Ben Bernanke—Disaster Man Of The Year!!!

I believe the nation is becoming a perverse environment. What has unfolded this week has begun to convince me that this government, and the insiders have hopped aboard something like the amusement park ride called the Drop Down Ride. This is the one where you are strapped into some kind of open-air harness, with your legs dangling below, and slowly pulled several stories up. You are up so high that from below you look like a lollipop dangling from a kite string. Then once you have reached the top, you are dropped down at full speed forcing your stomach up into your esophagus like some kind of internal jet ski ricocheting off your Adam’s Apple as the contents ejects out of you mouth, whereby if you have just eaten a chili dog or wolfed down a burger with all the adornments, you might find yourself wearing it on your shoes.

The nation is being pulled back up toward the top of the Drop Down Ride for the second time. America, and especially Time magazine, had forgotten the full drop down speed that many of us experienced at the end of 2007 and into 2008 as nearly $12 trillion in household wealth was puked up as a result of Little Boy Bush, Hank Paulson, and Ben Bernanke’s laissez-faire, neo-liberal, Chicago School of economic “infestment” capitalism. 

So, Time magazine chose from their three top national and international disasters picking Ben Bernanke to be the Disaster Man Of The Year. What an honor for Bennie-The Beard-Bernanke, crime syndicate operator royale, to be chosen from the list including Little Boy Bush, who was not chosen while president, since he was a complete disaster then, but now, since he is Silent Man, he was picked, as runner-up-ahole for his commitment-to-silence; and then, there was Vladimir Putin, Russia’s strong armed Soviet-styled crime syndicate boss; then, we had Mr. Manchurian President Obama, but he has already been showered with big shot honors, and has done enough bowing with smiling photo-ops accompanied by beautifully written speeches for the year; and finally, there were Steve Jobs of Apple computer for his innovations (he’s no disaster), General Stanley McChrystal for colluding with Dick Cheney in trying to cover up Pat Tillman’s friendly-fire murder, Nancy Pelosi for selling out the Democratic voters and 45 million uninsured, and 16 million unemployed Americans, the Chinese workers (it is not their fault) who work for way below minimum wage without benefits so that Walmart and the American consumer can buy cheap and, sometimes, toxic stuff; and finally, Usain Bolt, a world class Jamaican sprinter (he’s no disaster, either, but a winner!). 

Wow!!!! I would say this was a hard decision for Time magazine. Who deserves the Disaster Man of the Year award from Time magazine? I would say it should have gone to Little Boy Bush. He is the one that brought the economy down in freefall after more than 20 years of disaster being pulled to the top of the Drop Down Ride. It was Little Boy Bush who let the ride drop at warp speed to the ground as it crashed into the concrete base creating an economic earthquake that stretched from sea to shining sea.

Next year, Bennie the Beard and President Obama could be tied for Time’s 2010 Disaster Men of The Year for gutting our manufacturing sector via outsourcing and sending the under-unemployment figures to 20%, while including those who stopped looking for work, and want full-time rather than part-time employment, as well as enriching the bankstas even more, and further draining the average working person’s wages with higher costs, and pretending to regulate, scrutinize, and make transparent the “infestment” banking transactions, and further burdening and submersing the nation in two wars, and permitting Prince’s Xe, the Christian Fundamentalist War Crusader formerly known as Blackwater, and now known as The United States Training Center, the largest private military force in this country with its own air attack force, and sea attack navy, in addition to its ground forces.

 Our Manchurian President has kept Little Boy Bush as his lifeline. The U.S. Training Center’s private army is not only being investigated for its alleged criminal activities, and alleged murderous actions, it has been kept on to protect the elites in Iraq and Afghanistan through the State department. And in spite of Candidate Hillary Clinton pledging to cancel any and all contracts the government had with Eric Prince’s companies, if elected president, she is being escorted and guarded by this private mercenary armed forces.

What is interesting is that General McChrystal, under Dick Cheney, created a secret, below-the-public’s radar group called JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) operating inside the CIA. Blackwater, a private army, was co-joined with JSOC to conduct covert operations, such as assassinations, predator strikes, and secret intelligence. Now, General McChrystal is President Obama’s top military point man handling the joy-joy-stick in the Middle East combat zones. Does this sound like the Change We Were To Believe In? Was this what we voted for?

In addition to this, Mr. Manchurian President has just lost his lawsuit to keep 22 million BushBoy emails spanning for a few years, but mostly concentrated within a 94-day period more than likely including the cover-up of the person(s) who outed the covert identity of Valerie Plame, and the run-up to the Iraq War. This White House of President Obama had been sued by two groups wanting these emails to come out into the light from the dark, damp depths of Dick Cheney’s undisclosed secret bunker. Sorry Mr. President. This was not what we voted for. We heard you speak about transparency, but we did not know you were hoping to keep Bush’s “Lost Emails” from being found.

We also did not vote for a continuation by your administration to protect the “mega-infestment” banking industry from State regulatory laws preempting Federal laws as states try to strongly enforce anti-predatory lending practices through fines and court settlements. This occurred because the Feds were slow to control the predators as they went after consumers.

The USA Today’s editorial board wrote on 12-9-09, “The Comptroller of the Currency, for example, behaved much like a banking lobby embedded in the Treasury Department.” 

President Obama does not appear to be able to control renegade anti-consumer Democratic cretins oozing out of the New Democrat Coalition, such as Illinois Democon Melissa Bean, who appears to want to protect the “infestment” banks from strong regulation by the states, instead of those of her constituents who were severely damaged by them. The Infestment Banks are crying that some states might cap ATM fees, for example, and this would place a profit hardship upon their potential bonuses and raises. They call it “materially impairing” the national banking operations of the likes of JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, BoA, and Wells Fargo. Such Beans need to be ground up into flour and not left whole by President Obama. But No!!!! Barack, you have turned out to be NOT who we voted for. Had we known, we would have picked another candidate.

And there is more!! Edward Harrison wrote in “U.S. Forfeiting Billions in Future Taxes So Citi Can Exit TARP”, Seekingalpha.com, 12-16-09, “…the federal government has quietly decided to exempt Citigroup from a large future tax bill in allowing it to exit the TARP program. This is a backdoor bailout worth billions and is an outrage that demonstrates the lengths to which government will go to gift these organizations taxpayers money.” “Exemptions under this law are a huge hidden freebie.”

Too-big-to-fail Infestment Banks continue to operate without investigations or regulations by this administration. It has been business-as-usual nearly one year later after one damning Oval Office seat warmer was flown out of Washington as millions of Americans with raised fists and yelling expletives while cheering, and another quietly nestled in for four years.

And, the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, had been extremely slow in the investigations of the fraud and secret deals between the Infestment Banks. We all thought you, Mr. President, would be moving swiftly with a call for justice and truth.

“The SEC had accused Bank of America of failing to disclose to shareholders that it had authorized New York-based Merrill to pay up to $5.8 billion in bonuses to its employees in 2008 even though the investment bank lost $27.6 billion that year. Bank of America had agreed to pay $33 million to settle the charges without admitting or denying wrongdoing, saying it didn't violate disclosure rules but wanted to avoid litigation with the SEC at a time of market uncertainty.” 

“Some Republican lawmakers contend that the government forced Bank of America to take over Merrill, and they have accused the Democratic leaders of the oversight panel of covering up the role of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in the affair.

Geithner was chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the time of the merger in December 2008. His spokesmen have said he was not involved in any Bank of America decisions after being tapped for the Treasury post by President Barack Obama last November. The $20 billion Merrill deal, forged the same September weekend that Lehman Brothers collapsed, was first questioned after Bank of America disclosed that the investment bank would post 2008 losses of $27.6 billion – far more than expected. Bank of America, which had already received $25 billion in U.S. bailout aid, then asked for and received an additional $20 billion from the government to help offset those losses.” (SEC Widens Probe Into BofA, Merrill Deal, Marcy Gordon,HuffingtonPost.com 12/11/09)

To all of you investigators at the SEC, what about AIG and the rest of fraudster “infestment” bankstas? Barack, hey, this is NOT what we voted for! It is clear; your policies and actions are NOT what we voted for. Therefore, YOU must be the Manchurian President. Would there be any other reason?

Thanks for reading, Jerry        http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

P.S. 

Read more on Blackwater as reported by Jeremy Scahill.

Audio interview with Jeremy Scahill

America: The Land Of The Free Lords And The Indebted Serfs

The economy of the United States appears to have been divided into three parts, or “stimulus packages” that become clearer by the day. The most primary part is the financial-investment banking economy, or stimulus package, has been backstopped with nearly $13 trillion by the government. The financial stimulus recipients don’t have to ask for assistance when they are on the edge of bankruptcy. Government agents, such as former Treasury Secretary Hank “The Paulie” Paulson, current Treasury Secretary Timmie “The G” Geithner, and Federal Reserve chairman Bennie “The Beard” Bernanke all demanded that their financial crime syndicate bosses be thrown life preserves as their sinking investment banks were going down.

The next part of the economic stimulus is the War Profiteering-Pentagon-Homeland Security’s War on Terror economy. They drain over one-third from the yearly U.S. budget to fund private sector companies that are obviously unable to make a go of it in the private sector’s free marketplace. So, they are given lucrative contracts in order to enrich companies, such as Northrop-Grumman, Blackwater, Boeing, General Dynamics, GE, Halliburton, Bechtel, Custer Battles, BearingPoint, Exxon, Mobil, Chevron-Texaco, and a host more Treasury vampires feeding from the taxpayer’s cash troughs. These companies need the public sector, or one might say government “socialized” business contracts in order to satisfy their shareholders, pay bonuses, and fatten up business expenses. They don’t have to come ‘uh askin’ for the government’s socialized checks, they just answer the phone and write up the orders.

The third part of the economic stimulus economy is the most vulnerable. This is the real economy, which includes everyday working people packing up their lunch buckets, and filling their coffee thermoses as they head off to manufacturing and service jobs. Their goals are to create things, make things to sell in the export marketplace, as well as to sell domestically. They are asked by President Obama, “I want you to tell me what we (government) can do to bring back jobs.” The American worker has to come up with the ideas and plans to explain to the leader of the free world just what has to be done.

The workers that make real things that don’t go boom or poof in the night skies of our multi-billion dollar war zones have to go begging for lines-of-credit for their small business operations, since the gluttonous investment bankers would rather use the money they are “loaned” by the Federal Reserve at zero percent interest in Wall Street manipulative gambles, or in foreign currency speculation buys, or in commodities rather than expand lending to Main Street and Side Street in order to rebuild the crumbling economy of the United States after those very bankstas took it down slowly over the last 30 years, concluding with a full force gale of a collapse, with their fraudulent derivative and securities practices. They seem to forget that the cash they are loaned comes to them via the Treasury and taxpayer. But President Obama appears to like it just this way.

As Paul Craig Roberts wrote in “The Obama Puppet”,  “President Obama can promise health care to 50 million uninsured Americans, but he can’t override the veto of the war lobby and the insurance lobby. The war lobby says its war profits are more important than health care and that the country can’t afford both the “war on terror” and “socialized medicine.” “The insurance lobby says health care has to be provided by private health insurance; otherwise we can’t afford it.”

Dr. Roberts, former assist treasury secretary under Reagan, continued…”The war and insurance lobbies rattle their campaign contribution pocketbooks and quickly convinced Congress and the White House that the real purpose of the health care bill is to save money by cutting Medicare and Medicaid benefits, thereby “getting entitlements under control”.”

He went on to say that “Entitlements is a right-wing word used to cast aspersion on the few things that the government did, in the past, for citizens. Social Security and Medicare, for example, are denigrated as “entitlements”. The right-wing goes on endlessly about Social Security and Medicare as if they were welfare give-aways to shiftless people who refuse to look after themselves, whereas in actual fact citizens are vastly overcharged for the meager benefits with a 15% tax on wages and salaries.”

Mr. Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D laid it out very clearly. There is a war against working Americans by the real entitlement class. The very people who have felt entitled to “steal” from Social Security by raiding it in order to demand tax cuts and expand the lucrative contracts by the war profiteers. President Obama, Congress, the Teabaggers, and the lapdog Blue Dog Democrats feel perfectly fine with the real entitlement class of those in the very top wage earning brackets feeding from the government’s socialized cash trough.

Fed Chairman Bennie “The Beard” Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee during his re-appointment testimony that he felt that Congress should make cuts in Medicare and Social Security in spite of the fact that the American worker is getting Pink Slipped, and real patriots, such as Dr. Elizabeth Warren, are loudly warning, while sounding the alarm bells that the middle class is on the brink of further disaster. The Beard calls for “Death To The Middle Class” while he hides those who he handed out zero percent cash loans to because he feels it is not his place to put the markets at risk, yet he is one who allowed the market players to collapse the real economy.

Dr. Elizabeth Warren has said, “One in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can’t make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings and has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street.” (Dr. Elizabeth Warren, 12-2-09, Huffington Post)

Dr. Warren continued…”Families today spend less than a generation ago on food, clothing, furniture, appliances, and other flexible purchases—but it hasn’t been enough to save them. Today’s families have spent all their income, have spent all their savings, and have gone into debt to pay for college, to cover serious medical problems, and just to stay afloat a little while longer.”

As President Obama roams the brown fields of the once thriving manufacturing centers and passes by the empty factor buildings dotting Michigan, he has the gall to ask the unemployed and underemployed workers what would they want him to do. The truth is that President Obama has been told by the nation’s corporate oligarchs that they like things just the way they are.

For example, in Chicago, the president of the construction trades union is considering helping bail out a sunken developer with around $26 million in pension funds to finish his abandoned hole-in-the-ground surrounded by a chain linked fence. This skyscraper was planned to be the tallest building in Chicago, but went bust. It has gotten to the point where workers have to pay for their own jobs, while the bankstas sit fat and happy on huge piles of taxpayer funds. They don’t care if the finished building goes bankrupt trying to pay for itself just as long as workers pay for their own jobs.

The United States is turning into the land of free lords and the indebted serfs.

China pumps all their stimulus monies into manufacturing of exportable products, which can be also used domestically, yet the United States believes that Afghanistan needs around $200 billion more cash injections.

I don’t hear China’s president asking his people how to make their economic engine run faster. They have high speed rail to do that. We have Amtrak. China is building solar manufacturing plants in Pennsylvania, while President Obama is still asking what needs to be done after 12 months of being called ‘Mr. President’, and 2 years of campaigning,. Japan will be importing to their US Nissan dealerships a 100 mile ranged electric car (LEAF) for the masses in the next 12 months, which will take 4-8 hours to recharge when plugged in to your own outlet, and approximately 30 minutes at a quick charge station. But President Obama is still holding job summits, and giving speeches.

10% of the American workforce is in manufacturing. 17% of our GDP comes from manufacturing. What needs to happen, Mr. President is very simple. I believe a kindergartener could tell you what you should do. It is not rocket science. Simply stated all you do is beef up the manufacturing engine in this country. You tell the financial crime syndicate that the free ride is over and it is time they pay back all that they borrowed, with interest. You demand that the Federal Reserve gets audited so we can call in all the loans that Bennie the Beard passed out.

Next, you create a National Rebuilding Initiative, or something like that, by funding manufacturing jobs. Instead of workers sitting idle collecting unemployment benefits, you pay employers to hire workers to make things that will pull the nation forward, such as solar panels, wind generators, geo-thermal systems, electric vehicles, upgraded power grids, high speed rails, energy efficient products of all types, as well as things that will continue to allow America function. You demand that mortgage issuers cut mortgages that are underwater, but still being paid on, to street level values, and then reduce the interest rates. It is time that these bankstas eat some of their toxic garbage, and repair the damage they are responsible for creating.

Next, all workers get health care. As you put people back to work with a National Rebuilding Initiative Project by paying employers to hire workers at minimum wage, they get health care to boot. By putting America to work, workers learn new job skills, they sharpen existing job skills, which makes them more enticing to private sector employers. Taxes get paid. The GDP goes up. The trade deficit goes down. The nation becomes more self-sufficient. Workers become credit-worthy, once again, and banks begin to lend as they are supposed to. Also, you and Congress put limits on how big big-box stores can be and empower communities to refuse their intrusion into their communities. You strengthen communities so, once again, they become self-contained livable centers of life. While you are at it, give tax incentives for family farms, and place a tax on agribusiness conglomerates in order to rebuild family farms.

Regulate the investment-banking syndicate, and do away with too-big-to-fail.

Mr. Marshall Auerback, a Fellow at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, with 28 years experience in the investment management and global portfolio strategy business, is a person who has expanded upon such ideas. (12-2-09, An Interview with Marshall Auerback, Mike Whitney, Counterpunch.org)

Mr. President, we are all waiting for the Change We Can Believe In, and the Yes We Can you promised. American cannot wait any longer; and, you know it, too!


Thanks for reading, Jerry


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

Fed Chairman Bernanke's November 2009 Speech at the Economic Club of New York

Watch Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's damning and dire economic forecast for our economy.


                                                       Watch here:



He is trying to put lipstick on our economic pig through his careful manipulation of facts. Here are a few quotes written by Mike Whitney in his article "The Great Stimulus Debate of '09: Crybabies need not apply", 11-20-09, Counterpunch.org.

"The flow of credit remains constrained,economic activity weak, and unemployment much too big. Future setbacks are possible...How the economy will evolve in 2010 and beyond is less certain...Access to credit remains strained for borrowers who are particularly dependent on banks and businesses. Bank lending has contracted sharply in year, and the Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officers Opinion Survey sows that banks continue to tighten the terms on which they extend credit for most kinds of loans...Household debt has declined in crecent quarters of the first time since 1951. For their part, most small businesses have seen their bank credit lines reduced or eliminated, or they have been able to obtain credit only on significantly many of these businesses expected conditions to tighten further."

"The demand for credit also has fallen significantly...Because of weakened balance sheets, fewer potential borrowers are creditworthy, even if they are willing to take on more more debt. Also, write-downs of bad debt show up on bank balance sheets as reductions in credit outstanding. Nevertheless, it appears that, since the outbreak of the financial crisis, banks have tightened lending standards by more than would have been predicted by the decline in economic activity alone...Unfortunately, reduced bank lending may well slow the recovery by damping consumer spending, especially, on durable goods, and by restricting the ability of some firms to finance their operations."

"The best thing we can say about the labor market right now is that it may be getting worse more slowly."(End)

Bernanke says how 9 of 10 of the mega-banks have been able to fully meet their capital buffers, and recapitalize without the help from the treasury. Their equity has increased by $77B. But he failed to say it has been at the expense of the real economy, and accomplished by taking taxpayer funds to gamble on Wall Street at zero percent interest and, thus, are now able to hand out billions in bonuses.

He said decreases in bank lending will reduce consumer spending and business cash flows. In other words, as a result of the Fed's policies, businesses are dying because the banks that were recapitalized by the taxpayer cannot obtain credit lines in order to make payroll, and buy material. And, as workers lose their jobs, or find their hours cut back, they must be very careful how they spend their precious dollars.

Stress tests will lead the 19 banks to become fully capitalized for future lending. What crap. They are not lending to make any real difference in the economy.

He encourages banks to work with borrowers to restructure failing loans. So when do you think this will happen--Bennie?

He went on to say that over 8 million jobs have been lost in the private sector. He foresees declining work hours. He stated that the labor market will be getting worse, but more slowly. He went on to say that the "economic pain" among male workers between the ages of 25-54 are seeing their unemployment rate rise to 10.3%, and women in that age group to over 20.6%; Young people between the ages of 16-24 to be over 19%; and African-American youth to be 30%.

He said that weak income growth will decrease spending. Employers will shorten work weeks, and transition part-time workers to full-time workers before bringing on new hires. 100,000 new hires per month are needed in order to absorb new entrants into the labor force. Yet he failed to convey what has been predicted as a million and a half more workers finding themselves unemployed over the next 18 or so months.

He said that productivity growth is defined as output per hour of work and that productivity growth per hour has risen at around 5% annual rate this year. This is such crap!!! He failed to say that this growth rate has been mostly due to his Fed fund rates of zero percent interest to the top 10 bankstas so they could increase profits through their speculation and manipulation of Wall Street trades. Lipstick on a Pig, Bennie-the beard--Bernanke, Mr. Bank Crime Syndicate Field Marshall!

He careened against workers by saying that increasing productivity is what is left to improve business. So Bada Bing Bernanke, how will this be done without having to squeeze more juice from the already squeezed out worker? I guess, your double speak, between-the-lines gobbligook talk infers that more outsourcing, more cheap labor from China, Vietnam or Philippines is the way to increase business productivity.

It was truly clear from listening to this weapon of mass destruction that he MUST be fired, and the Fed MUST be nationalized and made transparent. This one man has killed America through his policies authorized by the board of the Federal Reserve.

As he concluded, he had the balls to say that he did not see any major misalignments in the economy. Whaddayathinkindude? The real economy is in shambles. Jobs are disappearing. China is coming over here to build manufacturing facilities. The US is becoming a third world country in many ways. The quality of life is diminishing for tens of millions of Americans. You, Mr. Field Marshall for the Financial Crime Syndicate have recapitalized your pals to such a degree that they can pass out $23 billion in bonus Happy Cash Meals. People are living in tents, in storm sewers, in their vehicles. Food banks and soup kitchens don't have enough food to go around. China continues to show a rising budget surplus, while they keep their currency pegged to collapsing dollar allowing them to sell their stuff cheap in the US.

And you, you bearded wildebeest from the Greenspan School of Failed Policy Studies, don't see a misalignment. Are just f**king stupid or the world's most evil, lying economist on the planet?

thanks for reading, jerry

God's Will Was In The Sachs

Wait. I am confused. Is it God Man Sachs? Is it Lord Blankfein? Is it a Fine Blank God Man In The Sach?

It is so hard to follow these days! We have Lloyd Blankfein, a key player in the financial-banking crime syndicate wanting all of us to believe that he believes in God, and that he is following God’s Plan. Lloyd Blankfein, the guy who has told us that his company, Goldman Sachs, really did not need to be bailed out to the tune of $12 billion by Little Boy Bush’s Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chair, Ben Bernanke under the TARP give-away program.

No. No. He was just drinking from the public trough for humanitarian reasons. His colleagues and derivatives alchemists needed raises and bonuses, so if the Congress was giving out bail out candy favors called TARP (Toxic Asset Relief Program), then Blankfein was in line with his party bag.

It was in Blankfein’s theocratic master plan to be allowed to transform from a investment corporation into a bank company so he could be allowed to receive government handouts when he really did not need them.

It was God’s Will to have Blankfein attending the infamous March, 2004 secret meeting of the five investment crime family bosses with Bennie-The Beard—Bernanke, Timmie-The G—Geithner, Hank—The Paulie—Paulson to likely discuss knocking off Bear Stearns. It has all been denied that this was the intent. When asked about this secret meeting that would affect the entire economic fabric of the country, and which was kept from the President of the United States, Geithner, acting at the time as the New York Federal Reserve chairman said, ‘It was business-as-usual.’ It was just business. Just business. Ahh. Geithner channeling Tony Soprano.

So what was behind the Bear Hunt? It was rumored that in Blankfein’s theocratic master plan he had more than likely decided to attack da’ Bear by using a powerful killing tool---Naked Short-Selling. Many called it a counterfeiting scheme, such as Matt Taibbi, in his article titled “Wall Street’s Naked Swindle” (10-14-09).

Mr. Taibbi explains, “What naked short-sellers do is sell large quantities of stock they don’t actually have, flooding the market with ‘phantom’ shares that depress a company’s share price by making the shares less scarce and therefore less valuable.”

To paraphrase Mr. Taibbi, a giant number of undelivered shares over the course of a week (3-12-08) amounted to one of the most blatant cases of stock manipulation in Wall Street history. “There is not a doubt in my mind, not a single doubt” that naked short-selling helped destroy Bear, says Ken Kaufman, a Democrat from Delaware, who had introduced legislation to curb such financial fraud.”

The article went on to further describe the scam that goes along with naked short-selling tactics.

“Thanks to the media-fueled rumors and the mounting anxiety over the company’s ability to make its payments, Bear’s share price plummeted seven percent on March 13, [2008] to $57. It still had a ways to go for the mysterious short-seller to make a profit on his bet against the firm, but it was headed in the right direction. [There was this mysterious short-seller out to manipulate the stock price who knew what was going on inside Bear.] But then, early on the morning of Friday, March 14th, Bear’s CEO, Alan Schwartz, struck a deal with the Fed and JPMorgan to provide an emergency loan to keep the company’s doors open.” The stock price rallied to $62, but it was all pipedream. The hunt of da’ Bear was closing in. The Bear was cornered and the trigger was cocked. Here is how Mr. Taibbi describes it:

“The rally was proved short-lived—Bear ended the day [Friday] at $30—but it suggested that all was not lost. Then a strange thing happened. As Bear understood it, the emergency credit line that the Fed had arranged was originally supposed to last for 28 days. But that Friday, despite the rally, Geithner and then-Treasury secretary Hank Paulson—the former head of Goldman Sachs, one of the firms rumored to be shorting Bear—had a sudden change of heart. When the market closed for the weekend, Paulson called Schwartz and told him that the rescue timeline had to be accelerated. Paulson wouldn’t stay up another night worrying about Bear Stearns, he reportedly told Schwartz, Bear had until Sunday night to find a buyer or it could go fuck itself.” And, we all know how that story ended. It was God’s Will!

Goldman Sachs has reaped billions of dollars by engaging in short-selling.

Here is another intriguing part of Taibbi’s swindle story:

“A paper presented at the American Bankruptcy Institute earlier this year report[ed] that up to a third of all notes for mortgage-backed securities may have been “misplaced or lost”—meaning they’re backed by IOUs instead of actual mortgages.”

“How about bond? Naked short-selling of stocks is nothing compared to what goes on in the bond market, says Susan Trimbath, the former Depository Trust Company staffer. [She was one of the first people to notice that there was a scam brewing around naked short-selling.] Indeed, the practice of selling bonds without delivering them is so rampant it has even infected the market of U.S. Treasury notes. That’s right—Wall Street has actually been brazen enough to counterfeit the debt of the United States’ government right under the eyes of regulators, in the middle of a historic series of government bailouts! In fact, the amount of failed trades in Treasury bonds—the equivalent of “phantom” stocks—has doubled since 2007. In a single week last July, some $250 billion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds were sold and not delivered.”

“The counterfeit nature of our economy is troubling enough, given that financial power is concentrated in the hands of a few key players---300 white guys in Manhattan---as a former high-placed executive [put] it.”

We all know that Lloyd, or is it Lord Blankfein is part of that cabal. But remember, he is doing God’s Work!

Here are more of Lord Blankfein’s theocratic marching orders from you-know-who.

Phillip Davis wrote on Seekingalpha.com, a piece called “The Global Oil Scam”, 11-11-09, that Lord Blankfein’s Goldman Sachs was engaged in, with others, an oil scam the size of 50—Bernie Madoff swindles. $2.5 trillion in size.

Here it is. “Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BP, Total, Shell, Deutche Bank, and Societe Generale founded the International Continental Exchange (ICE) in 2000. ICE is an online commodities and futures marketplace. It is outside the US and operates free from the constraints of US laws. The exchange was set up to facilitate “dark pool” trading in the commodities markets. Billions of dollars are being placed on oil futures contracts at the ICE, and the beauty of this scam is that they NEVER take delivery, per se. They just ratchet up the price with leveraged speculation using your TARP money. This year alone they ratcheted up the global cost of oil from $40 to $80 per barrel.”

There is more. “You can chart the damage done by Goldman Sachs and their gang of thieves by looking at commodity pricing pre and post ICE. Before ICE, commodities followed a more or less normal growth path that matched global GDP, and was always limited to price appreciation by the fact that, ultimately, someone had to take delivery of a physical commodity at a set price.

ICE threw that concept out the window and turned commodity trading into a speculative casino game where pricing was notional, and contracts could be sold by people who never produced a thing, to people who didn’t need the things that [had] not [been] produced. And, in just 5 years after commencing operations, Goldman Sachs and their partners managed to TRIPLE the price of commodities.”

Here is Lloyd Blankfein’s theocratic motivation. “Goldman Sachs Commodity Index funds accounted for $60 billion out of $100 billion of all formula-managed funds in 2007 and investors in the GSCI lost 15% in 2006, while Goldman had a record year. John Dizard, of the Financial Times, call[ed] this process “date rape” by Goldman Sachs…”

Mr. Phillips stated, “It is not surprising that a commodity scam would be the cornerstone of Goldman’s Sachs’ strategy.” “Before ICE, the average American family spent 7% of their income on food and fuel. Last year, that number topped 20%. That is 13% of the incomes of every man, woman and child in the United States of America, over $1T EVERY SINGLE YEAR, stolen through market manipulation.”

It is very clear to this writer, and no doubt to many others, that when Lloyd Blankfein says he is doing God’s Work, his theocratic master plan is to rip-off the American people, and United States government. His plan is to engage in fraud as a high ranking member of the financial-investment banking crime syndicate. It does not matter where in the world his evil ways are being manufactured, he always comes back to find a nice long straw to stick into the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing trough, supplied with taxpayer dollars, to suck out zero percent cash in order to perform his work for the Lord. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord!

Thanks for reading, jerry

PS:  Thank you Spectre Of Deflation, a great friend of the blogspot, for the great refresher regarding Goldman Sachs. Last year, 2008, Goldman Sachs received a gift from the heavens, or maybe it was just from the IRS and the US tax code. They were able to drop their tax burden down to 1% because of losses. How many of you folks working hard everyday were able to drop YOUR tax burdens? Not only has Goldman Sachs been receiving bailouts, and Federal Reserve Financial Happy Meals, but they don't have to pay taxes either!!! (Read the entire Bloomberg article in the comments below.)

“Keep Government Out Of My Medicare!”

I have written several opinion pieces on what I believe the Obama/Bernanke/Geithner short-term economic plan is for our floundering nation. I have stated that from my analysis Bennie-the beard-Bernanke, a major-general foot soldier for the financial crime syndicate, which has been gathering full-force momentum since the Reagan years, has their sights set on a further collapsing of the US dollar in hopes that it will fall and reach the bottom, called zero, so the masters of this economic Treasury theft can write-off their off-balance sheet toxic mortgage losses amounting to trillions of dollars at an incredibly deflated dollar value. It sure beats writing off losses at a higher dollar value. The destructive piece of this scenario is that wages will also be pushed further downward adding to more of the already 23 million housing foreclosures (held on and off the lender’s public radar), as well as higher under/unemployment numbers, which are inching up toward 20%, or Depression era heights.

It appears to be the idea of President Obama’s economic supply-side, trickle-down team that the only way to compete with the globe’s largest factory floor is to bring wages down to their levels. What Americans don’t realize is that the Chinese central government uses lower wages as their first line of defense when reducing production costs. China will never relent to another country outdoing their rock bottom labor/production costs, since their growth figures (approximately 9%) vitally depend on it. It appears that they would rather dump product onto the world’s market, than lose market share. Walmart, or what should be renamed Communist Chinamart, depends on it in order to expand throughout the world as the globe’s largest single retailer and employer.

What this current impotent president doesn’t realize, or maybe he does and won’t come clean to the public, is that the US cannot compete globally because over the last 30 years the corporate capitalist have decided to move the US manufacturing sector overseas outsourcing 7 million jobs eroding the standard-of-living and forcing working Americans into becoming debtors in order to support their lifestyles and families. Consumer debt had become a way-of-life, eventually forcing tens of millions into default and foreclosure as a result of attempting to magically create asset wealth through debt creation. It does not work. It failed, and now, the nation has been in the depths of the greatest economic forest fire since the Great Depression. We will not see the end of it anytime soon, or even in the distant future.

The 3.9% US economic growth is a fantasy, since it has been created out of US debt through the selling of Treasuries, attracting foreign central banks and investors into our debt clutches via the Federal Reserve’s quantative easing policy of freely printing money lavishing huge amounts of liquidity onto the mega investment banking syndicate. The nation is not growing, but actually “Spread Eagle across the pavement, while Jane and John Doe have put the squeeze on their own spending habits.

Another piece of this Obama-Bernanke-Geithner economic plan that is being down played is the carry trade. What has been happening is that with the Federal Reserve lending out to broker-dealers at zero percent interest, the borrowers go out into the world and find risky higher yielding and highly leveraged assets paying extremely desirable returns, and sticking the Fed’s zero percent cash into these investments, as they short the US dollar. As foreign investors buy US Treasuries, they fuel the US debt and Federal Reserve lending practices.

Dr. Nouriel Roubini stated in the Financial Times of London “Mother of all carry trades faces an inevitable bust” (11-1-09) “They are borrowing at very negative interest rates—as low as negative 10 or 20 per cent annualized—as the fall in the US dollar leads to massive capital gains on shorting dollar positions”… “Every investor who plays this risky game looks like a genius—even if they are just riding a huge bubble financed by a large negative cost of borrowing—as the total returns have been in the 50-70 per cent range since March.”… “Yet, at the same time, the perceived riskiness of individual asset classes is declining as volatility is diminished due to the Fed’s policy of buying everything in sight—witness its proposed $1,800 billion [$1.8 trillion] purchase of Treasuries, mortgage-backed securities (bonds guaranteed by a government-sponsored enterprise [GSE] such as Fannie Mae) and agency debt. By effectively reducing the volatility of individual asset classes, making them behave the same way, there is now little diversification across markets—the VAR (value at risk) again looks low.”

Dr. Roubini went on to say, “So the combined effect of the Fed policy of a zero percent Fed funds rate, quantative easing and massive purchase[s] of long-term debt instruments is seemingly making the world safe—for now—for the mother of all carry trades and [the] mother of all highly leveraged global asset bubbles.”

Here is Dr. Roubini’s big point, “ But one day this bubble will burst leading to the biggest coordinated asset bust ever: if factors lead the dollar to reverse and suddenly appreciate—as was seen in previous reversals, such as the yen-funded carry trade—the leveraged carry-trade will have to be suddenly closed as investors cover their dollar shorts. A stampede will occur as closing long leveraged risky asset positions across all asset classes funded by dollar shorts triggered a coordinated collapse of all those risky assets—equities, commodities, emerging market assets classes and credit instruments.”

This detailed explanation clearly defines the probable outcome from the Fed’s reckless lending policies supported and encouraged by Team Obama.

As Team Obama has focused intently on rescuing the mega investment banking syndicate through extremely cheap liquidity in order to pad their balance sheets cushioning their eventual toxic write-off losses at the expense of the US dollar, their policies illustrate that as the dollar is shorted as it falls to the bottom, higher risk leveraging in equities and other assets will collapse once the dollar begins to climb as Bennie the Beard Bernanke realizes that the only way to pull foreign investors back into US Treasuries and bonds would be to raise interest rates.

The most absurd viewpoint by a slice of America is the determined efforts by the likes of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, and others to fight any sort of Public Health Care Option instead of getting damn angry over this massive theft of our economy and the destructive policies executed by Team Obama. I guess they have no objection to the financial sector’s $16.5 trillion in total debt as of the second quarter of 2009, which is equal to what they had accumulated in 2008. My question to all these 9-12ers is what will you do when you lose your health care? Where will you go? What will you do when someone dear to you in your household comes down with a very serious illness and you have no health insurance?

Congresswoman Bachmann said at her Tea Bagger anti-health care Washington, DC rally on 11-5-09, "Nothing scares members of Congress more than freedom-loving Americans." So, this is what Republicans believe is freedom—to work against the self-interests of gullible flag wavers. So, freedom means that when you lose your health care and there is no government plan to rescue you, you can foreclose on your house, willingly while singing America The Beautiful, and declare bankruptcy in order to escape from those massive and mounting medical bills. So, being a freedom-loving American is to allow the mega financial crime syndicate to get zero percent interest directly from the Federal Reserve to rebuild their balance sheets, while you have just seen half of your retirement savings vanish permanently as a result of those unregulated investment banks fabricating and pedaling smoke and mirror derivatives that were worthless, while, at the same time, making themselves trillions of dollars destroying what you have so tirelessly worked for. So, freedom-loving is to embrace the greedy US corporate capitalists who created this economic firestorm and gleefully pushed your wages down, while shipping your jobs overseas to China where wages don’t mean too much to employers, and their food and drugs are not as safely regulated, and a 40 hour work week is irrelevant, and their environment is much more polluted. I guess, to be a freedom-loving American allows one to be delusional, hypocritical, and stupid with a smile. So be it! Give your grandchildren a good-luck kiss as they apply for a low paying job.

We have had 7 million manufacturing jobs lost, $14 trillion of home equity and retirement assets disappear as a result of the economic firestorm, 23 million foreclosures, and a horrendous level of under/unemployment encroaching on 20% of Americans. We will see a lost generation of our college and non-college youth living in debt, and without jobs. Yet, the whack-jobbers protesting a Public Option ride buses to Washington, DC to rally against their own self-interests. Have they not read the Senate Congressional Budget Office report stating that this government administered plan would save $10 billion? That is the problem when one consumes huge amounts of mind altering Kool-Aid. The 9-12 protest movement appears to not have a real grasp of the nation’s problems because they lack understanding and drink from the propagandist’s poisoned wells.

It is about the jobs stupid! There is no recovery without them. Economic growth based on stock market gambling achieving big profits is not a recovery plan. The lack of a Marshall Plan to rebuild the manufacturing sectors and create sustainable jobs through a renewable energy policy, and the rebuilding of wages should be the battle cry among all working class citizens, and not the rescue of the blood-sucking investment banking predators, which are still close to drowning. But unfortunately, such an important message is being missed by a bunch of sign wavers wanting “Government Out Of My Medicare”.

thanks for reading, jerry