What About the 2/3 of Government Revenue that Comes from Returns on Its Investments?

With all this fear-mongering about the U.S. going into default, I think it's important to understand that the government is the largest investor in the companies its supposed to be regulating and 2/3 of its revenue comes from investments (every government agency maintains its accounts in what is called the "Comprehensive Annual Financial Report" or CAFR, which is NOT the  taxpayer"budget".  It is the general accounting structure for government, a FULL DISCLOSURE of all assets and liabilities),  NOT taxes. So one might ask the government the following questions: how do you regulate a company when you're sharing in its profits? How do you avoid conflict of interest when that conflict is embedded in the established system?  How do you act without considering the revenue potential of your actions? How do you protect us from corporate evil when you are the largest most powerful corporation in the world?  Government power and wealth is corporate power and wealth. There is no separation between government and corporate agendas. It should be readily apparent through the continuing passage of laws that profit government, as well as not only the lack of enforcement applied when the political/corporate elite break the law, but their rewards as in the recent bailouts.

“They tell us that our taxpayer budgets are continuously short of money from debt, taxes, tariffs, tolls, fines, levies, fees, dues, duties, orders, finance charges, excises, audits, permits, licenses , contracts, legalities, acts, rules, regulations, restrictions, requirements, requisites, prerequisites, post requisites, documentation, obligations, restraints, constraints, options, conditions, causes, tenure, status, etiquette, postage limits, speed limits, size limits, weight limits, closed circuit tv, red-light cameras, citations, tickets, quotas, equal opportunity, signs, signals, boundaries, borders, fences, zones, zoning, associations, directives, mandates, sanctions, liabilities, confiscation, eminent domain, restraint, restraining orders, position, possession, influence, ownership, control, lawsuits, punishment, capital punishment, bail, detention, psychiatric observations, rendition, custody, confinement, captivity, incarceration, arrest, manhunts, warrant, required insurance, prescriptions, registration, referrals, waiting lists, free speech zones, terrorist watch-lists, no-fly lists, and, classified information,. These are all sources of revenue for government. In other words, taxation without representation." -- Clint Richardson

The only thing that's in our favor is the government's need to pose as a public servant who performs legitimate tasks, but that mask seems to be dropping more and more every day while we continue to wring our hands and buy into the outright lies that the mainstream media report, 24/7,  in order to ensure that their masters--the unaccountable federal government--remain immune from their ever-increasing legalized "crimes". This continuous threat of government shut-downs, defaults, and going over "fiscal cliffs" is nothing but pure fiction. The reality is that our government is not interested in providing public service, because there is money to be made at our expense by promoting and creating legislation that practically guarantee corporate agendas. Keep in mind that government, directly or indirectly, own 70% of all equities on the stock markets and 80% of the Fed’s income goes back to the treasury!

How do we know this?  It is thanks to Mr Walter Burien and Mr. Clint Richardson, who have exposed a huge piece of the puzzle: that the government owns it all by investment, that we can liberate ourselves from this false reality.  We all need to learn that the political elites profit  immensely from this ongoing government-by-crisis political theater that  unfolds before our eyes everyday on FOX News, CNN, MSNBC, etc. We need to learn that the outrageous revenues that government collects through taxes, fees, permits, licenses, penalties and various forms of corruption, piracy and theft is permanently lost to public benefit.

However,  to most of us, it's much easier to digest the promoted fictions and fallacies about the Federal Reserve and the "default" that they threaten us with through, as Clint Richardson says, the "daily feeding frenzy of misinformation surrounding this investment and currency scam, where inaccuracy and downright fiction rule over any comprehension of what the Fed really is, what it does, and who its master is," than to wade through the 479 pages of deliberately confusing and boring truth that lay within the audited financial statements of the Federal Reserve and the 185,000 government CAFRs of the United States government.

From Walter Burien:

** Government was NOT supposed to operate at a profit. How did they get around this restriction?

ANSWER: If for example a city had a 100-million dollar profit for the year from any of its operations, at a stroke of a pen they create or deposit into a "liability fund" and poof, there goes the profit re-designated now as a liability.

Here is the link to the Board of Governors Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), . for 2011, the latest and 98th audit of the Federal Reserve. According to Clint Richardson, "it explains how everything operates, its foreign investments and foreign currency swaps and schemes, its many separate limited liability corporate holdings like Maiden Lane, its dealings and bailouts with AIG, Bears Stearns, and JP Morgan, and of course its assets and liabilities balance sheet."

“Within this 479 pages of dry and boring financial reporting is a full description of the Fed’s operations, including the basic financial happenings of each individual reserve bank. Yeah, I know, it doesn’t have the flair of a good “Secrets of the Temple” or “Creatures” type of novel, but its got all the actual facts and figures from TARP to SOMA. Why? Because this is what is required by federal law.

If you want to know about the Fed, read the CAFR.

If you want to know about your city, read the CAFR.

If you want to know about your county, state, district, or any other governmental agency or corporation, read the CAFR.

Here are a few highlights:

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Washington, D.C.
May 2012

To: The Speaker of the House of Representatives:

Pursuant to the requirements of section 10 of the Federal Reserve Act, I am pleased to submit the ninety-eighth annual report of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. This report covers operations of the Board during calendar year 2011.

Sincerely,

Ben Bernanke
Chairman

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Beware: The Machiavellian Mortgage Scam Continues

In 2008, U.S. foreclosure filings shot up by 81% nationwide, and since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been almost 5 million completed foreclosures across the country, with millions more expected over the next few years. It's easy to conclude that this disaster was merely a result of incompetence but when you add up all of the facts, it becomes clear this calamity was the result of something much more Machiavellian (“Machiavellism” justifies power politics without ethical standards) at work. Moreover these Machiavellian powers are doing everything in their power to continue the biggest financial swindle in history.  And if you think you're in the clear just because you haven't been foreclosed upon, think again.

By design, it's very confusing, so the following is my attempt to clarify matters  for myself as well as for anyone else who might be interested. 

Firstly, we were set up.  Since the early to mid 1990s, in particular, Americans were strongly encouraged to buy their own home...whatever it takes, get yourself a home. Policies and programs (guarantees, tax breaks, etc.) were created to encourage home ownership, to finance the "American Dream".  And it worked.  The government pushed home ownership past 69% in 2004.  Not to mention, the banks opened up the floodgates and made credit available to anyone, regardless of   income. In fact, between 2003-2008, income wasn't even required!   NINJA (No Income No Job No Asset) loans and LIAR loans-loans structured to fail--predominated.

Meanwhile, Wall Street was ready to cash in on the financial ignorance of We, the Suckers. Thanks to the creation of MERS ( Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. a subsidiary of MERSCORP, Inc.), in 1995, and the securitization instruments like SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicle) or SIV (Special Investment Vehicle) they were all set up to track the transfers electronically on Wall Street, obfuscating the chain of title, as our promissory notes, split off from the deed, were securatized-- sliced and diced and sold and resold 30 times over--without our permission.  Hello robo-signing!  Of course, nothing was recorded in the land records, and the counties were not paid their fees.  In other words, the chain of title goes one way and the chain of custody, (the movement and location of physical evidence from the time it is obtained until the time it is presented in court) the other.

Most of us presume the chain of title on our property is clean and in order, however,  you may be shocked to find out otherwise, especially if you brought your home after 1997.  The financial swindlers who created the mortgage loan securitization scam made sure of it. Even if you are current--paying your mortgage on time every month--if you settled anytime over the last two decades, there is a very good chance you have a cloud on your title to the note. 

What is a clouded title? It's an apparent claim or encumbrance, such as a lien, that, if true, impairs the right of the owner to transfer his or her property free and clear of the interests of any other party. In other words, a breach in your chain of title that might jeopardize the conveyance of that title. Obviously this could very well reduce  the value and marketability of your property.

How can you tell?  Well,  it's highly recommended you either do, or get a  COTA (Chain of Title Assessment), a forensic loan audit to to determine if it was properly executed, especially to uncover any of the various misapplications of borrower's payments that generate revenue for the servicer, and/or a securitization audit which is directed at the REMIC process of sponsoring and registering the trust and its issuance of securities (Watch out for scams!). Keep in mind, the information gathered during these audits are just that, information, until it's submitted as evidence and the judge decides that the information is accurate and clearly demonstrates error or wrongdoing on the part of the other party, not to mention the judge's acceptance of the person who conducted the audit as credible.

But before you begin this arduous task, get out your deed of trust and look for a MIN # (MERS Identification Number).  It should be  right next to your document title.  If you see this number, it's almost certain your title has been compromised, as over 70 million homes are affected.  The bottom line is that the homeowner is not obliged to pay the WRONG lender!

Remember, MERS is a shell entity, a bankruptcy remote entity that is basically a computer. It has no employees, no assets, no liabilities, no income, and no expenses. It’s an electronic database managed by MERS Corp Holding, INC It is the brainchild of the Mortgage Bankers Association – Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, land title association and all the major banks, yet it.has essentially destroyed 400 years of recorded property rights in the U.S. And, as admitted in testimony, most of the original notes were destroyed after the scanning, which, according to Carpenter v. Longan - 83 U.S. 271 (1872), the uncoupling of the deed and the note renders the note null and void. Hence, without the original promissory note, any copies used as evidence in court are sure to be counterfeit. So how are the banks getting around this issue? Well, so far, the ignorance of the public, and the supposed ignorance of the attorneys and judges seems to be working out quite well for them.  Nevertheless,  now that people are waking up to their scheme, the banks are doing their utmost to create pro-bankster legislation and there are already plans to legalize these  counterfeit notes, which they will call eNotes and eMortgages.

Let's take the state of Florida as an example. Currently, there is a backlog of 366,250 foreclosure cases just sitting there waiting to be processed, not to mention, they expect another 680,000 foreclosures within the next three years. What are they waiting for? More than likely, Florida's fast-track foreclosure bill,  H.B. 87 to go through.

H.B. 87 is very likely to become law by mid-June unless Governor Rick Scott decides to exercise his veto power, which seems unlikely at this point. This is a gift to the banks and to make matters even worse, they’re using the foreclosure settlement money to run it through. If this bill becomes law, it essentially gives banks that wrongfully foreclose on your property a go pass. They get to keep the house and the homeowner can’t come back and claim they’ve been wronged.

“Significantly, the new legislation will shift the burden of proof in mortgage foreclosure cases from the plaintiff (bank), to the defendant (homeowner). Thus, if H.B. 87 is ratified, the homeowner will now have to prove that the bank lacks the legal right to foreclose at the very onset of the proceedings. This shift will significantly restrict the homeowner’s ability to defend the case as banks will now be able to seek what is being termed an “expedited foreclosure.”

A title agent addressing the subcommittee on this fast-track foreclosure bill warned them not to buy a foreclosed property because it's almost impossible to tell which titles are infected with fraud. Of course, it's not just Florida; it's nationwide.  According to HUD and Fannie and Freddie, the majority of foreclosure inventory that they'll try to sell to unsuspecting people is concentrated in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, Texas. They've even admitted to relying on companies like Fidelity National Financial which has a huge myriad of title companies to whitewash the titles to these properties. In other words, when you buy one of these properties, you're indemnifying them from suit.

Pro Bankster Legislation:

H.R. 992 - This bill exempts broad swathes of trades from new regulation and could authorize bailouts for credit default swaps

H.B. 87 - see above

Washington State Bill SHB 1435 covers up the felonious business practices by covering up reconveyance issues in allowing banks to foreclose without providing official promissary note. All they will have to present is a Declaration of Ownership. These properties are being reconveyed regularly by the large lending institutions with only a “Lost Note Affidavit” and an indemnity agreement between the parties.

“Escrow and title are not bringing the original note to the table. We need a bill that mandates producing the original note, not a copy or an affidavit, before a reconveyance can occur. A homeowner does not know if they are paying off the right bank since the loan is securitized and serviced. This bill will create more red tape for the borrower and cause fraudulent defaults and foreclosure. This is not addressing the real problem, but rather it is
covering it up.“

What about government's role? 

Now,  banks are only part of the equation.  Without the protection of government, in particular, the justice department, this treasonous deception would've failed before it started. To be sure, from the get go, our oh-so-trustworthy politicians and the banksters marched in lockstep. 

From the government encouragement of home ownership to the repeal of Glass-Steagall  to deregulation  to the resignation of Criminal Division Chief, Lanny Breuer  after a Frontline documentary aired, exposing his role--and Eric Holder's role-- in allowing the banksters to bury their crimes to Breuer's return to Covington and Burling, one of Washington's biggest white shoe law firms to represent MERS in court, to the persecution, silencing and yes, even death of whistleblowers, such as Dr. Joseph H. Zernik, Ph.D. and now deceased notary, Tracy Lawrence, Lynn Szymoniak, Kyle Lagow, amongst many others, the banks and government ensure its progression.

It’s important to emphasize that the whistleblowers whose actions were False Claims Act cases involving fraud against the federal government have legal protection whereas if your whistleblowing case does NOT fall within the narrow confines of this law, you have NO legal protections and it is practically impossible to get media attention and/or legal representation even if you have money to pay attorneys.

“I believe that the level of corruption in Los Angeles increased, but also diversified. The collapse of the housing market is a huge court corruption scandal, where the judges and the bankers are acting as a racket.

And Los Angeles was identified already in the early 2000s in FBI reports as ‘the epicenter of the epidemic of real estate and mortgage fraud.’ In my reports I documented that at least as early as 1998 they had a routine for real estate fraud in the court in collusion with a straw purchaser.

The fraud being perpetrated on the people of the United States in recent years through the financial crisis is unprecedented in human history, and it results in dispossession of the people on a scale typically seen only in war.” --  Dr. Joseph H. Zernik, in hiding since 2010

Links:

Landmark National Bank v. Kesler

How Bad Can It Be for SEC Whistle-Blowers?

What is a REMIC (Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit)? They are a form of IRS tax shelter sold to investors as part of the mortgage-backed securities package (Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit (“REMIC”) pursuant to I.R.C. §§860A-G). The documents that killed the REMICs may actually help save your home.



MERS – TOO MANY DEAD DUCKS

“Actually, the banks patented nearly every single move they made – even the behavioral aspects of dealing with the customers, judges, politicians, etc. as if to legitimize their scheme...The patent extensively outlines the legal requirements for the magical change of the negotiable promissory note into securities instruments chopped up into pieces for distribution to numerous investors who were to become the “Certificate-holders” of securitized REMIC trusts."

Clouded Titles (Who really owns your home?)


Banks’ Lobbyists Help in Drafting Financial Bills

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Sentencing Two Populations to Generations of Debt Slavery

The first real test of establishing America’s commitment to "democracy" came from Greece after WWII. During the war, the Left Wing National Liberation Front had provided the majority of resistance to the Nazis. It also set up interim governments across the nation. Though its military government leaders were communist, the partisan governments bore no resemblance to Stalinist Russia. They were decentralized and participatory. The peasants were treated fairly and their status, raised. It was a real people’s government. The goal was to make Greece independent, free from all ties.

But Winston Churchill claimed anarchy and demanded the return of the monarchy. He wanted to keep Greece in their sphere of influence in the Mediterranean for their own political ends. In other words, they wanted to restore the old order in Greece. They wanted the King back on his throne because he was the best guarantee of British interest in Greece: political, economic, and strategic, despite the fact that all of the Greek people hated the oppressive regime of the King.

So America stepped in and a network of concentration camps were set up across the Greek islands while right winged death squads terrorized villages. A favorite technique was beheading. President Truman gave $400 million to aid in restoring the old order. In 1947, 74,000 tons of military equipment was sent to Greece including massive stocks of napalm, and during the Civil War in Greece, the Truman Doctrine was announced which was in effect to crush the peasant and worker based anti-Nazi resistance and restore the traditional fascist order. As a result, 150,000 Greeks were killed. Greece was the first major police task which the United States took on in the postwar world.

Fast forward almost 60 years, and the European feudal system is scapegoating Greece, along with its tiny neighbor, Cyprus --many Cypriots consider themselves Greeks; they share the same National Anthem, are Orthodox and of course they speak Greek--once again, only this time, instead of tanks, they're using banks.

"At least 1,600 Greek businesses - from shipping, retail to tourism - will suffer from the Cyprus bailout deal announced on Sunday after a showdown between Brussels and Nicosia, according to Vasilis Korkidis, head of the National Confederation of Greek Commerce (ESEE).

“The tragic situation in Cyprus will certainly have immediate effects on the Greek market, since a large part of the domestic businesses maintain close ties with Cypriot companies,” Korkidis said in a statement on Tuesday. He was particularly critical of the capital controls and the impending haircut on large deposits (over 100,000 euros) expected to be more than 40%.

Greece's exports to Cyprus exceed 1billion euros annually and the country is Cyprus’ biggest trade partner, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany.

According to Korkidis, the Eurogroup’s Cyprus deal establishes new, severely punitive rules for countries needing emergency aid in the future.

He also slammed the Eurogroup deal (which he called the "German plan" to stress the key role played by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the negotiations) for “crippling” Cyprus. He said the deal is “tragic” because it “sentences” Cyprus - the country’s markets and economy - to a long period of recession and debt.

Without blinking an eye, the troika of International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank (ECB) wipes out the savings of a people, while imposing draconian capital controls, sentencing two populations to generations of debt slavery. This is the new model. Other countries will surely follow.

Links:

List Released With 132 Names Who Pulled Cyprus Deposits Ahead Of "Confiscation Day"

With every passing day, it becomes clearer and clearer the Cyprus deposit confiscation "news" was the most unsurprising outcome for the nation's financial system and was known by virtually everyone on the ground days and weeks in advance: first it was disclosed that Russians had been pulling their money, then it was suggested the president himself had made sure some €21 million of his family's money was parked safely in London, then we showed a massive surge in Cyprus deposit outflows in February, and now the latest news is that a list of 132 companies and individuals has emerged who withdrew their €-denominated deposits in the two weeks from March 1 to March 15, among which the previously noted company Loutsios & Sons which is alleged to have ties with the current Cypriot president Anastasiadis.

From Sigma:

"Money transfers made within 15 days, namely from 1 until March 15. On Friday, March 15, had met the Eurogroup, which officially decided to impose a tax on deposits by companies and individuals in all financial institutions in Cyprus.

These 132 companies and individuals have withdrawn all deposits in euros, dollars and rubles, which were transferred to other banks outside Cyprus.

The disclosure of the list, which shows that the outflow of deposits from local banks other financial institutions outside Cyprus became massively raises suspicion that some had inside information about the decisions taken by the other 16 eurozone countries in exchange for financing deficits of the economy.

In listings, and the company is Loutsios and Sons Ltd, which carried 21 million deposit in a UK bank, while the owner of the company is alleged to have family ties with the President of the Republic, Nikos Anastasiadis.

The first column are names of companies and individuals in the second record of the amounts withdrawn in the third column refers to the amount withdrawn in the same currency, the currency in the fourth and the fifth and last column refers to the date of transfer.

The Timeline of the Unfolding Eurozone Crisis

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QE3 and the Global Land Grab

You can't create wealth out of thin air; therefore it's plain to see that money is not wealth, it's the mechanism used to transfer wealth from we the taxpayers to the ruling class. For instance, when Ben Bernanke prints new money (QE3), who gets first dibs on that money? His wealthy friends, of course. And then, in turn, they lend it out at quadruple the price and/or purchase up all of the finite resources--especially land, farmland, that is. Why? He who controls the food controls the world.

That's right, the global tycoons, especially since the financial crisis in 2008, have been buying up farmland all over the planet at an alarming rate, while subsistence farmers are losing their land and their way of life. They're being priced out of existence as the New World Agricultural Order unfolds.



Meanwhile, the Fed is quietly acquiring massive amounts of property in the US through their purchase of mortgage-backed securities. There are an estimated 1.5 million homes currently in the foreclosure process. Under the current QE3, Bernanke will own those properties once the foreclosure is complete. The point? To create a huge land-grab within the US where the Fed owns massive amounts of land and can leverage this acquisition against the American public as the transition becomes apparent.

Oh, and the Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA) recently announced that “strategic defaulters”, i.e. those homeowners who have abandoned their mortgage because they could not afford to make the monthly payments will be jailed for this “crime”.

So what we have here are banks, agencies and government "manipulating" the market toward their own agenda at the expense of we the people. Nothing new here.

Links:

'Shadow REO': As Many as 90% of Foreclosed Properties Held Off the Market, Estimates Suggest

Supposedly, these homes are being released in bulk to major conglomerates who have billions of dollars to buy them for pennies on the dollar and fix and sell them or lease them out. The banks are selling in bulk to them with the understanding that they are not to be sold within a certain amount of time

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While the 99.9% Continue to Struggle the Wealthiest .01% Keep Getting Wealthier.

Why is it that while America is supposedly in crisis - or jobless "recovery" - the rich continue to increase their wealth at a rate that is creating staggering wealth inequality? The net worth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans grew by 13% in the past year to $1.7 trillion, as the gap between rich and poor continues to widen at a staggering rate.

Meanwhile, average workers' wages haven't budged over the last 40-years, and the real minimum wage--adjusted for inflation--has declined over the same period.  According to the  Congressional Budget Office (CBO), between 1979 and 2007, the top 1% of Americans income grew by 275%!  And between 2002 and 2007, the income of the top 1% grew 10 times faster than the income of the bottom 90%. The CBO also found that between 1979 and 2005, after-tax income for middle-class Americans (adjusted for inflation) rose by 21% while the richest 0.1 per cent grew by 400%!.
How much longer can this obscene transfer of wealth to the privileged few from poor and hard-working Americans continue before most Americans become serfs if they're not already?

“We can have a democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (1846 – 1941)

“Men did not make the earth… It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property… Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.” — Thomas Paine

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Is Economic Armageddon on the Horizon?

 George Soros seems almost hopeful. He's buying up all the gold, and off-loading all of his equity positions in major financial stocks. Take a look at the 13-F report he filed with the SEC.  Moreover, billionaire John Paulson, who made $20 billion off the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, is also going gold crazy.  Not to mention the central banks. They're buying up gold in great quantity. In fact, central bank gold demand doubled since last quarter!

So Soros is backing up his words of warning, stated in Newsweek, with action in more ways than one. Let's not forget Soros's Management Fund purchased enough grain elevators and food production sites to become the third largest conglomerate in the food industry in the U.S.

“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.”
[...]
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.”

However, there are even more disturbing signs and/or clues that indicate economic collapse may be closer than we think. In addition to the billionaires and the central bank gold grab, here are some more interesting occurrences that make you go hmmm:

1. U.S. banks told to make plans for preventing collapse -- Uhm, shouldn't banks already have recovery plans? Banks are pulling in record profits right now, but you can bet your bottom dollar that should we see another economic collapse in the near future, the banks will be first in line for handouts, despite what this article reports.

U.S. regulators directed five of the country's biggest banks, including Bank of America Corp and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, to develop plans for staving off collapse if they faced serious problems, emphasizing that the banks could not count on government help.

2. The fed's plan to raise capital requirements for the banking industry in September. According to Mark Adams JD/MBA, in a comment he made regarding the possibility of a banking crisis, he said,

"an increase in the reserve ratio will cause many banks to become under-capitalized with the stroke of a pen thereby causing a banking crisis which will result in another bailout for the big banks, another consolidation of power in the banking industry, another tightening of credit for main street, another economic crash, and austerity for the rest of us.
[...]
I'll explain what going from a reserve capital ratio of 4% to 6% will do. With a capital ratio of 4%, a bank can lend $25,000 for each $1,000 of capital which includes funds raised through stock offerings, retained earnings and deposits. With a capital ratio of 6%, a bank can lend $16,667 for each $1,000 in capital. Since banks produce earnings by lending, most banks want to lend as much as is allowed, so this increase in the reserve ratio will immediately cause most banks to become undercapitalized thereby needing to be taken over and bailed out. After the new rule takes effect, banks that are lending more than 2/3rds of what is currently allowed will be undercapitalized, so that is most banks."

3. 611 bankster resignations in seven months -- American Kabuki posted  each and every one of them from 9/1/11 to 4/22/12...from world banks to investment houses to money funds to etc.

4. Homeland Security pursuit of crowd surveillance -- Are they expecting crowds to gather? And if so, why?

5. Multiple agencies of the federal government have ordered and are stockpiling millions of rounds of hollow point bullets -- While it's true, Fox News is reporting that it is not for potential civil unrest, but is "standard issue" and simply used for mandatory federal training sessions. However, as Maj. Gen. Jerry Curry pointed out, cheaper firing range bullets are used for practice and training.

Hollow point bullets are so lethal that the Geneva Convention does not allow their use on the battle field in time of war. Hollow point bullets don’t just stop or hurt people, they penetrate the body, spread out, fragment and cause maximum damage to the body’s organs. Death often follows." -- Maj. Gen. Curry

Moreover, Curry added that during the Iraq War the U.S. military used 70 million rounds of ammunition per year. Compare that with the 450 million rounds of hollowpoint bullets ordered in March by the Department of Homeland Security, and the additional 750 million rounds of hollow point bullets (DHS) ordered recently. That's over 1 billion hollow points in less than six months! 

RoninMaximus sums it up:

"What has largely been DELIBERATELY ignored by the media – though, I know full well they are more than aware – is that these thieves were insolvent when they were given trillions of US taxpayer money in the heist that was called a financial crisis in ’08. What the banks have done, along with their criminally complicit politicians is to craft the biggest fraud and the subsequent transfer of wealth in man’s history…using the outrageous and audacious fear tactic of too big to fail. The truth is, what was too big to allow to fail was the lie most all of the actors involved knew about and perpetuated.

The derivatives market is where the banks have been gambling away unabated since said financial crisis came to light in the first place. They’ve continued to manipulate the prices of the commodities market to keep their collective theft on going with Wall Street and Washington cheering it on. This is criminal, pure and simple and the government is attempting to quietly prepare militarily to deal with “we the people” when it becomes plainly apparent this ponzi scheme called the central bank is seen for what it is: An engine of theft and destroyer of the middle class’s wealth.

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Elderly African Americans/Hispanics Hit Hardest by Foreclosure Crisis.

Home "ownership" does not equal security later in life anymore, as older minorities - especially for those over 80-years old - are facing foreclosure rates that are almost double those faced by white borrowers of the same age, mirroring a nationwide trend seen in other age groups as well.

According to AARP:

• About 600,000 people who are 50 years or older are in foreclosure.
• About 625,000 in the same age group are at least three months behind on their mortgages.
• About 3.5 million — 16 percent of older homeowners — are underwater, meaning their home values have gone down and they now owe more than their homes are worth.

The mortgage crisis has slammed every age group—especially the oldest Americans 75-plus—and has hit Latino and African American seniors and their families the hardest, according to a study being released today by AARP.

About 1.5 million people ages 50 or older lost their homes to foreclosure from 2007 to 2011, and another 3.5 million aging boomers and seniors in the United States “are at risk of losing their homes,” says the report, “Nightmare on Main Street: Older Americans an the Mortgage Market Crisis.”

“Despite the perception that older Americans are more housing secure than younger people, millions of older Americans are carrying more mortgage debt than ever before,” the report says.

Trouble Rising Fastest for Seniors

For instance, during the five years covered by the study, seriously delinquent mortgage loans—those in the verge of foreclosure -- for people age 50 or older rose faster than delinquencies for people younger than 50. These loan payments, 90 days or more late, swelled for the 50-plus group by 456 percent from 2007-2011, compared with the also disturbing jump by 361 percent for those under 50.

AARP’s analysis included 17.4 million home loans tracked by CoreLogic, a leading data base on home equity. The report reveals that at the end of 2011, more than 600,000 home loans by people 50-plus were in foreclosure. Additionally, 625,000 older homeowners were 90 or more days delinquent—a least three mortgage payments behind, a common trigger for foreclosures.

Furthermore, the research found, by last December 3.5 million loans by older people were “underwater.” That is, they owed more than the value of their property.

The AARP analysis found that middle-income mortgage holders “have borne the brunt of the foreclosure crisis.” Although those with incomes at less than $50,000 held one-quarter of the home loans in the study — but accounted for one-third of the foreclosures.

Most Age 75-Plus Have No Savings Left

“The biggest problem we found is for the oldest of the old, those age 75 or more,” stated Debra Whitman, AARP executive vice president for policy, in a call-in press briefing on Wednesday.

She noted that two-thirds of those ages 75 or more “have no retirement savings left to make up these differences.” They can’t refinance or sell their homes, even to have enough to move into assisted living or a nursing home when they become frail.

“Older homeowners often rely on their home equity to finance their needs in retirement – things like health care, home maintenance and other unexpected needs. The fact that so many older Americans have no equity at all is troubling,” Whitman said.

Although four out of five Americans older Americans own their homes, many tapped their home equity before the recession struck for such customary needs as home repairs or rising health care costs. Once the housing bubble burst, millions of seniors depleted their retirement savings and other accounts hoping to save their home.

Even though retirement income is fixed or declining for many, says the study, their costs have escalated.

The report reveals that from 2007-2010 “average expenditures for mortgage interest and charges increased 16.3 percent; average property tax expenditures increased 4.9 percent; average expenditures for utilities increased 5.2 percent; and average health care expenditures increased 5.7 percent.”

Ironically, another factor for the added financial jeopardy confronting many seniors is longevity. “We’re seeing more and more people today over 100 and over 90,” Whitman observed. The combination of more people than ever living beyond age 75, and the dramatic economic downturn means fewer elders have even the modest resources they need to keep a roof over their heads.

Older people face more difficult challenges recovering from a foreclosure as a result of having fewer working years remaining to rebuild their financial security, Whitman said. In addition, seniors who have lost their jobs face longer periods of unemployment. When they do find a job, it is often at a lower pay level than their previous position, and offers little or no benefits.

Foreclosures Double for Older Blacks, Latinos

The report, conducted by Lori A. Trawinski of AARP’s Public Policy Institute, shows that Hispanic and black elders suffered “double the foreclosure rate” of older white borrowers. While Latinos and African Americans 50-plus with prime loans saw foreclosure rates of 3.9 percent and 3.5 percent, the level for whites was 1.9 percent in the five-year height of the crisis.

For the more troubling subprime loans, foreclosure levels were sharply higher for everyone 50-plus, the study shows, but particularly for ethnic elders. Overall, subprime mortgages accounted for 6.8 percent of home loans for 50-plus whites in 2011, who tended to have more of the standard prime loans. Blacks, though, had more than three times that percentage of subprime loans, 21.8 percent, and it was 12.9 percent for 50-plus Latino borrowers.

AARP’s report adds, “A recent settlement between the U.S. Department of Justice and Bank of America supports the allegation that lenders unfairly targeted African American and Hispanic borrowers for subprime loans.”

Stating that “the housing crisis is far from over,” the report calls for a range of policy solutions. It urges more help be provided to seniors with loan modification and reduction of principals, especially where housing prices have plunged well below the original principal used as the basis for the mortgage. The report also recommends increased mediation programs; more access to housing counseling and legal assistance programs; and development of short-term financial assistance programs.

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Will the US Economy Be In Free-fall by Autumn?

Greece and the EU have monopolized headlines recently in the mainstream media. Meanwhile, according to the Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin, another financial crisis is brewing that will make 2008 "seem like a small summer storm."

An IMF working paper, entitled, Systemic Banking Crisis Database: An update  by Luc Laeven and Fabián Valencia shows that most banking crises start in September.

Five of the biggest banks in the United States are crafting living wills in case they fail, as part of government-mandated contingency planning that could push them to untangle their complex operations.

At the same time, banks continue to get backdoor bailouts. 

Below are six ways the big banks rake in cash every day from services that are supposed to help working Americans.

1. Big Contracts for Food Stamps

Suzanne Merkelson at Republic Reports points out that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits—the program formerly known as food stamps, which provides food aid to families—increased to $72 billion last year (from $30 billion in 2007).

And as the lousy economy keeps people relying on benefits to feed their families, big banks keep benefiting from the program too. A new paper [PDF] from Michele Simon finds that SNAP “represents the largest, most overlooked corporate subsidy in the farm bill.” Merkelson writes:

While SNAP is a federal program, USDA and the states work together to administer the program. States contract with banks, who authorize payments (Electronic Bank Transfers or EBTs) from the Federal Reserve to retailers. J.P. Morgan Chase has contracts in half the states “indicating a lack of competition and significant market power,” according to Simon. How much are these deals worth? In New York, one seven-year deal originally gave the bank $112 million for its services, but was recently amended to add another $14.3 million.

JP Morgan spends a bunch of money lobbying the Department of Agriculture on this program, making sure they get what they want—a big paycheck from state taxpayers.

And the best part? When you have a problem with your JP Morgan SNAP benefits card? You call a JP Morgan call center for help—and that call center just might be in India.

So to recap: big bank makes money off a program that helps people who are unemployed—and creates jobs in India with that money, rather than creating them here in the US.

2. Making Money Off the Unemployed

The banks get paid directly by the state to handle the SNAP program, but that's far from the only program designed to help the victims of the lousy economy that has turned into a cash cow for the banks that created the crisis in the first place.

Unemployment benefits in 41 states are provided through Wall Street giants like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JP Morgan Chase. In South Carolina, for instance, customers get a prepaid debit card from Bank of America to access their unemployment benefits—which is, of course, fee-free at a Bank of America ATM. But for rural South Carolinians, the nearest Bank of America ATM might be 50 miles away. Shawana Busby, a South Carolina user of the program, tells the Huffington Post that she's probably spent $350 in fees to access her benefits—which are $264 a week. Another user of the cards, Sandra Gortman, tells the Huffington Post that she was pressured to adopt the prepaid card, and then when she used it to put gas in her car, the gas station put a hold on her card for $75, which didn't come off for three days. When she called to check on the hold, she was charged a customer service fee. (The bank has now eliminated such fees.)

The bank also collects a 3-cent fee from the state each time it “facilitates” a transfer on a prepaid card. It also gets those fees for direct-depositing unemployment benefits into someone's bank account.

3. Sweet Campus Deals to Prey on Students While Distributing Federal Student Aid Money

A recent report from USPIRG, “The Campus Debit Card Trap,” dug into the deals that universities, both public and private, make with banks to produce student ID cards and more significantly, actually handle and disburse student financial aid. In other words, young people who've already signed up for a lifetime of student debt are being preyed on further by banks that can charge them fees just to access their money. (And, remember, those same big banks are already making big bucks on student aid.)

USPIRG found that 32 of the 50 largest public 4-year universities and 26 of the largest 50 community colleges—the schools in part supported by taxpayers—had deals with banks to provide debit or prepaid cards for students. The campuses often get money from the banks for the privilege of access to students, and the banks then make their money back in fees—and possibly other ways, too. Mela Heestand, writing for AlterNet about the protests at the University of California Davis that drove US Bank to close its campus bank branch, pointed out that “university contracts with banks encourage tuition hikes, because banks stand to profit directly from rising tuition, while the administration comes to rely on funding from bank contracts.” US Bank has agreements at 52 campuses around the country.

(After the protests that shuttered the US Bank branch, twelve activists were arrested and face up to 11 years in prison and $1 million in fines.)

Students are the ones bearing the costs of access to money they're already paying interest on, and USPIRG points out that the fees are “steep and frequent,” including per-swipe fees, inactivity fees (yes, you read that right), overdraft fees and fees to reload their prepaid cards. And financial aid that is paid to students through a debit card is subject, just like any other card, to ATM fees if students use an ATM not owned by the bank that currently has their money. The Department of Education has rules on this practice, banning banks from charging fees if they provide “convenient” ATMs for the students' use, but their definition of “convenient” is vague—leaving students at the mercy of a single ATM on campus, which produces long lines and leaves no alternative if it breaks or runs out of cash.

4. Cashing in on Tax Returns

It's not only your unemployment, financial aid, or SNAP benefits that the big banks control these days—they also might come between you and your tax return.

Once again, South Carolina takes the lead, claiming to save the taxpayer money by cutting a deal with Bank of America, this time to send out tax returns in the form of—you guessed it—prepaid debit cards from Bank of America. And just like with unemployment benefits and financial aid (or your regular, consumer bank card), the bank is making its money collecting fees from people trying to access their own money.

“They’re not even nickel and diming people, they’re five-dollaring and 10-dollaring people,” Sue Berkowitz, Director of the Appleseed Legal Justice Center, says.

Oh, and the bank got this deal through a no-bid contract—the Department of Revenue calls them “the best fit” for the program. The program isn't mandatory but, the Palmetto Public Record notes, it's opt-out, not opt-in. Which means that unless you request otherwise, your money will be given to you through Bank of America—which in addition to sticking you with ATM fees and other charges, is going to make interest on your money while it's sitting in their account.

5. Refinancing Homes Means Big Bucks for Banks

Getting the big banks to refinance mortgages and help people facing foreclosure stay in their homes has been a huge fight, with activists around the country putting their bodies on the line, physically occupying homes to keep residents in them.

Now the program that's supposed to help those struggling homeowners looks instead to be a big fat handout to the same banks that were preying on borrowers to begin with. According to the Wall Street Journal, banks that service mortgages could make as much as $12 billion by refinancing under the newest version of the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP 2.0). And the borrowers? Oh, they'll save money, too—somewhere around $2.5 billion, maybe $5 billion tops.

The program is supposed to let underwater borrowers who've made all their payments in good faith refinance their mortgages at current market value. But, Bonnie Kavoussi at the Huffington Post notes, instead those banks are able to charge steep fees and above-market interest rates.

Shaun Donovan, the current Secretary of Housing and Urban Development calls it “a monopoly on refinancing,” saying at a Senate hearing, "Whoever holds their current loan, whoever is the servicer, they can charge [borrowers]—and we're seeing this—very high fees."

6. Profiting Off The Very Idea of Another Big Bailout

In case all this profit enabled by the government wasn't enough for you, perhaps the most disturbing recent bank-related news is a report by the “wild socialists” at Bloomberg that, “JPMorgan receives a government subsidy worth about $14 billion a year, according to research published by the International Monetary Fund and our own analysis of bank balance sheets.”

They explain:

In recent decades, governments and central banks around the world have developed a consistent pattern of behavior when trouble strikes banks that are large or interconnected enough to threaten the broader economy: They step in to ensure that all the bank’s creditors, not just depositors, are paid in full. Although typically necessary to prevent permanent economic damage, such bailouts encourage a reckless confidence among creditors. They assume the government will always make them whole, so they become willing to lend at lower rates, particularly to systemically important banks.

In other words, because we bailed them out once, the expectation that we'll do it again is actually making the banks money. Other lenders are willing to lend money to the “systemically important banks” (read: banks that got bailed out by the US government because they were “too big to fail”) at lower interest rates because they presume that they'll always get their money back since the government will make sure the banks don't go belly up. So the biggest banks are paying less in interest than medium-size and small banks--and that adds up to billions.

So they're profiting just from being too big to fail. And each time there's a crisis, the expectation of government support actually grows—as of 2009, Bloomberg notes, they're saving about 0.8 percent every time they borrow. The total benefit to the big banks just of the expectation that there will be another bailout? About $76 billion a year—which Bloomberg points out is equal to their total profit from the past twelve months, and is more than the federal government spends each year on education.

Brad Sherman, a Representative from California, asked Jamie Dimon this week, before Congress, “[H]ow can medium size banks compete against you when your cost of capital is reduced by 80 basis points, 0.8 percent, because of a belief that if they go under we'll let 'em go under, but if you go under we'll bail out your creditors?”

Dimon, of course, claimed that it wasn't true, and that he borrowed in the marketplace, “with the smartest people in the world.” But it looks like the smartest people in the world are getting a whole lot of help—and making a whole lot of money—off of college students and taxpayers, off the working poor and unemployed in the U.S.

Household debt has soared far above wages for decades.  In fact, 30 million workers made below $10,000 per year in 2010.Suffice to say, far too many are in crisis already. In other words, the big crisis is here. It just hasn't hit those we call upper middle class yet.

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Austerity: Destroying the Social Contract Here and in the Euro

Is there any question that both Europe and the US governing powers side with the 1%? Corporate and bankster welfare queens abound! Socialism for the wealthy is alive and well, while the rest of us are subject to increasing austerity measures totally unnecessary considering the US government has well over $100 TRILLION in its CAFRS. That alone should tell you that the concept of austerity is not economic, but one of political control.

As Hugh says responding to the naked capitalism article:

Breaking the social contract is what kleptocracy is all about. Or rather it is about breaking one side of it. The 99% are supposed to honor all the duties of the contract, which largely means paying off the debts the 1% have incurred, supporting public institutions which the 1% control, and obeying the laws which the 1% write. But as regards the benefits for the 99% that flow from the social contract: personal and political rights, jobs, housing, healthcare, education, and retirements, these are being trashed, tossed, and looted by the same 1%.

In this sense, we are all Greece. Look at America’s decaying infrastructure, high unemployment, housing disaster, declining system of public education, student debt, overpriced healthcare that leaves tens of millions un- and under insured, pensions that no longer exist, are underfunded, or gutted by Wall Street gambling, and the multiple attempts by both parties to slash Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. How are we any different from Greece? How is the rest of Europe? East Asia, China, and Japan? Kleptocracy dominates them all. It plays out different ways in different countries. But the social contract is being destroyed, to the benefit of the 1% and the detriment of the 99%, in them all.

Links:

Greece has been ordered to reduce health care from its current 10% of GDP to below 6%.

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Generation Homeless

Roughly one-third of our population, 70 million people, are directly effected by the ongoing housing crisis, whether they are current on their note, or not. Why? Because their mortgages were funneled into a system, created by the banks, called Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc (MERS). In fact, of the 70 million people, 80% are not in default, yet, due to MERS, if they were to investigate their chain of title, the "owners" would more than likely find their title, clouded. In other words, uncertain of who really owns the debt.

What is this elaborate shell game that is MERS? Well, it was set up in the early 1990s to circumvent the land records in order to securitize mortgage loans on Wall Street; therefore, speeding up the process, without paying the recording fee. You see, MERS splits the deed from the note, takes the note to Wall Street, pledging it multiple times over numerous and various trusts without notifying the homeowner. However, due to sloppy procedure, most of the notes never even made the trust pool, leaving homeowners, and everyone else involved uncertain of who owns the note.

Moreover, as home values continue to decline, more home-owners are steadily pushed underwater. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 11% of houses are now empty, that’s 18.4 million! And projections show millions more in the foreclosure pipeline. This avalanche of  defaulted properties will take decades to unload, driving down the value of all homes.  Not to mention, it keeps home-builders from starting new projects, and encourages qualified buyers to wait until values hit bottom. 

Meanwhile, outstanding education debt surpassed credit-card debt last year for the first time, according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org, and Bloomberg reports that student loan debt is near $1 trillion.  This - the exponential student debt curve –that began with Ronald Reagan is now heading vertically - combined with much tighter credit standards is sure to keep potential young home-buyers out of the housing market, perhaps, forever.

Despite home prices  in free fall while, rents are skyrocketing; monthly rents surpassed a monthly mortgage payment a few years back.

“Potential first-time homebuyers have been disproportionately affected by the very tight conditions in mortgage markets. First-time homebuyers are typically an important source of incremental housing demand, so their smaller presence in the market affects house prices and construction quite broadly.” -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said at a homebuilders conference last week.

Has a college education become a curse?  A method to enslave?  Because the government banking student loan cartel has ensured - especially with no jobs available - that this generation of college graduates will never "own" a home. 

“Despotic government supports itself by abject civilization, in which debasement of the human mind, and wretchedness in the mass of the people, are the chief criterions. Such governments consider man merely as an animal; that the exercise of intellectual faculty is not his privilege; that he has nothing to do with the laws but to obey them; and they politically depend more upon breaking the spirit of the people by poverty, than they fear enraging it by desperation.” Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice

Related Links:

Marine makes last stand in foreclosed home

Stop Foreclosure Fraud

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The Bankruptcy Law Changes of 2005, Rehypothecation, MF Global, and Crisis.

Did you know that the changes made to the bankruptcy laws reordered the subordination of creditors? It's true. Bondholders used to be the most senior of creditors in a bankruptcy. Now, derivative holders are the most senior. That means derivative counterparties gained a strong bankruptcy privilege, according to Prof. Dr. Enrico Perotti, professor of international finance at Amsterdam Business School.

The special bankruptcy treatment extended to mortgage-backed repos and derivative transactions in 2005 played a crucial role in the financial crisis of 2008. Because they were the two main sources of systemic risk in the financial crisis of 2008.

Professor Perotti outlined how over the 2002-2005 period, bankruptcy laws were changed in all EU countries and the US, and secured financial credit (repos) and derivative counterparties gained a strong bankruptcy privilege, amounting to de facto “superiority”, as counterparties could gain immediate repossession of collateral in default (so-called “safe harbor claims”, as opposed to having to accept the “automatic stay” which protects the debtor in Chapter 11 for example)..

With that in mind, consider that banks/ securities brokerage, rehypothecate assets, including 401k, IRA, and even general savings accounts allow the rehypothecation of their assets. Check the fine print of your account agreement.

What is rehypothecation?

It is the practice that allows collateral posted by, let's say, a hedge fund to its prime broker to be used again as collateral by that prime broker for its own funding. In other words, if a firm rehypothecates its assets with its client's assets - co-mingling client funds - and then uses these funds to buy derivatives, the derivative holder can lay claim to the brokerage assets if that firm declares bankruptcy. If this is allowed to continue, it will set a precedent that will enable creditor firms to raid and steal your assets.

This is part of the reason JP Morgan was able to seize MF Global's assets the moment they claimed bankruptcy.

So, it's possible that the next time a firm fails, whomever is the counterparty on the bankrupt organization's credit default swap, will have precedent to step in and steal client money to settle their claims.

For a  less alarmist view which goes into great detail, see:

Revisiting Rehypothecation: JP Morgan Markets Its Latest Doomsday Machine (or Why Repo May Blow Up the Financial System Again)

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Are We On the Verge of a Perfect Storm?

I think we are; however, I believe it will come without any warning...especially from anyone connected to the IMF.

Dr. Robert Shapiro who advised Presidents Clinton and Obama and who currently advises the IMF predicts a cascading meltdown of the World's banking system starting with Sovereign debt in the Eurozone, affecting the UK then finally bringing down the global banking system.



"If they can not address [the financial crisis] in a credible way I believe within perhaps 2 to 3 weeks we will have a meltdown in sovereign debt which will produce a meltdown across the European banking system. We are not just talking about a relatively small Belgian bank, we are talking about the largest banks in the world, the largest banks in Germany, the largest banks in France, that will spread to the United Kingdom, it will spread everywhere because the global financial system is so interconnected. All those banks are counterparties to every significant bank in the United States, and in Britain, and in Japan, and around the world..."

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As the Debt Ceiling Crisis Turns

The Federal Reserve gave out $16.1 trillion in emergency loans to U.S. and foreign financial institutions between Dec. 1, 2007 and July 21, 2010, according to "first-ever audit of the central bank". Yet, we're supposed to worry about what is essentially, chump change, in comparison? Debt ceiling crisis, my ass!

Okay, let's pretend it's real. According to Rob Johnson, Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute (see video below), it's much easier to go after we, the people, than to take on Wall Street, the Military Industrial Complex, Big Pharma, etc., to pay for this so-called "crisis". As he says, it's the "logic of collective action".

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Federal Reserve Releases 29,000 Pages of Bailout Loans that Includes Libya.

Late last week, the court ordered the Federal Reserve to release (see download zip archive link)  29,000  pages of documents that contain the complete contents of the Federal Reserve Discount Window data on loans, from August 8, 2007 to March 1 2010.  Many of these loans bail out foreign banks during the height of the financial crisis in 2008. Moreover, some of those banks are even controlled by "repressive dictators" such as Qaddafi (Arab Banking Corp, 59% owned by the Libyan central bank at the time, received 46 different loans).  That's right, the 100% Libyan owned central bank that those "ragtag bunch of rebels"  shut down so easily  in order to  immediately establish a brand new national central bank (not to mention, the brand new national oil company) received lots of  bailout money!  

Only one man, Sen. Bernie Sanders,  dared to question why billions of American taxpayer dollars bailed out a Libyan-owned bank.

Here is the emergency order that was issued by the Federal Reserve on Feb. 25, 2011, exempting the Arab Bank Corporation from the previous freeze order.

All transactions involving banks that are owned or controlled by the Govemment of Libya and organized under the laws of a country other than Libya are authorized...

So, let me get this straight. In our nation, poverty is escalating, our infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating, the middle-class is withering away to nothing, we're involved in three wars, yet, the only concern in Washington is balancing the budget on the backs of working families. Federal programs that provide suffering people basic needs and/or try to level the playing field, such as: early education, job training, post-secondary education, nutrition assistance for women and children, home heating programs for low-income people, planned parenthood, community health centers, e-gov, transportation, etc, will be slashed to the bone.

In the meantime, taxpayer subsidized banksters and corporate giants who are earning record breaking profits, continue to live off the dole. The pentagon continues to waste billions, not to mention, outright loses trillions of dollars ($2.3 trillion that Rumsfeld announced, went missing, 9/10/11).  Two-thirds of all US corporations pay no federal income tax, and almost all of the corporations continue to sit on trillions and trillions of dollars, refusing to hire, or invest any of that money back into the American economy. Despite this, slashing the corporate tax rate is top priority.

Links:

Download zip archive (129 MB)

Foreign Banks Tapped Fed’s Secret Lifeline Most at Crisis Peak

The biggest borrowers from the 97-year-old discount window as the program reached its crisis-era peak were foreign banks, accounting for at least 70 percent of the $110.7 billion borrowed during the week in October 2008 when use of the program surged to a record. The disclosures may stoke a reexamination of the risks posed to U.S. taxpayers by the central bank’s role in global financial markets.

Fed Releases Discount-Window Loan Records During Crisis Under Court Order

The Federal Reserve released thousands of pages of secret loan documents under court order, almost three years after Bloomberg LP first requested details of the central bank’s unprecedented support to banks during the financial crisis.

The records reveal for the first time the names of financial institutions that borrowed directly from the central bank through the so-called discount window. The Fed provided the documents after the U.S. Supreme Court this month rejected a banking industry group’s attempt to shield them from public view.

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Countries Most Likely to Go Belly Up.

Well, at least we escaped extreme risk this time; however, according to Advisor Analyst, "while Europe is being forced to do all that amid sovereign debt crisis in the middle of widespread protests over raised pension age and austerity measures, the U.S. and other “high fiscal risk” countries seem be set up as the wave 2 of this global fiscal chain of events."

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The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report Names Names and Places Blame.

Surprise! Surprise! The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's final report (and index, which can be found at a separate link) actually mentions people by name, and claims the financial crisis was not a surprise.  It goes as far as to say that there was a "systemic breakdown in accountability and ethics."

There is even a Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission website that contains, or will contain "a stockpile of materials—including documents and emails, video of the Commission’s public hearings, testimony, and supporting research—that can be studied for years to come. Much of what is footnoted in this report can be found on the website."

"As this report goes to print, there are more than 26 million Americans who are out of work, cannot find full-time work, or have given up looking for work. About
four million families have lost their homes to foreclosure and another four and a half million have slipped into the foreclosure process or are seriously behind on their mortgage payments. Nearly $11 trillion in household wealth has vanished, with retirement accounts and life savings swept away. Businesses, large and small, have felt the sting of a deep recession. There is much anger about what has transpired, and justifiably so. Many people who abided by all the rules now find themselves out of work and uncertain about their future prospects. The collateral damage of this crisis has been real people and real communities. The impacts of this crisis are likely to be felt for a generation. And the nation faces no easy path to renewed economic strength."

Conclusions in a nutshell:

We conclude this financial crisis was avoidable.

We conclude widespread failures in financial regulation and supervision
proved devastating to the stability of the nation’s financial markets

We conclude dramatic failures of corporate governance and risk management
at many systemically important financial institutions were a key cause of this crisis.

We conclude a combination of excessive borrowing, risky investments, and lack
of transparency put the financial system on a collision course with crisis

We conclude the government was ill prepared for the crisis, and its inconsistent
response added to the uncertainty and panic in the financial markets.

We conclude there was a systemic breakdown in accountability and ethics.

We conclude collapsing mortgage-lending standards and the mortgage securitization
pipeline lit and spread the flame of contagion and crisis.

We conclude over-the-counter derivatives contributed significantly to this
crisis.

We conclude the failures of credit rating agencies were essential cogs in the
wheel of financial destruction.

Yet, who continues to pay the price?  We, the people. 

Professor Mark J. Perry, at his blog CARPE DIEM posted:

Real GDP finally increased above its pre-recession level in the fourth quarter of 2010, and the $13.38 trillion of real GDP (2005 dollars) was the highest-ever quarterly output in U.S. history, slightly higher than the previous record of $13.36 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2007.

But here’s what’s really amazing and is illustrated in the bottom chart: The U.S. produced slightly more output in Q4 2010 (by 0.14%) than in Q4 2007 when the recession started, but with 7.2 million fewer workers (almost 5%)!

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Pervasive Fear

Even in a crisis situation, where one would think that change is the obvious solution, the biggest obstacle is pervasive fear...a fear that those in power know how to fully exploit.

Since the Reagan years, the international financial elite manipulated the markets to create obscene rewards for themselves, at the expense of poor and middle class people across the world.

They use/used devious derivatives, cunning CDOS, and other trickery and siphoned off ever-larger portions of the surplus value created by the producers of real goods and services.

However, when their own greed blew up in their faces, annihilating, in slow motion, the corrupt system built to serve them, what did we do? Bail them out. Help them rebuild their corrupt system. In other words, nothing's changed.

Our consumer-based, materialistic-driven model of society is deteriorating, yet we offer nothing in its place. Why? Because we've allowed those who, if anything continue to benefit from our suffering, to scare us away from  eliminating the old systems that no longer work.   

It's time to confront the fear-mongers and  swap out useless, worthless, derivatives for buildings, bridges, highways, health care facilities, public transportation, etc. It's time to take on unemployment and repair our nation’s infrastructure.

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Megabanks Continue to Devour America's Banking System.

Regulators seized seven small banks last week. That brings the total U.S. bank failures to 103 so far this year compared to 57 at the same time last year. The FDIC now estimates that their funds will experience a $60 billion reduction due to additional bank closings between now and 2014. The agency's deposit insurance fund stood at negative-$20.7 billion at the end of the first quarter, and the FDIC estimates that the seven bank failures on Friday will reduce the fund by another $431 million.

Meanwhile, the six biggest banks in the United States (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo) now possess assets equivalent to 60% of America’s gross national product. In the mid-1990s, these "six banks" had less than 20%. Their assets were less than 20 percent of the gross national product.

These megabanks are slowly transferring the wealth of our nation to themselves and to the international financial interests that control them. They can make money no matter what happens in our economy because as bank credit continues to contract  - outstanding consumer credit fell $2.2 billion; real estate lending contracted $9.2 billion; and commercial industrial loans slid $5.1 billion - they continue to make money hand over fist.

As Matt Taibbi so eloquently put it in his article, The Great American Bubble Machine,

"The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."

Anyway, the megabanks continue to report very large profits as they devour enormous shares of the U.S. banking market.  The new reality is that the legislation and regulations implemented over the last few decades were deliberately designed to continue the consolidation of power under way right now, while we the taxpayers financially suffer as we continue to pay the price.

To keep the global economy on track, people in the United States and the rest of the developed world need to work longer before retiring, pay higher taxes and expect less from government. And the cheap imports lining the shelves of mega-chains such as Wal-Mart and Target? They need to be more expensive.

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Reform Passes But Six Banks With More than $9 Trillion in Assets Still Dominate

After an economic crisis that pushed the banking industry to the brink of collapse, froze credit markets, and led to $700 billion in taxpayer bailouts, the toughest set of market rules since the Great Depression will soon become law, with Senate passage of the legislation hours ago. The bill will promote financial stability by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system, improve oversight, bolster consumer protection, and reform the derivatives market, amongst other things. Sounds pretty good so far, right?

Well, when you consider President Obama's 90-page white paper that he proposed back in June 2009 grew to a 2,300-page bill due to the addition of lobbied provisions that no doubt diluted the Bank Act considerably, one has to wonder if the bill tackles the rot at the very core of our financial system. The overhaul won’t shrink banks deemed too big to fail, and it leaves intact a financial industry dominated by six banks with more than $9 trillion of combined assets.

Yet, at the end of the day, essentially nothing in the entire legislation will reduce the potential for massive system risk as we head into the next credit cycle. -- Simon Johnson

While the reform has now been passed, it leaves plenty of unanswered questions:

“Although we agree that there needs to be careful consideration and application of the legislation, the outcome in the short run seems to be that banks continue to conserve capital and maintain excess levels of liquidity while they await the final rules. This could have the effect of dampening economic growth and delaying the economic recovery, until there is a clearer picture of where some of these major issues will shake out,” CreditSights says.

Moreover, it is not convinced that the bill does enough to correct the problems in the financial industry that led to the crisis in the first place. CreditSights argues that the bill doesn’t do enough to improve the credit risk assessment process, and does not address the frequent power imbalance between the front office exposure originators/traders and the back-office risk managers. It also worries that the new oversight bodies are comprised of regulators and central bankers who missed the red flags leading up to the crisis in the first place.

Raters and regulators must be independent of, and possess the authority needed to gain the respect of the banksters, otherwise financial reform is meaningless.

The deregulation of the last 30 years has all but destroyed the the banking reforms and size caps on the banks imposed in the 1930s. However, The Kanjorski Amendment , part of the Dodd-Frank bill gives federal regulators the right and the responsibility to limit big banks and break them up if and when they pose a “grave risk” to financial stability.

So, while regulators can be very effective in curbing the abuses that led us to the brink of financial collapse in 2008, they must have the power to instill the fear of severe consequences should the banksters step out of line.

“The key lesson of the last decade is that financial regulators must use their powers, rather than coddle industry interests.” --Representative Paul Kanjorski,

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Tired of the Status Quo. Tim Geithner Must Go.

Well over a year after the federal government weighed in with trillions of dollars to "rescue" our economy from the financial crisis, nothing has really changed. If anything, the issues that helped to collapse the economy are bigger than ever, and the only people prospering right now are the same people who caused this catastrophe, while the rest of us continue to suffer from their actions. We can no longer afford to let tax-dodging, Goldman Sachs/Wall Street insiders (the predator class) to take the financial helm and drive this country and world into another disaster, possibly much worse than September 2008.

It's time for Tim Geithner to go. He was still president of the New York Fed in the fall of 2008 when it rescued AIG with public money (now totaling $180 billion) and the facts are starting to catch up with him now, and those facts seriously raise doubts about his competence and his public integrity.

Perhaps the most explosive revelation is that Geithner's subordinates at the New York Fed instructed AIG executives to evade securities law and conceal from the public the $62 billion the insurance company paid out on contracts with the largest investment houses and banks. AIG was already bankrupt and 80 percent owned by the government, kept afloat solely with the billions being injected by the central bank. Yet the Fed told the company to pay off the bankers at full value—100 percent on the dollar—without negotiating a better deal for the public. The bankers would not have collected a dime if the government hadn't come to the rescue.

The Fed, other words, gave the largest, most prestigious banks a very sweet deal—much sweeter than anything the banks or the federal government will offer to homeowners facing mortgage foreclosure. The central bank, in effect, was operating a backdoor bank bailout that nobody could see. The public billions devoted to AIG went in one door at the insurance company and came out another door to the private banks. Goldman Sachs alone collected $13 billion.

Failure to disclose is a big no-no in corporate finance. People can go to jail if they willfully withhold material information from shareholders and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), or they may be sued for investor fraud. Yet that is what the New York Fed told AIG to do. The company officers wanted to report fully to the SEC. Their Fed overseers told them to take out the disclosure out of their report to the SEC (the facts were ultimately not disclosed until five months later). The Fed, remember, is the government's principal banking regulator. It is supposed to enforce the laws, not tell regulated firms to break them.

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