Which Bank Could Implode Next?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-09-21/which-bank-will-implode-next/?cid=hp:mainpromo5
The G-20 leaders will meet in Pittsburgh Thursday to discuss slashing banker bonuses, but they’re focusing on the wrong threat.

The G-20 leaders will descend on Pittsburgh Thursday for a two-day financial summit, just as they did in London this past April. Exactly nothing of note followed that meeting, and the assembled figureheads are already focused on the wrong thing for this one. E.U. leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have been adamant about the global need to address bankers’ pay. Sarkozy even threatened to walk out of the meetings if no agreement is reached on the topic of compensation. (President Barack Obama has said that he hopes the banks will curb bonuses before being compelled to—as if that will happen.)

Nomi Prins argues that they should be more worried about which bank "too big to fail" will go under next.

LINK: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-09-21/which-bank-will-implode-next/?cid=hp:mainpromo5

Wall Street Goes to Washington

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/12/AR2009091202932.html
The banks are at it again!

Fair Game - They Left Fannie Mae, but We Got the Legal Bills

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/business/economy/06gret.html?adxnnl=1&ref=business&adxnnlx=1252253118-2uXNLKoRY2rEoxCa4CTvYQ
As a result of the Fannie takeover, taxpayers are paying millions of dollars in legal defense bills for three top former executives, including Franklin D. Raines, who left the company in late 2004 under accusations of accounting improprieties. From Sept. 6, 2008, to July 21, these legal payments totaled $6.3 million.

On this day in 2008: Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy

Start:	Sep 15, '09
Location:	New York, NY

The collapse of Lehman – one of the biggest financial shocks in years - puts tens of thousands of jobs around the world at risk, including over 4,000 in New York City and another 1,000 in London.

It also sent shockwaves around the banking world, with commentators predicting that the damage could be felt across the industry and could help to push the UK into recession.

Part of the financial crisis still rocking the U.S. that the Bush Administration sought to mitigate by bailing out other U.S. banks.

The Real Reason Behind the Bailout

The Real Reason Behind the Bailout

 

I was just listening to Ron Paul on the latest Bail-Out of banks. He disapproved of the Bail-Out because he claims that it will destroy the financial system as we know it by destroying the dollar's value and creating hyper-inflation.

 

Ron Paul said "you can not just create trillions of dollars out of thin air without creating inflation". Paul's conclusions are based upon the idea of demand pull inflation. This means a situation where excess amounts of money are chasing a static or near static amount of goods and services.

 

This monetary theory was elaborated upon by Milton Friedman for which he was given the Nobel Prize in 1976. The idea is that when the Money Regulators increase the supply of money, the increase causes consumers to demand more goods and services causing inflation.

 

Suppliers recognize the demand and start producing more goods and services thereby creating jobs and prosperity. This idea assumes that the increase in the money supply makes its way into the hands of the consumers who create the extra demand.

 

Freidman claimed that the Federal Reserve allowed or caused the monetary aggregates to decrease by 33% during the 1930s, thereby creating and prolonging the Rosenfeldt depression.

 

However, it is possible that the extra money created by the Regulators never makes it way to the consumers. If it does not, then there is no extra demand for goods and services and no inflation and no extra production, no extra jobs and no prosperity.

 

So the question is whether the extra money supply from the Bail-Out will reach the consumer/taxpayer. The sad answer is that very little will. Almost the entire Bail-Out will go to the banks and insurance companies, where it is intended to go. Its purpose is to secure holders of bank bonds, the holders of credit default swaps guaranteed by investment banks and insurance companies and secure past and future  excessive executive compensation paid by those banks and insurance companies.

 

The banking and insurance "industries" made sure of that by making enormous campaign contributions to such notables as Senator Christopher Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee ($13 million since 1989) and  to the lisping Representative Barney "My-o- My" Frank ($2.5 million).

 

Although the "taxpayers" will get little benefit from the trillion dollar bail-outs, they will get the entire bill as the "taxpayers" will be given more debt to repay with interest.

 

Now to digress a bit.

 

Most middle class Americans have substantial home mortgages, large credit card balances and other future required payments of Federal Reserve notes for medical care, insurance, real estate taxes, car payments, gas expenses and schooling costs for their children.

 

Essentially, the middle class is up to its eyeballs in debt and as a result has a short position in dollars. They are long on houses, cars and investments in the stock and bond markets. For the past year, there has been a short squeeze on people who owe Federal Reserve Notes which has accelerated in the past months as people seek to pay bills and sell assets such as real estate and stocks.

 

At least the people received some value when they built their own debt and will get something of value in exchange for future payments if they can indeed make those payments.

 

Back to the Bail-Out

 

What the Bail-Out does is saddle the country and all its "taxpayers" with with new trillions of debt and makes it such that every "taxpayer", regardless of how wise, cautious and frugal he may be, owes loads of Federal Reserve Notes (money) to the Federal Reserve Banking system. What will the "taxpayers" receive for this new tax saddle? The answer is that they have received and will receive nothing. Almost all of the Bail-Out money goes to the corporations whose errand boys like Greenspan, Paulson, Bernanke, Dimon, Mozilo and Fuld carried out the debt trap that was set 9-10 years ago.

 

This Bail-Out puts a further short squeeze of dollars into play. Perhaps the 50% drop in the price of oil, gold trading below 800 and the recent strong dollar portends more ugly things to come.

 

Contrary to Ron Paul's forecast of hyper-inflation, which will only take place if the increased money supply goes to the hands of the consumers and does not create a corresponding amount of debt, there may be a severe demand for dollars and hyper-deflation, where the country and the people have no money to buy goods and services but only debts.

 

The bankers have discovered a way to force the people of America and the world into an intense form of debt slavery and that is the reason for their reckless past lending practices, credit cards for all and now this massive Wall Street Bankers Bail-Out.

 

In the past, only wars created that amount of national debt. But now those debt creating war mongers have found the more friendly face of public bail-outs.

 

John Olagues

 

http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1224569220.php

"Capitalism: A Love Story" Trailer

Moore has said of the film, which opens nationwide October 2:

"I made this movie as if it was going to be the last movie I was allowed to make." And, on the film itself, "It's got it all - lust, passion, romance and 14,000 jobs being eliminated every day."

Banks 'Too Big to Fail' Have Grown Even Bigger

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082704193.html
Behemoths Born of the Bailout Reduce Consumer Choice, Tempt Corporate Moral Hazard.

When the credit crisis struck last year, federal regulators pumped tens of billions of dollars into the nation's leading financial institutions because the banks were so big that officials feared their failure would ruin the entire financial system.

Today, the biggest of those banks are even bigger.

The crisis may be turning out very well for many of the behemoths that dominate U.S. finance. A series of federally arranged mergers safely landed troubled banks on the decks of more stable firms. And it allowed the survivors to emerge from the turmoil with strengthened market positions, giving them even greater control over consumer lending and more potential to profit.