Beware of Mitt [ What do the polls say I should say ] Romney who will do or say anything to become President.
The definition of a politician is someone who is
more concerned about his next election than what is best for the country.
Mitt fits that definition !!!
George Will’s stinging take down of Mitt [ I will do or say anything to get elected ] Romney and conservatives who support him coupled with Chris Wallace’s observation that Mitt [ I stick my finger in the air how the political winds blowing ] Romney won’t come on the Sunday shows to be asked tough questions.
Very few conservatives dislike Mitt [ flip flop ] Romney. The problem, as George Will alludes to, is that few actually trust him. .
“After studying Presidential nominations for 30 years, I’ve never seen somebody who has so completely renounced his past record when he decided to run for President, said Northeaster University Professor William Mayer to the Chicago Tribune’s Jill Zuckman on May 22, 2007. That’s how page 168 in the McCain opposition book began. The heading on that page is “Flip-Flops”. The next ten pages contain every reason why conservatives are suspicious of Romney.
“Romney Was Pro-Choice, Then Not Pro-Choice, Then Pro-Choice Again, Then Pro-Life,” blares the first subheading in this section. There are ample newspaper quotes citing Mitt Romney’s conversions back and forth.
“Romney supports a federal health care plan option that includes abortion services, would vote for a law codifying the 1972 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion and backs federal funding for abortions as long as states can decide if they want the money, [a spokesman] said.” (Ed Hayward, “Anti-Abortion Group Endorses Romney Bid,” Boston Herald, 9/8/94)
“Romney supports a federal health care plan option that includes abortion services, would vote for a law codifying the 1972 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion and backs federal funding for abortions as long as states can decide if they want the money, [a spokesman] said.” (Ed Hayward, “Anti-Abortion Group Endorses Romney Bid,” Boston Herald, 9/8/94)
“[Massachusetts Citizens for Life] considers Romney to be an abortion-rights supporter, as do national antiabortion groups such as the Family Research Council. … [Romney aide Eric] Fehrnstrom said the governor’s position has not changed on either sex education or abortion.” (Scott S. Greenberger, “Roe V. Wade Omitted From Proclamation,” The Boston Globe, 3/25/05)
“I am firmly pro-life … I was always for life.” (Jim Davenport, “Romney Affirms Abortion Opposition During Stop In SC,” The Associated Press, 2/8/07)
But it was not just abortion.
In 2006, Mitt Romney said illegal immigrants should have a path to citizen. In a Lowell Sun article on March 30, 2006, Evan Lehmann quoted Mitt Romney saying “I don’t believe in rounding up 11 million people and forcing them at gunpoint from our country … With these 11 million people, let’s have them registered, know who they are. Those who’ve been arrested or convicted of crimes shouldn’t be here; those that are here paying taxes and not taking government benefits should begin a process towards application for citizenship, as they would from their home country.”
Romney went on to support John McCain’s immigration plan, denying it was amnesty. In March of 2007, Mitt Romney spoke “approvingly of efforts by McCain and Bush to solve the nation’s immigration crisis,” according to Scott Helman’s Boston Globe article. By May of that same year, Romney had begun attacking McCain’s plan as amnesty and told CNN’s “The Situation Room” that he opposed a path to citizenship for illegal aliens.
He refused to support George Bush’s tax cuts in 2004, but in 2007 claimed he had always supported them. In 2002, Romney refused to sign the Americans for Tax Reform pledge, but in 2007, Romney signed it.
In 2002, Mitt Romney wanted heaving federal regulations on campaign finances. Back in 1994, Romney even wanted a cap on congressional election spending and wanted to ban political action committees. By 2007, Romney was attacking McCain-Feingold, which did much of what he previously had wanted.
In the 1992 Presidential Primary in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney voted for Paul Tsongas. He contributed to numerous Democrats and, in 1994 while running as a Republican, praised Bill Clinton as doing “a lot of things that make sense.”
More troubling, in 1994 Mitt Romney campaigned against the Contract With America calling it “too partisan.” He also insisted he was an independent during Ronald Reagan’s years in office, balking at Ted Kennedy’s attempts to connect Romney to Ronald Reagan. By 2005, Mitt Romney claimed Ronald Reagan was his political hero.
On the second amendment, Mitt Romney supported the Brady Bill and Assault Weapons ban in 1994, but by 2007, Mitt Romney opposed gun control measures. At one point in 2007, Mitt Romney claimed he owned a gun and then admitted he did not.
The list goes on and on from gays in the military to gay marriage to stem cell research to global warming. Romney has shown himself to be not a principled conservative, but, as Jon Huntsman described him, a well lubricated weather vane.
Real Tea Partiers just don’t trust him. His record is the very reason why. On every significant issue of the past decade, Mitt Romney has managed to be on every side of each issue except one — he has consistently been in favor of big government dictated and big government managed healthcare.
Better to lose than win with weather vane status quo Mitt.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Happy Holloween WALL STREET By GK TEMUJIN AMERICA'S #1 REBEL
" Nothing in all the World is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity " – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963.
GK TEMUJIN SAYS :
" The issue is that I oppose Wall Street !!!
That's the greed & corruption of the money lending class elite and big business.
That's how it is perceived still by most Americans who think.
Ask yourself why is all this vitrol about the protestors instead of the Wall Street Banker crimminals.
I don't support every protestor, obviously, or everything that every protestor might also support or say.
But the idea of opposing the Wall Street Banksters.
Of course I support that.
And that is the underlying message here.
Not the dynamics of who or what is on the ground.
That is the message that we all should be behind rather than spewing vitrol at the people protesting against the corrupt banksters.
Again I don't care what ghost or gobblin scares those thieves on wall street . I just happy they are out there manning the barricades. Listen the more public outcry over wallstreet threatens the evil monopoly that those who control wallstreet have over all of us.
I would not care what wolfman , vampire , zombie or muumy were out there protesting Wallstreet, as long as it calls attention to the devious business practices and corrupt politics of Wallstreet
Don't let the media manipulate you friends !!!
The problem is not the occupy wall street protestors.
The problem is the power elite Matrix of which a critical component is Wall Street Banks and the evil world nexus of economic thievery that it represents.
" OWS's Beef: Wall Street Isn't Winning It's Cheating ... All weekend I was thinking about this "jealousy" question, and I just kept coming back to all the different ways the game is rigged. "Dude," I said. "These people aren't protesting money. They're not protesting banking. They're protesting corruption on Wall Street." ... When you take into consideration all the theft and fraud and market manipulation and other evil stuff Wall Street bankers have been guilty of in the last at least fifteen years, you have to have balls like church bells to trot out a propaganda line that says the protesters are just jealous of their hard-earned money. People aren't jealous and they don't want privileges. They just want a level playing field, and they want Wall Street to give up its cheat codes. " – Rolling Stone/Matt Taibbi
Occupy Wall Street is a revolutionary force sweeping the country, tearing down whatever is unjust and replacing it with fairness.
Deal with it Occupy Wall Street is a populist movement, not a radical one. The elite powers that be are trying their best to position it this way in opposition to the anti-government Tea Party.
This has significant ramifications not only for the movement but for the US economy and for the West in general.
Matt Taibbi's perspective as explained in this post (excerpted above) at RollingStone.com provides you with this insight regarding populism, one G. K. Temujin have mentioned numerous times over the years. Taibbi has created an upswell of indignation against Wall Street similar to that which occurred back in the 1930s. By focusing larger issues such as central banking and the forgetting about the mainstream media's [ fox news , cbs , abc , nbc , msnbc and cnn ] fixation with retribution and money envy.
OWS is a diverse movement and one that is becoming increasingly factionalized. Stand together we win seperated we lose !!!
If popular anger is properly controlled and channeled then the impact of the Internet itself and the emergent clarity of its truth-telling can be mitigated, or that is the hope of the elites encouraging such populism. Change can be absorbed and the system can continue on as it is.
The goal in GK Temujin's view is corrupt world governance, an evil 1984 Orwellian system run by a handful of greedy self proclaimed experts also known " as the wisem men " reporting to the great central banking families , their enablers and associates.
The Internet, however, has put world government at risk and likely changed the plans of the Anglosphere elites behind the move. They have begun to be far more aggressive in terms of domestic policing and military activity. What cannot be gained via the elite's endless fear-based promotions is apparently to be won by force.
The elites, of course, will not give up on their control. These tools frighten the sheep of middle class into giving up power and wealth to carefully crafted and manipulated globalist solutions. They are not working nearly as well in the 21st century as they did all thru out the 20th.
You can see first in the Tea Party movement and now in OWS that there is genuine anger out there and skepticism about the current Western promotion of so-called civil society. Europe is suffering from the same sort of conditions, with many of Europe's tribes like the Greeks beginning to rebel against the inefficient and exploitative euro as Temujin previously predicted.
For the world elites, the necessity is to control this growing anger by any means possible. In the US, this means recasting it within the mold of the right-left conflict. This is an old elitist trick and is carried out to ensure that radical sentiments are properly managed.
First, one manipulates a popular movement in a particular direction. Then one sets up a controlled opposition.
The anti-government Tea Party and anti-business Wall Street will be set upon each other by the mainstream media. Angry people will be invited to take sides.
What will occur is inevitably a compromise whereby government shall be made more efficient or seemingly so and business Wall Street shall be increasingly regulated to stop abuses. This is an old an very clever trick !!!
How is it a trick? Because it leaves the modern capitalist system IN EXACTLY THE SAME PLACE as it is now. A massive government (reformed) is supervising a massive (mercantilist) financial industry (also reformed). The net result of the next umpteen weeks, months, years, etc. will be exactly nothing.
Of course, as Temujin pointed out, this old evil trick may be less effective this time around.
People are genuinely angry and the Internet Reformation is rapidly spreading the reality of that frustration. What starts as controlled rebellion can easily spread into something far more unmanageable that gives rise to genuine French , Russian or even American revolution change.
True the goog ol' USA has a massive police force in America that outside of lower Manhattan prosecutes crime and imprisons citizens with record setting, factory level efficiency, eclipsing the incarceration rates of most of history's more notorious police states and communist countries.
But the greedy evil bankers on Wall Street don't live in that heavily policed corrupt country.
There are maybe 1000 SEC agents policing that sector of the economy, plus a handful of FBI agents. There are nearly that many police officers stationed around the polite crowd at Zucotti park. These inequities are what drive the OWS protests.
People don't want handouts. It's not a class uprising and they don't want civil war they want just the opposite. They want everyone to live in the same country, and live by the same rules. It's amazing that some people think that that's asking a lot.
Join the movement friends today. Get involved. Speak out where ever you can. Speak up join this chourus of unrest. Enough is Enough you are slaves , but free men. Continue to try to push for real reforms of the system in another way using your bull horn or write the local newspaper or call the local radio station get your voice heard today.
There will be, eventually, significant unrest in the US, as elsewhere in the world. But if Temujin is correct in his analysis, much of this unrest may escape the control of the elites evidently and obviously behind OWS. This is their attempt at creating controlled social upheaval. The real thing may be yet to come
Change is a coming. Change is in wind !!!
PREPARED SPREAD THE WORD !!!
HAPPY HOLLOWEEN .
TRICK OR TREAT !!!
GK TEMUJIN SAYS :
" The issue is that I oppose Wall Street !!!
That's the greed & corruption of the money lending class elite and big business.
That's how it is perceived still by most Americans who think.
Ask yourself why is all this vitrol about the protestors instead of the Wall Street Banker crimminals.
I don't support every protestor, obviously, or everything that every protestor might also support or say.
But the idea of opposing the Wall Street Banksters.
Of course I support that.
And that is the underlying message here.
Not the dynamics of who or what is on the ground.
That is the message that we all should be behind rather than spewing vitrol at the people protesting against the corrupt banksters.
Again I don't care what ghost or gobblin scares those thieves on wall street . I just happy they are out there manning the barricades. Listen the more public outcry over wallstreet threatens the evil monopoly that those who control wallstreet have over all of us.
I would not care what wolfman , vampire , zombie or muumy were out there protesting Wallstreet, as long as it calls attention to the devious business practices and corrupt politics of Wallstreet
Don't let the media manipulate you friends !!!
The problem is not the occupy wall street protestors.
The problem is the power elite Matrix of which a critical component is Wall Street Banks and the evil world nexus of economic thievery that it represents.
" OWS's Beef: Wall Street Isn't Winning It's Cheating ... All weekend I was thinking about this "jealousy" question, and I just kept coming back to all the different ways the game is rigged. "Dude," I said. "These people aren't protesting money. They're not protesting banking. They're protesting corruption on Wall Street." ... When you take into consideration all the theft and fraud and market manipulation and other evil stuff Wall Street bankers have been guilty of in the last at least fifteen years, you have to have balls like church bells to trot out a propaganda line that says the protesters are just jealous of their hard-earned money. People aren't jealous and they don't want privileges. They just want a level playing field, and they want Wall Street to give up its cheat codes. " – Rolling Stone/Matt Taibbi
Occupy Wall Street is a revolutionary force sweeping the country, tearing down whatever is unjust and replacing it with fairness.
Deal with it Occupy Wall Street is a populist movement, not a radical one. The elite powers that be are trying their best to position it this way in opposition to the anti-government Tea Party.
This has significant ramifications not only for the movement but for the US economy and for the West in general.
Matt Taibbi's perspective as explained in this post (excerpted above) at RollingStone.com provides you with this insight regarding populism, one G. K. Temujin have mentioned numerous times over the years. Taibbi has created an upswell of indignation against Wall Street similar to that which occurred back in the 1930s. By focusing larger issues such as central banking and the forgetting about the mainstream media's [ fox news , cbs , abc , nbc , msnbc and cnn ] fixation with retribution and money envy.
OWS is a diverse movement and one that is becoming increasingly factionalized. Stand together we win seperated we lose !!!
If popular anger is properly controlled and channeled then the impact of the Internet itself and the emergent clarity of its truth-telling can be mitigated, or that is the hope of the elites encouraging such populism. Change can be absorbed and the system can continue on as it is.
The goal in GK Temujin's view is corrupt world governance, an evil 1984 Orwellian system run by a handful of greedy self proclaimed experts also known " as the wisem men " reporting to the great central banking families , their enablers and associates.
The Internet, however, has put world government at risk and likely changed the plans of the Anglosphere elites behind the move. They have begun to be far more aggressive in terms of domestic policing and military activity. What cannot be gained via the elite's endless fear-based promotions is apparently to be won by force.
The elites, of course, will not give up on their control. These tools frighten the sheep of middle class into giving up power and wealth to carefully crafted and manipulated globalist solutions. They are not working nearly as well in the 21st century as they did all thru out the 20th.
You can see first in the Tea Party movement and now in OWS that there is genuine anger out there and skepticism about the current Western promotion of so-called civil society. Europe is suffering from the same sort of conditions, with many of Europe's tribes like the Greeks beginning to rebel against the inefficient and exploitative euro as Temujin previously predicted.
For the world elites, the necessity is to control this growing anger by any means possible. In the US, this means recasting it within the mold of the right-left conflict. This is an old elitist trick and is carried out to ensure that radical sentiments are properly managed.
First, one manipulates a popular movement in a particular direction. Then one sets up a controlled opposition.
The anti-government Tea Party and anti-business Wall Street will be set upon each other by the mainstream media. Angry people will be invited to take sides.
What will occur is inevitably a compromise whereby government shall be made more efficient or seemingly so and business Wall Street shall be increasingly regulated to stop abuses. This is an old an very clever trick !!!
How is it a trick? Because it leaves the modern capitalist system IN EXACTLY THE SAME PLACE as it is now. A massive government (reformed) is supervising a massive (mercantilist) financial industry (also reformed). The net result of the next umpteen weeks, months, years, etc. will be exactly nothing.
Of course, as Temujin pointed out, this old evil trick may be less effective this time around.
People are genuinely angry and the Internet Reformation is rapidly spreading the reality of that frustration. What starts as controlled rebellion can easily spread into something far more unmanageable that gives rise to genuine French , Russian or even American revolution change.
True the goog ol' USA has a massive police force in America that outside of lower Manhattan prosecutes crime and imprisons citizens with record setting, factory level efficiency, eclipsing the incarceration rates of most of history's more notorious police states and communist countries.
But the greedy evil bankers on Wall Street don't live in that heavily policed corrupt country.
There are maybe 1000 SEC agents policing that sector of the economy, plus a handful of FBI agents. There are nearly that many police officers stationed around the polite crowd at Zucotti park. These inequities are what drive the OWS protests.
People don't want handouts. It's not a class uprising and they don't want civil war they want just the opposite. They want everyone to live in the same country, and live by the same rules. It's amazing that some people think that that's asking a lot.
Join the movement friends today. Get involved. Speak out where ever you can. Speak up join this chourus of unrest. Enough is Enough you are slaves , but free men. Continue to try to push for real reforms of the system in another way using your bull horn or write the local newspaper or call the local radio station get your voice heard today.
There will be, eventually, significant unrest in the US, as elsewhere in the world. But if Temujin is correct in his analysis, much of this unrest may escape the control of the elites evidently and obviously behind OWS. This is their attempt at creating controlled social upheaval. The real thing may be yet to come
Change is a coming. Change is in wind !!!
PREPARED SPREAD THE WORD !!!
HAPPY HOLLOWEEN .
TRICK OR TREAT !!!
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
JAY SILVERHEELS SHOULD HAVE WON AN OSCAR BROKEN ARROW
JAY SILVERHEELS AT HIS BEST. HE SHOULD HAVE WON A BEST SUPPORTING OSCAR FOR THIS PERFORMANCE !!!
Monday, October 24, 2011
CITIGROUP ARE THIEVES & THE FEDs ARE TO !!!
"Failure to prosecute the participants in the plethora of financial frauds is PROOF that America is no longer a Republic."
Enemies of the state.
American Government is inept and it's Court system is corrupt !!!
No sense implementing regulations if they're going to just be ignored. Even regulations that contain an "or else" can be ignored. Regulations that are mere illusions - like Dodd-Frank are worse than nothing. Claiming to eliminate & foreswear bank bailouts while simultaneously creating a bailout insurance fund gives the lie to any pretense of a willingness to take prompt corrective action.
The inept and corrupt SEC alleges that Citigroup Global Markets structured and marketed a CDO called Class V Funding III and exercised significant influence over the selection of $500 million of the assets included in the CDO portfolio. Citigroup then took a proprietary short position against those mortgage-related assets from which it would profit if the assets declined in value. Citigroup did not disclose to investors its role in the asset selection process or that it took a short position against the assets it helped select.
Citigroup has agreed to settle the SEC’s charges by paying a total of $285 million, which will be returned to investors.
To recap, this is what happened:
Citigroup with malice of forthought put together a CDO (a debt obligation) in which it selected "assets" to put into the transaction specifically for their crappiness. That is, they chose assets that they expected would decline in value.
The company then shorted the instrument it created, a position that would lose money if the CDO performed as expected and marketed to investors. They could only make money if the investor lost their shirt.
They did not disclose either their selection of the assets in the CDO or that they took the short to the people who were buying it!
As expected and designed the CDO blew up. The "investors" took a 100% loss; what they bought was valueless as it was a levered instrument and the valuation loss of the underlying assets was sufficient to wipe out their investment.
Citigroup made a lot of money. The instrument performed exactly as Citigroup intended but they did not tell the people who were buying this thing that they expected they would lose every penny they put in up front. In fact they intentionally concealed their fraud role in selecting the assets and that they had taken a short position against them !!!
Now the corrupt and inept SEC steps in and they agree to "settle" this case with what amounts to a fine.
In fact the SEC press release claims that Citigroup knew damn well what they were " selling " was fraudulently misrepresented to the customers:
According to the SEC’s complaints, the Class V III transaction closed on Feb. 28, 2007. One experienced CDO trader characterized the Class V III portfolio in an e-mail as “dogsh!t” and “possibly the best short EVER!”
An experienced collateral manager commented that “the portfolio is horrible.” On Nov. 7, 2007, a credit rating agency downgraded every tranche of Class V III, and on Nov. 19, 2007, Class V III was declared to be in an Event of Default.
The approximately 15 investors in the Class V III transaction lost virtually their entire investments while Citigroup received fees of approximately $34 million for structuring and marketing the transaction and additionally realized net profits of at least $126 million from its short position.
Where are the handcuffs for the obvious false statements and criminal fraud ???
This "transaction" was a clear (and successful) attempt to simply rob and cheat people.
If you or I do something like this through some fraudulent edifice we go to prison. But when a big national bank does it, the feds simply order them to a pay a fine when they get caught.
This makes stealing a simple business proposition:
Since you will not get caught all of the time, there is no reason not to steal. Any time you do not get caught you get to keep all the loot. When you get caught you negotiate to return some of the loot.
It has always amazed me how a local drugged up Bank robber can get 10 years for robbing $3,000 what amounts to petty crimes incomparison. Then these inside bankers & multinational corporations can rip off millions of dollars and break people. You can steal a hell of alot more cash with computer mouse than a gun ask those CEOs on wall street.
Get off with a slap on the wrist. All things considered, more people should be marching on wall street. The power elite Oligarchy of big corrupt government & big thieving business that rule America has ruined America.
This is simply boiler room fraud, plain and simple. Consider that we have had a recent Treasury Secretary who profited from this very type of crude fraud, Hank Paulson. Create toxic securities, bribe willing rating agencies to give them the triple A, profit by selling this crap to dupes, and magnify your profits by shorting the crap out of it, or taking out multiple CDS on the garbage.
And when your poisoned bookie AIG cannot pay, your former criminal CEO, now US Treasury Secretary, ensures that your bookie makes good on your bets with tax payer dollars.
This is not a very sophisticated crime. It is quite amazing for its brazen obviousness, however.
It is the very anatomy of an illegal wealth transfer. This is exactly how it is done.
Failure to prosecute for real crimes against the American people once again. The participants in the plethora of financial frauds is PROOF that Amerika is no longer a Republic !!!
AND WE WONDER WHY INSTITUTION ENGAGE IN THIS SORT OF BLATANT RIPOFF?
The problem is that these settlements all boil down to nothing other than a "cost of doing business." In other words, they'll keep doing this because the cost is negligible. No surprise at all just one big funny game. With the Joke on the American People !!!
Citi was fined and allowed to consent to the charges without admitting or denying any allegations. In other words, Citi is allowed to say "we'll pay the money to make this suit go away, but we didn't do anything wrong", as has happened in other banking settlement agreements.
Will we ever get an admission / verdict of guilt, much less handcuffs ???
Not with co-conspiritors in government !!!
Ps: Oh yeah, there's this pesky statute of limitations problem too. Anyone note the dates? Just draw it out until you can't prosecute - on purpose. This is nothing more or less than an organized looting operation with the full participation of the government in stealing from the victims.
The problem is that these settlements all boil down to nothing other than a "cost of doing business." In other words, they'll keep doing this because the cost is negligible. No surprise at this late stage of the game.
Enemies of the state.
American Government is inept and it's Court system is corrupt !!!
No sense implementing regulations if they're going to just be ignored. Even regulations that contain an "or else" can be ignored. Regulations that are mere illusions - like Dodd-Frank are worse than nothing. Claiming to eliminate & foreswear bank bailouts while simultaneously creating a bailout insurance fund gives the lie to any pretense of a willingness to take prompt corrective action.
The inept and corrupt SEC alleges that Citigroup Global Markets structured and marketed a CDO called Class V Funding III and exercised significant influence over the selection of $500 million of the assets included in the CDO portfolio. Citigroup then took a proprietary short position against those mortgage-related assets from which it would profit if the assets declined in value. Citigroup did not disclose to investors its role in the asset selection process or that it took a short position against the assets it helped select.
Citigroup has agreed to settle the SEC’s charges by paying a total of $285 million, which will be returned to investors.
To recap, this is what happened:
Citigroup with malice of forthought put together a CDO (a debt obligation) in which it selected "assets" to put into the transaction specifically for their crappiness. That is, they chose assets that they expected would decline in value.
The company then shorted the instrument it created, a position that would lose money if the CDO performed as expected and marketed to investors. They could only make money if the investor lost their shirt.
They did not disclose either their selection of the assets in the CDO or that they took the short to the people who were buying it!
As expected and designed the CDO blew up. The "investors" took a 100% loss; what they bought was valueless as it was a levered instrument and the valuation loss of the underlying assets was sufficient to wipe out their investment.
Citigroup made a lot of money. The instrument performed exactly as Citigroup intended but they did not tell the people who were buying this thing that they expected they would lose every penny they put in up front. In fact they intentionally concealed their fraud role in selecting the assets and that they had taken a short position against them !!!
Now the corrupt and inept SEC steps in and they agree to "settle" this case with what amounts to a fine.
In fact the SEC press release claims that Citigroup knew damn well what they were " selling " was fraudulently misrepresented to the customers:
According to the SEC’s complaints, the Class V III transaction closed on Feb. 28, 2007. One experienced CDO trader characterized the Class V III portfolio in an e-mail as “dogsh!t” and “possibly the best short EVER!”
An experienced collateral manager commented that “the portfolio is horrible.” On Nov. 7, 2007, a credit rating agency downgraded every tranche of Class V III, and on Nov. 19, 2007, Class V III was declared to be in an Event of Default.
The approximately 15 investors in the Class V III transaction lost virtually their entire investments while Citigroup received fees of approximately $34 million for structuring and marketing the transaction and additionally realized net profits of at least $126 million from its short position.
Where are the handcuffs for the obvious false statements and criminal fraud ???
This "transaction" was a clear (and successful) attempt to simply rob and cheat people.
If you or I do something like this through some fraudulent edifice we go to prison. But when a big national bank does it, the feds simply order them to a pay a fine when they get caught.
This makes stealing a simple business proposition:
Since you will not get caught all of the time, there is no reason not to steal. Any time you do not get caught you get to keep all the loot. When you get caught you negotiate to return some of the loot.
It has always amazed me how a local drugged up Bank robber can get 10 years for robbing $3,000 what amounts to petty crimes incomparison. Then these inside bankers & multinational corporations can rip off millions of dollars and break people. You can steal a hell of alot more cash with computer mouse than a gun ask those CEOs on wall street.
Get off with a slap on the wrist. All things considered, more people should be marching on wall street. The power elite Oligarchy of big corrupt government & big thieving business that rule America has ruined America.
This is simply boiler room fraud, plain and simple. Consider that we have had a recent Treasury Secretary who profited from this very type of crude fraud, Hank Paulson. Create toxic securities, bribe willing rating agencies to give them the triple A, profit by selling this crap to dupes, and magnify your profits by shorting the crap out of it, or taking out multiple CDS on the garbage.
And when your poisoned bookie AIG cannot pay, your former criminal CEO, now US Treasury Secretary, ensures that your bookie makes good on your bets with tax payer dollars.
This is not a very sophisticated crime. It is quite amazing for its brazen obviousness, however.
It is the very anatomy of an illegal wealth transfer. This is exactly how it is done.
Failure to prosecute for real crimes against the American people once again. The participants in the plethora of financial frauds is PROOF that Amerika is no longer a Republic !!!
AND WE WONDER WHY INSTITUTION ENGAGE IN THIS SORT OF BLATANT RIPOFF?
The problem is that these settlements all boil down to nothing other than a "cost of doing business." In other words, they'll keep doing this because the cost is negligible. No surprise at all just one big funny game. With the Joke on the American People !!!
Citi was fined and allowed to consent to the charges without admitting or denying any allegations. In other words, Citi is allowed to say "we'll pay the money to make this suit go away, but we didn't do anything wrong", as has happened in other banking settlement agreements.
Will we ever get an admission / verdict of guilt, much less handcuffs ???
Not with co-conspiritors in government !!!
Ps: Oh yeah, there's this pesky statute of limitations problem too. Anyone note the dates? Just draw it out until you can't prosecute - on purpose. This is nothing more or less than an organized looting operation with the full participation of the government in stealing from the victims.
The problem is that these settlements all boil down to nothing other than a "cost of doing business." In other words, they'll keep doing this because the cost is negligible. No surprise at this late stage of the game.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Elvis Presley - Men with broken hearts
Since wealth has become concentrated in very few hands, that means that there are a whole lot of poor people out there.
At a time when technology should be making it possible to lift standards of living all over the globe, poverty just continues to spread. According to the same Credit Suisse study referenced above, the bottom two-thirds of the global population controls just 3.3% of all the wealth.
Not only that, more than 3 billion people currently live on less than 2 dollar a day.
While the ultra-wealthy live the high life, unimaginable tragedies play out all over the globe every single day. Every 3.6 seconds someone starves to death and three-quarters of them are children under the age of 5.
OCCUPY WASHINGTON D. C. NEXT THE RATS NEST
If you were asked to guess, what area of the United States would you say has the highest average income? New York City? Los Angeles? Silicon Valley?
Well, would you believe that it is actually the Washington D.C. area? Median household income in the region is $84,523, which is the highest in the nation. One of the biggest reasons for this are the huge salaries being pulled down by federal employees in the Washington D.C. area. According to the latest numbers, the average federal employee in the D.C. area brings in total compensation worth more than $126,000 a year. Of course members of Congress are even doing far better than that. Most of the members of Congress are millionaires, and somehow the vast majority of our politicians leave Washington D.C. far wealthier than when they arrived. So if you want to live the high life, you might want to move to the Washington D.C. area. Our "representatives" in Congress and the bureaucrats that work for the federal government are swimming in cash, and it is all at our expense.
Before you read the following facts, keep in mind that median household income in the United States has declined for three years in a row. While the bureaucrats in D.C. are living the high life, most of the rest of us are going through some really hard times.
Today, median household income in the United States is about $50,000 a year, and in most families both parents have to work or the bills will not get paid.
So it just does not seem right that the "average" federal worker in the Washington D.C. area is hauling down more than $126,000 a year in total compensation.
After all, are they not supposed to be "public servants"?
Instead, it feels like we are serving them. They get to drive around in their shiny new cars and they get to enjoy their shiny new McMansions in the D.C. suburbs while the rest of us pay for it.
Trust me, I have seen the beautiful suburbs in Maryland and in northern Virginia that seem to go on forever, and it is the U.S. taxpayers that are footing the bill. Spending by the federal government accounts for approximately one third of the GDP of the entire region.
According to the Washington Post, the Washington D.C. area has become a great place for those that enjoy "living the dream"....
Washingtonians now enjoy the highest median household income of any metropolitan area in the country, and five of the top 10 jurisdictions in America – Loudoun, Howard and Fairfax counties, and Falls Church and Fairfax City – are here, census data shows.
The signs of that wealth are on display all over, from the string of luxury boutiques such as Gucci and Tory Burch opening at Tysons Galleria to the $15 cocktails served over artisanal ice at the W Hotel in the District to the ever-larger houses rising off River Road in Potomac.
All of this wealth did not get created because the D.C. area is a great center for industry or finance.
Rather, all of these people are becoming very wealthy because of our big, fat bloated federal government.
The following are 10 mind blowing facts which show how members of Congress and federal employees are living the high life at our expense....
#1 When you total up all compensation (including health care and benefits), the average income for a federal worker in the Washington D.C. area last year was $126,369.
#2 In 2005, 7420 federal workers were making $150,000 or more per year. In 2010, a whopping 82,034 federal workers were making $150,000 or more per year. That is more than a tenfold increase in just five years.
#3 In 2005, the U.S. Department of Defense had just nine civilians earning $170,000 or more. When Barack Obama took office, the U.S. Department of Defense had 214 civilians earning $170,000 or more. In June 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense had 994 civilians earning $170,000 or more.
#4 Last year, federal employees "earned" approximately 447 billion dollars in total compensation.
#5 According to a study by the Heritage Foundation, federal workers earn 30 to 40 percent more money on average than their counterparts in the private sector.
#6 Today, one out of every 12 people living in Washington D.C. is a lawyer. In New York City, only one out of every 123 residents is a lawyer.
#7 More than 50 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress are millionaires.
#8 The median wealth of a U.S. Senator in 2009 was 2.38 million dollars.
#9 Insider trading is perfectly legal for members of the U.S. Congress – and they refuse to pass a law that would change that.
#10 The percentage of millionaires in Congress is more than 50 times higher than the percentage of millionaires in the general population.
Meanwhile, most of the rest of America has been going through economic hell....
The standard of living in the United States has fallen farther over the past three years than at any other time that has ever been recorded in U.S. history.
According to the Federal Reserve, the combined net worth of American families has fallen by $5.5 trillion since 2007.
Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.
According to Paul Osterman, a professor of economics at MIT, approximately 20 percent of all employed Americans are making $10.65 an hour or less.
While the average American family is deeply struggling to pay the mortgage and put food on the table, the bureaucrats in Washington D.C. are busy shopping for the latest cell phones and trying to figure out what brand of new car to buy next year.
Over the past couple of decades, the federal government has absolutely exploded in size, but this has not helped the poor. We now have more poor people in this country than ever before and over 2 million additional Americans slipped into poverty last year.
No, the reality is that the people that have reaped the rewards of a much larger federal government are the lawyers, the lobbyists and the bureaucrats.
This is the kind of thing that the American people should be protesting. Almost everybody in Congress is rich. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees are living the high life. The lawyers, the lobbyists and the bureaucrats are having a field day.
Meanwhile, most of the rest of the country is deeply suffering.
It just doesn't seem right, does it?
Reprinted with permission from End of the American Dream.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/
October 22, 2011
Well, would you believe that it is actually the Washington D.C. area? Median household income in the region is $84,523, which is the highest in the nation. One of the biggest reasons for this are the huge salaries being pulled down by federal employees in the Washington D.C. area. According to the latest numbers, the average federal employee in the D.C. area brings in total compensation worth more than $126,000 a year. Of course members of Congress are even doing far better than that. Most of the members of Congress are millionaires, and somehow the vast majority of our politicians leave Washington D.C. far wealthier than when they arrived. So if you want to live the high life, you might want to move to the Washington D.C. area. Our "representatives" in Congress and the bureaucrats that work for the federal government are swimming in cash, and it is all at our expense.
Before you read the following facts, keep in mind that median household income in the United States has declined for three years in a row. While the bureaucrats in D.C. are living the high life, most of the rest of us are going through some really hard times.
Today, median household income in the United States is about $50,000 a year, and in most families both parents have to work or the bills will not get paid.
So it just does not seem right that the "average" federal worker in the Washington D.C. area is hauling down more than $126,000 a year in total compensation.
After all, are they not supposed to be "public servants"?
Instead, it feels like we are serving them. They get to drive around in their shiny new cars and they get to enjoy their shiny new McMansions in the D.C. suburbs while the rest of us pay for it.
Trust me, I have seen the beautiful suburbs in Maryland and in northern Virginia that seem to go on forever, and it is the U.S. taxpayers that are footing the bill. Spending by the federal government accounts for approximately one third of the GDP of the entire region.
According to the Washington Post, the Washington D.C. area has become a great place for those that enjoy "living the dream"....
Washingtonians now enjoy the highest median household income of any metropolitan area in the country, and five of the top 10 jurisdictions in America – Loudoun, Howard and Fairfax counties, and Falls Church and Fairfax City – are here, census data shows.
The signs of that wealth are on display all over, from the string of luxury boutiques such as Gucci and Tory Burch opening at Tysons Galleria to the $15 cocktails served over artisanal ice at the W Hotel in the District to the ever-larger houses rising off River Road in Potomac.
All of this wealth did not get created because the D.C. area is a great center for industry or finance.
Rather, all of these people are becoming very wealthy because of our big, fat bloated federal government.
The following are 10 mind blowing facts which show how members of Congress and federal employees are living the high life at our expense....
#1 When you total up all compensation (including health care and benefits), the average income for a federal worker in the Washington D.C. area last year was $126,369.
#2 In 2005, 7420 federal workers were making $150,000 or more per year. In 2010, a whopping 82,034 federal workers were making $150,000 or more per year. That is more than a tenfold increase in just five years.
#3 In 2005, the U.S. Department of Defense had just nine civilians earning $170,000 or more. When Barack Obama took office, the U.S. Department of Defense had 214 civilians earning $170,000 or more. In June 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense had 994 civilians earning $170,000 or more.
#4 Last year, federal employees "earned" approximately 447 billion dollars in total compensation.
#5 According to a study by the Heritage Foundation, federal workers earn 30 to 40 percent more money on average than their counterparts in the private sector.
#6 Today, one out of every 12 people living in Washington D.C. is a lawyer. In New York City, only one out of every 123 residents is a lawyer.
#7 More than 50 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress are millionaires.
#8 The median wealth of a U.S. Senator in 2009 was 2.38 million dollars.
#9 Insider trading is perfectly legal for members of the U.S. Congress – and they refuse to pass a law that would change that.
#10 The percentage of millionaires in Congress is more than 50 times higher than the percentage of millionaires in the general population.
Meanwhile, most of the rest of America has been going through economic hell....
The standard of living in the United States has fallen farther over the past three years than at any other time that has ever been recorded in U.S. history.
According to the Federal Reserve, the combined net worth of American families has fallen by $5.5 trillion since 2007.
Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.
According to Paul Osterman, a professor of economics at MIT, approximately 20 percent of all employed Americans are making $10.65 an hour or less.
While the average American family is deeply struggling to pay the mortgage and put food on the table, the bureaucrats in Washington D.C. are busy shopping for the latest cell phones and trying to figure out what brand of new car to buy next year.
Over the past couple of decades, the federal government has absolutely exploded in size, but this has not helped the poor. We now have more poor people in this country than ever before and over 2 million additional Americans slipped into poverty last year.
No, the reality is that the people that have reaped the rewards of a much larger federal government are the lawyers, the lobbyists and the bureaucrats.
This is the kind of thing that the American people should be protesting. Almost everybody in Congress is rich. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees are living the high life. The lawyers, the lobbyists and the bureaucrats are having a field day.
Meanwhile, most of the rest of the country is deeply suffering.
It just doesn't seem right, does it?
Reprinted with permission from End of the American Dream.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/
October 22, 2011
Is America Disintegrating? by Patrick J. Buchanan
In Federalist 2, John Jay looks out at a nation of a common blood, faith, language, history, customs and culture.
"Providence," he writes, "has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people – a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion ... very similar in their manners and customs ..."
Are we still that "one united people" today? Or has America become what Klemens von Metternich called Italy: "a mere geographical expression"?
In "Suicide of a Superpower," out this week, I argue that the America we grew up in is disintegrating, breaking apart along the fault lines of politics, race, ethnicity, culture and faith; that the centrifugal forces in society have now become the dominant forces.
Our politics are as poisonous as they have been in our lifetimes.
Sarah Palin was maligned as morally complicit in the murder attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Terms like "terrorists" and "hostage-takers" are routinely used on Tea Party members who one congressman said want to see blacks "hanging on a tree."
Half a century after the civil rights revolution triumphed, the terms "racist" and "racism" are in daily use. We remain, said Eric Holder in calling us a "nation of cowards," as socially segregated as ever.
"Outside the workplace, the situation is even more bleak in that there is almost no significant interaction between us. On Saturdays and Sundays, America ... does not, in some ways, differ significantly from the country that existed some 50 years ago."
He is not altogether wrong in that. In California's prisons and among her proliferating ethnic gangs, a black-brown civil war has broken out.
Yet, by 2042, there will be 66 million black folks and 135 million Hispanics here, the latter concentrated in the states bordering Mexico.
What holds us together, then?
We are not now and will not then be "descended from common ancestors." We will consist of all the races, cultures, tribes and creeds of Earth – a multiracial, multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual stew of a nation that has never before existed, or survived. The parallels that come to mind are the Habsburg Empire that flew apart after World War I, and the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia that disintegrated after the Cold War.
No more will we all speak the same language. We will be bilingual and bi-national. Spanish radio and TV stations are already the fastest growing. In Los Angeles, half the people speak a language other than English in their own homes.
As for "professing the same religion," where 85 percent of Americans were Christians in 1990, that is down to 75 percent and plummeting. The old Christian churches – Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran and especially Episcopalian – are splitting, shrinking and dying.
Where three in four Catholics attended Sunday Mass in 1960, it is now one in four. One in three cradle Catholics has lost the faith. The numbers of priests and nuns are plummeting; religious orders are dying; Catholics schools are closing.
The moral consensus and moral code Christianity gave to us has collapsed. Since the great cultural-social revolution of the 1960s, there has occurred what Nietzsche called the "transvaluation of all values."
What was morally repellent – promiscuity, homosexuality, abortion – is now seen by perhaps half the nation as natural, normal, healthy and progressive.
Socially, too, America is breaking down.
Where out-of-wedlock births in the 1950s were rare, today, 41 percent of all American children are born out of wedlock. Among Hispanics, it is 51 percent; among blacks, 71 percent. And the correlation between the illegitimacy rate, the drug rate, the dropout rate, the crime rate and the incarceration rate is absolute.
This helps to explain the four decades of plunging test scores of American children and the quadrupling of the prison population.
And while all this is happening, the state is failing.
We cannot control our borders, win our wars or balance our budgets. In three consecutive national elections – 2006, 2008 and 2010 – the incumbents have been repudiated. Confidence in politics, politicians and the future of the country has never been so low in our lifetimes.
There was a time not so long ago when the nation was united on a common faith, morality, history, heroes, holidays, holy days, language and literature. Now we fight over them all.
Neocons says not to worry, the Constitution holds us together.
Does it? Do we all agree on what the First Amendment says about the freedom to pray in school and celebrate Christmas and Easter? How can we be the "one nation, under God" of the Pledge of Allegiance, or the people "endowed by their Creator" with inalienable rights, if we cannot even identify or discuss or mention that God and that Creator in the schools of America?
Do we agree on what the Ninth Amendment says about right to life? What about what the 14th Amendment says about affirmative action? What the Second Amendment says about the right to carry a concealed gun?
The new secession that is coming, Rick Perry notwithstanding, is not like the secession of 1861. It is a secession of the heart from one another.
Is America Disintegrating? by Patrick J. Buchanan
"Providence," he writes, "has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people – a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion ... very similar in their manners and customs ..."
Are we still that "one united people" today? Or has America become what Klemens von Metternich called Italy: "a mere geographical expression"?
In "Suicide of a Superpower," out this week, I argue that the America we grew up in is disintegrating, breaking apart along the fault lines of politics, race, ethnicity, culture and faith; that the centrifugal forces in society have now become the dominant forces.
Our politics are as poisonous as they have been in our lifetimes.
Sarah Palin was maligned as morally complicit in the murder attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Terms like "terrorists" and "hostage-takers" are routinely used on Tea Party members who one congressman said want to see blacks "hanging on a tree."
Half a century after the civil rights revolution triumphed, the terms "racist" and "racism" are in daily use. We remain, said Eric Holder in calling us a "nation of cowards," as socially segregated as ever.
"Outside the workplace, the situation is even more bleak in that there is almost no significant interaction between us. On Saturdays and Sundays, America ... does not, in some ways, differ significantly from the country that existed some 50 years ago."
He is not altogether wrong in that. In California's prisons and among her proliferating ethnic gangs, a black-brown civil war has broken out.
Yet, by 2042, there will be 66 million black folks and 135 million Hispanics here, the latter concentrated in the states bordering Mexico.
What holds us together, then?
We are not now and will not then be "descended from common ancestors." We will consist of all the races, cultures, tribes and creeds of Earth – a multiracial, multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual stew of a nation that has never before existed, or survived. The parallels that come to mind are the Habsburg Empire that flew apart after World War I, and the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia that disintegrated after the Cold War.
No more will we all speak the same language. We will be bilingual and bi-national. Spanish radio and TV stations are already the fastest growing. In Los Angeles, half the people speak a language other than English in their own homes.
As for "professing the same religion," where 85 percent of Americans were Christians in 1990, that is down to 75 percent and plummeting. The old Christian churches – Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran and especially Episcopalian – are splitting, shrinking and dying.
Where three in four Catholics attended Sunday Mass in 1960, it is now one in four. One in three cradle Catholics has lost the faith. The numbers of priests and nuns are plummeting; religious orders are dying; Catholics schools are closing.
The moral consensus and moral code Christianity gave to us has collapsed. Since the great cultural-social revolution of the 1960s, there has occurred what Nietzsche called the "transvaluation of all values."
What was morally repellent – promiscuity, homosexuality, abortion – is now seen by perhaps half the nation as natural, normal, healthy and progressive.
Socially, too, America is breaking down.
Where out-of-wedlock births in the 1950s were rare, today, 41 percent of all American children are born out of wedlock. Among Hispanics, it is 51 percent; among blacks, 71 percent. And the correlation between the illegitimacy rate, the drug rate, the dropout rate, the crime rate and the incarceration rate is absolute.
This helps to explain the four decades of plunging test scores of American children and the quadrupling of the prison population.
And while all this is happening, the state is failing.
We cannot control our borders, win our wars or balance our budgets. In three consecutive national elections – 2006, 2008 and 2010 – the incumbents have been repudiated. Confidence in politics, politicians and the future of the country has never been so low in our lifetimes.
There was a time not so long ago when the nation was united on a common faith, morality, history, heroes, holidays, holy days, language and literature. Now we fight over them all.
Neocons says not to worry, the Constitution holds us together.
Does it? Do we all agree on what the First Amendment says about the freedom to pray in school and celebrate Christmas and Easter? How can we be the "one nation, under God" of the Pledge of Allegiance, or the people "endowed by their Creator" with inalienable rights, if we cannot even identify or discuss or mention that God and that Creator in the schools of America?
Do we agree on what the Ninth Amendment says about right to life? What about what the 14th Amendment says about affirmative action? What the Second Amendment says about the right to carry a concealed gun?
The new secession that is coming, Rick Perry notwithstanding, is not like the secession of 1861. It is a secession of the heart from one another.
Is America Disintegrating? by Patrick J. Buchanan
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
