On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice sued S&P for $5 billion for misleading the Western Federal Corporate Credit Union, the first federally chartered credit union, which collapsed in 2008. Sixteen states have joined the lawsuit while the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission has also launched an investigation. S&P has offered to settle for $100 million instead without admitting any guilt.The lawsuits are based on a special government investigation named “Alchemy” into top ratings provided by S&P for “collateralized debt obligations” (CDOs) composed of sub-prime mortgages. The federal officials allege that analysts knew that the loans were likely to go sour.
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CorpWatch : "Alchemy" Investigation Alleges Wall Street Fraud at Standard & P... - 0 views
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Two dozen government lawyers spent several years, conducting over 150 interviews, to find out how much the ratings agency knew about the quality of the CDOs. Some of the documents they uncovered were pretty damning.“This market is a wildly spinning top which is going to end badly,” wrote David Tesher, an S&P managing director in an email on December 11, 2006, according to documents released by the government. “Let’s hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters,” another S&P employee wrote four days later, according to documents released by the U.S. Senate."Watch out // Housing market went softer // Cooling down // Strong market is now much weaker // Subprime is boi-ling o-ver // Bringing down the house,” sang an analyst in a parody video of Talking Heads' 1983 song "Burning Down the House" that he recorded for his colleagues in March 2007.
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“Claims that we deliberately kept ratings high when we knew they should be lower are simply not true. S.&P. has always been committed to serving the interests of investors and all market participants by providing independent opinions on creditworthiness based on available information,” the Wall Street firm said in a statement released to the press.S&P has also tried to claim in court that its ratings are protected under the first amendment to the U.S. constitution, which guarantees the right to free speech. Federal judges have been skeptical like Shira A. Scheindlin, who recently ruled against the argument.
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Other lawsuits have also uncovered evidence that Wall Street firms were aware of the problems with sub-prime loans as far back as 2005, according to documents just released in a New York court under a lawsuit against Morgan Stanley, a major U.S. investment bank, that was brought by the China Development Industrial Bank (CDIB) from Taiwan. The bankers cracked jokes about the quality of the CDO that they sold to the Taiwanese suggesting that it should be called “Subprime Meltdown,” “Hitman,” “Nuclear Holocaust” and “Mike Tyson’s Punchout” or “Shitbag.”
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Goldman Sachs Sued for Selling Libya Billions in "Worthless" Options | Global Research - 0 views
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Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment bank, is being sued in London for selling Libya “worthless” derivatives trades in 2008 that the country’s financial managers did not understand. Libya says it lost approximately $1.2 billion on the deals, while Goldman made $350 million.
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“We think the claims are without merit, and will defend them,” Fiona Laffan, a Goldman Sachs spokeswoman in London, told Bloomberg news service. However, the bank recently claimed that it had retrained its staff to ensure that customers are no longer blind sided by sales pitches for complex products. “For all of our employees, the experience of initiating, approving and executing a transaction for a client at Goldman Sachs is now fundamentally different,” Goldman claimed at its annual meeting last year. Goldman Sachs is not the first Wall Street bank to be accused of taking advantage of naive foreign investors. Morgan Stanley was sued for selling bundled sub-prime mortgages to China Development Industrial Bank (CDIB) from Taiwan that they knew would fail. Even Standard & Poors (S&P), Wall Street’s top ratings agency, has been accused of helping banks to sell “collateralized debt obligations” that they knew were likely to go sour.
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But this is not the first time that Goldman Sachs has been happy to help governments carry out dodgy deals. Back in 2001, Goldman reportedly charged Greece $300 million to engage on “‘blatant balance sheet cosmetics” to help the country join the European Monetary Union.
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Members of the union were required to have government debt under 60 percent of gross domestic product and a budget deficit to gross domestic product ratio of under 3 percent. Unfortunately, Greece debt exceeded 100 percent and deficits were at 3.7 percent Goldman Sachs took advantage of a loophole that allowed countries to enter the EMU if they could demonstrate that they were lowering their debt and their budget deficit. To do this, Goldman Sachs sold Greece a “cross-currency swap” that gave the government cash up front in return for a big payment at the end of the loan period. The beauty of the arrangement was that since such currency swaps were permitted by the European Statistical Agency (Eurostat), the debt and deficit appeared to shrink.
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shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Nov 13
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Timothy Geithner Named President of NYC Private Equity Firm | TIME.com - 0 views
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shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Nov 13
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The former U.S. treasury secretary who is most closely aligned with the financial bailout is heading to Wall Street to helm a private-equity firm. Timothy Geithner will join New York-based Warburg Pincus in March as the president and managing director, a departure from the typical hands-off positions public figures’ transitions following government roles, the Wall Street Journal reports. Geithner, who has been attributed with navigating the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 but was criticized for being too easy on Wall Street banks, will focus on the firm’s investment strategy and investor relations.
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shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Oct 13
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White House OKd spying on allies, U.S. intelligence officials say - latimes.com - 0 views
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surveillance state NSA Obama NSA-targets lies scandal
shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Oct 13
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The White House and State Department signed off on surveillance targeting phone conversations of friendly foreign leaders, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said Monday, pushing back against assertions that President Obama and his aides were unaware of the high-level eavesdropping. Professional staff members at the National Security Agency and other U.S. intelligence agencies are angry, these officials say, believing the president has cast them adrift as he tries to distance himself from the disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that have strained ties with close allies. The resistance emerged as the White House said it would curtail foreign intelligence collection in some cases and two senior U.S. senators called for investigations of the practice. France, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Sweden have all publicly complained about the NSA surveillance operations, which reportedly captured private cellphone conversations by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, among other foreign leaders.
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On Monday, as Spain joined the protest, the fallout also spread to Capitol Hill.
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Until now, members of Congress have chiefly focused their attention on Snowden's disclosures about the NSA's collection of U.S. telephone and email records under secret court orders. "With respect to NSA collection of intelligence on leaders of U.S. allies — including France, Spain, Mexico and Germany — let me state unequivocally: I am totally opposed," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. "Unless the United States is engaged in hostilities against a country or there is an emergency need for this type of surveillance, I do not believe the United States should be collecting phone calls or emails of friendly presidents and prime ministers," she said in a statement. Feinstein said the Intelligence Committee had not been told of "certain surveillance activities" for more than a decade, and she said she would initiate a major review of the NSA operation. She added that the White House had informed her that "collection on our allies will not continue," although other officials said most U.S. surveillance overseas would not be affected. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), ranking minority member of the Armed Services Committee, said Congress should consider creating a special select committee to examine U.S. eavesdropping on foreign leaders.
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"Obviously, we're going to want to know exactly what the president knew and when he knew it," McCain told reporters in Chicago. "We have always eavesdropped on people around the world. But the advance of technology has given us enormous capabilities, and I think you might make an argument that some of this capability has been very offensive both to us and to our allies."
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Precisely how the surveillance is conducted is unclear. But if a foreign leader is targeted for eavesdropping, the relevant U.S. ambassador and the National Security Council staffer at the White House who deals with the country are given regular reports, said two former senior intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing classified information. Obama may not have been specifically briefed on NSA operations targeting a foreign leader's cellphone or email communications, one of the officials said. "But certainly the National Security Council and senior people across the intelligence community knew exactly what was going on, and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous." If U.S. spying on key foreign leaders was news to the White House, current and former officials said, then White House officials have not been reading their briefing books. Some U.S. intelligence officials said they were being blamed by the White House for conducting surveillance that was authorized under the law and utilized at the White House. "People are furious," said a senior intelligence official who would not be identified discussing classified information. "This is officially the White House cutting off the intelligence community."
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Any decision to spy on friendly foreign leaders is made with input from the State Department, which considers the political risk, the official said. Any useful intelligence is then given to the president's counter-terrorism advisor, Lisa Monaco, among other White House officials. Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said Monday that Obama had ordered a review of surveillance capabilities, including those affecting America's closest foreign partners and allies. "Our review is looking across the board at our intelligence gathering to ensure that as we gather intelligence, we are properly accounting for both the security of our citizens and our allies and the privacy concerns shared by Americans and citizens around the world," Carney said.
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Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said the review would examine "whether we have the appropriate posture when it comes to heads of state, how we coordinate with our closest allies and partners, and what further guiding principles or constraints might be appropriate for our efforts." She said the review should be completed this year.
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Intelligence officials also disputed a Wall Street Journal article Monday that said the White House had learned only this summer — during a review of surveillance operations that might be exposed by Snowden — about an NSA program to monitor communications of 35 world leaders. Since then, officials said, several of the eavesdropping operations have been stopped because of political sensitivities.
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Good. The Intelligence community is calling BS on Obama's claim that he didn't know about the spying on foreign heads of allied states. And McCain says we need a select Congressional committee to look into what the president knew and when he knew it. That's an implicit slam of the Feinstein-led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's oversight of the intelligence agencies and a signal that there is a scandal lurking here. More importantly, a new select committee would not have the same membership as the existing Intelligence Community, which has largely functioned as a rubber stamp for what the intelligence agencies want. We have been down this road before, in the mid-70s, when the Defense Dept. intelligence agencies were caught spying on Americans, leading to the Select Committee investigation headed by former Sen. Frank Church and to the initial passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, among other legislation delivering a strong message to the intelligence agencies that what happens within the U.S. is off-limits to them. But that was a lesson forgotten as new technology came along for NSA to play with. If Obama is smart, he will promptly respond to the LA Times article with a clarification that top members of his staff knew and the previous statement dealt only with his personal knowledge. But the Obama Administration has overwhelmingly demonstrated an inability to head off scandals and a big tendency to cover-up rather than get out in front of story, particularly in matters involving the NSA. So we may see a major scandal emerge from this already enormous scandal that is laid directly at Barack Obama's feet, a cover-up scandal. Who knew what when, where, why, and how? My favorite question.
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The Most Expensive Wars in U.S. History - 24/7 Wall St. - 0 views
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Declared an official holiday in 1971, Memorial Day honors those who have given their lives in service to the United States. While the human toll is always great, wars also cost treasure as well as blood. Many factors can affect the cost of waging war. Using a report from the Congressional Research Service, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the most expensive wars in U.S. history. While the Mexican-American War cost just $2.4 billion, or 1.4% of GDP in 1847, spending on World War II accounted for nearly 36% of GDP in 1945, or $4.1 trillion. These are the most expensive wars in U.S. history. Click here to see the most expensive wars in U.S. history. Many early wars in U.S. history resulted in the acquisition of land. The Mexican-American War in the 1840s yielded much of the territory that makes up the present-day Southwest. Similarly, the Spanish-American War prior to the start of the 20th Century ended with U.S. control of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.
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In every conflict before World War II, nearly all of the country’s defense budget was spent on direct conflict — classified as wartime spending. For example, the U.S. spent 1.1% of GDP in 1899 to fight the Spanish-American War, and just 1.5% of GDP was spent on total defense spending. That trend largely changed at the start of the Cold War. The persistent threat of military conflict ensured that the U.S. would be ready for war at any time, as the Space Race and nuclear armament became national priorities in both the U.S. and the Soviet Union. As a result, wartime spending and defense spending began to diverge. During the Korean War, for example, war costs accounted for just 4.2% of GDP in 1952, while total defense spending represented more than 13% of GDP in the same year. Comparing war costs over a 235-year period can be difficult. While the report attempted to correct for inflation by calculating each war’s cost in fiscal year 2011 dollars, inflation adjustments do not account for advances in technology. It is entirely possible that wars also became more expensive over time as the sophistication and cost of technology increased.
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To determine the most expensive wars in U.S. history, 24/7 Wall St. used a 2010 report from the Congressional Research Service entitled “Costs of Major U.S. Wars”. The report does not include veterans’ benefits, interest on loans used to finance the war, and assistance to allies. Additionally, the report attempts to capture the increase in military expenditures during wartime and does not include the costs of maintaining a standing army in peacetime. The report also presents both military costs and defense spending as percentages of GDP in the year of peak war spending. War cost figures for the War on Terror were updated to reflect expenditure after 2010. These are the most expensive wars in U.S. history. Next »
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shared by Paul Merrell on 16 May 15
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5 Big Banks Expected to Plead Guilty to Felony Charges, but Punishments May Be Tempered... - 0 views
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banksters litigation UBS Barclays JPMorgan Chase Citigroup Royal-Bank-of-Scotland guilty-pleas SEC-waivers
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The Justice Department is preparing to announce that Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and the Royal Bank of Scotland will collectively pay several billion dollars and plead guilty to criminal antitrust violations for rigging the price of foreign currencies, according to people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Most if not all of the pleas are expected to come from the banks’ holding companies, the people said — a first for Wall Street giants that until now have had only subsidiaries or their biggest banking units plead guilty.
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The Justice Department is also preparing to resolve accusations of foreign currency misconduct at UBS. As part of that deal, prosecutors are taking the rare step of tearing up a 2012 nonprosecution agreement with the bank over the manipulation of benchmark interest rates, the people said, citing the bank’s foreign currency misconduct as a violation of the earlier agreement. UBS A.G., the banking unit that signed the 2012 nonprosecution agreement, is expected to plead guilty to the earlier charges and pay a fine that could be as high as $500 million rather than go to trial, the people said.
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Holding companies, while appearing to be the most important entities at the banks, are in less jeopardy of suffering the consequences of guilty pleas. Some banks worried that a guilty plea by their biggest banking units, which hold licenses that enable them to operate branches and make loans, would be riskier, two of the people briefed on the matter said. The fear, they said, centered on whether state or federal regulators might revoke those licenses in response to the pleas. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Behind the scenes in Washington, the banks’ lawyers are also seeking assurances from federal regulators — including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Labor Department — that the banks will not be barred from certain business practices after the guilty pleas, the people said. While the S.E.C.’s five commissioners have not yet voted on the requests for waivers, which would allow the banks to conduct business as usual despite being felons, the people briefed on the matter expected a majority of commissioners to grant them.In reality, those accommodations render the plea deals, at least in part, an exercise in stagecraft. And while banks might prefer a deferred-prosecution agreement that suspends charges in exchange for fines and other concessions — or a nonprosecution deal like the one that UBS is on the verge of losing — the reputational blow of being a felon does not spell disaster.
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The foreign exchange investigation, which centers on accusations that traders colluded to fix the price of major currencies, will test the Justice Department’s strategy for securing guilty pleas on Wall Street.
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In the case of UBS, the bank will lose its nonprosecution agreement over interest rate manipulation, the people briefed on the matter said, a consequence of its misconduct in the foreign exchange case. It is unclear why that penalty will fall on UBS, but not on other banks suspected of manipulating both interest rates and currency prices.
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the bank is expected to avoid pleading guilty in the foreign exchange case, the people said, though it will probably pay a fine. While UBS was unlikely to plead guilty to antitrust violations because it was the first to cooperate in the foreign exchange investigation, the bank was facing the possibility of pleading guilty to fraud charges related to the currency manipulation. The exact punishment is not yet final, the people added.The Justice Department negotiations coincide with the banks’ separate efforts to persuade the S.E.C. to issue waivers from automatic bans that occur when a company pleads guilty. If the waivers are not granted, a decision that the Justice Department does not control, the banks could face significant consequences.For example, some banks may be seeking waivers to a ban on overseeing mutual funds, one of the people said. They are also requesting waivers to ensure they do not lose their special status as “well-known seasoned issuers,” which allows them to fast-track securities offerings. For some of the banks, there is also a concern that they will lose their “safe harbor” status for making forward-looking statements in securities documents.
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In turn, the S.E.C. asked the Justice Department to hold off on announcing the currency cases until the banks’ requests had been reviewed, one of the people said. As of Wednesday, it seemed probable that a majority of the S.E.C.’s commissioners would approve most of the waivers, which can be granted for a cause like the public good. Still, the agency’s two Democratic commissioners — Kara M. Stein and Luis A. Aguilar, who have denounced the S.E.C.’s use of waivers — might be more likely to balk.
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Corporate prosecutions are a delicate matter, peppered with political and legal land mines. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and other liberal politicians have criticized prosecutors for treating Wall Street with kid gloves. Banks and their lawyers, however, complain about huge penalties and guilty pleas. Continue reading the main story Recent Comments AvangionQ 14 hours ago These are the sorts of crimes that take down nations, jail sentences should be mandatory. Lance Haley 14 hours ago I find this whole legal exercise not only irrational, but insulting. I am a criminal defense attorney. Punishing the shareholders and the... loomypop 14 hours ago There is much more than Irony in the reality of how America treats criminal action and punishment when the entire determination and outcome... See All Comments And lingering in the background is the case of Arthur Andersen, an accounting giant that imploded after being convicted in 2002 of criminal charges related to its work for Enron. After the firm’s collapse, and the later reversal of its conviction, prosecutors began to shift from indictments and guilty pleas to deferred-prosecution agreements. And in 2008, the Justice Department updated guidelines for prosecuting corporations, which have long included a requirement that prosecutors weigh collateral consequences like harm to shareholders and innocent employees.
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“The collateral consequences consideration is designed to address the risk that a particular criminal charge might inflict disproportionate harm to shareholders, pension holders and employees who are not even alleged to be culpable or to have profited potentially from wrongdoing,” said Mark Filip, the Justice Department official who wrote the 2008 memo. “Arthur Andersen was ultimately never convicted of anything, but the mere act of indicting it destroyed one of the cornerstones of the Midwest’s economy.”
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In related news, the Dept. of Justice announced that it would begin using its "collateral consequences" analysis to decisions whether to charge human beings with crimes, taking into account the hardships imposed on innocent family members and other dependents if a person were sentenced to prison. No? Sounds like corporations have more rights than human beings, yes?
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Obama still flush with cash from financial sector despite frosty relations - The Washin... - 0 views
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Obama has raised more money from Wall Street Banksters than all the repubican candidates combined! But to see this connection, one has to add funds contributed to the democrat - socialist parties coffers. The more the Obama - Soros machine stirs the class warfare pot, the more money the Banksters are willing to shell out for his re-election. Maybe they know that the only way to get to a New World Order is to collapse the USA in economic and political anarchy and end the Constitution. Once the NWO is in place, there will of course be no further need for the marxist rable. excerpt: Despite frosty relations with the titans of Wall Street, President Obama has still managed to raise far more money this year from the financial and banking sector than Mitt Romney or any other Republican presidential candidate, according to new fundraising data.
Obama's key advantage over the GOP field is the ability to collect bigger checks because he raises money for both his own campaign committee and for the Democratic National Committee, which will aid in his reelection effort.
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As a result, Obama has brought in more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and other financial service companies than all of the GOP candidates combined, according to a Washington Post analysis of contribution data. The numbers show that Obama retains a persistent reservoir of support among Democratic financiers who have backed him since he was an underdog presidential candidate four years ago.
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shared by Gary Edwards on 21 Oct 11
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Chris Savvinidis "End the Fed" Facebook Page - 0 views
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Banksters Libertarian Ron-Paul Federal-Reserve Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel banksters
shared by Gary Edwards on 21 Oct 11
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The Occupy Wall Street movement is a circus, with every political stripe known showing their colors, making their arguments, and yes, making demands. Chris Savvinidis is holding the ground in front of the New York Federal Reserve Bankster building, patiently arguing for the Constitution, the rule of law, the end of fiat money, and the end of the Federal Reserve. Best of all, he's not alone. The libertarian/conservative movement is anchored and growing. Thanks Chris.
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shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Oct 11
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'The Destruction of the Rule of Law' according to Ratigan, Black and DeGraw - 1 views
www.thedailybell.com/...-Law-according-to-David-DeGraw
Banksters Dylan-Rattigan OWS Occupy-Wall-Street crony-capitalism
shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Oct 11
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Amazing video discussion about Occupy Wall Street movement, and the outrageous Bankster fraud that has not been prosecuted by the Obama DOJ. Dylan Rattigan interviews White Collar Crime expert, Attorney William Black and, OWS organizer David DeGraw. Attorney Black points out that both the FBI and the Financial Services Bank . "We put the Treasury Secretary up for auction, and lately Goldman Sachs has been the highest bidder". Clinton-Reuben, Bush-Paulsen, Obama-Geitner. Get rid of the systemically dangerous institutions.
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The Ukraine Crisis and Vladimir Putin: A New Financial System Free from Wall Street and... - 0 views
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This is the big secret that now cannot be covered anymore. The governments of the US and the European countries are NOT independent entities, they are not sovereign. They do not have the will or even the ability to act on behalf of their people. They are controlled by powerful banking interests. They have been taken over by two financial centers that do not care for the real economy. They pursue only speculation and looting. In response on March 4th the economic adviser to Putin, Sergey Glazyev declared openly that if the financial vultures persisted, Russia would create on the spot an independent financial system which is separate from that of the US Dollar. Glazyev explained to the vampires: ‘We have wonderful economic and trade relations with our Southern and Eastern partners. We will find a way not just to eliminate our dependence on the US but also profit from these sanctions….If sanctions are applied against Russia’s state structures we will have to move into other currencies and create our own settlement system. We will be forced to recognize the impossibility of repayment of the loans that the US banks gave to Russian state structures. Indeed, sanctions are a double-edged weapon, and if the US chooses to freeze our assets, then our equities and liabilities in dollars will also be frozen…’
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On March 18, the spokesperson for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, stated that Russia would switch to new partners in case of economic sanctions being imposed by the European Union and the United States. He highlighted that the modern world isn’t unipolar and Russia has strong ties with other states as well, though Russia wants to remain in good relations with its Western partners, especially with the EU due to the volume of trade and joint projects. Those “new partners” are not really new since Russia has been closely interconnected with them for almost 13 years. This is all about the so-called BRICS organization, consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. BRICS represents 42 percent of the world’s population and about a quarter of the world’s economy, which means that this bloc of states is an important global actor. The BRICS countries are like-minded in regard to supporting the principles of international law, the central role of the UN Security Council and the principles of the non-use of force in international relations; this is why they are so actively performing in the sphere of settling regional conflicts. However, the cooperation between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa goes beyond political aspects and is also demonstrated by dynamic trade and multiple projects in different areas. Today, in total, there are more than 20 formats of cooperation within the BRICS which are being developing. For example, in February the member-states came to an agreement about 11 possible projects of scientific and technical cooperation, from aeronautics to bio- and nanotechnology.
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This strategy is known as the Financial Nuclear Option. It could lead to the end of the predatory looting system of Wall Street. The ‘Southern and Eastern partners’ Glazyev is talking about are clearly the members of the BRICS, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, the sane part of the world economy, the future. And it is exactly what the official spokesman of the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov indicated in an interview to the BBC: “Sanctions against Russia could be the final trigger that will force many countries to create a new independent financial system based on the real economy. The world is changing rapidly. How many civilizations grew and died in the course of history? Who will be able to resist the pressure of dying systems and indicate to the people the road toward the future?” The possibility of a new financial system independent from the collapsing dollar empire, as consequence of anti Russia sanctions was also emphasized by an authoritative the Russian media including RT. (See:http://rt.com/op-edge/russia-switches-to-brics-sanctions-357/) …Western sanctions might push Russia to deepen cooperation with BRICS states, in particular, to strengthen its ties with China, which will possibly turn out to be a big catastrophe for the US and the EU some time later.
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In order to modernize the global economic system, at the center of which stand the US and the EU, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa have created the BRICS Stock Alliance and are creating their own development bank to finance large infrastructure projects. On the whole, despite fierce criticism of BRICS as an organization with no future, it is developing and increasing cooperation with its members and, in fact, BRICS is showing pretty good results. With the suspension of Russia’s participation in G8 and the strengthening of economic sanctions against Russia, specific industries may be targeted, including limits on imported commodities. While the West seeks to hit Russia hard, it is important to notice that Russia is ready to switch to other markets, including BRICS, with a view to expanding its trade.
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The Economic Scam of the Century » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the N... - 0 views
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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:
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“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.
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WSJ Reports: Bank of North Dakota Outperforms Wall Street | nsnbc international - 0 views
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While 49 state treasuries were submerged in red ink after the 2008 financial crash, one state’s bank outperformed all others and actually launched an economy-shifting new industry. So reports the Wall Street Journal this week, discussing the Bank of North Dakota (BND) and its striking success in the midst of a national financial collapse led by the major banks. Chester Dawson begins his November 16th article: It is more profitable than Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has a better credit rating than J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and hasn’t seen profit growth drop since 2003. Meet Bank of North Dakota, the U.S.’s lone state-owned bank, which has one branch, no automated teller machines and not a single investment banker.
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He backs this up with comparative data on the BND’s performance:
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Did Al Qaeda Cash in on the 9/11 Attacks? | 911Blogger.com - 0 views
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In chapter one Rickards’ otherwise clear vision fails him. The author is absolutely correct that pre-9/11 insider trading did occur. Rickards also correctly notes that “every transaction has two parties,” meaning that every put and call option leaves a paper trail. But Rickards insults our intelligence when he tells us that associates of Osama bin Laden were responsible for the insider trading. Rickards would have us believe, for example, that the terrorists were behind the 600% spike in call options for the military contractor Raytheon, whose stock surged 37% in the weeks after 9/11. Other big winners were L-3 Communications, Northrop Grumman, and Allied Techsystems. According to Paul Zarembka, professor of econometrics at SUNY Buffalo, the put/call options were exercised, meaning that whoever purchased them later collected the profits, blood money. But is it believable that the very same terrorists who sought to destroy America got away with profiting from the subsequent vast expansion of the US war machine? Catching those responsible certainly was the intent of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which led the probe into allegations of insider trading in the weeks after 9/11. At the time, SEC chairman Harvey Pitt told the press “We will do everything in our power to track those [guilty] people down and bring them to justice.” Everyone took it for granted that the paper trail would lead to al Qaeda.
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Yet, weeks later, the SEC quietly and inexplicably tabled its investigation. Why? Instead of issuing indictments, the SEC took the unprecedented step of deputizing everyone associated with its probe. This totaled hundreds, possibly thousands, of people. Why did the SEC do this? The answer was transparently obvious to former LAPD narcotics investigator Mike Ruppert, who pointed out that the SEC deputized its investigators to effectively gag them, no doubt, to prevent leakage of its actual findings. And what were those findings? Well, probably the inconvenient truth that the paper trail led not to bin Laden but back to Wall Street. As we know, there was leakage despite the SEC’s best efforts to keep a lid on things. The Independent (UK) reported that “to the embarrassment of investigators, it has emerged that the firm used to buy the put options on United Airlines was headed until 1998 by Alvin “Buzzy” Krongard, now executive director of the CIA.” George Tenet had personally recruited Krongard, probably to serve as his liaison with Wall Street.
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The firm in question was America’s oldest investment bank, A.B. Brown, which merged with Bankers Trust in 1997. In 1999, when B.T. - Alex Brown pled guilty to criminal conspiracy charges, after it was revealed that top-level executives had created a $20 million slush fund out of unclaimed funds, B.T. - Alex Brown was on the verge of being closed down when Deutsche Bank scooped it up. Krongard’s former associate at Alex Brown, Mayo Shattuck III, who helped engineer the merger with Bankers Trust, went on to assume Krongard’s former duties as private banker to the firm’s wealthiest clients, personally arranging confidential transactions and transfers. According to the New York Times, in January 2001, Shattuck was named “co-head of investment banking….overseeing Deutsche Bank’s 400 brokers who cater to wealthy clients.” Shattuck’s sudden resignation on September 12, 2001 must therefor be viewed as highly suspicious. Shattuck retired without a word of explanation even though he reportedly had three years remaining on his contract.
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All of the above is conspicuously absent from Rickards’ discussion about insider trading. One may draw his/her own conclusions -- I have drawn mine. Even as we teeter on the brink of a financial meltdown of historic proportions, the insider-writer who would explain all of this cannot bring himself to acknowledge the true extent of Wall Street corruption and criminality, especially regarding 9/11, the fulcrum event that produced the world as we know it.
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The mentioned article by The Independent is no longer on that newspaper's web site. But it survives on the Wayback Machine. http://goo.gl/j4nJVX
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shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Aug 14
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US Operating on Both Sides of Syrian-Iraqi Border - Providing Cover for Terrorists in S... - 0 views
www.globalresearch.ca/...5396788
war & peace iraq ISIL U.S.-foreign-policy false-flag Syrian war must-read
shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Aug 14
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US may attempt to arm and provide air cover for terrorists in Syria after claiming success in fighting ISIS in Iraq using Kurds.
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To further justify expanding across the border and into Syria already ongoing US military operations in Iraq, the Western media has begun claiming that ISIS leadership, “fearing” US airstrikes, are fleeing to safety in neighboring Syria. The Wall Street Journal in its article, “Iraqis Say Some Commanders of Insurgency in Iraq Retreat to Syria,” claimed: According to the Iraqis, the commanders went to eastern Syria, where Islamic State has built an operational base amid the chaos of civil war over the past few years. The insurgents are able to dash across the border into Syria, where that base continues to offer the space to recruit and reorganize largely unchallenged. “They’ve got much better cover in Syria than they do in Iraq,” said Will McCants, an expert on militant Islam at the Brookings Institution and a former State Department adviser. “When they have that kind of strategic depth, they’re just allowed to live another day.”
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Image: Clearly, ISIS’ path into Iraq began not in Syria, but in NATO member Turkey’s territory. ISIS is nothing more than an extension of the US-backed terrorist forces assembled for the explicit purpose of overthrowing the Syrian government.
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Clearly, the answer, left for readers to arrive at on their own, is that these “successful” US airstrikes in Iraq must be carried over into Syria – where mission creep can do the rest, finally dislodging the Syrian government from power after an ongoing proxy war has failed to do so since 2011. After arming and aiding the Kurds in fighting ISIS in Iraq, the US will attempt to make a similar argument regarding the arming of terrorists in Syria and providing them direct US air support to defeat ISIS – and of course – Damascus. It should be remembered that ISIS itself is a creation of the United States, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar, and has been harbored and provided material assistance by NATO-member Turkey for years. Portrayed by various names by the Western media – ISIS, al-Nusra, the “Free Syrian Army” – in reality it is a conglomerate of Western-backed mercenary forces raised as early as 2007 to overthrow the government in Damascus and confront Iranian influence across the entire region, including in Lebanon and in Iraq.
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Cartalucci is on a roll. The false flag sarin gas attack in Ghouta, Syria, didn't work because John Kerry stuck his foot in his mouth about Syria getting rid of all his chemical warfare agents and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Syrian President Assad offered to do just that. Trapped by Kerry's loose lips, Obama had to call off the U.S. missile strikes and bombing on Syria to rescue the miniscule "Free Syrian Army," Al Nusrah, and other jihadi mercenaries being paid for by the House of Saud and Qattar, So the Syrian government forces got to keep the mercenaries on the run. Flip to plan B: a new excuse for U.S. war against Syria. ISIL is created, including a cover story that it got its hundreds of millions of dollars by robbing banks. Then, it's arranged for the commanders of four Iraq Army divisions to depart when only 1,000 or so ISIL troops attacked Mosul. Left without commanders and softened up by massive psychological warfare operations broadcasting how ISIL was beheading Iraqi troops that they caught, and the four divisions of troops fled south, leaving even their heavy weapons behind. Out of nowhere, a new Islamic menace is manufactured, spanning about a third each of Syria and Iraq. But Barack Obama to the rescue with the combined propaganda power of the War Party and Israel Lobby, the U.S. bombers and drones are sent in on their humanitarian mission to rescue about 40,000 Yahidzi (sp?) trapped by ISIL (now the Islamic Caliphate) on a mountaintop. Then the U.S. expands its bombing to win back the Mosul Dam because it's such a threat to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad if the dam breaks. Terrorized by the U.S. bombing, ISIL commanders are now said by the NYT and Wall St. J. to be retreating into Syria. Voila! Now the U.S. can send bombs and missiles to Syria ostensibly to kill ISIL leadership and troops, but in reality to bomb the heck out of the Syrian government forces. The road to Tehran still runs through Damascus, as a neocon would say.
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Civil Unrest Ahead - LewRockwell.com - 0 views
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The Victimized Inner Cities
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This social disruption has motivated the enthusiastic growth and militarization of our local police departments. The law and order crowd thrives on excessive laws and regulations that no US citizen can escape. The out-of-control war on drugs is the worst part, and it generates the greatest danger in poverty-ridden areas via out-of-control police. It is estimated that these conditions have generated up to 80,000 SWAT raids per year in the United States. Most are in poor neighborhoods and involve black homes and businesses being hit disproportionately. This involves a high percentage of no-knock attacks. As can be expected many totally innocent people are killed in the process. Property damage is routine and compensation is rare. The routine use of civil forfeiture of property has become an abomination, totally out of control, which significantly contributes to the chaos. It should not be a surprise to see resentment building up against the police under these conditions. The violent reaction against local merchants in retaliation for police actions further aggravates the situation —hardly a recipe for a safe neighborhood.
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Civil liberties are ignored by the police, and the private property of innocent bystanders is disregarded by those resenting police violence.
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The entitlement mentality is a source of much anger and misunderstanding. It leads people who see themselves as victims to one conclusion: they are entitled to be taken care of.
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If one trillion dollars per year doesn’t do the job, then make it $2 trillion. If the war on poverty’s $16 trillion hasn’t worked, make it $32 trillion.
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The wealthy special interests, such as banks, the military-industrial complex, the medical industry, the drug industry, and many other corporatists, quickly gain control of the system.
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Honest profits of successful entrepreneurs are quite different than profits of the corporate elite who gain control of the government and, as a consequence, accumulate obscene wealth by “robbing” the middle class.
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To blame and destroy those who make an honest living by satisfying consumers without the use of special benefits from the government is destructive to liberty and wealth.
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Crumbs may be thrown to the poor, but the principle of wealth transfer is hijacked and used for corporate and foreign welfare instead of wealth transfers to the poor.
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True satisfaction comes from productive effort and self-reliance and not from a government transferring wealth in an effort to bring about an egalitarian society.
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The people have too little confidence that most problems can be solved in a voluntary manner in a society that cherishes civil liberties. There’s never an admission that government problem-solving doesn’t work. Government-created problems are a road to poverty and resentment. Too many people believe that “free stuff” from the government can solve our problems. They mistakenly believe that deficits don’t matter and that wealth can come from a printing press.
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The high profile episodes of police violence and overreaction are a consequence of conditions that in many ways were generated by government policy.
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equal justice requires the end of welfare redistribution
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Retraining the police won’t touch the complex problems that pit the police against the victims of complex social conditions generated by hate, violence and bad economic policies.
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Redistribution is a process that is always destined to help a small minority, whether in an economy like ours that endorses central economic planning or in one run by radical fascists or communists.
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Under an authoritarian regime, those in power take care of themselves. This always leads to poverty and discrepancy in wealth distribution.
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Eventually the social strife that is predictable leads to an overthrow of the government.
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The strife that we are witnessing is a reflection of a growing number of people who are recognizing the discrepancy between rich and poor, the weak and the powerful, Wall Street and Main Street.
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Both political parties are financed by Wall Street, the big banks, and the military-industrial complex. Getting rich by being part of the government class is the problem.
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Indeed the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. The extreme current inequality is not a consequence of free markets and true liberty. Rather it results from the welfare state that, as always, morphs into a system that provides excesses for the powerful few.
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The economic interventionist system under which we live today rewards those who benefit from government economic planning by the Federal Reserve, access to government contracts, and targeted special regulations to help one group over the other
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There are two problems. First is conceding the principle that government has the moral authority to redistribute wealth. Second is believing the redistribution will be managed wisely and without corruption.
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Police brutality and militarization may well induce a violent event far beyond what we have seen in Ferguson. It also can serve as an excuse. But it is not the root cause of turmoil. The real cause is poverty, the entitlement mentality, and the breakdown of the rule of law. Moral decay and the national police state are the real culprits.
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We must limit the government’s role to protecting equal justice in defense of life, liberty, and property.
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We have too many police, too many laws, and too much exemption of government officials from the crimes they commit.
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There has to be an understanding that productive effort and self-reliance on the part of everyone is required for a free society to thrive.
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The loss of our liberty has sharply accelerated since the 9/11 attacks. We have done to ourselves what no foreign enemy could have possibly accomplished.
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Welfare, for the rich or poor, cannot exist without the sacrifice of the principal of property ownership.
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The national police are made up of over 100,000 bureaucrats and police officials who carry guns to enforce federal law on the American citizens.
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Today every American is a suspect. Our president has established a policy that an American citizen can be assassinated without even being charged with a crime.
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The Founders and our Constitution intended that policing powers would be the responsibility of the individual states. That was forgotten a long time ago
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the Feds are there taking charge over all local officials and property owners,
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The Founders did not even want a standing army. They wanted only a militia.
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Old-fashioned colonialism was deemed necessary by various European powers to secure natural resources along with control over sea lanes and markets for selling manufactured goods.
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European-style colonialism — supporting a mercantilistic economy — came to be seen as politically unrealistic and unnecessary.
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We are now subject to an out-of-control domestic police force while the US military maintains our Empire overseas.
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When free-trade principles were utilized, colonialism did not die; it only changed form. Mercantilism in various forms and degrees drove trade policies of nations with strong economies and militaries.
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The United States military presence around the world provides a “private” police force to protect US and other international companies against any local resistance or leaders that turn unfriendly. Our military presence overseas has nothing to do with protecting our freedoms and defending our Constitution.
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The international monetary system is a powerful tool for the select few.
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In fact, the real heroes are the ones who expose the truth and refuse to fight foreign wars for the international corporations.
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The “one percenters,” generally speaking, are internationalists who are not champions of individual liberty and free trade. They are supporters of managed trade and international institutions like the WTO where the interests of the one percent can influence the rulings that frequently have little to do with advancing advertised goals of low tariffs and free trade.
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Disengaging our troops from around the world and refusing to defend American neocolonialism is pursuing a course compatible with the qualities that Americans claim to stand for.
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The obsession with continuing all the same policies has increased our poverty, increased violence between the classes, and lowered the standard of living for all except the elite one percent. And worst of all, the sacrifice of liberty was for naught.
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Losing both liberty and the right to truly own property undermines the ability to create wealth.
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When this process gets out-of-control the economy goes into a death spiral, in the beginning of which we currently find ourselves. Without a correction to the basic understanding of the proper role of government, the downward spiral will continue.
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Tax revenues will continue to rise, aiding the policy of the government spending the people’s money rather than those who earned it.
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Wall Street will be protected, and the trillions of dollars of big banks derivatives will be absorbed by the Fed, the FDIC, and ultimately by the American taxpayers in the next financial crisis.
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There’s no doubt the poor will get poorer and the rich richer until the spirit of revolution in the people calls a halt to the systematic destruction of freedom in America.
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Authoritarianism has overtaken our economic system as the welfare mentality takes over at every level of government.
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Once the initiation of force by government is accepted by the people, even minimally, it escalates and involves every aspect of society. The only question that remains is just who gets to wield the power to distribute the largess to their friends and chosen beneficiaries.
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It’s a recipe for steady growth of the government at the expense of liberties, even if official documents and laws written to limit government power are in place.
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Restraining the few who thrive on the use of force to rule over us is the challenge. Fortunately they are outnumbered by those who would choose liberty yet lack the will to challenge the humanitarian monsters who gain support from naive and apathetic citizens.
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The sentiments supporting secession, jury nullification, nullification of federal laws by state legislatures, and a drive for more independence from larger governments will continue.
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"If Americans were honest with themselves they would acknowledge that the Republic is no more. We now live in a police state. If we do not recognize and resist this development, freedom and prosperity for all Americans will continue to deteriorate. All liberties in America today are under siege. It didn't happen overnight. It took many years of neglect for our liberties to be given away so casually for a promise of security from the politicians. The tragic part is that the more security was promised - physical and economic - the less liberty was protected. With cradle-to-grave welfare protecting all citizens from any mistakes and a perpetual global war on terrorism, which a majority of Americans were convinced was absolutely necessary for our survival, our security and prosperity has been sacrificed. It was all based on lies and ignorance. Many came to believe that their best interests were served by giving up a little freedom now and then to gain a better life. The trap was set. At the beginning of a cycle that systematically undermines liberty with delusions of easy prosperity, the change may actually seem to be beneficial to a few. But to me that's like excusing embezzlement as a road to leisure and wealth - eventually payment and punishment always come due. One cannot escape the fact that a society's wealth cannot be sustained or increased without work and productive effort. Yes, some criminal elements can benefit for a while, but reality always sets in. Reality is now setting in for America and for that matter for most of the world. The piper will get his due even if "the children" have to suffer. The deception of promising "success" has lasted for quite a while. It was accomplished by ever-increasing taxes, deficits, borrowing, and printing press money. In the meantime the policing powers of the federal government were systematically and significantly expanded. No one cared much, as there seemed to be enough "gravy" for the rich, th
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shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Jan 15
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U.S. spies on millions of cars - The Wall Street Journal - MarketWatch - 0 views
secure.marketwatch.com/...ns-of-cars-2015-01-26-19103489
surveillance state license-plate-tracking DEA database
shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Jan 15
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The Justice Department has been building a national database to track in real time the movement of vehicles around the U.S., a secret domestic intelligence-gathering program that scans and stores hundreds of millions of records about motorists, according to current and former officials and government documents. The primary goal of the license-plate tracking program, run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, is to seize cars, cash and other assets to combat drug trafficking, according to one government document. But the database’s use has expanded to hunt for vehicles associated with numerous other potential crimes, from kidnappings to killings to rape suspects, say people familiar with the matter. Officials have publicly said that they track vehicles near the border with Mexico to help fight drug cartels. What hasn’t been previously disclosed is that the DEA has spent years working to expand the database “throughout the United States,’’ according to one email reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
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Many state and local law-enforcement agencies are accessing the database for a variety of investigations, according to people familiar with the program, putting a wealth of information in the hands of local officials who can track vehicles in real time on major roadways. The database raises new questions about privacy and the scope of government surveillance. The existence of the program and its expansion were described in interviews with current and former government officials, and in documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union through a Freedom of Information Act request and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. It is unclear if any court oversees or approves the intelligence-gathering.
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Note that this parallels another national surveillance capability of facial recognition fueled by driver-license, jail booking, and other photos, being developed by the FB I.
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News Roundup and Notes: August 18, 2014 | Just Security - 0 views
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Over the weekend, the U.S. military carried out further airstrikes in Iraq, targeting Islamic State militants near the Mosul Dam, involving “a mix of fighter, bomber, attack and remotely piloted aircraft.” The nine strikes on Saturday and 14 strikes on Sunday were carried out under authority “to support humanitarian efforts in Iraq,” to protect U.S. personnel and facilities, and to support Iraqi and Kurdish defense forces [U.S. Central Command]. President Obama notified Congress of the latest American involvement yesterday, stating that “[t]he failure of the Mosul Dam could threaten the lives of large numbers of civilians, endanger U.S. personnel and facilities, including the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.” Obama said the operations will be “limited in their scope and duration.” The significantly expanded air campaign, including the first reported use of U.S. bombers, has strengthened the Kurdish forces’ ground offensive to reclaim the strategic dam from Islamic State control [Wall Street Journal’s Matt Bradley et al.; Washington Post’s Liz Sly et al.]. Iraqi state television reported early today that Iraqi and Kurdish forces are now in control of the dam [Reuters], although there are reports of continued heavy fighting around the Mosul Dam [Al Jazeera]. Joe Parkinson [Wall Street Journal] covers how the U.S. has gained a “controversial new ally” in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), as a number of PKK fighters joined the U.S.-backed Kurdish battle in northern Iraq over the weekend.
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Israel-Palestine With the five-day truce between Israel and Hamas set to expire tonight, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are continuing discussions in Cairo, although significant gaps remain between the two sides. While Israel is pushing for tougher security measures, Palestine is demanding an end to the Gaza blockade without preconditions [Associated Press; Reuters’ Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Jeffrey Heller]. Israeli troops have demolished the homes of two Palestinians suspected to have been behind the abduction and killing of the three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank in June [Haaretz’s Gili Cohen]. An IDF spokesperson said that the demolition “conveys a clear message to terrorists and their accomplices that there is a personal price to pay when engaging in terror and carrying out attacks against Israelis” [Al Jazeera]. Haaretz’s editorial board notes how the Israeli offensive in Gaza has generated “a very public crisis in relations between Israel and the United States” and warns that “Netanyahu must ease the tension with Washington and act to repair the rift with Obama.” The Wall Street Journal (Joshua Mitnick) explores how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “containment strategy” in the ongoing conflict is “a contrast from the tough talk against terrorism that fueled his political ascent.”
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ulian Borger [The Guardian] notes how the potential International Criminal Court investigation into alleged war crimes in Gaza by both Israeli and Hamas forces has become a “fraught political battlefield.” Marwan Bishara [Al Jazeera] explains how and why the UN has been “sidelined” in the Middle East conflict. Meanwhile, the British government is facing a legal challenge over its decision to not suspend existing licenses for the sale of military hardware to Israel following the launch of Operation Protective Edge in Gaza last month [The Guardian’s Jamie Doward].
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Texas Governor Rick Perry [Politico Magazine] writes that “[c]learly more strikes will be necessary, with nothing less than a sustained air campaign to degrade and destroy Islamic State forces.” The Hill (Alexander Bolton) notes that Democrats in both chambers have called for a vote in Congress over military strikes in Iraq, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “almost certainly wants to avoid [a vote] as he seeks to keep the upper chamber majority in his party’s hands.” The United Kingdom has also expanded its military involvement in Iraq, with Defence Secretary Michael Fallon confirming that British warplanes are no longer confined to the initial humanitarian mission to assist Iraq’s Yazidi minority [The Guardian’s Nicholas Watt]. The UN Security Council has placed six individuals affiliated with extremist organizations in Iraq and Syria, including the Islamic State, on its sanctions list [UN News Centre]. Army Col. Joel Rayburn, writing in the Washington Post, considers the legacy of Nouri al-Maliki. While Maliki has agreed to step down as prime minister, Rayburn argues that “the damage he has wrought will define his country for decades to come.” Mike Hanna [Al Jazeera America] explains why Maliki’s ouster “is no magic bullet for Iraq,” noting that a “change of prime minister doesn’t in itself alter Iraq’s political or security equation.” And Ali Khedery [New York Times] writes how the latest change in government “really is Iraq’s last chance.”
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Journalist James Risen, who faces prison over his refusal to reveal the source of a CIA operation story, has called President Obama “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation” [New York Times’ Maureen Dowd]. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran has promised to co-operate with an investigation to be carried out by the nuclear watchdog, following a “useful” meeting in Tehran [Reuters’ Fredrik Dahl and Mehrdad Balali]. Sky News reports that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is planning to “soon” leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London, after spending more than two years inside the building. Assange said he is planning to meet with the British government to resolve his “lack of legal protection.”
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If you want to receive your news directly to your inbox, sign up here for the Just Security Early Edition. For the latest information from Just Security, follow us on Twitter (@just_security) and join the conversation on Facebook. To submit news articles and notes for inclusion in our daily post, please email us at news@justsecurity.org. Don’t forget to visit The Pipeline for a preview of upcoming events and blog posts on U.S. national security.
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Until about a month ago, I thought that Barack Obama would leave only two lasting accomplishments for future history books: [i] first African-American President; and [ii] ending the U.S. war in Iraq. Make it item 1 only now. It's no longer U.S. military "mission creep" in Iraq; it's full bore reinvasion topped off with a U.S. enguineered coup of the Iraqi government. Just Security is a very high quality politico-legal site for issues involving U.S. and U.S.-sponsored violence and surveillance issues. It's based at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law. Their emailed weekday newsletter is great for the topics I try to follow.
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New police radars can 'see' inside homes - 0 views
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At least 50 U.S. law enforcement agencies have secretly equipped their officers with radar devices that allow them to effectively peer through the walls of houses to see whether anyone is inside, a practice raising new concerns about the extent of government surveillance.Those agencies, including the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service, began deploying the radar systems more than two years ago with little notice to the courts and no public disclosure of when or how they would be used. The technology raises legal and privacy issues because the U.S. Supreme Court has said officers generally cannot use high-tech sensors to tell them about the inside of a person's house without first obtaining a search warrant.
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The radars work like finely tuned motion detectors, using radio waves to zero in on movements as slight as human breathing from a distance of more than 50 feet. They can detect whether anyone is inside of a house, where they are and whether they are moving.
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Agents' use of the radars was largely unknown until December, when a federal appeals court in Denver said officers had used one before they entered a house to arrest a man wanted for violating his parole. The judges expressed alarm that agents had used the new technology without a search warrant, warning that "the government's warrantless use of such a powerful tool to search inside homes poses grave Fourth Amendment questions."By then, however, the technology was hardly new. Federal contract records show the Marshals Service began buying the radars in 2012, and has so far spent at least $180,000 on them.Justice Department spokesman Patrick Rodenbush said officials are reviewing the court's decision. He said the Marshals Service "routinely pursues and arrests violent offenders based on pre-established probable cause in arrest warrants" for serious crimes.
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Other radar devices have far more advanced capabilities, including three-dimensional displays of where people are located inside a building, according to marketing materials from their manufacturers. One is capable of being mounted on a drone. And the Justice Department has funded research to develop systems that can map the interiors of buildings and locate the people within them.The radars were first designed for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. They represent the latest example of battlefield technology finding its way home to civilian policing and bringing complex legal questions with it.
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At least 50 U.S. law enforcement agencies have secretly equipped their officers with radar devices that allow them to effectively peer through the walls of houses to see whether anyone is inside, a practice raising new concerns about the extent of government surveillance.Those agencies, including the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service, began deploying the radar systems more than two years ago with little notice to the courts and no public disclosure of when or how they would be used. The technology raises legal and privacy issues because the U.S. Supreme Court has said officers generally cannot use high-tech sensors to tell them about the inside of a person's house without first obtaining a search warrant.The radars work like finely tuned motion detectors, using radio waves to zero in on movements as slight as human breathing from a distance of more than 50 feet. They can detect whether anyone is inside of a house, where they are and whether they are moving.
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Global Financial Meltdown Coming? Clear Signs That The Great Derivatives Crisis Has Now... - 0 views
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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:
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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?)
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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:
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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…
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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.
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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…
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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.”
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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.
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"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…"