MIKE

Posts Tagged ‘Government Corruption’

theeconomiccollapseblog.com

If you want to figure out what is going to happen next in the financial markets, carefully watch what the insiders are doing.  Those that are “connected” have access to far better sources of information than the rest of us have, and if they hear that something big is coming up they will often make very significant moves with their money in anticipation of what is about to happen.  Right now, Wall Street insiders and central banks all around the globe are making some very unusual moves.  In fact, they appear to be rapidly preparing for something really big.  So exactly what are they up to?  In a previous article entitled “Are The Government And The Big Banks Quietly Preparing For An Imminent Financial Collapse?“, I speculated that they may be preparing for a financial meltdown of some sort.  As I noted in that article, more than 600 banking executiveshave resigned from their positions over the past 12 months, and I have been personally told that a substantial number of Wall Street bankers have been shopping for “prepper properties” this summer.  But now even more evidence has emerged that quiet preparations are being made for an imminent financial collapse.  That doesn’t guarantee that something will happen or won’t happen.  Like any good detective, we are gathering clues and trying to figure out what the evidence is telling us.

Why Is George Soros Selling So Much Stock And Buying So Much Gold?

I am certainly not a fan of George Soros.  He has funneled millions upon millions of dollars into organizations that are trying to take America in the exact wrong direction.

However, I do recognize that he is extremely well connected in the financial world.  Soros is almost always ahead of the curve on financial matters, and if something big is going to go down George Soros is probably going to know about it ahead of time.

That is why it is very alarming that he has dumped all of his banking stocks and that he is massively hoarding gold.  The following is from shtfplan.com….

In a harbinger of what may be coming our way in the Fall of 2012, billionaire financier George Soros has sold all of his equity positions in major financial stocks according to a 13-F report filed with the SEC for the quarter ending June 30, 2012.

Soros, who manages funds through various accounts in the US and the Cayman Islands, has reportedly unloaded over one million shares of stock in financial companies and banks that include Citigroup (420,000 shares), JP Morgan (701,400 shares) and Goldman Sachs (120,000 shares). The total value of the stock sales amounts to nearly $50 million.

What’s equally as interesting as his sale of major financials is where Soros has shifted his money. At the same time he was selling bank stocks, he was acquiring some 884,000 shares (approx. $130 million) of Gold via the SPDR Gold Trust.

Why would you dump over a million shares of stock in major banks and purchase more than 100 million dollars worth of gold?

Well, it would make perfect sense if you believed that a collapse of the financial system was about to happen.

Earlier this year, George Soros told the following to Newsweek….

“I am not here to cheer you up. The situation is about as serious and difficult as I’ve experienced in my career,” Soros tells Newsweek. “We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.”

It looks like he is putting his money where his mouth is.

Perhaps even more disturbing is what he believes is coming after the financial collapse….

As anger rises, riots on the streets of American cities are inevitable. “Yes, yes, yes,” he says, almost gleefully. The response to the unrest could be more damaging than the violence itself. “It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.”

That doesn’t sound good.

George Soros has told us what he believes is going to happen, and now he is making moves with his money that indicate that he is convinced that it is actually about to start happening.

But he is not the only one that has been busy accumulating gold.

Billionaire John Paulson (the one that made 20 billion dollars on the subprime mortgage meltdown) has been buying gold like crazy and his company now “has 44 percent of its $24 billion fund exposed to bullion.”

So why are Soros and Paulson buying up so much gold?

Central Banks Are Also Hoarding Gold

According to the World Gold Council, the amount of gold bought by the central banks of the world absolutely soared during the second quarter of 2012.  The 157.5 metric tons of gold bought by the central banks of the world last quarter was an increase of 62.9 percent from the first quarter of 2012 and a 137.9 percent increase from the second quarter of 2011.

Prior to 2009, the central banks of the world had been net sellers of gold for about two decades.  But now that has totally changed, and last quarter central banks stocked up on gold in quantities that we have not seen before….

At 157.5 metric tons, gold buying among central banks came in at its highest quarterly level since the sector became a net buyer of the precious metal in the second quarter of 2009, data in the organization’s quarterly Gold Demand Trends report show.

So why have the central banks of the world become such gold bugs?

Is there something they aren’t telling us?

Rampant Insider Selling

Wall Street insiders have been dumping a whole lot of stock this year.

In my previous article, I linked to a CNN article from back in April….

First quarter earnings have been decent, if not spectacular. And many corporate executives are issuing cautiously optimistic guidance for the rest of the year.

But while insiders’ lips are saying one thing, their wallets are saying another. The level of insider selling among S&P 500 (SPX) companies is the highest in nearly 10 years. That is not good.

A lot of insiders appear to be getting out at the top of the market while the getting is still good.

Other insiders appear to be bailing out before the bottom falls out from beneath them.

Just check out what has been happening to Facebook stock.  It hit another new record low on Thursday as insiders dumped stock.  The following is from a CNN article….

Facebook’s life as a public company has been a nightmare from day one, and the pain continued on Thursday as some company insiders got their first chance to dump shares.

Facebook stock hit a new intra-day low of $19.69 Thursday morning, and ended the day 6.3% lower at $19.87.

Sadly, Facebook has now lost close to half of its value since the IPO.

Will Facebook end up being the poster child for the irrational stock market bubble that we have seen over the past couple of years?

Overall, retail investors have been very busy pulling money out of stocks in recent weeks.

The following are the net inflows to equity funds over the past five weeks (in millions of dollars) according to ICI….

7/11/2012: -537

7/18/2012: 637

7/25/2012: -2,999

8/1/2012: -6,866

8/8/2012: -3,684

According to the figures above, more than 10 billion dollars has been pulled out of equity funds over the past two weeks alone.

So does this mean anything?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But it is very interesting and it bears watching.

Why Does The U.S. Government Need So Much Ammunition?

In my previous article, I also noted that the U.S. government appears to be very rapidly making preparations for something really big.

This week, it was revealed that the Social Security Administration plans to buy 174,000 hollow point bullets which will be delivered to 41 different locations all over America.

Now why in the world does the Social Security Administration need 174,000 bullets?

And why do they need hollow point bullets?  Those bullets are designed to cause as much damage to internal organs as possible.

But of course this is only the latest in a series of very large purchases of ammunition by U.S. government agencies.  The following is from a recent article by Paul Joseph Watson….

Back in March, Homeland Security purchased 450 million rounds of .40-caliber hollow point bullets that are designed to expand upon entry and cause maximum organ damage, prompting questions as to why the DHS needed such a large amount of powerful bullets merely for training purposes.

This was followed by another DHS solicitation asking for a further 750 million rounds of assorted bullets, including 357 mag rounds that are able to penetrate walls.

Now why in the world would the government need over a billion rounds of ammunition?

If it was the U.S. military I could understand this.  You can burn through a whole lot of ammunition fighting wars.

But this makes no sense – unless they believe that big trouble is coming.

Personally, I wouldn’t blame them for getting prepared.  Our economy continues to fall apart and there are signs of social decay everywhere around us.

The American people are more frustrated and more angry than at any other time in modern history.  This upcoming election is only going to cause Americans to become even more angry and even more divided.

All it would take is just the right “spark” to cause this country to erupt.

It could be the upcoming election.

It could be the collapse of the financial system.

Or it might be something else.

But the conditions are definitely there for it to happen.

Unfortunately, the American public is never told to prepare because authorities never want “to panic” the general population.

We are always the last to know, and that stinks.

So don’t wait for someone to come on the television and announce that a crisis is happening.

If you wait that long, it will be too late.

Instead, open up your eyes and think for yourself.

We all need to work hard to get prepared for the coming crisis while we still can.

As you can see, Wall Street insiders, the U.S. government and the central banks of the world are busy getting prepared.

Don’t put your head in the sand.

The warning signs are there and time is running out.

Read the entire article HERE.

by Bix Weir

The Road To Roota Letters

The silver markets are rigged. Every day. Every trade. Every option. Every derivative. The silver markets have been rigged since the early 1970′s when Alan Greenspan introduced computer market trading systems to the world beginning the long term commodity market rigging operation.

http://www.roadtoroota.com/public/101.cfm

Since that time there has not been a day when the silver markets have been “freely traded”. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, knows the true “Fair Market Value” of silver!

But like all price suppression schemes, the silver manipulation must come to an end and we are on the brink of that moment. The only remaining question should be “What is the true value of silver in terms of money?”

First a little background to set the stage.

Computer Commodity Trading

Beginning in the early 1970′s, computers were introduced to control the order flow in financial markets. Order processing was drastically changed with the New York Stock Exchange’s “designated order turnaround” system (DOT, and later SuperDOT) which routed orders electronically to the proper trading post to be executed manually, and the “opening automated reporting system” (OARS) which aided the specialist in determining the market clearing opening price (SOR; Smart Order Routing).

Today we have algorithmic trading, auto trading, algo trading, black-box trading, robo trading…and the list goes on. Algorithmic Trading is widely used by pension funds, mutual funds, and other buy side institutional traders, to divide large trades into several smaller trades in order to manage market impact, and risk. Sell side traders, such as market makers and hedge funds, claim to provide “liquidity to the market”, generating and executing orders automatically. In “high frequency trading” (HFT) computers make the decision to initiate orders based on information that is received electronically, before human traders are even aware of the information.

Over the years computers have played an increasingly important role in everything related to our “free and open market system” such that today’s financial markets CANNOT function without computers. The Federal Reserve, US Treasury, Wall Street insiders and the Exchanges were all instrumental in the integration of computers but they also gained access to secret trading information before the order hit the open market. This information coupled with the fastest computers on earth made market manipulation easy.

This power, the power to control markets, was too much for anyone to resist. Over time those who were given the official key to the back office operations have used and abused their position to its manipulative fullest. Although some of the time they used this power in an official capacity (for the good of the country), more often than not it was used in an unofficial capacity… for the good of themselves.

Bernie Madoff, the ex-head of the NASAQ, was a great example of this public to private transition as his private trading firm was all computer algorithm based market rigging operations. There are many other ex-Exchange/Wall Street officers that went on to open computer trading operations. Many continue to thrive such as EWT, LLC which became a dominant trading/market making firm using “state-of-the-art technology and algorithmic models”. EWT was founded by Vincent Viola (ex NYMEX Chairman) and David Salomon (reported to Robert Ruben at Goldman Sachs) and are also an “Authorized Participant” in the iShares Silver ETF (SLV).

Are you beginning to see the problem? He who has the biggest, fastest and smartest computers (or programmers) can set the price and will ALWAYS WIN! No longer is there any kind of true supply/demand factors related to commodity exchanges or prices. Computer trading should be outlawed…the convenience and efficiency it provides does not offset the detrimental effects and potential for total and complete market manipulation.

CFTC Created to Cover Up the Manipulation

When the computer rigging programs were implemented there needed to be some kind of cover to ensure secrecy and maintain a false confidence in free markets. In 1974 Congress passed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Act that overhauled the Commodity Exchange Act and created the CFTC as an independent agency with powers greater than those of its predecessor agency, the Commodity Exchange Authority.

From that moment the CFTC has been run by board appointees that showcased a revolving door of Wall Street insiders ensuring that the computer market rigging operations were not interfered with. The only notable exception is Brooksley Born who was fired by President Clinton when she found out the truth about our supposed “free markets” and tried to warn everyone. (see The Warning)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/

Listen to Brooksley Born explain the problems in her own words when she accepted her JFK Profiles in Courage Award in August 2009.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dVcic7czQ8&feature=channel

A while back I gave up my fight against the CFTC as I determined that they were NOT protecting the best interest of the investor but rather they were protecting the computer market rigging operations and the people involved. Here is one of my last articles on the subject:

Road to Roota III — Who’s the little man behind the curtain?

http://www.roadtoroota.com/public/133.cfm

Now that you have some background let’s get back to $8,000 Silver!

Historically, when any price rigging operation stops the violence of the ensuing price changes are determined by the length and scale of the manipulation as well as the underlying fundamentals of the item being rigged. Take for example the famous 1980′s case of the Hunt brothers trying to corner the silver market. From early 1974 the Hunt brothers started accumulating silver which ultimately drove the price from $6/oz to $50/oz until January 21, 1980 when the CFTC finally pulled the plug on their operation. Within 2 months the price of silver plummeted from $50/oz to $10/oz and the silver price was back under control of the US Government and Banking Cabal. An excellent account of what transpired can be found here:

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_04/laborde012704.html

This account shows what can happen to the price of a manipulated commodity when the price manipulation is ended. In the case of the Hunt Brothers the manipulation lasted 6 years and involved approximately 130M oz of physical silver and 90M oz of COMEX silver contracts. This was an attempt at a Long Silver price manipulation but it was going on while the Short Silver Official manipulation was going on trying to keep the price down. The only way the Hunt’s accumulated so much silver without the price heading into the many thousands of dollars was the official computer price suppression operation.

The manipulation was ended when the CFTC stopped all COMEX Silver purchases and allowed only silver liquidation sales instantly driving the price down. In 1980 the US Government held 3B oz of silver and in order to maintain the lower silver price levels they sold the entire stock of silver into the market over the next 25 years. That excess supply combined with other governments divesting their silver was enough to continue the price suppression scheme for almost 40 years. That supply is now gone.

One Bank has the Hot Potato

So here we are 40 years after the official manipulation of silver began and the world is finally awakening to the situation. The CFTC, having investigated silver manipulation allegations twice previously, has had an open investigation into silver market manipulation for over 3 years. They have even stated that the investigation was moved to the “Enforcement Division” within the CFTC which pretty much tells you what the conclusion of the investigation revealed. The FBI has separately stated that they are investigating JP Morgan for silver market manipulation.

These two facts and the absolute SILENCE from JP Morgan were strong indicators that the long term manipulation of silver was about to end but on April 5, 2012 JP Morgan broke their silence about silver manipulation. The “Wicked Witch” of silver, Blythe Masters, (the head of JPM Commodities and the creator of the mammoth Credit Default Swaps complex) came on a scripted CNBC interview and denied that JP Morgan manipulates the silver price.

JPMorgan Not Speculating on Commodities: Blythe Masters

Of course she is lying through her teeth when she claims that JP Morgan only has neutral positions. The obvious “tell” is that JPM booked almost $3 BILLION in revenue from their commodities division in 2011! Either they have the highest commission structure in human history or she is LYING THROUGH HER TEETH! As a matter of fact, Blythe’s boss Jamie Dimon recently claimed that they need to get rid of the Volcker Rule so they can continue to offer their customers THE LOWEST prices possible…

Dimon on Price Wars, Volcker Rule, Stock Prices

Here’s the specific quote just over 2:00 into the piece: “When the client calls up JP Morgan, if we don’t give them the best price then we don’t get the business.”

So tell me Blythe…how did you make $3B off your commodity clients by offering them “the best price” and NOT trading for your own book?!

Looks like Blythe has cracked the age old secret for turning lead into gold…PILE ON THE PAPER DERIVATIVES!

*The REASON that Blythe gave this article is that they are about to be BUSTED for silver market manipulation and she is trying to start the defense early…nice try Blythe but you are about to be MELTED!

Ted Butler of Butler Research has been exposing the official manipulation of Silver for the past 25 years. His research was instrumental in exposing the gold/silver leasing operations and the massive concentrated short positions in both gold and silver. On September 3, 2008 Butler published a report entitled Fact Versus Speculation where he showed how one bank, JP Morgan Chase, took over the Bear Stearns Silver COMEX Short position of 30,000 contracts or 150M oz.

http://www.investmentrarities.com/ted_butler_comentary09-02-08.shtml

Since this report was published JP Morgan has continued its silver market rigging antics in an effort to get out of this precarious short position. After Butler exposed JPM as the culprit there have been wild orchestrated swings in the price of silver as JPM attempts to cover their massive COMEX short position. The price of silver has risen from $13 to currently over $30 in this time frame and the size of the short position held by JP Morgan has gyrated wildly between 30k and 40k contracts as they desperately try to shake the longs to cover their shorts. But even with this rise in price the short position is STILL around 20k contracts according to the CFTC’s latest Bank Participation Report.

http://www.cftc.gov/dea/bank/deaApr12f.htm

Add to this various silver market manipulation tools such as naked shorting silver ETF’s, falsifying COMEX warehouse data, unallocated silver, leasing and swapping metal and you have a situation that dwarfs the Hunt brothers case.

Of course, JP Morgan is no ordinary bank because they are also the LARGEST derivative holder in the WORLD at over $75 TRILLION! Do remember Warren Buffett calling derivatives “Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction”? Well, JP Morgan holds the mother load when it comes to silver too with over $19 BILLION of Silver derivative contracts!

http://www.occ.treas.gov/topics/capital-markets/financial-markets/trading/derivatives/dq311.pdf

(OCC Report table 9: Classified as “PREC METALS”… might be a little platinum but not much).

This report was for the quarter ending September 2011 when the price of silver was slammed down to $30 from $42/oz at the beginning of Sept. Interesting: Had silver NOT been slammed down almost 30% in Sept 2011 then JPM would have had to declare silver derivative of close to $25B instead of just $19B. Talk about “painting the tape”!

At $30/oz silver the JPM $19B silver derivative position is representative of over 630M ounces of paper silver.

COME ON PEOPLE! I’m starting to think my $8,000/oz silver call is too conservative!

What’s going to happen when JP Morgan’s derivative monument comes crashing down?

Here’s where I get to $8,000 per oz for silver.

1) I know silver has not been freely traded in 40 years so today’s price if irrelevant.

2) I, like many, estimate there is only about 1B ounces in above ground physical silver for investment purposes.

3) I, like many, estimate there is only 5B ounces of above ground physical gold for investment purposes.

4) If the price of gold is not manipulated, like the banks claim, then the price of silver should be 5x the price of gold due to its supply/demand fundamentals.

CONCLUSION: The price of gold is around $1,600/oz so the true Fair Market Value of Silver should be around 5x the price of gold or $8,000/oz in a FREE market!

It’s simple, if you remove ONE BANK from the supply side of the equation the price of silver will SKYROCKET overnight.

ONE BANK controls the price of silver.

ONE BANK controls the fate of our monetary system.

ONE BANK is behind the curtain pulling the silver manipulation levers.

ONE BANK has control over a nation that was founded by “We the People”.

ONE BANK MUST GO AWAY TO SAVE OUR LIBERTY!

May the Road you choose be the Right Road.

Read the entire article HERE.

by Tyler Durden
January 1, 2012
ZeroHedge

When it comes to the fabled President’s Working Group on Capital Markets, also known as the Plunge Protection Team, the myths about the subject are certainly far greater than any underlying reality. To be sure, vast amounts of popular folkflore has been expounded into the public arena, with most of it being shot down simply due to it assuming conspiracy theories of such vast scale that the human mind is unable to grasp the complexity, and ultimately the inverse Gordian Knot makes an appearance with the claim that vast conspiracies are largely untenable simply because it is impossible to keep a secret from so many people for so long. Yet what if the secret is not a secret at all but is fully out in the open, and is only a matter of interpretation, and contextualizing? Why just 3 years ago it would appear preposterous to allege the capital markets are a ponzi and that the Fed does everything in its power to keep stocks higher. Well, what a difference three years make: now the Chairman himself in a Washington Post OpEd has admitted that the sole gauge of Fed success is the loftiness of the Russell 2000, neither unemployment nor inflation really matter now that the Fed’s third mandate has been fully whipped out. Furthermore, Keynesian economics, and the entire top echelon of the educational system have also been represented as a paradigm which merely perpetuates the status quo as the alternative is the realization that the whole system is a house of cards. As for the global capital markets being nothing short of a ponzi, we merely point you to the general direction of Europe, the ECB and its bank, where the monetary interplay is nothing short of the world’s biggest pyramid scheme. Yet the PPT, or whatever it is informally called, does not exist? Consider further that only recently did it become known that the former SecTres Hank Paulson himself was exposed as presenting material non-public information to a bevy of Goldman arb desk diaspora hedge funds, headed by with none other than the head of the President’s Working Group on Capital Markets Asset Managers committee David Mindich. So, if contrary to all the evidence that there is some vast underlying pattern, if not a conspiracy per se, one were to take the leap of faith and take the next step, where would one end up? Well, most likely looking at the Exchange Stabilization Fund, or ESF, which Eric deCarbonnel has spent so much time trying to unmask. Is it possible that the ESF, located conveniently at the nexus between US monetary policy, foreign policy and last but not least, a promoter of the interests of the US military-industrial complex, is precisely the organization that so many have been trying to expose for years? Watch and decide for yourself.

As a reminder deCarbonnel is not some tinfoil hat clad sub-basement dweller – it was his input that led us to the realization that in attempting to control the Treasury curve, the Fed will, and already has, experiment with selling puts on various Treasury maturities in an attempt to generate reflexivity whereby the synthetic determines the value of the underlying (something ETFs are now doing oh so well), the value naturally always being higher, higher, higher irrelevant of what underlying demand there is (and as we showed last week, with a record amount of international outflows in the past month, the demand, at least from abroad, is just not there). So what does Eric assert?

Quite a bit as it turns out.

After months of work, the video series on the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund is finally finished!

Why you should watch these five videos:

It is impossible to understand the world today without knowing what the ESF is and what it has been doing. Officially in charge of defending the dollar, the ESF is the government agency which controls the New York Fed, runs the CIA’s black budget, and is the architect of the world’s monetary system (IMF, World Bank, etc). ESF financing (through the OSS and then the CIA) built up the worldwide propaganda network which has so badly distorted history today (including erasing awareness of its existence from popular consciousness). It has been directly involved in virtually every major US fraud/scandal since its creation in 1934: the London gold pool, the Kennedy assassinations, Iran-Contra, CIA drug trafficking, HIV, and worse…

So while nursing that New Year’s Day hangover, take some time and watch this series of videos. If nothing else, they even if merely the extended ramblings of some person that one can quickly dismiss as merely the latest lunatic, they do present an alterantive reality to what so many may be accustomed to. After all at the end of the day imagination, the ability to think outside the box, and to see patterns where previously there were none, is the greatest threat to the ending status quo by far.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Read the entire article HERE.

by Mark H. Melin
December 21, 2011
ZeroHedge

Commodity Customer Coalition founder James Koutoulas is requesting that MF Global bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn investigate three potential legal issues that are said to have occurred in transferring of MF Global assets.  The key issues include the fact that JP Morgan was able to purchase MF Global bonds at a discount without any open bidding process and the assets were apparently sold without disclosure to or approval from the U.S. bankruptcy court or trustees.  The third issue centers on JP Morgan seeking special favors from the Federal Reserve to receive priority treatment over investor segregated fund accounts.

The first such non-transparent movement of assets occurred when JP Morgan is said to have purchased MF Global’s Sovereign Debt at a significant discount without an open bidding process, paying $0.89 and later selling that debt to investor George Soros for $0.95.  No one is going to complain about JP Morgan generating profit.  However, purchasing assets of a bankrupt firm without an open bidding process or disclosure to the bankruptcy court and trustees is where JP Morgan may be in trouble, according to Mr. Koutoulas.  This sale could be subject to clawback provisions, legal experts speculate.  (On December 9, 2011 The Wall Street Journal reported the fact that bonds were moved to KPMG London office, which was the bankruptcy administrator, but at the time the article did not discuss sale details or approval through the bankruptcy process.  See “Corzine’s Loss May Be Soros’s Gain” by Gregory Zuckerman and Dana Cimilluca.)

The key issue is that such transfers is the bonds were purchased at a discount without open bidding and the process was not disclosed to or authorized by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, according to Mr. Koutoulas.  “Who gave JP Morgan permission to purchase those bonds at a discount without open bidding?”

The second questionable movement of assets is said to have occurred when JP Morgan purchased MF Global’s stake in the London Metals Exchange (LME) without proper disclosure.  The event was widely reported at a basic level on November 28, 2011.  The larger issue, however, appears to center on the fact that such a transaction was not approved by the U.S. bankruptcy court and trustee.

“Was this disclosed in court?” Mr. Koutoulas rhetorically asked.  “No.  Was their trustee approval?  No.”

The third issue occurred in congressional testimony Thursday, December 15, 2011 where it was discovered JP Morgan asked the Federal Reserve to write a letter claiming that the segregated funds should not be categorized as client money.

“How many letters like this have they asked for in the past?  I want all the statistics regarding the number and content of letters,” Koutoulas questioned.  “JP Morgan wanted a ‘get out of jail free card’ from the Fed.  Guess what?  That doesn’t fly with me.”

“Their hubris is so severe.  They think we don’t know the industry, like we are Occupy Wall Street radicals or something and don’t have a clue or message,” Mr. Koutoulas said, noting that the CCC is comprised of experienced industry participants who understand the financial services industry from the inside.

Mr. Koutoulas seeks to solve the problem with JP Morgan without dragging the issue through court.  In speaking to JP Morgan, Mr. Koutoulas said “Listen, you are buying vulture MF Global claims at $0.86 ½ on the dollar.   Why don’t you pay a fair price of $0.97 ½ take the customers out of the bankruptcy and we will indemnify you from any class actions resulting from this.”  A vulture claim occurs when an MF Global claimant such as a farmer or small business person is in desperate need of cash and sells their claim to someone such as JP Morgan, who purchases the claim at a lower rate than the value at maturity.  In this example if JP Morgan purchased the claim at $0.87 and all clients were eventually “made good” JP Morgan would receive the par value of $1.00.  With the MF Global bankruptcy proceedings apparently moving along much quicker than expected, JP Morgan stands to potentially make a quick 13% return on such vulture claims.

Mr. Koutoulas reports that JP Morgan would not even discuss the issues.  “I can see that you disagree with me,” said Mr. Koutoulas, whose organization represents over 7,000 MF Global clients, mostly professional investors.  “They won’t even meet with me and talk with me.”

Mr. Koutoulas is currently working Pro Bono and many of the lawyers are working at a highly discounted rates and requested that industry participants donate to help .  “I need professional litigators and bankruptcy attorneys backing me up,” said Northwestern Law School grad Koutoulas who also operates Typhon Capital Management, which is an NFA-registered Commodity Trading Advisor and Commodity Pool Operator.  “We’ve had an outpouring of lawyers who want to help,” Mr. Koutoulas said, sitting with a young Yale Law School grad as we spoke.

In calling on MF Global presiding bankruptcy Judge Glenn to investigate these issues, Mr. Koutoulas is rallying the futures industry to boycott use of JP Morgan.  “Call your FCM and if they are using JP Morgan say ‘We won’t do business with you if you work with JP Morgan,’” he said, requesting that industry participants get on Twitter and follow the #BoycottJPM hash tag.

Another example of why you should choose physical gold and silver rather than the paper counterpart. These derivatives are simply way too over leveraged and when the music stops someone is going to be left without a chair and the one sitting will most likely be JPMorgan or Goldman Sachs. And don’t expect the government to do anything about it. Lawrence Lepard describes the heist below:

By Lawrence Lepard
November 18, 2011
ZeroHedge

Imagine you are Ben Bernanke, or on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. The time frame is July and August of 2011 and the price of gold is on a tear. Commodities inflation has been persistent and is breaking out everywhere. Your prediction that inflation “is contained” and is a “temporary phenomena” are beginning to look absurd. What do you do?

Simple. Hint that QE3, the primary drive of inflation, is coming and then fail to deliver at the September FOMC meeting. That takes care of the price of gold and the gold stocks. Ah, but those pesky commodities speculators keep making money and trading against what you want the markets to do. So what is to be done there? Hey Jon Corzine, how about you tank the largest broker for the small commodities punters in the world, and we let them twist in the wind? That will serve them right. Teach them to bet against the government approved scenario.

Think it did not happen? Well think again. All of the pieces fit. It sure is convenient that all those commodities speculators are now out of the box. Also, who will want to speculate on commodities in the future given customer funds are no longer protected. Furthermore, commodities speculators are not a very “All American” group. From the authorities point of view they can say: screw them, who will feel sympathy? Hell, James Bullard, Fed Governor, in an interview on CNBC yesterday said the MF Global collapse proves that the system works. Yes it does Jim, for you. Personally, I have $90,000 at MF Global and I would like to have my honestly earned money returned. Unfortunately, the odds of that happening any time soon seem slim. In part because when MF Global entered bankruptcy the judge appointed a Trustee whose law firm has done substantial work for JP Morgan, a deeply interested party. We will probably never find out what happened here. But for those of us whose eyes are open the results speak for themselves.

This whole mess stinks to high heaven. I am with Gerald Celente, if the largest commodity broker in America can go bankrupt and nothing is done, then where can you put your money and expect it to be safe? I, for one, do not accept that Jon Corzine is stupid enough to lever up MF Global 40:1 and use the proceeds and customer money to bet on European sovereign debt. This was a hit, pure and simple. That is why there is no resolution to the problem, and it is just another example of the deeply corrupt US political/financial axis. It may take money away from a bunch of commodities speculators, and it may cool down the perceived inflation, but it is just another hole in the dike which is The US Financial System. A dike whose life can probably now be measured in months, not years.

Read the entire article HERE.

by Matt Taibbi
November 10, 10:07 AM ET
Rolling Stone

Federal judge Jed Rakoff, a former prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s office here in New York, is fast becoming a sort of legal hero of our time. He showed that again yesterday when he shat all over the SEC’s latest dirty settlement with serial fraud offender Citigroup, refusing to let the captured regulatory agency sweep yet another case of high-level criminal malfeasance under the rug.

The SEC had brought an action against Citigroup for misleading investors about the way a certain package of mortgage-backed assets had been chosen. The case is very similar to the notorious Abacus case involving Goldman Sachs, in which Goldman allowed short-selling billionaire John Paulson (who was betting against the package) to pick the assets, then told a pair of European banks that the “designed to fail” package they were buying had been put together independently.

This case was similar, but worse. Here, Citi similarly told investors a package of mortgages had been chosen independently, when in fact Citi itself had chosen the stuff and was betting against the whole pile.

This whole transaction actually combined a number of Goldman-style misdeeds, since the bank both lied to investors and also bet against its own product and its own customers. In the deal, Citi made a $160 million profit, while its customers lost $700 million.

Goldman, in the Abacus case, got fined $550 million. In this worse case, the SEC was trying to settle with Citi for just $285 million. Judge Rakoff balked at the settlement and particularly balked at the SEC’s decision to allow Citi off without any admission of wrongdoing. He also mocked the SEC’s decision to describe the crime as “negligence” instead of intentional fraud, taking the entirely rational position that there’s no way a bank making $160 million ripping off its customers can conceivably be described as an accident.

“Why should the court impose a judgment in a case in which the SEC alleges a serious securities fraud but the defendant neither admits nor denies wrongdoing?” And this: “How can a securities fraud of this nature and magnitude be the result simply of negligence?”

Rakoff of course is right – the settlement is nuts. If you take Citi’s $160 million profit on the deal into consideration, what we’re talking about then is a $125 million fine for causing $700 million in damages. That, and no admission of wrongdoing.

Just imagine a mugger who steals $70 from some lady’s wallet being sentenced to walk free after paying back twelve bucks. Magritte himself could not devise a more surreal take on criminal justice.

It gets worse. Over the last decade, Citi has repeatedly been caught committing a variety of offenses, and time after time the bank has been dragged into court and slapped with injunctions demanding that they refrain from ever engaging the same practices ever again. Over and over again, they’ve completely blown off the injunctions, with no consequences from the state – which does nothing except issue new (soon-to-be-ignored-again) injunctions.

In this current case, this particular unit at Citi had already been slapped with two different SEC cease-and-desist orders barring it from violating certain securities laws. Here’s a summary from Bloomberg:

The commission already had two cease-and-desist orders in place against the same Citigroup unit, barring future violations of the same section of the securities laws that the company now stands accused of breaking again. One of those orders came in a 2005 settlement, the other in a 2006 case. The SEC’s complaint last month didn’t mention either order, as if the entire agency suffered from amnesia.

The SEC’s latest allegations also could have triggered a violation of a court injunction that Citigroup agreed to in 2003, as part of a $400 million settlement over allegedly fraudulent analyst-research reports. Injunctions are more serious than SEC orders, because violations can lead to contempt-of-court charges.

But the SEC avoided the issue of the 2003 injunction by charging Citi with a different type of fraud. But, as Bloomberg points out, it probably wouldn’t have mattered much if they had accused Citi of violating the 2003 injunction, since the bank had already done that once and not been punished for it:

In December 2008, the SEC for the second time accused Citigroup of breaking the same section of the law covered by the 2003 injunction, over its sales of so-called auction-rate securities. Instead of trying to enforce the existing court order, the SEC got yet another one barring the same kinds of fraud violations in the future.

So to recap: a unit of Citigroup, having repeatedly violated the same laws and having repeatedly violated the SEC’s own cease-and-desist orders and injunctions, is dragged into court one more time for committing a massive fraud.

And what does the SEC do? It doesn’t even bring up Citi’s history of ignoring the SEC’s own order, slaps the bank with a fractional fine, refuses to target any individuals, allows the bank to walk away without an admission of wrongdoing, and puts a cherry on the top by describing the $160 million heist not as a crime, but as unintentional negligence.

BRING OUT THE SOFT CUSHIONS! The SEC gets rough with Citigroup.

Imagine a car thief who, when caught driving a stolen Lexus, tells the police he simply stepped into the wrong car and drove off by mistake. Now imagine he tells the same story when, two years later, he’s caught screaming over the GW bridge in a stolen Mercedes.

Then, two years after that, he’s caught on the Cross-Bronx Expressway blasting the stereo in a boosted 7-series BMW. Cops ask him for an explanation. “I must have gotten in the wrong car by mistake,” he says, shrugging. And the cops buy the story and send him home without a charge.

That’s roughly what we’re dealing with with this SEC action. To extend the metaphor just a little further – let’s say that BMW wasn’t even the only car he accidentally drove away that day, but the cops didn’t bother with the others. In the latest Citi case, the $700 million fraud was just one of many dicey CDOs marketed by that unit of Citi. But the SEC chose to address just that one case in its settlement.

Rakoff quite correctly took issue with all of this. From Jonathan Weil’s Bloomberg piece:

“What does the SEC do to maintain compliance?” Additionally, [Rakoff] asked: “How many contempt proceedings against large financial entities has the SEC brought in the past decade as a result of violations of prior consent judgments?” We’ll see if the SEC finds any.

Rakoff gained some notoriety a few years ago when he rejected as inadequate an SEC settlement with Bank of America, which was accused of misleading shareholders about the size of the bonuses paid out by Merrill Lynch, the investment bank BofA was in the process of acquiring. Rakoff dismissed the original $33 million fine as “half-baked justice,” although he eventually approved a $150 million fine.

The amazing thing about the wave of corruption that has overtaken the financial services industry is that most of it couldn’t happen without virtually every player at every level signing off on these deals. From the ratings agencies to the law firms to the accounting firms to the regulators to the bank executives themselves, everybody had to be on board in order for a lot of these fraud schemes to work.

Judges are a part of that picture, and too often, members of the bench sign off on dirty deals made between banks and regulators when the law says that such settlements must be “fair, reasonable, adequate and in the public interest.”

It’s great that Rakoff is behaving as any decent human being would and rejecting these disgusting settlements. But equally disturbing is the fact that more judges haven’t done the same thing. Are people with backbones really that rare?

by PAUL W KINCAID
November 12th, 2011
PressCore World News

An audit of the Federal Reserve has revealed that the privately owned Federal Reserve secretly doled out more than $16 trillion in zero interest loans to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world.  The non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress also determined that the Federal Reserve acted illegally.  In fact, according to the report, the Federal Reserve knew their financial transactions were illegal and provided conflict of interest waivers to its employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the same financial institutions and corporations that were given emergency loans.  The report is evidence that reveals major securities fraud in the embezzlement of $16 trillion by the Federal Reserve.  Securities fraud and embezzlement are both felony criminal offenses.

Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted.  Embezzlement is performed in a manner that is premeditated, systematic and/or methodical, with the explicit intent to conceal the activities from other individuals, usually because it is being done without their knowledge or consent. U.S. Code TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 31 – EMBEZZLEMENT AND THEFT § 644. Banker receiving unauthorized deposit of public money

Whoever, not being an authorized depositary of public moneys, knowingly receives from any disbursing officer, or collector of internal revenue, or other agent of the United States, any public money on deposit, or by way of loan or accommodation, with or without interest, or otherwise than in payment of a debt against the United States, or uses, transfers, converts, appropriates, or applies any portion of the public money for any purpose not prescribed by law is guilty of embezzlement and shall be fined under this title or not more than the amount so embezzled, whichever is greater, or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; but if the amount embezzled does not exceed $1,000, he shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

$16 trillion is 10 times more than what the U.S. Congress authorized and Bush ($700 billion) and Obama ( $787 billion) signed off on.  The Federal Reserve was only authorized by Congress to disburse $1.487 trillion in federal tax dollars in bailouts.  The Federal Reserve embezzled another $14.5 trillion.

The Congressional report determined that the Fed secretly hide most of the embezzled money into their own banks.  The rest the Fed unilaterally transfered trillions of dollars to foreign banks and corporations from South Korea to Scotland.  Foreign banks and corporations which the Federal Reserve bankers had a personal financial interest or stake in.

The report reveals that the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the New York Fed’s board of directors at the same time that his bank received more than $390 billion in federal money from the Fed – conflict of interest.  Moreover, JP Morgan Chase served as one of the clearing banks (money laundering banks) for the Fed’s emergency loans programs (aka – embezzlement schemes).

In another disturbing finding, the Government Accountability Office said that on Sept. 19, 2008, William Dudley, who is now the New York Fed president, was granted a waiver to let him keep investments in AIG and General Electric at the same time AIG and GE were given federal funds.  One reason the Fed did not make Dudley sell his holdings, according to the audit, was that it would have exposed the Fed’s conflict of interest and major securities fraud in the embezzlement of $16 trillion.

The investigation also revealed that the Fed outsourced most of its embezzling to private contractors, many of which were rewarded with extremely low-interest and then-secret loans.

The Fed outsourced virtually all of the operations of their $16 trillion embezzlement scheme to private contractors like JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.  For their part the same firms also received trillions of dollars in Fed loans at near-zero interest rates. Morgan Stanley helped the Federal Reserve banker launder embezzled $trillions into AIG.

A more detailed Government Accountability Office investigation into corruption charges, securities fraud, embezzlement, money-laundering and conflicts of interest at the Fed was due on Oct. 18.  The Sanders Report on the GAO Audit on Major Conflicts of Interest at the Federal Reserve

Did you know that the $14.5 trillion the Federal Reserve embezzled (US Congress only authorized $1.487 trillion) could pay the entire U.S. national debt – $14.346 trillion.  To avert default the U.S. government need only to seize the assets of the Federal Reserve banks (the big six U.S. banks collectively hold about $9.399 trillion in assets) and get back the $trillions that the Federal Reserve illegally embezzled and money laundered to their foreign banks and corporations.

The U.S. government can recover $trillions from the Federal Reserve and their banks through asset forfeiture.  Asset forfeiture is confiscation, by the State, of assets which are either (a) the alleged proceeds of crime or (b) the alleged instrumentalities of crime, and more recently, alleged terrorism.  Proceeds of crime means any economic advantage derived from or obtained directly or indirectly from a criminal offense or criminal offenses.  Crimes committed by the Federal Reserve banks against the United States and its people include; conflict of interest, securities fraud, embezzlement, fraud, money laundering, hoarding, profiteering, larceny, racketeering . . .

In 1982, a criminal forfeiture provision was enacted as part of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. § 1961, which provided for the forfeiture of all property over which the RICO organization exercised an influence.

The Money Laundering Control Act of 1986 added new felony provisions at 18 U.S.C. § 1956 for the laundering of the proceeds of certain defined “specified unlawful activity,” as well as prohibiting structuring transactions under 31 U.S.C. § 5324 (with the intent to evade certain reporting requirements). The law also added civil and criminal forfeiture provisions at 18 U.S.C. §§ 981 and 982 for confiscating the property involved in money laundering.

According to the Legislative Guide to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols Thereto, “Criminalizing the conduct from which substantial illicit profits are made does not adequately punish or deter organized criminal groups. Even if arrested and convicted, some of these offenders will be able to enjoy their illegal gains for their personal use and for maintaining the operations of their criminal enterprises. Despite some sanctions, the perception would still remain that crime pays. . . . Practical measures to keep offenders from profiting from their crimes are necessary. One of the most important ways to do this is to ensure that States have strong confiscation regimes”

Top 10 Banks in the United States

According to United States Code, TITLE 12 CHAPTER 3 SUBCHAPTER IX § 341. Second. states that the U.S. Federal Reserve Banks can be dissolved today by “forfeiture of franchise for violation of law.” Securities fraud and embezzlement by the Federal Reserve Bank is cause for immediate forfeiture and imprisonment of the Federal Reserve and its bankers.

List of banks involved in the $16 trillion + securities fraud and embezzlement

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York provides an up to date list of “Primary Dealers” obligated to implement the Federal Reserve fraud and embezzlement scheme. http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/pridealers_current.html

“Primary dealers serve as trading counterparties of the New York Fed in its implementation of (Fed) monetary policy. This role includes the obligations to: (i) participate consistently in open market operations to carry out U.S. monetary policy pursuant to the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC); and (ii) provide the New York Fed‘s trading desk with market information and analysis (non-public stock market information – aka insider trading) helpful in the formulation and implementation of monetary policy (so that the Fed can profit from this insider information). Primary dealers are also required to participate in all auctions of U.S. government debt (acquiring wealth generated from the transactions of the illicit funds – aka money laundering for the Fed) and to make reasonable markets for the New York Fed when it transacts on behalf of its foreign official account-holders. (the New York Fed is stating who they are working for – on behalf of its foreign official account- holders)”

List of Primary Dealers (Fed’s money laundering banks.  Listed in alphabetical order only.)

Bank of Nova Scotia, New York Agency (the third largest bank in Canada. Opened New York Agency in 1907)
BMO Capital Markets Corp. (the fourth largest Canadian bank)
BNP Paribas Securities Corp. (Paris, France)
Barclays Capital Inc. (London, United Kingdom)
Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. (United States)
Citigroup Global Markets Inc. (CIA drug money laundering bank, United States)
Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Zurich, Switzerland)
Daiwa Capital Markets America Inc. (Tokyo, Japan)
Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. (Frankfurt, Germany.)
Goldman, Sachs & Co. (United States)
HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. (founded in Hong Kong, headquarters London, United Kingdom)
Jefferies & Company, Inc. (United States)
J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (United States)
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated (United States)
Mizuho Securities USA Inc. (Tokyo, Japan)
Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC (United States)
Nomura Securities International, Inc. (Tokyo, Japan)
RBC Capital Markets, LLC (a Canadian investment bank, part of Royal Bank of Canada)
RBS Securities Inc. (Royal Bank of Scotland Group)
SG Americas Securities, LLC (United States)
UBS Securities LLC. (Zürich & Basel, Switzerland.  Rothschild controlled.  The Rothschild family hold the popes purse strings from this bank – the keys of the Vatican is a predominate part of their logo.)

All of the above named banks (includes both U.S. and foreign banks) money launder the over $16 trillion (U.S) that the Federal Reserve embezzled.  These banks money launder the Fed embezzled U.S. Tax Dollars in three steps:

1) the illicit funds are introduced into the financial system by “placement”,

2) the “Primary Dealers” carrying out complex financial transactions in order to camouflage the illicit funds (“layering”), and

3) they acquire wealth generated from the transactions (loans, mortgages, stock market trading) of the illicit funds (“integration”).

All listed banks are controlled by the European Central Bank (Rothschild family) which controls it all for the Vatican, which is headed by the Nazi German Pope.  All are working to enslave the World under a New World Order, aka Fourth Reich, aka Fourth unHoly Roman Empire.

Read the entire article HERE.

by Tyler Durden
11/05/2011 22:49 -0500
ZeroHedge

Going back to the annals of brokeback Europe, we learn that gold after all is money, after the G-20 demanded that EFSF (of €1 trillion “stability fund” yet can’t raise €3 billion fame) be backstopped by none other than German gold. Per Reuters, “The Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) reported that Bundesbank reserves — including foreign currency and gold — would be used to increase Germany’s contribution to the crisis fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) by more than 15 billion euros ($20 billion).” And who would be the recipient of said transfer? Why none other than the most insolvent of global hedge funds, the European Central Bank.

Also, in addition to gold, the ECB had set its eyes on that other “fake” currency that DSK had succeded in protecting throughout his tenure, all his other undoings aside, “The Welt am Sonntag newspaper, citing similar plans, said 15 billion euros would come from special drawing rights (SDR) that the Bundesbank holds.” Naturally, these discoveries prompted a prompt and furious rebuttal from the very top of German authorities: “Germany’s gold and foreign exchange reserves, which the Bundesbank administers, were not at any point up for discussion at the G20 summit in Cannes,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert said. The WSJ adds, “A plan to have the International Monetary Fund issue its special currency as a powerful weapon in Europe’s efforts to contain the widening euro-zone debt crisis was blocked by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to a report in a German newspaper.”

There are three observations to be made here: i) when it comes to rescuing insolvent countries, Germany is delighted to sacrifice euros at the altar of the 50-some year old PIIGS retirement age; ask for its gold however, and things get ugly; ii) the Eurozone, the ECB and the EFSF are dead broke, insolvent and/or have zero credibility in the capital markets, and they know it and iii) due to the joint and several nature of the ECB’s capital calls, while Germany may have had enough leverage to tell G-20 to shove it, the next countries in line, especially those which are already insolvent and will rely on the EFSF for their existence once the ECB’s SMP program is finished, may not be that lucky, and in exchange for remaining in the eurozone, the forfeit could well be their gold.

WSJ brings details on how German SDRs would be used as a temporary (temporary as in European financial short selling ban, and temporary reduction of initial margin to maintenance for everyone to appease MF Global clients) backstop for Europe:

The idea of using SDRs to fight financial contagion isn’t new. When the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 unleashed a financial crisis, the G-20 in 2009 approved a $250 billion SDR allocation to help backstop efforts to fight the spread of the crisis.

 

The European Central Bank has been buying euro-zone bonds in an effort to keep borrowing costs of weakened members from exploding. But the ECB’s efforts are considered by some experts to be outside of its central mandate to maintain price stability. And the ECB has said that its special measures – buying euro-zone debt — should be temporary and limited in scope. That is another reason why some people are advocating the IMF play a greater role in propping up weakened euro-zone members and become the lender of last resort.

 

Speaking to reporters at the close of the Cannes summit, Merkel indicated that G-20 leaders agreed in principle that the IMF and EFSF could work together, but the summit could not agree on any specifics.

 

“We have an interesting process ahead of us and the discussion is not yet concluded,” she said.

Reuters brings more on the the logical German reaction to the EFSF and ECB’s extortion attempts:

“We know this plan and we reject it,” a Bundesbank spokesman said.

 

Seibert said several partners had raised the question in Cannes whether SDRs could be used to strengthen the EFSF but Germany had rejected this plan and discussions at Monday’s Eurogroup on Monday would not discuss this topic.

 

The newspapers had said the issue was taken off the agenda at the G20 following Bundesbank opposition but that it would be debated on Monday at a Eurogroup meeting of euro zone finance ministers.

Why will it be debated? Because when at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Germany may be crossed off the list, but here is who is next in order of appearance. Sooner or later, Europe will stumble on that one “leader” whose gold is less valuable than their political stability, because after all, a “united”, “EMUed” Europe has the biggest MAD trump card of all.

Read the entire article HERE.

by Bernie Sanders
U.S. Senator of Vermont
October 19, 2011

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 – A new audit of the Federal Reserve released today detailed widespread conflicts of interest involving directors of its regional banks.

“The most powerful entity in the United States is riddled with conflicts of interest,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said after reviewing the Government Accountability Office report. The study required by a Sanders Amendment to last year’s Wall Street reform law examined Fed practices never before subjected to such independent, expert scrutiny.

The GAO detailed instance after instance of top executives of corporations and financial institutions using their influence as Federal Reserve directors to financially benefit their firms, and, in at least one instance, themselves.  “Clearly it is unacceptable for so few people to wield so much unchecked power,” Sanders said. “Not only do they run the banks, they run the institutions that regulate the banks.”

Sanders said he will work with leading economists to develop legislation to restructure the Fed and bar the banking industry from picking Fed directors. ”This is exactly the kind of outrageous behavior by the big banks and Wall Street that is infuriating so many Americans,” Sanders said.

The corporate affiliations of Fed directors from such banking and industry giants as General Electric, JP Morgan Chase, and Lehman Brothers pose “reputational risks” to the Federal Reserve System, the report said. Giving the banking industry the power to both elect and serve as Fed directors creates “an appearance of a conflict of interest,” the report added.

The 108-page report found that at least 18 specific current and former Fed board members were affiliated with banks and companies that received emergency loans from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.

In the dry and understated language of auditors, the report noted that there are no restrictions in Fed rules on directors communicating concerns about their respective banks to the staff of the Federal Reserve. It also said many directors own stock or work directly for banks that are supervised and regulated by the Federal Reserve.  The rules, which the Fed has kept secret, let directors tied to banks participate in decisions involving how much interest to charge financial institutions and how much credit to provide healthy banks and institutions in “hazardous” condition. Even when situations arise that run afoul of Fed’s conflict rules and waivers are granted, the GAO said the waivers are kept hidden from the public.

The report by the non-partisan research arm of Congress did not name but unambiguously described several individual cases involving Fed directors that created the appearance of a conflict of interest, including:

• Stephen Friedman In 2008, the New York Fed approved an application from Goldman Sachs to become a bank holding company giving it access to cheap Fed loans. During the same period, Friedman, chairman of the New York Fed, sat on the Goldman Sachs board of directors and owned Goldman stock, something the Fed’s rules prohibited. He received a waiver in late 2008 that was not made public. After Friedman received the waiver, he continued to purchase stock in Goldman from November 2008 through January of 2009 unbeknownst to the Fed, according to the GAO.
• Jeffrey Immelt The Federal Reserve Bank of New York consulted with General Electric on the creation of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility. The Fed later provided $16 billion in financing for GE under the emergency lending program while Immelt, GE’s CEO, served as a director on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
• Jamie Dimon The CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the same time that his bank received emergency loans from the Fed and was used by the Fed as a clearing bank for the Fed’s emergency lending programs. In 2008, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with $29 billion in financing to acquire Bear Stearns.At the time, Dimon persuaded the Fed to provide JP Morgan Chase with an 18-month exemption from risk-based leverage and capital requirements. He also convinced the Fed to take risky mortgage-related assets off of Bear Stearns balance sheet before JP Morgan Chase acquired this troubled investment bank.

To read a more detailed analysis of the GAO report prepared for Sen. Sanders, click here.

To read the full GAO report, click here.

Read the entire article HERE.

by Phoenix Capital Research
10/25/2011

While the world is awash in liquidity, no one seems to notice that it’s actually in the form of leverage or cheap debt, NOT real capital or equity.

The US banking system as a whole is leveraged at 13-to-1. While this is not horrible relative to Europe’s banking system (more on this in a moment), these levels still mean that an 8% drop in asset values wipes out ALL equity.

Then you have Europe’s banking system, which is leveraged at 26-to-1. Anecdotally, this is borderline Lehman Brothers (30 to 1). At these levels, even a 4% drop in asset prices wipes out ALL equity.

Japan’s banks are leveraged at 23 to 1. France’s are 26 to 1. Germany is 32 to 1.

You get the idea.

However, worse than any of these the US Federal Reserve. With $2.8 trillion in assets and only $52 billion in capital, the Fed is leveraged at 53 to 1. Yes, 53 to 1.

My question is: if the Fed prints money for itself… is it “raising capital?” More to the point… if that was true why doesn’t the Fed do it? Why maintain these leverage levels?

Only Bernanke can know… but the rest of us should feel a very serious shudder when we consider that THE bank that’s supposed to bailout the world/ fix the problems plaguing the financial system, is in fact even more leveraged that most of the institutions it’s helping.

Yes, stocks are rallying now based on the view that more QE 3 or monetary easing is on the way… but they’re missing the BIG picture here.

The BIG picture is that there is far too much debt in the financial system. Europe’s getting taken to the cleaners today… but these very same issues are going to spread to Japan and the US in short order. Even China, which is considered THE creditor nation of the world, is estimated to post a REAL Debt to GDP ratio of 200%.

Yes, 200%. China.

So the idea that somehow the world’s going to pass through this current chapter in its history without some MAJOR fireworks/ systemic failure, seems a little too optimistic.

Folks, something VERY bad is brewing behind the scenes. The Sarkozy- Merkel talks, the short-selling bans, the halted stocks, the leveraged EFSF, the hints of QE 3, all of this is telling us that the financial system is on DEFCON 1 Red Alert.

Ignore stocks, they’re ALWAYS the last to “get it.” The credit markets are jamming up just like they did in 2008. The banking system is flashing all the same signals as well.

Read the entire article HERE.