Libor Exposure Of Banker Corruption, Bank Of England And U.S. Fed Both Implicated

[Amanda]

Okay, it's really hard for me to follow this financial info, but I thought it was interesting that Jim Willie was willing to note the shared "ethnic strain" of the executives of the biggest banks.  Also thought the info on 911 (last section) was interesting was well--I wonder if anyone has actually tabulated the amount of money they made off of 911 (money from the wars, banking debt, getting the drug trade up and running to prop up the banks, the military insdustrial complex, security industrial complex, etc)


Libor Exposure Of Banker Corruption, Bank Of England And U.S. Fed Both Implicated

By JIm Willie

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article35468.html

Few observers make the connection, but the current LIBOR scandal is a middle inning of two important events. The first is the demise of the Western banker leadership crew. The executives from the most powerful banks will be last to be deposed, all sharing an ethnic strain. The second is the open fracture of the Western financial system. Over the past few years, to be sure a great many people have grown tired of Jackass descriptions of corruption within the banking sector and financial system in general. Well, hear this: TOLD YA SO! The London Interbank Offered Rate scandal will erupt into an uncontrollable firestorm, hitting one chamber and then the next, with rapid contagion.

The Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve are both implicated, but they will skate until the end game. They control the prosecutors and the news networks. Few yet connect the LIBOR rigged prices to the important parts of the financial kingdom run by the harried banker elite. The supposedly informed experts point to the rigged low rates for adjustable rate mortgages, for credit cards, and for student loans. Only the ARM rate is important among these, since it kept and housing bubble going. If truth be told, the LIBOR anomalies have persisted since late 2008. The intrepid first class forensic bond analyst Rob Kirby linked the sordid trails and mismatched discrepancies of the LIBOR to the JPMorgan monsterthe US Federal Reserve syndicate ring leader, and the USDept Treasury (haven for Goldman Sachs lieutenants). See his 2008 article on Financial Sense (CLICK HERE). Regulators have done nothing for four years. It was not fully appreciated at the time, like it might be today. The LIBOR should match the settled EuroDollar contract, but it has not for years. The evidence for price rig has been glaring for years. The big banks have skimmed the difference for profit for years. Imagine selling milk or concrete with a variation in price at the wholesale level, enabling vast profits from skimming. It has been permitted for the big banks, a grand blemish on an already scarred sector.

Anyone with a solid intelligence quotient, a curious manner, and a suspicious streak can detect the recent trail. The MFGlobal client account thefts were a coming out event for the corruption. The JPMorgan margin calls on various positions had become an acute problem. They were very short on cash. With the upcoming December 2011 gold & silver delivery notices adding strain to the near breakpoint, JPMorgan made a decision. They stole the MFGlobal client accounts. They reneged on all precious metals contract delivery. They put all the to-be-delivered metal in their own account. Mission Accomplished, the catch phrase for unspeakable colossal permitted corruption in the USGovt and US financial markets. The losses in May by JPMorgan in the sovereign bond and Interest Rate Swap arena provided the Prima Facie case for the MFGlobal thefts, showing deep losses that will escalate over time. The officials at JPM have been telling scattered truths over the course of the last several weeks. They admit at times that their profound losses are tied to Interest Rate Swaps, which experienced analysts and traders can tell are for defense of the USTreasury Bonds and their entirely unwarranted 0% yield.

LIBOR CONNECTED TO INTEREST RATE SWAPS

The annual now chronic $1.5 trillion USGovt deficits must be financed. They should be financed at a Spain-like 7% yield. The two nations have equally wrecked finances and an equal unemployment rate. But doing so would be far too disruptive. But doing so would be far too costly. But doing so would take away the wellspring of cheap money for the speculation. The big banks enjoy a brisk carry trade off the USTreasury curve that makes easy profits. No other industry is granted such risk free profits. So enter the IRSwap to generate an artificial USTBond rally from a phony engineered flight to safety. The thought of a flight to the safety of massive uncontrollable USGovt toxic debt pit is laughable on its face. The LIBOR price rig has enabled virtually free funds for the IRSwap that supports the vast 0% USTBond tower.

The next connection will soon be revealed. The IRSwaps are fed by the deep source fountain of LIBOR, at virtually free cost. It bears repeating. Too much attention is given to the adjustable rate mortgage feeder process. Not enough is given to the derivatives that are abused by the financial sector in unregulated shadow systems. The big banks have sold too many multiples of Credit Default Swap insurance, to the point that both counter-parties are dead. No net neutrality is a reflection of reality. Too legless swimmers do not rescue each other in the deep waters. They both drown, just like the bank parties involved. However, the big story is the Interest Rate Swap contracts, those arbitraged long-term bond swaps versus short-term bond swaps that enable free money to finance the levers that control the long maturity for the USTBonds. Anyone who believes the TNX fell from 3.6% in 2011 to under 1.8% was from a flight to quality is either drinking Wall Street kool-aid or duped by their marketing flyers or captivated by media propaganda or just plain stupid. The vested interest in watching the 10-year USTBond yield go into ultra-low territory is all very understandable. Many financial asset prices depend upon a low benchmark bond yield.

But the reality is that foreign creditors abandoned the USGovt debt auctions. The reality is that primary dealers to those auctions found themselves stuck with inventory. The reality is that an avalanche of USGovt debt supply could not be handled with absent demand. The reality is that the USGovt borrowing costs required, if not demanded, ultra-low yields to prevent a worse explosion in deficits. The only true aspect of the flight into USTreasurys is that the European sovereign bonds have turned toxic. But the Europeans are far more likely to purchase German Bunds, and they have, driving their yields lower than the USTBonds. Some arbitrage has pulled the two to almost equal, evidence that IRSwaps are at work in the Bund backyard.  The story will come out soon enough, how the LIBOR rate was rigged extremely low in order to facilitate management of the ultra-low 0% Fed Funds rate, and to enable the IRSwaps to do their magic in keeping down the long-term USTBond yield.The LIBOR has been and continues to be the feeder system for the IRSwaps that enforce the 0% and 1.5% yields on FedFunds and TNX. The factor is mentioned on financial networks with quick passing and no emphasis. They still sell the flight to safety rubbish story.

FASCIST BUSINESS MODEL FLOURISHES

The Fascist Business Model is not just showing its bitter fruit after the Bush II Admin came to office in 2001. It is flourishing in a climax of failure. The model does not simply permit financial crime. It encourages it. It promotes it. It rewards it. The higher powers organize it and run it. The result is not simply tolerated financial crime. It enables financial crime to flourish. The USAttorney General office sits on its hands. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission sits on its hands. The Securities & Exchange Commission sits on its hands. The financial press ignores the crime, or minimizes it, or explains it away. They all pay lipservice to enforcement of regulations and securities fraud. The outcome is a mindnumbing episode of financial fraud, theft, and collusion that the nation has never witnessed in its entire history. The outcome is an extreme strangle of the nation around its financial neck. In Jackass writings over the last several year, the word 'corruption' has appeared many times in almost every public article. That is because corruption appeared in every direction the trained eye was cast. For some articles, the word appeared over 20 times, and deservedly. My attention to corruption is steadfast and consistent. Corruption is Wall Street's calling card. It will bear the epitaph of the nation.

The Fascist Business Model practices brought the nation the Too Big To Fail rationale that permitted insolvency and corruption from syndicate strongholds.
Worse, the practiced model has brought the United States as a nation to the doorstep of systemic failure. The ripening LIBOR scandal is an extension of the MFGlobal theft and a close cousin to the deep JPMorgan losses. The entire US and London financial structure is collapsing. Instead of perceiving the European sovereign bond problem as having a related plague in the US and UK, the arrogant bankers preferred to conduct business as usual with IRSwap props of the fake USTBond tower. They preferred to rig the LIBOR channel that feeds the derivative pool, which include the all-important IRSwaps for maintaining the 0% artificial world. They preferred to point to the United States as different. It is not different. It is rotten from the inside due to 0%, whereas Southern Europe is rotten from the outside, manifested by the 7% alarm level.

The following stories, themes, and factors all serve as symptoms of corruption and failure. The failure is in part a result of the corruption. The corruption is intertwined with grotesque inefficiency, since the best in class do not prevail. The corruption sidetracks capitalism to reward the corrupt while inhibiting the successful and efficient. The most connected and thus corrupt not only prevail, but they rule. The following stories, themes, and factors are the handiwork of the US and London banker elite. The list is long but in no way complete, as the criminal activity is laced throughout the entire system. They will someday appear on indictment lists. To date the court rulings have almost all featured non-admission of guilt or any culpability, only details on settlement for the charges to go away. That greases the civil lawsuits away from continued awards. Regard such deals as fascist justice, more queer fruit. The decay of the nation is best seen not in economic output but in ethics. To be sure, the USEconomy is mired in a powerful recession that has extended for almost five years. The true protection from the systemic criminality is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

NAKED SHORTS ON PRECIOUS METALS

For two decades the bank cartel has been selling Gold & Silver futures contracts without collateral. They are exempted from regulatory action and prosecution, as part of some absurd position in national security. The practice covers the USGovt gold treasure, long gone, gutted, pilfered. On February 29th of this year, JPMorgan alone sold a full year of global silver mine output in a single hour. This is obscene. Compared to several years ago, the Big Four US banks have twice as big naked short contract position for precious metals. Refer to JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs. They all have pretty logos. They are not making America stronger. They are extending the criminal financial structures and their lifespan, giving room for zombies to roam. They enable a fiat USDollar currency to continue longer, despite the absent faith and trust no longer held in it globally. A parallel takes place, like with the Alpha Group for naked shorting Canadian mining stocks through their handy outlet Canaccord. If individuals attempted to naked short any futures contracts, they would be prosecuted and tossed in prison, their assets confiscated. The criminality is vast. The true protection from toxic paper contracts and paper certificates is obtained and secured by owning physical precious metals, never in paper form of any kind. Best in bullion bars and coins.

QUANTITATIVE EASING & OPERATION TWIST

The magnitude of bond purchase is astronomical, best described as Weimar-like. The printing of USDollars on electronic devices for the purpose of buying USTreasury Bonds that the world no longer demands in order to cover the gargantuan USGovt debts is out of control. The entire process is obscene and loaded with deception. The public and investment community is told repeatedly of a flight to quality and safety. There is neither quality in a Weimar rag known as the USTBond, nor safety in a junk bond with $1.5 trillion in annual deficits put to securities each year. The USFed does not have in its charter any feature to purchase 70% of the total sale of USTBonds in 2011, for instance. Operation Twist is a grand lie, a deception to cover the monetization of all 30-year USTBonds ever issued. It is a deception to enable foreign creditors to dump unwanted long maturity USTBonds, in favor of very short-term USTBills. The foreign creditors are eager to let the clock run out and have these bonds mature. Think exit. If corporations were to issue bonds without the demand of buyers, and float them in the market like a huge tributary from a toxic river, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from the hyper monetary inflation is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

MORTGAGE MARKET LAWSUITS & OBSCENITIES

The entire housing bubble was made possible by broad and deep corruption of every conceivable process within mortgage finance. People were approved to purchase homes without verified income. Home loans were approved without down payment. Homes were approved for sale without proper appraisal. Interest rates assigned to loans were often linked to corrupted LIBOR rates. The Wall Street banks shoved the income stream from a given mortgage into multiple securitized bonds. They covered their tracks with the MERS title database, intended to facilitate the frequent sale of property and more importantly the bonds tied to their income streams. The MERS lacked legal standing though, and their entire process was fraudulent. The court cases in several states discarded bank claims on foreclosure, with rulings that a database could not hold a property title. Why anybody pays a monthly mortgage anymore remains a mystery. It could be associated with a Pavlov response to flipping the calendar to a new month.

The climax for the obscene mortgage market practices came with the openly publicized robotic signature process on documents to foreclose and evict homeowners from their homes. The process went so far as to evict with sheriff assistance some people who owned their homes free and clear, the loans fully paid. The insult to the nation was foreclosure and eviction of standing military soldiers in service for the syndicate and oil companies. The docket for investor lawsuits for lax and nonexistent loan underwriting, followed by misrepresentation of bonds for sale, is hardly complete. If small companies committed the same contract fraud, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from the fraudridden bond parade and obscene wreckage of home equity (lost American Dream) is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

T.A.R.P. FUNDS

The TARP Funds chapter will go down in US history as the biggest open visible scam perpetrated in public view. No close second. The big banks appealed for USGovt aid in order to keep their credit engines humming, to prevent a lockup in lending, to save the USEconomy, a noble gesture. Instead, they bought corporate preferred stock and handed out gigantic bonuses to the architects of the housing and mortgage finance bubble & bust. They did so without shame, in your face. The $700 billion might have served as effective smokescreen, since the USFed was very busy behind the scenes. The USGovt should have demanded clawback on the entirety of the ill-gotten funds. But the USGovt financial squad is run by the big US banks. Refer to the Fascist Business Model and its expansive bitter fruit. Also in the background was a nifty grant of $138 billion to JPMorgan on a Saturday morning session in Manhattan by a bankruptcy court, supposedly to replenish funds for private accounts assumed in a merger. It was more like a JPM reload for intervening in the gold and currency markets. If ordinary companies committed the same fiduciary violation for misuse of borrowed funds, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from the slush fund river is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

USFED $23 TRILLION GRANTS

While the nation was deeply entranced by the financial system breakdown marred by the Lehman Brothers killjob, the USFed was busy dispensing near 0% loans in $16 trillion volume to big banks across the world, but primarily in New York and London. It was like a Who's Who list, or more accurately owners of the USFed itself and their best friends. Disclosure forced by the USCongress resulted in mere observation of receipts long after the fact. The barn door once again was closed briefly after the horses were let loose for new owner capture. A repeat episode occurred only a year later, as another $7 trillion was dispensed to a similar gang. Al Capone himself would be proud of such patterned behavior. The United States is the only industrial nation that does not possess its own central bank. The nation is a colony for rape and pillage by trillionaire castle dwellers. If regional banks committed the same reckless loans as favors to Board members and friends, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from the slush fund river is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

PILFERING FANNIE MAE & FREDDIE MAC

The raids, counterfeit, and other grand larceny of the OFHEO agencies is legendary. The Sopranos showed the modus operandi. Obtain a phony appraisal of a rotten property. Lock in the loan. Buy the property for a fraction of the loan amount. Then make no payments and abscond with the loaned funds. Easy as pie. The Papa Bush Admin and Clinton Admin went one further. They simply stole from the Fannie Mae cash register and snagged a mountain of counterfeit bonds with Fannie Mae markings, to the tune of $1.5 trillion, or $1500 billion for the math challenged. The audits conducted by Catherine Austin Fitts stand on the record in verifying the volume in theft. The funds are devoted to private accounts and to black bag operations by the agencies. After all, they must keep America safe and strong. When China began to sell in earnest from their vast supply of Fannie bonds in 2007 and 2008, the USGovt had to take action. So they nationalized the toxic cesspool. Their action served to conceal the criminality and to prevent an audit. Leadership has become privilege and license for theft. The Fannie stock shares went to zero, exactly as the Jackass forecasted in 2006 and 2007. If other financial firms committed the same embezzlement of funds and engaged in counterfeit activity, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from the toxic cesspool under USGovt aegis is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

LOOTING FORT KNOX

The Clinton & Rubin Admin had a mission. They pulled it off well. The experienced savvy Robert Rubin moved from the London Gold Desk at Goldman Suchs to take control of the USDept Treasury. His first act and deed was to mark the gold lease rate at near 0%, and thus to embark on the Gold Carry Trade. The big winners would the privileged Wall Street banks with access to leased USGovt gold held in Fort Knox. Their ill-gotten gains must have totaled at least $2 trillion from leveraged shorts in the gold futures market. Couple the counter-trade in rising USTBonds, also with leverage applied, and the gains must have totaled at least $7 trillion. Pretty handsome profit for the Syndicate during an eight-year span. They called it the Decade of Prosperity. But it rendered the United States as a nation a sure bet for systemic failure in a decade's time from hollowed out insolvency and ruin. Like now. The Jackass prefers to call it the Decade of Stolen Prosperity. Moronic political observers long for the good ole days of Clinton and all that prosperity, without realizing the pilferage of the entire Fort Knox, the Gold Carry Trade, or anything sordid in nature. They are naive fools.

A colleague has a personal friend in charge of security at Fort Knox. He reports they stand guard over Fort Knox alright, but it contains a vast inventory of nerve gas cannisters, and zero gold. The US as a nation has no collateral to back its USDollar currency. The US bank officials refuse to conduct an audit of the gold. The insiders declare that an audit would give emphasis to its importance and value. The laughter is raucous when reading the Office for the Comptroller to the Currency reports, when the ledger item of Deep Storage Gold is read. It is merely unmined ore in Western mountain deposits. The USGovt is in posssession of zero gold. If individuals in other nations were to make off with the national gold treasure, they would be prosecuted for treason and theft, then given a public hanging. The criminality is vast. The true protection from absent collateral to the USDollar is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

PHONY BANK ACCOUNTING

In April 2009, a critical event occurred. The Financial Accounting Standards Board in charge of setting accounting rules declared that the big US banks would be permitted to set any value they chose for their wrecked balance sheets. The prominent insolvent gang of banks teetering in ruins could set as they wished book value or original value for balance sheet items, when zero was the more accurate valuation. The defense of the Too Big To Fail mantra began. The excuse of challenges to find credit worthy borrowers hit the scene. That was a lie, since strong borrowers were routinely refused loans. The credit engines for the USEconomy had been wrecked, no longer functioning. Actually, the credit benefit had turned negative, evidence of slippage within the system. The obscenity continues with a charade of Credit Value Adjustments and raids to Loan Loss Reserves every quarter earnings report. Without such malfeasance to accounting, the big US banks would regularly show deep quarterly losses. Even the financial press objects, calling the earnings tainted. If ordinary corporations were to engage in such accounting fraud, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from fraudulent accounting and vast fiduciary violations is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

FLASH TRADING & UNIX BOX

In 2010, a nasty event struck with revelation of computers gone amok on the New York Stock Exchange. The deep decline on a single day demonstrated the absence of indigenous investors in a land overrun by computers. The details came out slowly. The NYSE volume had been at least 80% computer trades routinely. The big Wall Street firms were selling to each other, running up the stock prices in a levitation fraud process. It was an orchestrated internal Ponzi exercise. Yet the plum story was the Goldman Suchs internal unix box that caught a peek at the order flow, placed orders in front of the flow, and ripped small profits on millions of trades. When the unix box and software was captured by a Russian fellow in order to expose the syndicate, he was branded a criminal. The FBI rushed to arrest him at the airport. Rumors swirled that the software was being sold on the black market. He was quietly taken care of. The entire episode was contained. Goldman Suchs was never prosecuted, even protected by the vast USGovt army. The integrity of the New York Stock Exchange was kept at the same corrupt level. Activity resumed. If ordinary investors were to engage in such criminal insider devices, they would be prosecuted and tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from rigged and violated markets is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

AUCTION MUNI BONDS

Two years ago, a rigged falsified auction market was revealed. The items sold were typically municipal bonds. It was another corrupted market in a parade of corrupted markets, organized and led by the same cast of Wall Street characters. Lawsuits were settled. Settlements were cut. No admission of guilt was made. The game might have been shut down, unclear. If ordinary market makers were to engage in such criminal pricing activities, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from rigged and violated markets is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

INFLUENCE ON USCONGRESS

The big US banks have kept the scam going. They control the USDept Treasury through their Goldman Suchs conduit and headhunter passageway. They engage in lofty campaign donations to Congressional members. The list of donations is on the public record. To date, the Obama campaign and the Romney campaign have each received over $300 million from the banker lobby. These criminals have covered both red and blue on the political roulette wheel of bets. The irony is that one might consider the TARP Funds themselves as the slush fund for such political donations. The wheel of political influence turns. As H.L.Mencken said a century ago, the USCongress is the best that money can buy. The influence enables Wall Street banks to write legislation for its own reform. To be sure, compromises were made, like to split off proprietary trading but with fuzzy rules. The asterisk is the audit of the USFed itself. The devotion to the bankers was seen in June when JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon visited the Finance Committe for soft lobs. An opportunity was lost. The genuflection was obvious. The only tough questions came from two Senators who receive nothing from the banker lobby. All but those two kissed Dimon's ring. The unflappable CEO appeared to holding court before his minions. If ordinary individuals were to be confronted for their reckless and criminal activities, they would be subjected to a harsh line of questioning and possible prosecution. The criminality is vast. The true protection from compromised politicians is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

ROLE PROGRAMS LIKE MADOFF FUND

One of the biggest shocks to the Jackass in recent years was the revelation by a deep banker source of the so-called Role Programs. Many were described, all managed by the USDept Treasury and the Bank of England, its master. The volume of criminal fraud and scams is in the hundreds of $billions. One such scheme was the Madoff Fund thefts. The public was told repeatedly that Madoff made off with $50 billion in funds, with many victims left in the lurch. The true figure was $160 billion in stolen funds. The search was on to locate the funds, when the officials knew exactly where the funds were safely located and stored. Yet another charade, much like searching for the MFGlobal funds, all safely kept in JPMorgan London accounts. The Madoff funds were located in Switzerland for safe keeping. The banks involved all had one national trait in common, from a small nation on the Southern Mediterranean that looked northwest to Italy across the sea. The banks were all protected by some very strange laws in Switzerland that forbid investigation of fraud. Many other role programs continue to this day, details not to be provided here. Some nations have outstanding arrest warrants for US bank leaders, who travel only to England and Switzerland with confidence. If ordinary managed funds were to be scrutinized for criminal activities, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in to prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from profound high level fraudulent schemes is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

HIDDEN GREEK GOVT DEBT

Goldman Suchs was the focus two years ago when the actual Greek Govt debt was revealed to be greater than originally submitted for qualification entry into the European Monetary Union. The Greek Govt falsified their club application with collusion from GSuchs. The fraud was a big currency swap to conceal the true level of their government debt. They were made to look healthier than was actually the case. GSuchs has been given a pass, no prosecution in any nation. Arthur Anderson was not given such benefit. In fact, the GSuchs crew was invited to supply a lieutenant to lead Italy, no justice seen. Such bonuses are typical even after criminal fraud is revealed for syndicate titans. The wreckage of Greece is not yet complete, but far along. GSuchs had a big hand, spreading their special cancer wherever they roam. Victims are banks across Europe, London, and New York. More currency swaps are suspected in other Southern European nation financial submissions. If ordinary corporations were to engage in such accounting fraud, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from fraudulent accounting and vast fiduciary violations at the highest level is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

NARCO MONEY LAUNDERING

It is fast becoming a well known fact, even common knowledge in the financial industry. The big US banks are heavily dependent upon narcotics money laundering from sale conducted by the protected USGovt agencies. The American citizens seem the last to know. The details are dangerous to cite, surely not privy to the Jackass. The United Nations drug task force first identified the money laundering activity back in 2008 and 2009. Nothing has been done. In a case from 2008, Wachovia was found guilty of money laundering for narcotics activity in Mexico. The outcome was a veritable farce. The settlement involved a fine equal to 3/100ths of a penny per dollar processed. They could have at least forced a dime for dollar in the money laundering. The US press emphasized the fine paid and minimized the volume processed. The big US banks are all involved in such money laundering. They are big, broken, insolvent, and wrecked. They are as hollow from the criminal activity of bond fraud, accounting fraud, and laundering activity, as a cocaine addict is hollowed from the internal organs and rotten teeth. If ordinary corporations were to engage in such money laundering, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from organized crime is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

IRAQ & IRAN SHUN OF USDOLLAR

The 2003 charade was given focus on weapons of mass destruction posssessed by Iraq. A war was waged. A hefty supply of gold bullion bars was stolen from Baghdad at their central bank. The amount was not reported or learned. The charade went so far as to show video clips of snagged yellow bars, not gold, but wooden bars painted yellow. Quite the production to cover the theft of a national gold treasure. It belonged to the Iraqi people, not Saddam Hussein. A similar charade has been playing for the last several months over Iran. The public is told of a Iran nuclear weapons factory threat. The story is old and stale, having been recited to a foolish audience for a few years running. The weapons of mass destruction did not exist in Iraq. WMD story was a cover for cause in war, to cover the fact that Saddam had been selling crude oil in Euros. The key fact was sale outside the USDollar. The USGovt reacted by protecting its sacred Petro-Dollar. The parallel to today is clear for the enlightened, who are few in number. The Iran threat is not nuclear, not of weapons of mass destruction. The common architect for the phony story is that small nation on the Southern Mediterranean. Keep it vague in identification. The parallel violation by Iran is selling crude oil outside the USDollar. The American and European public are being for fools again. Iran is accepting gold or trade credits in swap deals. This is a banker sham on the highest stage, putting the world at risk of a dangerous war. The extension to SWIFT bank codes used as a weapon shows the banker hand of involvement. Misrepresentation for war cause is not a crime, but it is a travesty nonetheless. It leads to lost credibility for international leading nations, like the United States and Great Britain. The betrayal of trust is vast. The true protection from unscrupulous brinkmanship is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

MOTIVE FOR LIBERATING LIBYA

To be sure, Muammar Qaddafi was an evil man, a psychotic man, and a thief to his own people. Liberation of the Libyan nation was a good deed. But the hidden motive has been revealed. The London and Western European banks hold 144 tons of Libyan gold. It has not been returned. It is too desperately needed. Conditions for its return to a legitimate Libyan Govt have been laid out. Do not expect them ever to be satisfied, in the eyes of the banks holding the gold tonnage. The actual events told of NATO armies working toward thel liberation might or might not be true. It makes one wonder if Syria owns any gold. Misrepresentation for war cause is not a crime, but it is a travesty nonetheless. It leads to lost credibility for international leading nations, like those holding the Libyan gold treasure. The betrayal of trust is vast. The true protection from unscrupulous brinkmanship is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

MISSING IRAQ FUNDS

In 2006 and 2007, a big story circulated about missing Iraqi Reconstruction Funds. The diminutive leader Bush Jr declared that $50 billion in missing funds was acceptable in the grand scheme of things, called ordinary leakage. It is not clear what grand scheme he referred to. Perhaps the grand scheme of big US bank and big US defense contractor fraud. The overcharging cases for Halliburton violations are like a mosaic on a billboard for all to see. They have regularly been deemed as minor in scope, not worthy of prosecution. They have usually be settled with small fines, a mere fraction of the fraud involved. But the missing funds continue to this day. It is in the Jackass opinion that one of the primary motives to continue to endless wars is to perpetuate the frauds and stolen funds. The guardians are nowhere. The enforcement is imaginary. The thefts are encouraged and permitted. If ordinary corporations were to engage in such fraud and thefts, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from pillbox raids is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

ALLOCATED GOLD ACCOUNTS

The revelation of banker criminality has only begun. The culmination in the opinion of my best banker source is come before too many more months. Attention focuses now on the LIBOR price rig scandal. It will extend to the USTBond and Interest Rate Swap artificial props. It will extend in a climax event for exposure that Allocated Gold accounts across the Western world have been confiscated, sold, and replaced with shabby paper gold certificates illegally. Numerous class action lawsuits are in progress in Switzerland, kept out of the news. They total several $billion in combined size. However, the account raid practice has been widespread in Europe, London, and United States. The scope of the seized and raided Allocated gold accounts is enormous. This will be the biggest banker scandal in modern history. The scope involves at least 20 thousand tons of missing gold, and possibly as much as 40 thousand tons missing. The lid will blow off the concealed story before long. The news networks in Switzerland have been dutiful in keeping the story quiet. Not for much longer. It is not the only nation involved, no way. Big important influential wealthy people have been victimized. They will seek justice and demand an open court. All in time. When that happens, the price of gold will double in a matter of months. The big banks that have criminally raided the Allocated accounts will be forced to retrieve and purchase the gold on the open market. Many complicit banks will simply collapse, since already insolvent. Some bank executives will face prosecution. Perhaps a few will go missing, like the gold bars. The story and its publicity of semi-stolen gold will bring much needed attention to gold as real money.

911 BANK HEIST

As the years pass, the evidence mounts. The AE1000 organization is expert and loud, the architects and engineers who provide expert testimony on the absurd official 911 story at the World be-Trade Tower. This is hardly the forum for such recitals. A secretive Russian Bond valued at $240 billion was to mature the very next day, most of which were held in the Cantor Fitzgerald offices atop the tower. Those bonds could not be redeemed at maturity, a theft. Nothing on the official story makes any sense, nor does it stand up to chemical scrutiny or to scrutiny from phsyics. Costa Rica has a richly dotted landscape of very well informed people with all kinds of legitimate contacts, such from Secret Service friends, bank executive friends, ex-USMilitary types, slush fund managers, obscure types, and more. My informed sources have been numerous that have shed light on the infamous event. It was a grand bank heist that involved perhaps around $100 billion in stolen bearer bonds, perhaps around $100 billion in stolen gold bullion bars, and perhaps around $100 billion in stolen diamonds. The 911 event marked in the opinion of many observers a coup d'etat of the United States Govt. Their grip on power continues through to today. The true story will come out, all in time, like veracity bubbles working toward the surface. Those holding the lid on the actual events are reducing in number each year. My expectation is that the true story will come out as the inevitability of a USGovt debt default becomes evident and unavoidable, when the JPMorgan machinery fails in full view to uphold the USTBond tower. At that time, the new trade settlement systems, the new barter systems, the bypass to USDollar settlement, they will come into place. Gold will be at the center of every new system. Much like how geophysics leads to iron forming at the core of a stable body, gold will form at the core of the stable financial body. But its price will be closer to $10,000 per ounce than $2000 per ounce. Gold price charts mean little, when the enter paper system is in the process of imploding, first bonds, then currencies, then sham gold markets.

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

The Ugly Talmudic International Banking "Jew" needs to be put in striped clothes, put in a cattle car and then shipped to a "work camp":  

----------------

The Biggest Manipulators of All

People are justifiably furious over the big banks' manipulation of hundreds of trillions of dollars of assets.  This violates the banks' most central function: loaning money based upon the going rate.

Indeed, the Libor manipulation is so serious that even mainstream economists are starting to call for heads to roll.

The Bank of England and Federal Reserve's encouragement of Libor manipulation is not an isolated incident.  Rather than being an aberration, it is their central effort.

Indeed, the big banks are rank amateurs when it comes to manipulating interest rates. Central banks have been manipulating rates for a hundred years or more.

David Zervos - Managing Director and Chief Market Strategist for  Jefferies, with $3 billion under management - points out:

    Central bankers try to influence rates directly and indirectly EVERY day. That is their job. From the NYFED website this is description of the monetary policy objective –

        "the directive for implementation of U.S. monetary policy from the FOMC to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York states that the trading desk should "create conditions in reserve markets" that will encourage fed funds to trade at a particular level. Fed open market operations change the supply of reserve balances in the system, and by affecting the supply of balances, the Fed can create upward or downward pressure on the fed funds rate."

    All central banks, and central bankers, are in the business of setting rates. That's what they do for a living. That's why we spend so much time watching them. Surely, the Fed and BoE were unhappy that Libor rates, commercial lending rates, residential mortgage rates and the like were not cooperating with their traditional rate manipulation techniques in the overnight market for unsecured funds. That is why they created a myriad of unusual and exigent programs during the 2008/2009 crisis. But for the senior management of Barclays to come out and claim the Bank of England, or any central banker, was at fault for trying to "manipulate" interest rates is absurd. Congresses and Parliaments have given central banks monopoly power in the printing of money and the management of interest rate policy.

Indeed, one of the core functions of central banks is buying or selling government bonds to keep market interest rates at a specified target value. For example as the BBC notes:

    Usually, central banks try to raise the amount of lending and activity in the economy indirectly, by cutting interest rates.

    Lower interest rates encourage people to spend, not save.

The Federal Reserve's key policy lever is its "Federal Funds Rate", which is the base interest rate that many other rates (generally including Libor, and see this and this) key off of.

As the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority - the largest independent regulator for all securities firms doing business in the United States - explains:

    The Federal Reserve (or "the Fed") sets a target for the federal funds rate and maintains that target interest rate by buying and selling U.S. Treasury securities.

The express purpose of the central banks' emergency actions since 2007 is to effect interest rates.  For example, the express purpose of quantitative easing is:

    When interest rates are close to zero there is another way of affecting the price of money: Quantitative Easing (QE). The aim is still to bring down interest rates faced by companies and households and the most important step in QE is that the central bank creates new money for use in an economy.

And of operation twist:

    Confronted with a stumbling U.S. recovery and a financial crisis in Europe, the Federal Reserve decided Wednesday that it would extend a program known as "Operation Twist" aimed at pushing down long-term interest rates and boosting the economy.

Indeed, central banks are now forcing private companies to buy government bonds as a way to further drive down interest rates.  CNBC reports:

    US and European regulators are essentially forcing banks to buy up their own government's debt—a move that could end up making the debt crisis even worse, a Citigroup analysis says.

    Regulators are allowing banks to escape counting their country's debt against capital requirements and loosening other rules to create a steady market for government bonds, the study says.

    While that helps governments issue more and more debt, the strategy could ultimately explode if the governments are unable to make the bond payments, leaving the banks with billions of toxic debt, says Citigroup strategist Hans Lorenzen.

And the Financial Times notes:

    Almost exactly a year ago, the economists Carmen Reinhart and Belén Sbrancia wrote a path-breaking International Monetary Fund paper about "financial repression". It initially caused many western investors to blink. For while such "repression" has been extensively discussed in emerging markets in recent years, not many people in America knew what this dark-sounding phrase meant. (Answer: "financial repression" occurs when governments engineer a situation in which investors feel compelled to buy bondsat unfavourable rates, ie below the prevailing level of inflation, thus helping to reduce national debt.)

    How times change. A year later, the word "repression" is being bandied about at investor conferences across the western world. No wonder. In the eurozone, there are growing signs that governments in places such as Spain and Ireland are "encouraging" – if not forcing – banks and state pension funds to buy public sector bonds, at potentially unfavourable prices.

    ***
    What is crystal clear is that Fed and Treasury officials alike are determined to keep those Treasury yields ultra low, if not negative in real terms, for the foreseeable future. And they may well succeed.

Indeed, manipulating interest rates is one of the Fed's 3 core, express mandates:

    (1) maximize employment;
    (2) stabilize prices; and
    (3) moderate long-term interest rates.

"Moderating" interest rates means acting on interest rates so that free market forces do not set the rates.  In other words, it means manipulating those rates.  So one of the Fed's 3 primary reasons for existence is to manipulate rates.

Central Banks Have Been Doing a Terrible Job of Manipulating Interest Rates

Austrian school economists have said for decades that interest rates which are too low destroy the economy. For example, Walter Block told me:

    In the Austrian economic view, depressions are caused by big banks (the Fed) artificially lowering interest rates.

Hayek won the Nobel prize in 1974 partly for arguing that artificially low interest rates lead to the misallocation of capital and to bubbles, which in turn lead to busts.

But its not only Austrians.  The central banks' central bank - the Bank of International Settlements - which is the world's most prestigious mainstream financial body, has repeatedly said that interest rates which are too low can destroy the economy.

BIS' chief economist William White warned against overly lax monetary policy as early as 2003.   As Spiegel reported:

    White and his team of experts observed the real estate bubble developing in the United States. They criticized the increasingly impenetrable securitization business, vehemently pointed out the perils of risky loans and provided evidence of the lack of credibility of the rating agencies. In their view, the reason for the lack of restraint in the financial markets was that there was simply too much cheap money available on the market. [Low interest rates equal cheap money.] To give all this money somewhere to go, investment bankers invented new financial products that were increasingly sophisticated, imaginative — and hazardous....

The Telegraph noted:

    "The fundamental cause of today's emerging problems was excessive and imprudent credit growth over a long period. Policy interest rates in the advanced industrial countries have been unusually low," said.

     

    The Fed and fellow central banks instinctively cut rates lower with each cycle to avoid facing the pain. The effect has been to put off the day of reckoning.

     

    ***

     

    "Policymakers interpreted the quiescence in inflation to mean that there was no good reason to raise rates when growth accelerated, and no impediment to lowering them when growth faltered," said the report.

In 2009, BIS released a paper amplifying on this point:

    Easy monetary conditions are a classic ingredient of financial crises: low interest rates may contribute to an excessive expansion of credit, and hence to boom-bust type business fluctuations. In addition, some recent papers find a significant link between low interest rates and banks' risk-taking ....

Indeed, BIS documents that interest rates which are too low are a grave risk financial to stability. See this, this and this.

The Fed's low rate policies also reward speculators and punish savers, and quantitative easing helps the big guy at the expense of the little guy.

So the Fed - and central banks worldwide - have been manipulating interest rates, and have been doing a horrible job for the economy.
Central Banks Have Propped Up The Giant Banks' Bad Behavior

Not only have central banks been doing a horrible job of manipulating interest rates themselves, but they have built, propped up and enabled the giant private banks to manipulate the system.

We've previously noted:

    The corrupt, giant banks would never have gotten so big and powerful on their own. In a free market, the leaner banks with sounder business models would be growing, while the giants who made reckless speculative gambles would have gone bust. See this, this and this.

     

    It is the Federal Reserve, Treasury and Congress who have repeatedly bailed out the big banks, ensured they make money at taxpayer expense, exempted them from standard accounting practices and the criminal and fraud laws which govern the little guy, encouraged insane amounts of leverage, and enabled the too big to fail banks – through "moral hazard" – to become even more reckless.

     

    Indeed, the government made them big in the first place. As I noted in 2009:

        As MIT economics professor and former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson points out today, the official White House position is that:

            (1) The government created the mega-giants, and they are not the product of free market competition

            ***

            (3) Giant banks are good for the economy

    And given that the 12 Federal Reserve banks are private – see this, this, this and this- the giant banks have a huge amount of influence on what the Fed does. Indeed, the money-center banks in New York control the New York Fed, the most powerful Fed bank. Indeed,

     

    Jamie Dimon – the head of JP Morgan Chase – is a Director of the New York Fed.

     

    Any attempt by the left to say that the free market is all bad and the government is all good is naive and counter-productive.

     

    And any attempt by the right to say that we should leave the giant banks alone because that's the free market are wrong.

     

    The [corrupt, captured government "regulators"] and the giant banks are part of a single malignant, symbiotic relationship.

Shah Gilani writes at Forbes, in an article entitled "It's Not Libor Stupid, Central Banks Are The Problem":

    Central banks have done nothing to countermand the trend (nothing but encourage) leading to big banks getting bigger; so big, in fact, that now all of the big banks around the world are all too-big-to-fail.

     

    The bigger the world's banks are (bankers want size, because more size equals more power to price, to manipulate markets, and to pay bigger bonuses) the more important central banks become, both to the big banks, nations, and the global economy.

     

    Central banks are the saviors of big banks that get in trouble, especially when economies and systems are leveraged for profits that backfire and they all have to be bailed out.

     

    Central banks are supposed to be above what's going on below their ivory towers, but, in fact, they are the puppets being manipulated by the big banks. It's a case of the tail wagging the dog.

     

    Why are central banks pouring money into banks, really? Why aren't governments printing money to pour into ailing economies but aiding and abetting central banks instead?

     

    It's because central banks are independent supra-national bodies who have been ceded monetary power by governments almost everywhere to benefit banks and bankers the world over, who are their only constituents, and for all intents and purposes, effectively "own" legislators and governments.

     

    They're pouring money into banks to keep them solvent. That's what central banks are there for. The banks aren't lending the money (massive reserves are sitting on balance sheets to shore up appearances) because they need it to meet reserve requirements and offset the illiquidity evident in the interbank lending market...the same interbank (Libor) market that the Bank of England wanted to make look more liquid than it was viscous back in 2008.

     

    ***

     

    We need to break up all the world's big banks so they can fail when they overleverage themselves, and entire systems, nations, economies and the global economy aren't all brought to their knees.

    If we break up all the too-big-to-fail banks we won't need central banks. We can go back to what are supposed to be free markets dictating interest rates and creating honest, open economies and opportunities everywhere.

Central Banks Have Failed To Provide Market Stability

While central banks' too-low interest rates have led to an unstable economy, at least - one would hope - they've helped the consumer in other ways.

But as the following chart of historical Dow Jones Industrial Average - courtesy of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank - shows, the stock market has been more volatile since the Fed was formed in 1913 than before:
Graph of Dow Jones Industrial Average

Moreover, the value of the dollar has been destroyed since 1913:
Dollar from 1913.gif A Banana Republic With No Bananas

We're suffering more or less depression-level unemployment.

And I'm not sure the Fed has been doing a great job of stabilizing prices, either.

The Fed has also failed at its self-proclaimed counter-cyclical role of "taking the punch bowl away" when the party gets too wild.

Central banks like the Fed are also rotten with corruption and conflicts of interest. And see this.

No wonder Nobel prize winning economists think that central banks should be abolished or drastically downsized.

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/20 ... rest-rates

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

From VT :

 

"....As of June 2012, there has been only one exception to this sad tale of gargantuan theft—Iceland.  There, thanks to an inordinately courageous and decent president, the people were allowed to decide their fate, twice, despite the strenuous opposition of the international bankers.

    "These were private banks," said Iceland's president, "and we didn't pump money into them in order to keep them going; the state did not shoulder the responsibility of the failed private banks."

The people voted and, consequently, Iceland is now in far better economic shape than countries such as Greece, Spain, or the USA.  In Iceland, too, some bankers actually ended up paying for their crimes, and the country has, in the wake of the crisis, moved in a more democratic direction.  The people of Iceland:

     "...took a different path than the United States after their financial crisis and nationalized the banks, threw some the people responsible for the crash in jail, and bailed out the homeowners instead of worrying about only bailing out the banks.  And now they're coming back and their economy is growing again."

Even the corporate press, on the rare occasions when it covers the Icelandic story, underscores the fabulous potential of genuine democracy:

    "Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country's economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger.  Since the end of 2008, the island's banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population . . .

    The island's steps to resurrect itself since 2008, when its banks defaulted on $85 billion, are proving effective.  Iceland's economy will this year outgrow the euro area and the developed world on average . . .   The island's households were helped by an agreement between the government and the banks, which are still partly controlled by the state, to forgive debt exceeding 110 percent of home values.

    On top of that, a Supreme Court ruling in June 2010 found loans indexed to foreign currencies were illegal, meaning households no longer need to cover krona losses. . . .  Iceland's $13 billion economy, which shrank 6.7 percent in 2009, grew 2.9 percent last year and will expand 2.4 percent this year and next . . . The euro area will grow 0.2 percent this year and the OECD area will expand 1.6 percent, according to November estimates. . . .

    Iceland's approach to dealing with the meltdown has put the needs of its population ahead of the markets at every turn.  Once it became clear back in October 2008 that the island's banks were beyond saving, the government stepped in, ring-fenced the domestic accounts, and left international creditors in the lurch.

    The central bank imposed capital controls to halt the ensuing sell-off of the krona and new state-controlled banks were created from the remnants of the lenders that failed.

    Iceland's special prosecutor has said it may indict as many as 90 people, while more than 200, including the former chief executives at the three biggest banks, face criminal charges.  . . . That compares with the U.S., where no top bank executives have faced criminal prosecution for their roles in the subprime mortgage meltdown."