Lindsey Williams on The Alex Jones Show: Economic Warfare Declared on the US

Lindsey Williams on Alex Jones: ‘The Elite have changed there Timeline’ – ‘Within two years you will not recognize America’ – ‘War is planned after two years, starting in the middle east area and spreading to the entire world’

Alex continues his discussion with pastor Lindsey Williams about the plans of the elite to crash the economy.

Added: 23rd Oct 09

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Read moreLindsey Williams on The Alex Jones Show: Economic Warfare Declared on the US

US Treasury: Record $123 Billion Bond Auction Next Week

‘In debt we trust.’


treasury-department

NEW YORK, Oct 22 (Reuters) – The U.S. government announced a record volume of $123 billion worth of bond auctions next week, which came at the high end of some analysts’ expectations but caused no major market ructions.

The figure beats the previous record of $115 set in July and includes two-, five- and seven-year notes in tandem with an offering of previously issued five-year Treasury Inflation Protected Securities.

Upside surprises came in a slightly larger-than-expected seven-year note sale of $31 billion and a chunkier TIPS offering of $7 billion.

The government will also sell $44 billion of two-year notes, and $41 billion worth of five-year notes.

Treasury debt prices took the announcement in stride, remaining steady at lower levels on the day US10YT=RR.

Investors have kept a close eye on U.S. debt auctions this year in light of the government’s burgeoning budget deficit. During a brief period in May some questioned the longevity of the United States’ prized AAA rating.

The U.S. budget deficit hit a record $1.4 trillion in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30 as the deep recession and a series of bank rescues cut a gaping hole in public finances.

In terms of the economy, the budgetary shortfall amounted to 10 percent of total U.S. economic output, the most for any budget shortfall since World War Two, and the White House has forecast deficits of more than $1 trillion through fiscal 2011.

Read moreUS Treasury: Record $123 Billion Bond Auction Next Week

The Goldman Sachs Bankster Casino – Where The Hell Is The Outrage?

The Obama administration is pure Wall Street, Federal Reserve, CFR and Trilateral Commission. There is no change. The banksters have free reign in America.

change-we-can-believe-in
Change we can believe in.

Related information:
The US Government: Bought and Paid For
Treasury Secretary Geithner’s Closest Aides Reaped Millions Working for Banks, Hedge Funds
Goldman Sachs Banksters Set to Pay Record £14 Billion in Bonuses
Government Watchdog: Treasury and Federal Reserve Knew Bailed-Out Banks Were Not Healthy, Lying to Americans
Goldman Sachs to be paid $1bn if CIT fails, while US taxpayers would lose $2.3bn
US: Utah approved a $27.3 million incentive package to keep Goldman Sachs, bringing the total amount to $47.3 million
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur: There Has Been a Financial Coup D’Etat

Mike Shedlock:
“I am outraged that the Obama Administration promised change and did not deliver. “Yes We Can” was a lie. The reality is “It’s Business As Usual, Only Worse, With Higher Deficits”.”

“I am outraged there is not enough outrage over this.”

“Where the hell is the outrage?”


goldman-sachs-banknote

The number of articles and opinions on Goldman Sachs earnings, bonuses, and influence peddling over the past several days is quite stunning.

Many have pointed out the problems; few have expressed outrage over what is happening in general, not just at Goldman Sachs. Let’s take a look.

My take is at the end.

Letting The Dice Roll

Rolfe Winkler at Contingent Capital is writing Letting Goldman Roll The Dice.

Is Goldman really such an indispensable financial intermediary? One look at the firm’s revenue breakdown shows that it’s more casino than anything else, and some of the markets it makes still put the economy in danger.

(Click on image to enlarge.)
goldman-sachs-revenue

Goldman, in other words, generates most of its revenue trading its own money and earning vigorish on customer transactions. It’s a hybrid hedge fund and bookie, with an investment bank and asset management business thrown in for good measure.

With that in mind, one is left to wonder whether Goldman was really worth saving last year. What have taxpayers received for the $50 billion worth of cash and guarantees, for giving Goldman access to the Federal Reserve as its lender of last resort?

Saving Goldman was largely about saving the derivatives market, which is so big and unstable that the death of one counterparty could mean the death of all. With big commercial banks like JPMorgan Chase in deep, saving the derivatives business was as much about protecting depositors and maintaining the integrity of the payment system as it was derivatives themselves.

Read moreThe Goldman Sachs Bankster Casino – Where The Hell Is The Outrage?

Treasury Secretary Geithner’s Closest Aides Reaped Millions Working for Banks, Hedge Funds

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.

Jim Rogers: Obama administration run by people who caused the latest financial problems

…who intentionally caused the latest financial problems.

Do you still trust the government?:
The Federal Reserve buys Fannie Mae bonds; Timothy Geithner is a liar
The US Government: Bought and Paid For
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur: There Has Been a Financial Coup D’Etat
– Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts On The U.S. Leadership:
“They Are Criminals” – The Potential Here Is Far Worse Than The Great Depression

Change you can believe in!

And now…


geithner-cfr

Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) — Some of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s closest aides, none of whom faced Senate confirmation, earned millions of dollars a year working for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and other Wall Street firms, according to financial disclosure forms.

The advisers include Gene Sperling, who last year took in $887,727 from Goldman Sachs and $158,000 for speeches mostly to financial companies, including the firm run by accused Ponzi scheme mastermind R. Allen Stanford. Another top aide, Lee Sachs, reported more than $3 million in salary and partnership income from Mariner Investment Group, a New York hedge fund.

As part of Geithner’s kitchen cabinet, Sperling and Sachs wield influence behind the scenes at the Treasury Department, where they help oversee the $700 billion banking rescue and craft executive pay rules and the revamp of financial regulations. Yet they haven’t faced the public scrutiny given to Senate-confirmed appointees, nor are they compelled to testify in Congress to defend or explain the Treasury’s policies.

“These people are incredibly smart, they’re incredibly talented and they bring knowledge,” said Bill Brown, a visiting professor at Duke University School of Law and former managing director at Morgan Stanley. “The risk is they will further exacerbate the problem of our regulators identifying with Wall Street.”

While it isn’t unusual for Treasury officials to come from the financial industry, President Barack Obama has been critical of Wall Street, blaming its high-risk, high-pay culture for helping cause the financial-market meltdown.

‘Reckless Behavior’

Speaking to financial executives last month, Obama said: “We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess that was at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses.”

At the same time, the president has promised to change Washington by keeping lobbyists for special interests at a distance and by making decisions in the open. (See: The US Government: Bought and Paid For)

Sperling and Sachs are each paid $162,900 at the Treasury. Along with four others, they hold the title of counselor to Geithner. Sachs, 46, withdrew earlier this year from consideration to be the Treasury’s top domestic finance official, a job that would have required Senate confirmation.

Geithner’s predecessor, Henry Paulson, brought on a coterie of non-confirmed advisers from Goldman Sachs at the end of his term. Paulson, who had been the firm’s chief executive officer, defended the arrangement as necessary to quickly bring in top talent when the financial system was on the verge of collapse.

Read moreTreasury Secretary Geithner’s Closest Aides Reaped Millions Working for Banks, Hedge Funds

Rising unemployment and a failing economy in the U.S.

Current Numbers Dont Add Up To Recovery

torn-dollar

This past week the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) released the September unemployment statistics and they worsened as usual, as America enjoys its recovery.

U-1-Those unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force was 5.4%.

U-2-Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the labor force was 6.8%.

U-3-Total unemployed, as a percentage of the civilian labor force, the official unemployment rate, 9.8%.

U-4-Discouraged workers 10.2%.

U-5-Total unemployed plus discharged workers, plus marginally attached workers 11.1%.

U-6-Total unemployed as a percent of the civilian labor force 17%.

If the birth/death ratio is removed, U-6 is in reality 21.3% total US unemployment. The estimate is that 824,000, more jobs may be extracted from the payroll count for the 12-months ended next March. Such a revision would be the biggest since 1991. The BLS is underestimating job losses deliberately and has been for a long time. That would mean September’s loss would be some 300,000 not 263,000.

Such a revision would put job losses not at 4.8 million but 5.6 million jobs.

This is how government has operated for some time and will continue to as long as we allow them too.

Read moreRising unemployment and a failing economy in the U.S.

Government Watchdog: Treasury and Federal Reserve Knew Bailed-Out Banks Were Not Healthy, Lying to Americans

If people trust the US government and the Federal Reserve, then they are doomed and they deserve it, because they haven’t done they research.

Why would you trust somebody that has been caught lying and stealing almost all of the time?

Why would you trust somebody that has brought down the value of the US dollar to 5 cents compared to 1913, when the Federal Reserve banksters took over?

Why would you trust somebody that has stolen essentially 95% of your money?

Why would you trust somebody that threatens with an economic meltdown if you would take a look into their books?


Senior Officials Had Financial Concerns About Nine Bank Instiutions Receiving TARP Funds

banksters-and-money
The chief watchdog for the government’s $700 billion bailout program says federal officials were trying to contain the worst financial crisis in decades last year with the Troubled Asset Relief Program, but they had concerns about the bank institutions’ financial health. (ABC News Photo Illustration)


The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve lied to the American public last fall when they said that the first nine banks to receive government bailout funds were healthy, a government watchdog states in a new report released today.

Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), says that despite multiple statements on Oct. 14 of last year that these nine banks were healthy and only receiving government funds for the good of the country’s economy, federal officials knew otherwise.

“Contemporaneous reports and officials’ statements to SIGTARP during this audit indicate that there were concerns about the health of several of the nine institutions at that time and, as detailed in this report, that their overall selection was far more a result of the officials’ belief in their importance to a system that was viewed as being vulnerable to collapse than concerns about their individual health and viability,” Barofsky says.

Last October, the government was in the midst of trying to contain the worst financial crisis in decades. On Sept. 7, 2008, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed under conservatorship. On Sept. 15, the massive investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. The next day, insurance giant AIG needed an $85 billion government loan to avoid collapse.

On Oct. 13, after Congress had passed the $700 billion financial bailout program earlier that month, Treasury provided capital injections for nine institutions that together held over $11 trillion in assets: Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, State Street and the Bank of New York Mellon. As of June 2008, these nine banks accounted for around 75 percent of all assets held by U.S. banks.

In announcing the initial $125 billion provided to these banks, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson on Oct. 14 said,These are healthy institutions, and they have taken this step for the good of the U.S. economy. As these healthy institutions increase their capital base, they will be able to increase their funding to U.S. consumers and businesses.”

That same day, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC also released a joint statement reiterating that “these healthy institutions are taking these steps to strengthen their own positions and to enhance the overall performance of the US economy.”

Read moreGovernment Watchdog: Treasury and Federal Reserve Knew Bailed-Out Banks Were Not Healthy, Lying to Americans

US Treasury To Sell $112 Billion In Notes Next Week

NEW YORK — The Treasury Department said Thursday it will issue $112 billion in notes next week. A record $43 billion in 2-year notes will be sold on Tuesday, followed by $40 billion in 5-year debt on Wednesday.

The final offering will be $49 billion in 7-year notes on Thursday. The amounts are each $1 billion more than last month — the most ever for each security — and in line with estimates of some of Wall Street’s biggest bond dealers.

– Related article: Are Foreign Purchases of US Treasury Bonds Being Faked?

Read moreUS Treasury To Sell $112 Billion In Notes Next Week

US: Hyperinflation Nation

Hyperinflation Nation starring Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, Tom Woods, Gerald Celente, and others.

Prepare now before the US dollar is worthless.

Part 1 :

Read moreUS: Hyperinflation Nation

Ron Paul on CNN: Federal Government ‘One Giant Toxic Asset’, ‘There Is No Recovery’

Related information:

Joseph Stiglitz: Banking Problems Are Now Bigger Than Before The Crisis:
Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) — Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, said the U.S. has failed to fix the underlying problems of its banking system after the credit crunch and the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
“In the U.S. and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger,” Stiglitz said in an interview today in Paris. “The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis.”

Jim Rogers on CNBC: ‘US Bonds Are The Next Bubble’



Th
is video is from CNN’s American Morning, broadcast Sept. 14, 2009.
(Download video via RawReplay.com)

dr-ron-paul1

The US economy has not really recovered from last year’s financial crisis, and the policies of the Federal Reserve, the US’s central bank, are ensuring that the suffering will continue much longer than necessary, US House Rep. Ron Paul told CNN on Monday.

“They claim there’s a recovery but the recovery ought to be measured by the people working. True unemployment is now 16 percent, and the people who lost money have not regained the money. The people who lost houses have not gotten their houses back. There is no recovery,” said Paul.

The official unemployment rate in August was 9.7 percent, but Paul was referring to the broader unemployment measure, known as “U-6,” which measures not only the number of people looking for work but also those people who have given up looking for work. The official unemployment measure does not include people who have stopped looking for work.

In August, the broader U-6 unemployment rate was a stunning 16.8 percent, two-and-a-half percentage points higher than it was in the 1982 recession, which had been the worst recession since the Great Depression.

“There is no recovery, all there is is a lot of fudging,” Paul told CNN’s Kieran Chetly.

Paul was on CNN promoting his new book, End the Fed, in which he argues that the federal government’s bailout of Wall Street has indebted it to the point that the government itself is now “one giant toxic asset.”

Read moreRon Paul on CNN: Federal Government ‘One Giant Toxic Asset’, ‘There Is No Recovery’

Are Foreign Purchases of US Treasury Bonds Being Faked?

Follow the money, …… if you can!

Related article:

Ben Bernanke does not know which foreign banks were given $500 billion!


Everyone knows that the American government is gaming the market for treasury bonds to some extent.

For example, the government has itself bought some U.S. Treasuries.

Some writers, such as Rob Kirby and Ellen Brown, go much further, alleging that Bernanke and the boys have also used hedge funds in the Cayman Islands to secretly buy huge sums of U.S. treasuries using dollars printed by the Federal Reserve, while pretending that independent “Caribbean banks” are doing the buying. See this, this and this. I have no idea whether or not they are right.

Perhaps most dramatically, Keith Fitz-Gerald (Contributing Editor to Money Morning, Investment Director of the Money Map Report and editor of the New China Trader) – who has seemed like a very level-headed guy in the past – is now claiming that the U.S. government has recently changed the rules so that the Fed can itself buy U.S. treasuries but claim that the buyers are foreign:

The U.S. Government wants the public to believe that China, Japan and Europe are still happily buying U.S. debt to fund the American economic turnaround. The only problem is – they’re not…

The reality is that the Treasury changed the way U.S. debt is accounted for when purchased on the open market. U.S. debt selling on the open market can be considered as having been sold to “foreigners” even if the purchaser was the Federal Reserve! Voila! A sleight of hand by the U.S. Government, and China and Japan can appear to be buying debt while at the same time selling debt.

Read moreAre Foreign Purchases of US Treasury Bonds Being Faked?

US Treasury: Millions more foreclosures are coming

us-treasury-says-millions-more-foreclosures-are-coming
A bank owned home is advertised for sale in Encinitas, California August 18, 2009. (REUTERS)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Only 12 percent of U.S. homeowners eligible for loan modifications under the Obama administration’s housing rescue plan have had their mortgages reworked, and millions more foreclosures are coming, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

A Treasury report showed 360,165 people had their monthly payments reduced through August, up from 235,247 through July, but a senior Treasury official conceded much more must be done to soften the impact of a severe and prolonged housing crisis.

“The recent crisis in the housing sector has devastated families and communities across the country and is at the center of our financial crisis and economic downturn,” Michael Barr, assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions, told a House Financial Services subcommittee.

Read moreUS Treasury: Millions more foreclosures are coming

On the Edge with Max Keiser and Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing (06/26/09)

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Read moreOn the Edge with Max Keiser and Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing (06/26/09)

The Bearer Bond Saga: It Gets More Odd

Related articles:
The Japanese Bond Smugglers Are Missing
The US Bearer Bonds ‘Coincidence’
The Saga Of The Bearer Bonds; Smuggled Bonds Are Probably Genuine
Italy Seizes $135 BILLION Of US Bonds: Smuggling Or Counterfeit-Printing?


Well, just when you thought that the Bearer Bond story was finished, it gets twisted yet again.

Remember, this was the claim:

“They’re clearly fakes,” said Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of the Public Debt in Washington.

Uh, Bloomberg….. how about an accurate quote?

Based on the photograph we’ve seen online, they are clearly fake. And not even good fakes,” said Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the Treasury’s Bureau of the Public Debt.

Online? You mean that the Treasury Department hasn’t been sent a high-resolution digital photo of what was seized? A week after the fact?

I don’t believe you Stephen.

In the last two years, Italian authorities have seized some $800 million of U.S. bonds in the Como area in northern Italy.

Those would be real bonds, I assume? But I thought Stephen said….

He added that there is only $105 million in Treasury bearer bond securities outstanding, so the $134 billion amount seized far exceeds the universe of outstanding securites.

Wait a second…… $800 million in real bonds have been seized, but there are only $105 million outstanding? There may be some confusion here as to whether all these bonds are “bearer” instruments or not, but even if not, a registered paper bond is worthless if stolen, as its purchaser is known and before anyone is going to redeem it for you they’re going to verify not only its authenticity but that you’re the rightful owner.

Another U.S. official said the seized bonds were purported to be issued during the Kennedy administration in the early 1960s, but the certificates showed a picture of a space shuttle on it — a spacecraft that first flew in 1981. Some of the bonds were purportedly issued in a $500 billion denomination that never existed.

If there’s a picture of a shuttle on the bond with an issue during the Kennedy Administration, its definitely fake of course. But… where are the actual pictures of these seized bonds?

And are they still seized? That’s an even better question; there appear to be (at least) two different stories there too:

Under Italian law when law enforcement agencies seize fake bonds or counterfeit money they are under the obligation to arrest the bearers. And in order to avoid misappropriation, the agency seizing the material, in this case the financial police, must quickly proceed to its destruction (i.e. incineration).

However, in case of real securities, after the securities holders are identified, the financial police must release them immediately after issuing a statement of confiscation and imposing a fine valued in this case at € 38 billion (US$ 53.4 billion). In this case, why were the two men released right away without any fine imposed?

It doesn’t end there:

If what Meyerhardt says is true, some major financial institutions have been deceived by the securities carried by the two Asian men. This would be a bombshell and raise serious questions as to how many bank assets are actually made up of securities that for Meyerhardt are “clearly fakes.”

If counterfeit securities of such high quality are in circulation the world’s monetary system, let alone that of the United States, is in danger. International trade and exchanges could come to a halt.

Hmmmm… sensationalist conclusion without foundation? Maybe.

Read moreThe Bearer Bond Saga: It Gets More Odd

The US Bearer Bonds ‘Coincidence’

Treasury Has $134.5 Billion Left in TARP (The Wall Street Journal):

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department said it has about $134.5 billion left in its financial-rescue fund, giving the Obama administration a cushion as it implements expensive programs aimed at unlocking credit markets and boosting ailing industries.

Italy Seizes $135 BILLION Of US Bonds: Smuggling Or Counterfeit-Printing?:

Milan (AsiaNews) – Italy’s financial police (Guardia italiana di Finanza) has seized US bonds worth US 134.5 billion from two Japanese nationals at Chiasso (40 km from Milan) on the border between Italy and Switzerland. They include 249 US Federal Reserve bonds worth US$ 500 million each, plus ten Kennedy bonds and other US government securities worth a billion dollar each.

Related article:
The Saga Of The Bearer Bonds; Smuggled Bonds Are Probably Genuine

Also ask yourself why there was almost a complete media blackout on such a big story!

I hope every reader knows who really owns and controls the media.

Marc Faber: Bernanke Is An Economic Criminal And In My Opinion He Is A Madman (06/06/09)

Marc Faber: “There is no deflation at the present time.”

Related article:
Marc Faber: U.S. will go into Hyperinflation, Approaching Zimbabwe Levels (Bloomberg)

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Added: 11. Juni 2009

Read moreMarc Faber: Bernanke Is An Economic Criminal And In My Opinion He Is A Madman (06/06/09)

A NEW MONETARY SYSTEM

Author Bernard Lietaer, a former central banker, writes in “The Future of Money:”

“Your money’s value is determined by a global casino of unprecedented proportions: $2 trillion are traded per day in foreign exchange markets, 100 times more than the trading volume of all the stock markets of the world combined. Only 2% of these foreign exchange transactions relate to the “real” economy reflecting movements of real goods and services in the world, and 98% are purely speculative. This global casino is triggering the foreign exchange crises which shook Mexico in 1994-95, Asia in 1997 and Russia in 1998. These emergencies are the dislocation symptoms of the old Industrial Age money system.”

These emergencies are also the hallmark of the transnational crime syndicate manipulating the global economy through financial terrorism. Collapsing healthy economies with currency speculation, fabricated debt and naked short selling, these vultures have swarmed across the globe devouring the assets of one nation after another with coordinated “privatization” schemes. The US is their current victim.


Prologue

When Benjamin Franklin was called before the British Parliament in 1757 and asked to account for the prosperity in the American colonies. He replied, “That is simple. In the colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one.”

It was the struggle for financial sovereignty that precipitated the American Revolution when the (Rothschild) Bank of England forced the colonies to give up their Scrip and intense poverty followed.

That war never ended.

Throughout their political lives Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Andrew Jackson fought off the European bankers who intermittently controlled the nation’s money supply through privately-owned banks. When Abraham Lincoln issued ‘greenbacks’ that deprived private bankers of their monopoly control of the nation’s money supply he was assassinated. The European bankers battled for more than a century to establish a private central bank in the United States with the exclusive right to print their own paper notes and exchange them for government debt. They succeeded in 1913 with The Federal Reserve Act, a coup that authorized a private cartel to create money out of nothing, lend it to the government with interest and control the national money supply, expanding or contracting it at will. Representative Charles Lindbergh called the Act “the worst legislative crime of the ages.” Fifty years later, President John F. Kennedy defied the central bankers when he issued debt-free Treasury Notes. He too was assassinated.

Read moreA NEW MONETARY SYSTEM

US government forced Bank of America to buy Merrill and conceal rescue facts

Pressure from Fed and Treasury chiefs to complete purchase of Merrill Lynch despite ‘staggering’ losses


Merrill Lynch Chairman and CEO John Thain, left, shakes hands with Bank of America Chairman and CEO Ken Lewis, at a news conference last autumn. The deal between the banks has proved controversial Photo: AP

Ken Lewis’s position at the helm of Bank of America looked increasingly uncertain on Thursday after it emerged he stopped short of pulling out of the deal to buy loss-making Merrill Lynch after Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson threatened to oust him and his entire board.

Mr Lewis BoA’s chairman and chief executive, also knowingly hid the state of Merrill Lynch’s “staggering” losses from shareholders at the behest of former Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke.

The revelations were contained in a batch of BoA board minutes and testimony from Mr Lewis and Mr Paulson sent by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to the Securities and Exchange Commission and Congressional leaders Chris Dodd and Barney Frank.


Bank of America chief ‘told to buy Merrill or face sack’

Bank boss claims US treasury told him to seal $50bn deal and keep quiet about brokerage’s huge losses

The US government threatened to eject the entire board of Bank of America if the firm pulled out of a $50bn (£34bn) takeover of troubled Merrill Lynch in December, according to new documents set to inflame a bitter shareholder dispute at America’s wealthiest bank.

In potentially explosive testimony to regulators, Bank of America’s chief executive, Ken Lewis, has claimed the US treasury ordered him to press ahead with a buyout of Merrill and to keep quiet about the Wall Street brokerage’s mounting losses.

Full article here: The Guardian


Mr Cuomo, who released details of the exchanges yesterday, has been investigating BoA after Merrill paid $3.6bn (£2.45bn) of bonuses to its staff just days before the acquisition was completed on January 1.

He believes he has uncovered “facts that raise questions about the transparency” of the Treasury’s $700bn bank bail-out programme “as well as about corporate governance and disclosure practices at Bank of America.”

Investors have already expressed serious concern that BoA did not attempt to pull out of the merger with Merrill, given the investment bank racked up losses of $15.84bn in the fourth quarter of 2008. The loss required BoA to take on an extra $20bn of Treasury funding as well as an $118bn loan-loss guarantee.

The documents paint all three men in a bad light. Mr Lewis, though initially keen to pull out of the Merrill deal after revealing the extent of what he calls the “staggering amount of deterioration in its finances,” claimed he caved in after being threatened by Mr Paulson on December 21, ten days before the sale was due to complete.

“That makes it simple. Let’s deescalate,” Mr Lewis told Mr Paulson, with reference to his original plan to invoke a material adverse clause (MAC) to get out of the Merrill deal.

Mr Paulson later testified to Mr Cuomo that he only threatened Mr Lewis “at the request of Chairman Bernanke.”

Read moreUS government forced Bank of America to buy Merrill and conceal rescue facts

Borrowing puts UK’s AAA rating in danger after Budget 2009

The prospect of the UK losing its AAA sovereign credit rating, resulting in higher interest rates for companies and households, moved a step closer after ratings agencies voiced fears about the UK’s vast public debt burden.


The Chancellor revealed in the Budget that the national debt will reach £1.4 trillion over the next five years Photo: EPA

Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s are reviewing the UK’s rating in light of the Chancellor’s revelation in the Budget that national debt will reach £1.4 trillion over the next five years. Spain, Ireland, Greece and Portugal have already been downgraded.

Related articles:
Taxes ‘must rise’ by £45bn a year to meet Budget 2009 target (Telegraph)
Time to bail out of Britain? (Telegraph)

Arnaud Mares, lead analyst at Moody’s for the UK, said: “Treasury projections that public sector net borrowing will remain above 5pc of GDP five years from now… are a cause for concern. This suggests that fiscal policy will have to be tightened much further than currently envisaged. The alternative would be that the Government chooses to live with a permanently higher debt burden which would likely have rating implications over time.”

A Standard & Poor’s spokesman said: “We are looking at the details of the Budget and have no comment to make at this stage.”

Sources in the bond trading market claimed credit agencies were already stress-testing the UK again for a possible downgrade. “You have to assume the risk of a ratings downgrade has increased after this Budget. It is certainly much more likely than we thought a few months ago,” said John Wraith, head of rates strategy at RBC.

Last November, Frank Gill, S&P’s director of European sovereign ratings, said public debt above 60pc of GDP could undermine an AAA rating. At its peak in 2013, the Government is forecasting debt at 79pc of GDP.

Read moreBorrowing puts UK’s AAA rating in danger after Budget 2009

An Asset Bubble for the History Books

By Bob Chapman:

Big bank money bombs will blow up money supply, economic data distorted beyond recognition, Fed magically conjures money, dollar set to lose its status in world currencies, zombie banks suck in healthy banks, just like in the movie, mark to market rules still hiding trillions in losses

Many of you may recall that there was a tulip mania in Holland in the 1630’s that has become synonymous with asset bubbles. Just to give you an idea of how over-the-top this mania became, the price for a single tulip bulb at one point during this mania was in the tens of thousands of dollars in terms of today’s prices. And believe it or not they were writing futures contracts on tulip bulbs! Now, courtesy of our new Treasury Secretary, Kissinger protégé Little Timmy Geithner, who is on loan from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Little Timmy’s sidekick, Buck-Busting-Ben, chairman of the privately owned Fed, we are about to experience a hyperinflationary money bubble as Little Timmy and Buck-Busting-Ben create and unleash a money supply mania. That money supply mania will cause many other manias, including gold and silver manias, as tangible asset prices skyrocket.

Read moreAn Asset Bubble for the History Books

Economic Meltdown: The “Dollar Glut” is What Finances America’s Global Military Build-up

by Prof. Michael Hudson

I am traveling in Europe for three weeks to discuss the global financial crisis with government officials, politicians and labor leaders. What is most remarkable is how differently the financial problem is perceived over here. It’s like being in another economic universe, not just another continent.

The U.S. media are silent about the most important topic policy makers are discussing here (and I suspect in Asia too): how to protect their countries from three inter-related dynamics: (1) the surplus dollars pouring into the rest of the world for yet further financial speculation and corporate takeovers; (2) the fact that central banks are obliged to recycle these dollar inflows to buy U.S. Treasury bonds to finance the federal U.S. budget deficit; and most important (but most suppressed in the U.S. media, (3) the military character of the U.S. payments deficit and the domestic federal budget deficit.

Strange as it may seem ­ and irrational as it would be in a more logical system of world diplomacy ­ the “dollar glut” is what finances America’s global military build-up. It forces foreign central banks to bear the costs of America’s expanding military empire ­ effective “taxation without representation.” Keeping international reserves in “dollars” means recycling their dollar inflows to buy U.S. Treasury bills ­ U.S. government debt issued largely to finance the military.

Read moreEconomic Meltdown: The “Dollar Glut” is What Finances America’s Global Military Build-up

Geithner Calls for ‘New Rules of the Game’ in Finance

Wow.



Timothy Geithner, U.S. treasury secretary, testifies at a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, March 26, 2009. Photographer: Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg News

March 26 (Bloomberg) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said regulation of the U.S. financial system needs a broad overhaul to heal a crippling lack of confidence caused by the credit crisis.

“To address this will require comprehensive reform,” Geithner said at a House Financial Services Committee hearing. “Not modest repairs at the margin, but new rules of the game.”

Geithner’s proposals would bring large hedge funds, private-equity firms and derivatives markets under federal supervision for the first time. A new systemic risk regulator would have powers to force companies to boost their capital or curtail borrowing, and officials would get the authority to seize them if they run into trouble.

Read moreGeithner Calls for ‘New Rules of the Game’ in Finance

U.K. Bond Auction Fails for First Time Since 2002

March 25 (Bloomberg) — The U.K. failed to find enough buyers for 1.75 billion pounds ($2.55 billion) of bonds for the first time in almost seven years as debt investors repudiated Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s plan to stem the worst economic crisis in three decades.

Gilts slumped after the London-based Debt Management Office, which manages bond auctions on behalf of the Treasury, said investors bid for 1.63 billion pounds of the 40-year securities. The last time the U.K. government was unable to attract enough investors was in 2002 when it tried to sell 30- year inflation-protected bonds. The yield on the 4.25 percent gilt due 2049 rose 10 basis points to 4.55 percent.

Brown’s government aims to sell a record 146.4 billion pounds of debt this fiscal year and as much as 147.9 billion pounds in 2010 as he tries to pull Europe’s second-largest economy out of its worst recession since 1980. The prime minister’s plan drew criticism yesterday when Bank of England Governor Mervyn King told lawmakers in Parliament in London the government should be “cautious” about spending and deficits.

“This is a warning signal investors are sending to the government,” said Neil Mackinnon, chief economist at hedge fund ECU Group Plc in London, who helps manage about $1 billion in assets and is a former U.K. Treasury official. “Investors are giving the thumbs down to the gilt market.”

Read moreU.K. Bond Auction Fails for First Time Since 2002

The Fed Did Indeed Cause the Housing Bubble

More from Catherine Austin Fitts:
Former Assistant Secretary of Housing: The U.S. is the Global Leader in Illegal Money Laundering
Rethinking Diversification

This is a MUST-READ.


To: The Wall Street Journal

Re: “The Fed Didn’t Cause the Housing Bubble”

By: Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve

Dated: Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen:

In his article on your opinion page, “The Fed Didn’t Cause the Housing Bubble,” Alan Greenspan attributes the housing bubble to lower interest rates between 2002 and 2005. That’s amazing to me.

My company served as lead financial advisor to the Federal Housing Administration between 1994 and 1997. I watched both the Administration and the Federal Reserve aggressively implement the policies that engineered the housing bubble. These are described at my website and in my on-line book,Dillon Read & the Aristocracy of Stock Profits (http://www.dunwalke.com).

One story, for example, is the following:
“In 1995, a senior Clinton Administration official shared with me the Administration’s targets for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage volumes in low- and moderate-income communities. We had recently reviewed the Administration’s plans to increase government mortgage guarantees – most of these mortgages would also be pooled and sold as securities to investors. Even in 1995, I could see that these plans would create unserviceable debt loads in communities struggling with the falling incomes expected from globalization. Homeowners would default on mortgages while losses on mortgage-backed securities would drain retirement savings from 401(k)s and pension plans. Taxpayers would ultimately be hit with a large bill . . . but insiders would make a bundle. I looked at the official and said that the Administration was planning on issuing more mortgages than there were houses or residents. “Shut up, this is none of your business,” the official snapped back.”

Read moreThe Fed Did Indeed Cause the Housing Bubble