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Gary Edwards

Accidentally Released - and Incredibly Embarrassing - Documents Show How Goldman et al Engaged in 'Naked Short Selling' | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone - 0 views

www.rollingstone.com/...n-naked-short-selling-20120515

Banksters Naked-Short-Selling Overstock.com

shared by Gary Edwards on 17 May 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 17 May 12
     
    Incredible.  Take your time reading this because we now have legal evidence of outrageous Bankster criminality.  Read carefully. excerpt: The lawsuit between Overstock and the banks concerned a phenomenon called naked short-selling, a kind of high-finance counterfeiting that, especially prior to the introduction of new regulations in 2008, short-sellers could use to artificially depress the value of the stocks they've bet against. The subject of naked short-selling is a) highly technical, and b) very controversial on Wall Street, with many pundits in the financial press for years treating the phenomenon as the stuff of myths and conspiracy theories. Now, however, through the magic of this unredacted document, the public will be able to see for itself what the banks' attitudes are not just toward the "mythical" practice of naked short selling (hint: they volubly confess to the activity, in writing), but toward regulations and laws in general. "Fuck the compliance area - procedures, schmecedures," chirps Peter Melz, former president of Merrill Lynch Professional Clearing Corp. (a.k.a. Merrill Pro), when a subordinate worries about the company failing to comply with the rules governing short sales. ...................... If this sounds complicated, just focus on this: naked short selling, in essence, is selling stock you do not have. If you don't have to actually locate and borrow stock before you short it, you're creating an artificial supply of stock shares. ................ The process of how banks circumvented federal clearing regulations is highly technical and incredibly difficult to follow. These companies were using obscure loopholes in regulations that allowed them to short companies by trading in shadows, or echoes, of real shares in their stock. They manipulated rules to avoid having to disclose these "failed" trades to regulators. The import of this is that it made it cheaper and easier to bet down the value of a stock
Paul Merrell

US may sell Saudis bombs once only offered to Israel -- report | The Times of Israel - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/-only-offered-to-israel-report

war & peace Saudis Israel U.S.-foreign-policy weapons-sales

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 May 15 - No Cached
  • Amid American efforts to allay Sunni Arab concerns over the nuclear deal with Iran, officials are reportedly considering selling Saudi Arabia bunker buster bombs, which are currently only offered to Israel American officials said privately this week that the Obama administration is considering selling GBU-28 bunker buster bombs to the Gulf monarchy, the Washington Times reported this week.
  • Talks for the sale are taking place in secret, since according to a 2008 congressional mandate, the US must ensure Israel’s military superiority in the Middle East. But the American administration is also anxious to reassure its Sunni allies in the region that it is not abandoning them. In addition to the sale of bunker buster bombs to Saudi Arabia, the US is also considering selling F-35 fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates, according to a recent report.
  • Analysts say the weapons sales could erode Israel’s military edge in the region. The GBU-28, which can penetrate underground fortifications, was supplied in secret to Israel in 2009, reversing a long-standing American refusal to sell the weapons to Jerusalem. The 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs could be used in a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, though analysts say the weapon would be too small to take out Iran’s Fordo nuclear site. The Pentagon has been testing a 30,000 pound bunker-buster which could reportedly penetrate Fordo, but the Obama administration has refused to sell the weapon to Israel.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • A  New York Times report recently detailed a defense pact with the Gulf Cooperation Council that is being considered, which would commit the US to defend Arab allies from attack. The pact would also commit to joint training missions for American and Arab military forces; designating Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as “major non-NATO allies,” a step that would loosen restrictions on weapons sales and offer “a number of military advantages that are available only to NATO allies”; and approving the sale of its advanced F-35 stealth fighter to the UAE three years after it is delivered to Israel.
  • Russia recently agreed to sell Iran the S-300 air defense missile system capable of shooting down fighters currently used by Gulf states.
  • Diplomats warn that with existing US military commitments to Israel, Japan, Egypt and Turkey, determining who gets what weapons and when, while maintaining a favorable military balance, will be fraught. Experts also point out that Arab states face an asymmetric threat, and militarily would probably be better served by strengthening troop numbers and developing more mechanized units rather than gaining more high-tech weaponry which already outguns Iran.
Gary Edwards

The FED (Federal Reserve Bank) is a Commercial Privately Owned Bank - 1 views

www.federalbudget.com/fed.html

Federal-Reserve Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel

shared by Gary Edwards on 10 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • The US Congress has the option to buy back the FED at $450 millions (per Congressional Records). When the Congress does this, it will own back the billions of US Government Bonds held by the FED. The US Government will actually PROFIT by buying back the FED! Also, the US government no longer has to pay interests to the FED owners on those bonds.
  • Gary Edwards on 10 Dec 12
     
    Excellent research on the Federal Reserve! excerpt: WHY THE FED SHOULD BE ABOLISHED 1. The US Congress has the option to buy back the FED at $450 millions (per Congressional Records). When the Congress does this, it will own back the billions of US Government Bonds held by the FED. The US Government will actually PROFIT by buying back the FED! Also, the US government no longer has to pay interests to the FED owners on those bonds. 2. Through their ownerships in the FED, FOREIGN POWERS CAN and WILL influence the US economy. By controlling our interest rates and money supply, they can actually create economic disaster in the US , should the US disagree with them. 3. Although the FED directors must be confirmed by the Senate, the awesome lobbying power of the FED owners makes this process meaningless. The owners of the FED can and will put whoever they wish in the position. 4. Abolishing the FED will lead to lower inflation. At this moment, the FED prints as much money as needed to buy the US Government Bonds. Since the FED prints this MONEY out of THIN AIR, this leads to an INCREASE of MONEY SUPPLY, WITHOUT increase in GOODS/SERVICES. This, as all of us know it, leads to INFLATION. If the general public buy those bonds with money that they EARNED by providing GOODS/SERVICES, the money supply level is contant in relation to the goods/services level. Thus, there is no inflationary pressure from selling these bonds. 5. Abolishing the FED will reduce the national debt level. By buying back the FED at $450 millions, the US Government will buy back the billions of dollars of bonds held by the FED. Thus, the net effect is a reduction in national debt. After buying back the FED, the US Government does not have to pay interest on those bonds it buys back, further reducing the national debt. 6. Abolishing the FED will lead to eventual balance budget. Today, even if the US Economy only grows by a meager 2% per year, the US Government should be able to put 2% of US-GDP dol
Gary Edwards

Is The US Finally Ready For Revolution? - Democratic Underground - 1 views

www.democraticunderground.com/101970

ready-for-revolution

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Jul 13
     
    Written in June of 2012, before the national elections, this commentary remains the ringing truth.  Maybe more Americans are ready to listen this fourth of July? ........................... "Is America Ready For Revolution? I have always strongly believed that it's not possible to be a good Christian without standing up against social injustice and government corruption in all its forms. As I take a look around me today I find a lot of things wrong with our country. In fact, I have been a proponent for radical change for several years now, and I have written and published 2 books on this very topic. Where shall I begin? In God-blessed America, the land of the free where everyone is an economic slave, our founding fathers' sacred idea of a government "of the people, by the people, for the people" has become but a cruel joke. Former president George W. Bush has notoriously called our Constitution - our supreme law of the land - "that (expletive) piece of paper". The federal government is currently spending at least $60 billion per month on military excursions in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and northern and western Africa - including operating between 800 and 1,000 foreign military bases all over the world. Our country's over-used flying drone aircraft kills hundreds daily overseas, many of whom are only innocent bystanders. Meanwhile here on the home front, one in seven people are on food stamps, and at any given time one in four American children are going hungry today. Our country spends more money incarcerating people than it does on education. What's up with that? Our political system is openly rigged against the best interests of the American people. A massive market mechanism is securely entrenched in our political system where political influence is openly bought and sold. Tens of thousands of highly-paid middlemen called "lobbyists" facilitate the legal transfer of billions between moneyed special interests and our so-called "representatives" i
Gary Edwards

The Divider vs. the Thinker - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...3554104577002262150454258.html

Banksters Paul-Ryan Obammunism Peggy-Noonan WSJ The-American-Idea

shared by Gary Edwards on 28 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • There's a lot to rebel against, to want to throw off. If they want to make a serious economic and political critique, they should make the one Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner make in "Reckless Endangerment": that real elites in Washington rigged the system for themselves and their friends, became rich and powerful, caused the great catering, and then "slipped quietly from the scene."
  • It is a blow-by-blow recounting of how politicians—Democrats and Republicans—passed the laws that encouraged the banks to make the loans that would never be repaid, and that would result in your lost job.
  • It began in the early 1990s, in the Clinton administration, and continued under the Bush administration, with the help of an entrenched Congress that wanted only two things: to receive campaign contributions and to be re-elected.
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  • Specifically it is the story of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage insurers, and how their politically connected CEOs, especially Fannie's Franklin Raines and James Johnson, took actions that tanked the American economy and walked away rich.
  • "the temptation to exploit fear and envy returns." Politicians divide in order to "evade responsibility for their failures" and to advance their interests.
  • "The American Idea"
  • Which gets us to Rep. Paul Ryan. Mr. Ryan receives much praise, but I don't think his role in the current moment has been fully recognized. He is doing something unique in national politics. He thinks. He studies. He reads. Then he comes forward to speak, calmly and at some length, about what he believes to be true. He defines a problem and offers solutions, often providing the intellectual and philosophical rationale behind them.
  • But Republicans, in their desire to defend free economic activity, shouldn't be snookered by unthinking fealty to big business. They should never defend—they should actively oppose—the kind of economic activity that has contributed so heavily to the crisis.
  • Here Mr. Ryan slammed "corporate welfare and crony capitalism."
  • "Why have we extended an endless supply of taxpayer credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, instead of demanding that their government guarantee be wound down and their taxpayer subsidies ended?" Why are tax dollars being wasted on bankrupt, politically connected solar energy firms like Solyndra? "Why is Washington wasting your money on entrenched agribusiness?"
  • The "true sources of inequity in this country," he continued, are "corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless."
  • The real class warfare that threatens us is "a class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society."
  • Gary Edwards on 28 Oct 11
     
    Peggy Noonan writes about Paul Ryan's "The American Idea" speech he recently gave at the heritage Foundation.  It's a beautifully written summary that goes right to the heart of the matter:  the ruling elites have been enriching themselves, feeding at the public trough of corporate welfare and crony capitalism.  Washington DC is corrupt and rotten to the core, and the hand maiden of Banksters, Global Corporatist, Big Unions, and Big Bearucracy.   One things for sure.  Congressman Paul Ryan is a brilliant thinker aho believes in the great promise he calls "The American Idea".   Funny how, as the presidential primary race rolls on, my hopeful attention is being drawn towards four men:  Herman Cain, Paul Ryan, Ron Paul and Marco Rubio.   Herman unfortunately is soft on Banksters, totally unaware and oblivious to the need to take back the currency, and end the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel.  I also have some difficulties with the "revenue neutral" aspects of his 999 plan.  We need less government, not more.  The private sector needs to keep more money, not less.   Too bad because everything else about Herman excites me.  Especially his authentic, from the heart love of America, American exceptionalism and opportunity, and the founders truly unique "American Idea". Ron Paul has an awesome "American Recovery" plan.  Awesome.  But his remarks on terrorism and foreign policy stray far from his usual reliance on the Constitution and the 10th Amendment.   He's right about the connection between global corporatism and the never ending militarism they push.  But he's dead ass wrong about our enemies and their intentions.  And that's scary.  If RP had stuck to the Constitution and 10th Amendment, i would fully support him.   If it's not an enumerated power, it belongs to the States and individual citizens.  End of story.   Marco Rubio is awesome in the same way Herman is.  He connects with a special authenticity that screams the principles and val
Paul Merrell

The fix is in: how banks allegedly rigged the US$5.3 trillion foreign exchange market | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...illion-foreign-exchange-market

banksters fraud litigation settlements currency-exchange

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Suppose you’re in the supermarket shopping for groceries. While you’re strolling the aisle with your cart, a shadowy figure looms over your shoulder and changes the prices on the items you want to buy before you get a chance to pick them up. As you reach for some vine tomatoes, you notice the price just jumped 20 cents. When you select some brie from among the cheeses, you witness the number on the sticker change right before your eyes. Ditto when you look for your favorite brand of granola.
  • This is the essence of what regulators learned might be happening in the foreign exchange market, where US$5.3 trillion of dollars, euros and yen are traded every day. In June 2013, Bloomberg reported that traders at some of the world’s biggest banks worked to manipulate key currency rates, racking up profits and costing investors – including your retirement fund – hundreds of millions of dollars globally. They are accused of placing their own transactions ahead of trades requested by clients – known as front-running – which was the reason prices kept changing as people tried to make their own trades, like in the shopping analogy above. They bought euros or dollars, driving up the rate, and then profited by selling to other investors at a higher level.
  • This week six of the currency-dealers being investigated – including JP Morgan, Citigroup and HSBC – agreed to pay a total of US$4.3 billion to regulators in the US, UK and Switzerland to resolve the allegations. The deal is likely only the first in a series of settlements and other penalties that will emerge from the ongoing investigations. The investors most concerned with the alleged manipulation are funds that invest internationally, such as hedge funds, the endowments of charitable or cultural institutions and insurance companies. But it also includes the mutual funds in which many of your 401K or IRA assets are likely invested.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • When institutions like these need to buy or sell assets across borders, they call a dealer at one of the big banks, which provides what is basically a wholesale version of the cambio currency kiosks you see at the airport. The dealer quotes a buying price and a selling price, and the fund chooses whether to buy or sell. In addition to trading with customers, the dealers trade among themselves, sometimes to manage their inventory and sometimes hoping to make money by taking speculative positions for a few minutes or even seconds. And that’s how we arrive at the scandal. Every day at 4pm in London, the market sets special “fixing” exchange rates that are used to value the funds’ international investments. The fixing price is set in a simple way: it’s just the average of all prices paid among dealing banks during the 30 seconds before and after the clock strikes 4. Many international fund managers prefer to trade currencies at exactly the fixing price because it’s simpler and smarter to trade at the same price used to value your portfolio. To make these transactions happen, international funds often place large orders with dealers at major banks before the fix.
  • Suppose, for example, a pension fund with major investments in Europe knows it will receive a lot of new IRA money on November 30, when many US employees get paid. And suppose the fund plans to invest €100 million of that in European stocks. At 3:30pm that day the fund might instruct its bank to purchase €100 million at the fixing price. With this kind of advance order, the bank could book its own trades before the fund does, buying the euros it will later sell to the investor.
  • The banks – or more accurately, specific dealers at specific banks – are accused of manipulating the fixing prices based on their knowledge of advance customer orders. In a nutshell, the accusation is that dealers from different banks got together before the fix and compared notes in chat rooms. Most currency trading is handled by 10 or so mega banks, so if just a few of them compared notes, they would have a good sense of whether the exchange rate would rise or fall during the fixing interval that day. The shadowy figure looking over your shoulder at the supermarket to see what you’re going to buy next is like the banks comparing their customer orders before the fix. To finish the supermarket analogy, we need to know how and why the dealing banks could raise the fixing rate to the disadvantage of international pension and mutual funds. Suppose once again that many customers have placed big orders to buy euros at the fix, and the banks figure the euro-dollar exchange rate will rise during the window. This would give them an incentive to buy a lot of euros before it’s set (remember the golden rule of trading: buy low, sell high).
Joe La Fleur

US selling Qatar $10B in missiles, defence equipment « Creeping Sharia - 0 views

creepingsharia.wordpress.com/...-in-missiles-defence-equipment

selling qatar defence equipment

shared by Joe La Fleur on 13 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Joe La Fleur on 13 Nov 12
     
    OBAMA SELLING MISSELS TO ISLAMIC TERRORIST GROUPS
Gary Edwards

The Real Reason for the Iraq War | VICE United Kingdom - 1 views

www.vice.com/...asnt-waged-for-oil-greg-palast

Oil Iraq neocons Saudi Banksters Oilsters

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Like most lefty journalists, I assumed that George Bush and Tony Blair invaded Iraq to buy up its oil fields, cheap and at gun-point, and cart off the oil. We thought we knew the neo-cons true casus belli: Blood for oil. But the truth in the Options for Iraqi Oil Industry was worse than "Blood for Oil". Much, much worse.
  • Within days, our chief of investigations, Ms Badpenny, delivered to my shack in the woods outside New York a 323-page, three-volume programme for Iraq's oil crafted by George Bush's State Department and petroleum insiders meeting secretly in Houston, Texas. I cracked open the pile of paper – and I was blown away.
  • I'd already had in my hands a 101-page document, another State Department secret scheme, first uncovered by Wall Street Journal reporter Neil King, that called for the privatisation, the complete sell-off of every single government-owned asset and industry. And in case anyone missed the point, the sales would include every derrick, pipe and barrel of oil, or, as the document put it, "especially the oil". That plan was created by a gaggle of corporate lobbyists and neo-cons working for the Heritage Foundation. In 2004, the plan's authenticity was confirmed by Washington power player Grover Norquist. (It's hard to erase the ill memory of Grover excitedly waving around his soft little hands as he boasted about turning Iraq into a free-market Disneyland, recreating Chile in Mesopotamia, complete with the Pinochet-style dictatorship necessary to lock up the assets – while behind Norquist, Richard Nixon snarled at me from a gargantuan portrait.) The neo-con idea was to break up and sell off Iraq's oil fields, ramp up production, flood the world oil market – and thereby smash OPEC and with it, the political dominance of Saudi Arabia.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • General Jay Garner also confirmed the plan to grab the oil. Indeed, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld fired Garner, when the General, who had lived in Iraq, complained the neo-con grab would set off a civil war. It did. Nevertheless, Rumsfeld replaced Garner with a new American viceroy, Paul Bremer, a partner in Henry Kissinger's firm, to complete the corporate takeover of Iraq's assets – "especially the oil".
  • But that was not to be. While Bremer oversaw the wall-to-wall transfer of Iraqi industries to foreign corporations, he was stopped cold at the edge of the oil fields. How? I knew there was only one man who could swat away the entire neo-con army: James Baker, former Secretary of State, Bush family consiglieri and most important, counsel to Exxon-Mobil Corporation and the House of Saud.
  • There was no way in hell that Baker's clients, from Exxon to Abdullah, were going to let a gaggle of neo-con freaks smash up Iraq's oil industry, break OPEC production quotas, flood the market with six million bbd of Iraqi oil and thereby knock the price of oil back down to $13 a barrel where it was in 1998.
  • Big Oil could not allow Iraq's oil fields to be privatised and taken from state control. That would make it impossible to keep Iraq within OPEC (an avowed goal of the neo-cons) as the state could no longer limit production in accordance with the cartel's quota system. The US oil industry was using its full political mojo to prevent their being handed ownership of Iraq's oil fields. That's right: The oil companies didn't want to own the oil fields – and they sure as hell didn't want the oil. Just the opposite. They wanted to make sure there would be a limit on the amount of oil that would come out of Iraq. Saddam wasn't trying to stop the flow of oil – he was trying to sell more. The price of oil had been boosted 300 percent by sanctions and an embargo cutting Iraq's sales to two million barrels a day from four. With Saddam gone, the only way to keep the damn oil in the ground was to leave it locked up inside the busted state oil company which would remain under OPEC (i.e. Saudi) quotas. The James Baker Institute quickly and secretly started in on drafting the 323-page plan for the State Department. With authority granted from the top (i.e. Dick Cheney), ex-Shell Oil USA CEO Phil Carroll was rushed to Baghdad in May 2003 to take charge of Iraq's oil. He told Bremer, "There will be no privatisation of oil – END OF STATEMENT." Carroll then passed off control of Iraq's oil to Bob McKee of Halliburton, Cheney's old oil-services company, who implemented the Baker "enhance OPEC" option anchored in state ownership.
  • This week, VICE readers can download, for free, Greg Palast's investigation of the war in Iraq in the BBC film, Bush Family Fortunes, at www.GregPalast.com – as well as the illustrated poster of "The Secret History of War over Oil in Iraq" from Palast's international bestseller, Armed Madhouse, also at www.GregPalast.com
  • Some oil could be released, mainly to China, through limited, but lucrative, "production sharing agreements". And that's how George Bush won the war in Iraq. The invasion was not about "blood for oil", but something far more sinister: blood for no oil. War to keep supply tight and send prices skyward. Oil men, whether James Baker or George Bush or Dick Cheney, are not in the business of producing oil. They are in the business of producing profits. And they've succeeded. Iraq, capable of producing six to 12 million barrels of oil a day, still exports well under its old OPEC quota of three million barrels. The result: As we mark the tenth anniversary of the invasion this month, we also mark the fifth year of crude at $100 a barrel. As George Bush could proudly say to James Baker: Mission Accomplished!
  • Paul Merrell on 29 Mar 13
     
    The Sherman Act forbids conspiracies in restraint of trade and is at its zenith in price-fixing cases. This looks to be the mother of all price-fixing cases, to say the least.   
  • Gary Edwards on 30 Mar 13
     
    Wow, Marbux has it right.  This report from the legendary Greg Palast of the BBC News Network is a stunning reversal of what everyone believed to be the truth.  To wit, the militarist and global strategist - resource control hungry neocon contingent of the Repubican party was always thought to be behind the Iraqi war.  For control of cheap, plentiful oil and, the protection / destruction of Israel's enemies.   Funny, but it turns out America was fighting for higher oil prices and limited supplies.  Just as in the first Gulf War, Americans were fighting to protect Saudi and big oil profits. excerpt: Big Oil could not allow Iraq's oil fields to be privatised and taken from state control. That would make it impossible to keep Iraq within OPEC (an avowed goal of the neo-cons) as the state could no longer limit production in accordance with the cartel's quota system. The US oil industry was using its full political mojo to prevent their being handed ownership of Iraq's oil fields. That's right: The oil companies didn't want to own the oil fields - and they sure as hell didn't want the oil. Just the opposite. They wanted to make sure there would be a limit on the amount of oil that would come out of Iraq. Saddam wasn't trying to stop the flow of oil - he was trying to sell more. The price of oil had been boosted 300 percent by sanctions and an embargo cutting Iraq's sales to two million barrels a day from four. With Saddam gone, the only way to keep the damn oil in the ground was to leave it locked up inside the busted state oil company which would remain under OPEC (i.e. Saudi) quotas. The James Baker Institute quickly and secretly started in on drafting the 323-page plan for the State Department. With authority granted from the top (i.e. Dick Cheney), ex-Shell Oil USA CEO Phil Carroll was rushed to Baghdad in May 2003 to take charge of Iraq's oil. He told Bremer, "There will be no privatisation of oil - END OF STATEMENT." Carroll then passed off control
Paul Merrell

9/11 Bill Prompts Saudi Threat to Sell Off U.S. Treasury Debt | 28Pages.org - 0 views

28pages.org/...-to-sell-off-u-s-treasury-debt

war & peace 9-11 Saudis 28-pages Treasury-securities threats

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Saudi Arabia has warned the Obama administration and federal legislators that it will sell off U.S. Treasury debt worth $750 billion if Congress passes a law clearing the way for 9/11 victims to sue the kingdom for its alleged role in aiding the hijackers. according to a story in today’s New York Times.
  • Appearing on Michael Smerconish’s CNN program Saturday morning, former Senator Bob Graham, a leading advocate of declassifying 28 pages that allegedly implicate Saudi Arabia in the attacks, said, “I’m outraged but not surprised.” According to the Times report, the kingdom’s caution was personally delivered last month by Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir, who reportedly told legislators that, if the bill passes, Saudi Arabia would sell up to $750 billion in Treasury debt before it could be potentially frozen by U.S. courts.
  • Though presented as a necessity for Saudi Arabia’s own financial protection, Saudi Arabia’s cautionary statement is de facto economic threat against the United States. A sell-off would prompt an increase in U.S. Treasury interest rates, raising borrowing costs for the American government, businesses and consumers and potentially triggering an economic downturn that extends beyond our own shores. The Saudi warning was triggered by the legislative progress of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which would amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). Last fall, Saudi Arabia was dropped from a lawsuit filed by 9/11 families, victims and insurers after a federal judge said the plaintiffs had failed to meet the high jurisdictional hurdles that FSIA imposes for claims against foreign governments.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • According to the New York Times report, the Obama administration has aggressively lobbied lawmakers against passing JASTA, telling them it could trigger moves by other countries to undermine immunity enjoyed by the U.S. government and American businesses and individuals abroad. September 11 widow Terry Strada, who has spent years lobbying for JASTA, told Smerconish, “I’m shocked with what’s going on here. Do the Saudis really have that much influence on our government? Are they really calling the shots in Washington, D.C.?”
  • Graham said that failing to hold Saudi Arabia to account for its “complicity in the murder of 3,000 Americans” gave the kingdom “a sense of impunity that they can do anything they wanted to with no sanction, and now that impunity has expanded to their trying to lobby the highest levels of the White House and the Congress” to prevent a courtroom determination of Saudi Arabia’s guilt. “I believe that there is material in the 28 pages and the volume of other documents that would indicate that there was a connection at the highest levels between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the 19 hijackers. I believe that the plot would not have occurred but for the support and protection that the hijackers were receiving primarily from Saudi Arabia,” said Graham. Graham’s reference to the “highest levels” of the Saudi government is reminiscent of a statement former Navy secretary and 9/11 Commission member John Lehman made to 60 Minutes on Sunday. Asked if the 28 classified pages names names, he replied, “Yes. The average intelligent watcher of 60 Minutes would recognize them instantly.” Smerconish asked Graham about the kingdom’s 2003 request to the Bush administration to release the 28 pages. “I think what the Saudis had was an understanding with the United States that whatever the Saudis indicated they wanted was a sham,” said Graham, adding that Saudi Arabia likely relied on a quiet commitment by the U.S. government to keep the pages classified, freeing the kingdom to make the request solely for public consumption.
Paul Merrell

Public Citizen Press Room - 0 views

www.citizen.org/...pressroomredirect.cfm

surveillance state NSA DHS censorship NSA-blowback

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Public Citizen Defends Merchant From Unconstitutional Interference by NSA, Department of Homeland Security In Lawsuit Filed Against Agencies, Public Citizen Argues That Attempts to Stop Production of Parody Merchandise Are Inconsistent With First Amendment BALTIMORE, Md. – A Minnesota activist who uses images and names of government agencies on satirical merchandise is entitled to do so under the First Amendment, Public Citizen argued in a lawsuit filed today against the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on behalf of the merchant. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, targets cease-and-desist letters sent to the merchant’s producer by the NSA and DHS. On his website LibertyManiacs.com, Sauk Rapids, Minn., resident Dan McCall sells T-shirts, hats, bumper stickers and other items with his designs, printed by Zazzle.com – for example, a mug with the NSA seal above the words “Spying On You Since 1952” and a parodied NSA seal that says “Peeping While You’re Sleeping” above the words “The NSA: The only part of government that actually listens.”
  • On March 15, 2011, Zazzle received a warning letter from the NSA, and on Aug 11, 2011, it received one from DHS. The NSA said that Zazzle, by selling the merchandise, was in violation of a provision of the National Security Agency Act of 1959 that prohibits the “use [of] the words ‘National Security Agency,’ the initials, ‘NSA,’ the seal of the National Security Agency, or any colorable imitation of such words … in connection with any merchandise, impersonation, solicitation, or commercial activity in a manner reasonably calculated to convey the impression that such use is approved, endorsed, or authorized by the National Security Agency” without the permission of the NSA. DHS said that Zazzle, by selling McCall’s DHS parody items, was in violation of a law making it a crime to “mutilate or alter the seal of any department or agency of the United States,” among other provisions. In the lawsuit filed in defense of McCall, Public Citizen points out that the graphics did not create any likelihood of confusion about source or sponsorship, and no reasonable person would believe that the agencies themselves produced merchandise with those messages. The complaint also asserts that the First Amendment protects McCall and Zazzle’s right to use the seals to accurately identify the agencies he is criticizing. “The agencies’ attempts to forbid McCall from displaying and selling his merchandise are inconsistent with the First Amendment,” said Paul Alan Levy, the Public Citizen attorney handling the case. “It’s bad enough that these agencies have us under constant surveillance; forbidding citizens from criticizing them is beyond the pale.”
  • Public Citizen is asking the court to declare that several provisions of the National Security Agency Act cannot be enforced to forbid McCall from displaying his merchandise, and that two other laws are unconstitutionally overbroad because they violate the First Amendment by saying no one can “mutilate or alter the seal of any department or agency of the United States.” McCall is now selling his merchandise at CafePress.com. See the full complaint for declaratory relief here.
Paul Merrell

As Europe erupts over US spying, NSA chief says government must stop media | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | theguardian.com - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ts-nsa-spying-chief-government

surveillance state NSA Alexander censorship suveillance-subject-matter

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • is there any doubt at all that the US government repeatedly tried to mislead the world when insisting that this system of suspicionless surveillance was motivated by an attempt to protect Americans from The Terrorists™? Our reporting has revealed spying on conferences designed to negotiate economic agreements, the Organization of American States, oil companies, ministries that oversee mines and energy resources, the democratically elected leaders of allied states, and entire populations in those states.Can even President Obama and his most devoted loyalists continue to maintain, with a straight face, that this is all about Terrorism? That is what this superb new Foreign Affairs essay by Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore means when it argues that the Manning and Snowden leaks are putting an end to the ability of the US to use hypocrisy as a key weapon in its soft power.Speaking of an inability to maintain claims with a straight face, how are American and British officials, in light of their conduct in all of this, going to maintain the pretense that they are defenders of press freedoms and are in a position to lecture and condemn others for violations? In what might be the most explicit hostility to such freedoms yet – as well as the most unmistakable evidence of rampant panic – the NSA's director, General Keith Alexander, actually demanded Thursday that the reporting being done by newspapers around the world on this secret surveillance system be halted (Techdirt has the full video here):
  • The head of the embattled National Security Agency, Gen Keith Alexander, is accusing journalists of "selling" his agency's documents and is calling for an end to the steady stream of public disclosures of secrets snatched by former contractor Edward Snowden."I think it's wrong that that newspaper reporters have all these documents, the 50,000 – whatever they have and are selling them and giving them out as if these – you know it just doesn't make sense," Alexander said in an interview with the Defense Department's "Armed With Science" blog."We ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don't know how to do that. That's more of the courts and the policy-makers but, from my perspective, it's wrong to allow this to go on," the NSA director declared. [My italics]There are 25,000 employees of the NSA (and many tens of thousands more who work for private contracts assigned to the agency). Maybe one of them can tell The General about this thing called "the first amendment".I'd love to know what ways, specifically, General Alexander has in mind for empowering the US government to "come up with a way of stopping" the journalism on this story. Whatever ways those might be, they are deeply hostile to the US constitution – obviously. What kind of person wants the government to forcibly shut down reporting by the press?Whatever kind of person that is, he is not someone to be trusted in instituting and developing a massive bulk-spying system that operates in the dark. For that matter, nobody is.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Oct 13
     
    Alexander's call for censorship starts at about 21:00 of the video at http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/10/nsa-chief-stop-reporters-selling-spy-documents-175896.html Dear General Alexander: "... we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home." E- Edward R. Murrow, See It Now (9 March 1954), http://tinyurl.com/kzlpm4a
Gary Edwards

Operation Sleeping Giant: "Breaking The Silver Manipulation Barrier" by Brandon Smith - 0 views

operationsleepinggiant.com

Brandon-Smith GOLD Sir-Charles SiLVER Currency-basket Priced-in-Gold

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  • Gary Edwards on 11 Jan 13
     
    Written in August of 2011, this article continues to be an important guideline to understanding Gold and Silver prices, and the efforts of Banksters to manipulate these competing forms of monetary exchange to the US Dollar.  Good stuff.  And i did write Brandon a proposal for a mobile application connecting PayPal to the Storage Vault Depositories he sites in this article (based on the GOLD app design i provided to Tino in 2008). excerpt: China Competes With The Comex As of this summer China now has its own Comex, called the Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange. The exchange opened for trade on May 18th (the CME's incredible margin hikes in silver began only weeks before, which suggests to me that they were trying to preempt the positive effects the HKMEX would have on metals). The HKMEX moved into action only five months after the Chinese Pan American Gold Exchange was instituted. The exchange issues its own ETF's in gold and silver. These securities, though, are not based on leverage or derivatives like most Comex based ETFs. The bottom line; the Comex global monopoly on commodities trade is over: How To Break The Barrier Methods for smaller investors to fight back against the market manipulations of large banks have been sparse, and often limited to desperate appeals to the CFTC and the government, who are bought and paid for, and who have no intention of ever stopping global financiers from dragging their unwashed behinds across the face of the planet. Relying on bureaucrats to mend the wounds they themselves encouraged or inflicted is foolhardy, to say the least. Top down solutions are NOT an option now, and I'm not sure if they ever were. This leaves us with only one other choice; to fix the problem with our own hands from the bottom up. This is, of course, easier said than done… In the case of silver manipulation, what we are faced with is an unprecedented effort to subvert and suppress an alternative system so that the mainstream system can continue to
Gary Edwards

Columbine Survivor Pens Bold Open Letter to Obama Rejecting Gun Control: 'Whose Side Are You On?' | TheBlaze.com - 0 views

www.theblaze.com/...-control-whose-side-are-you-on

Gun-Control second-amendment Evan-Todd

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  • Gary Edwards on 21 Feb 13
     
    Amazing letter from Columbine survivor, Evan Todd, to Obama, explaining why Obama's gun control proposals are non sense. Evan Todd's open letter to Obama, below. - Mr. President, As a student who was shot and wounded during the Columbine massacre, I have a few thoughts on the current gun debate. In regards to your gun control initiatives: Universal Background Checks First, a universal background check will have many devastating effects. It will arguably have the opposite impact of what you propose. If adopted, criminals will know that they can not pass a background check legally, so they will resort to other avenues. With the conditions being set by this initiative, it will create a large black market for weapons and will support more criminal activity and funnel additional money into the hands of thugs, criminals, and people who will do harm to American citizens. Second, universal background checks will create a huge bureaucracy that will cost an enormous amount of tax payers dollars and will straddle us with more debt. We cannot afford it now, let alone create another function of government that will have a huge monthly bill attached to it. Third, is a universal background check system possible without universal gun registration? If so, please define it for us. Universal registration can easily be used for universal confiscation. I am not at all implying that you, sir, would try such a measure, but we do need to think about our actions through the lens of time. It is not impossible to think that a tyrant, to the likes of Mao, Castro, Che, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and others, could possibly rise to power in America. It could be five, ten, twenty, or one hundred years from now - but future generations have the natural right to protect themselves from tyrannical government just as much as we currently do. It is safe to assume that this liberty that our forefathers secured has been a thorn in the side of would-be tyrants ever since the Second Amendmen
Gary Edwards

Freedom Above Fortune - jpe Banister - 0 views

www.freedomabovefortune.com

Joe-Banister IRS IRS-Whistleblower

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  • Gary Edwards on 03 Jul 13
     
    Freedom Above Fortune web site for former IRS Agent and Premier IRS Whistleblower, Joe Banister.  I first heard Joe Banister on CoasttoCoastam.com, in a three hour interview discussing his time at the IRS and the incredible illegal and unconstitutional activities the IRS routinely engages in. Joe explains the full story and describes what should be done to stop it.  It's all about Trial by Jury, and having informed Americans sitting in judgement of the ruthless IRS. If anyone wants the mp3's, send me an email. excerpt: Please visit AgentForTruth.com for the latest developments. You'll notice that the name of this organization is "Freedom Above Fortune" rather than "Freedom Without Fortune" or "Freedom Instead of Fortune". "Freedom Above Fortune" is an organization dedicated to the concept that no amount of real or perceived economic prosperity ("fortune") is worth trading for your liberty. This is not to say that pursuing economic prosperity is, in and of itself, bad. Rather, it is to say that those who are willing to put their freedom at risk for a few pieces of silver, similar to the manner in which Judas betrayed Jesus Christ, are shortsighted and foolish. If you are willing to sell your freedom for short term financial security, real or perceived, the willingness to sell your very soul can't be far behind. Freedom Above Fortune was founded by Joseph R. (Joe) Banister, a former IRS Criminal Investigation Division Special Agent who learned of serious constitutional questions relating to the federal income tax and the federal banking and monetary systems. Mr. Banister's expertise in the fields of accounting, finance, taxation, and law enforcement enabled him to not only understand these issues but realize that he could play a role in bringing the issues into the public arena for analysis and debate.  "
Gary Edwards

'Clinton death list': 33 spine-tingling cases - 0 views

www.wnd.com/...-list-33-most-intriguing-cases

Clinton-Body-Count

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  • Gary Edwards on 05 Feb 17
     
    "(Editor's note: This list was originally published in August 2016 and has gone viral on the web. WND is running it again as American voters cast their ballots for the nation's next president on Election Day.) How many people do you personally know who have died mysteriously? How about in plane crashes or car wrecks? Bizarre suicides? People beaten to death or murdered in a hail of bullets? And what about violent freak accidents - like separate mountain biking and skiing collisions in Aspen, Colorado? Or barbells crushing a person's throat? Bill and Hillary Clinton attend a funeral Apparently, if you're Bill or Hillary Clinton, the answer to that question is at least 33 - and possibly many more. Talk-radio star Rush Limbaugh addressed the issue of the "Clinton body count" during an August show. "I swear, I could swear I saw these stories back in 1992, back in 1993, 1994," Limbaugh said. He cited a report from Rachel Alexander at Townhall.com titled, "Clinton body count or left-wing conspiracy? Three with ties to DNC mysteriously die." Limbaugh said he recalled Ted Koppel, then-anchor of ABC News' "Nightline," routinely having discussions on the issue following the July 20, 1993, death of White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster. In fact, Limbaugh said, he appeared on Koppel's show. "One of the things I said was, 'Who knows what happened here? But let me ask you a question.' I said, 'Ted, how many people do you know in your life who've been murdered? Ted, how many people do you know in your life that have died under suspicious circumstances?' "Of course, the answer is zilch, zero, nada, none, very few," Limbaugh chuckled. "Ask the Clintons that question. And it's a significant number. It's a lot of people that they know who have died, who've been murdered. "And the same question here from Rachel Alexander. It's amazing the cycle that exists with the Clintons. [Citing Townhall]: 'What it
Gary Edwards

ESR | February 20, 2012 | The Federal Reserve rip-off - 0 views

www.enterstageright.com/...0212federserveripoff.htm

Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Feb 12
     
    Ron Paul racks up another near win, as conservative writer Alan Caruba smells the coffee and starts paying attention to the criminal enterprise known as the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel.  It's about time.  But sadly there are too few conservatives paying attention to the money.  Sadly, conservatives choose to wallow in 1980 political issues where conservative social values and national security - military buildup were the concerns of the day. The truth is that it's always the money.  Follow the money!!  And all things will become clear.  Including how to get America back on track. excerpt: Anyone taking notice of Obama's latest budget has to conclude that his mission is to crash the nation's economy and turn America into a Socialist worker's paradise. The only problem is that Socialism has been a dismal failure everywhere it has been tried. One only has to look at the collapse of the Soviet Union for confirmation of that, the Chinese abandonment of Communist economic theory, and Obama's odd notion that a nation can spend itself out of ever-increasing debt. I am not a fan of Paul's isolationism, but he is absolutely right about getting rid of the Federal Reserve. Established in 1913, the same year income taxes were instituted, the Reserve is not part of the federal government. It is, in fact, privately owned by a consortium of banks and that might include foreign banks as well. In a remarkable essay, "10 Things That Every American Should Know About The Federal Reserve" by Michael T. Snyder, it is clear that the Constitution intended to have the U.S. Treasury to be soley responsible to "coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures." Synder points out that the Federal Reserve System (the Fed) is a privately owned banking cartel and one granted the right to create money out of thin air. It is, says Synder "a perpetual debt machine because "whenever more money is created, more debt is creat
Gary Edwards

J.P. Morgan Chase's Ugly Family Secrets Revealed | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone - 0 views

www.rollingstone.com/...mily-secrets-revealed-20120313

Credit-Card-Scandal Banksters Linda-Almonte financial-collapse

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  • Gary Edwards on 17 Mar 12
     
    Socialist blogger and Rolling Stone Magazine journalist Matt Taibi has made a career out of exposing Banksters and their criminal activities causing the 2008 collapse of the global financial industry.  Here he sights a story in American Banker that fully demonstrates the depths of depravity and criminal activities that continues to characterize big Banksters. The mortgage-foreclosure-robo signing scandal is just the tip of the ice berg.  Matt recounts the story of Linda Almonte, a JP Morgan Chase employee in charge of Credit Card debt bundling.  It's horrific. Money shot: The financial crash wouldn't have happened if even a slim plurality of financial executives had done what Linda Almonte did, i.e. simply refuse to sign off on a bogus transaction. If companies had merely upheld their own stated policies and stayed within the ballpark of the law, none of these messes could have accumulated: fraudulent mortgages wouldn't have been sold, families wouldn't have been foreclosed upon based on robo-signed documentation, investors wouldn't have been duped into buying huge packets of "misrepresented assets." ............. excerpt: In a story that should be getting lots of attention, American Banker has released an excellent and disturbing exposé of J.P. Morgan Chase's credit card services division, relying on multiple current and former Chase employees. One of them, Linda Almonte, is a whistleblower whom I've known since last September; I'm working on a recount of her story for my next book. One of the things we were promised by the lawmakers who passed the Dodd-Frank reform bill a few years back is that this would be a new era for whistleblowers who come forward to tell the world about problems in our financial infrastructure. This story now looms as a test case for that proposition. American Banker reporter Jeff Horwitz did an outstanding job in this story detailing the sweeping irregularities in-house at Chase, but his very thoroughness means the news may have ram
Gary Edwards

Everything You Need to Know About Wall Street, in One Brief Tale | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone - 0 views

www.rollingstone.com/...eet-in-one-brief-tale-20120113

Bear-Stearns Mike-Taibi Jeffrey-Verchleiser Goldman-Sachs financial-collapse Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 13 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 13 Jan 12
     
    Another great piece of writing about the 2008 financial collapse, from Mike Taibi. excerpt: At first,  I couldn't remember where I knew that name from. But then I looked it up and saw an explosive Atlantic magazine story, published last year, called, "E-mails Suggest Bear Stearns Cheated Clients Out Of Millions." And then I remembered that piece, and it hit me: Jeffrey Verschleiser is one of the biggest assholes in the entire world! The story begins at Bear Stearns, where Verschleiser used to work, up until the company exploded, in large part because of him personally. Back in the day, you see, Verschleiser headed Bear's mortgage-backed securities operations. Toward the end of his tenure, his particular specialty began with what at the time was the usual industry-wide practice, putting together gigantic packages of crappy subprime mortgages and dumping them on unsuspecting clients. But Verschleiser reportedly went beyond that. According to a lawsuit later filed by a bond insurer called Ambac, Verschleiser also masterminded a kind of double-dipping scheme. What he would do is sell a bunch of toxic mortgages into a trust, which like all mortgage trusts had provisions written into their pooling and servicing agreements (PSAs) that required the original lenders to buy the loans back if they went into default. So Verschleiser would sell bad mortgages back to the banks at a discount, but instead of passing the money back to the trust, he and other Bear execs allegedly pocketed the funds. From the Atlantic story:
Gary Edwards

Why Bitcoin Matters | Marc Andreessen - 0 views

blog.pmarca.com/...why-bitcoin-matters

Bitcoin Marc-Andreessen pmarca

shared by Gary Edwards on 22 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • First, Bitcoin at its most fundamental level is a breakthrough in computer science – one that builds on 20 years of research into cryptographic currency, and 40 years of research in cryptography, by thousands of researchers around the world. Bitcoin is the first practical solution to a longstanding problem in computer science called the Byzantine Generals Problem. To quote from the original paper defining the B.G.P.: “[Imagine] a group of generals of the Byzantine army camped with their troops around an enemy city. Communicating only by messenger, the generals must agree upon a common battle plan. However, one or more of them may be traitors who will try to confuse the others. The problem is to find an algorithm to ensure that the loyal generals will reach agreement.” More generally, the B.G.P. poses the question of how to establish trust between otherwise unrelated parties over an untrusted network like the Internet.
  • The practical consequence of solving this problem is that Bitcoin gives us, for the first time, a way for one Internet user to transfer a unique piece of digital property to another Internet user, such that the transfer is guaranteed to be safe and secure, everyone knows that the transfer has taken place, and nobody can challenge the legitimacy of the transfer. The consequences of this breakthrough are hard to overstate. What kinds of digital property might be transferred in this way? Think about digital signatures, digital contracts, digital keys (to physical locks, or to online lockers), digital ownership of physical assets such as cars and houses, digital stocks and bonds … and digital money. All these are exchanged through a distributed network of trust that does not require or rely upon a central intermediary like a bank or broker. And all in a way where only the owner of an asset can send it, only the intended recipient can receive it, the asset can only exist in one place at a time, and everyone can validate transactions and ownership of all assets anytime they want.
  • How does this work?
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Bitcoin is a digital bearer instrument. It is a way to exchange money or assets between parties with no pre-existing trust: A string of numbers is sent over email or text message in the simplest case. The sender doesn’t need to know or trust the receiver or vice versa. Related, there are no chargebacks – this is the part that is literally like cash – if you have the money or the asset, you can pay with it; if you don’t, you can’t. This is brand new. This has never existed in digital form before. Bitcoin is a digital currency, whose value is based directly on two things: use of the payment system today – volume and velocity of payments running through the ledger – and speculation on future use of the payment system. This is one part that is confusing people. It’s not as much that the Bitcoin currency has some arbitrary value and then people are trading with it; it’s more that people can trade with Bitcoin (anywhere, everywhere, with no fraud and no or very low fees) and as a result it has value.
  • Bitcoin is an Internet-wide distributed ledger. You buy into the ledger by purchasing one of a fixed number of slots, either with cash or by selling a product and service for Bitcoin. You sell out of the ledger by trading your Bitcoin to someone else who wants to buy into the ledger. Anyone in the world can buy into or sell out of the ledger any time they want – with no approval needed, and with no or very low fees. The Bitcoin “coins” themselves are simply slots in the ledger, analogous in some ways to seats on a stock exchange, except much more broadly applicable to real world transactions. The Bitcoin ledger is a new kind of payment system. Anyone in the world can pay anyone else in the world any amount of value of Bitcoin by simply transferring ownership of the corresponding slot in the ledger. Put value in, transfer it, the recipient gets value out, no authorization required, and in many cases, no fees. That last part is enormously important. Bitcoin is the first Internetwide payment system where transactions either happen with no fees or very low fees (down to fractions of pennies). Existing payment systems charge fees of about 2 to 3 percent – and that’s in the developed world. In lots of other places, there either are no modern payment systems or the rates are significantly higher. We’ll come back to that.
  • Why would any merchant – online or in the real world – want to accept Bitcoin as payment, given the currently small number of consumers who want to pay with it? My partner Chris Dixon recently gave this example: “Let’s say you sell electronics online. Profit margins in those businesses are usually under 5 percent, which means conventional 2.5 percent payment fees consume half the margin. That’s money that could be reinvested in the business, passed back to consumers or taxed by the government. Of all of those choices, handing 2.5 percent to banks to move bits around the Internet is the worst possible choice. Another challenge merchants have with payments is accepting international payments. If you are wondering why your favorite product or service isn’t available in your country, the answer is often payments.” In addition, merchants are highly attracted to Bitcoin because it eliminates the risk of credit card fraud. This is the form of fraud that motivates so many criminals to put so much work into stealing personal customer information and credit card numbers. Since Bitcoin is a digital bearer instrument, the receiver of a payment does not get any information from the sender that can be used to steal money from the sender in the future, either by that merchant or by a criminal who steals that information from the merchant.
  • What’s the future of Bitcoin?
  • Bitcoin is a classic network effect, a positive feedback loop. The more people who use Bitcoin, the more valuable Bitcoin is for everyone who uses it, and the higher the incentive for the next user to start using the technology. Bitcoin shares this network effect property with the telephone system, the web, and popular Internet services like eBay and Facebook. In fact, Bitcoin is a four-sided network effect. There are four constituencies that participate in expanding the value of Bitcoin as a consequence of their own self-interested participation. Those constituencies are (1) consumers who pay with Bitcoin, (2) merchants who accept Bitcoin, (3) “miners” who run the computers that process and validate all the transactions and enable the distributed trust network to exist, and (4) developers and entrepreneurs who are building new products and services with and on top of Bitcoin. All four sides of the network effect are playing a valuable part in expanding the value of the overall system, but the fourth is particularly important.
  • Gary Edwards on 22 Jan 14
     
    WOW! This is the must read article of the year. Great explanation of Bitcoin; what it is, how it works, and why it is so significant. Excellent analysis!
Paul Merrell

Goldman Sachs Sued for Selling Libya Billions in "Worthless" Options | Global Research - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5367509

banksters fraud litigation Libya Taiwan Greece Goldman Sachs

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • 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.
  • “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.
  • 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.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • 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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