The $11.3 Trillion Dollar Financial Bailout Heist

$11.3 trillion blueprint for recovery: (Listed In billions). “This is what the government has pledged. So far, about one-quarter of the money has been used. Below are the initiatives launched since late 2007—from largest to smallest-to rescue the economy, the financial system, and big firms. Taxpayer’s final bill depends on whether loans and investments go bad.” 

(Source documented below.)

• $1800 commercial paper funding facility 10-7-08 lending to corporations by buying their short-term debt. How much used $249.9B

• $1450 Buy mortgage securities 11-25-08. Invest to ease long-term interest rates. How much used: $290.3B

• $1400 Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program 10-14-08. Insure newly issued bank debt. How much used: $268.7B

• $1000 Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility TALF 11-25-08. Lend to help revive stalled securitized lending to consumers and businesses. How much used: $290.3B

• $787 Stimulus, Obama 2-17-09. Spend and cut taxes to revive economy. How much used: $787B

• $600 Term Auction Facility TAF 12-12-07. Lend to banks against a wide variety of collateral. How much used: $467.3B

• $540 Money Market Investor Funding Facility (MMIFF) 10-21-08. Invest in commercial paper, bought from money-market funds to bolster their liquidity. How much used: $0

• $500 Public-Private Investment Program 3-23-09. Lend for purchase of bad assets from banks. How much used: $0.

• $400 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Rescue 9-7-08. Invest to keep key mortgage firms operating. How much used: $0.

• $300 Buy Treasury Bonds 3-18-09. Invest to ease long-term interest rates. How much used. $33.6B.

• $300 Hope for Homeowners Program 7-30-08. Spend to reduce strain on housing market. How much used: $0.

• $250 Capital Purchase Program 10-14-08. Invest in banks to maintain confidence and lending. How much used: $198.8B.

• $234.3 Citigroup Rescue 11-23-08. Insure risky assets at a major bank. How much used: $0.

• $200 Term securities Lending Facility TSLF 3-11-08. Lend to investment banks against variety of collateral. How much used: $85B.

• $168 Stimulus, Bush 2-13-08. Spend and cut taxes to revive economy. How much used: $168B.

• $112.5 AIG Rescue 9-15-08. Lend to prevent collapse of nation’s largest insurance firm. How much used: $88B

• $100 Consumer and Business Lending 3-25-09. Invest in Fed’s TALF to stimulate lending. How much used: $100B.

• $100 Public-Private Investment Program 3-23-09. Invest to remove troubled assets from banks. How much used $0.

• $87.2 Bank of America Rescue 1-16-09. Insure risky assets at a major bank. How much used: $0.

• $70 AIG Rescue 9-15-08. Invest to prevent collapse of nation’s largest insurance firm. How much used: $40B.

• $60 Student Loans 1-16-09. Lend to keep college credit available. How much used: $0.

• $58 Primary and Secondary Credit Programs (predates crisis). Lend to prevent a freeze up in short-term funding for banks. How much used: $58B.

• $50 Money-Market Fund Guarantees 9-19-09=08. Insure to prevent a run on cash accounts. How much used: $0.

• $29 Bear Stearns Merger 3-14-08. Lend against risky collateral to JPMorgan Chase (to enable its purchase of Bear Stearns). How much used: $29B.

• $27.5 Bank of America Rescue 1-16-09. Invest and insure assets to stabilize a key bank. How much used: $20B

• $25 Citigroup Rescue. 11-23-08. Invest and insure assets to stabilize a key bank. How much used: $20B.

• $24.9 GM, Chrysler Rescue 12-19-08. Lend to prevent auto industry collapse. How much used: $24.5B.

• $18.3 Primary Dealer Facility 3-16-09. Lend to investment banks against broad collateral. How much used: $18.3B.

• $15 Small Business Credit 3-16-09. Lend to revive economy. How much used: $0.

• $10 Citigroup Rescue 11-23-08. Insure risky assets at a major bank. How much used: $0.

• $6.1 Money Market Liquidity Facility 9-19-08. Lend to banks to buy commercial paper from money-market funds. How much used: $6.1B.

• $5 Auto Supplier Aid 3-19-09. Lend to auto suppliers and insure payment on some bills they’re owed. How much used: $0.

• $2.5 Bank of America Rescue 1-16-09. Insure risky assets at a major bank. How much used: $0.

Source: The Christian Science Monitor.com---US government agencies. Research: “Where Did All The Bailout Money Go?”, Mark Trumbull, The Christian Science Monitor, 4-26-09. Originally read from HuffingtonPost.com.

So, where does the taxpayer fit in? NOWHERE! So, where does the working middle class American fit in? REALLY-NOWHERE! So, where do the hardworking Americans who lost half there retirement savings fit in? NOWHERE! This transfer of wealth continues to remain in the hands of the richest Americans who destroyed the economy of this nation!

This is a Wall Street Financial Crime Syndicate takeover of wealth.

thanks for reading, jerry

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.