Massive Bank and High Profile Resignations Across the World

[Sabrina]

http://beforeitsnews.com/economy/201...medium=twitter

Todays Stock Market Activity Is EXACTLY What Happened Days Before 911, – Video (1 AUg)

By Josey Wales

Today Stock Exchange trading went off the charts with 2000% increases instantly. This is EXACTLY what happened 2 days before 911. It's happening again!

The stock market was already on edge because of the financial crisis in Greece. Images of mobs demonstrating in Athens were fueling an underlying panic. There's a growing fear that a financial collapse in Greece could trigger a wave of financial trouble across Europe (and possibly even the world).

Early in the morning, some stocks swung wildly on unusually high trading volume, after what appeared to be technical miscues. The New York Stock Exchange said it was investigating unusual trades in 140 stocks.

Here are some of the stocks that had astronomical activity at 10AM this morning for no reason. I don't know what the abbreviations stand for, but I do know that at the top of the list is the US Government: This is the same group that increased 800% 1 day before 911 and made BILLIONS OF 911.

Kass also provides a list of stocks that are seeing WAY abnormally high volume compared to normal.
1973% GOV US Equity <- Same govt. funds that made billions off 911 !
Who's increase was 800% 2 days before 911.
1063% PL US Equity
747% MTZ US Equity
672% EXG US Equity
578% N US Equity
518% BG US Equity
420% HOG US Equity
407% TRN US Equity
401% PIR US Equity
388% PPO US Equity
316% KRO US Equity
314% DDD US Equity
305% DOLE US Equity
298% JWN US Equity
262% HLF US Equity
248% MCP US Equity
248% NOK US Equity
247% FRX US Equity
238% FSL US Equity
237% LH US Equity

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wnX92IgCgpw

Unusual Option Activity

Listed below are options with unusually high volume for the most recent trading session compared with average daily volume. The relative level of activity is expressed in the daily volume ratio, which represents the current day's volume divided by the average daily volume for the past month.

As Of 12:00 P.M. EDT Wednesday, August 01, 2012


Unusual Call Option Activity (intraday) Unusual Put Option Activity (intraday)
Data provided by SchaeffersResearch.com


http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/st...spx?criteria=2

more at link

[Sabrina]

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...-prevention#p1

3 AUg

Iceland was brought to the brink of bankruptcy when its biggest banks failed four years ago. Now, the site of the world’s most spectacular financial collapse is becoming a pioneer in banking reform.

“We’ve been burned by this and that’s why we have to look very closely at what we need to do to prevent it happening again,” Economy MinisterSteingrimur J. Sigfusson said in an interview. “Icelanders are more interested in taking greater steps than small steps when it comes to regulating banking.”

His party, the junior member in Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir’s coalition, has submitted a motion to parliament to stop banks using state-backed deposits to finance risky investments. The move puts Iceland on course to become the first western nation since the global financial crisis hit five years ago to force banking conglomerates to split their business.

It’s a proposal that’s gaining traction elsewhere. Even Sanford “Sandy” Weill, whose 1998 creation of New York-based Citigroup Inc. (C) (C) triggered the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that paved the way for financial behemoths, now says investment banks should be separated from deposit-taking banks. Opponents including JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) (JPM) Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon say diverse businesses are needed to spread risk across divisions and stay competitive.

The Icelandic lawmaker who presented the motion, Alfheidur Ingadottir, says the best way to stop banks creating asset bubbles is to pass laws akin to the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking in the U.S. for more than six decades.

Forced Breakup
The law would force Arion Bank hf, Landsbankinn hf and Islandsbanki hf -- state-engineered successors to the banks that failed -- to break up their operations. Investment banking now makes up less than 5 percent of business at the banks, whose deposits are backed by the Icelandic state. Before the crisis, the ratio was as high as 33 percent at Iceland’s biggest lender, said David Stefansson, an economist at Arion.

Sigfusson, whose ministry oversees the financial industry, wants a “partial, or even complete, separation of commercial and investment banking,” he said. “It’s a way to prevent the riskier parts of banking being mixed with regular day-to-day banking and shouldered by regular customers or taxpayers,” he said.

The government has found support inside Iceland’s banking industry. The head of the island’s biggest investment bank says breaking up financial conglomerates is the most effective crisis prevention tool and one that would have prevented the nation’s meltdown.

Ruinous
“Giving banks too much of a free ride with deposits -- money they don’t need to repay if something goes wrong -- isn’t such a great idea,” Straumur Investment Bank hf Chief Executive Officer Petur Einarsson said in an interview.

Einarsson says Europe should look to Iceland to get a sense of how much damage an overgrown banking system can wreak.

“Europe is today feeling the pain of the same disease Iceland caught in 2008,” he said. “The changes that need to be made should benefit the depositors and businesses served by these financial institutions, rather than the institutions themselves.”

The excesses of Kaupthing Bank hf, Glitnir Bank hf and Landsbanki Islands hf proved ruinous for Iceland’s economy. The banks grew to about 10 times the nation’s total economic output before defaulting on $85 billion in 2008, forcing the government to impose capital controls and to resort to an international bailout.

Risks Overlooked
Kaupthing’s balance sheet ballooned by a factor of 85 between 2000 and 2007 to peak at 5.3 trillion kronur ($44 billion), compared with Iceland’s gross domestic product last year of $13.5 billion. The bank, Iceland’s biggest before it was put under state control in October 2008, opened offices in Luxembourg, New York and Dubai. Its size and complexity relative to the economy made proper risk analysis difficult. Moody’s Investors Service rated the bank A1, its fifth-highest grade, until the day the lender was seized by the state.

The financial regulator also missed the red flags. Iceland’s three biggest banks all had capital adequacy ratios of more than 10 percent of their risk-weighted assets as of the end of June 2008, the Financial Supervisory Authority said in August the same year. All three lenders passed FSA stress tests in a report published two months before they failed.

[Sabrina]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/click/...nt-131016.html

3 Aug US

Roseanne Barr still running for president

Comedian Roseanne Barr didn’t win the Green Party nomination for president, but she’s still got her eye on the White House, the LA Times reports:

She announced Thursday that she will run for president on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. Her running mate, Barr said in a news release, will be Cindy Sheehan, whose son,U.S. Army Spec. Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq in 2004. In August 2005, the Gold Star mother mounted a lonely antiwar protest outside President George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas.

"The American people are sick and tired of this 'lesser evil’ garbage they get fed every election year,” Barr said via the news release. “Both the Democrats and the Republicans do the same evils once they’re in office. I’m here to tell the voters: if you want to tell the government and the two domineering parties that you’re sick and tired of all their evil, register in the Peace and Freedom Party and vote for me and Cindy.”

In the release, Sheehan, who was vilified by the right for her Crawford vigil, said she was honored to be selected as Barr’s running mate. “I am excited about the chance to infuse the message of socialism with the heart and soul that is missing from political discourse,” she said.

[Sabrina]

More on the audit of the Fed (see Zero Hedge story above, from LA Times story):

http://rt.com/usa/news/ny-fed-audit-gold-839/

Where’s the gold? NY Fed undergoes first-ever audit

A massive trove of gold kept under lock and key five stories under Manhattan at the New York Federal Reserve has been undergoing its first audit in history. It could put conspiracy theories - for example, that the gold is a sham - to sleep for good.

According to the official record, the US government keeps billions of dollars in gold stored beneath the New York Fed's Italian Renaissance fortress around the block from Wall Street.

But conspiracy theorists claim that the gold stock may have been stolen years back in a dramatic caper, that it's been used for backdoor deals with foreign governments, or even that it's been removed and replaced with gold-painted metal bars.

And as many know, the stash has caught the attention of some politicians, most notably Texas Representative Ron Paul.
For years, Paul has called for an independent audit of not only the New York Fed, but of the Federal Reserve Bank as a whole.

But the government hasn't been eager to grant his wish.

In 1981, when Paul served on the Gold Commission – a panel formed by Congress to look into expanding gold's role in the US financial system – he argued for full gold audits to be carried out on an annual basis.

He has proposed legislation for an exhaustive review of all the gold kept on US soil, which includes bullion owned by various foreign governments in addition to America's.

"If the gold is there and everything is in order, they should welcome an audit," Paul said, as quoted by The Los Angeles Times.
Now, things seem to be moving in Paul's direction, at least at the New York Fed – which is by leaps and bounds the largest by assets, and most influential of America's 12 reserve banks.

The US government has been quietly carrying out an audit of all the American-owned gold at the New York Fed. The process involves drilling small holes in about ten per cent, or roughly 350, of the bars to make sure they're pure.

About a half dozen Mint, Treasury Inspector General's Office and New York Fed employees took part in the audit. It's being monitored by the Government Accountability Office, the branch of Congress that wields investigative powers.

Other than that, Treasury officials have thus far refused to provide any details about the operation or its findings. They only say that the results will be announced towards the end of the year.

The New York Fed has also refused to comment.

But one anonymous Fed official, apparently speaking in the direction of conspiracy theorists, quipped recently that the audit will show that "Goldfinger didn't sneak in at night" and take off with the gold.

Though the gold kept at Fort Knox, West Point and the US Mint in Denver, Colorado, have all been audited and tested in the past, the remaining 5 per cent – or about $21 billion – of America's gold, held at the New York Fed, has never been exhaustively checked out.
Taking into consideration the gold owned by other nations, the New York Fed's vaults hold about 23% of the world's official gold reserves.
And even if the audit shows that the gold's all there, it's not likely to satisfy many, including Paul.

He claims he's not concerned with whether the gold is real or fake, but with the paperwork that would outline what it's been used for. Many suspect deals that were never made public, like loans to foreign governments.

The US stopped backing dollars with gold in 1971, bringing an end to the Gold Standard. Today, the gold in vaults across the country carries little weight, so to speak.

To that, Paul suggests that Washington simply get rid of it.
"I would just as soon they sell the gold," he's said. "And then we would find out if they really had it.

[Sabrina]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...tml?ref=topbar

3 Aug US

SEC Head Mary Schapiro: Stock Market's Software Glitch 'Unacceptable'

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission says the agency is reviewing what caused a software glitch that threw the stock market into turmoil Wednesday, calling it "unacceptable."

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro says technical problems like the one caused by Knight Capital Group illustrate how investor confidence can be shaken. The technical problem briefly put trading of dozens of stocks into chaos.

While the markets must rely on computers, regulators and market officials must still try to reduce the chances of technical errors and limit their impact when they occur, she said.

Schapiro said some of the trading controls put in as a result of the May 6, 2010 "flash crash" helped to limit the impact of Knight's error Wednesday.

[Sabrina]

Another bankers behind bars petition out of the US"

BANKERS BEHIND BARS - Petition To Put Bankers In Jail Passes 350,000 Signatures In Two Days

http://dailybail.com/home/bankers-be...-passes-3.html

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US - Barofsky: Geithner Said Housing Policies Were "Foaming The Runway For The Banks"

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=g5uMtZgL1As

[Sabrina]

One American view of it all.....

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Spain...38/38/Y/M.html

Spain And Italy Are Toast Unless Germany Allows The ECB To Print Trillions Of Euros

¤=[Post Update]=¤

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/f...ian-banks.html

3 Aug Italy

Debt crisis: S&P downgrades 15 Italian banks
Ratings agency Standard & Poor's took ratings action on a range of Italian banks tonight, including downgrading 15 financial institutions, citing increased credit risk for the country's economy and banks.


"With Italy facing a potentially deeper and more prolonged recession than we had originally anticipated, we think Italian banks' vulnerability to credit risk in the economy is rising," S&P said in a statement.

"In this context, the combined effect of mounting problem assets and reduced coverage of loan loss reserves makes banks more vulnerable to the impact of higher credit losses particularly in the event of deterioration in the collateral values of assets," it said.
Among the rating agency's moves, S&P cut Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena to BBB-minus from BBB, just one notch above junk.
Banca Carige fared less well, losing its BBB-minus investment grade rating in a cut to BB-plus.

S&P also cut Dexia Crediop, the Italian public financing arm of bailed-out Franco-Belgian bank Dexia, to B-plus from BB-minus.

Other banks saw their ratings affirmed, including Mediobanca, Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit.

[Sabrina]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19124808

4 Aug Afghanistan

Afghan parliament votes to sack key ministers



The Afghan parliament has passed a vote of no confidence in two of its most senior ministers and demanded that they be replaced.

The interior and defence ministers were criticised for failing to prevent cross-border shelling from Pakistan and security lapses that resulted in the assassinations of senior officials.

They have also been questioned by MPs over allegations of corruption.

The vote is a blow to President Hamid Karzai's administration, observers say.

Mr Karzai's office said he would make a decision on Sunday about the future of Interior Minister Besmillah Mohammadi and Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak.

The president has the power to keep them in their posts for another month. In the past, he has retained his ministers for even longer.

Speaking ahead of the vote, Mr Wardak said he had responded to cross-border attacks by sending more troops to the north-eastern border, and had deployed long-range artillery and ammunition.

But parliament passed a measure to remove him by a vote of 146 to 72.

A separate vote of no-confidence in Mr Mohammadi was passed by 126 to 90.

The international community appears to have lost two key Afghan figures with whom they have been dealing the most at what is a critical time, says the BBC's Aleem Maqbool in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Nato-led forces are looking to withdraw from the country by the end of 2014.

¤=[Post Update]=¤

4 Aug Spain

Spanish former leaders decline leaving bonuses

(AFP) – 3 hours ago
MADRID — More than 60 senior figures from Spain's previous Socialist administration have declined their end-of-term payouts, officials said Saturday, saving cash-strapped Spain nearly five million euros.

Out of 85 people who were entitled to the compensation, 64 declined payments, for savings of 4.76 million euros ($5.89 million), the finance ministry said in a statement.

Ex-prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero started the practice and most of his former government followed suit. The payouts are for 80 percent of a lawmaker's salary for up to two years.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's Conservative government has since passed laws preventing outgoing high officials from collecting such payments.

Recession-choked Spain is trying to slash its public deficit from 8.9 percent of gross domestic product last year to 6.3 percent this year, then down to 4.5 percent in 2013 and 2.8 percent the year after that.

It has introduced a swingeing series of austerity measures and plans to save 102 billion euros by 2014.
Spain's economic crisis has pushed its unemployment rate to almost 25 percent.

[Sabrina]

Bit of a misjudgement by Boris perhaps, unless they're all clones together, or he'd heard Rupe was due to be beamed up at the 4 Aug fly past...



http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/...oice-of-guest/


Boris Johnson, Rupert Murdoch and the arrogance in the mayor’s choice of guest


Amid the jubilant celebrations enjoyed this morning, as Great Britain’s Olympic rowing team continued to build on their legacy of success, equally poignant and breathtaking albeit for different reasons, was London mayor Boris Johnson’s choice of guest at last nights Olympic swimming finals.

While the Leveson inquiry is just concluding its investigation into the government over its alleged inappropriate dealings with the more powerful elements of the media, the London mayor and budding Tory leader last night attended the Olympic swimming finals with none other than Rupert Murdoch and his wife Wendy Deng.

This displays a level of arrogance and contempt, not simply a unique subsidiary of the character of Boris Johnson – we are after all used to that – but rather a gesture which is indicative of the state of play in domestic politics.

One would think that even the most prudent of political tacticians, given the furore that has built during the course of the last year over the behaviour, judgement, and actions of senior government officials, would have advised Johnson against this move.

We can only conclude however, that weighing up the options, Boris Johnson decided it was more beneficial to tickle Murdoch’s tummy rather than worry about how this move might be judged and perceived, and what it might say about the attitude of politicians moving forward.

If condemning politicians over intimacy with business leaders should be the order of the day, at least on a superficial level, then Johnson inviting Murdoch as his guest last year is like inviting the wolf to dinner. He clearly isn’t expecting the public to be up in arms about this, and probably doesn’t care. Why should he? He was recently re-elected by Londoners who once again opted for ’brand Boris’ and the corporate city love fest – the interests of which Johnson is ultimately a poster pin up for – that he has come to represent.

Equally distasteful is the fact that today marks the one year anniversary of the beginning of the London riots, riots which as they happened were not enough to immediately draw Mr Johnson away from his holiday. Johnson inviting Murdoch as a guest of honour at the Olympics is an insult. To do so on the back of the anniversary of riots which permanently scarred one of London’s poorest boroughs adds insult to injury. What’s worse is that we continue to accept this as the norm. When will we demand more from elected representatives in all aspects of political life?

[Sabrina]

Defections rather than resignations and we are getting the 'spun' story on this as well no doubt....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19146380

6 Aug

Syria Prime Minister Riad Hijab defects


Syrian Prime Minister Riad Hijab has defected from President Bashar al-Assad's government to join "the revolution", his spokesman says.

Mr Hijab was appointed less than two months ago and his departure is the highest-profile defection since the uprising began in March 2011.

State-run TV said he had been sacked.

Riad Hijab, who is said to have fled with his family, is a Sunni Muslim from the Deir al-Zour area of eastern Syria which has been caught up in the revolt.

Early reports said Mr Hijab had defected to Jordan, but Jordanian state TV later denied this. By Monday afternoon, Mr Hijab's whereabouts were still unknown.

'Freedom and dignity'
Earlier, his spokesman Mohammed el-Etri told al-Jazeera TV that he was in "a safe location".

"I address you today at this grave hour where the country is living under the brunt of genocide and barbarian brutal killing against unarmed people who are simply demanding freedom and a dignified life," ran Mr Hijab's statement read by his spokesman.

"Today I declare... that I have defected from the terrorist, murderous regime and [am] joining the holy revolution. And I declare that from today I am a soldier of this holy revolution."

Mr el-Etri later told the BBC that the Syrian regime was "now in its last throes" and that it had been dealt "a fatal blow" by Mr Hijab's defection...............................................


Unconfirmed reports suggested that two other cabinet ministers had also deserted and there were claims that a third, Finance Minister Mohammad Jalilati, had been arrested while trying to flee.

But Syrian state TV said Mr Jalilati was still in his office working as usual, and it broadcast what it said was a phone interview with him denying reports that he had been detained.


Mohammed el-Etri: "This defection was in the pipeline for two continuous months through a trusted cell close to the prime minister"
Last month, Syria's ambassador to Iraq, Nawaf Fares, deserted to the opposition. Like Mr Hijab, he was also from Deir al-Zour. Brig Gen Manaf Tlas, who was considered close to President Assad, defected in July.

Thirty other generals have crossed into Turkey so far and Turkish news agency Anatolia reported on Monday that another general had fled with five high-ranking officers and more than 30 soldiers.
full story at link

and another view:

http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2012/...-does-syriana/

CIA, Mossad on Syria front line’

It took Reuters quite a while to be allowed to report that US President Barack Obama had approved an intelligence finding [1] letting the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) loose in its support for the weaponized “rebels” fighting for regime change in Syria.

full story at link

[Sabrina]

hmmmm wonder what the real story is on this one and who the real terrorists and drug kingpins are?


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...nsactions.html

6 Aug

Standard Chartered 'exposed US to terrorists' with $250bn in Iran transactions

Standard Chartered has been accused of leaving the US financial system vulnerable to terrorists, drug kingpins and corrupt regimes by "scheming" with the Iranian government to conduct secret transactions worth $250bn (£160bn) spanning almost a decade.

When an executive in the US highlighted the risk that staff could face criminal liability for defying sanctions, it is claimed that the group executive director in London said “You f---ing Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we’re not going to deal with Iranians.”

Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, has launched an investigation into Standard Chartered Bank for "apparent grave violations of law and regulation".

"For almost ten years, SCB schemed with the Government of Iran and hid from regulators roughly 60,000 secret transactions, involving at least $250 billion, and reaping SCB hundreds of millions of dollars in fees," the statement said.

"SCB’s actions left the U.S. financial system vulnerable to terrorists, weapons dealers, drug kingpins and corrupt regimes, and deprived law enforcement investigators of crucial information used to track all manner of criminal activity."

The watchdog has called on the lender to explain the apparent violations and demonstrate why its license to operate in the state of New York should not be revoked. It claims that for nearly a decade the bank moved "at least $250 billion" though its New York branch on behalf of Iranian clients, including the Iranian central bank, that were subject to sanctions and then "covered up" evidence of the deals.

full story at link

[Sabrina]

http://americankabuki.blogspot.co.uk...avan.html#more

Benjamin Fulford's take on it 7 August

¤=[Post Update]=¤

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin...gi?read=248234

dinarguru - Geithner to give speech at 9 am Eastern, "large global change in the worlds economic status"

Posted By: hobie [Send E-Mail]
Date: Monday, 6-Aug-2012 03:43:01
Hi, Folks -

Might be something interesting, or might be "business as usual" - however, found at dinarguru.com:

=====

8-5-2012 Intel Guru BOBGETZ6 I understand...Timothy Geithner is supposed to make a speech tomorrow around 9:00 AM EST. Supposedly, it is to be about the looming global financial crisis, a large global change in the worlds economic status, etc. This should be something to watch, if he says anything that gives real information rather than the typical politico speak.

[Sabrina]

http://www.renegadeeconomist.com/new...al-crisis.html

3 Aug

How the BBC is misleading the public about the financial crisis

More than 99% of the general public think that money works as a system of tokens (real or electronic) that get passed from person to person as trade is carried out.

They assume that the total amount of it would remain constant were it not for occasional money printing by government. Money could indeed work this way had governments chosen such a system, but in reality it works completely differently. Bear this in mind as when you read the following.

Here I present two tables, the first contains things the BBC say that are either false or misleading, and the second is a table of important things they don't say but should.

see tables at link

[Sabrina]

http://www.auditthefed.com/

Audit the Fed cosponsors:

http://www.auditthefed.com/cosponsors/

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=GDM9_xC38cE

[Sabrina]

http://readersupportednews.org/opini...street-history


Ludicrous Times Op-Ed Forgets Entire Year of Wall Street History
By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
02 August 12


It was riotous, side-splitting comedy last week when Sanford Weill, the onetime head of Citibank, went on CNBC to announce that he thought it was time to break up the big banks.

Why this was funny: Through his ambitious (and at the time not yet legal) decision to merge Citibank, Travelers, and Salomon Brothers into one giant wrecking ball of greed, self-dealing and global irresponsibility called Citigroup, Weill more or less single-handedly created the Too-Big-To-Fail problem. You know, the one currently casting that thick, black doomlike shadow over all humanity which, if you look out your window, you can see floating over all our heads this very minute.

Nonetheless, Weill came out last week against Too Big to Fail banks. "I’m suggesting," he told astonished reporters on a live CNBC interview, "that they be broken up so that the taxpayer will never be at risk…. What we should probably do is go and split up investment banking from banking."

The interview became an instant YouTube classic. The very funniest part, I thought, was the response of Squawk Box host Andrew Ross Sorkin, the single most credulously slobbering financial reporter on the planet this side of Maria Bartiromo. Even he was so shocked by Weill’s comments that he lost his voice – "I’m speechless," he said.

At about the 1:20 mark of the clip, just after Weill offered his incredible opinion about the need to break up the banks, any sensible reporter would have pounced. Some version of, "Dude, are you high? You invented Too Big To Fail!" would have been the proper response – followed hopefully by a spirited lunge across the set to beat Weill repeatedly about the neck and head with a Swingline stapler, until he screeched out a tearful apology to every last living soul on earth.

Instead, Sorkin took another tack:

"Okay, so then the question becomes – Glass-Steagall," Sorkin said. "You’re almost referring to bringing back Glass-Steagall, in some respects."

Now, what Sorkin actually meant to say here was, "Hey, asshole, we had to repeal Glass-Steagall just to make your Citigroup merger legal, remember? And now you’re pontificating, telling us we need to bring it back? Are you joking?"

Instead, Sorkin triple-qualified the question, first by not bringing up Weill’s role in the repeal of Glass-Steagall directly, then by saying that Weill had merely "almost" and "in some respects" uttered probably the most obnoxious and enraging comments made on television by a Wall Street executive in the years since the crisis.

The rest of the tape was similarly incredible. Particularly amazing was that Weill seemed genuinely surprised by the idea that Too-Big-To-Fail had anything to do with him, like it had never occurred to him that he might be criticized for what he was saying.

Anyway, what happened after Weill's outburst was similarly fascinating. The significance of Weill’s comments, of course, is that even a man such as Sandy Weill now says the Too-Big-To-Fail model is unsustainable. If even Sandy Weill knows it by now, who else needs convincing?

This should have been a debate-ender, a signal that we can all move past the arguing phase and get to the more daunting logistical task of breaking up mega-firms like Citigroup, Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan Chase.

But it didn’t turn out that way. The dug-in stalwarts in the major financial outlets, much like Japanese soldiers still swearing allegiance to the emperor from Pacific island bunkers years after Hiroshima, came out blasting Weill for, in essence, kowtowing to (probably communist) popular opinion. The Wall Street Journal put it this way:

Mr. Weill finds himself suddenly welcome in the company of editorialists who, since the Libor scandal, have been renewing their clamor for bankers to be imprisoned, if not executed. He's become their new hero.

The inherent Stalinism of those who crave to put bankers in jail for things that aren't crimes is not unlike that of the original Stalinist – who understood that nothing of substance has to change if you've got enough scapegoats.

How the Wall Street Journal can bring up the LIBOR scandal – both a textbook case of antitrust crime and more or less the ultimate example of insider trading, with banks trading against their own secret, non-disclosed manipulations of interest rates – and lump it in with things that supposedly "aren't crimes" is beyond mind-boggling. People can and do go to jail in America for smoking marijuana or selling food stamps for rent money, but apparently it reeks of Stalinism to even suggest that even one person should go to jail for manipulating an $800 trillion market. Moreover Weill, far from simply being one of the last people on earth to admit the obvious truth about Too-Big-To-Fail banks, has instead just crossed over into the Stalinist camp.

But the Wall Street Journal didn’t even win the prize for most preposterous response to the Weill episode. That award went to former Treasury advisor and semi-disgraced financier Steve Rattner, who wrote a truly incredible piece in the New York Times editorial page about why Weill is wrong.

Rattner’s piece, entitled, "Regulate, Don’t Split Up, the Big Banks," admitted that Weill’s comments "shook the New York-Washington axis."

"It was as if John D. Rockefeller had proposed the breakup of Standard Oil," Rattner wrote.

But he went on to say that Weill’s musings were "an ill-advised distraction." The reasons he gave for believing this are astounding. And what's astounding is not just that he has these opinions, but that his "reasons" got past the Times editors, who should have blanched at publishing such gross inaccuracies.

Here is the crux of Rattner’s argument:

A bit of recent history: none of the institutions that toppled like dominoes in 2008 — the investment banks Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, the mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the insurance company American International Group — were commercial banks.

So the bank merger frenzy that Mr. Weill set off in the late 1990s was not the proximate cause of the financial crisis.

There are so many things wrong with this passage, it’s hard to know where to start. But let’s take the most obvious problem: He’s lying!

Not just some, but many of the institutions that "toppled like dominoes" in 2008 were giant commercial banks of the TBTF type. Does Rattner remember Washington Mutual, which was only the sixth-largest commercial bank in America when it collapsed in 2008? How about Wachovia, the fourth-largest?

More to the point, does he not remember all of the other commercial banks that required massive federal bailouts to avoid "toppling like dominoes" that year?

Weill’s entire argument, remember, isthat these big banks should be broken up so that the taxpayer doesn’t have to rescue them. And Weill should know, because his Frankensteinian creation, Citigroup, required a $45 billion federal bailout and hundreds of billions more in federal guarantees.

Actually the total outlay for Citigroup was $476 billion in cash and guarantees – they were the biggest single bailout recipient, if you’re counting, with another classic post-Glass-Steagall creation, Bank of America, bringing up the rear with $336 billion in cash and guarantees.

All of the major commercial banking giants received massive amounts of federal aid. Chase, depending on how you look at things, either received just $25 billion or about twice that, if you include tax breaks and inducements to buy Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns. The story is similar with Wells Fargo, which took $25 billion in TARP money and also accepted enormous tax breaks in return for its "help" in buying Wachovia.

Rattner wrote some other crazy things. He said, "it is wrong to think we can shrink [banks] to a size that eliminates the 'too big to fail' problem without emasculating one of our most successful industries."

One could go on at length in answering this ludicrous passage, pointing out for instance how insane it is for Rattner to call TBTF banking "one of our most successful industries" when the business is now known all over the world to be so totally corrupt that nobody was even surprised when they found out that global interest rates were being manipulated. Or when basically the entire banking industry has been downgraded to near-junk status thanks to the widespread perception that their balance sheets are a travesty of phony accounting and unrealized losses.

But this would just be beating a dead horse. These arguments have been made over and over again. Even Sandy Weill is making them now. But everybody knowing the truth and everybody doing something about it are two different things, as we’ll likely spend the next years, or even decades, finding out.

[Sabrina]

6 aug

EVERYONE FOR THEMSELVES: Wall Street Banks Are Throwing Each Other Under The Bus In LIBOR-Gate

Is there anyone on the Street who didn't see this coming?

Ever since Barclays paid a huge settlement for manipulating the LIBOR last month, investigators have been looking into manipulation at all major Wall Street banks.

But this hasn't been a time for solidarity (which is weird on the Street). Instead, Azam Ahmed and Ben Protess of The New York Times report, "banks are emphasizing that 'we're not as bad as the next guy."

In short: It's kill or be killed. Here's how we know — for one thing, the bank lawyers aren't helping each other (from the Times):
With the rate investigation, institutions are not sharing information or even discussing the case with rivals, according to lawyers involved in the matter. In part, they do not want to appear to have close ties with their rivals, since such cozy relationships are part of the government's inquiry.

"There is no information-sharing among banks unlike the past 15 years of federal investigations," said a lawyer involved in the case.
Every bank is saying that, unlike Barclays, none of their C-level execs were involved in manipulation and everyone (from JP Morgan to Deutsche Bank) is cooporating with officials — and cutting deals, of course.

In trying to work out a deal, the British bank (Barclays) offered information on the multiyear scheme with Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole, according to government and bank officials...

...UBS moved swiftly to strike an immunity deal with government authorities. In its inquiry, the Swiss bank uncovered that one of its former traders, Thomas Hayes, had apparently worked with employees at Deutsche Bank, HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland to influence rates and make profits, according to bank officials and court documents...

Citigroup is also said to be forthcoming as well.

Got that everyone? Friends just aren't friends anymore.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/repor...#ixzz22o9h4HqI

[bluestflame]

they must hear the lamp posts calling thier name

[modwiz]

Posted by bluestflame (here)
they must hear the lamp posts calling thier name

I hear it too.

[Taurean]

Standard Chartered shares dip on laundering allegations

EVERYONE FOR THEMSELVES: Wall Street Banks Are Throwing Each Other Under The Bus In LIBOR-Gate

Here we go.

Who's next ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19159286

Let's see what the likes of JP Morgan's got hid in the closet.

[Alie]

Well documented article about Banks: ===> Links are missing (which are important)

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/...you-think.html

Stunning Crimes of the Big Banks: Worse than Your Wildest Imagination
Posted on August 1, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog

Preface: Not all banks are criminal enterprises. The wrongdoing of a particular bank cannot be attributed to other banks without proof. But – as documented below – many of the biggest banks have engaged in unimaginably bad behavior.
You Won’t Believe What They’ve Done …

Here are just some of the improprieties by big banks:

• Funding the Nazis
• Laundering money for terrorists
• Financing illegal arms deals, and funding the manufacture of cluster bombs (and see this and this) and other arms which are banned in most of the world
• Launching a coup against the President of the United States
• Handling money for rogue military operations
• Laundering money for drug cartels. See this, this, this and this (indeed, drug dealers kept the banking system afloat during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis)
• Engaging in mafia-style big-rigging fraud against local governments. See this, this and this
• Shaving money off of virtually every pension transaction they handled over the course of decades, stealing collectively billions of dollars from pensions worldwide. Details here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here
• Artificially suppressing gold prices
• Charging “storage fees” to store gold bullion … without even buying or storing any gold . And raiding allocated gold accounts
• Committing massive and pervasive fraud both when they initiated mortgage loans and when they foreclosed on them (and see this)
• Pledging the same mortgage multiple times to different buyers. See this, this, this, this and this. This would be like selling your car, and collecting money from 10 different buyers for the same car
• Cheating homeowners by gaming laws meant to protect people from unfair foreclosure
• Committing massive fraud in an $800 trillion dollar market which effects everything from mortgages, student loans, small business loans and city financing
• Manipulating the hundred trillion dollar derivatives market
• Engaging in insider trading of the most important financial information
• Pushing investments which they knew were terrible, and then betting against the same investments to make money for themselves. See this, this, this, this and this
• Engaging in unlawful “frontrunning” to manipulate markets. See this, this, this, this, this and this
• Engaging in unlawful “Wash Trades” to manipulate asset prices. See this, this and this
• Otherwise manipulating markets. And see this
• Participating in various Ponzi schemes. See this, this and this
• Charging veterans unlawful mortgage fees
• Helping the richest to illegally hide assets
• Cooking their books (and see this)
• Bribing and bullying ratings agencies to inflate ratings on their risky investments

The executives of the big banks invariably pretend that the hanky-panky was only committed by a couple of low-level rogue employees. But studies show that most of the fraud is committed by management.

Indeed, one of the world’s top fraud experts – professor of law and economics, and former senior S&L regulator Bill Black – says that most financial fraud is “control fraud”, where the people who own the banks are the ones who implement systemic fraud. See this, this and this.

But at least the big banks do good things for society, like loaning money to Main Street, right?
Actually:

• The big banks no longer do very much traditional banking. Most of their business is from financial speculation. For example, less than 10% of Bank of America’s assets come from traditional banking deposits. Instead, they are mainly engaged in financial speculation and derivatives. (and see this)
• The big banks have slashed lending since they were bailed out by taxpayers … while smaller banks have increased lending. See this, this and this
• A huge portion of the banks’ profits comes from taxpayer bailouts. For example, 77% of JP Morgan’s net income comes from taxpayer subsidies
• The big banks are looting, killing the economy … and waging war on the people of the world
• And our democracy and republican form of government as well

We can almost understand why Thomas Jefferson warned:
And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies ….

John Adams said:
Banks have done more injury to religion, morality, tranquillity, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they have done or ever will do good.

And Lord Acton argued:
The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.