The Swine Flu Began With Goldman Sachs And Has Infected The Entire Nation

The Royal Scam occurring at Treasury cannot help to draw up anger within the average American, if they are paying attention. Most are not paying attention. We have now been privy to the fact that the CEO and Chairman of JPMorgan, Jamie Dixon, is a psychopathetic conartist. He has decided to blame everyone and everything for the economic collapse but the actual real reason for the meltdown of the economy has to do with banksta greed by keeping mortgage rates dirt cheap, worker’s wages stagnant or near stagnant, keeping lending rates low, and encouraging borrowing for whatever the heart desires with teaser financial bank credit card rates, zero percent transfer rates, low home equity loan rates, no regulator rules, paying off the SEC to look the other way regarding securities violations, and installing banksters into the Treasury’s money supply system.
Mr. Dixon felt it was his duty to blame the war in Iraq, an enormous U.S. trade deficit, greedy individuals seeking higher profits, short selling, high energy prices, irrational pressures on corporations, money managers, and hedge fundies seeking more profits. He did admit that depressed interest rates was a factor in the creation of the housing bubble, yet he did not take one grain of responsibility for being a part of it. Very psychopathetic.

This week the largest financial banks published their earnings data. What we heard from the television Bobbleheads that blow out their optimistic steamy vapors clouding the truth, which they called information, was “Oh boy, look at Citi’s, as well as the other’s bank earnings. Better than expected!” Geewow!! Their better than expected earnings were based on “no-expectation” earnings projections, so anything better than flat was good. But remember, they received taxpayer dollars to improve their balance sheets, so the taxpayers pumped up these delusional earnings statistics.

At the same time, TimmyG unveiled some of the information regarding his stress testing circus act. His procedure is to reveal if the banks can hold up under irregular economic pressures and if they need taxpayer cash to stay alive. Instead of telling the zombie banks that they have a certain amount of time to find their own capital sources before being taken over by the FDIC, Geithner stated that any bank that showed a weak stress test will be pumped up with more cash by him-by us; no big deal? It is time to stuff the pig. Does this bring on the Pandemic Infection? Darn! The Pandemic Infection actually originated in the United States by the diseased banking industry. Their version of Swine Flu spread quickly throughout the world. The infection seems unstoppable. The richest Americans have gotten some of the financial serum to prevent their own widespread infection.
So, what does this do for the working American? NOTHING! This is not about people but the bankster economic ruling class. Goldman Sachs appears to be the master-thief and oligarch running the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Goldman Sachs has installed their own people into the control of our monetary system. Hank Paulson was Bush’s Treasury Secretary and principal designer behind the financial extortion plan that forced Congress to authorize Treasury to hand over $700B in TARP cash to the masterminds running the Wall Street mega-banks. Congress was told by Paulson and Bush, as well as by a panicking John McCain after he had suspended his presidential bid, that the economic sky was falling upon the head of Chicken Little!! Without TARP funds the nation would fall into a depression. Goldman Sachs’ Neel Kashkari was asked to head the TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program). Goldman Sachs’ Jon Corzine, governor of New Jersey rushed into to offer support. Goldman Sachs kept Robert Rubin on the payroll for 26 years before he was installed into the Clinton administration in order to begin the deregulation process, which was signed into law by the BoyBush. Robert Zoellick is Goldman Sachs’ presidential mole in the World Bank, and served in the neo-con administration of DaddyBush. Now we have Larry Summers, Obama’s senior economic advisor as he heads the National Economic Council. Also, we have Tim Geithner who did not work at Goldman Sachs but was trained by their propaganda school headmaster by Rubin and Summers. Goldman Sachs trained John Thain well enough to be CEO of Merrill Lynch before a discounted purchase was arranged by Paulson to Bank of America. Then Goldman Sachs trained Robert Steel who heads Wachovia Bank. This defines Goldman Sachs and their deeply seated control of the United States of America’s financial system.

Since 1986, our financial sector grew from a modest 19% of corporate profits, to a current level of 41% of corporate profits. This has been a strong incentive for Goldman Sachs and the others to make sure Treasury and the Federal Reserve act on their behalf at every turn. Remember, Hank-the Paulie-Paulson made $38 million his last year as CEO as the leader of the oligarchy financial bank—Goldman Sachs. According to Paul Farrell, “Jack Bauer Can’t Stop The ‘Goldman Conspiracy’” he wrote, “Then during the market meltdown six months ago the $700 million personal fortune he [Paulson] built at Goldman was threatened by Goldman’s huge $20 billion derivatives exposure at AIG. Suddenly, his responsibilities at Treasury merged with a strong self-interest in protecting his personal fortune. AIG was saved.” He went on to say…John Whitehead, former Goldman Sachs chairman, former chairman of the New York Fed, former Reagan deputy Secretary of State, warned America’s problems will take years, burn trillions, result in massive deficits, which is a “road to disaster”. Mr. Whitehead then said in Farrell’s piece, “I’ve always been a positive person and optimistic, but I don’t see a solution here.” Farrell concluded with, “He [Whitehead] did see a depression at the end of the road, once you can call “Depression 2.”

How has any of this helped the real economy and the 300-plus million Americans? It isn’t helping. But, it is making life worse for everyone, but those at the top of the economic tier. Michael Whitney wrote in his piece called “Housing Bust Comes Roaring Back, Worse Than Ever”, “that more than 2.1 million homes will be lost this year because borrowers can’t meet their loan payments, up from about 1.7 million in 2008.” In his piece, Rick Sharga V.P. of RealtyTrac, said “We believe there are in the neighborhood of 600,000 properties nationwide that banks have repossessed but not put on the market.” If the banks decide to put those properties on the market all at once, there would be further depreciation and carnage in the housing market. Mr. Whitney said, “One thing is certain, 600,000 “disappeared” homes means that housing prices have a lot farther to fall and that an even larger segment of the banking system is insolvent.” The article went on to say, “Ten’s of thousands of foreclosures are only 1-5 months away from hitting that and will take foreclosure counts back to all-time highs. This will flood an already beaten-bloody real estate market with even more supply just in time for the Spring/Summer home selling season.” Whitney quoted Ruth Simon, “The Housing Crisis Is About to Take Center Stage Once Again, WSJ”. She said in his piece, “Another 20% carved off the aggregate value of US housing means another $4 trillion loss to homeowners. That means smaller retirement savings, less discretionary spending, and lower living standards. The next leg down in housing will be excruciating; every sector will feel pain. Obama’s $75 billion mortgage rescue plan is a mere pittance; it won’t reduce the principle on mortgages and it won’t stop the bleeding….The housing market is going under and it’s going to drag a good part of the broader economy along with it. Stocks, too.” These assessments sure don’t make the housing future look promising, nor does it make the economy appear to be stabilizing anytime soon.

“So far, the meltdown has wiped out more than $11 trillion of household wealth, ignited soaring unemployment, and pushed millions of people from their homes.” Whitney included Newsweek, “Don’t Buy The Chirpy Forecasts”, “If the United States follows the norm of recent crises, as it has until now, output may take four years to return to its pre-crisis level. Unemployment will continue to rise for three more years, reaching 11-12% in 2011.”

What we now hear is General Motors will layoff more workers and idle around 19 plants. That means their total goal of 47,000 layoffs will likely be realized. For every one autoworker layoff, a ripple effect of a loss of 10 other jobs is felt. With idle plants throughout the summer, and massive layoffs, small business closures, bankruptcies, business downsizing affecting the economy, the summer will be painful for many families. This will affect the tourism and entertainment industries. A deeper recession will likely be realized.

Congress and President Obama are all up in arms over the rip-off by credit card companies as they gouge the card users with higher fees, and interest rates. What is upsetting is that any reforms and pressures placed upon these financial corporate thieves will take over a year to be implemented, yet Team Obama and Congress sure acted fast to stuff the pockets of the largest financial American banking cartel operators. It only took days for hundreds of billions of dollars to hit their balance sheets. Wow!!! They sure act fast to serve the financial needs of the banking predators, but they move at a snails pace to help working America, who are the only ones that can improve the economic conditions.

Can they be that stupid and inept to not understand that unless working Americans psychologically feel that their economic livelihoods are stable, their retirement is back on track, their children have an opportunity to be financial independent, and their jobs are once again stable, there will be no economic recovery? I don’t believe they are either stupid or inept. Our top level government officials have chosen to serve those corporate kleptocrats, those bankstas, those corporate insurgents who are controlling and manipulating those operating inside the government that control the money.

It is clear that the Treasury will be finding fewer tax dollars coming in because working Americans have much less to be taxed on. This same problem will trickle down to state and local tax collectors. Revenues will be down and all taxing bodies will be having to tighten up their declining budgets, which means more layoff, or Pink Slips, leading to more unemployed and less tax revenues, less spending, more shop closures, leading to empty shopping malls and strips, and commercial foreclosures and bankruptcies, while Obama allows his Economic Team to serve the master crime syndicate leader—Goldman Sachs and sidekick Citigroup.

The only way Team Obama will bring about “Change That We Can Believe In” is if hundreds of thousands of protesters decided to ‘March On Washington’ demanding that this economic recovery start at the bottom and work its way up, instead of the other way around.

thanks for reading, jerry

View a Youtube summing all of this up!

Visit our Nitwit Award page (see link on right of blog page), and check out new videos on our video page.

President Obama’s Economic Failure By Design

The U.S. has approached fighting the domestic economic collapse in the same way it has been fighting the two wars in the Middle East. The TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) was the failed Shock and Awe approach used in the unsuccessful attempt to jumpstart the economy through the recapitalization of zombie banks. The outcome bombed. As with the millions of taxpayer dollars sent over for the Iraqi reconstruction, which was to be used to rebuild a bombed up country, and bring new jobs leading to prosperity, the Federal Reserve and Treasury flooded zombie financial banks with taxpayer dollars, too. The process in Iraq was to design a free market economy, but most of the funding was squandered, lost or hoarded, while the country never stopped finding itself under siege. The same thing happened with the money used to recapitalize zombie banks. It was squandered, hoarded, and used to enrich the banker thieves that were responsible for the economic collapse in the first place, while the country found itself under siege by the affects of the economic tsunami: lost homeownership wealth, lost retirement and investment wealth, job losses, foreclosures, declining or stagnant wages, a drop in consumer demand, shortened work hours, constricted lending, rising credit card interest rates, underwater mortgages, and the list goes on and on.

One might see the 5 largest financial banks in a similar way to the various warring factions in the Middle East, such as unable to get their credit markets working properly due to the lack of trust amongst each other, while at the same time not knowing what they all are hiding on or off their balance sheets. Toxic mortgage debts and credit default swaps being major problems. This is not unlike the Iraqi Parliament, which is unable to bring about any functional level of stability, trust, openness, and transparency to the various sectarian parties, in this case the religious sects. None of the religious warring factions know what is hiding under their enemy’s clothing, stuffed inside their car trunks, or motorbikes.

Among the most powerful financial bankers, one of them has acquired much of the power and wielded considerable influence. It is Goldman Sachs, which could be compared to the Mahdi militia and Maktada al-Sadr, the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq. Another U.S. financial banking giant would be Citigroup, which could be likened to the Sunni rival in Iraq. Both sides have infiltrated their governments in order to embed their power. Some have been more successful than others.

But unfortunately, suicide bombings occur nearly daily taking out lives, and property, ruining families, destroying society, similar to the corporate lay-offs, home foreclosures, personal bankruptcies, and rising unemployment in the United States.

Families end up in chaos. They are afraid to spend. In Iraq, they are afraid to spend, too, as well as venture outdoors to schools or to the marketplaces. The people end up losing trust in the process their government leadership has constructed to improve the instability, danger and the uncertainty the people live with everyday.

They see the billions and trillions of dollars going into the pockets of those who created the disaster and crisis. In Iraq, the religious warring factions end up with payoffs, bribes, or “contracts”. Americans see trillions of dollars going to the banking crime syndicate bailing out their own zombie banks, while the people suffering watch the crisis get worse. They see President Obama’s economic generals fabricate rationalizations in order to keep zombie banks alive, as they design schemes to recapitalize them, while plotting other schemes to remove toxic mortgage debts off their balance sheets.

The same failed strategy goes on in Iraq as bailout schemes were designed to pay off Sunni Awakening Council gangbangers from killing American soldiers, and paying Shia militia fighters to become Iraq’s police force and army soldiers. In addition, this same failed strategy was used to prop up failed Iraqi and Afghani governments, while the common citizen suffers.

The U.S. government has created quagmires with their hegemonic visions, especially driven by the neo-cons within The Project For A New American Century. The quagmires in the Middle East will never be fixed by President Obama’s strategies and interventions because economic and political stability has failed, as well as efforts to suppress the insurgency; therefore, the U.S. superpower has been seen as a crippled giant—an impotent Goliath.

U.S. citizens are seeing President Obama’s economic team in the same way. They are being labeled as Trojan Horses for Goldman Sachs, Citi, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, AIG, and the rest. The economic generals are being tagged as impotent failures who have chosen to side with those who have spent the last 30 plus years eroding the country’s international goodwill and economic prosperity through their greedy speculative and destructive scheming by manipulating the economic and financial livelihoods of working middle class Americans.

This is not unlike the warring religious groups scheming for power and control over their economic, social, geopolitical, and religious conditions of the struggling Iraqi and Afghani societies, which ultimately, brought about desperate and dire conditions all leading toward failure.

Until President Obama wakes up and understands he is using the same strategy to “rescue” the economy as is being used to “rescue” the inherited political policy for Iraq and Afghanistan, he is destined to fail and further erode current conditions.

Fixing Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be done by the United States in the orderly and controlled fashion we fantasize about, since those two countries operate within a very different order and framework driven not by secular structures and law, but by religious order and law, therefore, they have to be left to solve it on their own.

In the U.S., we have order that has been (theoretically) established democratically for hundreds of years, therefore, the “sensible approach” would be to stop funding the failed banks, and let the FDIC take them over, dismantle them, and then, rebuild the country from the bottom up. Or, just let the failed financial banks battle it out amongst themselves, while they work to entice investors that would recapitalize them. This scenario would likely be disastrous and result in huge bankruptcies. The fantasy of the Bush administration was to use a variant of the above “sensible approach” with the three sectarian religious factions in Iraq, dismantling them, taking them over, unifying them into one parliamentary government sharing their chocolates and rose petals, and rebuilding the country from the bottom up as envisioned by the laissez-faire free-marketeers, but it was an insane delusion thought up by the Republican neo-cons embedded inside that administration.

President Obama is not willing to make the commitment to fix our economy in a way that would efficiently work, since he has built his team’s framework using the banking cartel’s own foot soldiers. This is a failure by design.

thanks for reading, jerry

President Obama, Working America is Waiting for Change!

I am writing this from Chicago, a fine example of an international city with small town centers in every neighborhood. It is a very livable city. A metro-area where a car is not needed. One can do most of their daily shopping needs by just going around the corner, on foot, to buy their daily items. The city and the surrounding immediate suburbs, which one might call the first tier development around the city, often has such independently owned shops.

Cruising around on my bicycle, I found many empty storefronts, and the home listings in the neighborhood publications appear to show homes priced 10-20% lower than a year ago.

Currently, I am sitting in a Starbucks located on a busy street surrounded by small shops, and restaurants serving the needs of the neighborhood with a feeder population I estimate to be around several thousand people. Such a shopping area shares its feeder group with other shopping areas, as well.

I believe that in many ways there is enough income to allow these businesses to survive. As one drives several miles west, where the second and third tier suburban sprawl is located, this residential tier expansion continues for 30 plus miles. The further one goes, the more one needs a car to meet their shopping needs and find big-box chain stores that the urban dwellers also patronize. I might add that there are chain stores within center city and the first tier residential expansion, as well.

Most of America is not so fortunate to live in such a convenient city. One major drawback is the outrageously high cost of housing. A two bedroom, wood sided, bungalow with tiny rooms most likely in need of repair or remodeling, a small backyard and single garage, if that, costs around $400,000!

Many of these same people earn higher salaries than those in Pittsburgh, but their monthly expenditures are likely to be higher. One thing we all have in common is the damage this economic crisis is doing to us all.

In my discussions with Chicagoans, they all stated that they are reducing their consumer spending. They are all finding it hard to pay their bills. Some are considering a part-time job, or finding a way to supplement their current incomes. Some have taken on a housemate, while others have cut way back on their weekend social and entertainment spending. Others, who may have had someone cut their lawns, are considering doing that job on their own. So many have been feeling that they are doing more work, and spending more hours for the job. They are feeling that much of their own personal time is now being spent doing work for their jobs. Restaurants are seeing fewer customers. Shops are seeing fewer sales. The consumer has reduced their spending.

The Federal Reserve reported households lost $51T, or 9% of their wealth just in the last 3 months of 2008. Over that entire year, household wealth dropped $11T, or approximately 18%. This did not include stock market investment losses! This was just household wealth.

The United States has been borrowing $2B per day over the last 10 years, much of it from China, to fuel our consumer and homeownership expansion.

Now the expansion has shifted to bank bailouts. Bloomberg News stated the government has authorized the Federal Reserve to either lend or actually commit $12.8T to the various Wall Street bank bailout programs following the decades of new home construction expansion and resale of homes.

Another common point the big city of Chicago has with smaller populated centers is that working America has seen a $50T loss of personal wealth. “The gap of lost wealth, $30.9 trillion, is approximately the combined annual Gross Domestic Product of the US, Western Europe, and Japan…Family net worth hit a record high of $64.36 trillion in 2nd quarter of 2007. By 4th quarter 2008, it fell to $51.48 trillion, a loss of $12.88 trillion”, as was reported by the economist Henry Liu. [Michael Whitney, Bernanke’s Financial Rescue Plan].

Working Americans no matter if they have a $400,000 home in a highly inflated market, such as Chicago, or a $50,000 home in a reasonably priced market have seen their personal and home wealth evaporate in less than 2 years. It is estimated that the 2009 foreclosures to be 2.1 million, or 400,000 more that in 2008. These statistics may translate into real problems even for the prosperous metro-Chicago area.

What may also affect job retention is the fall of industrial production, which dropped at an annual rate of 20%. GE saw a decline in profits. This decline indicates that consumers have slowed in their purchases of appliances, and this bellweather American company may be seeing shrinkage with across-the-board sales.

“Since 2007, industrial production is down 13.3%. Capacity utilization rate for total industry fell further to 69.3%, a historical low for this series, which begins in 1967 (Federal Reserve). The persistent fall in housing prices (30%) and losses in home equity only add to deflationary pressures.” [Michael Whitney, The Foundations of Our Economy are Strong-A Bulletin From the Captain of the Titanic.]

There does not seem to any real “Change That We Can Believe In” in the rescue of the working American.

On a different subject that has been brought to the nation’s attention this week, which I found in the article “US Water Contamination By Pharmaceutical Companies, Hospitals, Consumers”, by Donn, Mendoza, Pritchard, is frightening. We are being poisoned by big WMD-Pharmatoxins. Mr. Obama needs to grab hold of this national security crisis immediately.

271 million pounds of industrial chemicals released into rivers, lakes and other bodies of water comes from drugmakers. This includes antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones have reached the drinking water glasses of, at least, 51 million Americans. This article stated that most cities and water suppliers still do not test.

Also written was that two common industrial chemicals that are also pharmaceuticals-the antiseptics phenol and hydrogen peroxide- account for 92% of the 271 pounds identified. There are 8 million pounds of skin bleaching cream hydroquinone, 3 million pounds of nicotine compounds that can be used in quit-smoking patches, 10,000 pounds of antibiotic tetracycline hydrochloride, plus chemicals used to treat lice and worms.

Landfills leach pharmatoxins, too. Chemo-agent fluorouracil, epilepsy medicine-phenytoin and the sedative pentobarbital sodium and disposed of. 572 million pounds of buried drugs have been disposed of since 1988.

In Columbus, Ohio, drug maker Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane Inc. discharged an estimated 2,285 pounds of lithium carbonate into the wastewater treatment plant between 1995-2006.

Also, codeine, rat poison, pesticides are discharged into the water supply. In addition, the flushing of unused drugs is a problem. The article stated that it is commonly believed the majority of the chemicals discharged into the water supply came from humans and animal excretion. [End summarization.]

What we have is a national health crisis. Is there any reason why the immune systems of Americans are compromised unnecessarily?

thanks for reading, jerry

The Royal Scam Must Be President Obama's Favorite Song!

The Royal Scam was a great song written and sung by one of the greatest bands ever—Steely Dan. We have currently taken to have this song realized and absorbed into our daily lives. And, not by choice! I believe many Internet pundits have caught on. I went into it in my last posting, “The Team Obama Rip-off”.

The story told in the last posting suggesting that the banks would be able to dump their toxic mortgage debt into a shell investment facility created by them is very likely. Now, as stated in the previous post, the FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) has re-written the rules allowing the mega-banks to decide what the toxic mortgage debt is worth (a self-determined value) when they decide to make a deal with Treasury. It appears that Geithner is ready to offer inflated values two to three times the actual mark-to-market street value.

This would be like if you paid $200,000 for your house but now, it has dropped to $100,000, but you were allowed to reassess it yourself placing the value at $250,000, and then proceeding to be able to borrow off of that new value. That stuff just does not work for those living in the Real Economy.

Treasury has $2T available to them to make these deals, which will eventually get laid upon the taxpayers to pay it off. But here is the rub, it is estimated that what the 5 mega-bank’s want for their mortgage debt is likely to be around $4T or more!!! What is Geithner going to do? Will he let one or more of these banks hit the wall and fall into receivership, or will he tell the Wall Street Crime Syndicate, “hey boys, I only got a stinkin’ $2T for ya. I will have to offer you the stress-tested price.” OOHH. These guys aren’t going to like that because they might not end up with a positive balance sheet. There might be significant write-downs, and a big fall in their stock values. There will be blood. Here are the opinions of other experts.

Karl Denninger, the trader and entrepreur, as well the sole contributor to market-ticker.denninger.net wrote in his 4-9-09 informative piece called “Tired Of Getting ROBBED America?” the following:

“You are seeing near-zero (or actual zero) interest earned on money you loan to the bank (when you make a deposit or buy a CD you are loaning money to the bank) and yet when you go to borrow money you're being screwed with record-high spreads that the bank is pocketing [200 basis points, he claims- broker (and direct bank) mortgage pricing vs. Fannie and Freddie bond pricing] - in mortgage and credit card interest rates charged. How much does this add up to? About $4,000 in extra profits per mortgage on top of the "usual" $1,000 profit. That's right - the banks are making five times the "usual and customary" profit per loan, and it is coming right out of your hide. I've been hollering about this for months (as has Mish Shedlock) but it appears that both our intrepid lawmakers and the mainstream media simply refuses to talk about it.

When does this stop? When you, America, are tired of being ripped off and demand that it stop. Remember, the mantra of both government and The Banks is "never waste a crisis”."

This is what another verse of that great song The Royal Scam sounds like.

Mr. Denninger went on to say in his daily entry, “Jamjob-Wells Fargo and more”, “So Wells comes out this morning and says they're going to make a "record" profit, claiming an expected 55 cents (vs. mid 30s expectation). It must be nice to be able to keep loans on the books at whatever price you feel like, receive billions of taxpayer money including "assistance" in rolling up Wachovia, and then turn out to not need it, right?

That is, if these numbers are accurate. Wells pre-market is ramping from $14.89 at the close yesterday and now trading pre-market at $18.10, up over $3 or some 30%.

This leads one inescapably to the following:

Either, Wells [Fargo] is lying (obfuscating losses through unrealistic marks, etc), OR

these "bailouts" were no such thing - they were a simple and transparent

looting operation by the banks that is now showing up directly in "earnings"

(and will shortly show up in the bonuses of executives too!) 

So which is it folks?

Are the banks really that healthy?  Because if they are, you've been robbed to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per person in this country, and it is long past the time that you act to stop it.”

We will have a chance on April 24 to see what their first-quarter reports will reveal.

Professor Simon Johnson, former IMF chief economist, and currently Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT's Sloan School of Management, wrote on his baselinescenario.com site “What Is Next For The Banks” (4-9-09) “The latest credit default spreads data for the largest banks show a speculative run underway. As the system stabilizes, it becomes more plausible that a single bank will fail or be rescued in a way that involves large losses for creditors. This would like[ly] trigger further speculative attacks on the other banks...The government’s own policies are facilitating these attacks because as the Fed and Treasury make progress towards easing credit conditions, this makes it easier and cheaper for the large hedge funds and others to take larger short positions. And keep in mind, the underlying loss of confidence is self-fulfilling: as you lose confidence, you want to go short, and selling the credit causes further loss of confidence- and banks are forced out of business.”

And now, Larry Summers, President Obama’s economic advisor, came out and said that the economy has now ceased to be in free-fall. “The economic free-fall could end in the next couple of months.” I guess he had not looked at the figures defining unemployment, under-employment and those no longer able to find any work(15%). Or, he missed the number of foreclosures now over 4M, with 2M waiting in the wings. Or, he has missed how consumers continue to feel their incomes are extremely unstable, but we are no longer in free-fall according to Larry Summers. I think someone credible needs to advise him!

If you have not read the post below, I encourage you to do. This is an extension of the last one.

As I write this on Good Friday, I realized that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated 144 years ago. President Lincoln said this on the economy, "What has once happened, will invariably happen again, when the same circumstances which combined to produce it, shall again combine in the same way."

President Obama needs to read this over and over again.

Thanks for reading, jerry. Also, don’t forget to check out the video collection.

The Team Obama Rip-off-The Financial Stability Plan

The rip-off seems to be continuing. The only real decision that occurred at the G-20 summit was that the top 5 representatives formed a new Doo-wop singing group—

The Great Dee-Fleck-Tors. All kidding aside, the big news was the passing of the G-20 economic hat that filled up with a modest $1 trillion that will go to crumbling, struggling and barely developing countries. No doubt, that money will go to make sure that those countries don’t default on their debt payment loans that the IMF is hungrily waiting for. That was not what we heard from President Obama. He framed it so we are to believe that the money is for more economic purposes, but I doubt it very much.

Back here at home, Professor Michael Hudson (How the Scam Works, Counterpunch.org) made it perfectly clear how the new Financial Stability Plan to subsidize the sale of “legacy assets”, ie, toxic mortgage debt, will be ripping us off. He explained that if a bank says that their package of collateralized debt obligations (CDO) is worth to them $10 million, it is likely they have overstated that fact. In late 2007, a recent Fitch rating agency study discovered that most of these junk mortgage debts are riddled with financial fraud, and the bank’s $10M package is likely only worth $2M. Isn’t this reassuring since the taxpayers are hoofing up 85% of the costs. Now, if another bank, hedge fund or equity fund decides to pony up $3M, then the scam becomes enhanced. The more money offered for the debt, the more TimmyG puts in, so why not make it a cool $5M. What we got now is the Treasury, with its 85% contribution, laying down $4,250,000. All the “investor” has to fork up is an easy $750,000—its 15% share. The legacy asset seller, B of A, or Goldman Sachs, or JPM, for example, which might even be hiding behind their own sacrificial equity fund they set up to buy the toxic debt which they might later fold up into bankruptcy disposing of the debt altogether, now gets $4,250,000 for its junk mortgage bond that was really only worth $2M! What a way to recapitalize an insolvent and bankrupt banking system! The $2T used for this Ponzi scheme is debt created into bond securities, none of which the private sector wants to touch, from credit cards, commercial loans, student loans, auto loans, and such through the Public-Private Partnership Investment Program (PIPP).

This is like taking the dead body (toxic mortgage debt), stuffing it into a sack (transferring this debt onto the bankster's shell company's balance sheet), allowing the bankster to steal the contents inside the wallet and then deposit the amount into their re-capitalized bank account (taking Geithner's 85% taxpayer contribution for over inflated toxic mortgage debt). Now they dump the body (the transferred toxic mortgage debt) encased in cement booties into the Hudson River allowing the shell company with the toxic mortgage debt as its only holding, to go bankrupt erasing the debt, while the bankster ends up making out like the bandit he has been allowed to be. All done with the White House's golden seal of approval given by Geithner, Summers,  Bernanke and Obama. If this isn't the Royal Scam of century, I don't know what is! The banking emperors get their toxic debt incinerated through bankruptcy, and they end up with a big reward, ie, Geithner paying them two to three times what that toxic mortgage debt was worth at taxpayer's expense. Walla! Now the zombie banks have nothing to write down on their balance sheets. They have been magically re-capitalized by the Treasury and Fed. And no one is the wiser, but you and me. PIPP, PIPP Hurray!

A missing piece for the banks to get the Accounts-keeping Seal of Approval for jacking up the market value of the toxic debt that is really barely worth anything is to get the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to rewrite the financial accounting rules allowing the mega-empire-banks, 5 in total, to decide for themselves what the value of the toxic mortgage debt is worth to them. These new rules and guidelines give the bankstas a veil of fabricated legitimacy of which they needed to drape upon the value of their toxic mortgage debt. This would allow Geithner to go forward with his inflated and subsidized offers to the banks with the cover needed from the quasi-governmental agency--FASB. We don't need no stinkin' mark-to-market rules! We are the crime bosses of Wall Street! Step aside. WE make the rules around here, mista! Mista Obama, we are comin' through. Geithner, get your checkbook out and ready! These magical rules were back dated to cover the last few weeks to make sure all bases are covered.

Now, what is worth-less, is now worth-more. A lot more! You have to admit it is a beautifully designed Royal Scam. All bases covered. The banks can now get their worthless debt valued at gleefully inflated amounts thanks to new FASB rule changes. The banks can set up their own shell equity funds to sell, ie. transfer, the toxic mortgage debt onto a new balance sheet, at a 15% cost. The banks, in return, get to receive from Treasury a subsidized purchase price (at 85%)  for the toxic mortgage debt, now valued 2 to 3 times its actual mark-to-market value. Now the banks have no toxic paper on their balance sheets thanks to all of us, China, and the Fairy God Mother. This is what is referred to as a "Clusterf**k"! The plot against Caesar Americus by Brutus Geithnerslut and Da' Boys has finally arrived. 

Here is another kicker. F. William Engdahl wrote in Geithner’s Dirty Little Secret, that there are only 5 mega-banks that hold “96% of all US bank derivatives positions in terms of nominal values, and an eye-popping 81% of the total net credit risk exposure in event of default”, as was reported by the Federal Office of Comptroller of the Currency, in its Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activity. JPMorgan holds $88 trillion in derivatives. Bank of America holds $38 trillion; Citi holds $32 trillion; Goldman-Sachs holds $30 trillion; Wells Fargo-Wachovia Bank holds $5 trillion. And, out of Britain, HSBC USA holds $3.7 trillion.

Mr. Engdahl called this a banker’s coup d’etat. The $180B bailout to AIG went to rescuing the 5 mega-banks, since they were AIG’s biggest counterparty clients.

Tim Geithner says, “We need better, smarter, tougher regulations”, so TimmyG, why hasn’t the Glass-Steagall Act been reactivated? Why hasn’t the Commodity Futures Modernization Act 2000 been trashed? Yet, TimmyG is still blowing his rusty horn and wanting to bring in better, smarter and tougher regulations. Let’s hear ya play another tune for us because this one is down right bad. What is amazing is that Timmy, when he was chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, reporting to Bada Bing Ben Bernanke, was supposed to enact regulatory rules, but he says that was not his role. Yet, according to his job description, he was to act as a banking regulator. Watch William K. Black, a former regulator and economist say so to Bill Moyers.

Dr. Dean Baker, economist, wrote in “Geithner’s Plan Will Tax Main Street to Make Wall Street Richer”, “Oh, by the way, some people will get very rich off the Geithner plan. Some hedge and equity fund managers could make hundreds of millions or even billions off the Geithner plan. And, under current law, they will pay a lower tax rate on this money than a schoolteacher or firefighter. Are you sold yet?”

Michael Whitney quoted the economist Jeffrey Sachs in “Geithner Hog Wild”, “Geithner and Summers have now announced their plan to raid the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Federal Reserve to subsidize investors to buy toxic assets from the banks at inflated prices. If carried out, the result will be a massive transfer of wealth—of perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars—to bank shareholders from the taxpayers (who will absorb losses at the FDIC and FED)…”

It sure seems to me that the Geithner plan is like allowing gangstas who have terrorized the village store owners by breaking windows and knocking down doors, as well as looting the cash registers while stuffing their pockets with merchandise as they run out the door, to then be given government neighborhood block grants to open up their shops in the places where the former businesses had been established. And then, tell the villagers they will be spending their money in the gangsta’s new shops. This is the kind of nation we seem to be living in from my perspective.

TimmyG now wants Congress to grant him full regulatory power so he can decide which institutions need to be shut down because they maybe dangerously too large of a risk to go own without HIS form of regulation. So now, we have place Brutus (Tim Geithner) as Caesar’s (Obama and US) bodyguard. Or, you might say that now that the three little pigs have hired on the wolf to do their housecleaning.

Dr. Baker went on to say, “The core problem is that many of the largest banks are bankrupt. They are currently concealing this bankruptcy by listing assets on their books at prices that are far above their market value. In principle, they can do this for a long time, unless the government forces them to write-down the value of these assets. As long as the banks are bankrupt, they will not make new loans, limiting the ability of many businesses to get capitalized.”

So, what would be the incentive for these government subsidized mega-banks to risk the “gifts” Geithner has given them through Treasury and Federal Reserve hand-outs in the form of TARP, TALF, and Federal Fund Window exchanges during a time when the economy is shrinking, unemployment figures show we may see 700-800,000 unemployed per month as the year progresses (1 in 4 or nearly 14 million unemployed: a 25 year high now at 8.5%; average full-time work week hours are down to 33.2 per week- a record low, over 5 million jobs lost; 2.4% jobs lost over the last 4 months; 1 in 4 people have been looking for work over the last 6 months).

What appears clearer and clearer is that the Obama presidency’s prime players are not willing to upset or disrupt the function, structure, or process within the financial sector, but they are very willing to increase the lines outside the nation’s unemployment offices and continue to hurt the American working people as they sacrifice in order to stay solvent without one penny of a bonus, or an increase in their expense accounts, or when finding themselves on the street not having the opportunity to land upon a cushy Golden Parachute.

Once the stimulus begins to circulate through the paychecks of working America, we will be able to assess if there will be a noticeable impact in spending. I believe out of the $900B stimulus there will only be around $200B filtering through the hands of workers spreading out throughout the entire country. This is so small in comparison to the $12 trillion (pledged, promised, and portioned) that has been leveraged on behalf of only a handful of mega-banks through this Trickle Down economic policy in hopes that this economy will begin borrowing in the face of a shrinking and unstable consumer market. Does any of this make a speck of sense?

There has been no tough talk to the bankstas. The Obama Team has not said that if you don’t write down your mortgage debt at the mark-to-market price, and raise private capital within a 30-day time, then you will otherwise have to go into receivership. If taken over, then the government would handle the write-downs of the toxic assets (debt) and own the assets.

Had they done what Dr. Dean Baker suggested, which was for the bondholders to be guaranteed full protection if their bankstas unwound in 30-days, but if the process were to take longer, dragging it out, then the bondholders would be less protected. How brilliant!! So, why isn’t Dr. Baker our Treasury Secretary? Oh, I forgot, he is not a Trojan Horse for Wall Street. That appears to be a requirement for joining Team Obama.

The contrast between the breakneck speed that was used to bailout Bear Stearns, in March 2008, that took only a weekend, or the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America, or the initial bailout of AIG, or the impressive speed that was engineered when Washington Mutual was placed into the hands of JPMorgan-Chase, or the 5 insolvent mega-banks that Washington found new capital to bathe them with, or the overnight firing of Mr. Goodwrench Wagoner over at GM, so demonstrates that Team Obama has put finance before labor, as they diminish, lessen, reduce the interests of labor, and the nation’s need for labor and manufacturing in order to rescue the country from further collapse and give favor to what is called the “real” economy over the “monopoly-financial-capitalist” economy.

thanks for reading, jerry

The Expansion of Eye on Washington

This blogspot has been expanded. Over the past few months, additional blogspots have been added to the "parent" blog. The additional blogspots can be found highlighted in red, along the right side of this blog page. There are 4 additional blogs all created and written by Carl and me (Jerry).

At the top of the list is A New American Paradigm. Next is Consumer Thrift Reform Movement. Third is Handmade Manufacturing. And fourth is The Nitwit Awards.

In A New American Paradigm, we will write about our views on how we might all approach finding our way into the future. I see the future of America to be very different than the one that has been shedding its "chrysalis" which has existed for the last 80 years or so. "The times they are a changin" and it may not be a pretty sight for many.

The blogspot, Consumer Thrift Reform Movement will discuss what consumerism might look like in the New American Paradigm we are entering.

The blogspot Handmade Manufacturing will focus on the Real Economy and those who are building it with their hands. There will be pieces on businesses that make things. Let me know if you want to be featured.

The Nitwit Awards is just a place to point out the outrageousness of those who say the "darnest things"!

In addition, please check out our wide ranging collection of assorted videos found on the Web, which you can access above. Just click on "Eye on Washington Video". You can also watch us our weekly--done live--talk show!! Click on the screen that says Ustream in the upper right corner.

Thanks for coming around. Jerry and Carl.

The Great American Swindle Is Obama's Big Mistake!

There were 116,011,000 households in the United States, in 2006. Of this figure, 2% exceeded $250,000. 12.3% fell below the poverty line. 20% were living at the bottom of the income ladder with $19,178. Median income was $50,233. No doubt, these figures have worsened. The top 6.37% earned 1/3 of all income. Median income per household member was $26,036, in 2006.

The top 2 quintiles of income earners earned over $91,000, which was 77%, in 2006. The 2 mid-quintiles earned between $36,000 to $57,000. The lowest quintile earners earned $19,000 or lower. A quintile equals 20% of a given amount.

The Chinese middle class population has 100 million to 247 million people. There exports dropped 25.7% in February YoY, for the fourth straight month as the world demand began to shrink. The Chinese imported less, as well. They bought 24.1% less stuff. Professor Michael Pettis reported on his blog, an article printed in the Financial Times quoting the Commerce Minister Chen Deming that “China will reduce export taxes to zero and give more financial support to exporters as it tries to increase its share of global trade in the current crisis.” It went on to say that China would “use all possible measures to ensure the stable growth of our exports and prevent a large drop in external demand.” Chen Deming went on to say, “We should increase our share of the global market…We must transform ourselves from a big export nation to a strong export nation.” So, how come President Obama is not saying the same thing? Oh, I forgot, he is saying that about zombie banks.

Professor Pettis wrote the following, “It’s probably not a good idea to announce a drive to increase China’s share of the global market, especially since for the last several months, while the world has suffered a collapse in demand, China’s share of exports has risen dramatically, but this may have been said primarily for domestic consumption.” Mr. Chen realizes that China is facing tough times ahead with their foreign trade business. This will mean that China may likely find their trade surplus falling quickly to a reported amount of $4.8B. We haven’t seen a trade surplus for a very long time. Professor Pettis stated that there are many who feel that the days of massive monthly trade surpluses are over.

President Obama and you Knights of the Roundtable, if massive trade surpluses are likely to come to an end, then which countries will continue to fund our budget deficits? Professor Pettis sends out a warning. “There is a real need for an adjustment consumption in the U.S, and I don’t think it makes sense for the U.S. to attempt to replace excess household consumption with excess government consumption. One way or the other the U.S, along with China and most other countries that have contributed to one side or the other of the global imbalances, is going to have to accept a demand contraction….Trade friction is an issue that will not easily go away.” He concludes his intelligent and insightful writing with this, “…China would be able to keep its growth at about 8 percent this year, a growth rate long believed to be minimum to create enough jobs and maintain social stability….China’s economy accounted for only five percent of the world’s total.” China alone cannot revive the world.”

U.S. manufacturing has declined over the last 12 consecutive months. And, these top ten red state hypocrites received the most per dollar spent in federal spending:

New Mexico=$2.03, Mississippi=$2.02; Alaska=$1.84; Louisiana=$1.78, West Virginia=$1.76, North Dakota=$1.68, Alabama=$1.53; South Dakota=$1.53, Kentucky=$1.51, Virginia=$1.51. So much for rejecting socialism!

President Obama and Team, what amount of growth does the U.S. need to create enough jobs and maintain social stability? It seems you are more concerned in stabilizing the balance sheets of the uber-richest people, and banksta thieves. Is the People’s Republic of China on to something we are missing in the home of the brave and land of the free?

One in five homeowners are underwater, which means that the value of the home is more than what the home actually is. This means that the home is not as valuable as the mortgage and the house is not worth what the owner is paying for the mortgage. This is when the owner might actually consider walking away from what might be considered a lost cause. Such homeowners are typically those who are able to pay on their overpriced mortgage, but instead, might think of packing up and walking away from it. If an unfortunate life situation occurs that would cause economic pressures to bear down on their expenses creating undue financial stresses, the owner might just give the keys over to the bank.

If your house is worth more than your mortgage, you can often refinance, but it won’t work the other way around. When the mortgage is worth more than the current value and the payments, the payments are not paying the house off. This is called negative equity. Often the homeowner is paying on a mortgage in excess of the value of the house and is not paying anything on the house and not getting closer to any ownership of the house.

When the mortgage is bigger than the house value no bank will refinance. It locks the owners into their own home without ever getting a chance to sell at a break-even or profit price.

1 in 10 homeowners are in default or in foreclosure. 10,000 Americans enter foreclosure everyday. 2.3 million homeowners were in foreclosure in 2008.

42,000 companies closed in 2008, up 45% from 2007. It is predicted that 62,000 companies will close in 2009. So what happens? Workers lose their jobs. Then they realize they can no longer keep paying on their mortgages, credit cards, cars, or whatever else, and walk away from those specific debt burdens, since the government is not helping them, but only the mega-banks with $11T in commitments. For example, Citi, which is only worth $5.4B has been given $75B in taxpayer bailouts. AIG, which has a total market value of only $1B, has been given $180B in taxpayer bailout funds. Yet the taxpayer is left hanging to blow in the wind!

The FDIC placed 20 banks into receivership in 2009.

When one looks at unemployment, underemployment, those no longer looking for work, no longer in the data bases, and working a part-time job instead of a full-time job, or a part-time job that pays less than the last one they lost, the figure is 15-19% un/underemployed. This number rises to over 22 million people. During the Great Depression, at its peak we had 20-25% unemployment.

50 million jobs have been lost worldwide just in 2009. We are shedding jobs at a rate of 23,000 jobs everyday! 4.4 million jobs have been lost since the crisis began last year, and 6.8 million underemployed. The recession began in 2007, and already has stolen over 4.4 million jobs away from the real economy and sent 12.5 million in search of work. The economy contracted at 6.2% in the final three months of 2008, and the worst we have seen in the last 25 years. The economy will see further contraction throughout this year, possibly at the same rate.

In the world of banking, and found in the article by Bill Dedman, 3-17-09, MSNBC.com, U.S. Banks Suffer 149% Rise In Bad Loans, “Out of 8,198 banks for which we have two years of data, 5,784—or 71%--had a higher troubled asset ratio at the end of 2008 than a year earlier”. “The picture was worse for the largest 100 banks: 90 showed declining strength. Only seven improved, and one maintained the same ratio.” Data taken by the American University group that had created the website, Bank Tracker.

On March 23, 2009, the DOW climbed back up to its January 2009 level—7775, which was the lowest it had ever been prior to that same all-time 5-year low back in October-November 2008. Prior to that it was 2002-03, then prior to that was 1997-98, which was the all-time high up to that point in time.

U.S. bank’s toxic assets, the ugly stuff that needed to be removed from the bank balance sheets before the economy can recover, amounts to between 5 and 30 cents on the dollar. To remain solvent, however, the banks say they need a valuation of 50-60 cents on the dollar. Translation: as much as another $2T taxpayer bailout, was written by Mike Whitney, Counterpunch.org, “Time for Geithner and Bernanke to Go”. Mr. Whitney also quoted from the Financial Times, “The U.S. firms include investment giants Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, with each receiving 100 cents on the dollar for their collateral debt obligations, although market value was only 47 cents on the dollar.” He went on to report that around March 3, 2009, “Within days after Obama announced plans to slightly reduce tax rates on deductions for the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers (from $35 to $28 for every $100 of deductions), Geithner quickly suggested that the Obama administration would be willing to drop or reduce the tax hike.” So much for helping the struggling working American.

$314 billion has been handed out to foreign central banks, while $600 billion was transferred to those same banks in December 2008. Bernanke and Geithner are printing up $2T for the latest scam called TALF, or Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility, in order to create more loans from auto, student, credit card loans, and business and corporate loans.

Since Reagan, US growth has only been 3% or less per year! Once the Commodity Futures Trading Corporation was put into play, in 2000, $62T in derivative trading grew by 2008.

It is said, with all the government obligations and debts, it is $60T in debt. Zbignew Brzezinski, former national security advisor under President Carter, told Joe Scarborough (Economic Crisis=USA Riots, 3-10-09, Ampedstatus.com) that there is the possibility of class warfare in the United States. “I was worrying about it because we’re going to have millions and millions of unemployed people in dire straits. And at the same time there is public awareness of this extraordinary wealth that was transferred to a few individuals at levels without historical precedent in America…”

One in 50 children are homeless! California, the 10th largest population in the United States had nearly 300,000 two years before the last stock market high in 2007. Sacramento leadership is now talking about government controlled and legal tent cities where the homeless can be taken and held. It is estimated that there are 1.5 million homeless children across the country. California ranked 40 out of 50 states with Texas being number 50, The State That Breeds Presidents. They don’t call it Lone Star for nothin’!!!!!! Is this the type of nation we want to pass on to future generations?

Yet we continue to spend $500B in the Middle East wars, and more billions in maintaining military domination with our 1000 worldwide bases in 200 countries. This military budget is more than the world’s entire military budgets put together! Yet, we have watched 23,000 jobs disappear everyday, and homelessness gather momentum. Is this the kind of nation YOU want? Is the type of country YOU want to pass on to others? Are YOU proud of this?

U.S. air cargo declined 21.3% in January 2009. In the March 6, 2009 online version of The Journal of Commerce, it was written that cargo traffic for U.S. airlines fell at the steepest rate since 9-01, in January. Carriers saw their worst month for cargo in nearly seven years. Domestic business tumbled 16.6% in January 2009 compared to a year ago. “The 838.3 million cargo ton miles the airlines reported was the lightest monthly domestic traffic measure since September 2001, and before that since February 1995.”

The Journal of Commerce-online continued to indicate that KLM air cargo business fell 18% from a year ago. British Air’s air cargo fell 20.7%. Asia/Pacific shipments dropped 17.7%. U.S. air traffic dropped 13.9% in February 2009.

Asian air cargo slumped 23.6% in January, and passenger numbers fell 7.8% as was reported in the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines, said on 3-6-09.

Container port traffic for February, found on bomlat.blogspot.com, stated that the traffic was down for another month. The February Chinese trade surplus was only $4.84B, which was 25% lower than the same period in 2008, and even lower than January, 2009 surplus. “The containerized exports in February were down 27.6% in Los Angeles, and 37% in Long Beach. The decline in imports was even greater, 35.3% in L.A. and 43.3% in Long Beach.” “The First Container Terminal in St. Petersburg, Russia’s biggest box terminal, reported traffic in February plunged 27.3 percent from a year ago as imports collapsed.” “Dutch foreign trade was hit hard in the global economic crisis with exports tumbling 21 percent in January from a year earlier, the biggest drop since the records were kept in 1990, the Dutch central statistics bureau (CBS) said on Friday. The value of goods exports fell to 24.4 billion euros (31.5 billion U.S. dollars), the CBS said. The volume of exports fell 14percent, according to figures corrected for working days. Imports also plummeted 22 percent to 21.6 billion euros, while the volume of imports decreased 14 percent.”

From what I have read the Truck Mileage Index of the U.S., in January 2009, has declined by more than 10%, as well as the truck inventory by 50%, which means that the investment in trucks has dropped.

73,000 retail enterprises have closed in 2009. 237,000 are projected to fail.

These numbers indicate that there is a worldwide consumer slowdown, so why are stock market numbers going up? It is all a head-fake!!!

Professor Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics, wrote in the Nation magazine, in his piece titled “A Bank Bailout That Works”, said that the banks are $2-3 trillion or more undercapitalized!

The IMF stated in a BBC report “there is now $2.2 trillion of toxic bank debt worldwide, and $500 billion more than it was estimated a few months ago.”

When workers lose their jobs, they cannot repay their debts, or afford to borrow, and when underemployed, their debts may exceed their income and/or assets. Also, the debt interest rates or borrowing costs on the debts could be too high making the payment process non-payable.

The vicious downward spiral begins. When workers lose jobs, businesses downsize and might have trouble paying their own debts. When workers lose jobs, they stop being consumers, then more businesses close and Pink Slip workers. Strip malls lose tenants, and close up. Developers seek bankruptcy protection. The economy slips further into its black hole toward depression. It ends up that all the money thrown at the mega-monopoly financial institutions, which are already insolvent, cannot issue credit. Credit becomes a moot point because there are fewer borrowers, yet these banks are filled with taxpayer dollars jacking up their “liquided-up” balance sheets. Yet these insolvent institutions continue to look the other way at their toxic debt-assets burning up all that we taxpayers have given them. Yet Citi claimed a profit, while not factoring in all their toxic debt into the supposed profit, as well as the fact that the taxpayer owns 80% of their stock. It is all a bad joke played on Americans!!! And, the administration is not calling them out.

Matt Taibbi, wrote in Rollingstone.com, in “The Big Takeover”, “In the final three months of last year, the company [AIG] lost more than $27 million every hour. That's $465,000 a minute, a yearly income for a median American household every six seconds, roughly $7,750 a second. And all this happened at the end of eight straight years that America devoted to frantically chasing the shadow of a terrorist threat to no avail, eight years spent stopping every citizen at every airport to search every purse, bag, crotch and briefcase for juice boxes and explosive tubes of toothpaste. Yet in the end, our government had no mechanism for searching the balance sheets of companies that held life-or-death power over our society and was unable to spot holes in the national economy the size of Libya (whose entire GDP last year was smaller than AIG's 2008 losses).
So it's time to admit it: We're fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we're still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street…” (This article will explain the financial Ponzi scheme.)

The “Big Mistake” ends up glaring in the face of President Obama and the angry Americans that the bailout went to the wrong places, and the wrong people. Instead of rescuing mortgages, retirement funds, and jobs stabilizing the economy and easing troubled minds, we got a failed top down bailout plan. Does this look to you a little bit like Reagan’s failed trickle down economics theory, which delivered us into this economic tsunami?

thanks for reading, jerry

Postscript: This article can also be read at Economicrot, as well, thanks to Randy posting there!

Bill Moyers speaks with William Black, economist and former regulator about the banking fraud beginning back to Reagan. Mr. Black speaks about the current fraud, the cover-up, and that Geithner and Summers are deep within the fraud and cover-up. Watch it.