Banksteri

[vbo man]

Mnogo mi se dopao izraz... :|

Auerback/Wray: Memo to Greece: Make War, Not Love, With Goldman Sachs Naked Capitalism

   The Wall Street Journal recently highlighted an article by Simon Johnson and Peter Boone, lamenting that the demands being foisted on Greece and other struggling Euronations would "massively curtail demand, lower wages and reduce the public sector workforce. The last time we saw this kind of precipitate fiscal austerity--when nations were tied to the gold standard--it contributed to the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s" (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703525704575061172926967984.html ). Where we disagree with Johnson and Boone is the suggestion that the IMF be brought in to craft a solution. Any help from this organization will come with tight strings attached--indeed, with a noose around Greece's neck. Germany and France would be crazy to commit their scarce euros to a bail-out of Greece since they face both internal threats from their own taxpayers and external threats from financial vampires who are looking for yet another nation to attack.

   Here's a more appropriate action: declare war on Goldman Sachs and other global financial firms that created this mess. Send the troops, the planes, the tanks, and the ships. Attack every outpost of the saboteurs on European soil. Blockade the airports and ports. Make Wall Street traders and CEOs fear for their lives, or at least for their freedom to travel. Build some Guantanamo-like facility to hold these enemy financial combatants until they can be tried, convicted, and properly punished.

   Ok, if a literal armed attack on Goldman is too far-fetched, then go after the firm using the full force of the regulatory and legal systems. Close the offices and go through the files with a fine-tooth comb. Issue subpoenas to all non-clerical staff for court appearances. Make the internal emails public. Post the names of all managers and traders on Interpol. Arrest anyone who tries to board a plane, train, or boat; confiscate their passports; revoke their visas and work permits; and put a hold on their bank accounts until culpability can be assessed. Make life at least as miserable for them as it now is for Europe's tens of millions of unemployed workers.
   We know that the Obama administration will not go after the banksters that created this global financial calamity. It has been thoroughly co-opted by Wall Street's fifth column--who hold most of the important posts in the administration. Europe has even more at stake and has shown somewhat more willingness to take action. Perhaps our only hope for retribution lies there.
   Some might believe the term "banksters" is too mean. Surely Wall Street was just doing its job--providing the financial services wanted by the world. Yes, it all turned out a tad unfortunate but no one could have foreseen that so many of the financial innovations would turn into black swans. And hasn't Wall Street learned its lesson and changed its practices? Fat chance. We know from internal emails that everyone on Wall Street saw this coming--indeed, they sold trash assets and placed bets that they would crater. The crisis was not a mistake--it was the foregone conclusion. The FBI warned of an epidemic of fraud back in 2004--with 80% of the fraud on the part of lenders. As Bill Black has been warning since the days of the Saving and Loan crisis, the most devastating kind of fraud is the "control fraud", perpetrated by the financial institution's management. Wall Street is, and was, run by control frauds. Not only were they busy defrauding the borrowers, like Greece, but they were simultaneously defrauding the owners of the firms they ran. Now add to that list the taxpayers that bailed out the firms. And Goldman is front and center when it comes to bad apples.

   Lest anyone believe that Goldman's executives were somehow unaware of bad deals done by rogue traders, William Cohan (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/the-great-goldman-sachs-fire-sale -of-2008) reports that top management unloaded their Goldman stocks in March 2008 when Bear crashed, and again when Lehman collapsed in September 2008. Why? Quite simple: they knew the firm was full of toxic waste that it would not be able to continue to unload on suckers--and the only protection it had came from AIG, which it knew to be a bad counterparty. Hence on March 19, Jack Levy (co-chair of M&As) sold over $5 million of Goldman's stock and bet against 60,000 more shares; Gerald Corrigan (former head of the NY Fed who was rewarded for that tenure with a position as managing director of Goldman) sold 15,000 shares in March; Jon Winkelried (Goldman's co-president) sold 20,000 shares. After the Lehman fiasco, Levy sold over $6 million of Goldman shares and Masanori Mochida (head of Goldman in Japan) sold $56 million worth. The bloodletting by top management only stopped when Goldman got Geithner's NYFed to produce a bail-out for AIG, which of course turned around and funneled government money to Goldman. With the government rescue, the control frauds decided it was safe to stop betting against their firm. So much for the "savvy businessmen" that President Obama believes to be in charge of Wall Street firms like Goldman.

[vbo man]

Treasury to Resume the Monetization of the Fed's Programs to Support the Wall Street Banks   Jesse's Café Américain

    This Treasury Supplemental Financing Program is designed to provide public funds for the Fed's efforts to purchase and then liquidate toxic assets and derivatives from the financial sector, effectively absorbing their losses and monetizing them.

    The Treasury creates new notes and sells them on the open market. The money obtained in these sales is deposited at an account at the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve uses this money to purchase toxic assets from the banks at its own discretion and pricing, subject to little oversight and market discipline.

    ....

    Where this gets even more interesting is that the Fed in turn is buying Treasury debt after issuance through its primary dealers, debt that was issued by the Treasury to provide funds to the Fed.

    Even more than a stealth bailout, this is starting to smell like 'a money machine.' Money machines are what Bernanke euphemistically called 'a printing press.' What is odious about this particular printing press is that the output is being given directly to a few big banks by a private organization which they own.

    I believe that it is still illegal, by the letter of the statutes, for the Fed to directly purchase Treasury paper. But in this case, the Fed is buying Treasury paper with money supplied by the Treasury. Since the paper is passing through the marketplace, and the Primary Dealers are taking their commissions, it may be in conformance with the letter of the law. But it looks like it violates the spirit of the law.

[miskop]

Jedino resenje je da se nekako umesas medj goste.

I molis boga da te ne zakaci neka revolucija.

[vbo man]

Ja samo pratim situaciju... :evil:
I divim se do imbecilnosti kako se nastavlja pljachka svih vremena :mrgreen:

[vbo man]

Gold-Plated Garbage is Still Garbage: The Fund Managers' Tax Break

    While tens of millions of ordinary workers pay taxes at a 25 percent marginal rate, many of Wall Street's highest paid dealmakers get to pay tax at just a 15 percent rate. They get this lower rate because of the special treatment of "carried interest," also known as the fund managers' tax break.

    The Washington Post has a piece about how the populists of the left and right can't seem to get the Senate to take away this special break for many of the richest of the rich. While the Post piece is useful in calling attention to the absurdity, that at this time of intense populist anger, this huge handout to the rich continues unchallenged, it implies that there is some rationale for the tax break.

    The basic logic of "carried interest" is extremely [simple]. Most fund managers get much of their pay on commission. In addition to getting a flat percentage of the funds being managed (typically 1-2 percent annually), they usually get paid a share of the fund's earnings, typically 15-20 percent. This latter payment is the "carried interest." As a result of the fund managers' tax break, this carried interest is taxed at the 15 percent capital gains tax rate rather than being treated as normal wage income.

    The Post errs by presenting the utter nonsense given by the tax break's defenders without challenge. There is no logical distinction between carried interest and the commission payments that a shoe salesman or a realtor receives. This commission payments are taxed as normal wage income. There is no reason, other than the power of Wall Street lobbyists, to treat the commissions of fund managers differently. The Post should have included someone who made this point.

[vbo man]

Over 100 RBS bankers get £1 mln bonus | Reuters

    LONDON (Reuters) - Part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland is paying more than 100 of its top investment bankers a bonus of over 1 million pounds as part of a 1.3 billion pound bonus pool that it said showed restraint after a bumper year.

    Most of the high earners are in London and New York, Philip Hampton, RBS chairman, said. The bonus will be paid in stock, although some shares can be cashed in as early as June, while other staff have to hold on for at least five years.

Samo napred braco banksteri...it's not finished until fat lady sings...il tako neshto beshe...

[vbo man]

Mountain of bad debt leaves Lloyds £6.3bn in red again - Business News, Business - The Independent

    A mountain of bad debts forced Lloyds Banking Group to announce annual losses of £6.3bn yesterday - but the part-nationalised bank refused to reveal details of its net lending or bonuses for bankers.

    The deficit, which was 6 per cent lower than the £6.7bn loss reported in 2008, was caused largely by bad loans and charges stemming from its takeover of struggling rival Halifax-Bank of Scotland. These impairments soared by £9bn to £24bn, largely as a result of the loans that HBoS granted to commercial property ventures just before the bottom fell out of the market as the banking crisis struck in 2008.

Koja banda...

[vbo man]

Global too big to fail banks remedy a pipedream | Reuters

    LONDON (Reuters) - World leaders won't agree a single global approach on "too big to fail" banks but lenders will face a string of national remedies that will cut the odds of more massive taxpayer bailouts.

    Policymakers at the Group of 20 leading countries are discussing ways to reduce "moral hazard" or banks assuming they will be bailed out in a crisis.

    The debate has descended into two warring camps as in Gulliver's Travels, the 18th century satire, where one sect insisted on cracking open their soft boiled egg from the little end, while another chose the big end.

[vbo man]

Dodd to Unveil a Comprehensive Financial Overhaul Bill - NYTimes.com

    WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee will unveil on Monday a proposal to revamp the nation's financial regulations that would empower shareholders to have advisory votes on executive pay and to nominate directors for the boards of public companies through company proxy ballots, several people briefed on the draft legislation said Saturday.

    The shareholder provisions, which have been vigorously opposed by many corporations and by Republicans, will be part of a bill that would amount to the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulations since the Depression. In one of the most fiercely debated provisions, the bill would create a consumer financial protection agency under the umbrella of the Federal Reserve, a move certain to disappoint liberal Democrats who believe the Fed failed to safeguard consumers in the years leading up to the banking meltdown.

    With no Republican support yet for the proposal, Democratic lawmakers and the White House have been gearing up for a potentially bitter partisan fight.

    The impending proposal by the chairman, Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, hews in many ways to a proposal advanced last summer by the White House, the people briefed on the legislation said.

[vbo man]

FT.com / Companies / Banks - Banks face trial over derivatives deals

    Four banks were on Wednesday charged with fraud linked to the sale of derivatives to the city of Milan in a case that could set off a string of lawsuits by Italian local governments facing potentially billions of dollars of losses on their borrowings.

    A trial of the banks, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, UBS and Hypo Real Estate Holding's Depfa Bank, has been scheduled for May 6

    The banks have been accused of misleading the city on swaps that adjusted interest payments on €1.7bn of borrowings. They are also accused of earning hidden fees of €101m on the deal - a €1.7bn bond issue in 2005. In April last year police seized assets worth €476m from the four banks in connection with the case, which is being led by Alfredo Robledo, Milan's public prosecutor.

    Italian prosecutors are probing banks as local and national government agencies face potential losses of €2.5bn on derivatives, lawyers say.

[vbo man]

Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, UBS Are Charged With Fraud - Bloomberg.com

    Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS AG and Hypo Real Estate Holding AG's Depfa Bank Plc unit were charged with fraud linked to the sale of derivatives to the City of Milan.

    Judge Simone Luerti scheduled the trial of the four firms, 11 bankers and two former city officials for May 6, Prosecutor Alfredo Robledo said after a hearing in Milan today. The banks allegedly misled the city over swaps that adjusted interest payments on 1.7 billion euros ($2.3 billion) of bonds sold in 2005.

    Prosecutors across Italy are investigating banks as local and national government agencies face potential losses of 2.5 billion euros on derivatives, lawyers say. The Milan probe may also affect cases as far away as the U.S., where securities firms have faced charges for price-fixing and bid-rigging in the sale of derivatives to municipalities, though not for fraud, according to former regulator Christopher "Kit" Taylor.

    "This case could have repercussions over here if the trial showed deliberate intent," said Taylor, a former executive director of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, the national regulator of the municipal-bond market. "What happened in Europe was the continuation of a pattern in the U.S."

Rashirili su svoje pipke svuda xuzi

[zagor te nej]

Lakse je Italijanima da optuze tri banke nego da javno priznaju da im finasije drugog najveceg grada vodi imbecil i bogalj.

[vbo man]

Italijani su samo prvi ...mada mi je chudno da bash oni budu prvi...bice toga josh...

[Hate mail]

Ok, bice. I? Sta se ti przis na to? Imas akcije, obveznice korporacija, vlada, drzava, agencija, opstina, okruga? Igras se sa opcijama? What?

[zagor te nej]

Jebe se JP Morganu za usrani Milan i njegovu kretensku, korumpiranu i verovatno mafijsku vlast. Radim sa svim velikim bankama svaki dan, JP je standard setting operation.
Swaps ne treba da kupuje onaj ko ih ne razume. Da li je barem elementarno razumevanje prirode najcesce upotrebljivanog hedge instrumenta nesto sto se normalno ocekuje od finansijskog menadzera grada od nekoliko miliona ljudi? Naravno da jeste.Nije znao? Tough shit.

[vbo man]

Ok, bice. I? Sta se ti przis na to? Imas akcije, obveznice korporacija, vlada, drzava, agencija, opstina, okruga? Igras se sa opcijama? What?

Ne mora chovek da se informishe o zbivanjima u svetu samo iz svojih lichnih , sebichnih razloga...

[vbo man]

Fraud ...is the word used.

The banks allegedly misled

Jedno je kad neko "ne razume" a drugo kad je LAGAN.

Mada iskreno sumnjam da ce se ishta izroditi iz svega toga...to je vec davno ushlo u praksu, laganje, varanje pa nema shanse da se iskoreni...
Jedino dobro je shto kad te jednom i zvanichno uhvate da lazesh i varash pa se to prochuje , trzishte izgubi poverenje i samim tim biznis ide dole. Valjda se tako iskorene te lopine bar dok se ne zaboravi pa svi krenu Jovo nanovo...

[Hate mail]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20100319/sc_livescience/happinessismakingmoremoneythanthenextguy

[Hate mail]

Moze taj tvoj obican covek da se "informise" i iz dosade izgleda.

[vbo man]

Moze i iz dosade donekle...
Shto se tiche tog istrazivanja ne sumnjam da je tako kod vecine...dok si mlad.
Onaj ko se takvim stvarima zaludjuje u poznim godinama ili se oseca kao complete failure  (shto ne mora biti i istina ali se chovek tako oseca) ili je plitak. Ima period u zivotu kad je ta utakmica vazna a ima i onaj kad prestane da bude vazna...

[Hate mail]

I, kada ce nas Nemacka mucki (iz podmornica) zasuti nukleranim raketama? Zna li se dan i cas (I might want to short some stuff before that happens)?

[vbo man]

Hate na kojim si to drogama?
Kakva Nemachka? Kakve rakete?

[Tromotorac]

Landlady reference.

[vbo man]

Have they lost their minds, or are they just that reckless, immature, short term, and arrogant? Morgan practically holds the keys to the US Treasury, a recent recipient of billions in taxpayer support, and still receiving signficant subsidies from the Fed. They seem to be in dire need of adult supervision. Blatantly and clumsily rigging the silver market, and then bragging about it to people outside their company. What's next, bumping off grannies for their Social Security checks? Three card monte games on the boardwalk?

I was trying to understand why this item struck me so hard this evening. It shocked me in a way that few things do anymore. I think it is because I had unconsciously come to the same conclusion earlier, on my own, in the post where I showed the repeated and obvious bear raids on gold into this option expiration, and it struck a resonant chord when I read McGuire's description of the silver manipulation. I refused to believe it, but apparently there it is. The "Dr. Evil" trading strategy that Citigroup was caught using in the Eurobond markets.

    ADDITIONAL STATEMENT BY BILL MURPHY, CHAIRMAN OF THE GOLD ANTI-TRUST ACTION COMMITTEE

    HEARINGS ON THE METALS MARKETS, MARCH 25, 2010

    On March 23, 2010 GATA Director Adrian Douglas was contacted by a whistleblower by the name of Andrew Maguire. Mr. Maguire, formerly of Goldman Sachs, is a metals trader in London. He has been told first hand by traders working for JPMorganChase that JPMorganChase manipulates the precious metals markets and they bragged how they make money doing so.

    In November 2009 he contacted the CFTC enforcement division to report this criminal activity. He described in detail the way in which JPM signals to the market its intention to take down the precious metals<. Traders recognize these signals and make money shorting the metals along side JPM. He explained how there are routine market manipulations at the time of option expiry, Non-farm payroll data releases, and Comex contract rollover as well as other ad hoc events.

    On February 3 he gave two days advance warning by email to Mr Eliud Ramirez, a senior investigator of the Enforcement Division, that the precious metals would be attacked upon the release of the non-farm payroll data on February 5. Then on February 5 as it played out exactly as predicted further emails were sent to Mr. Ramirez in real time while the manipulation was in progress.

    It would not be possible to predict such a market move in advance unless the market was manipulated.

    In an email on that day Mr. Maguire said "It is 'common knowledge' here in London amongst the metals traders it is JPM's intent to flush out and cover as many shorts as possible prior to any discussion in March about position limits. I feel sorry for all those not in this loop. A serious amount of money was made and lost today and in my opinion as a result of the CFTC allowing by your own definition an illegal concentrated and manipulative position to continue"

    Expiry of the COMEX APRIL call options is today. There was large open interest in strikes from $1100 to $1150 in gold. As always happens month after month HSBC and JPM sell short in large quantities to overwhelm all bids and make unsuspecting option holders lose their money. As predicted in advance by GATA the manipulation started on March 19th when gold was trading at $1126. By last night it traded at $1085.

    This is how much the gold cartel fears the enforcement division. They thumb their noses at you because in over a decade of complaints and 18 months of a silver market manipulation investigation nothing has been done to stop them. And this is why JPM's cocky and arrogant traders in London are able to brag that they manipulate the market.

    It is an outrage and we are making available the emails from our whistleblower, Andrew Maguire available to the Press wherein he warns in advance of a manipulative event.

    Additionally Mr. Maguire informed us that he has taped recordings of his telephone communications with the CFTC for which we are taking the appropriate legal steps to acquire.

    -END-

[vbo man]

JPMorgan, Lehman, UBS Named in Bid-Rigging Conspiracy (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

   March 26 (Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and UBS AG were among more than a dozen Wall Street firms involved in a conspiracy to pay below-market interest rates to U.S. state and local governments on investments, according to documents filed in a U.S. Justice Department criminal antitrust case.

   A government list of previously unidentified "co- conspirators" contains more than two dozen bankers at firms also including Bank of America Corp., Bear Stearns Cos., Societe Generale, two of General Electric Co.'s financial businesses and Salomon Smith Barney, the former unit of Citigroup Inc., according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on March 24.

   The papers were filed by attorneys for a former employee of CDR Financial Products Inc., an advisory firm indicted in October. The attorneys, as part of their legal filing, identified the roster as being provided by the government. The document is labeled "list of co-conspirators."

   None of the firms or individuals named on the list has been charged with wrongdoing. The court records mark the first time these companies have been identified as co-conspirators. They provide the broadest look yet at alleged collusion in the $2.8 trillion municipal securities market that the government says delivered profits to Wall Street at taxpayers' expense.

The indictments released in October didn't identify any of the sellers of the investment contracts involved in the alleged conspiracy. They were identified only as Provider A and Provider B. They paid kickbacks to CDR after winning investment deals brokered by the firm, according to the indictments.

The firms did this by paying sham fees tied to financial transactions entered into with other companies, prosecutors said. Kickbacks were paid from 2001 to 2005, ranging from $4,500 to $475,000 each, according to the Justice Department.

According to the list contained in the court filing this week, the investment contracts involved were created by units of GE and divisions of Financial Security Assurance Holdings Ltd., a bond insurer formerly part of Brussels-based lender Dexia SA.

The kickbacks were paid out of fees generated by transactions entered into with two financial institutions that weren't identified in the October court filing. The March 24 list filed by the defense named the two firms as UBS and Royal Bank of Canada.

Dexia Sale

Dexia completed the sale of FSA's bond-insurance business in July to Assured Guaranty Ltd. of Hamilton, Bermuda, while retaining its outstanding investment contracts.

Thierry Martiny, a spokesman for Dexia in Brussels, declined to comment. FSA, based in New York, was the biggest insurer of U.S. municipal bonds in 2007 and 2008.

"We have no comment," said Betsy Castenir, a spokeswoman for Assured Guaranty in New York, in an e-mail response. "Dexia has responsibility for the liabilities of the Financial Products business."