2. The Financial Bailout in Great Britain
We Have Created a Monster: Banks With Access to Public Funds
Sunday Herald, Iain Macwhirter, 6/14/09
We are emerging from this recession with a new kind of economy: a banking kleptocracy that has captured government and regulators. After a two-year financial crisis, largely of their own making, the banks have been rewarded by massive public subsidies, freedom from regulation and the lifting of anti-monopoly rules. No government will stand up to banks for fear of precipitating another crisis, such as the one that followed the collapse of Lehmans last October. Talk about moral hazard. The banks can return to their gambling table again, confident that the government will bail them out, should they lose. Notice how few bankers lost their jobs and how rapidly bosses of even nationalised banks like RBS have returned to paying themselves multi-million-pound bonuses again.
We may now have six months of "recovery" from the latest trauma, but we have assuredly laid the foundations for another even more epic crash a few years down the line. We have created a monster: banks which have ceased being capitalist entities working in a market, and have effectively become a branch of the state, with a pipeline straight into our wallets. Enjoy.
3. Goldman Sachs Staff Receives Record Bonuses, Warren Buffet Makes $1 Billion in Six Months
Goldman to Make Record Bonus Payout
The Observer, 6/21/09
Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm's 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year, sparking concern that the big investment banks which survived the credit crunch will derail financial regulation reforms.
A lack of competition and a surge in revenues from trading foreign currency, bonds and fixed-income products has sent profits at Goldman Sachs soaring, according to insiders at the firm.
Staff in London were briefed last week on the banking and securities company's prospects and told they could look forward to bumper bonuses if, as predicted, it completed its most profitable year ever. Figures next month detailing the firm's second-quarter earnings are expected to show a further jump in profits. Warren Buffett, who bought $5bn of the company's shares in January, has already made a $1bn gain on his investment.
4. July 21st 2009 House Financial Services Committee Hearing
"The foolish notion that unlimited amounts of money and credit created out of thin air can provide sustained economic growth has delivered this crisis to us."
"Doubling the money supply didn't work; quadrupling it won't work either. The problem of debt must be addressed."
"Excessive government and private debt is a consequence of loose Federal Reserve monetary policy."
"Once a debt crisis hits the solution must be paying it off or liquidating it."
5. Alan Grayson: "Which Foreigners Got the Fed's $500 Billion?" Bernanke: "I Don't Know."
6. Why Gold Prices Went Down in 2008
Why Gold is Dropping When it Should Be Rising
The Market Oracle
Why is gold dropping right now when anyone in their sane mind would expect it to rise? The simple answer to this question is, “because Comex-gold isn't gold” – and because it deceptively pretends to be 'the' price-setter for real gold.
Gold is gold, paper is paper, and “Comex gold” is nothing but paper masquerading as gold while simultaneously pretending to be the price-setting medium for actual gold in the world. Now, finally, Comex-gold is in the process of being unmasked.
The Manipulation of Gold and Silver Prices
Seeking Alpha
Here is an article you may want to forward to your favorite mining CEO.
This article deals with the blatant manipulation that has been occurring in the gold and silver markets, and offers a solution. While this scandal has been going on for many years, at last more and more people are becoming aware that it is going on.
One of the first people to document the ongoing attempts to suppress the gold price was Frank Veneroso. Next was Bill Murphy of GATA.org. GATA continues to press the issue. Gata has discovered that the IMF instructed its member banks to treat gold that had been leased to bullion banks and sold into the market as if it were still in the vault! Imagine if an entrepreneur was running his business in this underhanded manner – how long would the government allow that?
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