conflict of interest at the US 'central' bank

[the usual suspects- a williambanzai7 masterpiece]
The Federal Reserve has been increasingly the focus
of investigations. So, now the obvious collusion
between banks and the US government to feed
the economy to the banks, is out in the open.

Bernie Sanders of Vermont is one of the few
members of congress who is doing his job.

Read 'em and weep: Ritholz 

Crony Capitalists of the Federal Reserve

By Guest Author - July 8th, 2012, 6:00AM

US Senator Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.)

Washington, DC

June 12, 2012

Jamie Dimon Is Not Alone

During the financial crisis, at least 18 former and current directors from Federal Reserve Banks worked in banks and corporations that collectively received over $4 trillion in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve.

    Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, has served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2007. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with $391 billion in total financial assistance. JP Morgan Chase was also used by the Fed as a clearinghouse for the Fed’s emergency lending programs.

    In March of 2008, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with $29 billion in financing to acquire Bear Stearns. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with an 18-month exemption from risk-based leverage and capital requirements. The Fed also agreed to take risky mortgage-related assets off of Bear Stearns balance sheet before JP Morgan Chase acquired this troubled investment bank.

    Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, served on the New York Fed’s Board of Directors from 2006-2011. General Electric received $16 billion in low-interest financing from the Federal Reserve’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility during this time period.

    Stephen Friedman. In 2008, the New York Fed approved an application from Goldman Sachs to become a bank holding company giving it access to cheap Fed loans. During the same period, Friedman, who was chairman of the New York Fed at the time, sat on the Goldman Sachs board of directors and owned Goldman stock, something the Fed’s rules prohibited. He received a waiver in late 2008 that was not made public. After Friedman received the waiver, he continued to purchase stock in Goldman from November 2008 through January of 2009 unbeknownst to the Fed, according to the GAO. During the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs received $814 billion in total financial assistance from the Fed.

    Sanford Weill, the former CEO of Citigroup, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in New York in 2006. During the financial crisis, Citigroup received over $2.5 trillion in total financial assistance from the Fed.

    Richard Fuld, Jr, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in New York from 2006 to 2008. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided $183 billion in total financial assistance to Lehman before it collapsed.

    James M. Wells, the Chairman and CEO of SunTrust Banks, has served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta since 2008. During the financial crisis, SunTrust received $7.5 billion in total financial assistance from the Fed.

    Richard Carrion, the head of Popular Inc. in Puerto Rico, has served on the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2008. Popular received $1.2 billion in total financing from the Fed’s Term Auction Facility during the financial crisis.

    James Smith, the Chairman and CEO of Webster Bank, served on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Directors in Boston from 2008-2010. Webster Bank received $550 million in total financing from the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility during the financial crisis.

    Ted Cecala, the former Chairman and CEO of Wilmington Trust, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in Philadelphia from 2008-2010. Wilmington Trust received $3.2 billion in total financial assistance from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.

    Robert Jones, the President and CEO of Old National Bancorp, has served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in St. Louis since 2008. Old National Bancorp received a total of $550 million in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility during the financial crisis.

    James Rohr, the Chairman and CEO of PNC Financial Services Group, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in Cleveland from 2008-2010. PNC received $6.5 billion in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.

    George Fisk, the CEO of LegacyTexas Group, was a director at the Dallas Federal Reserve in 2009. During the financial crisis, his firm received a $5 million low-interest loan from the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility.

    Dennis Kuester, the former CEO of Marshall & Ilsley, served as a board director on the Chicago Federal Reserve from 2007-2008. During the financial crisis, his bank received over $21 billion in low-interest loans from the Fed.

    George Jones, Jr., the CEO of Texas Capital Bank, has served as a board director at the Dallas Federal Reserve since 2009. During the financial crisis, his bank received $2.3 billion in total financing from the Fed’s Term Auction Facility.

    Douglas Morrison, was the Chief Financial Officer at CitiBank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, while he served as a board director at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank in 2006. During the financial crisis, CitiBank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota received over $21 billion in total financing from the Federal Reserve.

    L. Phillip Humann, the former CEO of SunTrust Banks, served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta from 2006-2008. During the financial crisis, SunTrust received $7.5 billion in total financial assistance from the Fed.

    Henry Meyer, III, the former CEO of KeyCorp, served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland from 2006-2007. During the financial crisis, KeyBank (owned by KeyCorp) received over $40 billion in total financing from the Federal Reserve.

    Ronald Logue, the former CEO of State Street Corporation, served as a board member of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank from 2006-2007. During the financial crisis, State Street Corporation received a total of $42 billion in financing from the Federal Reserve.

US Senator Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.)

Washington, DC

June 12, 2012

Jubilee and private debt

would  you rather that working people be bailed out,

or banks?

Well, we've got two economists and their perspectives.

you decide

Paul Krugman vs Steve Keen

1 Ritholz

The “Central Banks’ Central Bank” Slams the Federal Reserve

By Washingtons Blog - July 17th, 2012, 1:30AM

World’s Most Prestigious Financial Agency – Called the “Central Banks’ Central Bank” – Slams U.S. Economic Policy

The central banks’ central bank, the Bank of International Settlements or “BIS” – which is the world’s most prestigious mainstream financial body – has slammed the policy of America’s economic leaders.

This is especially dramatic given that the banks own the Federal Reserve, and that the Federal Reserve and other central banks – in turn – own BIS. In other words, BIS is criticizing one of its main owners.

Economics professor Michael Hudson notes:

    Paul Krugman has urged the Federal Reserve to simply lend banks an amount equal to their bad loans and negative equity (debts in excess of the market price of assets). He urges a “Keynesian” program of spending to re-inflate the economy back to bubble levels. This is the liberal answer: to throw money at the problem, without seeking structural reform.

... As the Telegraph noted reported in 2008:

    Nor does it exonerate the watchdogs. “How could such a huge shadow banking system emerge without provoking clear statements of official concern?”

        “Should governments feel it necessary to take direct actions to alleviate debt burdens, it is crucial that they understand one thing beforehand. If asset prices are unrealistically high, they must fall. If savings rates are unrealistically low, they must rise. If debts cannot be serviced, they must be written off.

***[PRIVATE debt OR BANKS’?]

2 zerohedge

Steve Keen On Why Debt Matters "All The Time" And The Need For "Quantitative Easing For The Public"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/07/2012 18:26 -0400

Following his somewhat epic blog debate with Paul Krugman, Steve Keen appears on Capital Account with Lauren Lyster to debunk more Keynesian propaganda and the kleptocratic status quo 'debt doesn't matter' arguments. Poking holes in the stable/exogenous shock equilibrium 'model' versus the real-world's dynamic systems, the Aussie economist warms up with the zero-interest rate conundrum and liquidity trap (at around 7:00); moves on to the empirical falseness of the debt-to-unemployment relationship (at around 11:00) - implying 'debt matters all the time' as Keen explains common-sensibly (but not Neoclassically) that the 'change in debt adds to demand' and that involves banks which breaks modern economic theory (since lending is credit creation not savings transfer).

Echoing the deleveraging from the Great Depression, it could take 15 years of unwinding this epic debt bubble before its all over - but not if the status quo of deficit spending is maintained - as Keen somewhat controversially concludes (at around 13:00) "you can't just cure this with deficit spending [since debt is already beyond the black-hole's 'event horizon'], you have to abolish the private debt as well" by "quantitative easing for the public".

Student loan debt and delinquency is also discussed and its self-referential ponzi-like nature (at around 16:00)...

Keen discusses his controversial idea of a debt-jubilee and the Debt Black Hole 'event horizon' that we are already in at around 19:00... (and notably at 24:30 he discusses how to avoid the 'moral-hazard' of a modern debt-jubilee with no 'advantage' to being in debt)

At around 20:30, Keen relates the drop in bankruptcies to the low interest rate environment warning that this will just lead to an endless zombie state like Japan...

Lie-borgate is discussed at around 21:00 with his view being that the outright fraud confirms his feeling that these bankers are behaving like a parasite on the host of the economy...

Austerity: a politician's wet dream

check for the wet spot.

It's now been revealed for anybody with two eyes and a brain.

Politicians are keeping us in austerity, even though they
know it doesn't work against debt, simply because
they don't want the debt grenade to blow up in their
laps.
That means, they know that if Greece leaves the Euro,
the whole rotten business will come crashing down
and then it's end-of-the-soup-line for most of us.

So, they say stuff like "just keep Greece going until
I can get elected"

That is what essentially was said by both Obama
and Angela Merkel. Either they think they're just
being practical, when talking to their colleagues,
in their "crisis" meetings, or they've lost their minds.

Now, Karl Denninger, whose a good researcher,
but whose stuff I find hard to support, is dead
right when he flags up this political expediency
stuff.

(from GREEK NEWS) GERMANY WANT 

EVERYONE TO WAIT UNTIL SEPTEMBER 2013, 

FOR ITS ELECTIONS. 

SO, SAVING THE PLANET FROM 

MAN-MADE ECONOMIC DISASTER 

IS AN ISSUE OF POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY ONLY.

FOR THEM TO ASK FOR THIS MEANS THAT 

SOLVING ANY BANKING PROBLEM 

IS OUT OF THE QUESTION. 

IT’S JUST A WAITING GAME, 

OR A MEXICAN STANDOFF WITH THE INEVITABLE CRASH.

WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE 

WHO ARE STARVING TO DEATH? 

 what do you say?:

"WAIT A SEC. ANGELA WANTS TO GET ELECTED, OKAY. 

GIVE US BACK THE CHICKEN YOU STOLE. COME ON!

You'll get 20 years.

starving thief: Do you get 3 meals a day?

GREECE IS GONNA RIDE WITH THIS IN ITS SATCHELL, 

OFF INTO THE SUNSET. "THANKS FOR THE FREE RIDE"

The G8 have set themselves up for blackmail, unless

they're willing to kill off some Greek politicians. I'm for

either solution.

Read 'em: DENNINGER

Obama: "Please Don't Let Greece Leave!"

Here it comes -- from Greece.

    The Obama administration will pressure European governments not to let Greece fall out of the eurozone before November's Presidential elections, British Government sources have suggested.

This is truly amusing and it appears Obama and his minions have absolutely no clue how destructive such a "request" really is.

Not because it might or might not be granted, but because Greece will discover it (ok, just did) and now has a weapon to use that it didn't before.

In International political matters "screw off" is always an option, and the threat to say that is often at least as effective as actually doing it.

I would normally be stunned at the idioicy of such a request by the Obama administration but I am far beyond believing that the current administration has any sort of ability to appreciate the second-order effects of what it does -- and as such, I suspect this conversation really did take place, and that Obama really is this dumb.

a Swedish trap, set with wronged white women

[this is the part of Tosca where Callas gives the knock-out one-two]
No white folk want to see "their women" defiled, and
if Assange were black or Muslim (the Dodi Theory),
he'd already be dead.

But, I digress. If you're not a conspiracy person,
and I am not, you need to be convinced that,
because of who Assange is, he is being politically
assassinated. If you need to be convinced,
then take it from a British diplomat, who
is well-versed in that kind of politics, but who
had enough morals to reject his orders. That
caused him to be fired and politically assassinated.

His conspiracy: Russia Today (America's best reporting)

US war on whistleblowers must end - Assange (VIDEO)

Published: 19 August, 2012, 17:21

Edited: 20 August, 2012, 05:31

Julian Assange made his first public appearance in two months, ever since he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Addressing the hundreds of people gathered outside the embassy, Assange thanked them for their support, claiming it was their resolve and presence that stopped British police storming the building.

"On Wednesday night, after a threat was sent to this embassy and police descended on this building, you came out in the middle of the night to watch over it, and you brought the worlds eyes with you. Inside this embassy after dark I could hear teams of police swarming up into the building through the internal fire escape," Assange said.

…‘Assange case part of long history of whistleblower-smearing’

Political activist Craig Murray, a former British Ambassador whose publications implicated the CIA and MI6 in using evidence obtained through torture, noted that the allegations that Assange was involved in a sexual assault are part of a long list of dubious charges brought against other whistleblowers.

“Unfortunately, there’s a long history of whistleblowers being smeared and charged with crimes unrelated to their whistleblowing, because, obviously, it’s quite difficult for states to convict people for telling the truth about state misdemeanors,” he told RT. “So what you do is you frame them with other charges, very often sexual charges because that destroys the person’s reputation.”

Murray pointed to the fact that he was charged with extorting sexual favors in exchange for visas during his tenure as ambassador to Uzbekistan shortly after he blew the whistle on torture.

“And I am by no means the only one. Janis Karpinsky, who blew the whistle on Donald Rumsfeld’s sanctioning of torture at Abu Ghraib, was charged with shoplifting, for example.

move your money. banks don't need it anymore

It seems strange what banks are doing now. They have not been
choked to death and are instead going to start abusing customers
by demanding fees for keeping and investing the money of
those customers.

Of  course, people should move their money to a cooperative
or credit union, but the banks are so far beyond that, that it
won't do them any harm.  

THEY DON’T   NEED OUR 

(SAVINGS) MONEY ANYMORE. 

THEY’VE GOT 

ACCESS TO THE TAP 

WHERE OUR FUTURE MONEY IS KEPT;  

our governments

read 'em and weep: Move your money   

The Move Your Money project is a nonprofit campaign that encourages individuals and institutions to divest from the nation's largest Wall Street banks and move to local financial institutions. Little has changed to prevent another financial crisis or to end 'Too Big To Fail,' and with Congress unwilling to act, we are encouraging individuals to take power into their own hands by voting with their dollars and no longer contributing to a financial system that has led our country astray. We are a campaign that gives people real, concrete actions they can take to create a more sane, stable and localized banking system.

the Gold volcano is ready

[the quality of gold. shaken, and stirred]
UPDATE2: gold shot up 35 bucks to 1690.
Michael Krieger seems to think that this is positioning
before Jackson Hole, and that powers will hit gold
back down, unless they need to let it rise for reasons
of allowing reality to seep in.

UPDATE: the shine has come off. It's back down
-$15. This could be another in a long line of
Soros pump-and-dump stories.

the text:
with molten hot gold. I've been making fun of the gold
bugs for a while now, but there seems to be a rumbling
in the markets. Gold has gone up by at least 3% in
the last week.

SORRY:
According to Kitco, since July 30 or thereabouts
(I find it hard to interpret their graphs)
GOLD has gone from 1590 to 1670, or +$80.
That's almost exactly 5%, in less than a month.

Bill Murphy is saying this was expected and there's
more to come. I'd heard this stuff so many times
from the gold porn sites that I was ignoring it,
but I look at the graph every day on Max's site.

It seems odd, but Ned Naylor
Leyland from London was saying on a major
channel (check below), when talking about Libor,
rather meekly, that perhaps there's manipulation
elsewhere, like in the gold and silver markets.
i.e. comex paper trading.
Tucker at the Bank of England has also stated as much.

It's odd how Ned is being allowed to say that in public
now. He, Max Keiser and many others have known the truth
for years, but it's only when it gets out to the MSM
that that something might happen. Maybe it has caused a seismic shift.
Or maybe this is being game-theoried by Soros, as he's just
dumped a ton of stock garbage and picked up gold.

I personally don't know how they're gonna side-step the
derivative paper scam of JPMorgan and get gold moving,
but no governments are gonna like this in the short-term.
We could get hyperinflation as currencies fall. People starve,
and then bye-bye government. Permanently.

Or this could be Goldman Sachs readying their take-over
of the world, once they get JPM out of the way. GS
is situated well in the US, and in European political circles.

Let's cut to the video:

Read 'em: Hang the Bankers New world order operative George Soros dumps his stocks, buys $130m of gold
17 Aug 2012
by Jacque Fresco
In a harbinger of what may be coming our way in the Fall of 2012, billionaire financier George Soros has sold all of his equity positions in major financial stocks according to a 13-F report filed with the SEC for the quarter ending June 30, 2012.
Soros, who manages funds through various accounts in the US and the Cayman Islands, has reportedly unloaded over one million shares of stock in financial companies and banks that include Citigroup (420,000 shares), JP Morgan (701,400 shares) and Goldman Sachs (120,000 shares). The total value of the stock sales amounts to nearly $50 million.
What’s equally as interesting as his sale of major financials is where Soros has shifted his money. At the same time he was selling bank stocks, he was acquiring some 884,000 shares (approx. $130 million) of Gold via the SPDR Gold Trust.[PAPER GOLD.REHYP]
When a major global player with direct ties to the White House, Wall Street, and the banking system starts off-loading stocks and starts stacking gold, it suggests a very serious market move is set to happen.
While often lambasted for his calls to centralize global banking, increase government intervention in the economy and his support of what he has called an “emergence of the new world order,” if there’s anyone with an inside track of where things are headed next it’s Soros.
Soros, who has written extensively of a coming global paradigm shift in his book The Crash of 2008 and What It Means, calling the current economic and political model ”an end of an era,” has recently suggested that the financial and economic situation across the world is so serious that Europe could soon descend into chaos and conflict. He also notes that the world is entering “one of the most dangerous periods in modern history”, and foresees violent riots in America and a brutal clamp-down by the government that will dramatically curtail civil liberties.
This is an individual who not only predicted the collapse of 2008 and took action to insulate himself, he also proposed the various fixes that governments in Europe and the US would eventually implement in order to stave off a deflationary depression. In his aforementioned book he suggested that central banks infuse the system with massive amounts of monetary expansion, but also warned that not injecting enough money would simply extend the onset of deflation and printing too much could lead to hyperinflationary currency collapse.