A Video Reminder Of Wall Street’s Criminal Activities
by Zero Hedge - October 18th, 2010 12:53 pm
A Video Reminder Of Wall Street’s Criminal Activities
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
As if anyone needed a reminder of how corrupt Wall Street is, here are two easy to digest videos providing some additional perspectives on why the entity that controls the Fed, Congress and the Senate, not to mention the teleprompter in chief, is nothing but a bunch of criminals. While nothing new to regular readers, the NYT’s Louise Story has taken a look at securities lending, dominated by firms such as State Street, BoNY and JPM, which she describes as follows: "funds lend some of their stocks and bonds to Wall Street, in return for cash that banks like JPMorgan then invest. If the trades do well, the bank takes a cut of the profits. If the trades do poorly, the funds absorb all of the losses." In other words, just one more of two magic coin flips in which the US taxpayer always has a 100% chance of losing. The response by JPM on allegations that it entices clients in a rigged game is memorable: "If customers lose money that they have entrusted with the bank, he said, that “can lead to a loss of clients and can affect the reputation of the business." Um, what reputation? And in another clip, the Huffington Post Investigative Fund also takes a look at JPMorgan (is the administration’s former war with Goldman now shifting over to the house of Dimon? That will teach you to turn down that SecTres post Jamie…) in a documentary which look at what it dubs Wall Street’s new sweet spot "as surrogate tax collectors who see profits in tacking on fees and threatening to foreclose when homeowners fall behind on property taxes." Well, at least the whole foreclose bit is off the table for now.
The NYT on the lose/lose of securities lending in a failed Ponzi environment (full video after the jump).
And HuffPo on JPM as a surrogate tax collector:
h/t Mike
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How the Servant Became a Predator: Finance’s Five Fatal Flaws
by ilene - October 15th, 2009 12:36 pm
Here’s an excellent, must-read article by William K. Black. Special thanks to New Deal 2.0. - Ilene
How the Servant Became a Predator: Finance’s Five Fatal Flaws
By Bill Black, Courtesy of New Deal 2.0
Roosevelt Institute Braintruster William K. Black explains how the finance economy preys on the real economy instead of serving it. He shows how both have become dysfunctional and warns that we must not neglect the real economy — the source of our jobs, our incomes, and the creator of goods and services — as we focus on financial reform.
What exactly is the function of the financial sector in our society? Simply this: Its sole function is supplying capital efficiently to aid the real economy. The financial sector is a tool to help those that make real tools, not an end in itself. But five fatal flaws in the financial sector’s current structure have created a monster that drains the real economy, promotes fraud and corruption, threatens democracy, and causes recurrent, intensifying crises.
1. The financial sector harms the real economy.
Even when not in crisis, the financial sector harms the real economy. First, it is vastly too large. The finance sector is an intermediary — essentially a “middleman”. Like all middlemen, it should be as small as possible, while still being capable of accomplishing its mission. Otherwise it is inherently parasitical. Unfortunately, it is now vastly larger than necessary, dwarfing the real economy it is supposed to serve. Forty years ago, our real economy grew better with a financial sector that received one-twentieth as large a percentage of total profits (2%) than does the current financial sector (40%). The minimum measure of how much damage the bloated, grossly over-compensated finance sector causes to the real economy is this massive increase in the share of total national income wasted through the finance sector’s parasitism.
Second, the finance sector is worse than parasitic. In the title of his recent book, The Predator State, James Galbraith aptly names the problem. The financial sector functions as the sharp canines that the predator state uses to rend the nation. In addition to siphoning off capital for its own benefit, the finance sector misallocates the remaining capital in ways that harm the real economy in order to reward already-rich financial elites harming the nation. The facts are alarming:
• Corporate stock repurchases…
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SPECIAL END OF CIVILIZATION ISSUE
by ilene - September 27th, 2009 5:38 pm
SPECIAL END OF CIVILIZATION ISSUE
Courtesy of The Mad Hedge Fund Trader
Featured Trades: (OBAMA), (BERNANKE), (TBT), (PCY)
1) Boy, are the Republicans really screwed. I was awed with Obama’s performance on the David Letterman show last night. This guy is relaxed, polished, cool, and a fabulous advocate and salesman of his policies. When asked a question, he is so focused you feel like he is burning holes straight into his interviewer with his laser eyes. Obama has never really stopped campaigning, with five talk show appearances on Sunday, constant reminders about the mess he inherited, and relentless attacks against the right. His online network is still operating with full force. I have noticed that the spending of the government stimulus package is being carefully metered out to create an economic miracle by 2012. What can the Republicans offer? Reigned in government spending? They just doubled that national debt from $5 to $10 trillion. Regulatory reform? The financial system blew itself up on their watch. The environment? Bush came into office arguing that global warming was a myth. A better life? Most Americans have either just lost everything, or saw their net worth drop by half.
The big problem for the GOP is they took their own moderates out and shot them. Moderate ideas and input might get a hearing in this environment. The end result is that the lunatic fringe has taken over the party, like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. Death panels? No one rational and substantial wants to step up and become the sacrificial lamb, the blame taker. This in fact could be the beginning of a 20 year reign for the Dems, much like Roosevelt brought on from 1932-1952, on the heels of Herbert Hoover’s great stock market crash. The Republicans could be in the wilderness for a really long time. Better structure your portfolio for the one party state before elephants become an endangered species. Think endless trillion dollar budget deficits, a weak dollar, continued massive debt issuance, ultra low interest rates as far as the eye can see, and strong commodity, energy, gold, and silver prices. I’m not trying to be partisan here. I’m just trying to call them as I see them.
2) I spent the evening with David Wessel, the Wall Street Journal economics editor, who has just published In Fed We Trust:…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site