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View Full Version : Microcosms of the current financial $#!+ storm



donk
15th August 2013, 16:31
This is the kind of stuff I was obsessed with a decade ago (when a billion was a big number, and a trillion was unthinkable), I could have told you everything about these seemingly complex issues inside and out…til I got sick and tired of feeling sick and tired of how “they” just kept changing the rules, exacerbating the problems, and creating a sh!tstorm that is unfixable.

Words like “Failure to Deliver” and “leverage” should have been all that was talked about, instead, it was relegated to the “conspiracy” sites, like zero hedge was once considered. “Naked short selling” and counterfeiting stock were scary ideas no one believed was happening, even though you could look yourself, see it right there on Yahoo! Finance…completely undeniable, yet the financial system just kept chugging away, with the politicians doing the job they do best: legalizing heinous (harmful to citizens) practices that were poorly regulated in the first place.

So I offer you my two favorite sources of information on the current situation, blasts from the past that were way too ignored when they were created—so relevant now that the information they were presenting back then is now finally being made to appear to be “news” (even though it’s OLD) by the mainstream:

0zMakN-EMLg
This is a great introduction to securitization, and how just a few bad apples can collapse a society…”lucky” for us, the evidence of the crimes was dustified in WTC7, so we could sweep that whole nasty thing under the rug (if I remember correctly, the loose ends not covered in the 911 thing were pretty much settled with AIG, if not Bear Stearns…but I digress...)

Watch the whole thing is here:

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/enron-the-smartest-guys-in-the-room/

And if you want to go a little deeper into the fraud and corruption and aforementioned “heinous practices”, while being entertained by stuff too outrageous for soap opera’s, you can do no better (IMO) than Patrick Byrne’s (CEO of overstock.com) account of and research toward the rampant corruption within and total “capture” of the finance industry by who he terms “Sith Lords”…start here:

http://www.deepcapture.com/introduction-to-the-deep-capture-analysis/

I have long since put most of this information out of mind, as it wasn’t so good for my constitution. I offer them as relatively easy to understand introductions to some of the most important sources of the mess that we are in…if you still believe and are interested in the financial system.

I have found it to be a faith-based game that the rules-makers over-extended themselves on long ago, and have moved into a lunacy, that I thought for sure would break the minds of the players within it. Alas, not so, too many are more emotionally invested in it than they are literally invested, and will just continue to pretend that the issues brought up in these two sources of information (not to mention the fundamental “fact” that the Fed interest rate has been artificially held to some shadowy number between zero and .25% or whateverthe**** they call it these days) don’t matter…

…well it seems that they don’t (matter). It’s been great ignoring the kicking the can down the road the last couple years, now it seems the chickens are coming home to roost…or at least the roosters are getting too loud to ignore (to mix another metaphor). Be warned: this material is hazardous to your health. It was deeply depressing to learn that the zero-sum game they taught us in my fancy “good biz school” university is a lie, a fantasy.

The only way to fix the “broken” system would have been to hold accountable the individuals creating it, such as the lesser known (and I forget his name) character in Enron thing, the stripper-lover that owns most of CO. Instead, we let people like him hide behind the entities we allow them to create, corporations and government agencies, the etheric demons that could be the death of us all.

I’m rambling now, I hope someone gets something outa my lament. God bless us, everyone….

Lefty Dave
15th August 2013, 20:12
Hey, Donk...
I sympathize with you completely ...nothing has changed since 2002, in terms of market manipulation, yet anyone I speak with about it doesn't seem to believe a word I say...so I stopped talking and quietly moved into cash, (was already in phys gold and silver 20% since Mar '99 double top)...
Anyone with half a brain knows that when greed strikes the mindset investors tear up the sp500 and nasdaq, and when fear takes over the mindset is dow 30 and bonds, gold and oil...
All our markets in the US have moved in lockstep since the Pentagons' plunge protection team have taken over and our government bought so much stock of corps they were going to 'manage', the average guy on the street doesn't have a chance in hell. I also noticed thousands of issues that have traded at 52 wk lows for years on end...and I don't see much money being made in option swings this last decade either.

Do you foresee any change in the mindset? All I see right now is a slow increase in the 10/30 year bond yields... if and when the 30 yields 5%, I may move into a fund to capture it,...but I haven't 'played' the market (I don't like that term, it was a lot of work when I day traded throughout the 90's) in years, and may need to reschool myself...
Thanks for your post...I enjoy talking investment trading, but not too many here discuss it.
Blessings
end of line

donk
15th August 2013, 20:50
I think the stuff we learned early on coming to light HAS to change the mindset...if Goldman Sachs says it or its reported in Bloomberg then it MUST be true, right?

People will have (already have) no choice but to accept some of these giant gaps in reality. The ppt and other gov and fed agencies have been creating all kind of regulations & compliance hoops for small & medium financial institutions to jump through (while the big boys keep on stealing)...which will give the illusion that they are doing something, so that the can gets kicked a bit further down the road...but what do I know, I thought the house of cards was coming down in aught-four or so

Anecdotally: when I was into all that stuff (economics/politics), I was a big peak oil doomer, and when I had the opportunity to converse with the CEO of the nat'l chambe of commerce (mr big biz himself), I asked what he thought about things, and particularly peak oil. He wasn't overly concerned about "things" (it was around '05 I think)--he said there was plenty of liquidity (and somehow that made everything ok...guess he was right. And as far as resources, he said he wasn't worried about oil...it was water that scared the **** out of him

And ultimately...this thread is more about exposing the system for what it is: completely faith-based. People are starting to lose the faith. If you can apply the issues brought up in the movie and the blog I presented...and apply it to every "thing" on earth...then apply it again on those pieces of papers representing stakes in all those things (and on and on...) then you kinda see something's gotta give at some point...

gripreaper
15th August 2013, 23:22
Yea, I long for the days back in the 90's when you could buy CMGI and it would go up 21,000%, hang out at Yahoo finance or the Motley Fool, and picking stocks was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Nowadays you have Wall Street algorithms that work 100 times per second, leverage to the tune of 1.2 quadrillion in derivatives, and NO proxy for assets or currencies to keep the market stable.

All we have is a Fed drunk on power and a government with cancer and debt is the chemo. We have crossed the rubicon, jumped the shark, hit a black swan, created a Hindenburg omen, and there are not enough chairs to go around.

It's only a matter of time before the music stops. You can only kick the can down the road for so long.

ghostrider
16th August 2013, 02:00
I try and explain it everyday at work, our government is broke , 16 trillion in the hole, they borrow money to pay the interest, the print paper money to pay themselves and their programs, which brings the price of the dollar down ...with money less valuable and the price of things going up, soon the government won't be able to pay anything, even if they tax the working at 90 percent ... spending money you don't have, and borrowing money when your deep in debt , never has a good outcome ... national bankruptsy ...companies like Enron was don't help matters, it just shows how greedy our world is ...as long as I get rich , forget everone else ... I have no tolerance for that attitude at all ...instead of one person having 100 million , how about 100 people having one million a piece ???

Lifebringer
16th August 2013, 02:22
I felt the same way in 2005 when I found out Shrub had borrowed 16 trillion off the books, a medicare PART D (Drainage) off the books before collapsing the country's mortgage marketing by letting the government/aka US/taxpayers foot the down payments for all those mansions and crap. I felt bad because they didn't get him yet, and then I felt great because, by excluding the African Americans out of the positions of power, business, and economy decisions, WE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS CRAP. Now when I here them say: "We're no.1, I giggle knowing they would be so proud, if they knew, the guy they voted for twice, pulled their retirement and savings pants down, and had a spank fest on their states and federal budgets, and left the tab for the same people who keep voting them back in. Their only mission todestroy the middleclass and working poor, and have them fighting for crumbs among the largest amnesty in history. If I broke the law, would I get a break? Hell no. But since it's their game, enjoy playing it, if you expect to have a chance. But know, you play their games witht heir weapons/intent, hoping to one day reach the gold ring, you're a bigger fool, than they play you for. Native Americans, irish, and African Americans know what they'll do to you, and how much they really care.

They don't and they didn't deserve the power they had.
Time to cage the beasts, and move on with our future.

conk
19th August 2013, 19:35
I must pray daily that the opportunity for me to scream "I told you so" never comes to pass, all the while knowing it will. Soon.

donk
23rd August 2013, 14:53
Found this "throw-away item" interesting, the Enron prosecutor rewarded for job well done by getting a job at the Ministry of Truth....um, I mean....Department of Justice, just some more confirmation that Orwell was either a prophet or given the playbook.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/former-enron-prosecutor-expected-to-be-named-to-justice-dept-post/?_r=0

This ties in well with the other material I offered, where you will find that all of the "regulators" of the finance industry come from and/or go to the giant banks and financial institutions...kind of a pattern--we love the foxes guarding the hen house, with the argument "they have the experience". *sigh*