The current spate of fraud on Wall St., and specifically the front-running and market manipulation scams being committed by Wall St. banks on the floor of the NYSE and other market making venues, is finally getting some coverage This would be good news if it weren't meaningless.
Some background: I first started reporting on the rigged markets scandal in the U.S. and the U.K. five years ago in the pages of The Ecologist magazine in the U.K. I predicted that the unraveling of FannieMae and FreddieMac was all but certain due to explicit accounting fraud. I was one of many pointing out the blindingly obvious, but this information was kept out of view from the main stream America for fear it would frighten the sheep into cutting back on their leveraged speculation and consumption; using their homes like ATM machines. In an economy dictated to by the unholy triangle of GE, CNBC, and Wall St. selling their wares of weapons, propaganda and lottery tickets, delusions (and fiat currencies) must never be questioned.
Talking about crooks on Wall St. has been a staple while co-hosting my radio show in London with Stacy Herbert on ResonanceFM 104.4, "The Truth About Markets." Week after week we forensically describe the workings of Wall St. frauds -- drawing on my experience as a former Wall St. trader and inventor of patented financial engineering technologies used on Wall St. today -- to explain how the scams are done in full view of the SEC and CFTC. ResonanceFM is a musicians cooperative listened to primarily by bong smoking squatters in Shordditch who, by virtue of the fact that mainstream American and British media chose not to cover these crimes left open a niche for us to cover, have become preternaturally knowledgeable about fraudulent Collaterized Debt Obligations, Special Purpose Entity Accounts and High Frequency Trading Arbitrage. Many of these pot heads thank me today because many of them put their meager savings into gold bullion as we have been suggesting since 2002 -- which shot up 40% against the British Pound last year.
In 2006 I started making documentaries for Al Jazeera English. Death of the Dollar, Rigged Markets and Money Geyser explained, respectively, the structural weakness of the dollar, the structural weakness of the New York Stock Exchange, and the structural weakness of the global currency grid and in particular the currency and economy of Iceland. A year later, the Icelandic krona and the economy evaporated in a cloud of currency 'carry trade' ice and dust exactly as we predicted it would.
In 2007 the sup-prime scandal and the controlled demolition of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers got under way thanks to the Washington-Wall St. revolving door that gave us the Goldman Sachs-Oval Office axis of insider trading; the S&L crash, the 1987 crash, the Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) crash, the crash of Drexal Burnham, Enron, WorldCom and the dot-com crash. America has become the most corrupt empire in history and since the debts that caused each of these catastrophes was never paid off, but simply put off the balance sheet and traded in what Prime Minister Gordon Brown calls the 'Shadow Banking System' or to be more precise the Shadow Banking Pyramid, Americans can expect to live in the shadow of this debt pyramid in perpetuity.
America's debts are bigger than the entire GDP of the world, so unless the whole world decides to bail out America by gifting America 100 percent of their wages and profits for a year or more America can forget about ever digging out of its debt entombment.
In 2008 I produced and presented a series for BBC World News, The Oracle. For ten weeks I hammered away reporting on the rot that was threatening to take down America; the duplicitous spewings of Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Tim Geithner, as well as the parasitical machinations of the Fed, so I wasn't surprised when Congress appeased financial terrorists on Wall St. and coughed up 700 billion dollars in ransom at the end of last year to ensure payment of Goldman Sachs' bonus pool for 2008 and 2009.
This is why I do not believe that the main stream media's belated reporting on Wall St. scandals is meaningful. It's too late. Like the New York Times sitting on the Bush wire tap story until after the election of 2004, the story of banking buccaneers and vipers in the New York Times reads more like a requiem than a news story.
The Egyptians had the great pyramids in the Valley of the Kings. We have the great pyramids of debt created in the canyons of Wall St. These are now permanent features of the American and British financial landscape that have effectively turned Americans and Brits into debt slaves.
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CHECK THIS OUT IM SURE YOU HAVE SEEN IT BEFORE
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing
power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1802
check this out
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing
power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1802
WOW WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THAT MAX
PS
YOU SHOULD BE ON MOUNT RUSHMORE NEXT TO THOMAS JEFFERSON
The New York Times reads more like a requiem than a news story.
They will be interrogating us all for posting a comment soon
In the end the Egyptian Royals had to dig up the bodies and bury them in the valley of the queens. Basically hide them in the mountains, all empires come and go. I don't like change HELP !!!
While recognizing your substantial contribution of speaking truth to power, I must focus on the shortfall of this post.
So what?
We get REALLY pissed off because we realize that there now exists an un-payable, gargantuan pyramid of debt that must remain part of the American landscape.
Or, what?
Max, back to Square One.
If we had a money system that operated on quasi-ecological mechanisms, or at least on scientific mechanisms, then we would not NECESSARILY end up with this debt pyramid.
We turned our sovereign right to create money over to private bankers in 1913.
They conveniently create all money as a debt, repayable with interest that is NEVER CREATED.
We MUST end up with that unscientific debt-pyramid that you describe.
What we really need, Max, is a new movement of folks, with an alternative plan that will eliminate the problem.
One is the New Economics Foundation's scientific money-system reform proposal in "Creating New Money".
http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/uploads/CreatingNewMoney.pdf
Also the American Monetary Institutes money-system reform proposal.
http://www.monetary.org/amacolorpamphlet.pdf
So, my question, Max:
Why are not at the point of "mobilization" around a new "scientific" money system in a new democratically-controlled world to replace the one of the international monied interests that produces the debt-pyramid you describe?
We don't need a lot more anger, Max.
People are looking for answers.
respectfully.
What to do at the grass-roots? IMO opinion the single most important 'turnkey' issue that reforms the entire crony capitalist kleptocracy is patent-copyright reform. Financial products are patented in ways that patent fraud and theft. This is obviously not in the best interests of society.
I LOVE YOU, MAN!!!!!!
I started out with Matt Taibbi, I thought HE was cool (he is). But even Taibbi over on HIS blog admits that he doesn't even hate Goldman as much as YOU do!!!
They're crooks!!! They're financial terrorists!!! YES!!! YES!!!
You are, of course, running into the same problem identified by overstock.com's CEO, and that is that the financial press in NYC is far to close to the people they're reporting on to have even the semblance of objectivity.
I just stuck you in my blogroll. My blog has been shut down for a minute while I did some stuff to the back end, but I think my first post for v1.1 will mention you prominently in some fashion.
GO, MAX, GO!!! AND STACY TOO!!!
-Jay Randall
http://www.econocataclysm.com
"Canonical research findings suggest that American entrepreneurs who establish popular online markets for customized education will catalyze the creation of many good jobs in America, and will end the reign of America’s kleptobankers. Some of the researchers: Clayton Christensen, Paul Romer and Paul Krugman."
My favorite was a year ago, on Al Jeezera, Max said on air that Hank Paulson's head should be bouncing down the steps . . . priceless.
And I haven't even started talking about fortune and ethics. It seems to late for that anyways. The MSM isn't on the edge like Max and the alternative media is which is very worrisome. The MSM should realise that if they dear to look the future generation straight in the eyes.
the main stream media may not report the truth, but for those who seek it out. there are people like yourself and stacey, who are talking about it.
your website
www.maxkeiser.com
and
www.zerohedge.com
do a fine job with what i would call honest journalism. you dont get any of that in the main stream media. just commentary and theatre.
its quit a disgrace and i hope rupert murdoch and the other telivision billionaries, all dissappear when people rely on the internet for their news!
"Geithner Says U.S., China Agree to Ensure ‘Recovery Is Secured’"
now we can relax! everything's under control
OMG
you already have a huge debt when you finish college, which should NEVER cost so much.
soon you'll inherit your parent's debts too, the way the better off inherit wealth.
goodbye social mobility
goodnight america
keep up with the real news on the economy
http://maxkeiser.com/
max keiser's documentaries, in plain english, on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/user/MaxKeiserTV
I don’t think the US will ever pay its debt to China. Americans can only hope to hang onto what’s left of the country’s resources.
In exchange for our debt to China I believe we will step aside without notice to Tibet and Taiwan and any gains China has its eyes on in most of Africa.
US big investors, what’s left of them, will head for the Chinese markets and we will be living with our heads just above water for a long time to come.
If current trend continue the US will become a country of two classes and either corruption or government control will run our lives. We will become more like China was.
However, if Americans can get their heads out of their asses we can settle on a life style closer to Europeans or Canadians and refrain from being the policemen of the world and the Pac Men of Consumerism.