plan" that would be triggered by a catastrophic emergency. The triggering of the Continuity of Government plan would result in the end of our Constitution. There is no provision in the Constitution for any kind of "Continuity of Government" plan. Especially a plan that would suspend or infringe in any way on the rights and liberties of individual Americans. Nothing!! "You can forget about any default in the debt ceiling crisis.  Former Assistant Treasury Secretary Dr. Paul Craig Roberts says, "The debt ceiling will be raised.  No government wants to lose its power or lose its ability to borrow.  So, if they don't raise the debt ceiling, it is just a way of Washington committing hari-kari.  It simply removes the United States as a super power."  Dr. Roberts goes on to say, "If they don't make a deal, one of two things will happen. . . . The Federal Reserve, on its own authority, lends the Treasury the money. . . . The other alternative, Obama . . . can simply declare a national emergency and raise the debt ceiling on his own initiative.  He could govern as a dictator." What would happen if the U.S. did default?  Dr. Roberts says, "The danger of default is the rest of the world dumps dollars.  If they dump dollars, the Fed loses control, the whole system blows up.  The banks fail.  The bond market collapses.  The stock market won't go down 1,500 points; it would be cut in half. " No matter what happens, there is still an enormous and growing debt.  Dr. Roberts contends, "The situation is unsustainable."  It will blow up at some point, and Dr. Roberts predicts, "It will be worse than the Great Depression because in the Great Depression, prices fell along with employment.  Now, prices will be rising and employment would be falling. . . . Gold and silver prices
Gary Edwards

Bailouts Of Bondholders Will Sock Taxpayers With $10-$14 Trillion Loss - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/ith-10-14-trillion-loss-2009-3

financial-crisis obama-socialism banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 23 Mar 09
     
    The holders [of this debt] are not just banks, but insurance companies, pension funds, foreign lenders, and others. Even so, there is no way to prevent huge, ongoing losses, because the cash flows off of these assets are not sufficient to service the debt. The only question is whether the bondholders appropriately bear those losses, or whether the public bears them inappropriately. A continued policy of protecting all of these bondholders would eventually require U.S. citizens to be put on the hook for something on the order of $10-14 trillion. We are nowhere near the end of this process. We simply cannot make these bad investments whole unless we are willing to hand the next 10-20 years of U.S. private savings over to the bondholders who financed reckless lending.
Gary Edwards

The Right Way To Reform Wall Street: Let Stupid Firms Fail! - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/errible-washington-idea-2009-9

financial-crisis financial-oligarchs banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Sep 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Sep 09
     
    Let stupid firms fail. We need to get back to that. Yes, the fact that the "stupid firms" this time around included most of Wall Street shows that special rules of financial bankruptcy should apply so the whole system doesn't collapse.  But the firms need to be allowed to fail. What should the special rules of financial bankruptcy be? managements should be tossed compensation contracts and other liabilities should be torn up,  bonus pools should be zeroed until the firms return to annual profitability equity and preferred holders should be wiped out, and junior bondholders should get a major haircut through the immediate, forced conversion of debt to equity. All of this should happen not over years in the courts, but overnight--in the manner in which the FDIC seizes failing banks.  In such proceedings, all of Wall Street's idiocy enablers will lose their shirts: The folks who work the at the firms, the folks who lend money to the firms, the folks who invest in the firms and trust the firms' managements to be something other than morons. Losing your shirt generally has a sobering effect on decision-making.  As long as managers, lenders, and shareholders know they will lose their shirts, the next generation of Wall Street enablers will likely be far more careful and demanding than their predecessors, at least for a little while (and don't hallucinate that the Fed's new policy is anything other than temporary). 
Paul Merrell

Risky Business » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...risky-business-2

banksters FHFA mortgages Fannie Freddie

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Last week, the country’s biggest mortgage lenders scored a couple of key victories that will allow them to ease lending standards, crank out more toxic assets, and inflate another housing bubble.  Here’s what’s going on. On Monday,  the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Mel Watt, announced that Fannie and Freddie would slash the minimum down-payment requirement on mortgages from 5 percent to 3 percent while making loans more available to people with spotty credit. If this all sounds hauntingly familiar, it should. It was less than 7 years ago that shoddy lending practices blew up the financial system precipitating the deepest slump since the Great Depression. Now Watt wants to repeat that catastrophe by pumping up another credit bubble.
  • Here’s the story from the Washington Post: “When it comes to taking out a mortgage, two factors can stand in the way: the price of the mortgage,…and the borrower’s credit profile.” On Monday, the head of the agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac outlined … how he plans to make it easier for borrowers on both fronts. Mel Watt, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, did not give exact timing on the initiatives. But most of them are designed to encourage the industry to extend mortgages to a broader swath of borrowers.
  • Here’s what Watt said about his plans in a speech at the Mortgage Bankers Association annual convention in Las Vegas: Saving enough money for a downpayment is often cited as the toughest hurdle for first-time buyers in particular. Watt said that Fannie and Freddie are working to develop “sensible and responsible” guidelines that will allow them to buy mortgages with down payments as low as 3 percent, instead of the 5 percent minimum that both institutions currently require.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • It might be worth noting at this point that Watt’s political history casts doubt on his real objectives.   According to Open Secrets, among the Top 20 contributors to Watt’s 2009-2010 campaign were Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup Inc., Bank of New York Mellon, American bankers Association, US Bancorp, and The National Association of Realtors. (“Top 20 Contributors, 2009-2010“, Open Secrets)
Paul Merrell

The Credit Card Gravy Train » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...the-credit-card-gravy-train

banksters credit-cards

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • You pay off your credit card balance every month, thinking you are taking advantage of the “interest-free grace period” and getting free credit. You may even use your credit card when you could have used cash, just to get the free frequent flier or cash-back rewards. But those popular features are misleading. Even when the balance is paid on time every month, credit card use imposes a huge hidden cost on users—hidden because the cost is deducted from what the merchant receives, then passed on to you in the form of higher prices. Visa and MasterCard charge merchants about 2% of the value of every credit card transaction, and American Express charges even more. That may not sound like much. But consider that for balances that are paid off monthly (meaning most of them), the banks make 2% or more on a loan averaging only about 25 days (depending on when in the month the charge was made and when in the grace period it was paid). Two percent interest for 25 days works out to a 33.5% return annually (1.02^(365/25) – 1), and that figure may be conservative. Merchant fees were originally designed as a way to avoid usury and Truth-in-Lending laws. Visa and MasterCard are independent entities, but they were set up by big Wall Street banks, and the card-issuing banks get about 80% of the fees. The annual returns not only fall in the usurious category, but they are returns on other people’s money – usually the borrower’s own money!  Here is how it works . . . .
Paul Merrell

The Economic Scam of the Century » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the N... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...e-economic-scam-of-the-century

banksters bail-outs legislation

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • The leaders of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee,  Sen. Tim Johnson (D., S.D.) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R., Idaho),  released a draft bill on Sunday that would provide explicit government guarantees on mortgage-backed securities (MBS) generated by privately-owned banks and financial institutions. The gigantic giveaway to Wall Street would put US taxpayers on the hook for 90 percent of the losses on toxic MBS the likes of which crashed the financial system in 2008 plunging the economy into the deepest slump since the Great Depression. Proponents of the bill say that new rules by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) –which set standards for a “qualified mortgage” (QM)– assure that borrowers will be able to repay their loans thus reducing the chances of a similar meltdown in the future. However, those QE rules were largely shaped by lobbyists and attorneys from the banking industry who eviscerated strict underwriting requirements– like high FICO scores and 20 percent down payments– in order to lend freely to borrowers who may be less able to repay their loans.  Additionally, a particularly lethal clause has been inserted into the bill that would provide blanket coverage for all MBS  (whether they met the CFPB’s QE standard or not) in the event of another financial crisis. Here’s the paragraph:
  • “Sec.305. Authority to protect taxpayers in unusual and exigent market conditions…. If the Corporation, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, determine that unusual and exigent circumstances threaten mortgage credit availability within the U.S. housing market, FMIC may provide insurance on covered securities that do not meet the requirements under section 302 including those for first loss position of private market holders.” (“Freddie And Fannie Reform – The Monster Has Arrived”, Zero Hedge) In other words, if the bill passes,  US taxpayers will be responsible for any and all bailouts deemed necessary by the regulators mentioned above.  And, since all of those regulators are in Wall Street’s hip-pocket, there’s no question what they’ll do when the time comes. They’ll bailout they’re fatcat buddies and dump the losses on John Q. Public. If you can’t believe what you are reading or if you think that the system is so thoroughly corrupt it can’t be fixed; you’re not alone. This latest outrage just confirms that the Congress, the executive and all the chief regulators are mere marionettes performing whatever task is asked of them by their Wall Street paymasters.
Gary Edwards

The Bailout So Far - WSJ.com Holman W. Jenkins Jr.: - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...SB122826676533474525.html

finacial-crisis economy free-market

shared by Gary Edwards on 03 Dec 08 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 03 Dec 08
     
    Washington a few months ago might have bought the entire stock of subprime mortgages for about half the money committed by the Fed and Treasury last week to prop up Citigroup and spur consumer and mortgage lending. Buying up bad mortgages would at least have left the private sector in charge of issuing new credit, which -- however bad its performance during the housing bubble -- would likely produce better results than government directing credit allocation in the economy. They (Federal Reserve-Treasury-FDIC-Congress) failed to douse the confidence/systemic-risk fire and now have moved on to fighting recession by turning credit allocation into a public utility. Vikram Pandit of Citigroup says: "We have gone from arm's length, free market, just-in-time availability" of funding to a system where big credit-reliant businesses now have only one place to turn, government.
  • Gary Edwards on 03 Dec 08
     
    Maybe Washington will succeed in forestalling a deep and prolonged recession. Maybe all the money ($8 trillion by one count) being printed to acquire or insure mortgages, student loans, credit card receivables, commercial paper and banking shares will be seamlessly withdrawn once those assets are sold back to willing parties in the private sector when the panic has passed. Maybe taxpayers will even make a profit on the deal.
Paul Merrell

Wells Fargo reportedly refunding 'hundreds of thousands' of customers for add-on produc... - 0 views

www.cnbc.com/...f-thousands-customers-for.html

banksters fraud Wells-Fargo

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Jul 18 - No Cached
  • Wells Fargo & Co. is refunding hundreds of thousands of customers tens of millions of dollars for account add-on products such as legal services or insurance, Dow Jones reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
  • Regulators are looking at whether customers were deceived, Dow Jones reported, and at their awareness of the products and ability to cancel them. Wells Fargo has spent nearly two years trying to clean up from a scandal that first erupted in 2016 over fake accounts opened in customers' names by employees trying to meet aggressive sales targets. Soon, sales practices in other areas of the bank fell under scrutiny, including in mortgages and auto lending. In April, the bank struck a $1 billion settlement with the CFPB and the OCC over its risk management failings.
Paul Merrell

We will no longer be fig leaf for occupation, says B'Tselem | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...g-leaf-occupation-says-btselem

war & peace Israel Palestine B'Tselem military-investigations

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 May 16 - No Cached
  • For as long as Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has documented human rights violations by Israel in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, it has also referred complaints to the Israeli military’s internal investigative unit. But this week, the nearly three-decade old human rights organization announced it will end its cooperation with Israel’s military law enforcement system. “As of today,” executive director Hagai El-Ad wrote in an emailed statement on 25 May, “we will no longer refer complaints to this system, and we will call on the Palestinian public not to do so either.” “We will no longer aid a system that whitewashes investigations and serves as a fig leaf for the occupation.” B’Tselem’s cooperation with the military’s investigations was not confined to filing complaints with the office of the Military Advocate General. The organization also assisted investigators to speak to Palestinians and Palestinian victims and obtain documents and medical records.
  • The decision to cease such work was announced alongside the publication of “The Occupation’s Fig Leaf: Israel’s Military Law Enforcement System as a Whitewash Mechanism.” The report examines the paucity of the army’s investigative efforts, that by design only probe the conduct of low-ranking soldiers. Orders are never placed under investigation, B’Tselem explains, only alleged breaches of orders. “B’Tselem’s cooperation with the military investigation and enforcement systems has not achieved justice, instead lending legitimacy to the occupation regime and aiding to whitewash it,” the report states. The decision has been percolating for some time. B’Tselem first broke with its usual practice in 2014, when it refused to provide information to the military unit investigating “irregular” incidents during Israel’s bombardment of Gaza that summer. Since the second intifada, B’Tselem has demanded investigations into 739 cases in which Palestinians were killed, injured, used as human shields or subjected to other abuses.
  • Only 25 led to charges against soldiers. Of the rest, in nearly 75 percent of cases, investigations were either never opened or closed without further action. The outbreak of the second intifada in late 2000 marked a change in how Israel viewed the legality of soldiers killing Palestinians. Whereas before Israel would investigate every case in which a soldier killed a Palestinian, until 2011 Israel “permitted the use of force – even lethal force – against those identified as being involved in the fighting or in terror activity in certain circumstances,” as former Military Advocate General Avichai Mandelblit wrote in 2010.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • B’Tselem says that years of working within the system have given the organization an intimate familiarity and understanding of why it fails. Their report reveals an internal process whose default is to absolve military actions, and which is further legitimized by a civilian system that keeps the military insulated from any intervention. Israel has established multiple commissions to make recommendations for improving the investigative system. But even these, B’Tselem writes, just end up shielding the army from accountability. “Report after report, committee after committee, the discourse in itself creates the illusion of movement toward changing and improving the system,” the report states. “This illusory movement allows officials both inside and outside the system to make statements about the importance of the stated goal of enforcing the law on soldiers, while the substantive failures remain as they were and most cases continue to be closed with no measures taken.” This is the fig leaf which B’Tselem is now stripping away. At home and abroad, Israeli officials have pointed to their military law enforcement system as evidence of their military’s higher ethics and values.
  • Paul Merrell on 31 May 16
     
    I've read the report, which is devastating. Not mentioned in the article was that the NGO's decision was largely driven by the fact that witnesses repeatedly suffered retaliation, leading to the decision that the few successes were outweighed by the harm to witnesses.  Make no mistake: the NGO's decision to boycott the Israel military's established procedures for reporting and investigating crimes committed by Israeli mlliitary personnel against Palestinians will pack a wallop internationally. B-Tselem had lent an air of legitimacy to the IDF's procedures for investigating crimes against Palestinians committed by IDF forces. That fig leaf has now been removed. 
Paul Merrell

Federal Reserve Audit Bill Overwhelmingly Passes The House - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...erve-audit-bill_n_1702879.html

federal reserve audit legislation Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • WASHINGTON -- In a rare moment of bipartisanship, the House overwhelmingly passed a bill by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) to audit the Federal Reserve. The bill, which has 270 co-sponsors, passed 327 to 98. All but one Republican -- Rep. Bob Turner of New York -- voted for it, along with 89 Democrats. Paul teamed up with former Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) in 2010 to pass similar legislation that became part of the final Wall Street reform bill. But Paul has said new audit legislation is needed because the 2010 bill didn't go far enough. Specifically, he states on his website that the audit called for in the 2010 bill only focused on emergency credit programs and procedural issues, rather than on the substantive details of the lending transactions. The 2012 bill doesn't limit the focus of the audit.
  • "The Fed creates trillions of dollars out of nothing and gives it to banks. Congress is in the dark. The Fed sets the stage for the subprime meltdown. Congress is in the dark. The Fed takes a dive on LIBOR. Congress is in the dark. The Fed doesn’t tell regulators what is going on. Congress is in the dark," Kucinich shouted on the House floor, just before the vote. "It is time for us to bring the Fed into the sunshine of accountability," he said.
Paul Merrell

News Summary: HSBC unit ordered to pay $2.46B - Businessweek - 0 views

www.businessweek.com/...-unit-ordered-to-pay-2-dot-46b

banksters financial-collapse HSBC litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • THE ORDER: A division of Europe's HSBC bank has been ordered to pay about $2.46 billion in a class action lawsuit claiming that it violated federal securities laws. HSBC plans to appeal.THE DETAILS: Household International Inc., now HSBC Finance Corp., and three former executives were named in the lawsuit that claimed the company fraudulently misled investors about its predatory lending practices, the quality of its home loans and its financial accounting from March 23, 2001 through Oct. 11, 2002.THE JUDGMENT: The payment includes $1.48 billion in damages and nearly $1 billion in prejudgment interest.
Paul Merrell

How The US Is Arming Both Sides Of The Iraqi Conflict - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38799.htm

ISIL U.S.-foreign-policy war by proxy war & peace

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Recall a week ago we wrote "US Begins Delivering F-16s To Iraq This Week, A Decade After It Wiped Out Iraq's Air Force" in which we said: ... the US will deliver the first of 36 F-16 fighter jets to Iraq in what Baghdad's envoy to the United States called a "new chapter" in his country's ability to defend its vast borders with Iran and other neighbors.   ....the US earlier in March provided Iraq with some 100 Hellfire missiles as well as assault rifles and other ammunition. Then in April the US sent more arms, providing Iraq with 11 million rounds of ammunition and other supplies. It is unknown how many of these have fallen into Al Qaeda/ISIS hands (we do know that at least one Iraqi Black Hawk chopper was captured during the rush for Mosul). What is known is that as PBS Frontline reported two weeks ago, while the administration has denied arming Syrian "rebels", i.e. the same ISIS militants that have crossed the border and are now fighting in Iraq... 
  • ... the reality is that it has. From: "Obama Says Not Arming Syrian Rebels, Syrian Rebels Say He Is" ... the Syrian rebels themselves say they are already armed and trained by US in the use of sophisticated weapons and fighting techniques, including, one rebel said, "how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush." The interviews are the latest evidence that after more than three years of warfare, the United States has stepped up the provision of lethal aid to the rebels, as PBS notes "it appears the Obama administration is allowing select groups of rebels to receive US-made anti-tank missiles."   The commander of the unit also told Ali that their American contacts had asked him to bring 80 to 90 members of his unit to Ankara for training.  One of the fighters said they received three weeks of training in how to conduct ambushes, conduct raids and use their weapons. They also said they received new uniforms and boots.  “They trained us to ambush regime or enemy vehicles and cut off the road,” said the fighter, who is identified only as “Hussein.” “They also trained us on how to attack a vehicle, raid it, retrieve information or weapons and munitions, and how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush.”
  • To summarize: the US was arming and training the same Al Qaeda/ISIS groups of Jihadists, that it concurrently gave Iraq weapons to fight. And since the Iraq army has so far proven utterly incapable of any resistance, it is now up to US drones to "fight" the same "rebels" that the US itself was collaborating with until a month or so ago. The clear winner here? The US military-industrial complex, of course, as well as the banks who lend money to the governments to fight wars provoked by various "developed nation" spy agencies. Collateral damage? Millions of innocent people on the ground in Syria and Iraq, and everywhere else too.
Paul Merrell

TIMELINE: China's Efforts to Stem $3.2 Trillion Stock Rout - Bloomberg Business - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...o-stem-3-2-trillion-stock-rout

economy China stock-market Shanghai-Composite

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • China’s policy makers are coming up with new tactics almost every day to stem a rout that’s wiped $3.2 trillion off the world’s second-biggest stock market. Saturday June 27: *PBOC CUT: After the Shanghai Composite Index posted a 19 percent, two-week plunge, the central bank cut its benchmark lending rate and deposit rate, while also reducing required reserve ratios for some lenders Monday June 29: Shanghai Composite rises 2.3 percent at the open before reversing course and plunging as much as 7.6 percent. Closes 3.3 percent lower. * CSRC JAWBONING: China’s securities regulator says margin trading at brokerages is “controllable” and deposits in margin accounts are“nowhere near” dangerous levels. China Securities Regulatory Commission spokesman also urges investors to be rational and not to believe “shorting China rumors”
Gary Edwards

Will The Dollar Standard Collapse? - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/-inflation-or-deflation-2009-5

financial-crisis obama-socialism inflation dollar-destruction Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 May 09 - Cached
  • Before I begin, I’ll make a prediction, since I’m an investor and my job is to predict. I increasingly believe that the dollar will collapse, and its ramifications could be as violent as when the credit markets cracked in July 2007. Currency collapses are nothing new, just as the bursting of a credit market bubble was nothing new. A dollar collapse could very well lead to carnage in domestic asset markets, whether it be the stock market, bond market, etc. Also, US imports and the overvalued dollar are fueling many of the export-oriented economies abroad, so a dollar collapse could wreak havoc on foreign asset markets as well. And once it happens, we’re going to view the collapse of the dollar as an obvious event that we should have long seen coming. Just as we now view the subprime wreckage and bursting of the real estate bubble as an event we should have easily predicted.The problem is timing. Does the dollar collapse in 2009, or 2015? And is it a slow depreciation, or a sudden 50% fall? Those are tougher questions. Richard Duncan predicted the dollar’s demise in 2002. His error of timing discredited an otherwise brilliant book.
  • In a sentence, “The Dollar Crisis” is about how the world changed in 1971. That was when Richard Nixon dropped the gold standard (or its close cousin, the Bretton Woods international monetary system). Here’s the youtube video: Youtube Bretton Woods. The end of the gold standard ushered in a new era of large trade imbalances and the buildup of foreign currency reserves, and these trade imbalances and large foreign currency reserves have had significant impacts on the global economy that many people don’t realize. Huge trade imbalances and large foreign reserves didn’t really exist during the gold standard. During the gold standard, a country’s money supply was determined by the amount of gold it had. Banks’ reserves were either gold or indirectly tied to gold, and so the amount of money they could lend, and that the nation could print, was backed by the nation’s gold reserves. To see the implications of that sort of monetary system on trade imbalances, let’s take a hypothetical United States and China, where the US is buying lots of goods from China. The US gets goods; China gets dollars. China takes its excess dollars, gives them to the US, and gets gold in exchange. The US gold reserves would decline, causing credit contraction in the US. This would lead to recession; prices would adjust downwards; and falling prices would enhance the trade competitiveness of the US. The US would stop exporting so many goods from China as China’s costs of production begin rising relative to the United States’. The US would stop being a net importer; gold would flow back in; and equilibrium on the balance of payments would be re-established.Under the gold standard, trade imbalances were unsustainable and self-correcting.
  • Today, in the system of fiat money, that’s no longer the case.
  • Gary Edwards on 19 May 09
     
    The Dollar Crisis Quick Synopsis:     * Abandoning the gold standard in 1971 has resulted in large global trade imbalances and a massive buildup of foreign currency reserves     * These trade imbalances and buildup of foreign reserves have resulted in frequent booms and busts since 1971     * The Japanese bust of 1989, the Asian economic crisis of 1997, and the current US credit market collapse have resulted from the post-1971 paper money monetary system     * Abandoning the gold standard has gradually resulted in a very overvalued US dollar, and that the dollar is headed for disaster     *  "The dollar standard is inherently flawed and increasingly unstable. Its collapse will be the most important economic event of the 21st century."
Paul Merrell

Start-Up Site Hires Critic of Wall St. - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...e-hires-critic-of-wall-st.html

journalism Matt-Taibbi First-Look

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 May 14 - No Cached
  • Matt Taibbi, who made a name as a fierce critic of Wall Street at Rolling Stone magazine, has joined First Look Media, the latest big-name journalist to leave an established brand to enter the thriving and well-financed world of news start-ups.Mr. Taibbi will start his own publication focusing on financial and political corruption, he said in an interview on Wednesday. First Look is financed by the eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, who is worth $8.5 billion, according to Forbes. Mr. Omidyar has pledged $250 million to the project.
  • “It’s obvious that we’re entering a new phase in the history of journalism,” Mr. Taibbi said. “This is clearly the future, and this was an opportunity for me to be part of helping to found something and create something that might carry us into the next generation.”The site, as yet unnamed, will open this year. Mr. Taibbi will write for it and take an editorial role, while based in New York. There will be “an emphasis on bringing in talented writers who can have fun with the subject in addition to producing solid investigative journalism,” he said.
  • Mr. Taibbi is noted for capturing the spirit of the aftermath of the financial crisis with a series of articles in Rolling Stone that examined the misbehavior of Wall Street executives and the risky lending practices that led to a near collapse of the global economy. He used vivid writing and colorful language to describe the root causes of the crisis, including the now-famous metaphor he used to describe Goldman Sachs, calling the bank “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
  • Paul Merrell on 21 May 14
     
    More detail here on Taibbi's move to First Look Media. If correct, the new mag will retain Taibbi's focus on Wall Street misbehavior but will bring in other writers to "have fun with the subject." Tyler Durden of ZeroHedge.com would seem like a natural fit. 
Paul Merrell

No, Obama, Russia's Economy Isn't 'in Tatters' - Bloomberg View - 0 views

www.bloombergview.com/...ia-s-economy-isn-t-in-tatters-

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Russia sanctions oil-prices economy

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Western politicians and pundits should be more careful with their predictions for the Russian economy: Reports of its demise may prove to be premature. Bashing the Russian economy has lately become a popular pastime. In his state of the nation address last month, U.S. President Barack Obama said it was "in tatters." And yesterday, Anders Aslund of the Peterson Institute for International Economics published an article predicting a 10 percent drop in gross domestic product this year -- more or less in line with the apocalyptic predictions that prevailed when the oil price reached its nadir late last year and the ruble was in free fall. Aslund's forecast focuses on Russia's shrinking currency reserves, some of which have been earmarked for supporting government spending in difficult times. At $364.6 billion, they are down 26 percent from a year ago and $21.6 billion from the beginning of this year. Aslund expects $166 billion to be spent on infrastructure investments and bailing out companies, and another $100 billion to exit via capital flight and other currency outflows. As a result, given foreign debts of almost $600 billion, "Russia's reserve situation is approaching a critical limit," he says.
  • What this argument ignores is that Russia's foreign debts are declining along with its reserves -- that's what happens when the money is used to pay down state companies' obligations. Last year, for example, the combined foreign liabilities of the Russian government and companies dropped by $129.4 billion, compared with a $124.3 billion decline in foreign reserves. Beyond that, a large portion of Russian companies' remaining foreign debt is really part of a tax-evasion scheme: By lending themselves money from abroad, the companies transfer profits to lower-tax jurisdictions. Such loans can easily be extended if sanctions prevent the Russian side from paying. The declining price of oil is also less of a threat than many have warned. True, the Russian government's revenues from energy exports will fall in dollar terms. But because Russia's central bank has allowed the ruble's value against the dollar to decline, the ruble value of the revenues will be higher than they otherwise would be. As a result, Russia no longer requires $100 oil to balance its budget -- and the effect of lower oil prices on the broader economy will be muted.
  • Economists at the respected Gaidar Institute, for example, expect the floating of the ruble to roughly halve the negative GDP impact of the decline in oil prices. They estimate that Russian GDP will shrink by a moderate 2.7 percent this year, even if Brent oil trades at $40 (it traded at $61 today). That's just a bit more optimistic than the consensus among 39 economists polled by Bloomberg between Feb. 20 and Feb. 25: On average, they see a decline of 4 percent. Economic sanctions, which most forecasts assume will continue this year, are having less impact that many in the West would like to believe. Sergei Tsukhlo of the Gaidar Institute estimates that the sanctions have affected only 6 percent of Russian industrial enterprises. "Their effect remains quite insignificant despite all that's being said about them," he wrote, noting that trade disruptions with Ukraine have been more important.
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  • Granted, there's no avoiding a significant drop in Russians' living standards because of accelerating inflation. The economics ministry in Moscow predicts real wages will fall by 9 percent this year -- which, Aslund wrote, means that "for the first time after 15 years in power," Russian President Vladimir Putin "will have to face a majority of the Russian people experiencing a sharply declining standard of living." So far, though, Russians have taken the initial shock of devaluation and accompanying inflation largely in stride. The latest poll from the independent Levada Center, conducted between Feb. 20 and Feb. 23, actually shows an uptick in Putin's approval rating -- to 86 percent from 85 percent in January.  It's time to bury the expectation that Russia will fall apart economically under pressure from falling oil prices and economic sanctions, and that Russians, angered by a drop in their living standards, will rise up and sweep Putin out of office. Western powers face a tough choice: Settle for a lengthy siege and ratchet up the sanctions despite the progress in Ukraine, or start looking for ways to restart dialogue with Russia, a country that just won't go away.
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