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Gary Edwards

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

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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

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Not Raising the Debt Ceiling Would be Blessing; ... - 0 views

globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/...ing-debt-ceiling-would-be.html

Mish Banksters national-debt-Ceiling Balanced-Budget banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Jul 11
     
    Contrary to popular belief, the US would not default. Troops would still be paid. Medicare and Medicaid would not stop. The Bipartisan Policy Center has a nice analysis in a PDF on Debt Limit Analysis. check out Mish's prioritized check list.  As the mythical USA Chancellor of the Exchequer, he enters the month of August having to come up with $132, 312 Billion.  The monthly cash flow pays $172,400 B.  Then he prioritizes, ending the month with $30.6 B to spare!  Mish reduces the deficit, leaving the note the very first thing to NOT PAY should be congressional salaries.  Here Here!
Gary Edwards

Doug Casey Answers The Hard Questions About Hard Times - Casey Research - 1 views

www.caseyresearch.com/editorial.php

capitalism Doug-Casey USA-bankruptcy Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 28 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 28 Sep 11
     
    No Holds Bared Capitalism  .... Mr. Casey of Casey Research recommends that the USA immediately default on the national debt; bring home all military troops immediately and close oversees military bases;  Close the Federal Reserve!  Move to gold/silver backed currency.  Abolish praetorian federal agencies - immediately.  The rich are in position to bribe and elect toady politicians.  the socialist policies cement the poor and middle class to the bottom.  These programs are designed to keep them poor and dependent.  The middle class saves in dollars, and those savings are being systematically destroyed by the enormous debt of social, military and regulatory spending that is infused with corruption from top to bottom.   Financial advice to the middle class?  Get into GOLD and other hard assets.  Cut back standard of living before inflation and unsustainable government programs and promises cuts it back for you. Is Doug long on US equities and assets?  GOLD!  It's the dollar that is being destroyed.  Stocks are very expensive now.  Casey is thinking of buying USA real estate.  Not Bonds.  Even at $1800 per oz, Gold is still good.  Mining stocks are cheap relative to GOLD, but watch for bubble in these stocks.  Life changing moment: 1971 - Harry Brown's book "How to Profit from the coming Devaluation".  Buy GOLD.  "Crisis Investing" book by Casey in 1978.  Advice?  Skip college.  Minds cluttered with false concepts and a ton of debt.  
Paul Merrell

ECB Head Mario Draghi Admits For First Time EU May Break-Up - TruePublica - 0 views

truepublica.org.uk/...for-first-time-eu-may-break-up

banksters euro EU-disintegration

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Back in 2012, Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, pledged to do “whatever it takes” to protect the eurozone from collapse, infamous words I’m sure he has come to regret. Draghi’s speech at an investment conference in London boosted markets at the time and forced down Spain and Italy’s borrowing costs after saying; “Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough.” The markets responded because they were effectively being manipulated. Known as “Outright Monetary Transactions” the scheme was to have been deployed alongside a QE programme from March 2015, itself racking up ¢80billion a month. Several trillion euros later and the EU looks as precarious as ever with growth a distant memory. In Italy, yields on bonds dropped from 6.3 per cent to 1.2 per cent after that famous speech and all seemed good – on the face of it. But deep down, it was not as we had been led to believe. Italy’s government debt grew and is now equal to 133 per cent of GDP. When Ireland imploded and had to be fully bailed out by the ECB, it’s debt pile was 132.2% of GDP.
  • With all this intervention, the ECB’s balance sheet ballooned – set to overtake the U.S. Fed Reserve and has now reached over $3trillion according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch (not to be confused with national debt). Then, totally off the mainstream media radar came news that another Italian bank had disintegrated. And while attention was focused on the rescue of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which is still not fully finalised, news came that Banca Etruria, has quietly slipped into bankruptcy. “It was announced (Dec 21st) that the first part of an investigation concerning fraudulent bankruptcy charges (at Banca Etruria), in which 21 board members are implicated, had been closed. This strand of the investigation concerns €180 million of loans offered by the bank which were never paid back, leading to the regional lender’s bankruptcy and eventual bail-in/out last November that left bondholders holding virtually worthless bonds.” Next up and out of the blue comes UniCredit, the country’s largest bank. It is seeking to raise €13bn of desperately needed capital but large as though this is, the biggest problems, according to the FT is that the smaller banks, like Banca Etruria, are now in a perilous position and on the verge of falling over the cliff edge. Italy has banks on every street corner, with more branches per capita than any other OECD country. The lack of growth (occurred since it joined the Euro), has suppressed much needed profits on the one hand whilst seeing poor wage growth on the other, causing drastically increased non-performing loans that now add up to an eye-watering €360billion.
  • The FT reports that Italian banks “have long sold their own shares and debt to their retail customers as an attractive alternative to savings products, a disgraceful practice that should never have been allowed. It means that ordinary Italians, many in retirement, have already suffered as bank shares have fallen. They will suffer much more in a bail-in.” The FT is suggesting that a full bail-in is on the cards. It is. truepublica reported back in September that banks throughout the EU would simply steal depositors money if any of them failed now that new bail-in rules had been implemented. And that is exactly what is happening. The result of all this is that Mario Draghi, clearly feeling the strain, has finally admitted defeat and said that there is a strong possibility of the EU falling apart. This time the tactic to keep unity was to threaten every country in the EU by stating that leaving the Eurozone would cost dearly and would require any member country to settle its claims or debts with the bloc’s payments system before severing ties. There’s nothing to stop a desperate member country from leaving and simply defaulting.
Paul Merrell

How Hedge and Vulture Funds Have Exploited Puerto Rico's Debt Crisis | The Nation - 0 views

www.thenation.com/...oited-puerto-ricos-debt-crisis

banksters financial-collapse Puerto-Rico vultures

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • Investors in Puerto Rican government debt are a mixed bag, including some mom-and-pop mutual funds like OppenheimerFunds and Franklin Advisers, which have been prioritized in the restructuring costs because of the length of their investments and the fact that they paid more for them. But over the past few years there’s been a growing presence of hedge funds, which avoid regulatory oversight and are solely interested in profit, regardless of how a national—or, in the case of Puerto Rico, territorial—economy performs. Vulture funds, their more extreme counterparts, specifically target debt that is distressed or in danger of default in troubled economies, hoping to cash in on settlements after buying the debt for pennies on the dollar. They can paralyze attempts at debt restructuring by insisting on repayment at full face value. Given Puerto Rico’s recent history of privatizing its airport and highway toll collection system, it is vulnerable to further selloffs—even its prized university system—as concessions to the vultures.
Paul Merrell

Brazil, Mexico, France to back Argentina in bonds case in U.S. court | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...rgentina-idUSBREA2K1XP20140321

banksters sovereign-debt-restructurings Argentina litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • (Reuters) - Brazil, France and Mexico are expected to file papers in the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday backing Argentina in its legal battle with bondholders who refused to take part in debt restructurings from the country's 2002 default, according to a source familiar with the litigation. Lawyers for the three countries will support Argentina's request that the high court review a court order requiring it to pay $1.33 billion to "holdout" creditors led by hedge funds Aurelius Capital Management and NML Capital Ltd, a unit of billionaire Paul Singer's Elliott Management Corp.France had previously supported Argentina in an unsuccessful attempt last year to obtain Supreme Court review at an earlier stage of the legal fight.
  • The litigation has created concerns about a potential debt crisis. Argentina defaulted on $100 billion more than a decade ago.The case is being closely watched because of its potential impact on future sovereign debt restructurings.
  • Creditors holding about 93 percent of Argentina's bonds agreed to participate in the two previous debt swaps in 2005 and 2010, which gave them 25 to 29 cents on the dollar.The case is Argentina v. NML Capital, U.S. Supreme Court, 13-990.
Paul Merrell

China's Official Press Agency Calls For New Reserve Currency, And New World Order | Zer... - 1 views

www.zerohedge.com/...ncy-calls-new-reserve-currency

China U.S. dollar reserve currrencies Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • We assume it is a coincidence that on the day in which we demonstrate China's relentless appetite for gold, driven by what we and many others believe is the country's desire to have a call option on a gold-backed reserve currency when the time comes, just posted in China's official press agency, Xinhua, is an op-ed by writer Liu Chang in which he decries the "US fiscal failure which warrants a de-Americanized world" and flatly states that the world should consider a new reserve currency "that is to be created to replace the dominant U.S. dollar, so that the international community could permanently stay away from the spillover of the intensifying domestic political turmoil in the United States." Of course, if China were serious, and if the world were to voluntarily engage in such a (r)evolutionary reserve currency transition, then all Magic Money Tree theories that the only thing better than near infinite debt is beyond infinite debt, would promptly be relegated to the historic dust heap of idiotic theories where they belong. Some of China's (which as a reminder is the single largest offshore holder of US Treasury paper, and the second largest of all only second naturally to the Federal Reserve whose $85 billion in monthly monetizing "flow" is what is keeping rates from exploding higher) thoughts as captured in the Xinhua Op-ed:
  • Reform of the world’s financial system should include the introduction of a new internatonal reserve currency to replace the U.S. dollar The international community could thus permanently stay away from the spillover of intensifying domestic political turmoil in the U.S. Fiscal impasse in the U.S. is a good time for “befuddled world” to start considering building a “de-Americanized world” Impasse has left many nations’ dollar assets in jeopardy and the international community agonized Other cornerstones should be laid to underpin a de-Americanized world, including respect for sovereignty, recognizing authority of UN in handling global hotspot issues and giving developing and emerging market economies more say in major international financial institutions Purpose of such changes is not to “completely toss the United States aside,” rather to encourage Washington to play a much more constructive role in addressing global affairs Of course, if and when the day comes that the USD is no longer the reserve currency, kiss America's superpower, or any power, status, which is now based purely on the USD's reserve currency status, and the ability to fund half the US budget deficit with debt promptly monetized by the Fed, goodbye.
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Oct 13
     
    Sounds like more than a hint from China that Congress needs to act quickly to remove concerns that the U.S. may default on its debt. (The Xinhua op-ed is republished on the linked page.)  I must admit that I have my moments when I like the idea of the entire corrupt Western bankster cartel would just get on with committing financial suicide so the world could get on with whatever is to rise from those ashes. 
Paul Merrell

EU Showdown: Greece Takes on the Vampire Squid | nsnbc international - 0 views

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banksters Greece EU IMF ECB Syriza must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Greece and the troika (the International Monetary Fund, the EU, and the European Central Bank) are in a dangerous game of chicken. The Greeks have been threatened with a “Cyprus-Style prolonged bank holiday” if they “vote wrong.” But they have been bullied for too long and are saying “no more.”
  • A return to the polls was triggered in December, when the Parliament rejected Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ pro-austerity candidate for president. In a general election, now set for January 25th, the EU-skeptic, anti-austerity, leftist Syriza party is likely to prevail. Syriza captured a 3% lead in the polls following mass public discontent over the harsh austerity measures Athens was forced to accept in return for a €240 billion bailout. Austerity has plunged the economy into conditions worse than in the Great Depression. As Professor Bill Black observes, the question is not why the Greek people are rising up to reject the barbarous measures but what took them so long. Ireland was similarly forced into an EU bailout with painful austerity measures attached. A series of letters has recently come to light showing that the Irish government was effectively blackmailed into it, with the threat that the ECB would otherwise cut off liquidity funding to Ireland’s banks. The same sort of threat has been leveled at the Greeks, but this time they are not taking the bait.
  • The veiled threat to the Greek Parliament was in a December memo from investment bank Goldman Sachs – the same bank that was earlier blamed for inducing the Greek crisis. Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi wrote colorfully of it: The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.
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  • Goodbye Euro? Greece can regain its sovereignty by defaulting on its debt, abandoning the ECB and the euro, and issuing its own national currency (the drachma) through its own central bank. But that would destabilize the eurozone and might end in its breakup. Will the troika take that risk? 2015 is shaping up to be an interesting year. Ellen H. Brown, Web of Debt
  • Paul Merrell on 07 Jan 15
     
    Fun! Greece looks to be about to have an Icelandic moment, defaulting on its debt and leaving the Eurozone. The Syriza party is riding a rising trend in popularity running on a sovereignty and anti-foreign bankster platform. That pleasant odor you're sniffing is the return of the drachma. This one is a must-read.    
Gary Edwards

A Word of Advice to Financial Authorities: Default! Bill Bonner's Lessons from History - 0 views

dailyreckoning.com/dvice-to-financial-authorities

financial-collapse bill-bonner daily-reckoning

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Jan 11
     
    What we are reckoning with is the breakdown so big hardly anyone notices it. The model of a political economy set up in response to the industrial revolution is now worn out. Exhausted. Headed for the trash heap of history. We're not in the habit of giving advice here in The Daily Reckoning. Sure, we warned readers about the biggest threats to their finances in 30 years - the bubbles in tech stocks and then in housing. And sure, we urged them to buy what turned out to be the best investment they could have made - gold. And yes, we criticized governments for doing all the wrong things. But urging them to do the right things would be both futile and earnest. Futility doesn't bother us. But we can't stand earnestness. Left unchecked it leads right to world improvement…and thence to Hell. Still, in the spirit of civic betterment, today exceptionally, we offer a bit of advice to financial authorities all over the world. In a word: Default! When you have more debt than you can pay, it is always best to own up…default…hang your head…say you're sorry…promise not to do it again… …and go about your business. And do it as soon as possible. Whence cometh this august advice? From the pages of history - recent…and not so recent.
Gary Edwards

Obama's Plan To Destroy America Hatched at Columbia University, Says Classmat... - 0 views

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cloward-piven Columbia-University Marxism Liberty-Tryanny Obammunism

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • The plan was revolting, but brilliant. Cloward and Piven taught that America could be destroyed only from within. Only by overwhelming the system with debt, welfare and entitlements could capitalism and the American economy be destroyed. So the plan was to make a majority of Americans dependent on welfare, food stamps, disability, unemployment and entitlements of all kinds. Then, under the weight of the debt, the system would implode and the economy collapse, bankrupting business owners (i.e., conservative donors). Americans would be brought to their knees, begging for big government to save them. Voilà! You’d have a new system: a system based on fairness, equality and social justice. It’s called socialism.
  • Under Obama, 660,000 Americans dropped off the job rolls… just last month. Ninety million working-age, able-bodied Americans are no longer in the workforce. Almost 50 million Americans are on food stamps (20 percent of all eligible adults). Fourteen million are on disability. Millions more are on welfare, unemployment and so many different categories of entitlements that my head is spinning. Now, add in free healthcare, plus 22 million government employees. Record-setting numbers of Americans are emptying their retirement accounts to survive. Student loan debt is a national disaster — with defaults up 36 percent from a year ago. Some 16.4 million Americans live in poverty… in the suburbs.
  • Obama promised to cut the deficit in half; instead, he gave us five consecutive trillion-dollar deficits. He promised to spend responsibly; instead, he now owns the title of “biggest spender in world history.” He called Bush’s $4 trillion in debt over eight years reckless, then proceeded to pile on $6 trillion in only four years. He added 6,118 new rules, regulations and mandates in just the past 90 days. He claimed taxes are low, yet he just raised taxes to the same level as bankrupt EU countries like Greece, Spain, Italy and France. Our Federal income taxes are now far higher than the former Soviet Republics’.
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  • Overwhelm the system with debt.
  • use it to bring down the U.S. economy and destroy capitalism to create what they consider to be “equality, fairness and social justice.”
Paul Merrell

Hedge funds tell Puerto Rico: lay off teachers and close schools to pay us back | World... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ools-fire-teachers-pay-us-back

banksters Puerto-Rico vulture-capitalism

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • Billionaire hedge fund managers have called on Puerto Rico to lay off teachers and close schools so that the island can pay them back the billions it owes. The hedge funds called for Puerto Rico to avoid financial default – and repay its debts – by collecting more taxes, selling $4bn worth of public buildings and drastically cutting public spending, particularly on education. The group of 34 hedge funds hired former International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists to come up with a solution to Puerto Rico’s debt crisis after the island’s governor declared its $72bn debt “unpayable” – paving the way for bankruptcy. The funds are “distressed debt” specialists, also known as vulture funds, and several have also sought to make money out of crises in Greece and Argentina, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the near collapse of Co-op Bank in the UK.
  • The report, entitled For Puerto Rico, There is a Better Way, said Puerto Rico could save itself from default if it improves tax collection and drastically cuts back on public spending. It accused the island, where 56% of children live in poverty, of spending too much on education even though the government has already closed down almost 100 schools so far this year.
Gary Edwards

Disaster Averted? Not! The Back Story on the Debt Limit | Experts' Corner | Big Think - 0 views

bigthink.com/39713

Banksters Chicomms China-USA-debt Autry-Navarro Death-by-China

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • You see, it is an extremely important but little known fact that China's currency peg -- the #1 trade cheat the Dragon uses to vacuum jobs out of the USA -- actually compels them to loan us money no matter how loudly they insist that that they have a choice of investments. It works like this: American's proclivity to take both the wages from our Democratic stimulus job and the checks from our Republican tax refunds down to Wal-Mart for another cart full of Chinese products, not only creates more jobs in Guangzhou than it does Milwaukee but also leaves China bursting with US dollars. The Chinese government then soaks up a lot of those bucks from companies like Huawei by selling short term, high yield bonds that pay back in Yuan. They then march those dollars right back to the US treasury. In fact, they pay MORE to get the dollars out of private hands in China than they earn on the increasingly risky bet they are making in US debt! At this point you should be thinking, "WTF?"
  • If China's firms were allowed to trade their dollars for Chinese Yuan on the foreign exchanges, the dollar would fall against the Yuan and undermine China's unfair 40% advantage against every American (and European and Asian) product. If they trade those bucks for some other currency, like the Euro, the dollar is still being sold and it still falls, plus China's growth draws a them right back in searching to buy Yuan, which would then rise. If China purchases products or commodities on the open markets, those dollars would still be exchanged, the greenback would drop to competitive levels, the Yuan would rise to its real purchasing power and Americans would go back to work making things.
  • Wishing to avoid that horror of horrors at all costs, the Boys from Beijing must hold their noses and throw another billion good dollars after bad into the pit of the US treasury.
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  • Like Frodo's ring of power, the dollar can only be destroyed where it was created.
  • So when the President and the Congress reluctantly shake hands over this deal to avert disaster, understand that they have in great part only agreed to fuel the fire that has been burning down America's jobs factory for years, and thereby undermining government revenues and creating the apparent need for constant stimulus. 
  • So far, borrowing is the only way these folks of wee little imagination can see to sustain both the President's exorbitant level of spending and the Republican's stubborn pledge against tax increases.
  • The obvious solutions eludes them, which is either to stop borrowing from communist criminals and borrow at higher interest rates from Americans, or slap a significant tariff on China until they drop their currency peg and illegal trade barriers
  • The last decade of ultra low-interest rates, government stimulus efforts, and engagement with Communist China have clearly been an unmitigated disaster for the US economy.
  • Is anyone in DC listening?
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Aug 11
     
    Excellent article written by Peter Navarro and Greg Autry, authors of "Death by China: Confronting the Dragon -- A Global Call to Action". The authors explain why China MUST continue to buy US Treasuries regardless of the low rate of return and extremely high risk of default or ravage by inflation through the destruction of the dollar.  Very interesting.  But the game China is playing really looks unsustainable. The one thing the authors don't touch is the role International Banksters and their New World Corporations have played in this assault on American propserity.  I guess i have to get the book!   One last point; having worked for a Chinese Corporation desiring to enter the USA-European information technology markets, i don't doubt for a moment that Autry and Navarro have this exactly right.  We are at war, with Chicomms providing the shock troops for this latest Bankster - Bankster Corp assault on our liberty.
Gary Edwards

The US Dollar is Doomed: from The Daily Reckoning - 0 views

dailyreckoning.com/the-us-dollar-is-doomed

daily-recknoning financial-collapse fiat-money dollar-destruction banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 24 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • The truth is that the US is insolvent and its policymakers will stop at nothing in order to avoid sovereign default. So, it should come as no surprise that at its latest meeting, the Federal Reserve downplayed the risk of inflation, thereby setting the stage for another round of money creation.
  • Gary Edwards on 24 Oct 10
     
    10/22/10 Hong Kong, China - Austerity be damned, at this rate Mr. Bernanke will go down in the history books as one of the greatest money creators ever to have walked this planet! Never mind sky-high deficits and a crushing debt overhang, at its most recent FOMC meeting, the Federal Reserve all but guaranteed another round of quantitative easing. The truth is that the US is insolvent and its policymakers will stop at nothing in order to avoid sovereign default. So, it should come as no surprise that at its latest meeting, the Federal Reserve downplayed the risk of inflation, thereby setting the stage for another round of money creation.
Paul Merrell

Big Oil's "Sore Losers" Lead the Drive to War » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...e-losers-lead-the-drive-to-war

war & peace Ukraine Russia U.S.-foreign-policy pipelinestan reserve currrencies

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Following a 13 year rampage that has reduced large swathes of Central Asia and the Middle East to anarchy and ruin, the US military juggernaut has finally met its match on a small peninsula in southeastern Ukraine that serves as the primary operating base for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Crimea is the door through which Washington must pass if it intends to extend its forward-operating bases throughout Eurasia, seize control of vital pipeline corridors and resources, and establish itself as the dominant military/economic power-player in the new century. Unfortunately, for Washington, Moscow has no intention of withdrawing from the Crimea or relinquishing control of its critical military outpost in Sevastopol. That means that the Crimea–which has been invaded by the Cimmerians, Bulgars, Greeks, Scythians, Goths, Huns, Khazars, Ottomans, Turks, Mongols, and Germans–could see another conflagration in the months ahead, perhaps, triggering a Third World War, the collapse of the existing global security structure, and a new world order, albeit quite different from the one imagined by the fantasists at the Council on Foreign Relations and the other far-right think tanks that guide US foreign policy and who are responsible for the present crisis.
  • How Washington conducts itself in this new conflict will tell us whether the authors of the War on Terror–that public relations hoax that concealed the goals of eviscerated civil liberties and one world government–were really serious about actualizing their NWO vision or if it was merely the collective pipedream of corporate CEOs and bored bankers with too much time on their hands. In the Crimea, the empire faces a real adversary, not a disparate group of Kalashinov-waving jihadis in flip-flops. This is the Russian Army; they know how to defend themselves and they are prepared to do so. That puts the ball in Obama’s court. It’s up to him and his crackpot “Grand Chessboard” advisors to decide how far they want to push this. Do they want to intensify the rhetoric and ratchet up the sanctions until blows are exchanged, or pick up their chips and walk away before things get out of hand? Do they want to risk it all on one daredevil roll of the dice or move on to Plan B? That’s the question. Whatever US policymakers decide, one thing is certain, Moscow is not going to budge. Their back is already against the wall. Besides, they know that a lunatic with a knife is on the loose, and they’re ready to do whatever is required to protect their people. If Washington decides to cross that line and provoke a fight, then there’s going to trouble. It’s as simple as that. Perma-hawk, John McCain thinks that Obama should take off the gloves and show Putin who’s boss. In an interview with TIME magazine McCain said “This is a chess match reminiscent of the Cold War and we need to realize that and act accordingly…We need to take certain measures that would convince Putin that there is a very high cost to actions that he is taking now.” “High cost” says McCain, but high cost for who?
  • What McCain fails to realize is that this is not Afghanistan and Obama is not in a spitting match with puppet Karzai. Leveling sanctions against Moscow will have significant consequences, the likes of which could cause real harm to US interests. Did we mention that “ExxonMobil’s biggest non-US oil project is a collaboration with Russia’s Rosneft in the Arctic, where it has billions of dollars of investments at stake.” What if Putin decides that it’s no longer in Moscow’s interest to honor contracts that were made with US corporations? What do you think the reaction of shareholders will be to that news? And that’s just one example. There are many more. Any confrontation with Russia will result in asymmetrical attacks on the dollar, the bond market, and oil supplies. Maybe the US could defeat Russian forces in the Crimea. Maybe they could sink the fleet and rout the troops, but there’ll be a heavy price to pay and no one will be happy with the outcome.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Here’s a clip from an article at Testosterone Pit that sums it up nicely: “Sergei Glazyev, the most hardline of Putin’s advisors, sketched the retaliation strategy: Drop the dollar, sell US Treasuries, encourage Russian companies to default on their dollar-denominated debts, and create an alternative currency system with the BRICS and hydrocarbon producers like Venezuela and Iran… Putin’s ally and trusted friend, Rosneft president Igor Sechin…suggested that it was “advisable to create an international stock-exchange for the participating countries, where transactions could be registered with the use of regional currencies.” (From Now On, No Compromises Are Possible For Russia, Testosterone Pit)
  • As the US continues to abuse its power, these changes become more and more necessary. Foreign governments must form new alliances in order to abandon the present system–the “dollar system”–and establish greater parity between nation-states, the very nation-states that Washington is destroying one-by-one to establish its ghoulish vision of global corporate utopia. The only way to derail that project is by exposing the glaring weakness in the system itself, which is the use of an international currency that is backed by $15 trillion in government debt, $4 trillion in Federal Reserve debt, and trillions more in unpaid and unpayable federal obligations. Whatever steps Moscow takes to abort the current system and replace the world’s reserve currency with money that represents a fair store of value, should be applauded. Washington’s reckless and homicidal behavior around the world make it particularly unsuitable as the de facto steward of the global financial system or to enjoy seigniorage, which allows the US to play banker to the rest of the world. The dollar is the foundation upon which rests the three pillars of imperial strength; political, economic and military. Remove that foundation and the entire edifice comes crashing to earth. Having abused that power, by killing and maiming millions of people across the planet; the world needs to transition to another, more benign way of consummating its business transactions, preferably a currency that is not backed by the blood and misery of innocent victims.
  • Paul Volcker summed up the feelings of many dollar-critics in 2010 when he had this to say: “The growing sense around much of the world is that we have lost both relative economic strength and more important, we have lost a coherent successful governing model to be emulated by the rest of the world. Instead, we’re faced with broken financial markets, underperformance of our economy and a fractious political climate.” America is irreparably broken and Washington is a moral swamp. The world needs regime change; new leaders, new direction and a different system.
  • In our last article, we tried to draw attention to the role of big oil in the present crisis. Author Nafeez Ahmed expands on that theme in a “must read” article in Monday’s Guardian. Check out this brief excerpt from Ahmed’s piece titled “Ukraine crisis is about Great Power oil, gas pipeline rivalry”: “Ukraine is increasingly perceived to be critically situated in the emerging battle to dominate energy transport corridors linking the oil and natural gas reserves of the Caspian basin to European markets… Considerable competition has already emerged over the construction of pipelines. Whether Ukraine will provide alternative routes helping to diversify access, as the West would prefer, or ‘find itself forced to play the role of a Russian subsidiary,’ remains to be seen.” (Guardian) The western oil giants have been playing “catch up” for more than a decade with Putin checkmating them at every turn. As it happens, the wily KGB alum has turned out to be a better businessman than any of his competitors, essentially whooping them at their own game, using the free market to extend his network of pipelines across Central Asia and into Europe. That’s what the current crisis is all about.
Paul Merrell

Argentina to receive initial currency swap tranche by end 2014 -La Nacion newspaper | R... - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...bt-china-idUSL1N0R80L120140907

economic-warfare China Argentina de-dollarization

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • (Reuters) - Argentina, which defaulted on its debt in July, will receive the first tranche of a multi-billion dollar currency swap operation with China's central bank before the end of this year, the South American country's La Nacion newspaper reported on Sunday. The swap will allow Argentina to bolster its foreign reserves or pay for Chinese imports with the yuan currency at a time weak export revenues and an ailing currency have put the Latin American nation's foreign reserves under intense pressure.La Nacion said Argentina would receive yuan worth $1 billion by the end of 2014, the first payment of a loan worth a total $11 billion signed by Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez and her Chinese counterpart in July.The daily newspaper said the presidents of the countries' two central banks had met on the sidelines of a meeting in Switzerland, but did not say how it had obtained the information.Fernandez's government has imposed stringent import and capital controls to safeguard the dwindling reserves, now at around eight-year lows, which it needs to pay its debts.
Paul Merrell

CFPB Determined to Regulate Billion Dollar Payday Loan Industry - Top US & World News |... - 0 views

www.occupycorporatism.com/...on-dollar-payday-loan-industry

banksters payday-lenders CFPB regulation

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has a new set of rules aimed at preventing payday loan operations from targeting low-income borrowers who will be buried by high fees and rising debt loads. Payday loans are traditionally a loan of $500 or less wherein the borrower “provides a personal check dated on their next payday for the full balance or give the lender permission to debit their bank accounts. The total includes charges often ranging from $15 to $30 per $100 borrowed. Interest-only payments, sometimes referred to as rollovers, are common.” Using these lenders to make ends meet, borrowers are taken advantage of which has traditionally been a state regulatory issue. However now the federal government will be stepping in to curb this extortive multibillion dollar industry. Fees from payday loans can quickly accumulate, causing some borrowers to “lose their bank accounts and cars, or even risk prison time”.
  • Richard Corday, director of the CFPB, said: “Extending credit to people in a way that sets them up to fail and ensnares considerable numbers of them in extended debt traps, is simply not responsible lending.” These new rules cover payday loans, vehicle loans, loans using a car as collateral and various other forms of high-cost lending. Enders will be responsible for making sure debtors can repay the loan in full on time before extending the loan by checking their income, borrowing history, previous financial obligations and any other indicators that the borrower would most likely default or roll over the loan. • A 60 day respite between loans • Lenders must provide affordable repayment options • Loans cannot exceed $500 • Loans cannot have multiple finance charges • Loans cannot use a vehicle as collateral Regulations on interest rates and repayments as a share of income include mandatory capping off to prevent run-a-way fees.
  • Back in February, the CFPB warned about the payday loan industry which is largely unregulated and functions outside of proper oversight and accountability. The CFPB estimates that the $46 billion payday loan or cash advance industry has no oversight, refuses to give full disclosures of interest and fees involved, and takes an annual percentage of an excess of 300% against borrowers. The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) counts 32 states in the US that “permit payday loans at triple-digit interest rates, or with no rate cap at all.” Shockingly 80% of payday loans are rolled over within 14 days while an estimated 50% of these loans are “in a sequence at least 10 loans long.”
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Mar 15
     
    The first sentence if false; no rules have been adopted or even been published. In fact, these aren't even formal rule proposals or advance notice of public rulemaking, all of which must be poublished in the Federal Register, per the Administrative Procedures Act.   The Bureau is still in the information gathering stage.
Gary Edwards

Global Financial Meltdown Coming? Clear Signs That The Great Derivatives Crisis Has Now... - 0 views

theeconomiccollapseblog.com/...rivatives-crisis-has-now-begun

Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • No one “understands” derivatives. How many times have readers heard that thought expressed (please round-off to the nearest thousand)? Why does no one understand derivatives? For many; the answer to that question is that they have simply been thinking too hard. For others; the answer is that they don’t “think” at all. Derivatives are bets. This is not a metaphor, or analogy, or generalization. Derivatives are bets. Period. That’s all they ever were. That’s all they ever can be.
  • One very large financial institution that appears to be in serious trouble with these financial weapons of mass destruction is Glencore.  At one time Glencore was considered to be the 10th largest company on the entire planet, but now it appears to be coming apart at the seams, and a great deal of their trouble seems to be tied to derivatives.  The following comes from Zero Hedge… Of particular concern, they said, was Glencore’s use of financial instruments such as derivatives to hedge its trading of physical goods against price swings. The company had $9.8 billion in gross derivatives in June 2015, down from $19 billion in such positions at the end of 2014, causing investors to query the company about the swing. Glencore told investors the number went down so drastically because of changes in market volatility this year, according to people briefed by Glencore. When prices vary significantly, it can increase the value of hedging positions. Last year, there were extreme price moves, particularly in the crude-oil market, which slid from about $114 a barrel in June to less than $60 a barrel by the end of December.
  • That response wasn’t satisfying, said Michael Leithead, a bond fund portfolio manager at EFG Asset Management, which managed $12 billion as of the end of March and has invested in Glencore’s debt.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • According to Bank of America, the global financial system has about 100 billion dollars of exposure overall to Glencore.  So if Glencore goes bankrupt that is going to be a major event.  At this point, Glencore is probably the most likely candidate to be “the next Lehman Brothers”. And it isn’t just Glencore that is in trouble.  Other financial giants such as Trafigura are in deep distress as well.  Collectively, the global financial system has approximately half a trillion dollars of exposure to these firms… Worse, since it is not just Glencore that the banks are exposed to but very likely the rest of the commodity trading space, their gross exposure blows up to a simply stunning number:
  • For the banks, of course, Glencore may not be their only exposure in the commodity trading space. We consider that other vehicles such as Trafigura, Vitol and Gunvor may feature on bank balance sheets as well ($100 bn x 4?)
  • Call it half a trillion dollars in very highly levered exposure to commodities: an asset class that has been crushed in the past year. The mainstream media is not talking much about any of this yet, and that is probably a good thing.  But behind the scenes, unprecedented moves are already taking place. When I came across the information that I am about to share with you, I was absolutely stunned.  It comes from Investment Research Dynamics, and it shows very clearly that everything is not “okay” in the financial world… Something occurred in the banking system in September that required a massive reverse repo operation in order to force the largest ever Treasury collateral injection into the repo market.   Ordinarily the Fed might engage in routine reverse repos as a means of managing the Fed funds rate.   However, as you can see from the graph below, there have been sudden spikes up in the amount of reverse repos that tend to correspond the some kind of crisis – the obvious one being the de facto collapse of the financial system in 2008:
  • What in the world could possibly cause a spike of that magnitude? Well, that same article that I just quoted links the troubles at Glencore with this unprecedented intervention… What’s even more interesting is that the spike-up in reverse repos occurred at the same time – September 16 – that the stock market embarked on an 8-day cliff dive, with the S&P 500 falling 6% in that time period.  You’ll note that this is around the same time that a crash in Glencore stock and bonds began.   It has been suggested by analysts that a default on Glencore credit derivatives either by Glencore or by financial entities using derivatives to bet against that event would be analogous to the “Lehman moment” that triggered the 2008 collapse. The blame on the general stock market plunge was cast on the Fed’s inability to raise interest rates.  However that seems to be nothing more than a clever cover story for something much more catastrophic which began to develop out sight in the general liquidity functions of the global banking system. Back in 2008, Lehman Brothers was not “perfectly fine” one day and then suddenly collapsed the next.  There were problems brewing under the surface well in advance. Well, the same thing is happening now at banking giants such as Deutsche Bank, and at commodity trading firms such as Glencore, Trafigura and The Noble Group. And of course a lot of smaller fish are starting to implode as well.  I found this example posted on Business Insider earlier today…
  • On September 11, Spruce Alpha, a small hedge fund which is part of a bigger investment group, sent a short report to investors. The letter said that the $80 million fund had lost 48% in a month, according the performance report seen by Business Insider. There was no commentary included in the note. No explanation. Just cold hard numbers.
  • Wow – how do you possibly lose 48 percent in a single month? It would be hard to do that even if you were actually trying to lose money on purpose. Sadly, this kind of scenario is going to be repeated over and over as we get even deeper into this crisis. Meanwhile, our “leaders” continue to tell us that there is nothing to worry about.  For example, just consider what former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is saying…
  • Former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke doesn’t see any bubbles forming in global markets right right now. But he doesn’t think you should take his word for it. And even if you did, that isn’t the right question to ask anyway. Speaking at a Wall Street Journal event on Wednesday morning, Bernanke said, “I don’t see any obvious major mispricings. Nothing that looks like the housing bubble before the crisis, for example. But you shouldn’t trust me.”
  • I certainly agree with that last sentence.  Bernanke was the one telling us that there was not going to be a recession back in 2008 even after one had already started.  He was clueless back then and he is clueless today. Most of our “leaders” either don’t understand what is happening or they are not willing to tell us. So that means that we have to try to figure things out for ourselves the best that we can.  And right now there are signs all around us that another 2008-style crisis has begun. Personally, I am hoping that there will be a lot more days like today when the markets were relatively quiet and not much major news happened around the world. Unfortunately for all of us, these days of relative peace and tranquility are about to come to a very abrupt end.
  • Gary Edwards on 15 Oct 15
     
    "Warren Buffett once referred to derivatives as "financial weapons of mass destruction", and it was inevitable that they would begin to wreak havoc on our financial system at some point.  While things may seem somewhat calm on Wall Street at the moment, the truth is that a great deal of trouble is bubbling just under the surface.  As you will see below, something happened in mid-September that required an unprecedented 405 billion dollar surge of Treasury collateral into the repo market.  I know - that sounds very complicated, so I will try to break it down more simply for you.  It appears that some very large institutions have started to get into a significant amount of trouble because of all the reckless betting that they have been doing.  This is something that I have warned would happen over and over again.  In fact, I have written about it so much that my regular readers are probably sick of hearing about it.  But this is what is going to cause the meltdown of our financial system. Many out there get upset when I compare derivatives trading to gambling, and perhaps it would be more accurate to describe most derivatives as a form of insurance.  The big financial institutions assure us that they have passed off most of the risk on these contracts to others and so there is no reason to worry according to them. Well, personally I don't buy their explanations, and a lot of others don't either.  On a very basic, primitive level, derivatives trading is gambling.  This is a point that Jeff Nielson made very eloquently in a piece that he recently published…"
Gary Edwards

Looting: When Government guarantees the cost of failure, Looters profit : Too Big To F... - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/too-big-to-fail-must-go-2009-3

financial-crisis looting banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 11 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 11 Mar 09
     
    The theory of "Looting" explains many of the financial crisis of the past and present. Perhaps too too many! This article introduces a white paper , "Looting". The authors argue that multiple financial crises can be explained by this phenomenon, including the belief that a financial institution and entangled "counterparty" is too big to fail. " .... an economic underground can come to life if firms have an incentive to go broke for profit at society's expense (to loot) instead of to go for broke (to gamble on success). Bankruptcy for profit will occur if poor accounting, lax regulation, or low penalties for abuse give owners an incentive to pay themselves more than their firms are worth and then default on their debt obligations...."
Gary Edwards

Warren Buffett Explains How The Bailout Is Crushing Healthy Companies - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/shing-healthy-companies-2009-3

financial-crisis warren-buffett socialism banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Mar 09
     
    ".....There's a lot of talk about how the bailouts are creating moral hazard and rewarding bad behavior. But those are pretty abstract ideas, the kind of things people wonder whether or not we can afford to worry about while the economy is tanking. Sure we'll pay a long run price  for screwing up the market's discipline but in the long run we're all dead. So forget "moral hazard" and just look at Warren Buffett's description of what is happening to his home construction business, Clayton Homes. Clayton, which makes pre-fab homes, also has a lending business. Surprisingly, Clayton hasn't been crushed by the markets because it maintained high lending standards and doesn't have a balance sheet overflowing with defaulting loans..." And the solution is? Buffett is/was a successful capitalist. Yet he fully supported a socialist takeover of the government. Obama's campaign rhetoric was that of a hard core socialist declaring war on constitutional capitalism. And there was Buffett, standing at Obama's side, arguing that all capitalist should be supporting the systemic change Obama socialism promised to deliver. And now Buffett's complaining? What is it about socialism that attracted Buffett in the first place? Did he really think the socialists he worked to elect would pour tax payer debt money into the capitalists hands, and let the markets go their merry way? The socialist seeks to control the means of production, limit the rights of property ownership, and redistribute the wealth created by capitalist. Socialism does not have a wealth creation model. Redistribution of wealth and control over the means of production is something Buffett supported with both his money and his personal assurances to constitutional capitalist everywhere. Yet here we are. Exactly where Buffetts advice and pleas intended us to be. And now he's complaining? Buffett didn't like the belief in big government programs, big government spending and crisis interventionism of Bush's compasionat
Gary Edwards

Of Bailouts, Bonuses, and Generational Responsibility from The Daily Bail - 0 views

www.google.com/...view

obammunism baby-boomers john-gallo financial-collapse

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Apr 10 - No Cached
  • When one transfers the learned behavior of selfishness to the world of economics, it is east to see how we got to the world of adjustable rate mortgages, thirty-to-one leverage, credit default swaps, and thirty year hedge fund workers acting as is million dollar paychecks was an otherwise normal entitlement.  If it felt good, it was therefore right – and by all means, don’t rock the boat.  And what we are witnessing today in Washington and Wall Street in response to our economic crisis is nothing but a conscious and willing decision to pass off to the next generation the cost of our mistakes.
  • the fundamental principles of capitalism – namely that bad actors need to fail.
  • First and most foremost, the Congress needs to institute a modernized version of Glass-Stegall and separate commercial banking from investment banking activities. What we have seen in the abolishment Glass-Stegall (please thank Mr. Rubin formerly of Goldman Sachs) is the creation of federally subsidize casinos masquerading as publicly traded financial institutions.  They kept profits from over-leveraged bets and were kind enough to pass their losses onto the taxpayers.  Second, Congress needs to repeal legislation (Gramm-Leach) that allowed financial institutions not only to leverage in ways previously not permitted, but which also granted banks and financial situations exemption from federal gambling laws. Third, and this is where moral outrage hits home to those on Wall Street, we cannot live in a country in which any company is allowed to manipulate the levers of government in such a way as to make itself obscenely rich at the expense of the public.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • We saw as we proceeded through life that pursuing one’s self-interest was rewarded just as often than doing what was right, that morals were relative, and that there would be no consequences to bad behavior. It became de rigueur to assume that our parents (and their lawyers) would save us from our bad behavior.
  • no consequences to irresponsible behavior.
  • it is hard to avoid the reality that my generation, the baby boomers who are now approaching retirement, have caused the greatest collapse of the world economy since the 1930s, and in the process damaged this country in ways we are now only beginning to understand.
  • Goldman is only the largest corporate contributor to the Obama administration
  • Looking back more eighteen months after the first signs of distress in our economy appeared, it seems that leaders in Congress and Wall Street have erred in a manner never before witnessed in this nation.  In the process, they have conspired through their collective arrogance, greed, and ignorance to damage the economy of the country (if not the world), make many themselves rich beyond the imaginations of most Americans, and in the process commit the greatest financial rape of the American public in the history of the country.  And if that does resonate, then either you have not been paying attention for the past two years, or you have received your paycheck form Goldman Sachs.
  • Capitalism remains the best economic system on the planet, but when those who have profited handsomely seek to socialize losses caused by their errors, then those in power in Washington have a moral responsibility to demand an accounting.  Our anger comes from the fact that our leaders have failed in their public obligations at the expense of the interests on Wall Street, and in the process created the greatest social divide that this country has seen in the past 40 years.
  • our nation has one of the highest ratios of debt to GDP on the globe
  • Finally, the administration should demand (I know it won’t) that Goldman Sachs return the approximately $13 billion it received in backdoor payments through AIG when AIG received $180 billion in bailout money. That $13 billion belongs to the taxpayers of this country, and the decision to allow Goldman to receive that money perhaps stands as the greatest moral outrage of this entire sordid affair.  
  • he nation will not die; to the contrary, it would become stronger if we permit free markets to work, and allow the next-generation to live unburdened by our mistakes and arrogance.
  • The proposal in question was Ryan's "Roadmap for America's Future," a sweeping plan to stave off the nation's looming economic and fiscal collapse by changing the tax code, overhauling the health care system, and reforming the nation's major entitlement programs. Its debt-reducing claims aren't based on mere fantasy -- the Congressional Budget Office has determined that the plan would boost economic growth while making Medicare and Social Security solvent. And it accomplishes these aims without raising taxes or affecting the benefits of current retirees.
  • There's no doubt where the Treasury will turn for finance. We are about to see the greatest stuffing of banks with government securities the world has ever seen. American banks will be forced to gorge on Treasury securities, and disgorge bank reserves. Where else can the government get the next trillion to spend on things like wars, unemployment benefits, and food stamps?There are a few obvious things to think about here. At the rate of $120 billion a month, it will only take about nine months to blow through over a trillion dollars in free bank reserves. Each Treasury auction will find it more difficult to sell all of the treasury securities, and it will take rising interest rates to coax out even more reserves from the banks. (When you need to borrow over $4 billion a day, even a trillion dollars doesn't last long.)
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Apr 10
     
    Wow!  This is the best response to the financial collapse i have read to date.  Exceptional in clarity, but written with a tone of mixed sorrow and shame.  Mr. Gallow places the blame exactly where it should be placed.  It's a generational thing with one exception Mr. Gallow overlooks - the Obama margin of victory was very much due to the massive turnout and votes of post baby boomer generations.  We boomers may have created and caused the financial collapse and destruction of America, but they were dumb enough to put the decline of capitalism and ordered liberty on marxist steroids. excerpt:  .... this is the first time that I have been so angered by incompetence and greed in government and Wall Street to express publicly my own thoughts.  In simple terms, what has dawned on me is that my generation, the "Baby Boomers" between the ages of 45 and 65, has emerged not as not the most significant or talented generation in our history (as we thought we were), but rather as the most self-absorbed and reckless. Because ours will be the first generation in the history of this country to leave to its successors a nation in worse shape than that which it inherited; put differently, we will be the first generation in this nation to have taken from our parents and stolen from our children. .. it is hard to avoid the reality that my generation, the baby boomers who are now approaching retirement, have caused the greatest collapse of the world economy since the 1930s, and in the process damaged this country in ways we are now only beginning to understand. ... Looking back more eighteen months after the first signs of distress in our economy appeared, it seems that leaders in Congress and Wall Street have erred in a manner never before witnessed in this nation.  In the process, they have conspired through their collective arrogance, greed, and ignorance to damage the economy of the country (if not the world), make many themselves rich beyond the imaginations of mo
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