My Year End Summary

A happy new year to you and to all of you commenters and blogwatchers. We have been here weekly for many moons now, and little has changed in the streets of Washington, DC. Instead, we see viper radicals wanting to become president lining the GOP podium. What will solidify an Obama victory would be Da'Trumpster running as a Independent, as he has recently inferred.

The world is operating on a shell game mentality. The commoner is angry but really has nowhere to go. The Occupy movement has offered a place to stand with a loud voice, a wagging finger, a carrying of signs that might read "American IS NOT A Plutocracy!!", or, "And Justice For All--So, When Does That Happen?".

The fatcat elite keep spinning the Wheel of Fortune each and everyday hoarding massive amounts of capital gains, dividends and profits from market manipulations, stashing cash at the Fed, or destroying foreign sovereign economies.

Our elected representatives, wealthy as they are, continue to gum up the system with attached bills to the major bills hoping to bring about a massively long XL Pipeline down the bowels of the nation to the anus port of Koch Bro refineries in Texas. All the while, the Canadians don't want to build the damn thing themselves.

The Golums in Congress want to strangle working people and make them even more as indentured servants by keeping the country from creating a new vision, such as localized/neighborhood/community based energy generation systems, support for an expansion of localized food sources/farms, effective mass transit systems, an economy where "job growth" is not just a talking point for the nation's bullshitters, and the political psychopathetics walking the halls of government, more affordable healthcare, a halting of all war profiteering, along with an end to wars and occupations, and a conclusion to the war stimulus packages that are an unsustainable transference of wealth from the taxpayer right into the hands of the corporate campaign donor elite, and finally, reinstating Glass-Steagall, and ending the Commodity Futures Modernization Act both of which were brought about by Mr. Humpty Dumpty Ging-grinch himself when pretending to be the Speaker of the House under the Clinton administration, and an end to the corporation as a citizen followed by an end to private funding for elections. The list is endless!

The merry-go-round of world economies are more like a cork screw slowly burying any real chance of national economic recoveries without smothering the commoners in the process.

Our only real hope is that the Occupy Movement actually holds a national general assembly meeting on July 4, 2012 in Philadelphia to make a stand against the political predators that hold offices today. The 99% need to place the flag in the ground and declare a public announcement that we are not going to take this crap any longer, and if you are not on the side of the 99%, then step aside and get out of the way.

Happy New Year from us at:

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

Second Wave of Protests Unleashed: Targets the Federal Reserve

Posted on October 4, 2011 by WashingtonsBlog

Wall Street Protesters Target the Federal Reserve

The “Occupy Wall Street” protesters have targeted the Federal Reserve as one of their central platforms.

The “Occupy San Francisco” branch of the protests is taking place – not in the Financial District, where the big banks are located – but in front of the San Francisco Federal Reserve bank.

High-Level Economists, Congressmen and Many Americans Want to End the Fed

This is not as radical and controversial as it might appear at first blush.

High-level economists support the Occupy Wall Street protests. And some very well-known economists also support ending the Fed.

For example, Milton Friedman said:

This evidence persuades me that at least a third of the price rise during and just after World War I is attributable to the establishment of the Federal Reserve System… and that the severity of each of the major contractions — 1920-1, 1929-33 and 1937-8 is directly attributable to acts of commission and omission by the Reserve authorities…

Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes — excusable or not — can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic — this is the key political argument against an independent central bank…

To paraphrase Clemenceau, money is much too serious a matter to be left to the central bankers.

Austrian economists such as Murray Rothbard also would like to end the Fed:

Given this dismal monetary and banking situation, given a 39:1 pyramiding of checkable deposits and currency on top of gold, given a Fed unchecked and out of control, given a world of fiat moneys, how can we possibly return to a sound noninflationary market money? The objectives, after the discussion in this work, should be clear: (a) to return to a gold standard, a commodity standard unhampered by government intervention; (b) toabolish the Federal Reserve System and return to a system of free and competitive banking; (c) to separate the government from money; and (d) either to enforce 100 percent reserve banking on the commercial banks, or at least to arrive at a system where any bank, at the slightest hint of nonpayment of its demand liabilities, is forced quickly into bankruptcy and liquidation. While the outlawing of fractional reserve as fraud would be preferable if it could be enforced, the problems of enforcement, especially where banks can continually innovate in forms of credit, make free banking an attractive alternative.

Congressmen Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich have introduced bills to abolish the Fed.

And as I noted last week, most Americans want the Fed ended or at least reined in:

At least 75% of the American people want a full audit of the Fed, and most were against reconfirming Bernanke.

Indeed, as Bloomberg noted last December:

A majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the nation’s independent central bank, saying the U.S. Federal Reserve should either be brought under tighter political control or abolished outright, a poll shows.

***

Americans across the political spectrum say the Fed shouldn’t retain its current structure of independence. Asked if the central bank should be more accountable to Congress, left independent or abolished entirely, 39 percent said it should be held more accountable and 16 percent that it should be abolished. Only 37 percent favor the status quo.

As I have extensively documented, the Fed is largely responsible for the economic crisis, and has failed to meet a single one of its stated mandates (let alone its implied ones).

Indeed, the Founding Fathers despised the British central bank, and said that the right to create their own credit and currency was one of the core battles in the Revolutionary War.

Jones Launches a Second Wave of Protests

Media personality Alex Jones believes that protesting the Fed is the most important and high-leverage way to change our economic system for the better. Steve Watson – frequent contributor to Jones’ websites – writes today:

In spite of a large number of protesters who are clearly aware of the fact that the greatest threat to the global financial system comes not directly from Wall Street but from the privately owned Federal Reserve cartel, the official “list of specific demands” of the Occupy Wall Street movement makes absolutely no mention of the Fed whatsoever.

So Jones has launched his ow “Occupy the Federal Reserve” movement:

The Occupy Wall Street crowd has become predictably focused on issues like taxing the middle class and moderately “rich,” ending capitalism and even re-electing Obama to ‘fight’ the very elites who pushed him into power. Focus should instead be on the real source of power for the out-of-control bankster class- the private, unaccountable Federal Reserve bank that creates money out of thin air, issues secret loans to insiders and foreign governments and systematically institutes debt on the American people through their undue powers.

With this in mind, Alex Jones is calling on patriots to “occupy” branches of the Federal Reserve, with plans to appear at three locations in Texas this weekend in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. The times and locations appear below. Further, people everywhere should converge upon Fed locations in their area to raise awareness about the real culprit behind the economic crisis.

Well meaning protesters who have joined the Occupy Wall Street effort, including solidarity activities in cities everywhere, need to be educated about the power held by this insidious institution, as well as the false solutions that have been proposed by leading figures on the left and right that only further expand the scope of big government, all while avoiding the elephant in the room.

Given that Alex Jones has millions of TV viewers and readers, his announcement might result in a dramatic new front in the nationwide protests currently occurring.

Posted in Politics / World News | 35 Comments

The Nation's Rigged Corporate Capitalism Syndicate

Over the past couple weeks, I have been on the road visiting Washington, DC, as the TeaParty was gathering, and to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where one would think that all is well in the worldwide economy.

Toronto’s downtown, as well as in the suburbs, development is booming. In center city, the place is filled with commercial development. Condos and hotels are going up everywhere. It is amazing! The streets are filled with people walking and restaurants are busy in spite of the costs. It is my guess that even in Toronto, there are the haves and have mores. In center city, condo prices are unbelievable. $3 million might be a starting figure placed on units in these luxurious buildings.

Once arriving back home, we have now witnessed a massive oil spill filling the Gulf of Mexico outside Louisiana contaminating the fish supply, polluting the waters and endangering the oyster beds in the wetlands, and marshes where sea water is filtered by fresh river water. BP is just another elite corporate predator. It appears that negligence may likely be the cause of the explosion as a result of Halliburton’s shoddy workmanship in their subcontracted cement work.

Halliburton, BP, Goldman Sachs, Massey Energy, Exxon, Lehman Brothers, and the list can go on and on are the nation’s elite corporate predators. They, and others, are this nation’s oligarchs buying influence, laws, rules, and Congresspersons, as well as air time over the public airwaves spewing their propagandistic messages to gullible viewers for the sole purpose of meeting their profit agenda, in order for those unearned giant bonuses to paid out to their Corporobots. None of these elite corporate predators care about anything other than profits and personal financial enrichment. Profits must be made at the expense of the nation’s national security, the environment, families, and the lives of workers, as well as the health of the economy. There is nothing honorable, or respectful among these dangerous CEOs who are engaged in what Stacy Herbert, the analyst on the (Max) Keiser Report, calls Rigged Corporate Capitalism.

Let’s review some of this nation’s disasters, minus 9-11, caused by the Rigged Predatory Capitalist Elite.

Citgo refinery oil spill, July 2006, Louisiana.

PEPCO Chalk Point generating station in Maryland, April, 2000, caused by a ruptured pipeline.

North Cape Oil Spill, January 1996, grounded barge in southern Rhode Island spilled 828,000 gallons of oil.

The Argo Merchant ship ran aground near Nantucket Island , Mass., breaking apart spilling 7.7 million gallons of oil.

Union Oil’s offshore platform, Santa Monica, CA, January 1969, blowout spilling 4 million gallons of oil.

C.P. Baker drilling barge, June 1964, Louisiana, 22 dead workers, the rest injured, blowout caused and explosion and fire.

Brooklyn, NY, the Greenport refineries numbering over 50, had a 30 million gallon oil spill.

Exxon Valdez, 1989, Prince William Sound, Alaska, 11 million gallons spilled.

Port Arthur, Texas, January 2000, 450,000 gallons spilled due a collision.

Massey Energy, March 2010 at the Upper Branch Mine, West Virginia, 25 dead workers.

Sago Mine disaster, February 2006, Anker West Virginia Mining Company, one survivor, 12 dead workers.

CONSOL Energy explosion at the Farmington Mine, in 1968, West Virginia, 78 dead workers.

Massey Energy, October 2000, 300 gallons of mercury, and arsenic laced coal slurry flooded land, polluted rivers, and destroyed parts of eastern Kentucky, and West Virginia, all resulted from a large reservoir broke. The toxic waste made it’s way to the Ohio River.

Monsanto, for nearly 40 years, until 2003, dumped toxic waste (PCBs) into West Anniston Creek, Alabama, as well as dumped millions of pounds into open landfill pits.

In Picher Oklahoma lies a dead town resulting from massive piles of lead laced mine waste, which covered 25,000 acres poisoning people and land. Acid laced mine water destroyed Tar Creek. Eagle-Picher were mine operators until 1970. Lead iron ore and zinc were mined.

Three Mile Island nuclear accident, 1979, dumping 13 million curies of radioactive gases into the air. Located in PA. Operated by Metropolitan Edison Company.

Love Canal, located near Niagara Falls, saw 21,000 tons of industrial wasted dumped in 1952 by Hooker Chemical.

W.R. Grace Plant, in Libby, Montana, spewed tremolite aspestos smoke from their factory into the air killing over 200 people.

In Kingston, Tennessee, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Fossil Plant released a billion gallons of coal toxic sludge waste as a result of a wall breaking loose pouring the poison into 300 acres of surrounding land—arsenic, lead and mercury.

In addition, we have Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Wells Fargo, Countrywide, and others that have taken down the nation’s financial system resulting from possibly illegal, if not extremely immoral activities surrounding mortgage securities, Credit default swaps, interest rate swaps, collateral debt obligations, structured Investment Vehicles, all driving our economy over a cliff.

These are Rigged Financial Predatory Capitalist Elites.

Another Interesting Bit:

It was reported by Karl Denninger in his Market-ticker.denninger.net site, a couple weeks ago, that the Fed monetized, in just one day, and without notifying Congress, $400B! Where did it go? Did it go to bailout Europe and/or Greece, as Mr. Denninger hypothesized? Has it gone outside the United States? Has $400B worth of US government bonds suddenly been dumped on the world market and Bernanke used it to quietly mop them up with his funny money?  Read more here.

Congress did not authorize any worldwide bailouts, as they did when President Bush went to the legislature, with the corporate investment banking mobster field marshals threatened the country and world that a huge Chicken Little-sky-will-fall-Depression-style seismic quake will occur unless the biggest zombie banks are handed over $700B of US cash. You all remember. So where has the $400B gone?

China did sell off around $80B in US Treasuries recently.

See link for the Federal Reserve chart showing the spike in monetization.

On another note, Mr. Michael Whitney has been writing, on Counterpunch.org, about the eventual Chinese Reminbi revaluation, no doubt, upward. Here is what Mr. Whitney wrote, (“The Looming Trade War With China”), quoting Mr. Chen, (extracted from Washington Post, [Chen] China’s commerce minister: U.S. has the most to lose in a trade war”) “If the United States does decide to impose tariffs on China, American companies operating in China, which account for more than 60 percent of China’s exports to the United States, would surely be hurt the most. ‘In the end, America is the one that needs to adjust’”. Chen continued, “One reason why a revaluation would be dangerous for China, is that profit margins for Chinese exporters are tiny—ranging from 1.7 to two percentage points.”

So who are these US multinational companies operating in China over the last 30+ years that have left the American working unemployed or underemployed so they can export their cheap “Made In China” stuff to these same abandoned workers? Who are these companies making up 60% of China’s export market? These huge goliaths that have enjoyed a low valued Reminbi pegged to the dollar, and not floating as it should be?

As Mr. Whitney suggests, these companies, no doubt, encouraged the Chinese central bank, a government controlled central bank, to keep their currency valued low so their products sell much cheaper than what a US competitor could sell domestically. Would you say this is an act of piracy? A consumer product hijacking? A purposeful and deliberate action to destroy the US economy? An act of the highest national security breech? Where is the Justice department in all of this? Could this be economic warfare performed by a large number of ex-patriot manufacturing companies who want to be labeled as “multi-nationals”: corporations without a homeland, but mobile, floating corporate “vessels” landing their factories and corporate offices on the shores of countries offering the greatest gifts in the form of dirt cheap workers, minimal-to-no workplace rules and regulations, no unions, cheap exchange rates, and malleable central banks and governments?

These are just three of the many companies with such famous names as:

• GE
• Microsoft
• Nike

It is near impossible to freely get the names of the biggest US multinational corporations producing in China. The US-China Chamber of Commerce does not freely reveal their membership.

And then there is Sarah Palin:

Also, we have Sarah Palin, the corporate-paid shill, no doubt, bribed away from finishing her term as Alaska’s governor, in order to be given a multi-million dollar book deal with a guarantee that no copies would need to be sold to the public because what wasn’t sold would be bought up by her corporate sponsors and given away, riding her bus giving TeaParty speeches. Her key points are hard to understand. She criticizes President Obama, as this blog often does, over such trigger-points as guns, religion, freedoms, taxes, and her ‘drill-baby-drill’ mantra.

What she fails to tell her Kool-Aid guzzling crowds is that nearly half this nation’s taxpayers paid absolutely NO, and I mean NO, taxes for 2009!!! That means that most, if not nearly all, her supporters paid NO taxes this tax year. And, 47% of the American people actually received money back from government because they qualified for specific rebates.

Have we ever heard her say that of the 278 largest corporations, over 80 of them paid absolutely no taxes, or got money back! No. Palin is silent on this point. Nor has she spoken up about who these top corporations pay LESS federal income tax than working people.

Also, I have not heard President Obama ever say that he wants to take her guns, or anyone else’s guns away from their homes. I have not heard him threaten to keep Sarah, or anyone else for that matter, from praying with witch doctors that preach the killing of African village women that are threatening to the male power structures, in Palin’s Wasilla church, or prevent her or anyone else from their laying-of-hands ceremonies, or any other religious practices.

I guess you could say that Sarah Palin is a propagandist inciting fear and anger just for the sake of it.

Back in 1933, when FDR was president, he had a resistive, regressive Supreme Court majority, and Congress decrying that his move toward his New Deal was fascist, or communist, and would destroy the country. As today, the same Regressive Republican Party and Supreme Court is doing the same thing in regards to reform. The court recently allowed US corporations to have the same rights as a person, therefore, these multi-billion dollar lobby handouts used to bribe Congresspersons to craft legislation in the corporate image, are said to be able to do what individual people can do----lobby their Congressperson. So, the Supreme Court has said that that their lobbying practices are equal to your personal letter to your legislator. What Kool-Aid have they been drinking?

The very same practices of support for the corporate oligarchs that went on during FDR’s presidency: decrying fear and anger against reform is going on, once again, by many inside the Republican Party, and by TeaPartiers attached at the hip to the oligarchs, or to the elite corporate predators.

We don’t hear from the Republicans encouraging the president to follow in Teddy Roosevelt’s footsteps and break up the TBTF banking corporate predators just as he did to JPMorgan, and Standard Oil Company. We don’t hear such a rallying cry at the TeaParty rallies. It did not occur in Washington, DC at the time I was there.

The movement would have much greater strength if they focused on the elites who have been part of the Rigged Corporate Capitalist’s Oligarchy Syndicate. But the money-masters behind this Syndicate also fund the TeaParty Movement through their financial pipeline connected to lobbyists, such as Dick Armey (Freedom Works).

But instead, this Oligarchy Syndicate does its best to keep wages down, un and underemployment at its current levels, the value of the dollar as low as possible, the Fed’s lending policy at near zero percent so the Oligarchy Syndicate can gamble on Wall Street at the expense of the real economy, Congress fully engaged in their agenda, and the working people borrowing to fuel their lifestyles.

This is new American Way---to sell off the American Dream.

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

It Was A Banner Year For Goldman Sachs-The Nation’s Leading Predator

As the economic armada is sinking with billowing smoke in the Sea of Financial Crisis, the U.S.S. Goldman Sachs raises a banner across its deck, announcing “Mission Accomplished”, Lord Lloyd Blankfein proclaims, “There’s no crisis that can’t be won!” During the state dinner aboard ship, during Lord Blankfein gives the opening address. He begins with a humbling first sentence stunning all of the oligarchs enjoying their elegant luncheon. He says, “A scam is a terrible thing to waste!” The crowd roars in applause, and a toast is made to Charles Ponzi, the first known grand Ponzi conartists of 1919.

That is correct. There is no crisis that cannot be scammed. While the neo-cons in the Grotesquely Oligarchist Psychopathetic Repugnicon Party are all saying that mortgage holders, in spite of being underwater with their mortgages, should not walk away from them. They must adhere to their obligations. WTF! are they talking about? As far as I can tell, Lord Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, AIG, and the rest of the financial crime syndicate thieves were about to sink in the Sea of Financial Crisis if they weren’t given TARP, TALF, PPIP, Fed Fund Drive-Through Windows (‘Can I have a Happy Meal with that, please?), and more totaling $23 trillion supplied by the taxpayers; yet, the homeowners, who were ripped off of $12T in household wealth, and found their mortgages underwater because of the financial crime syndicate thieves violated their ‘honor’ as American businessmen and sold junk mortgage derivative bonds to suckers who thought these low-grade securities were AAA, when really they were worth nothing; and then, knowing that these tranched bad mortgages mixed in with a few token good mortgages would likely go up in smoke, bought AIG’s credit default swaps to secure their foreshadowed losses. Nostradamus not required. In addition, they all knew they were Too Big To Fail and the government would step in with financial winches to hoist them all back up again.

But the small fry homeowners left out to dry with underwater mortgages are supposed to stand tall and keep on paying. What garbage.

Now, President Peacock Obama, who spent a year displaying his fancy feathers for the world to see as he strutted, while globetrotting, smiling for the cameras, while giving articulate speeches, has now decided to show he is more than just pretty feathers. He has told the voters that it was his “commitment [is] to recover every single dime the American people are owed.” Funny, funny Mr. President!! Where are the teeth behind this meek appeal? How will you actually do this? And, will you cower away when the banking predators come for your throat?

Your plan appears to be one that will place a tax levy on the biggest financial institutions in order to recoup losses from the TARP bailout program, which would amount to $90B over ten years. Now, being the math wizard that I am, that comes to just $9B per year. Goldman Sachs’ 2009 profit came to a whopping $50B, with $20B passed out in bonuses. Happy New Year big shots. Now, I would say President Obama has convinced himself that he believes he is sure talking tough. Unfortunately, he is only doing his new kabuki theater routine. It is just for show. He wants to try and look like he is all about the little guy. While stumping in Massachusetts for the Democrat who eventually lost to a neo-con Republican opposed to health care reform as viewed through the Democratic keyhole, he kept talking about the little guy and gal. Those hurting. Those suffering. Those who have lost so much while the bankstas took it all home with them. What a kabuki dance if I ever saw one. Wave the magic wand, Mr. President, and chocolates will come raining down on everyone, as George W. Bush believed when he entered Iraq for the first time.

Let us review the scam artistry that Goldman Sachs and the others engaged in. Brooksley Born, a member of the Financial Crisis Commission hearing panel, and the former head of the Commodity Futures Trade Commission, under Clinton, who, in 1998, publicly warned Alan Greenspan and Jamie Dimon, chairman of JPMorgan Chase, that there was a derivatives tsunami gathering a huge amount of destructive energy as it approached our own shores. They laughed at her, told her to go away and take some cookies on her way out. During these current hearings she reminded the four leading banksta syndicate operators testifying before her (GS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and BoA that they were chairmen of firms that they were responsible for about $230 TRILLION worth of trade in over-the-counter derivatives, much of which were still unmonitored!!! Holy heck! And the cons are worried about underwater mortgages and the working stiff getting health care at a reasonable price without cancellation?

Over time, the Federal Reserve worked its monetary magic by over-leveraging taxpayer wealth, via the treasury by increasing US debt by 4000%-from less than $3B to over $12T, with much of it going onto the balance sheets and into the pockets of the US corporate oligarchs, the financial banking thieves, and private equity funds, as well as the incredibly predatory industrial war machine.

After the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Federal Reserve and the laissez-faire, “free-market” (HA,HA) capitalists worked their black magic, their Voodoo Economics, by pressing legislators to erode the rules and regulations that were put into place following the economic collapse of the 1930s. As the government oversight was erased, the economic and financial predators began sucking from Lady Liberty’s breast to drain as much taxpayer wealth as was possible, revving up into a full force gale beginning in 2000. It appears that after one year of President Obama’s leadership, none of the erased rules and regulations had been restored, along with what we should have learned from past lessons.

We now have begun to see behind the Shadow Banking curtain thanks to the hosts on MSNBC, and others, such as Matt Taibbi’s work published in the Rolling Stone magazine, exactly how Goldman Sachs engaged in fraud against their clients, the American people, and AIG. Also, we are seeing a conspiracy to cover-up the fraud committed by the likes of Hank-the Paulie-Paulson, Monster Man of the Year—Bennie the Beard Bernanke, Lordie Lordie Blankfein, and Timmie-daG-Geithner, all of whom should be indicted using RICO. Where is the Justice Department? Where is the call for a Grand Jury investigation?

Back in 2008, when Timmie the G was President of the New York Fed and his chairman was Steve Friedman, who also had been a Goldman Sachs chairman, too, began mopping up AIG’s garbage mortgage bonds that they were insuring for Goldman Sachs to the tune of $14B at 100 cents on the dollar, since GS rejected a 40 cents on the dollar offer. Now tell me if this was not a conspiracy to protect the balance sheet of the top financial crime syndicate boss—Lord Blankfein!

Not only did GS get full value for their derivative contracts insured by AIG, but Merrill Lynch, and Wachovia did as well. They all got reimbursed by the taxpayer to the tune of $27.1B. Socialize the losses and privatize the gains!

It appears that under Bush, Hank Paulson and the others plotted to kill Goldman Sachs’ competition and leave only GS on the top of the investment banksta dog pile, since Goldman had its field marshal generals embedded in the government protecting their interests.

Lehman Brothers was brought down in 2007, and Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley were decapitated. While this planned demolition was going on, and long before, Goldman Sachs was selling garbage mortgage backed securities to suckers believing in the financial market’s Golden Egg, when actually it was rotten inside, while the wizards inside GS were selling off their garbage to AIG and buying swap insurance to guarantee their losses. They all knew, since Hank Paulson, a veteran GS chairman, then acting as Bush’s Treasury secretary, and Robert Rubin close to his side, as well as Bernanke, and Geithner, would rescue any of their losses when, and not if, it got there. There was no such thing as risk management. What it meant was take all the risk you want, Uncle Sam is there to help! Didn’t Reagan hate that phrase? Bush didn’t listen!

In 2006 and on into 2007, GS sold somewhere around $39B of their mortgage junk, and used their ‘honorable’ status as that of “upstanding” investment bankers and sold around $17B more mortgage junk securities for their clients, yet those good, law biding American business bankers never told the suckers who ended up buying those garbage bonds that they were making bets on the side just in case those mortgage bonds went south because the never-ending boom in housing price values might actually come tumbling down.

In late 2006, McClatchy News reported that Goldman Sachs spokesman, Michael DuVally said that the firm decided, at that time, to reduce its mortgage risks by selling off subprime mortgage-related securities as well as to purchase credit-default swaps which were used to hedge against a serious downturn in the US housing market. This all came about because in December 2006, after “10 straight days of losses” in Goldman’s mortgage business, Chief Financial Officer David Viniar called a meeting of key Goldman personnel.  (1.Economiccollapseblog.com, How Goldman Sachs Made Tens of Billions From The Economic Collapse of America In Four Easy Steps)

It seemed that Goldman Sachs was not going to let their Wall Street casino gambles become losses no matter what they had to do. This is how a crime syndicate operates. And, they are it!

“The New York Times recently wrote: A handful of investors and Wall Street traders, however, anticipated the crisis. In 2006, Wall Street had introduced a new index, called the ABX, which became a way to invest in the direction of mortgage securities. The index allowed traders to bet on or against pools of mortgages with different risk characteristics just as stock indexes enable traders to change the firm’s overall stance on the mortgage market, from positive to negative, though it did not disclose that publicly. Goldman used this new index [to their advantage].

Along with all of this, Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC, has been all over Timmie Geithner to reveal the secret deals and emails that went on between the NY Fed, when he was its president, and AIG, as well as everyone else involved in keeping their secret from their clients, and the SEC, the deal that brought Goldman Sachs, via AIG, a 100 cent reimbursement for their toxic mortgage backed securities that were insured (CDS) through AIG. Geithner has decided that the documents will remain secret until 2018. So much for President Obama’s transparency pledge to America.

These bets would only make money for Goldman Sachs if the U.S. housing market declined.” (See reference 1.)

It sure was a banner year for the King of FOP (Financial Obfuscating Predator), Mr. Lordie Lordie Lloyd Blankfein, but it was the nation that took the hit instead.

Thanks for reading, jerry

 http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

Here is the Colbert Report speaking about honor bound! It is great!