There Is No National Debt Unless You Want It vidrebel.wordpress.com October 25, 2012 The US federal debt is 16 trillion dollars – 20 trillion if you add in state and local government debts – but it could just as easily be zero dollars if we had the monetary system Benjamin Franklin described to the people of London in the 1760s. Englishmen could not understand why the American colonies had no poor houses and unemployed. He explained that if a colony needed to build a bridge or to fight a colonial war against the French they issued money which was retired from circulation as people paid taxes. The New England colonies did print too much money to support of England’s wars against the French in Canada. The important point is that there was no interest paid and no debt issued. Contrast that to the Federal Reserve which churns out fraudulent and fictional debt by the trillions. The interest on the federal debt is over 500 billion dollars a year. If Ben Bernanke were not printing money to buy bonds, the interest rate would have to at least equal the inflation rate of 10% which would give us an annual bill of two trillion dollars. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff wrote This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly which was released in October 2009. They told us that when the total public debt of any nation exceeds90% of its Gross Domestic Product that it will eventually default. The US GDP if properly adjusted by subtracting the 2012 US deficit of 1.275 trillion dollars is 114% of GDP. If you add in 4 trillion dollars for US state and local debts, you will discover that total US government debt is 20 trillion dollars or 143% of GDP. If you add government guarantees like Fannie Mae’s underwater mortgages, then you will understand why the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will no longer guarantee all of your American bank deposits beginning in January of 2013. It seems the FDIC and the Federal Reserve are preparing for your future when the bankers decide to push you off that financial cliff in January.
Dr Steve Keen who champions Debt Cancellation says we have the highest total level of public and private debt in 500 years. Depressions cancel Unpayable Debts through bankruptcies, defaults, wage cuts and Austerity.That means we will have the Greatest Depression in 500 years if we do not have a systematic and scientific worldwide program of Debt Cancellation. You have no future other than nationwide food riots. unemployment, bankruptcy and Hyperinflation if you do not demand the government issue a non-interest bearing currency, ban fractional reserve banking and cancel all government debt. Even the IMF has been backing monetary reform by saying how well Iceland has been doing since it decided that the public should not pay for the losses of criminals who ran banks. Two IMF economists endorsed the Chicago Plan which could have ended the Depression in 1933 when it was published and could do the same today. You can read about that in detail below. I also outline how Debt Cancellation would work. Ideas are not the problem. We have no lack of workable ideas. If we do not have monetary reform very, very soon, six billion or more real human beings will be dead really soon. That death toll estimate was from MIT not me. The world is down to its last few weeks and possibly months before the whole world spirals into disaster. I realize I have said this before. But what has changed is that we are running out of time. Notes: This first article outlines how IMF economists have finally admitted that what they were doing was wrong. IMF Economists: ‘We Were Wrong.’ Will Someone Please Tell The Press And The Politicians. http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/imf-economists-we-were-wrong-will-someone-please-tellthe-press-and-the-politicians/ This next article tells how Debt Cancellation would work. The New Economics, Radical Solutions Required And Offered http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/the-new-economics-radical-solutions-required-and-offered/ Catherine Austin Fitts; There Is No Fiscal Cliff In January 2013 Unless You Want It http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/catherine-austin-fitts-there-is-no-fiscal-cliff-in-january2013-unless-you-want-it/ The Chinese Are Buying Gold As If They Knew The Dollar Would Die Very Soon http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/the-chinese-are-buying-gold-as-if-they-knew-the-dollarwould-die-very-soon/
Before The Election Was Over, Wall Street Won Nomi Prins zerohedge.com October 25, 2012 Before the campaign contributors lavished billions of dollars on their favorite candidate; and long after they toast their winner or drink to forget their loser, Wall Street was already primed to continue its reign over the economy. For, after three debates (well, four), when it comes to banking, finance, and the ongoing subsidization of Wall Street, both presidential candidates and their parties’ attitudes toward the banking sector is similar – i.e. it must be preserved – as is – at all costs, rhetoric to the contrary, aside. Obama hasn’t brought ‘sweeping reform’ upon the Establishment Banks, nor does Romney need to exude deregulatory babble, because nothing structurally substantive has been done to harness the biggest banks of the financial sector, enabled, as they are, by entities from the SEC to the Fed to the Treasury Department to the White House. In addition, though much is made of each candidates’ tax plans, and the related math that doesn’t add up (for both presidential candidates), the bottom line is, Obama hasn’t explained exactly WHY there’s $5 trillion more in debt during his presidency, nor has Romney explained HOW to get a $5 trillion savings. For the record, both missed, or don’t get, that nearly 32% of that Treasury debt is reserved (in excess) at the Fed, floating the banking system that supposedly doesn’t need help. The ‘worst economic period since the Great Depression’ barely produced a short-fall of an approximate average of $200 billion in personal and corporate tax revenues per year, according to federal data.) Consider that the amount of tax revenue since 2008, has dropped for individual income contributions from $1.15 trillion in 2008 to $915 billion in 2009, to $899 billion in 2010, then risen to $1.1 trillion in 2011. Corporate tax contributions have dropped (by more of course) from $304 billion in 2008 to $138 billion in 2009 to $191 billion in 2010, to $181 billion in 2011. Thus, at most, we can
consider to have lost $420 billion in individual revenue and $402 billion in corporate revenue, or $822 billion from 2009 on. The Fed has, in addition, held on average of $1.6 trillion Treasuries in excess reserves. That, plus $822 billion equals $2.42 trillion, add on the other $900 billion of Fed held mortgage securities, and you get $3.32 trillion, NOT $5 trillion, and most to float banks. The most consistent political platform is that big finance trumps main street economics, and the needs of the banking sector trump those of the population. We have a national policy condoning zero-interest-rate policy (ZIRP) as somehow job-creative. (Fed Funds rates dropped to 0% by the end of 2008, where they have remained since.) We are left with a regulatory policy of pretend. Rather than re-instating Glass-Steagall to divide commercial from investment banking and insurance activity, thereby removing the platform of government (or public) supported speculation and expansion, props leaders that pretend linguistic tweaks are a match for financial might. We have no leader that will take on Jamie Dimon, Chairman of the country’s largest bank, JPM Chase, who can devote 15% of the capital of JPM Chase, which remains backstopped by customer deposit insurance, to bet on the direction of potential corporate defaults, and slide by two Congressional investigations like walks in the park. Pillars of Collusion A few months ago, Paul Craig Roberts and I co-wrote an article about the LIBOR scandal; the crux of which, was lost on most of the media. That is; the banks, the Fed, and the Treasury Department knew banks were manipulating rates lower to artificially support the prices of hemorrhaging assets and debt securities. But no one in Washington complained, because they were in on it; because it made the overarching problem of debt-manufacturing and bloating the Fed’s balance sheet to subsidize a banking industry at the expense of national economic health, evaporate in the ether of delusion.
In the same vein, the Fed announced QE3, the unlimited version – the Fed would buy $40 billion a month of mortgage-backed securities from banks. Why – if the recession is supposedly over and the housing market has supposedly bottomed out – would this be necessary? Simple. If the Fed is buying securities, it’s because the banks can’t sell them anywhere else. And because banks still need to get rid of these mortgage assets, they won’t lend again or refinance loans at faster rates, thereby sharing their advantage for cheaper money, as anyone trying to even refinance a mortgage has discovered. Thus, Banks simply aren’t ‘healthy’, not withstanding their $1.53 trillion of excess reserves (earning interest), and nearly $900 billion in mortgage backed securities parked at the Fed. The open-ended QE program is merely perpetuating the illusion that as long as bank assets get marked higher (through artificial buyers, zero percent interest rates, or not having to mark them to market), everything is fine. Meanwhile, Washington coddles and subsidizes the biggest banks – not to encourage lending, not to encourage saving, and not to better the country, but to contain harsh truths about how badly banks played, and are still playing, the nation. The SEC’s Role According to the SEC’s own report card on “Enforcement Actions: Addressing Misconduct that led to or arose from the Financial Crisis”: the SEC has levied charges against 112 entities and individuals, of which 55 were CEOs, CFOs, and other Senior Corporate Officers. In terms of fines; the SEC ‘ordered or agreed to’ $1.4 billion of penalties, $460 million of disgorgement and prejudgment interest, and $355 million of “Additional Monetary Relief Obtained for Harmed Investors. That’s a grand total of $2.2 billion of fines. (The Department of Justice dismissed additional charges or punitive moves.) Goldman, Sachs received the largest fine, of $550 million, taking no responsibility (in SEC-speak, “neither confirming nor denying’ any wrongdoing) for packaging CDOs on behalf of one client, which supported their prevailing trading position, and pushing them on investors without disclosing that information, which would have materially changed pricing and attractiveness. (The DOJ found nothing else to charge Goldman with, apparently not considering misleading investors, fraud.) Obama-appointed SEC head, Mary Shapiro, originally settled with Bank of America for a friendly $34 million, until Judge Rakoff quintupled the fine to $150 million, for misleading shareholders during its Fed-approved, Treasury department pushed, acquisition of Merrill Lynch, regarding bonus compensation. (Merrill’s $3.6 billion of bonuses were paid before the year-end of 2008, while TARP and other subsidies were utilized). Still embroiled in ongoing lawsuits related to its Countrywide acquisition, Bank of America agreed to an additional $601.5 million in one non-SEC settlement, and $2.43 billion in another relating to those Merrill bonuses. Likewise, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $590 million for its fall-2008 acquisition of Wachovia’s foul loans and securities. These are small prices to pay to grow your asset and customer base. Citigroup agreed to pay $285 million to the SEC to settle charges of misleading investors and betting against them, in the sale of one (one!) $1 billion CDO. Judge Rakoff rejected the settlement, but Citigroup is appealing. So is its friend, the SEC. Outside of that, Citigroup agreed to an additional $590 million to settle a shareholder CDO lawsuit, denying wrongdoing. JPM Chase agreed to a $153.5 million SEC fine relating to one (one!) CDO. Outside of Washington, it agreed to a $100 million settlement for hiking credit card fees, and a $150 million settlement for a lawsuit filed by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists retirement fund and other investors, over losses from its purchase of JPM’s Sigma Finance Hedge Fund, when it used to be rated ‘AAA.’
There you have it. No one did anything wrong. The total of $2.2 billion in SEC fines, and about $4.4 billion in outside lawsuits is paltry. Consider that for the same period (since 2007), total Wall Street bonuses topped $679 billion, or nearly 309 times as much as the SEC fines, and 154 times as much as all the settlements. The SEC & Dodd Frank Dance The SEC embarked upon 90 actions, divided into 15 categories, related to the Dodd-Frank Act that amount to proposing or adopting rules with loopholes galore, and creating reports that summarize things we know. Some of the obvious categories, like asset backed related products or derivatives, don’t even include CDOs, which got the lion’s share of SEC fines and DOJ indifference. Rather than tightening regulations on the most egregious financial product culprits; insurance swaps, such as the credit default swaps imbedded in CDOs, the SEC loosened them. It did so by approving an order making many of the Exchange Act requirements not applicable to security-based swaps. In one new post-Dodd-Frank order, it stated, a “product will not be considered a swap or security-based swap if ,,, it falls within the category of…insurance, including against default on individual residential mortgages.” Thus, credit default swaps, considered insurance since their inception, warrant no special attention in the grand land of sweeping reform. The credit ratings category includes 20 items proposed, requested, or adopted. Under things accomplished, the SEC gave a report to Congress that basically says that the majority of rating agency business is paid for by issuers (which we knew), and proclaims (I kid you not) that a security is rated “investment grade” if it is rated “investment grade” by at least one rating agency. Further inspection of SEC self-labeled accomplishments provides no more confidence, that anything has, or will, change for the safer. The White House & Congress Yet, the Obama White House wants us to believe that Dodd-Frank was ‘sweeping reform.’ Romney and the Republicans are up and arms over it, simply because it exists and sounds like regulation, and Democrats defensively portray its effectiveness. Ignore them both and ask yourself the relevant questions. Are the big banks bigger? Yes. Can they still make markets and keep crappy securities on their books, as long as they want, while formulating them into more complicated securities, buoyed by QE measures and ZIRP? Yes. Do they have to evaluate their positions in real world terms so we know what’s really going on? No. Then, there’s the Volcker Rule which equates spinning off private equity desks or moving them into asset management arms, with regulatory progress. If it could be fashioned to prohibit all speculative trading or connected securities creation on the backbone of FDIC-insured deposits, it might work, but then you’d have Glass-Steagall, which is the only form of regulatoin that will truly protect us from banking-spawned crisis. Meanwhile, banks can still make markets and trade in everything they were doing before as long as they say it’s on behalf of a client. This was the entire problem during the pre-crisis period. The implosion of piles of toxic assets based on shaky loans or other assets didn’t result from private equity trading or even from isolating trading of any bank’s own books (except in cases like that of Bear Stearns’ hedge funds), but from federally subsidized, highly risky, ridiculously leveraged, assets engineered under the guise of ‘bespoke’ customer requests or market making related ‘demand.’ When the Banking Act was passed in 1933, even Republican millionaire bankers, like the head of Chase, Winthrop Aldrich, understood that reducing systemic risk might even help them in the long run, and publicly supported it. Today, Jamie Dimon shuns all forms of separation or regulation, and neither
political party dares interfere. But things worked out for Dimon. JPM Chase’s board (of which he is Chairman) approved his $23 million 2011 compensation package (the top bank CEO package), despite disclosure of a $2 billion (now about $6 billion) loss in the infamous Whale Trade. He banked $20.8 million in 2010, the highest paid bank CEO that year, too. In 2009, Dimon made $1.32 million, publicly, but really bagged $16 million worth of stock and options. He made $19.7 million in total compensation for 2008, and $34 million for 2007. Still a New York Fed, Class A director, he’s proven himself to be untouchable. Yet, the kinds of deals that were so problematic are creeping back. According to Asset Backed Alert, JPM Chase was the top asset-baked security (ABS) issuer for the first half of 2012, lead managing $66 billion of US ABS deals. In addition, according to Asset Back Alert, US public ABS deal volume rose 92.8% for the second half of 2012 vs. 2011, while issuance of US prime MBS (high quality deals) fell 50.6%. Overall CDO issuance rose 50.2%. (Citigroup is the lead issuer (up 552%.)) ZIRP’s hidden losses According to a comprehensive analysis of data compiled from regulatory documents by Bill Moreland and his team at my new favorite website, www.bankregdata.com, some really scary numbers pop out. Here’s the kicker: ZIRP costs citizens and disproportionately helps the biggest banks, by about $120 billion a year. Between 2005 and 2007, US commercial banks held approximately $6.97 trillion of interest bearing customer deposits. During the past two quarters, they held an average of $7.31 trillion. During that first period, when fed funds rates averaged 4.5%, banks paid their customers an average of $39.6 billion of interest per quarter. More recently, with ZIRP, they paid an average of $8.9 billion in interest per quarter, or nearly 77% LESS. In dollar terms – that’s about $30.7 billion less per quarter, or $123 billion less per year. Since ZIRP kicked into gear in 2008, banks have saved nearly $486 billion in interest payments. Average salary and compensation increased by approximately 23%. Dividend payments declined by 14.05%. The biggest banks are the biggest takers. Consider JPM Chase’s cut. Although its deposits disproportionately increased by 46% from 2007 (pre ZIRP and helped by the acquisition of Washington Mutual) to 2012, its interest expenses declined by nearly 89%. From 2004 to 2007, Chase paid out $34.4 billion in interest to its deposit customers. From 2008 to mid-2012, it paid out $3.4 billion. JPM Chase’s ratio of interest paid to deposits of .27% is the lowest of the big four banks, that on average pay less than smaller banks anyway. The percentage of JPM Chase’s assets comprised of loans and leases is lower at 36.04% compared to its peers’ percentage of 52.4%. Its trading portion of assets is higher, as 14.78% vs. 6.88% for its peers, and 4.23% for all banks. Looking Ahead To recap: savers, borrowers, and the economy are still losing money due to the preservation of the illusion of bank health. More critically, the big banks grew through acquisitions and the ongoing closures of smaller local banks that provided better banking terms to citizens. The big banks have more assets and deposits, on which they are over-valuing prices, and paying less interest than before, due to a combination of Fed and Treasury blessed mergers in late 2008, QE and ZIRP. Yet, we’re supposed to believe this situation will somehow manifest a more solid and productive economy.
Meanwhile, past faulty securities and loans will fester until their transfer to the Fed is complete or they mature, while new ones take their place. This will inevitably lead to more of a clampdown on loans for productive purposes and further economic degradation and instability. Financial policy trumps economic policy. Banks trump citizens, and absent severe reconstruction of the banking system, the cycle will absolutely, unequivocally continue.
Why Did The Bundesbank Secretly Withdraw Two-Thirds Of Its London Gold? Zero Hedge Oct 25, 2012 Two days ago we reported that the German Court of Auditors demanded that the German Central Bank, the Bundesbank, verify and audit its official gold holdings consisting of 3,396 tons, held mostly offshore, namely New York, London and Paris, at least according to official documents. It also called for repatriation of 150 tons in the next three years to perform a quality inspection of the tungsten gold. Today, in a surprising development, via the Telegraph we learn that none other than the same Bundesbank which is causing endless nightmares for all the other broke European nations due to its insistence for sound money, decided to voluntarily pull two thirds of its gold holdings held by the Bank of England. According to a confidential report referenced by the Telegraph, Buba reclaimed 940 tons, reducing its BOE holdings from 1,440 in 2000 to 500 in 2001 allegedly “because storage costs were too high.” This is about as idiotic an excuse as the Fed cancelling its reporting of M3 in 2006 because “the costs of collecting the underlying data outweigh the benefits.” So why did Buba repatriate its gold? Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has an idea. The shift came as the euro was at its weakest, slumping to $0.84 against the dollar. But it also came as the Bank of England was selling off most of Britain’s gold reserves – at market lows – on orders from Gordon Brown. Peter Hambro, chair of the UK-listed gold miner Petropavlovsk, said the Bundesbank may have withdrawn its bullion in self-protection since it did not, apparently, have its own specifically allocated bars in London. “They may have decided that the Bank of England had lent out too much gold, and decided it was safer to bring theirs home. This is about the identification. Can you identify your own allocated gold, or are you just a general creditor with a metal account?” The watchdog report follows claims by the German civic campaign group “Bring Back our Gold” and its US allies in the Gold Anti-Trust Committee that official data cannot be
trusted. They allege central banks have loaned out or “sold short” much of their gold. The refrain has been picked up by German legislators. “All the gold must come home: it is precisely in this crisis that we need certainty over our gold reserves,” said Heinz-Peter Haustein from the Free Democrats (FDP). Speculation aside, the fact that central banks, and even banks of central banks (i.e., the BIS), have long lent out gold, is no secret to anyone, traditionally to satisfy short-term physical gold confirmation claims upon a spike in demand, usually associated with a liquidity shortage (when the value of gold as monetary collateral truly shines). The problem with this rehypothecation scheme is what happens when the counterparty suddenly finds themselves insolvent, the gold has since been re-re-rehypothecated, and nobody really knows whose gold it is any more. This becomes a drastic problem when a counterparty in a collateral chain suddenly goes broke… like MF Global did last year, and the lawsuits started flying trying to determine whose gold is where. Needless to say, it was the London office of MF Global that was at fault for breaching a rehypothecation chain (because only in London was there no collateral haircut limit on rehypotehcation), and once physical delivery demands arose, nobody could locate bar XYZ with a given serial number. That, or the Bundesbank merely foresaw the ultimate unwind of the failed European mercantilist experiment at the start, and refused to leave its most precious asset in the hands of the banker oligarchy which it knew would do everything in its power to procure said gold once the feces hit the fan. Sure enough, BUBA’s ‘non-denial’ denial confirms this too: The Bundesbank said it had full trust in the “integrity and independence” of its custodians, and is given detailed accounts each year. Yet it hinted at further steps to secure its reserves. “This could also involve relocating part of the holdings,” it said. Yet what is left unsaid in all of the above is that Germany has done nothing wrong! It simply demanded a reclamation of what is rightfully Germany’s to demand. And here is the crux of the issue: in a globalized system, in which every sovereign is increasingly subjugated to the credit-creating power of the globalized “whole”, one must leave all thoughts of sovereign independence at the door and embrace the “new world order.” After all this is the only way that the globalized system can create the shadow cloud of infinite repoable liabilities, in which we currently all float light as a binary
feather, which permits instantaeous capital flows and monetary fungibility, and which guarantees that there will be no sovereign bond issue failure as long as nobody dares to defect from the system in which all collateral is cross pledge and ultra-rehypothecated… for the greater good. Until the Buba secretly defected that is. And this is the whole story. Because by doing what it has every right to do, the German Central Bank implicitly broke the cardinal rule of true modern monetary system (never to be confused with that socialist acronym fad MMT, MMR or some such comparable mumbo-jumbo). And the rule is that a sovereign can never put its own people above the global corporatist-cum-banking oligarchy, which needs to have access to all hard (and otherwise) assets at any given moment, on a moment’s notice, as the system’s explicit leverage at last check inclusive of the nearly $1 quadrillion in derivatives, is about 20 times greater than global GDP. This also happens to be the reason why the entire world is always at most a few keystrokes away from a complete monetary (and trade) paralysis, as the Lehman aftermath and the Reserve Fund breaking the buck so aptly showed. We are confident that little if anything will be made of the Buba’s action, because dwelling on it too much may expose just who the first country will be (or already has been) when the tide finally breaks, and when it will be every sovereign for themselves. Because at that point, which will come eventually, not only Buba, but every other bank, corporation, and individual will scramble to recover their own gold located in some vault in London, New York, or Paris, or at your friendly bank vault down the street, and instead will merely find a recently emptied storage room with humorously written I.O.U. letters in the place of 1 kilo gold bricks.
Zeitgeist Addendum The Fraud of The U.S. Banking System VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gKX9TWRyfs Creature From Jekyll Island A Second Look at the Federal Reserve VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhMacPvc5qc Fiat Empire: Why The Federal Reserve Violates The U.S. Constitution VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K41O2QfpjA Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLYL_NVU1bg The Money Masters a History of Money VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXt1cayx0hs The Secret of Oz A History of Money VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkq2E8mswI The New World Order -Eustace Mullins VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h_V-ARe_nE The Magical Money Machine of The Federal Reserve Eustace Mullins VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er3xPXb7aQw The Truth About Your Birth Certificate VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfnJ1rOFK7o America: Freedom to Fascism VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6ayb02bwp0 Banking with Hitler VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YauM5dHLn1s In Debt We Trust VIDEO BELOW http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9016886482738598023 The American Dream VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j69Ap4lndl0
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