| | | Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 | Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change.
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User ID: 601098
1/25/2009 11:57 PM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
(According to an AP poll, 71 percent of Americans believe the economy will improve during the first year of the Obama presidency.)
https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:21873.1666099503/rid:26143f82ba03b59916b9b450748a05e8 |
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User ID: 601098
1/25/2009 11:59 PM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
Financial crisis: just how big is Britain's toxic debt?
An army of accountants is combing through the books, trying to establish just how much the toxic assets of the bailed-out banks are actually worth. At stake, says the Government, is the future of Britain's economy.
By Gordon Rayner
Last Updated: 7:27PM GMT 23 Jan 2009
Toxic asset - Sir Fred Goodwin of RBS has seen his reputation collapse
Toxic asset: Sir Fred Goodwin of RBS has seen his reputation collapse Photo: REUTERS
Before he was unceremoniously fired as chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, Sir Fred Goodwin often said that he had turned the 280-year-old institution into "a sausage machine".
RBS, like other banks, was buying and selling pre-packaged parcels of debt, which started out as mortgages and loans but were put through a corporate mincer and wrapped into packages containing small pieces of hundreds, if not thousands, of loans. Rather like sausages, no one could be entirely sure what was in them – but as long as they paid a decent rate of interest and the bonuses kept flowing, no one cared.
As we all now know, those parcels had been bulked up with sub-prime loans, which became effectively worthless "toxic assets" when the US housing market crashed.
Confirmation yesterday that the bankers' avarice has officially plunged Britain into recession added to the growing bewilderment as to exactly why we are on the hook for almost £1 trillion in bail-outs and guarantees.
No one even knows exactly how many of these toxic assets British banks are holding, and how much more it might cost the taxpayer to get out of this unholy mess – which is why an army of accountants is about to begin the daunting, if not downright impossible, task of tracking down and putting a value on all the debts of all the banks in which the taxpayer has taken a stake.
In effect, to borrow Sir Fred's analogy, the Government-appointed debt hunters will be carrying out the accounting equivalent of dissecting all of those sausages and turning the constituent parts back into pigs. It will be a laborious, thankless task which is likely to take at least six months. But according to the Government, nothing less than the future of Britain's economy depends on it.
The reason all the rescue packages have failed is that no one has yet calculated the full extent of these toxic assets – and nothing spooks the City so much as uncertainty. Lord Myners, the minister organising the hunt, says his sleuths will have to deal with "well over a billion items of individual data for each bank".
The desperate need for some hard and fast facts was underlined on Monday, when the value of banking shares collapsed, despite the announcement of a raft of new measures. Gordon Brown is said to have been taken aback by the City's panicked reaction to RBS's announcement of a £28 billion loss, the largest in British corporate history.
Experts say the losses reveal the markets' fear of more bad news to come. Despite the Government pledging £954 billion so far – or £31,800 per taxpayer – some analysts believe another £200 billion in insurance may be needed to protect the banks fully against future losses. But no one is willing to predict that it won't be more, just as no one can be sure that our children, or even our grandchildren, won't still be paying off the debts the nation is accruing, as this economic black hole swallows a seemingly limitless amount of our money.
In other words, until the number-crunching is done, there is no prospect of an end to the crisis. "The problem is that we don't really know just where these bad assets are, and the banks are not going to 'fess up," explains Peter Spencer, professor of economics at York University. "As things stand, it is a near-bottomless pit, and no one knows how smelly the stuff at the bottom is."
The Prime Minister is pinning his hopes on the Asset Protection Scheme, announced this week, which will assess the exact extent of the toxic assets (currently estimated at £200-350 billion). The theory goes that once the banks know the worst-case scenario, and are insured against it by the taxpayer, they will be able to start lending again.
But the Government-appointed investigators, drawn mainly from Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank, will be entering uncharted waters when they set up shop in the offices of banks such as RBS. Few people on the planet understand the complexities of such opaque instruments as collateralised debt obligations (the technical term for those minced-up sausages of debt, of which £2 trillion were traded in 2006, £188 billion of it in the UK). In some cases they were dreamed up by real-life rocket scientists, poached by Wall Street from Nasa's labs in California.
Until as recently as 2000, British banks lent only as much money as they held on deposit. But the availability of cheap financing on the money markets enabled banks such as Northern Rock to lend up to seven times the amount in their coffers.
Rather than holding on to people's mortgages, the banks packaged them up with other loans and sold them on to investors, who could repackage and sell them on again and again. Unpicking these bundles of debt may involve tracking down and valuing the assets on which they are based – such as houses or commercial properties, or even part-shares of them.
Nor will the vastly complex, and vastly expensive, hunt be confined to Britain. To pick just one example, RBS acquired 26 other companies during Sir Fred's eight-year reign, leaving it with £250 billion of foreign loans in the more than 50 countries where it has offices. These include Vietnam, Columbia, Uzbekistan and Pakistan, where RBS is the second-largest foreign bank – there are even seven branches in Kazakhstan, all of which are now 70 per cent owned by the British taxpayer.
Many of those loans will be sound, but the investigators must sniff out those that are not. "It will be a very intensive job and we will need to get professional support," one Treasury source says. "It's complicated, but if you didn't have these complicated problems, there wouldn't be a crisis in the first place."
But how could the banks lose control to such an extent?
"Greed is part of the answer," says Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman. "We have had a bonus culture in which profits were the only motivating factor, and bankers were getting enormous bonuses on the back of very highly leveraged deals. It's also the case that even some of the bosses didn't understand the things they were trading in, because they had become so complicated. The banking regulators knew this and should have put a stop to it, but they didn't."
It wasn't just the executives who failed to understand what was going on – the Prime Minister and his team were equally clueless. Treasury officials who began going through the books of RBS when the Government took a majority share last year were horrified at the way the bank had been run, as it borrowed more and more money to fund more ambitious deals, such its share of the £49 billion takeover of Dutch bank ABN-Amro in 2007.
The previously lionised Sir Fred has now been labelled "the world's worst banker", with growing calls for him to be stripped of his knighthood. Although the Financial Services Authority insists that there is no evidence he broke any rules, many investors who have lost money believe he was less than candid about the state of the bank's finances and recklessly overstretched himself in the battle for ABN-Amro.
In America, RBS's subsidiaries are already the subject of two separate investigations. The Securities and Exchange Commission and New York's attorney general are both looking into the exposure of RBS-owned companies to the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
Although he has said he is "angry" with Sir Fred, Mr Brown refused to be drawn this week on what action, if any, should be taken against his former friend, who was a valued adviser during his time as Chancellor.
Nor has anyone at the Treasury offered an estimate of how much it will cost to work out the value of the toxic assets.
Yet many of the country's leading economists believe that there is an alternative to the scheme: to nationalise the entire banking system to restore confidence, and take control of lending once and for all.
George Magnus, chief economic adviser to UBS Investment Bank, and the man credited with being the first to predict the current global recession, says: "There is a danger that a few months down the line further measures will be needed to shore up the banks. It would be cleaner, neater and cheaper just to call a spade a spade and take them into public ownership.
"That would enable the Government to set up a 'bad bank' that could take on these toxic assets and hold on to them for 50 years if necessary, until their value rose and the taxpayer saw a return.
"In the meantime, once the crisis is over, they could refloat the banks, as they did in Sweden in 1992. I just don't understand the hang-up the Government has with nationalisation."
Professor Tim Congdon, a former adviser to the Treasury, agrees. "The idea of having these civil servants poring over the banks' books is barmy. There are much simpler solutions, such as the Government borrowing from the banks to increase the amount of money in the system."
One thing all sides are agreed on is the need for a return to old-fashioned banking, preferably without so much as a rocket scientist – or sausage machine – in sight. |
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User ID: 601098
1/26/2009 12:00 AM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
Jim Rogers sees Renminbi replacing US Dollar as world reserve currency
BusinessIntelligence
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Legendary global investor Jim Rogers said the Renminbi may possibly replace the US dollar as the international reserve currency 15 years from now.
Addressing the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong, an event that brought together about a thousand participants from around the globe, Rogers said he found Asia to be the place where "the world is changing" as he toured the world in 1990 through 1992.
"This is going to be the new centre of the world, not just the financial but the political world," he said.
The only currency that could replace the US dollar "this year" would be the euro, while the only conceivable currency that can replace the dollar as the reserve currency "15 years from now" is renminbi.
Rogers said he believed China will rise despite possible setbacks.
The United States also experienced setbacks and had various problems back in the 19th century, which, nevertheless, did not stop it from becoming the greatest success of the 20th century, he said.
The US dollar, on the other hand, is falling, he said, citing the fact that China is now the largest creditor nation while the United States is largest debtor nation.
"The Renminbi is big enough. It's liquid enough," he said, adding that the question was only academic in the sense that the renminbi is still a blocked currency.
He accused US authorities of consciously trying to devalue the US dollar by flooding the market with liquidity -- or in his words, "turning on the printing presses" -- and said anyone chasing the rally in government bonds is making a "terrible mistake."
"The idea that you can fix a period of excess borrowing and excess consumption by more borrowing and more consumption to me is just ludicrous," he said.
The projected plan to bail out the US economy by printing more money and boosting consumption could lead to even bigger problem. "The idea that you can solve a period of excessive borrowing and consumption with more borrowing and more consumption and destroying more balance sheets, to me, is ludicrous on its face," Rogers said.
Rogers said protectionism, one of the key pillars of U.S. President-elect Barrack Obama's presidential campaign platform, could push the U.S. economy into big trouble, citing the historical anecdote that the US congress passed a protectionist bill after the 1929 stock market crash to send the US economy into a long depression.
Underscoring his convictions, Rogers began his speech by showing pictures of his two young children, both of whom he said have Swiss bank accounts and speak Mandarin.
Rogers said his elder daughter, who is five years old, is in school in Asia and speaks fluent mandarin thanks to a governess who can speak fluent Chinese.
The other younger daughter was also learning mandarin.
"The single most important advice I can give you is teaching your child mandarin," he said, urging investors to sell US dollars when it peaks in the near term.
Rogers has spent a career being one step ahead of mainstream investment thinking. Amongst his many accomplishments, Rogers was co-founder with George Soros of Quantum Fund. During his ten years with the fund, the portfolio gained more than 4,000%, while the S&P rose less than 50%. The Quantum Fund shot to fame after making more than US$1 billion betting against the British pound in early 1990s.
The Asian Financial Forum was hosted by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government and Hong Kong Trade Development Council. Prominent speakers discussed the challenges and opportunities facing Asian economies.
[link to www.midasletter.com] |
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User ID: 601098
1/26/2009 12:01 AM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
[link to www.google.com]
JPMorgan chief says worst of the crisis still to come: FT
Jan 14, 2009
LONDON (AFP) — The chief executive of US bank JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, told the Financial Times on Thursday that the worst of the economic crisis still lay ahead as hard-hit consumers default on their loans.
"The worst of the economic situation is not yet behind us. It looks as if it will continue to deteriorate for most of 2009," he told the business daily.
"In terms of our sector, we expect consumer loans and credit cards to continue to get worse."
Dimon said the bank -- which bought rivals Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual last year -- was prepared for a deterioration in consumer-orientated businesses but if things were worse than expected, it would have to cut costs further.
The interview was published after a fresh wave of selling hit US and European stock markets Wednesday, as an unrelenting flow of bad economic and corporate news sparked fears of a deepening global downturn. |
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User ID: 601098
1/26/2009 12:02 AM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
[link to www.washingtonpost.com]
Geithner has apologized for what he called "careless mistakes" during the years he worked as policy director at the International Monetary Fund, an international institution that does not automatically withhold taxes for its employees. A 2006 IRS audit informed Geithner that he had failed to pay self-employment taxes in 2003 and 2004. While he was being vetted by the Obama team in November, they pointed out he had made the same errors on his 2001 and 2002 returns. All told, Geithner has paid $42,702 in back taxes and interest.
Most Democrats and many Republicans have defended Geithner, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, calling his tax problems insignificant considering the talent he would bring to the Treasury as it responds to the battered banking sector.
But some Republicans say Geithner's tax errors reveal larger character flaws. He faced tough questions from several Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee, five of whom voted against him: Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Jim Bunning (Ky.), Pat Roberts (Kan.) and Mike Enzi (Wyo.).
Grassley, the panel's senior Republican, said he received a message from a constituent expressing concern about the nomination: "If the man cannot handle his own finances," the constituent wrote, "how is he going to handle the country's?" |
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User ID: 601098
1/26/2009 12:04 AM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
This list of the wealthiest families in history is based on information published by Forbes, The New York Times and other sources. There are 30 families on the list and the figures in the net-worth column represent peak wealth in 2008 U.S. dollars. They are calculated by using GDP figures for the country of the family's origin or of its residence at the point of peak net worth. [1][2] Where peak wealth was reached when the relevant country's GDP was greater than currently, or if the country no longer exists, the wealth figures are calculated by average and current world GDP.
[link to www.wikigrain.org] |
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User ID: 601098
1/26/2009 12:06 AM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
This is an example of a tin god, and he will beat the drum long and loud for Obama.
[link to finance.yahoo.com]
Buffett says US in 'economic Pearl Harbor'
Buffett says in NBC interview that US is in 'economic Pearl Harbor'
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Billionaire investor Warren Buffett says the U.S. is engaged in an "economic Pearl Harbor."
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In an interview that aired Sunday on "Dateline NBC," the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said the nation's economic situation is not as bad at World War II or the Great Depression, but it's still pretty severe. |
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User ID: 603886
1/30/2009 1:52 AM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
[link to www.deepcapture.com]
A small group of powerful hedge fund managers stop at nothing to annihilate the companies they sell short. Their tactics include: blackmail, smear campaigns, espionage, fraud, harassment, extortion, bribery, rumor-mongering, sabotage, off-shore money laundering, political cronyism, frivolous lawsuits, witness tampering, biased financial research, false identities, bogus credit ratings, bribery, libelous blogs, bad science, forgery, wiretapping, counterfeiting, collusion, lying, cheating, threats and theft.
Their most egregious trick is to sell “phantom stock.” By exploiting a glitch in Wall Street’s computerized trading system, and a loophole in federal regulations, some hedge funds sell virtually unlimited amounts of stock that they have not yet borrowed or purchased. This is often referred to as “naked short selling.” Hedge funds use this tactic to flood the market with supply and drive down prices - which is blatantly illegal. |
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User ID: 603886
1/30/2009 2:25 AM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
And again, that number represents phantom shares in just one corner of the system. The number of phantom shares in the rest of the system is thought by most observers to be many times greater. However, the SEC refuses to release data about the number of phantom shares in other layers of the system. In fact, Patrick, Dave Patch and others have suggested that the SEC might not even know.
In any case, the SEC has the power to prosecute the sellers of phantom stock, but it has so far refused to do so.
[link to www.deepcapture.com] |
| Easedadreld
User ID: 534959
5/19/2009 5:23 AM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
Should they even be there? Please comment on this video clip. I don’t think Robert Cooper or Brad Wright would ever let these two ever have any serious part on Stargate Universe. Well maybe the brunette…
[link to www.koldcast.tv] |
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User ID: 697889
6/8/2009 12:14 PM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
The Fed declined to comment on the amendment. But Ben Bernanke, Fed chairman, has told Congress’s joint economic committee he will “resist any attempt to dictate to the Federal Reserve how to make monetary policy”.
[link to www.ft.com] |
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User ID: 699062
6/9/2009 9:23 PM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
U.S. and European Economies Accelerating Decent into Marxism
Economics / Credit Crisis 2009 Jun 05, 2009 - 12:45 PM
By: Ty_Andros
Economics
Diamond Rated - Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleFingers of Instability, Part III:
The Banks
Command Performance
Wealth Creation
Descent into Marxism!
Introduction - The descent into MARXISM is accelerating at a startling rate. Public servants and blind ideologues are stopping at nothing to achieve CREEPING CONTROL over the private sector of the United States of America. As the US economy continues to plummet, the mainstream media continues to talk about GREEN shoots and recovery to get the sheeple, er ... people to FEEL GOOD long enough to get their plans ENSHRINED in law. Once passed, never repealed, and essential to your future security.
I refer to nationalization of the health care system and something called the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. A nice title to garner support from the functionally illiterate products of the public schools who can neither think logically, nor have any knowledge of history or any interest in the facts behind the headlines. The resulting outcomes are EXACTLY the opposite of its title, as it moves the United States further and further from energy security. Only the most HOPEFUL can believe the government can solve their healthcare and energy problems. You can expect costs to increase 100 to 1,000% once they have worked their SOLUTIONS.
Look no further than Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, the Post Office, Medicare, Medicaid and social security to see what healthcare and the energy industry will become, because consuming more than you produce increasingly expands into these areas of the economy. These are known in China as "STATE OWNED ENTERPRISES" since they are permanent wards of the state, never profitable, can't compete in the marketplace except through mandates of market share, and only kept open to provide employment to avoid civil unrest or to reward a primary constituency. It is a good description of what's unfolding in Amerika, er ... America.
Who pays for this? Not the government, not Congress, not the President: you do! I predict GM and Chrysler will NEVER make a penny of profit again and the cars they make will sell only because they will pass laws and regulations forcing you to purchase them, rather than that be of your own choosing. Why compete if the owners of the company can just pass a law and force market share to themselves? You can look for this to increasingly unfold as Chrysler and GM continue making cars that MANY DO NOT WANT. Politics is clearly at work as revelations that all the Chrysler dealers who supported the GOP were the ones that GOT THE AXE! Illinois politics on a national level.
Radical environmentalists are IN CONTROL of the federal government, and US domestic oil and gas production is under full scale assault from our overlords (and their campaign supporters) in Washington, D.C. America exports hundreds of billions of dollars a year for imported oil. This was a prime issue in the last election in which BOTH parties PROMISED to allow domestic energy development. A case of amnesia has descended and now the prospects for keeping more of those exported dollars at home creating domestic resources and jobs is UP IN SMOKE. While they were at it, they have brought the domestic mining industry to a virtual halt as well, TO PROTECT YOU.
Can you imagine ANY public servant not believing in maximizing domestic production of energy, FUELS and natural resources for domestic use? What do you think we will do when the dollar is worthless and we have to buy these supplies in something other than dollars? Do you think we will be secure then? Do you think wind, solar and biofuels will substitute? Traditional domestic power generation is also being prohibited from development and new nuclear, coal and oil generation is on the cusp of being regulatory casualties and virtually OUTLAWED.
The existing energy industry is about to have their profits confiscated through the above mentioned legislation and their capital REDIRECTED to primary supporters of the Administration and Congress, into industries such as ethanol and green energy, which will NEVER produce more than they consume in capital. This is misallocation of precious capital to MALINVESTMENTS which will NEVER pay for themselves or turn a profit. Who pays for this? Not Congress. The public, aka "you" do!
They call this WISDOM in Washington and the DEATH of common sense on MAIN STREET, unless you have been brainwashed by the mainstream media, public schools and CRONY capitalists who are SET TO FEED at the public trough, aka YOUR WALLET. You know who they are as they appear with politicians and sing the siren song of GLOBAL WARMING, a hoax on the uninformed and functionally illiterate who fall for this new version of the "TAXMAN in DISGUISE"!
The Banks
The banking system is as INSOLVENT as it was last week, last month, last year and two years ago. Eviscerating FASBY 157 did not change the losses sitting on their balance sheets or the lack of dealing with them. Most, if not all, of the PROFITS from the first quarter came from a little accounting sleight of hand that lets you record a profit when the value of outstanding bond issues declines (issued debt from the bank). For example, let's say a Citigroup bond is priced at 70 on January 1, 2009, and on April 1, the bond is trading at 63, a loss of 10% for the bondholder; but Citigroup gets to record a PROFIT of an equal amount, because if they bought the debt back on April 1, they would have paid less to their lender. Of course they DID NOT buy the bond back, which would have actually been a profit, but they get to BOOK the profits anyway. NO MATTER in the eyes of the accounting regulators, it still counts.
The stress tests were and are a joke. When they did not fall into the areas of solvency which the 19 banks desired, they just argued their way to values they could accept. The regulators are obviously CONTROLLED by those that they regulate. NO NEWS in that supposition. Let's look at lobbying and CAMPAIGN contributions from a recent Wall Street Journal article leading up to the political pressure on the Financial Accounting Standards Board until they changed the rules in late April;
[link to www.marketoracle.co.uk] |
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User ID: 699062
6/9/2009 9:36 PM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
In congressional testimony today, Fed Chair Ben Bernanke said the Federal Reserve WILL NOT monetize the debt, setting the stage for a showdown with the FOOLS on Capitol Hill and the President. His term is up in January, and he either buckles or he will be replaced by someone who will monetize it: i.e., Larry Summers, Chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisors.
What happens when they do monetize the debt further? Contrary to his assertions... Be very afraid. This is slated to happen in the next 6 months as Treasury borrowing is set to explode to over $2 Trillion and many multiples of this number in the G7. Many of these auctions are bound to fail unless long-term interest rates skyrocket or quantitative easing is DRAMATICALLY accelerated. |
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User ID: 699062
6/9/2009 10:14 PM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
[link to www.marketoracle.co.uk]
It's time to run, not hide.
I mean that. We're in the throes of an economic collapse of a kind last seen in the 1930s. The government is intent on grabbing control of whatever it can. American firms are dropping like flies. Unemployment is soaring. Debt is soaring. The money supply is soaring. Our foreign policy is a wreck – we have more enemies than we can count. We have a drug war on the borders, we have gang war in the ghettos, we have culture wars in the academy and media.
We have criminals in government.
The future isn't any brighter. Subprime is only the first leg down. We still have a second wave of housing trouble in store, centering around commercial real estate and option ARM loans.
Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trend Research, wrote a piece last year predicting that by 2012 there would be food riots, tax rebellion, and revolution across the country. Celente has a good track record in the forecasting business.
Experts predict a 100% rise in prices across the board. In the best-case scenario, it will happen over ten years. In the worst case, it might happen within months. |
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User ID: 699062
6/9/2009 10:21 PM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
Fed to Hire PR Wizard to Fight Against HR 1207
Published on 06-06-2009 Email To Friend Print Version
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By Kurt Nimmo
As HR 1207 gains momentum and co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, the Federal Reserve is planning to fight the tide calling for an audit of its books by hiring a veteran lobbyist to “manage its relations with Congress,” according to Reuters.
featured stories Fed to Hire PR Wizard to Fight Against HR 1207
Ron Paul featured stories Fed to Hire PR Wizard to Fight Against HR 1207
Linda Robertson
The Fed plans to hire Linda Robertson, who previously worked for now-defunct energy company Enron, as well as the Clinton administration. She is currently head of government, community and public relations at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Robertson “spent eight years in senior positions at the Treasury Department, working for three secretaries: Lloyd Bentsen, Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers,” a bio posted on The John Hopkins University website states.
Robert Rubin, as secretary of the Treasury, recommended that Congress pass legislation to reform or repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, while Lawrence Summers in the same capacity organized the looting of Russia, stripping one trillion dollars from Russia’s struggling economy in the name of the bankers.
“Members of Congress have chafed at the Fed’s bold use of its emergency powers and in particular its multibillion-dollar bailouts of investment bank Bear Stearns and insurer American International Group,” Reuters continues. “Critics also bristle at the Fed’s practice of maintaining the confidentiality of the companies that borrow directly from the central bank on the grounds that divulging their names would risk runs on those institutions.”
One such critic is senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. In March, Sanders put it squarely to Fed boss Bernanke when he said “My question to you is, will you tell the American people to whom you lent $2.2 trillion of their dollars?” Bernanke, of course, refused to divulge a single name and instead said the loans in question are “over-collateralized” and thus come with a heavy stigma for the unknown borrowers.
Sanders has put his weight behind a similar bill — S. 604, the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009. It was referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on March 16, 2009.
As reported by Bloomberg, the Fed has entered into trillions of dollars in off-balance sheet transactions since last September. More specifically, the Fed extended $9 trillion in credit, which is $30,000 for every single men, women, and child in this country.
Early last month, Elizabeth Coleman, Inspector General for the Federal Reserve, told Rep. Alan Grayson of the United States House Committee on Financial Services that she does “not have jurisdiction to directly go out and audit Reserve Bank activities specifically.” See a video of Grayson questioning Coleman.
“We’re getting instructions from on high saying, ‘Don’t dwell on the past,’” Grayson was told before a hearing scheduled to investigate the Fannie and Freddie swindle.
HR 1207 would put an end to this sort of hide-and-seek nonsense. It would “amend title 31, United States Code, to reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States and the manner in which such audits are reported, and for other purposes.”
Rep. Ron Paul notes that only the Fed can inflate the currency and create new money out of thin air in secrecy without oversight or supervision. “Debasing a currency is counterfeiting,” Paul told Congress in February, 2008, “it steals value from every dollar earned or saved. “It robs the people and makes them poorer… it is the enemy of the working person. Inflation is the most vicious and regressive of all forms of taxation. It transfers wealth from the middle class to the privileged rich.
HR 1207 would cast a laser light on this criminal process. “By opening all Fed operations to a GAO audit and calling for such an audit to be completed by the end of 2010, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act would achieve much-needed transparency of the Federal Reserve,” Paul explained earlier this year.
An audit would set the stage for the end of the Federal Reserve and a return of honest money and fiscal policies. The banksters behind the Fed understand this very well and that is why they have not only hired a PR wizard but also why they have attempted to subvert the End the Fed movement.
It is hardly a mistake that the MIAC report characterized the End the Fed movement as extremist. It is also no mistake the United States Army Reserve Command issued “mitigation measures” in response to End the Fed demonstrations around the country last year. The Army “established relationships” with local law enforcement and the FBI and encouraged them to “update alert rosters,” according to a Force Protection Advisory leaked to the media. On November 22, 2008, Alex Jones led a rally at the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas Texas. The Dallas protest is specifically mentioned in the official Army document.
As HR 1207 picks up sponsors and gains critical mass, we can expect the international bankers to devise ways to protect their Federal Reserve racket. Obviously, it will take more than a former Enron and Treasury Department hack to stem the growing tide of people demanding the Fed be investigated and eventually dismantled.
[link to www.blacklistednews.com] |
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User ID: 699062
6/9/2009 10:27 PM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
You know the end is near, when the FED is challenged by the legislature(because so much of the voting public is ready to sea change to whatever), and by the end i don't mean of the FED, it will be that country it has been stranglerfigging.
It would be nice though to get into the FED books, because then all the dirty financial deals for more than a century would have their roots and sources exposed, this would be good for the world to see and understand, still i expect we will see a major crisis, that will not only eclipse this bill but probably forestall or cancel it forever, and turn America into Zimbabwe on steroids. |
| FHL(C)
User ID: 700181
6/11/2009 9:07 AM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
FU&FW
Galbraith then turns to the causal relations between the collapse of the speculative stock market and the ensuing Depression. Once again, Galbraith fingers income disparity: 5% of the populace garnered a full third of personal income.
This highly unequal income distribution meant that the economy was dependent on a high level of investment or a high level of luxury consumer spending or both. The rich cannot buy great quantities of bread. If they are to dispose of what they receive it must be luxuries or by way of investment in new plants and new projects.
As the stock market crashed, those with the most to lose--the wealthy--found their cashflow and capital massively crimped. Since the entire economy was dependent on them spending and investing freely, the economy crashed, too.
You see where this leads in terms of the 1990s-2006 boom. The stupendous profits skimmed in the great dot-com boom flowed disproportionately into a few hands, who then mal-invested the gains (in a macro context) in a completely unproductive burst of overbuilt housing and commercial real estate. The ensuing bubble drew in all those who in Galbraith's words believed they deserved to be rich and as those hapless speculators crashed they took the entire middle class of homeowners with them.
Galbraith also fingers two other causes of the Great Depression: Faulty corporate structure and flawed banking structure. The parallels to the present are achingly obvious; here's Galbraith's terse description:
[link to www.oftwominds.com]
[link to freewordofgod.yuku.com] |
| FHL(C)
User ID: 700181
6/11/2009 9:20 AM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
Check out the charts at the link if you want some data with your doom.
FU&FW
[link to johngaltfla.com]
While the Obamanation is busy re-writing the laws of the land in the vision of the Messiah and the stimulus plan is doing such a good job the “private job losses” category was overlooked or just forgotten by the BLS in this past Friday’s report (oops!), there is an ongoing market crash which is about to reach terminal velocity without Federal Reserve intervention. I have sat here in amazement while the Bubblemedia crowed about the strength and voracity of the equity markets and how close they all were to getting and staying positive for the year and how the recession had ended or would soon while Mockingbirds flew overhead pooping lollipops made of rhubarb and platinum. I don’t know why they poop rhubarb lollipops but I had to find a blog entry where I could use the word and “Rhubarb Stock Crash” just does not work, thus the lollipops. I hope they taste good, because I won’t touch them.
That crashing noise you’ve heard was not the volume on the NYSE and DJIA as it did not exactly reflect commitment to the short, intermediate or long term. No, the crashing noise and focuse of tonight’s column was the United States Treasury Market and now that the 2 year note has continued its move from Friday the panic you are hearing is that of one Mr. Ben Bernanke going “oh crap” if the yield curve starts to narrow from the 2 to 30 year range.
[link to freewordofgod.yuku.com] |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 708459
6/21/2009 7:16 PM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
Washington is Unable to Call All the Shots
May 15, 2009
By Michael Hudson
Financial Times
Challenging the American empire will be the focus of meetings in Yekaterinburg, Russia, today and tomorrow for Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other leaders of the six-nation Shanghai Co-operation Organisation. The alliance comprises Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajiki-stan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, with observer status for Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia.
The attendees (who will be joined on Tuesday by Brazil for trade discussions) have assured American diplomats that dismantling the US financial and military hegemony is not their aim. They simply want to discuss mutual aid - but in a way that has no role for the US or for the dollar as a vehicle for trade among these countries.
The meeting is an opportunity for China, Russia and India to "build an increasingly multipolar world order", as Mr Medvedev put it in a St Petersburg speech this month. What he meant was this: we have reached our limit in subsidising the US military encirclement of Eurasia while also allowing the US to appropriate our exports, companies and real estate in exchange for paper money of questionable worth.
An "artificially maintained unipolar system", Mr Medvedev said, was based on "one big centre of consumption, financed by a growing deficit, and thus growing debts, one formerly strong reserve currency, and one dominant system of assessing assets and risks".
Keen observers of America, if not effective managers of their own economies, these countries argue that the root of the global financial crisis is that the US makes too little and spends too much. Especially upsetting is US military expenditure - such as military aid to Georgia or the presence in the oil-rich Middle East and central Asia - using money that foreign central banks recycle.
Overconsumption by US citizens, US buy-outs of foreign companies and dollars the Pentagon spends abroad all end up in foreign central banks. These governments face a hard choice: either recycle the dollars back to America by buying US Treasury bonds or let the "free market" force up their currencies relative to the dollar - thereby pricing their exports out of world markets, creating domestic unemployment and business failures. US-style free markets hook them into a system that forces them to accept unlimited dollars. Now they want out.
This means creating an alternative. Rather than making merely "cosmetic changes as some countries and perhaps the international financial organisations themselves might want", Mr Medvedev concluded his St Petersburg speech: "What we need are financial institutions of a completely new type, where particular political issues and motives, and particular countries, will not dominate."
For starters, the six countries intend to trade in their own currencies so as to get the benefit of mutual credit, rather than give it to the US. In recent months China has struck bilateral deals with Brazil and Malaysia to trade in renminbi rather than the dollar, sterling or euros.
Many foreigners see the US as a lawless nation. How else to characterise a country that holds out a set of laws for others - on war, debt repayment and the treatment of prisoners - but ignores them itself?
The US is the world's largest debtor, yet has avoided the pain of "structural adjustments" imposed on other debtor nations. US interest rate and tax reductions in the face of exploding trade and budget deficits are seen as the height of hypocrisy in view of the austerity programmes that the "Washington consensus" has forced on other countries via the International Monetary Fund and other vehicles. The US tells debtor economies to sell off their public utilities and natural resources, raise their interest rates and increase taxes while gutting their social safety nets to squeeze out money to pay creditors.
It is no mystery to other countries how the US remains above the law. Foreigners see a financial system backed by American aircraft carriers and military bases encircling the globe. The IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organisation and other Washington surrogates are seen as vestiges of a lost American empire no longer able to rule by economic strength, left only with military domination.
The countries that are gathering today are convinced that this hegemony cannot continue without adequate revenues and are attempting to hasten the bankruptcy of the US financial-military world order. If China, Russia and their allies have their way, the US will no longer live off the savings of others, nor have the money for unlimited military spending.
US officials wanted to attend Yekaterinburg as observers. They were told no. It is a word that Americans will hear much more in the future.
The writer is professor of economics at the University of Missouri
[link to www.ft.com] |
| aaacool2010
User ID: 758140
8/28/2009 4:15 AM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
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| aaacool2010
User ID: 774592
9/19/2009 8:48 AM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
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| FHL(C)
User ID: 771649
10/31/2009 8:59 AM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
Well its official now, economic doom is now the new economy, i wonder what the 5 year plan mr world pieces will release will look like to confuse the masses and enrich the banksters?
FU&FW
[link to www.rense.com]
Tantamount To Treason
Larouchepac.com
10-31-9
(LPAC) -- Those were Lyndon LaRouche's words on Thursday, describing two of the latest fascist innovations to come from the Obama White House, Treasury Department, and Federal Reserve.
On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner appeared before Barney Frank's House Financial Services Committee, to release a proposed reorganization of the bank regulatory system, that would, in effect, wipe out the use of bankruptcy reorganization, to deal with the hopelessly bankrupt financial system. Under the new swindle, bank holding companies, and other "non-banks", would be exempted from bankruptcy court proceedings, and, instead, would be put through reorganization by an Executive Branch "Financial Services Oversight Council." There are now minimally $5-6 trillion of worthless "toxic waste" liabilities on the books of the big banks, and the proposed "reform" would establish a $10 billion Financial Company Resolution Fund, to deal with these "too big to fail" institutions. You see the fraud! All of the B.S. aside, the essence of this "reform" would be to gut the U.S. Federal Constitution's credit system and provisions for bankruptcy reorganization on behalf of the general welfare.
Combine this latest swindle with the fact that the Fed has, through its zero-interest rate policy, created a "dollar carry trade," which is creating a gigantic new financial bubble.
Lyndon LaRouche commented on these developments by focusing on the "criminal intent of these measures." He fully endorsed the denunciation of the Geithner/Frank scheme by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Cal.), who called it "TARP on steroids." LaRouche explained, "Even though this latest scheme by Geithner, Bernanke, Barney Frank, et al. will not live, it is the criminal intent behind it that must be targeted. If this swindle is allowed to go forward, it will be a recipe for the total collapse of the entire financial system. It must be stopped. It is boiling down to genocide against the American people."
The same genocidal swindle was reflected in several other events of the day, including the laughable fake data, coming out of the government, claiming that GDP for the third quarter of 2009 jumped by 3.5 percent! "On the basis of past performance," LaRouche immediately reacted, "we can presume that the GDP data is fraudulent. Everything this Administration has done with respect to the economy and the financial system has been one big lie. We have not yet carefully reviewed the latest phony data, but we can be certain that the evidence is there of one more lie in the series of wild hoaxes."
The same "genocide" label can be affixed on the Obama Administration's response to the swine flu pandemic, which continues to spread all over the country and around the globe. On Thursday, in its weekly conference call status report, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) once again admitted that the amount of H1N1 vaccine that would be produced this year would fall far short of initial estimates. LaRouche responded, "It is so obvious they are lying. This swine flu issue is the hottest issue on the planet, and once again, we hear last-minute announcements of unexpected failure to deliver the adequate supply of vaccine. It is only fair to ask: Did they ever really intend to deliver the vaccine?"
Last Edited by FHL(C) on 10/31/2009 at 8:59 AM
[link to freewordofgod.yuku.com] |
| Arcaneshift
User ID: 807118
10/31/2009 9:38 AM
 | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
Apparently there is no end to what Banks and the Federal Reserve can do to the American taxpayer despite our current administration. Every time I hear that some of the investigators of the Federal Reserve are coming from the former ranks of Goldman Sachs I think crooks liars thieves they have given us the Paulsons and Bernankes and Madoffs of the world . What kind of Banking regulatory system do you think the likes of Barney Franks,Tim Geithner,And Bernanke will create (D) Rep.Brad Sherman says it best, Tarp on steroids a disaster for Americans.
Time is a construct of thought alone |
| FHL(C)
User ID: 771649
10/31/2009 9:54 AM | | Re: Watch, Its happening ,the global economic change. | Quote |
Apparently there is no end to what Banks and the Federal Reserve can do to the American taxpayer despite our current administration. Every time I hear that some of the investigators of the Federal Reserve are coming from the former ranks of Goldman Sachs I think crooks liars thieves they have given us the Paulsons and Bernankes and Madoffs of the world . What kind of Banking regulatory system do you think the likes of Barney Franks,Tim Geithner,And Bernanke will create (D) Rep.Brad Sherman says it best, Tarp on steroids a disaster for Americans. Quoting: Arcaneshift
I am looking at the slow motion train wreck of the american people, american nation and the american empire, and i know i am not the only one watching this, many are loudly letting the world know, yet still the process is unfolding before us at a quickening pace, it can only mean(minus the malevolence and quixotic nature of the enemy spirit/s) that God is exceedingly unhappy with the USA and has had enough, and in so many ways too, that warning is no longer possible only consequence for hundreds of years of bad decisions all coming home to roost at once, no more clemency, no more rectification or standback/standdown. It is a sad and edifying spectacle, which will be lost on many of the other nations as they jockey to divvy up the perceived spoils. i wonder who the babylon spirit will try to mantle at the national level next? I think China is smarter and will settle for the phonecian script.
Last Edited by FHL(C) on 10/31/2009 at 9:56 AM
[link to freewordofgod.yuku.com] |
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