ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska — An Air Force
brigadier general died of a gunshot wound that
likely was self-inflicted, a spokesman said
Monday.
THE US CORPORATE-GOVERNMENT SYSTEM IS IRRETRIEVABLY BROKEN - IT CANNOT BE FIXED!
DO NOT BE FOOLED
DO NOT BE LULLED INTO FURTHER STUPOR
CON-GRESS DIDN'T "" PASS THE BAILOUT TO DO THE RIGHT THING
THE DEPRESSION AND STEALING OUR WEALTH IS STILL UNDERWAY FULL STEAM
AS PLANNED.
IT ISN'T OVER, IT'S JUST BEGINNING - BE VIGILANT, GET READY!
AND JUST AS PREDICTED - BUSH AND GANG ALL PASSED THEIR OWN BAILOUT
BUT WAIT
ONLY NOW "after" they Bailed themselves out (and you went along) - now they are telling you
O - this won't fix everything, we'll NEED MORE OF YOUR MONEY
Give government some control of you now or TOTAL control of you later if you don't go along.
What they aren't saying is - TOTALITARIAN CONTROL is almost complete
no matter who you vote for or how many more bailouts, rescue's, or other band aids.
BEAT YOUR HEAD WITH A HAMMER UNTIL YOU GET THIS;
THE US CORPORATION/GOVERNMENT SYSTEM IS IRRETRIEVABLY BROKEN - IT CANNOT BE FIXED!
ITS MISSION-GOAL-INTENT IS TO OWN-ENSLAVE YOU AND THE NATION, NOT TO WORK FOR YOU
"It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system for, if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." — Henry Ford
"Capital must protect itself in every possible manner by combination and legislation. Debts must be collected, bonds and mortgages must be foreclosed as rapidly as possible. When, through a process of law, the common people lose their homes they will become more docile and more easily governed through the influence of the strong arm of government, applied by a central power of wealth under control of leading financiers. This truth is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of Capital to govern the world. By dividing the voters through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance. Thus by discreet action we can secure for ourselves what has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished." USA Banker's Magazine, August 25, 1924
"Allow me to control the issue and the nation's money and I care not who makes its laws!"
— Amshell Rothschild
IT'S THE GOVERNMENT, STUPID
GOVERNMENT OWNS IT "ALL" BY
INVESTMENT
Now the
Question is: Do you own Government?
September 11th 2008 -
911 again this time for a corrupt Government
THE CAFR SHELL GAME-THE REVOLUTION-BE A
PART OF IT!
"GROSS"
INCOME of
government is now 1/3rd
"TAX"
income and 2/3rds
NON-TAX income
derived from: return on
INVESTMENTS
and money generated
from government
Enterprise
projects.
Any Company or in fact Country can be "made" or
"broken" through
the use of those government investment funds. China and
India in 2007 restricted new US "Government"
investments, now several trillion dollars strong in
China and India so that US Government investments would
not further increase control (take-over) in their own
markets. China and India learned by seeing what happened
to Mexico then Russia when the US Government investment
machine came rolling on in.
If US Government cashed in their International investment chips (held outside of the dollar), in conversion back to the dollar, the dollar would shoot through the roof, get it?
A complete government and (taken over by government) syndicated news media blackout has existed for over 60 years and it started back in 1946. WAKE UP! THIS IS FACT, NOT FICTION AND IT AFFECTS YOUR EVERY DAY LIFE!
It's not the economy-Americans are spending, overspending, living on tomorrow's income, on credit/borrowed money, consuming everything in their sight. Well, yes it is - not yours, but the government who is out of control.
The problem isn't that we aren't consuming-not spending, the problem is all the money we spend and all the taxes in what we buy and illegally collected from us is being stolen and wasted, squandered on never ending wars and weapons of wars, gigantic insatiable government, payoffs, side deals, kickbacks and every word and con you can think of. The people who run this nation has run it into worse than bankruptcy, sold and given the fruits of our hard labor, the future of our children, away to their puppet masters of evil. Our country is not owned by Americans, we are slaves on their plantation.
We are in a situation worse than 1929 Depression. Almost a year ago on my broadcast I covered the revelation direct from someone in the banking industry that received written instructions (directive) WHEN THERE IS MARSHALL LAW (not if) that no one will be able to open a safety deposit box unless supervised by Homeland Security, and nothing but personal papers will be allowed to leave a bank. You will not be able to withdraw cash, jewelry, gold etc.
Every politician is accountable and a participant in the fraud. Every member of CON-GRESS is accountable/culpable - directly responsible for these crimes.
Time to think Y2K times 1000.
THE BAILOUT is more like 2-3 TRILLION, however the
derivatives if the entire system crashes is
552 TRILLION DOLLARS.
Even if the crooks pass the 700 Billion and the plane does a "controlled crash landing", be ready with enough CASH (not gold) in your hands to be able to pay for anything that would be available, for at least 3-months. You will not be able to purchase with a check or plastic, banks will not allow money to be removed even if they are open but will not be. It would take a minimum of that time for the system to come back online and for you to be able to pay with a check. Think more like 6-months to a year.
It is entirely possible our US notes would be replaced with Chinese currency or whoever will "own" America.
IF it becomes a total meltdown, the world as we know it disappears. As it is, the way we live in America will not be the same for a long time even in a controlled crash landing.
PERHAPS this is what the sheeple need to wake up en mass so the news isn't all bad and may be a blessing in disguise. Who said God doesn't have a sense of humor.
FOOD, WATER, GUNS & AMMO are my number one priority.
Money will not mean much when there is a shortage of food or other necessities.
He who has "protection" can survive even if it means (sadly) becoming a "hunter".
Survival of the fittest will be the law of the land.
MOST will become victims.
Pray I am wrong so you can laugh at me and with me one day.
Time to Lock-n-Load.
The United States has transformed itself, the most radical degraded aspects having occurred in the last eight years. Many might object or cringe at repeated mention of the Fascist Business Model implemented by the Clinton Administration, and carried to extreme by the Bush II Administration. It is a harsh departure from Beacon of Freedom. Too bad, fact of life! This merger of state and big business in the midst of a climax, the biggest display of exported financial toxin in modern history, and the disintegration of the financial structure for the nation owning the world reserve currency. The Fascist Business Model has criminal fraud & corruption as its chief characteristic, alienation & resentment as its chief foreign effect, and systemic failure & collapse as its chief outcome. Broad war often follows. How anybody could think the sharing of bank and oil executives with federal government leadership as a move toward progress on the evolution chart, that is moronic. Surely, it is about political power and corruption. The military budget is sacred, and private contractor deals are made without bids. Now five to six energy giants will hog all Iraqi oil service contracts. The terrorism topic is untouchable for dispute. A Coup d’Etat is in progress as the Wall Street conmen and fraud kings have taken implicit control of the USGovt. This will be recognized in time, even while resistance is evident. To me the ongoing drama smacks of a comedy of corruption. US citizens are in shock & awe, while foreigners are aghast in disgust.
Hidden in the bowels of the Lehman Brothers failure cleanup process was a convenient provision. The JP Morgan firm was given $138 billion to settle ‘private accounts’ in what seems like a clear case of corruption, a handout of counterfeit money, enabling JP Morgan to reload for costly credit default swap losses or for costly gold suppression games, or both. Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch have succeeded in converting to private banks, just in time to benefit from the trough devised to benefit banks. Is there a secondary benefit of averting legal liability for bond fraud, since now a new financial firm? These are two more egregious examples of the deep collusion in the Fascist Business Model, a theme that has reached climax proportions. The Securities & Exchange Commission, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the Debt Ratings Agencies, the military contractors, and professional lobbyist groups work toward rounding out the collusion pentagrams. See a list of dumbfounding factors, angles, stories, and developments at the end of this article, in outline form. The bust continues.
The final battle is underway, for US Govt bailout of practically the entire US banking and mortgage system. Its ancillary businesses like insurance are next. The Credit Default Swap segment represents nitroglycerine soon to be brought under the crippled US Govt aegis. The mega bailout plan puts Wall Street firms first in line to benefit. The plan in my view is the culmination of arrogant criminality, as its architects and promoters are the primary agents for the banking system collapse itself. Only one or two senators in Congress had the stones to confront Treasury Secy Paulson and US Fed Chairman Bernanke, calling them on their extreme gall to dictate to Congress on bailout responsibility, when failures by the collection of banksters caused the problems even as their cohorts stand in line for deep financial assistance. The claims by Paulson that taxpayer protection is first and foremost is another total lie. His first priority is to funnel as much public money into Wall Street balance sheets before the grand game is shut down. Another phony call, deep lie, pure nonsense!
The desire for punishment, prosecution, and avoidance for benefits has come like a wave. We will see if its legislative delays result in months of grandstanding debate as Rome burns. In haste, the nationalization of the banking and mortgage industry might achieve legislative passage in the same manner as the Patriot Act, without reading its provisions. Pressure builds for passage without examination, with questions and objections regarded as unpatriotic. The next step is for big bold lies of assurances to be given, enough for satisfying sleepy Congressional senators and representatives, few of whom are aware of the deep fraud laced into the banking and asset base being rescued. The plan is being sold as a pre-emptive maneuver to ward off a disaster, providing necessary liquidity ahead of the likely unfolding events instead of providing funds after a bank failure. Fraud’s best friend is amplified liquidity doled out during times of emergency expedience.
One should have noticed on Tuesday that Paulson totally overshadowed a confused bewildered Bernanke, as the seasoned Wall Street conman even answered questions directed at the university rookie. Gentle Ben is totally out of his league when dealing in financial crime syndicate circles. No college courses on syndicates! Bernanke himself is shocked at how wide the ‘Too Big To Fail’ umbrella has become, this from a man who once claimed the subprime mortgage crisis would be contained and not result in any contagion. My retort was to expect total systemic bond contagion, a correct forecast. Bernanke actually is telling Congress today that he expects no inflationary impact from the banking and mortgage bailout program, a truly gigantic package with monstrous inflation implications! The estimated $700 billion bailout cost is laughable, when it will ultimately cost between $1500 and $2000 billion. The entire mega bailout package (let’s be clear) covers the entire US banking industry.
Congressman Ron Paul made a great quote after lecturing the inept misguided and naïve US Fed Chairman Bernanke on the high risks of price fixing. The bailout constitutes the quintessential price fix. Ron Paul said, “Most illiquid bond assets are illiquid because they are not worth anything.” The Wall Street fraud kings want the USGovt to pay inflated values for their illiquid worthless assets that clog and obstruct the banking industry. Bernanke actually regards the payment for bank bailouts can come from other funds. He implies the Exchange Stabilization Fund can use its funds. If Plunge Protection Team funds are co-mingled, these funds might be closely connected to US Govt security agency fraud associated with gutting of Fannie Mae. That is a perverse irony! By the way, where is Greenspan, whose fingerprints are on every object being dusted by intrepid examiners. He handed over the reins to a bagholder named Ben, just another dumb university economics professor. To succeed in academic economics circles, one must embrace heresy and weave logic like pretzels.
Paulson is attempting to shove a package down Congressional throats. Bernanke looks in body language like a boy caught in a disaster as his entire neighborhood burned down despite his best (but late) efforts to call in a district full of fire trucks. He actually looks like a man who has slept little in two weeks. To be sure, the Congress has been slow to react to the mortgage and banking crisis, choosing to delay until the new presidential term in office. Congress has become a den of irrelevant men and women owing more to lobbyists than to the people. Their chief function is to apply rubber stamps to directives crafted by others, usually from an array of bankers themselves. Why even George W himself is aghast!
Events are moving toward climax. The next sequence of events can no longer be regarded as coming from traditional ‘Inside the Box’ solutions. We are way beyond that arena, now firmly in the Twilight Zone. My past forecasts have been verified for bank system collapse, housing market’s unending decline, nationalization of soon everything under the US tainted sun, and finally the New Resolution Trust Corp. The New RTC is being argued as it takes shape. It is called the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). That name conjures up images of the roof tarps that are dotted across the New Orleans landscape from federal programs to repair roofs after Hurricane Katrina. After numerous subcontractor steps, the $150 per square foot allotted by the US Govt resulted in cheap flimsy tarps instead of nice shingled roofs. A better title for the mortgage relief program would be the Securitized Housing Investment Trust (SHIT), offered by an emailer to CNBC. These bond assets are not troubled assets, but rather fraudulent assets. The new finance czar Paulson has asked for a blank check with trust given, laden with low-ball cost estimates, or else the system will surely fail. Why should representatives and elders of Congress trust Wall Street executives? They deserve prosecution, indictment, prison terms, and forced restitution instead. We are witnessing financial treason. Instead, some executives like at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac received huge severance packages, and Lehman Brothers executives were granted the same. The events are moving toward some upcoming surprises of historical magnitude. Think default and receivership, with foreign control. The massive rollover and refunding requirements from US Treasury Bonds will put monumental strain on the system, which the monetization US $ printing press cannot alone manage. Unless and until foreign creditors step in, the US financial sector will continue to operate like a crime syndicate, since regulatory bodies and law enforcement officials are all part of the coordinated congame.
PREFACE
Many of the overwhelming impressions from the unfolding events are to appear in the October Hat Trick Letter report. First attention must go to paid subscribers. Events is in progress in an accelerated pace, enough to take my breath away on a given day. But rain and cheery faces in Costa Rica straighten me quickly. For more evidence in backing up my claim that private brokerage accounts being open for financial parent firm claim, see the October report also. Numerous (dozens) of emails came in request. The report will show the best information on this subject, with quotes freshly hidden within the US Federal Reserve website. No need to make such stuff up, since the US financial authorities are better than fiction! By the way, if my analysis and forecasts have any advantage over others, it is because my thought process comes from always thinking like a thief. Never think the best thoughts, hope for the best of human dignity, or expect fair play to emerge when forecasting the US financial markets. Their plan seems obviously to gut the system before it fails. Then they blame foreigners. False flag attacks then seal the deal, much like cauterizing a wound with a knife made hot in a bivouac fire.
Here is an outline of topics covered in the next report, due out in the next couple weeks. The date is not set, but the messages are becoming clear. Pardon the brevity of important points, but details are difficult to describe with brevity, and are saved for the next Hat Trick Letter. The ongoing format no longer will be continued as from past issues. Every report is a report of an emergency nature. We are observing the painful steps from failure of a system, with 330 million inhabitants, and commercial tentacles the world over. The four primary features that have pushed the United States into a certain position in Third World status are these:
- globalization with deep Western investment in China
- insolvency of four pillars of federal, trade, housing, banking
- export of fraud with mortgage bonds, mainly to China, Europe, Russia, England
- military aggression and annexation with continuous deceit and propaganda.
The many points describe a system broken without remedy, inviting default and receivership. Both are in progress behind the curtains, but on foreign soil. As Mohamed El-Erian of PIMCO (formerly Harvard Univ) said recently, “The unthinkable is thinkable.” Little known to the majority of Americans, foreign disgust grows. Their desire to isolate the United States is growing, in order to protect themselves from financial collapse and further spread of fraud. The German economics experts are saying “The World Shouldn't Have to Bear the Burden for America's Lapses” in Spiegel Online in a public article.
Listen to my interview this week handled by Contrary Investors Cafe Radio, where we covered several of the topics mentioned throughout this article.
GOLD LAUNCH & US DOLLAR DEMISE
Not exactly mirror images of each other, the gold price and US$ index are moving in typical opposite directions. A peak in the US Dollar occurred in early September, at the same time a bottom occurred for gold. The forewarned timing of events turning sharply around in the week of September 15th happened on schedule. Once again, the short rule restriction against bank stocks helped to stem the flow that favored the euro currency rise by 330 basis points on Monday. The US Dollar fundamentals have begun to resemble those of a Third World. The US Govt federal deficits are accelerating. The US trade gap has turned toward a rise again. The housing market continues to hurtle down in its price decline, that being the primary force behind the bank collapse. Now finally comes the climax. US Economic recession is intensifying, notwithstanding absurd US Govt statistics to the contrary. The nationalization movement for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, not to mention the steady handouts to JP Morgan, have assured of continued heavy red ink in deficits to the US Govt federal budget. Monetization under the table to firms like JP Morgan are happening somewhat in the open, but not properly understood by the masses, trained and untrained. The endless war is a sacred cow of bottomless costs, largely to support the other syndicate, the US security agency clandestine trafficking out of Afghanistan. Foreigners watch the heightened risk having become acute. The US Dollar will be sold, and gold will be bought. A COMEX delivery default in gold is in progress.
Few are thinking in nonlinear or discontinuous terms. When (not if) the US Treasurys suffer a default, totally assured in my mind, confirmed by my sources of information, the gold price will launch onward and upward in huge steps. Even without a default, the strains on the US Govt budget will result in extraordinary risk either on the US Treasury Bond yield from added supply, OR on the US Dollar from cowardly requisite monetization of debt. My conjecture is the first couple fundings for USGovt bailout debt obligations will be done with normal USTreasury auctions, not to mention some off-budget games. The next fundings will be done via pure monetization. The entire nationalization will cost another $1500 to $2000 billion for banks assets and mortgages, on top of another $1000 billion for an array of US industrial and financial giants outside the banking world. The failed US firms like General Motors are already lining up. So foreigners will be expected to foot the bill??? No way! They will pull the plug, or at least diversify in a huge way out of the USDollar and US$-based bonds.
NOTES & WHISPERS IN ILL WIND
The list of breakdown items, evidence, and criminal overtones is vast.
- Money market funds almost caused a seizure
earlier this week, which means the banking
system almost went into a fatal cardiac arrest
episode. The seizures spread across entire the
financial system, even to brokerage funds, and
extended to foreign banks. The commercial paper
market was also affected. The Exchange
Stabilization Fund was used, having possible
currency implications.
- Foreign entities were blocked from
participation in both the Lehman Brothers and
American Intl Group (AIG) busts, partly to
retain control, but also most likely to limit
opportunity for foreigners to obtain data,
documents, and records of extreme fraud. The
Germans pursued the AIG insurance units in a
natural acquisition, far more prudent than
inefficient US
Govt conservatorship.
- The US
Economy would move toward a centralized
Soviet structure, not socialism, if liberties
are curtailed further, especially if martial law
is imposed. Rationing is a very real prospect.
Watch freedom of speech, assembly, and more.
- The nationalization of Fannie Mae puts the
$1500 billion documented fraud since 1988 on the
national tab. The New Jersey burnout home
selling for $230k in a Fannie loan, the micro
example, has played out on a national aggregate
scale. The subprime mortgage movement used to be
the visible portion of the mortgage crisis. The
Fannie Mae gigantic fraud has been covered by
the greater mortgage crisis, perhaps in a wildly
successful multi-year project. Thanks to the
intrepid Aaron Krowne of (www.ML-implode.com)
for his shared ideas.
- Final banking & mortgage system bailout by
the USGovt might not occur until issues are
addressed regarding prosecution, confessions,
resignations, state’s evidence, and eventually
restitution. The concept of RICO law enforcement
against Wall Street would be both unprecedented
and empty, since most assets have been gutted.
No, on second thought, despite objections, the
Congress will pass the bailout bill without
reading it.
- The move to halt home foreclosures is a
typical stupid Congressional idea, which might
result in civil disobedience and scoffing at
mortgage payment on a broad scale. Worse, almost
all cost estimates are wrong by a factor of 10x
from reasonable forecasts. The pattern is to
establish the plan, and deal with cost overruns
later. Foreigners are still expected to pay the
bills for American deficits anyway.
- Watch the Lehman Brothers liquidation
process, kept hidden. The dead are still trying
to marry the dead in farcical ceremonies. The
bond cemetery within the New RTC was crafted
when it become clear the Lehman liquidation
would kill all of Wall Street. Don’t expect any
consummation of such necro-marriages to bear
offspring. They will not make love with each,
but rather EAT EACH OTHER.
- Wall Street firms are now almost all aligned
in similar fashion. If one fails, they all
suffer the same risk from similar balance sheet
of assets. Marking down one firm’s asset in
liquidation would result in the failure of all
of them. Any USGovt bank bailout has an
unintended consequence of instant markdowns in
market value of assets held widely throughout
Wall Street and bank industry balance sheets.
These banks have resisted writedowns in honest
accounting, as only a small handful of financial
firms have taken losses in earnest.
- Any New Resolution Trust Corp for mortgage
bailout rescues (a correct big forecast) would
ostensibly be managed by the same Wall Street
villains who are implicated in massive trillion$
fraud. Expect one in three dollars to be stolen
by further fraud, just like the Hurricane
Katrina relief efforts. To question their fraud
in unpatriotic.
- Private brokerage stock accounts can now be
borrowed by financial firms, evidence produced
in Federal Reserve documents. A gigantic final
heist might be in the works, requiring a massive
event that provides the cover of confusion like
a World Trade Center attack. The Glass-Steagall
Act was not repealed without a reason and plan!
Its removal enables co-mingling of bank,
brokerage, and insurance assets.
- A pattern seems evident among failing Wall
Street firms. It seems Wall Street firms without
extensive stock brokerage accounts are permitted
to fail first, leaving private accounts
vulnerable. It seems Wall Street firms with big
foreign equity ownership are set to fail last,
leaving foreigners outside the loop.
- The bank short rule restriction once more
has been brought back. That emergency measure is
as corrupt as possible, a horrible black eye to
a nation that claims to be the home of free
markets. The re-enacted rule has helped support
the US Dollar.
- Tremendous strong high pressure zones are
building on monetary inflation, while tremendous
strong low pressure zones are building on asset
price decline. The combination will surely make
for some of the greatest financial storms in
modern history, some already witnessed, and more
sure to come.
- Much talk has come of continuing
independence of US financial firms, when they
are beset by insolvency and worsening liquidity
problems. The same applies to the US Govt, whose
liquidity flow depends upon foreign credit
supply. They have been defrauded, treated with
hostility in trade and currency management
issues, and in the case of Russia, subjected to
military aggression and NATO treaty violation.
- The totality of events has placed enormous
concentrated risk on the US Dollar, and
consequently on the US Treasury Bond. Expect
sharp decline in the US$ and default of the US
TBond. Both fraud and nationalization has
amplified the pressures.
- The Global Energy War has opened a new front
in the Global Capital War. Aggressive US actions
to secure energy supply have endangered its
capital supply. The backlash is not even on the
American radar systems, as arrogance prevails.
In high commerce and banking circles, the US is
being isolated. Many European firms do not
return phone calls to US bankers, on orders. An
analogy of ‘glow candles for diesel engines’ has
been stated for upcoming response to US bankers.
- Reports have come from a London source that
gold futures contracts are being settled in cash
only at the COMEX, rather than with physical
gold metal. That leaves would-be buyers without
the metal they wish to take on delivery under
contract. IS THAT NOT A DEFAULT?
- The Hurricanes Gustav & Ike have hit the Southeast region hard, resulting in gasoline rationing. This trend might soon extend nationwide, and broaden to include more items. Hits to AIG and other insurance firms come at a bad time.
The year 2008 will be the year that THINGS JUST PLAIN BREAK. It will be a truly deadly year, unavoidably lethal to the US Economy and especially to the US banking sector. Nothing has been repaired. Some tangible solutions will be offered in the next section, all legitimate in a real world. However, we do NOT live in a real world, but rather in a Fairy Tale world of US Hegemony and Wall Street with a choke hold around the US entire system. Managed inflation is the policy never to be reversed, until total breakdown occurs. Treason is rampant, called simply Power Games. All attempts so far are to shore up the existing system, to enable Wall Street to sell as much of their damaged asset backed bonds to suckers, and to avoid international lawsuits against Wall Street firms. In 2008, an alarming sequence is assured of enormous damage that puts the entire US economic and financial system in a perilous situation. The powers survived the end of 2007, with heavy usage of band aids, rubber bands, and paper clips, but reality continues to itemize a relentless sequence of unfixable, tragic, intractable problems. The pressure points are big banks suffering from insolvency, prime mortgage bonds destined for massive losses, consumers without kitties to rob to keep spending, a worsening housing market from chronic inventory bloat, and deepening problems in the lending industry frozen from insolvency and distrust. Pitch in a global resentment of US fraud and heavy handed tactics, especially from the last couple decades.
What a prospect! Almost all of Wall Street firms are bankrupt, but still in control of the financial media. Citigroup is dead in the water, inevitably to enter restructuring without admission of bankruptcy and surely with no formal filing of such. Heck, even Goldman Sachs might be bankrupt, if they ever produced an honest balance sheet. The goal of Wall Street henchmen, who are clearly guilty of the grandest larceny even seen since Rubin opened the door to gold leasing at the US Treasury, is for the (mostly) men in three-piece suits to fleece their elite firms for personal gain as much as possible before their broadly suspected insolvency is recognized as clear bankruptcy. They choked on their own toxic mortgage fecal IN-securities, with the leverage in the derivatives backfiring on them. The hidden factor is new Basel rules on accounting, which in my view seems like a bankruptcy judge ordering Discovery Phase of bank assets during a Bankruptcy Proceeding. True to form, the Wall Street firms continue to operate in defiance, as they created a lunatic new Tier-3 balance sheet item. The greatest feat to date is the Wall Street urged Congressional adoption of the subprime mortgage freeze, dubbed 'The Teaser Freezer' in clever tones. A voice tells me that Basel might push for prosecution of Wall Street bankster criminals.
My 2008 forecasts will be saved for the Hat Trick Letter, but a preview overview can be listed. First, let us all revel at the Severe Comedy that has become US Presidential Politics. Good looks, meaningless promises, catchy campaign slogans, bulging campaign coffers, these all accompany a truly futile procession of charlatans offering hope. Harken back to November 2006, when a new Congress was elected. They, under new leadership have done not a blessed thing promised to turn the country away from its disastrous course, regarding the war, the economy, taxation, budget allocation, in a follow through mandated by voters. Expect nothing at all in change from any viable presidential candidate, who all seem like midgets. If one revolutionary candidate in particular is elevated by voters, his life will likely meet an early demise, by accident, of course. The hidden secret which just cannot seem to find its way above ground is that Neocons are not Republicans, not Democrats. The current Bush is a known Neocon, a bizarre label to be sure. In my view Clinton was a Neocon also, certainly cut from a different cloth than most traditional Democrats. His central policy was to create the foundation for the Fascist Business Model, wherein the finance sector merged with the state. Two candidates, one on each side, represent uninterrupted Neocon rule and the inexorable march to a military state, the former 911 Mayor and the former First Lady. But mine is not a political pen. Somehow, the name Neo Fascist does not sound as appealing to American voters as the mysterious Neocon. Call a spade a spade! Numerous legal executive decrees confirm the label clarification and trend. The pathetic fact of life is that in my travels and conversations with countless American adults, my experiment has been grossly revealing. After almost 40 direct questions on US soil, directly asking "What is Fascism?" to Americans, not one single correct answer. After all, a nation gets the government it deserves. The United States is on a sad but unstoppable march to Third World status, complete with totalitarian rule. Nothing can block the path. One hundred years ago, H.L. Mencken called the US Govt the best government that money can buy, and deemed the American landscape attractive like any circus. Nothing has changed, only the depth and severity.
THE SYSTEM FAILS, BREAKS,
FREEZES
The year 2008
will start with a resumption in the disorder breakdown
buzz, a resumption in the gold climb, and new chapters
in big bank bankruptcy throes, and eventually a nearly
complete loss of respect and integrity in the US Federal
Reserve. The word 'Bankruptcy' will not be used until a
big bank actually files for bankruptcy. The ring of the
word Bankruptcy is more accurate, since it implies
Hemorrhage, another great word. The collateral damage
will include most bond insurers going bust, but holding
firm to 'AAA' ratings in pure corrupt manner. The
collateral damage will include most homebuilders going
bust. However, the centerpiece of 2008 woes will be
the PRIME MORTGAGE BUST, felt much like the stage
falling through the floor in the Victorian Theater.
The decline in housing prices will continue to push
prices down another 5% to 10% in the new year, killing
off prime mortgage portfolios and their bonds. The bust
will take down the entire US banking system, which is
now reeling and tipsy, like a punch drunk boxer after
enduring ten rounds of a pure beating, bloodied, wobbly,
dizzy, blurred in vision. The mortgage debacle will
extend to the commercial property arena, the degree of
which will be uncertain.
The people have been misled for almost a full year on the mislabeled mortgage debacle as a subprime phenomenon. That is the exposed tip of the iceberg, since it is total mortgage debacle problem. In 2008, the avalanche of failed mortgages of innovative adjustable variety will occur, with California providing the epicenter of failure and most publicized wreckage. US lending institutions once took pride in their absurd innovation in mortgage products, like fully borrowed down payments, like paying less interest than accumulates, like the borrower having no income or job. Next they will be embarrassed at the systemic stupidity and universal ridicule. In the 1970 decade, we suffered STAGFLATION in an ugly era. In 2008, we will suffer a much more powerful bout of stagflation, with continued US Economic recession (in third year for those based in reality), rising price inflation (already running over 10%) sure to attack even the doctored Consumer Price Inflation. In fact, 2008 might see progress with the CPI adopting the house price component and putting off the owner equivalent rent, all boasted progress.
The mirrored central damage will be to the US Economy, from both an exhausted household consumer and a lending climate reluctant to supply urgently needed credit. The dependence upon consumption will be unmasked as fatally flawed finally. Households will fail on car loans and credit cards as an echo to mortgages, resulting in severe loss of independence and freedom. One can live in a house for free, but not ride a car or carry plastic for long without consequences. To compound the problem of credit supply, Wall Street burned our allies by cheating them blind. Expect a backlash felt in the year 2008, including international ugly lawsuits and unexpected Wall Street broken glass like a seven year delayed Krystalnacht. The entire banking system will go bust in the Untied States this year, in a highly visible manner, as the entire world watches in total horror. The nation in custodial duty for the world reserve currency, the US Dollar, will suffer a failed banking & bond system, which undoubtedly will result in a grotesque US Economic recession. It is just a bit late in its arrival. The parade of disasters will be mind boggling, offering little respite. Even the Plunge Protection Team, armed with $1500 billion in black bag money, pilfered largely from Fannie Mae in the two districts harboring the home towns for the sitting presidents from 1988 to 2000, will not be capable to stem the tsunami of stock market sell orders. They might focus attention on the biggest and baddest corporations, but the banking stock index collapse reveals how the PPT could only hold up the S&P500 index, but not their buddies in big banks. SADLY, 2008 IS THE YEAR THE SYSTEM JUST PLAIN BREAKS.
People will run for cover. People will react with increasing anger. They will bristle with anger and frustration, even spark isolated riots, from rising food prices, rising gasoline prices with spotty supply, lost jobs from rising costs and outsourcing, lost homes from predatory lending followed by foreclosures. People will suffer realize that finances are not safe in banks, as bank runs spread amidst the fear in isolated cases, and some stock accounts are frozen unavailable amidst financial service conglomerate bankruptcies. The time honored Glass Steagall Law made impossible the merger of banks, brokerage houses, and insurance firms, for a reason. As banks fail, insurance and stock brokerage will be put at risk. The removed rule used to forbid shorting stocks on a downtick, but now will also render the system vulnerable. 2008 IS THE YEAR THE SYSTEM JUST PLAIN FREEZES.
CONFUSION WILL REIGN SUPREME
The year 2008
will bring with it a level of confusion never seen
before in the nation's history. Economists will be found
befuddled, scratching their heads, dazed, and without
solutions. Politicians will be confused as to what to
advocate, unsure what is potentially effective. The
entire argument of 'Inflation vs Deflation' will turn
into a crazed debate, with ignoramuses spouting all
manner of drivel without knowledge of what inflation is,
how it is caused, the frustration in producing it
intentionally, and the broken apparatuses no longer able
to function when their levers are pulled. When
inflation is not only misunderstood but also
indoctrinated in heretic fashion, the concept becomes a
gathering large cloud intended for confusion of the
masses. When the banking system is seized up as it is,
the mechanisms to spew money into the system fail to
function. When banks distrust each other more than
individuals for their claimed collateral, the system
fails to distribute money, even at lower interest rates.
Issuing loans to individuals will fall to a low spot on
priorities.
A huge event occurred in 2006, that being the flip of housing into a deflating asset. A huge event occurred in 2007, that being the flip of mortgage bonds into a deflating asset. As the entire risk price model system continues to disintegrate, the powerful teeth of deflating assets held by banks will render the banks themselves as utterly impotent agents to stir inflation. Ironically, as credit derivatives are sold off, the US Dollar might actually benefit. Many writers talk about US Fed Chairman Bernanke as stepping soon to the table with a mission to drop money from helicopters. Wow, are they ever popping some stupid pills?!? The events in the last four months have taught anybody with a lucid brain, a keen eye, and an active pulse (which eliminates the majority of investors) that the US Federal Reserve has become far more than a little bit IRRELEVANT. The banking system is so broken over here that the London LIBOR has become strained to the hilt. The hapless clueless hidebound US Fed cannot recognize the problem of insolvency within the banking system, and cannot treat the problem with lower interest rates. That will certainly not stop them from cutting rates, since Goldman Sachs, acting as lead sled dog among the Wall Street harnessed team, has ordered them to do so. If lower rates will not solve the bank problem, why are we given lower rates? Simple, because it supports the stock market from an ugly bloody crash. The system cannot afford for stock assets to flip into a deflating asset.
The confusion to reign in year 2008 will center on the challenge to actively produce price inflation, while leaning upon broken banking entities. Confusion will reign from requests to Bernanke to 'do his helicopters thing' when the winds of deflation will be so great that the cash drops are scattered into the deflation vortex. The desperate urgings made to Bernanke miss the lessons of the last four months. His primary perceived plan is to rescue the Wall Street banks, probably with far more redemptions, monetizations, and refunds delivered in basements and back rooms than the public will ever know. Such is the nature of the Fascist Business Model, to take care of the large corporations whose interests are merged with the US Govt, payola for the partners. The irony of the massive infusions of money, either with US Fed injections or foreign capital infusions, is that they are extremely focused to rescue the ailing banks from insolvency. Except that they only rescue the ailing banks from illiquidity. Add money into an insolvent picture, account for it as an equity stake, and nothing is accomplished on the insolvency side. The new partners only have a larger share in the bankruptcy, better described as a vampire, walking dead. The system is not activated, no jobs produced, no new loans granted.
The confusion in 2008 will culminate in the ratcheting upward of the official rescue attempts, measures, freezes, adoptions, initiatives, and eventual grand platform, as my forecast has steadily called for. Each plan will be recognized as insufficient and limited, thus motivated the next desperate measure. The Grandiose Resolution Trust Corporation will be granted broad powers, and rule for a full decade, with a possible cabinet appointment creation. Another ugly irony is festering. Neither the Administration and Congress is willing to press forward to initiate ANY broad rescue just yet, since the first pig in line would be the Wall Street thieves, thugs, and conmen whose fingerprints are all over the mortgage bond debacle laced with criminal fraud. So the entire banking system will continue to slide into quicksand. Once politicians enter the picture, the problem worsens, no exception.
GOLD WILL RISE
Meanwhile,
gold will rise for many reasons, few being the
traditionally recognized ones. Gold will rise
from gradual recognition that the banking system is
destroyed. Gold will rise from the perceived need
to generate price inflation, whether such efforts are
successful or not, an expectation concept. Gold will
rise from the Competing Currency Wars, as nations
urgently print more money to stave off recession and
grotesque asset deflation. The slowdown will hit China
also, which has begun to hike prices but which will find
itself saddled with overcapacity. Gold will rise
primarily because the global money supply is rising at
an astronomical rate, think Weimar, go global. Gold
will rise because the smart ones will realize that
the Untied States might seek war as a diversion amidst
the crisis. Gold will rise from in response to
failures in most policy initiatives, perceived symptoms
to systemic breakdown. Gold will rise as the
global revolt against the US Dollar continues, with the
current focal point being the Persian Gulf nations who
must defend themselves from the ravages of inflation.
The entire price inflation argument is somewhat a straw
dog, in a loose sense. The US Dollar decline has
prompted costs to rise, not wages, the result being
economic dampers cast across the US landscape. This
prompts monetary inflation motivation. Remove China and
price inflation could be easily generated. However, the
system cannot succeed in producing price inflation
without killing the US Treasury Bond complex altogether,
as long-term rates would rise to smash and upend the
credit derivative pyramid. More evidence that the US Fed
is the most irrelevant player at the table. Gold will
rise as the globe finally reckons that the USFed,
traditionally the most powerful among the central
bankers, is IMPOTENT, TOOTHLESS, AND IRRELEVANT.
The chaos in the financial sector will be matched by growing chaos in the beehive of the US Economy, the business complexes, the neighborhood communities. Watch for lawless behavior to rise, as chaos envelops the system. Watch for civil disobedience to crop up, as high crimes among Wall Street bankers and USGovt leaders go unaddressed. In the year 2008, the bylines will be 1) BREAKDOWN, 2) CHAOS, 3) FUTILITY OF TOOLS, 4) ABSENCE OF OPTIONS, 5) CONFUSION. Gold will rise as the bylines hit the press & media strewn with these messages. The system breaks in 2008. Denials will be laughable.
GOODBYE TO MANY
The year 2007
said goodbye to quite a long list of notables. The music
world lost Dan Fogelberg, Porter Wagoner, Ike Turner
(beat me), and Tommy Newsome, plus opera stars Luciano
Pavarotti and Beverly Sills. Hollywood and the
entertainment sphere lost Joey Bishop, Joel Siegel,
Charles Nelson Reilly, Jack Valenti, Tom Poston, Ingmar
Bergman, Merv Griffin, Robert Goulet, Yvonne DeCarlo,
Tom Snyder, Jane Wyman, and Marcel Marceau. The
political arena lost LadyBird Johnson, Art Buchwald, Tom
Eagleton, Henry Hyde. The writing world lost Sydney
Sheldon, Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut, and historian
Arthur Schlesinger. The sports world lost Phil Rizzuto
(the Scooter), and recently Sean Taylor (Washington
Redskins). Also lost were restauranteur Bob Evans,
spirited Jerry Falwell, and astronaut Wally Schirra. The
bizarre corner lost Tammy Faye (Baker) Messner, Leona
Helmsley, Anna Nicole Smith, and Evil Knievel. Closer to
home, my family lost my mother Maureen, who coined
the name Jackass for me, due to my persistent
outspoken, stubborn, and mischievous manner. She called
me 'My Charming Rogue' affectionately. She is missed
deeply, her effect felt.
THE SOLUTION'S ALWAYS
THERE
Greed is
powerful, especially when subjected to those in charge
of the world reserve currency for several decades.
Rescinding the Bretton Woods Accord, wherein the
USDollar was tied to gold, unleashed Pandora's Box of
financial evils. The abusive usage of monetary
inflation as a remedy for excessive debts is perhaps the
most pernicious destructive phenomenon in the last
century. In a vicious disguise, monetary inflation
kills entire industries, fleeces savers dry, transforms
asset managers into casino players, and causes pervasive
cost inflation, all of which impoverishes a nation.
Tragically, all nations who hitched their monetary wagon
to the Untied States risk tremendous damage from shared
inflation wreckage. See Saudi Arabia, the entire Persian
Gulf, even Hong Kong. Europe will not be spared either.
The competing currency wars renders all as victims. The
last deaths occur with the nations whose currencies
rise, since they enjoy a rush of investment and enjoy
reduced costs, but their export trade is harmed badly.
Over dinner tables when the Hat Trick Letter was inaugurated, my father repeatedly asked me what solutions could be offered. A literature professor not versed in financial matters, he grew weary of incessant talk by me on the unfixable nature of the current system. My pragmatism owes to his constructive nature. My constant reply was that the system would resist all solutions, since they would cause severe pain for both the system and its leaders, the Ruling Elite. My sassy reply was that a solution article would be an exercise in futility. My offering was ten solutions, which even he realized were totally impractical in today's day and age. Now, four years later, my list seems comical and totally outside the real of possibility. For humor and completeness, as much as a treatise on the many sins committed by our economic and banking chieftains, here is my list.
HOW TO FIX THE US ECONOMY & FINANCIAL SYSTEM:
- dismantle the US Federal
Reserve
- back the US Dollar with gold or silver or coal or
Great Lake fresh water
- balance the US Govt budget
- end all monetization efforts to support financial
instruments
- enforce all regulations against outsized futures
contract positions
- remove all lobbyists from Congressional contact
- dismantle the military defense network with
contractors in US firms
- end all fractional banking practices (lend 10x
deposits)
- tighten all financial accounting, with felonies
charged routinely
- severely limit the credit derivative contract creation
and its system
- prosecute the fraud from the $1500 billion Fannie Mae
theft (1988 to 2000)
- separate Goldman Sachs from Dept Treasury, due to
insider trading risks
- separate JP Morgan from US Fed, due to insider trading
risks and extreme collusion
- prosecute JP Morgan for serving as the Enron
instructor
- end all illicit talks between stock & commodity
regulators with Wall Street
- require 30% down payments on all home mortgage loans
- end all private deals between Chinese leaders and Wall
Street for IPO stocks
- dismantle at least 75% of the foreign US Military
bases, bring soldiers home
- dismantle all US security agency participation in
contraband trafficking
- dismantle the Bank of Baghdad as central clearing
house for that trafficking
- dismantle all tight relationships with US Military and
Halliburton
- install a broad manufacturing base in the United
States, even if attached to prisons
- institute framework for foreign receivership of US
capital structure and policymaking
- give China, Japan, Saudis, and Persian Gulf Coop
Council seats on US Prez Cabinet
- give China, Japan, Saudis, and GCC veto power on US
federal budget approval
- create a Cabinet level post of Special Prosecutor with
ties to International Courts
- create a Cabinet level post to manage the housing &
mortgage Resolution Trust Corp
- encourage numerous voter referendums annually, which
bypass Congress
- reduce the influence of Israel in dominating security
and military related policy
- forbid any US citizen from working as World Bank or
Intl Monetary Fund directors
- end all tax incentives to relocate business overseas
(which kill US jobs)
- end the Alternative Minimum Tax burden completely
- rescind the Medicare payment system and its entire
program
- install legitimate economic statistics for GDP, CPI,
Jobs, and more
- install proper Cost of Living Adjustments in Social
Security and US Govt pensions
- install tax incentives to save from income outside the
401k & IRA pension systems
- dismantle all the concentration camps (230 of them) on
US soil, recently completed
- reopen a 911 Commission to issue a verifiable report,
not a whitewash BS report
- end all Chemtrail experiments in the upper atmosphere
to control weather
- release American Medical Assn cures for cancer which
are available in Latin America
- begin massive US infrastructure repair, a
reconstruction initiative with foreign funding
- admit to the world that the Untied States has become a
Third World nation
OK, YOU TELL ME, DOES A SINGLE ITEM HAS [HAVE] MORE THAN AN INFINITESIMAL CHANCE?
Be sure to take cover during a truly deadly year upcoming. The country might not be recognizable by the time the 2009 page is turned.
under construction
9/11 is Deja-Vu of what happened in
Rove said Gulf War Syndrome, vaccine political stumbling block
The Department of Defense continued its controversial mandatory anthrax vaccinations program despite high ranking Bush administration officials acknowledging there were problems with the vaccine within months of the Bush administration taking office—well before the 9/11 attacks and the October 2001 anthrax letters.
Along with the memo, Rove noted that he had attached "material on the Anthrax vaccine problem," which had been forwarded to him by H. Ross Perot. He titled it "GULF WAR SYNDROME AND ANTHRAX."
"Worst cover-up in the history of the military", SECRET VACCINES
NO
www.americangulfwarveteransassociation.org
THE
TRUE WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION
lays dormant in
millions of people
Book Claims White House Forged War Intel --"The Way of the World" Alleges U.S. Faked Letter That Linked Iraq With 9/11 05 Aug 2008 A new book published Tuesday accuses the White House of trying to manipulate intelligence to support the war in Iraq, reports CBS News. The book, by author Ron Suskind, charges that the Bush White House faked a letter from Saddam Hussein's intelligence chief connecting Iraq with 9/11 and an ongoing nuclear program - neither of which was true. This letter, in the handwriting of Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, is dated July, 2001. It says that Iraqis hosted Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 'hijackers...' The letter goes on to suggest that Iraq was importing uranium from Niger for a nuclear program. The book alleges that Habbush, Saddam's intelligence chief, was in CIA protective custody after the 2003 invasion, that the White House ordered CIA officials to have Habbush write and backdate the letter, and paid him $5 million. The author quotes two former CIA officials who claim to have seen a draft of the letter on White House stationery. Suskind writes: "The idea was to take the letter to Habbush and have him transcribe it in his own neat handwriting on a piece of Iraqi government stationery to make it look legitimate. CIA would then take the finished product to Baghdad and have someone release it to the media [lapdogs]."
Dropping
like flies!
Suspect in 2001 anthrax attacks dies of apparent suicide --Top U.S. biodefense researcher played pivotal role in research on anthrax vaccines, preparing anthrax formulations --Microbiologist was committed to a facility in Frederick for 'treatment' 01 Aug 2008 One of the nation's top biodefense researchers has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax attacks of 2001 that killed five, the Los Angeles Times has learned. Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the past 18 years worked at the government's elite biodefense research laboratories at Fort Detrick, Md., had been informed of the impending prosecution, people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and with the FBI investigation said. Regarded as a skilled microbiologist, Ivins also had helped the FBI analyze the powdery material recovered from one of the anthrax-tainted envelopes sent to a U.S. senator's office in Washington, D.C. [to persuade him to vote for the Patriot Act] The death was announced to Ivins' colleagues at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID, through a staffwide e-mail. [See: Air Force brigadier general dies of gunshot wound 28 Jul 2008; Aide to U.S. Senator Jim Webb found dead from apparent gunshot wound 29 Jul 2008
Suspect in 2001 anthrax attacks dies of apparent suicide --Top U.S. biodefense researcher played pivotal role in research on anthrax vaccines, preparing anthrax formulations --Microbiologist was committed to a facility in Frederick for 'treatment' 01 Aug 2008 One of the nation's top biodefense researchers has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax attacks of 2001 that killed five, the Los Angeles Times has learned. Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the past 18 years worked at the government's elite biodefense research laboratories at Fort Detrick, Md., had been informed of the impending prosecution, people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and with the FBI investigation said. Regarded as a skilled microbiologist, Ivins also had helped the FBI analyze the powdery material recovered from one of the anthrax-tainted envelopes sent to a U.S. senator's office in Washington, D.C. [to persuade him to vote for the Patriot Act] The death was announced to Ivins' colleagues at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID, through a staffwide e-mail. [See: Air Force brigadier general dies of gunshot wound 28 Jul 2008; Aide to U.S. Senator Jim Webb found dead from apparent gunshot wound 29 Jul 2008
Apparent suicide in anthrax case
Bruce E. Ivins, a scientist who helped the FBI
investigate the 2001 mail attacks, was about to face
charges.
A top government scientist who helped the FBI
analyze samples from the 2001 anthrax attacks has
died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as
the Justice Department was about to file criminal
charges against him for the attacks, the Los Angeles
Times has learned.
Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the last 18 years worked at the government's elite biodefense research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md., had been informed of his impending prosecution, said people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and the FBI investigation.
Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the last 18 years worked at the government's elite biodefense research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md., had been informed of his impending prosecution, said people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and the FBI investigation.
Air Force brigadier general dies of gunshot wound
Aide to U.S. Senator Jim Webb found dead from apparent gunshot wound
Fred Hutchins, a Botetourt County native who quickly rose through Virginia's political hierarchy to become a staff aide to U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, was found dead near Fincastle on Tuesday morning of a single gunshot wound to the head.
He was 26.
Hutchins' body was found by a Botetourt County deputy just after 7 a.m. outside a vehicle parked on the shoulder of southbound U.S. 220, according to the sheriff's office. A handgun was found beneath the body. The official cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner's office in Roanoke.
The sudden death of Hutchins -- known for his loyalty, humor and unique relationship with Western Virginia's first black delegate -- left friends shocked and baffled over what happened.
.
ARE WE FREE?
click below image to listen to radio interview
Let the Lawsuits
Begin:
Banks Brace for a Storm of Litigation
Ellen Brown, July 13th, 2008
In an article in The San Francisco Chronicle in December 2007, attorney Sean Olender suggested that the real reason for the subprime bailout schemes being proposed by the U.S. Treasury Department was not to keep strapped borrowers in their homes so much as to stave off a spate of lawsuits against the banks. The plan then on the table was an interest rate freeze on a limited number of subprime loans. Olender wrote:
“The sole goal of the freeze is to prevent owners of mortgage-backed securities, many of them foreigners, from suing U.S. banks and forcing them to buy back worthless mortgage securities at face value – right now almost 10 times their market worth. The ticking time bomb in the U.S. banking system is not resetting subprime mortgage rates. The real problem is the contractual ability of investors in mortgage bonds to require banks to buy back the loans at face value if there was fraud in the origination process.
“. . . The catastrophic consequences of bond investors forcing originators to buy back loans at face value are beyond the current media discussion. The loans at issue dwarf the capital available at the largest U.S. banks combined, and investor lawsuits would raise stunning liability sufficient to cause even the largest U.S. banks to fail, resulting in massive taxpayer-funded bailouts of Fannie and Freddie, and even FDIC . . . .
“What would be prudent and logical is for the banks that sold this toxic waste to buy it back and for a lot of people to go to prison. If they knew about the fraud, they should have to buy the bonds back.”1
The thought could send a chill through even the most powerful of investment bankers, including Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson himself, who was head of Goldman Sachs during the heyday of toxic subprime paper-writing from 2004 to 2006. Mortgage fraud has not been limited to the representations made to borrowers or on loan documents but is in the design of the banks’ “financial products” themselves. Among other design flaws is that securitized mortgage debt has become so complex that ownership of the underlying security has often been lost in the shuffle; and without a legal owner, there is no one with standing to foreclose. That was the procedural problem prompting Federal District Judge Christopher Boyko to rule in October 2007 that Deutsche Bank did not have standing to foreclose on 14 mortgage loans held in trust for a pool of mortgage-backed securities holders.2 If large numbers of defaulting homeowners were to contest their foreclosures on the ground that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue, trillions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) could be at risk. Irate securities holders might then respond with litigation that could indeed threaten the existence of the banking Goliaths.
States Leading the Charge
MBS investors with the power to bring major lawsuits include state and local governments, which hold substantial portions of their assets in MBS and similar investments. A harbinger of things to come was a complaint filed on February 1, 2008, by the State of Massachusetts against investment bank Merrill Lynch, for fraud and misrepresentation concerning about $14 million worth of subprime securities sold to the city of Springfield. The complaint focused on the sale of “certain esoteric financial instruments known as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) . . . which were unsuitable for the city and which, within months after the sale, became illiquid and lost almost all of their market value.”3
The previous month, the city of Baltimore sued Wells Fargo Bank for damages from the subprime debacle, alleging that Wells Fargo had intentionally discriminated in selling high-interest mortgages more frequently to blacks than to whites, in violation of federal law.4
Another innovative suit filed in January 2008 was brought by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson against 21 major investment banks, for enabling the subprime lending and foreclosure crisis in his city. The suit targeted the investment banks that fed off the mortgage market by buying subprime mortgages from lenders and then “securitizing” them and selling them to investors. City officials said they hoped to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from the banks, including lost taxes from devalued property and money spent demolishing and boarding up thousands of abandoned houses. The defendants included banking giants Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup. They were charged with creating a “public nuisance” by irresponsibly buying and selling high-interest home loans, causing widespread defaults that depleted the city’s tax base and left neighborhoods in ruins.
“To me, this is no different than organized crime or drugs,” Jackson told the Cleveland newspaper The Plain Dealer. “It has the same effect as drug activity in neighborhoods. It’s a form of organized crime that happens to be legal in many respects.” He added in a videotaped interview, “This lawsuit said, ‘You’re not going to do this to us anymore.’”5
The Plain Dealer also interviewed Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, who was considering a state lawsuit against some of the same investment banks. “There’s clearly been a wrong done,” he said, “and the source is Wall Street. I’m glad to have some company on my hunt.”
However, a funny thing happened on the way to the courthouse. Like New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General Dann wound up resigning from his post in May 2008 after a sexual harassment investigation in his office.6 Before they were forced to resign, both prosecutors were hot on the tail of the banks, attempting to impose liability for the destructive wave of home foreclosures in their jurisdictions.
But the
hits keep on coming. In June 2008, California Attorney
General Jerry Brown sued Countrywide Financial
Corporation, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, for
causing thousands of foreclosures by deceptively
marketing risky loans to borrowers. Among other things,
the 46-page complaint alleged that:
“‘Defendants viewed borrowers as nothing more than the means for producing more loans, originating loans with little or no regard to borrowers’ long-term ability to afford them and to sustain homeownership’ . . .
“The company routinely . . . ‘turned a blind eye’ to deceptive practices by brokers and its own loan agents despite ‘numerous complaints from borrowers claiming that they did not understand their loan terms.’
“. . . Underwriters who confirmed information on mortgage applications were ‘under intense pressure . . . to process 60 to 70 loans per day, making careful consideration of borrowers’ financial circumstances and the suitability of the loan product for them nearly impossible.’
“‘Countrywide’s high-pressure sales environment and compensation system encouraged serial refinancing of Countrywide loans.’”7
Similar suits against Countrywide and its CEO have been filed by the states of Illinois and Florida. These suits seek not only damages but rescission of the loans, creating a potential nightmare for the banks.
An Avalanche of Class Actions?
Massive class action lawsuits by defrauded borrowers may also be in the works. In a 2007 ruling in Wisconsin that is now on appeal, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman held that Chevy Chase Bank had violated the Truth in Lending Act by hiding the terms of an adjustable rate loan, and that thousands of other Chevy Chase borrowers could join the plaintiffs in a class action on that ground. According to a June 30, 2008 report in Reuters:
“The judge transformed the case from a run-of-the-mill class action to a potential nightmare for the U.S. banking industry by also finding that the borrowers could force the bank to cancel, or rescind, their loans. That decision was stayed pending an appeal to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is expected to rule any day.
“The idea of canceling tainted loans to stem a tide of foreclosures has caught hold in other quarters; a lawsuit filed last week by the Illinois attorney general asks a court to rescind or reform Countrywide Financial mortgages originated under ‘unfair or deceptive practices.’
“. . . The mortgage banking industry already faces pressure from state and federal regulators, who have accused banks of lowering underwriting standards and forcing some borrowers, through fraud, into costly adjustable loans that the banks later bundled and sold as high-interest investment vehicles.”
The Truth in Lending Act (TILA) is a 1968 federal law designed to protect consumers against lending fraud by requiring clear disclosure of loan terms and costs. It lets consumers seek rescission or termination of a loan and the return of all interest and fees when a lender is found to be in violation. The beauty of the statute, says California bankruptcy attorney Cathy Moran, is that it provides for strict liability: the aggrieved borrowers don’t have to prove they were personally defrauded or misled, or that they had actual damages. Just the fact that the disclosures were defective gives them the right to rescind and deprives the lenders of interest. In Moran’s small sample, at least half of the loans reviewed contained TILA violations.8 If class actions are found to be available for rescission of loans based on fraud in the disclosure process, the result could be a flood of class suits against banks all over the country.9
Shifting the Loss Back to the Banks
Rescission may be a remedy available not only for borrowers but for MBS investors. Many loan sale contracts provide by their terms that lenders must take back loans that default unusually quickly or that contain mistakes or fraud. An avalanche of rescissions could be catastrophic for the banks. Banks were moving loans off their books and selling them to investors in order to allow many more loans to be made than would otherwise have been allowed under banking regulations. The banking rules are complex, but for every dollar of shareholder capital a bank has on its balance sheet, it is supposed to be limited to about $10 in loans. The problem for the banks is that when the process is reversed, the 10 to 1 rule can work the other way: taking a dollar of bad debt back on a bank’s books can reduce its lending ability by a factor of 10. As explained in a BBC News story citing Prof. Nouriel Roubini for authority:
“[S]ecuritisation was key to helping banks avoid the regulators’ 10:1 rule. To make their risky loans appear attractive to buyers, banks used complex financial engineering to repackage them so they looked super-safe and paid returns well above what equivalent super-safe investments offered. Banks even found ways to get loans off their balance sheets without selling them at all. They devised bizarre new financial entities - called Special Investment Vehicles or SIVs - in which loans could be held technically and legally off balance sheet, out of sight, and beyond the scope of regulators’ rules. So, once again, SIVs made room on balance sheets for banks to go on lending.
“Banks had got round regulators’ rules by selling off their risky loans, but because so many of the securitised loans were bought by other banks, the losses were still inside the banking system. Loans held in SIVs were technically off banks’ balance sheets, but when the value of the loans inside SIVs started to collapse, the banks which set them up found that they were still responsible for them. So losses from investments which might have appeared outside the scope of the regulators’ 10:1 rule, suddenly started turning up on bank balance sheets. . . . The problem now facing many of the biggest lenders is that when losses appear on banks’ balance sheets, the regulator’s 10:1 rule comes back into play because losses reduce a banks’ shareholder capital. ‘If you have a $200bn loss, that reduced your capital by $200bn, you have to reduce your lending by 10 times as much,’ [Prof. Roubini] explains. ‘So you could have a reduction of total credit to the economy of two trillion dollars.’”10
You could also have some very bankrupt banks. The total equity of the top 100 U.S. banks stood at $800 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2007. Banking losses are currently expected to rise by as much as $450 billion, enough to wipe out more than half of the banks’ capital bases and leave many of them insolvent.11 If debtors were to deluge the courts with viable defenses to their debts and mortgage-backed securities holders were to challenge their securities, the result could be even worse.
Putting the Genie Back in the Bottle
So what would happen if the mega-banks engaging in these irresponsible practices actually went bankrupt? These banks are widely acknowledged to be at fault, but they expect to be bailed out by the Federal Reserve or the taxpayers because they are “too big to fail.” The argument is that if they were allowed to collapse, they would take the economy down with them. That is the fear, but it is not actually true. We do need a ready source of credit, so we need banks; but we don’t need private banks. It is a little-known, well-concealed fact that banks do not lend their own money or even their depositors’ money. They actually create the money they lend; and creating money is properly a public, not a private, function. The Constitution delegates the power to create money to Congress and only to Congress.12 In making loans, banks are merely extending credit; and the proper agency for extending “the full faith and credit of the United States” is the United States itself.
There is more at stake here than just the equitable treatment of injured homeowners and investors in mortgage-backed securities. Banks and investment houses are now squeezing the last drops of blood from the U.S. government’s credit rating, “borrowing” money and unloading worthless paper on the government and the taxpayers. When the dust settles, it will be the banks, investment brokerages and hedge funds for wealthy investors that will be saved. The repossessed will become the dispossessed; and unless your pension fund has invested in politically well-connected hedge funds, you can probably kiss it goodbye, as teachers in Florida already have.
But the banking genie is a creature of the law, and the law can put it back in the bottle. The imminent failure of some very big banks could provide the government with an opportunity to regain control of its finances. More than that, it could provide the funds for tackling otherwise unsolvable problems now threatening to destroy our standard of living and our standing in the world. The only solution that will be more than a temporary fix is to take the power to create money away from private bankers and return it to the people collectively. That is how it should have been all along, and how it was in our early history; but we are so used to banks being private corporations that we have forgotten the public banks of our forebears. The best of the colonial American banking models was developed in Benjamin Franklin’s province of Pennsylvania, where a government-owned bank issued money and lent it to farmers at 5 percent interest. The interest was returned to the government, replacing taxes. During the decades that that system was in operation, the province of Pennsylvania operated without taxes, inflation or debt.
Rather than bailing out bankrupt banks and sending them on their merry way, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) needs to take a close look at the banks’ books and put any banks found to be insolvent into receivership. The FDIC (unlike the Federal Reserve) is actually a federal agency, and it has the option of taking a bank’s stock in return for bailing it out, effectively nationalizing it. This is done in Europe with bankrupt banks, and it was done in the United States with Continental Illinois, the country’s fourth largest bank, when it went bankrupt in the 1990s.
A system of truly “national” banks could issue “the full faith and credit of the United States” for public purposes, including funding infrastructure, sustainable energy development and health care.13 Publicly-issued credit could also be used to relieve the subprime crisis. Local governments could use it to buy up mortgages in default, compensating the MBS investors and freeing the real estate for public disposal. The properties could then be rented back to their occupants at reasonable rates, leaving people in their homes without the windfall of acquiring a house without paying for it. A program of lease-purchase might also be instituted. The proceeds would be applied toward repaying the credit advanced to buy the mortgages, balancing the money supply and preventing inflation.
Local and Private Solutions
While we are waiting for the federal government to act, there are also private and local possibilities for relieving the subprime crisis. Chris Cook is a British strategic market consultant and the former Compliance Director for the International Petroleum Exchange. He recommends getting all the parties to settle by forming a pool constituted as an LLC (limited liability company), in a partnership framework that brings together occupiers and financiers as co-owners under a neutral custodian. The original owners would pay an affordable rental, and the resulting pool of rentals would be “unitized” (divided into unit interests, similar to a REIT or real estate investment trust). Among other advantages over the usual mortgage-backed security, there would be no loans at interest, since the property would be owned outright by the LLC. Eliminating interest substantially reduces costs. The former owners would be able to occupy the property at an affordable rental, with the option to buy an equity stake in it. For the banks, the advantage would be that they would be able to find investors again, since the risk would have been taken out of the investment by insuring full occupancy at affordable rates; and for the investors, the advantage would be a secure investment with a dependable return.14
Carolyn Betts is an Ohio attorney who served in Washington as issuer’s counsel for MBS trusts formed by various federal governmental entities, and represented Resolution Trust Corporation in its auction of defaulted commercial mortgage loans during the last real estate crisis. She proposes a squeeze play by the states, in the style of that brought against the tobacco companies by a consortium of state attorneys general in the 1990s. She notes that at the end of 2007, at least 20% of the funds held by the Ohio Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) were in mortgage backed securities and similar investments. That makes Ohio public money a major investor in these mortgage-related securities. Ohio governments have an interest in not having homes foreclosed upon, since foreclosures destroy local real estate markets, contribute to lower tax revenues and losses on PERS investments, and cause a strain on state and local affordable housing systems. A coordinated series of actions brought by state attorneys general could eliminate the culpable banker middlemen and return the properties to local ownership and control.
Andrew Jackson reportedly told Congress in 1829, “If the American people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning.” A wave of private actions, class actions and government lawsuits aimed at redressing injurious banking practices could spark a revolution in banking, returning the power to advance “the full faith and credit of the United States” to the United States, and returning community assets to local ownership and control.
___________________
| 1 | Sean Olender, “Mortgage Meltdown,” San Francisco Chronicle (December 9, 2007). |
| 2 | See Ellen Brown, “The Subprime Trump Card,” webofdebt.com/articles, June 26, 2008. |
| 3 | Greg Morcroft, “Massachusetts Charges Merrill with Fraud,” MarketWatch (February 1, 2008). |
| 4 | Henry Gomez, Tom Ott, “Cleveland Sues 21 Banks Over Subprime Mess,” The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, January 11, 2008). |
| 5 | Ibid. |
| 6 | Marc Dann Resigns as Attorney General,” NBC24.com (May 14, 2008). |
| 7 | E. Scott Reckard, “California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown Sues Countrywide,” Los Angeles Times (June 26, 2008). |
| 8 | Cathy Moran, “And the Truth (in Lending) Shall Set You Free,” mortgagelawnetwork.com (June 11, 2008). |
| 9 | Gina Keating, “Mortgage Ruling Could Shock U.S. Banking Industry,” Reuters (June 30, 2008). |
| 10 | Michael Robinson, “City of Debt Shows US Housing Woe,” BBC News (December 30, 2007). |
| 11 | “Is the Latest Liquidity Crunch in Remission?”, NakedCapitalism.com (March 26, 2008). |
| 12 | See E. Brown, “Dollar Deception: How Banks Secretly Create Money,” webofdebt.com/articles (July 3, 2007). |
| 13 | For more on this funding solution and why it would not inflate prices, see E. Brown, “Waking Up on a Minnesota Bridge: How to Solve the Infrastructure Crisis Without Selling Off Our National Assets,” webofdebt.com/articles (August 4, 2007). |
| 14 | Cook, “Peak Credit and a Flight to Simplicity,” Asia Times (April 3, 2008). |
Ellen Brown, J.D., developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.” She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves and how we the people can get it back. Her websites are webofdebt.com and ellenbrown.com.
FINANCIAL COLLAPSE OF THE UNITED STATES INTO A FASCIST POLICE STATE
From my writings and radio programs exposing this as far back as 1995, as one example that has been IN YOUR FACE all along under your nose, look at the FASCI on either side of the Speaker of the House (photo below: gold/graven fasci images on either side) in YOUR FALSE/FRAUDULENT FREE AMERIKA. These are Fascist symbols.
(plural: fasci) is an Italian word that was used in the late 19th century to refer to extremist political groups of many different (and sometimes opposing) orientations. A number of nationalist fasci later evolved into the 20th century movement known as fascism.
Extreme forms of nationalism, such as those propagated by fascist movements in the twentieth century, hold that nationality is the most important aspect of one's identity while some of them have attempted to define the nation in terms of race or genetics.
Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers the individual subordinate to the interests of the state, party or society as a whole. Fascists seek to forge a type of national unity, usually based on (but not limited to) ethnic, cultural, racial, religious attributes.
Some of the governments and parties most often considered to have been fascist include Fascist Italy under Mussolini, Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler.
Under the un-holy ROMAN (catholic) LAW (VATICAN: 1.Also
called Vatican Palace.
2.the authority and government of the pope)
The Serpent People who brought you a fraudulent christian
re-legion in a prostituted book you worship called a
christian bible assembled and modified for their objective
of enslaving (colonizing) the entire planet under; IN GOD WE
TRUST, ala the US Dollar "bill" (Novus Ordo Seculorum, and
all Seals of the UNITED STATES in secret code) E
Pluribus Unum.
Want some torture with your peanuts?
Aviation Security
POSTED 2:18 PM BY P. JEFFREY BLACK & JEFFREY DENNING
By Jeffrey Denning
Just when you thought you’ve heard it all...
A senior government official with the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed
great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that
would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a
police Taser®. According to this
promotional video found at the Lamperd Less
Lethal website, the bracelet would be worn by all
airline passengers.
This bracelet would:
• take the place of an airline boarding pass
• contain personal information about the traveler
• be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage
• shock the wearer on command, completely
immobilizing him/her for several minutes
The Electronic ID Bracelet, as it’s referred to as,
would be worn by every traveler “until they
disembark the flight at their destination.” Yes,
you read that correctly. Every airline passenger
would be tracked by a government-funded GPS,
containing personal, private and confidential
information, and that it would shock the customer
worse than an electronic dog collar if he/she got
out of line?
Clearly the Electronic ID Bracelet is an euphuism
for the EMD Safety Bracelet, or at least it has a
nefarious hidden ability, thus the term ID Bracelet
is ambiguous at best. EMD stands for Electro-Musclar
Disruption. Again, according to the promotional
video the bracelet can completely immobilize the
wearer for several minutes.
So is the government really that interested in this
bracelet? Yes!
According to a
letter from DHS official, Paul S. Ruwaldt of the
Science and Technology Directorate, office of
Research and Development, to the inventor whom he
had previously met with, he wrote, “To make it
clear, we [the federal government] are interested
in…the immobilizing security bracelet, and look
forward to receiving a written proposal.” The
letterhead, in case you were wondering, came from
the DHS office at the William J. Hughes
Technical Center at the Atlantic City International
Airport, or the Federal Aviation Administration
headquarters.
In another
part of the letter, Mr. Ruwaldt confirmed, “It
is conceivable to envision a use to improve air
security, on passenger planes.”
Would every paying airline passenger flying on a
commercial airplane be mandated to wear one of these
devices? I cringe at the thought. Not only could it
be used as a physical restraining device, but also
as a method of interrogation, according to the same
aforementioned letter from Mr. Ruwaldt.
Would you let them put one of those on your wrist?
Would you allow the airline employees, which would
be mandated by the government, to place such a
bracelet on any member of your family?
Why are tax dollars being spent on something like
this? Is this a police state or is it America?
[POLICE STATE AMERIKA
]
As we approach July 4th, Independence Day, I can’t
help but think of the blessing we have of living in
America and being free from hostile government
forces [ What an asinine
statement, the writer is a complete Jackass, as it
IS the government of Amerika who IS "obviously"
HOSTILE to WE, the People for wanting this device,
asshole].
It calls to mind on of my favorite speeches given
by an American Founding Forefather, Patrick Henry,
who said,
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be
purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid
it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may
take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me
death!”
'The Hunting of the Snark:' US Evidence In Detainee Case --'Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact the government has 'said it thrice' does not make an allegation true,' wrote Judge Merrick B. Garland, quoting from Carroll's poem 'The Hunting of the Snark.' 01 Jul 2008 In reversing a military tribunal's determination that a Chinese prisoner was an "enemy combatant," a federal appeals court criticized the government's evidence and