Hedge Funds expand into Piracy

the Elliot Navy has taken on the Argentines.

What happens when you roll the dice and hope that the

US courts will enforce your vulturing of Argentina's debt?

 

Take their assets in a foreign port.

Of course, then you have to hire a pirate

captain and a swashbuckling crew.

Aye! Matey

 

 

checkit:  zerohedge

Argentina Ignores US Court Decision, Will Not Pay Elliott And Holdouts

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/18/2012 13:18 -0500

Several weeks ago we summarized the highly entertaining (if largely futile) fight between naval commodore second class Paul Singer of Her Majesty's Elliott Capital Navy, and the defaulted and soon to be re-defaulted state of Argentina. The punchline, much to the chagrin of all those other "sophisticated" bloggers who read so very much into the recent decision of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, was the following: "What this really means is that Western courts have decided that Elliott has not been stripped of pre-petition rights despite, or rather in spite of, holding out, and is entitled to collecting up to par recovery. There is one problem: there is absolutely no enforcement mechanism! And therein lies the rub: because how does a court located on Pearl Street in New York order the Argentina State Treasurer located in Buenos Aires to wire a payment on bonds, via intermediary banks, that Argentina effectively has disowned? It can't." Today, Argentina just made it very clear that once again those desperate for page views by analyzing and overanalyzing an utterly meaningless court decision's implications for rogue sovereign debtor will have to try even harder, following Reuters' report confirming precisely what we said would happen - that Argentina would completely ignore the appeals court decision, and not pay holdout, read Elliott, bondholders.

Now comes the realization that in a broke sovereign world, pretty much anything goes, unless enforced by trade (or naval) blockades, and/or, well, war. And as long as the impaired party is simply a uber-prosperous hedge fund, the probability of either happening is negligible. Said party, however, may continue confiscating Argentinian ships at will: hopefully it is capable of creating an efficient clearing market for three-mast frigates.



Police silencers no longer working in Spain

Cops in Spain, and Greece, have promised the people that they'll
start arresting bankers. They also apologised for braining
the Occupiers.

when 1 year ago they were moles inside protests:

[government "anarchist" moles discovered at protest in Barcelona, 2011]

In Greece, masked anarchist molotov-chuckers have coffee break with the police:

Now, they have seen the light. They will no longer
be the pawns of their corrupt government.
Police have made announcements in both Spain and Greece.
Apology accepted.
Be excellent to one another!

Greek police ready the trap door for the politicians, in front of parliamentary
palace

checkit:  zerohedge

Protesting Spanish Cops: "Forgive Us For Not Arresting Those Truly Responsible For This Crisis: Bankers & Politicians"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/18/2012 09:36 -0500

Yesterday, in what is an appetizer to the great 2013 convergence trade (that, between the now thoroughly dead Greek and the Spanish economy, which is rapidly getting there, of course), several thousand Spanish policemen took the streets of Madrid protesting the latest round of austerity, which included frozen pensions and the elimination of the Christmas bonus (they will have many more opportunities to protest not only the loss of any future upside, but the eventual cut of existing wages and entitlements). As RT reports, protesters blew whistles, shouted slogans, and carried anti-austerity banners as they marched through the city centre to the interior ministry. But perhaps the most telling message read on one of the slogans, was the following: "Citizens! Forgive us for not arresting those truly responsible for this crisis: bankers and politicians."

And there you have the entire current clusterfuck summarized in one simple sentence: because as long as those responsible for the ongoing economic collapse, which will inevitably end in war as many have observed, Kyle Bass most recently, are not only not arrested but preserve their positions of power, any and all change will merely be cosmetic and any real change will only affect the bank accounts of the global middle class which are slowly but surely drained to zero.

FATCA has a fat chance of catching fatcats

Every government is now hurriedly doing their Keystone cops routine
now that Occupy has taken the lead in justice-making.
Commissions and commissions about commissions are
not good enough, so they actually have to be seen doing
something.

more later

British financial media couldn't see crisis inside the epicentre

Everything looks peachy in the eye of a storm.

more soon

Republicans listened to Rove because ?

A) they're idiots
B) he told them (secretly) that he has the magic poison for democracy
C) none of them, including Rove had heard of Anonymous
D) they're evil despots-in-waiting

ok. I threw the last one in for fun

Well, they just aren't democrats. They wanted to steal it
just like Dumbya Bush.

checkit:  Daily beast

Republicans Allowed Karl Rove to Mislead Them Again

Nov 16, 2012 11:05 PM EST
A willing suspension of disbelief allowed the GOP faithful to see victory in all the wrong places, writes Matt Latimer.[SICK FUCK]

The crime: Mitt Romney’s inexplicable defeat. The suspects: everybody in the world, except the people who really deserve it.

The first obvious target, of course, is Mitt Romney himself, who managed to lose to a president with one of the worst economic records in memory. Then eyes turned to Romney’s campaign staff, which somehow could not turn a vibrant, brilliant, Cary Grant–in–the–making into the next president of the United States. Perhaps the fault lies with President Obama, who only pretended that nobody in America liked him. Or it was those tricky young people, who somehow managed to vote when everyone assumed they were too lazy to bother. Perhaps it was Nate Silver and his crazy belief in “theory” and “science.” Or the latest suspects: Martha Raddatz and Candy Crowley in the conservatory with the lead pipe.

Personally I love scapegoating as much as the next guy—was Jar Jar Binks really the only reason the Star Wars prequels were terrible?—but I can’t let them pin this one on Martha and Candy. Nor can I allow Republicans to pull an O.J.—stopping at nothing until they find the “real killers” of the 2012 campaign.

We know where they are. We know who they are. We’ve been here before. Years ago, as an escapee of the George W. Bush administration, I wrote a whole book about it. The only question is whether or not enough Republicans want to do anything to solve the problem.

This is not the first election cycle in which Republicans have been shell-shocked by reality. Six years earlier, Republicans across the country believed they would retain control of the House and Senate. That’s because Karl Rove and his acolytes in the Bush administration and the Republican Party told us so.

All the polls were wrong, they said. They were hopelessly biased or skewed by liberal media organizations out to suppress the vote. Republicans were more popular than people thought. Billionaire donors were urged to stick with the party and its leadership or pay the price. Anyone who disagreed with their thinking, including fellow Republicans, was a traitor, or a liar, or a dupe. Say, any of that sound familiar?

latimer-gop-finger-pointing-tease

 
American political consultant Karl Rove is seen at the Tampa Bay Times Forum during final preparations for the opening of the Republican National Convention on Aug. 27. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images)

In 2008, Republicans again preached the gospel of Rove and his allies—Ed Gillespie, Dana Perino, and basically everyone tied to American Crossroads. They told us that only John McCain could defeat this amateur, Barack Obama. Obama was too liberal for the electorate, they said. He had too much baggage. The country liked the Bush administration’s approach more than the “biased” polls let on. McCain was a perfect nominee because he was not an ideologue. (At one point after his loss to Bush in 2000, McCain even flirted with being a Democrat.) This guy was back and forth on so many issues that nobody was ever certain where he might land. That made him an ideal candidate to reach out to moderates and independents. Say, any of that sound familiar?

Ancient cultures show the way: China & Greece

While some are fearing that the Great Western Democracies will
become like China's system of National Communism, I think
that Greece is also competing by showing how a Gang of Oligarchs
can run everything.

Government in-bedded with business & spooning

Businesses having newspapers/tv as money-losing mouthpiece

This is what Greece teaches us. Nothing about debt, just governance.

You're beginning to see this (cuz you been slumbering) in the

Murdoch Escapades of late, like HackGate and the attempted

buying of the Republican Candidate (coming soon), that 

Murdoch's media buddies are rampantly ignoring.

Any 5-year-old raised on Batman and Spiderman

can recognise Gotham when he sees it

When I look at Rupe Murdoch,

I see the Joker.

When I find the Murdoch story, I'll post it above, under the title of

The Joker Strikes Again- to the Blogmobile!

For now, here's part of the Reuters story:

Read 'em: Reuters
Special Report: Greece's triangle of power
 
the country's crisis, say critics.

By Stephen Grey and Dina Kyriakidou
ATHENS (Reuters) - In late 2011 the Greek finance minister made an impassioned plea for help to rescue his country from financial ruin.
"We need a national collective effort: all of us have to carry the burden together," announced Evangelos Venizelos, who has since become leader of the socialist party PASOK. "We need something that will be fair and socially acceptable."
It was meant to be a call to arms; it ended up highlighting a key weakness in Greece's attempts to reform.
Venizelos' idea was a new tax on property, levied via electricity bills to make it hard to dodge. The public were furious and the press echoed the outrage, labeling the tax ‘haratsi' after a hated levy the Ottomans once imposed on Greeks. The name stuck and George Papandreou, then prime minister, felt compelled to plead with voters: "Let's all lose something so that we don't lose everything."

Applied Talebbing- or How to cause a black swan

For those who were impressed with the idea that
"a black swan can come along at any moment",
why wait for one. Create one yourself.

Taleb himself thinks that bottom-up
trial and error is the way to go. No use
waiting for a theory to end this cataclysm.
We'll be into the 22nd before anybody from
a university saves humanity.
I guess humanity will have to do the saving.

There's a great documentary on HFT trading
[I'll get it later]
that showed how a misreading of the news
media (because HFT computers crunch news,
as well as savings, and countries)
caused a flash crash two years ago.

Only the SEC in the US know who did it,
but they're not talking.

Anyway, here's more on how to

trip the algos

This may be the only option for mathematically-

inclined justice freaks, or say, Anonymous to 

try to kick off the cataclysm that we know the 

economy needs. We can feed on the bankers livers

with some farva beans and a glass of Chianti, and get

back to life like it was before 2008.

Let's cut to the video [check 22:50]

22:50 Algos misread a story

Let us pray for the Mother of all Swans:

my dear old Swanee

In this time of Autumn Austerity, do you know where bankers have spent their money?

Lobbying government for more tax loopholes, perhaps?

i just want to see what welfare moochers look like.
They tend to be found in dangerous capitalistic
office towers, stealing money from the market.

more later