Past Commentary
(All underlined words/phrases, above and below, correspond to links.)
September 2017
Since it is the banks that do the reporting of these figures, it’s to be expected that these stats, in the chart below, belie the true state of affairs. The sorry truth is probably off by a mile — or even a lightyear for all anyone knows about far accounting fraud goes on the balance sheets of banks. Regardless, the reported numbers are bad enough as they are. The Non-Performing Loan data in Italy, Ireland, Portugal, and Greece, in Group 3 of the chart, pretty much tells you why the Eurozone is (for all practical purposes) over and done with, and that it is only the eurocrats and their dirty band-aids that are (for now) holding this stupid contraption together.
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Credit Default Swaps or CDS are derivatives that can do good if handled right. Given the corruption of gov’t officials by bank officials, however, CDS can also do bad, in that they can set off a systemic banking crisis and entice the gov’t in for the inevitable bailout. (The $182 billion bailout of A.I.G., for its mishandled CDS, was sold to the public as a bailout of teachers and pensions, but that was a lie by Geithner, Bernanke, Paulson and other bandits in their merry band. The $182 billion bailout of A.I.G., for its mishandled CDS, was a bailout of numerous multinational megabanks on Wall Street, many of them foreign banks, that’d been exposed to A.I.G.’s Financial Products division in London.)
CDS issuance in 2017, with just 8 months in, is happening at twice the volume seen in 2016, and thrice the volume seen in 2015.
For why this is happening, go here:
August 2017:
Breitbart reports: Cernovich Sources say White House ‘Coup’ Underway, Trump ‘Under House Arrest’. Among the quotes: “I heard [John] Kelly had taken his [Trump’s] phone, so he wouldn’t be getting messages on his phone.”
If ‘true’, both Breitbart and Cernovich fail to answer the question “Why would President Trump allow this? Is Trump that much of a weakling, to allow subordinates to manhandle him this way, or — to use Steve Bannon’s words — bitch-slap him this way?”
The answer to “Why?” is here:
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On July 7 2014 the CEO of Morgan Stanley, James Gorman, wrote what he foresaw for the future of finance, predicting that cash would “cease to exist” and end up a relic relegated to (quote) “a museum.” Besides the millions of jobs lost to a cashless society — including those lost to the permanent closure of 97,000 bank branches across America — here’s what that means to you:
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Regarding the never-ending debt-ceiling, a prediction: Gov’t runs a near Trillion $ deficit in 2018, over a Trillion $ deficit in 2019, and taxes go up in 2020.
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The word is ex Goldman Sachs bigwig Gary Cohn wanted out of the WH after Trump’s Charlottesville remarks. Cohn also put his cohones on display by telling anti-Trump reporters how “disgusted” he felt by Trump’s comments. If you’re still wondering why this guy’s still got a job at the WH, when anybody else saying the same thing might’ve been deported to North Korea, then stop wondering: Goldman wants him where he is, or otherwise chairing the Fed, because Goldman’s gonna need all the help it can get when the Eurozone comes apart, Wall Street melts down, and bailouts are needed in 2019. Never forget: Trump Inc’s reliance on the big banks for financing, refinancing, and evergreen’ing of underwater commercial loans, cannot be overstated.
Besides, Mnuchin probably prefers Cohn around. The last thing Mnuchin needs after the 2019 bailout of his banker buddies is The New York Times reverting attention to Mrs. Mnuchin’s handbag/wardrobe collection, and whether that got bailed out as well.
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In 2016, candidate Donald Trump said candidate Ted Cruz was “owned by Goldman Sachs” while Trump’s campaign finance chief, i.e. ex-Goldmanite Steven Mnuchin, lay low under the covers. Then Trump wins, and Cohn and Mnuchin end up running the nation’s finance and economy.
There’s been a pattern developing, if you notice — when the president is a Republican, Goldman’s in the White House in a big way, and when the president is a Democrat, Citigroup’s in the White House in a big way, even though both Goldman and Citi are (for all practical purposes) political atheists, meaning they don’t give a damn who’s in the Oval so long as Wall’s in there too.
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Not that this isn’t happening in the U.S. with our own government officials, but the latest to come out about French government officials living large on the taxpayers’ dime, while slicing away at public welfare and public benefits, is this report on French presidents spending £7,000 and £8,000 per month on facial make-up, and £9,000 per month on haircuts:
Guess the universal rule of thumb for so-called public servants worldwide is: if the government’s going broke, be stingy with the people, but be lavish yourself.
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Why the military industrial complex got Trump to announce that he’ll have to break another promise to his ‘base’ — for the umpteenth time — and expand the war in Afghanistan: In short, because war is money.
Our evidence to support such a conclusion leads to a few dozen links. But in the interests of space and time, here are just a handful:
U.S. Pays $50 Mil for Luxury Cars, Weapons, Booze to Mentor Afghan Intel Officers
Pentagon Crew Lived Large in $150 Million Afghan Villas
DOD slammed for $43M, US-funded gas station in Afghanistan
12 Ways Your Tax Dollars Were Squandered in Afghanistan
The Taliban tried to surrender and the U.S. rebuffed them. Now here we are.
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After all the political drama surrounding the Charlottesville (Virginia) saga, the CEO of JPMorgan, Jamie Dimon, decided he too needed to pitch in, by saying: “The equal treatment of all people is one of our nation’s bedrock principles.” To which an aghast David Sirota tweeted the detail of JPMorgan’s $55 million settlement for charging a minority borrower $1000 more than a white borrower:
Our reply to David Sirota… Don’t be aghast about what Dimon said, because (like many a Wall Street CEO) Jamie too is reflexively quick at the foot-in-mouth maneuver, wherein the mouth operates faster than the brain. As we recall:
“This is not the Soviet Union. This is the United States of America… Guess what… It’s a Free. Fucking. Country!” shouted Dimon in a 2012 interview with the New York Magazine entitled: 122 Minutes with Jamie Dimon.
Which was interesting, because what Dimon had happen to him in September 2008, was in fact so Soviet Union. What D.C. did for Dimon, and others in his cabal on Wall in September 2008, is pretty much what Boris Yeltsin did for his oligarchs pursuant to the collapse of the USSR in 1991, i.e. Boris gave them their old jobs back after the failed state.
Yeltsin, the first President of the new “democratic” Russia, even called the transformation of the Kremlin’s centrally planned command economy into a billionaires’ paradise and oasis of oligarchy: “free market” privatization. Sound familiar?
“I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system,” said George W Bush in December 2008 to justify the bailouts of all his Wall Street donors.
Dimon must’ve liked what Bush said. Although, we’d categorize Bush’s statement as more mouth-in-foot than Dimon’s affliction of just foot-in-mouth.
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This pharmaceutical company, referenced in the links below, did not develop a new drug. But that didn’t deter it from initiating a plan to raise the old drug’s price from $1,500 to $89,000 per patient, per year, after the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) awarded monopoly privilege to the company in 2017. Think the FDA serves the public or taxpayer interest? Think again. (Oh, and by the way, the drug can be found for $2 a pill outside the U.S.)
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There is an amassing banking crisis in the EuroZone. It’ll spread to Wall Street, and America, in the 2018/2019 interface.
Ahead of Spain, Euro member Italy may end up Ground Zero for the coming inferno. Some of the reasons why:
If one were to take official stats at face value — which one should NOT for they are, invariably, rose-tinted — 20-some-percent of Italian banks have Texas Ratios in excess of 100%. This proportion of non-performing loans to stated — vs actual — capital reserves, is indicative of how bankrupt the Italian banking system has become. (FYI: “stated” capital tends to be grossly exaggerated in relation to “actual” or “real” capital. “Tangible” capital tends to be negative, very often.)
In 2008 and 2009, the Italian central bank maintained a positive “Target” balance with the European Central Bank. (Think of “Target” as a measure of what the government of Italy owes the ECB.) In 2012, that balance got to a negative €255 billion. In 2017, it’d crossed well into the negative €400-billion-range.
In Dec 2007, Italy’s debt to GDP was just under 100%. By Aug 2017, it was getting to 140%.
In July 2017, 86% of Italians considered their country to be “on the wrong track.” Only 17% considered their economy to be “good.”
Poverty in Italy tripled in the 10 years leading up to the summer of 2017.
Italy is on the brink. By way of derivative interconnectivity, its banking system is a clear and present danger to the continuity of the euro-system. It is thus a threat to Wall Street and, by extension, the entirety of the American economy. That threat comes stateside in 2018/2019. You’ll see.
Read “The Prediction”
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This report https://itep.org/the-35-percent-corporate-tax-myth/ highlights the need to “Level the Playing Field.”
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On March 9 2017, the U.S. House of Reps passed H.R. 985 — deceptively entitled the Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act, no doubt a name that only Wall Street could’ve concocted, without even the slightest doubt, guilt, or shame. In short, it said bankers (who defraud consumers) need not face serious financial consequences for any perpetration of widespread consumer fraud. 220 Republicans voted Aye for the atrocity.
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In Aug 2017, the public got to see July 2017’s employment/unemployment report. In July, part-time jobs were up 393,000 while full-time jobs were down 54,000. A statistic, best described as Labor Market Breadth, attempts to gauge the overall health and prospects of the jobs market, by delving into pay & benefit quality of jobs, among other metrics. That breadth is currently plummeting towards a low last seen in 2009, at so steep an angle, it appears it’ll breach that low and then enter into wholly unchartered territory.
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The G30 — comprised of private bankers, central bankers, gov’t officials, etc — is an organization few know much about. Its composition can be found here: Members. Ok, with that said, now onto the point we want to make… The Federal Reserve’s officers are de facto officials of the U.S. Government. They are thus forbidden from cozying up to private bankers in closed-door settings. There are literally Trillions of reasons/dollars as to why these canoodling shindigs should never happen. Yet the Fed gets around this never-say-never ‘inconvenience’ by dispatching the head of the New York Fed to secretive meetings of the G30. The Fed’s excuse: the NY Fed is private, not public. Never mind that the NY Fed-head is also vice-chair of the FOMC, which happens to be a U.S. gov’t entity. Never mind too that the NY Fed was, for Wall Street, Grand Central Station for the handout of bailouts in 2008, 2009, and beyond, and will be again in 2018/2019 when the next mega banking crisis comes calling. Congress should put a stop to this insidious G30 by-pass/go-around!
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The U.S. House of Reps’ National Defense Authorization Act had a big giveaway to defense contractors this year — a FIVE-FOLD increase in the breakpoint before “sole-source” developers — i.e. those with monopoly power over a defense related product — had to furnish cost-of-product breakdown to the taxpayer for the military procurements being sold to the taxpayer. Section 803 of the House NDAA hiked the threshold from $500,000 to $2.5 million — only after that upper-bound had been breached, would these non-competitive contracts have to provide any disclosures to the taxpayer.
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A few weeks back, The New Yorker asked: “Why Is Emmanuel Macron Being So Nice to Donald Trump?” About the same time, The Drudge Report put a link out to the following: Macron outshines Merkel as EU’s top diplomat. The answer to the first question, coincides with the error inherent in the second assumption, and that is that the French President, an investment banker at Rothschild & Cie before he became head of state, is the German Chancellor’s envoy to court Donald Trump towards finding U.S. financial assistance in saving the Eurozone from its deteriorating Target-2 finances. All this, so that the U.S. taxpayer can someday bail-out the euro-based mega-banks from their own self-concocted doom-loop.
Read “The Prediction”
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July 2017:
July 22 2017 — The meltdown in Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactor, that began March 2011, is an ongoing hyper-contaminant of the ocean at the rate of 200+ tons per day, with 300 tons per day reported ‘officially’ in late 2013.
July 22 2017 — After the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s chairman, Takashi Kawamura, suggested dumping 777,000 tons of radioactive Fukushima water into the Pacific Ocean, President Barack Obama, Establishment environmentalists, and the Mainstream Media remained eerily silent. Normally, they’d raise a storm over any bombardment of the environment. (FYI: 5 of 6 Fukushima plants were General Electric Mark 1 reactors; 35 years ago, their design was found to be defective by GE’s own evaluators, who resigned in protest, after their evaluation got shelved; GE’s CEO has figured prominently inside both the Obama & Trump Administrations.)
July 20 2017 — Say you had only $100 in a checking account, but thought you had $200. You charge $10, then $20, then $110 to your bankcard, in that order. Your mistake should cost you ONE overdraft fee only, on the last charge. But the bank reverses the order of your charges, applying the $110 first, then $20, then $10, and hits you up for THREE overdraft fees. Bank lawyer, Keith Noreika, who says you CANNOT sue any bank for such fraud, is now one of Trump’s chief bank regulators. I support:
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July 20 2017 — Protecting Wall Street fraudsters from being sued by the People for their never-ending frauds: More Trump Populism: Hiring a Bank Lawyer to Attack the rights of defrauded consumers.
July 19 2017 — I keep hearing that “governing ain’t the same as campaigning” as an excuse for presidents, on down, to break or bend campaign pledges. That won’t be happening with me if I win Congress. To me, campaign and governing promises will be one and the same.
July 18 2017 — According to The Economist’s Big Mac Index, the average price of a Big Mac in America was $3.57 in July 2008. In July 2017, it was $5.30. Means the price of a Big Mac has inflated nearly 50% since the Financial Crisis. Do you feel 50% richer since then?
July 18 2017 — In April 2017, 2 in 3 voters said both Parties were out of touch with ordinary Americans. In June 2017, 2 in 3 disapproved of both Parties. Fast-forward to November 6 2018, and it’ll be 3 out of every 4 voters saying that.
July 16 2017 — A Wall Street strategist at Deutsche Bank writes: Fed policy has “acted as a free insurance policy for the owners of risk, which, given the demographics of stock market participation, has functioned as universal basic income for the rich.” Glad to see Wall Street insiders finally admitting what we’ve said all along, HERE.
July 14 2017 — Fed hiked rate 0.75% past 6 mos. Yet Main Street got no rate raise on deposits at big banks. That’s $90 billion that Wall Street did NOT pay Main Street in interest.
July 14 2017 — U.S. stock & bond markets are buoyed by foreign investors seeking refuge in the US$. Pronounced systemic bank stress abroad, vis-a-vis their U.S. counterparts, is driving the foreign-currency capital exodus.
July 14 2017 — Refuge in German gov’t bonds, is representative of int’l investors betting that Germany may leave the eurozone in 2018/2019, return to the Deutsche Mark, and smash the euro.
July 12 2017 — In 2015, top 20 drug company profits totaled $125 billion. In 2016, Big Pharma spent $150 million lobbying Congress. Result: No to cheap drugs imported from Canada to cut medical bills in America. Patients lose, CEO’s gain, healthcare execs earned highest pay among 10 industries.
July 12 2017 — Ex Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn is Trump’s top pick to run the Fed. If Cohn wants the job in 2018, he’s got it, they say. If true, outrageous!
July 11 2017 — Trump nominating Wall St insider Randal Quarles to be top Wall St regulator. Has the GOP learned nothing from the last go-around?
July 11 2017 — Thru bills passed, Republicans and Democrats have assisted Wall Street in its efforts to transfer immense Eurozone credit risk onto the U.S. taxpayer.
July 7 2017 — Only 55% of 18–64 year olds work full-time. 96 million of working age are not in labor force. Men aged 25–54 are less represented in the job market than at the end of the Great Depression in 1939. This is why I support:
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July 6 2017 — Last week in Wall St stress tests, Fed gave passing grades to all but 1 megabank so banker bonuses flow freely despite megabank tangible capital being a low 6.3% on average. In 2010 Alan Greenspan testified that if Wall Street had had 15% tangible capital in 2008, then there would’ve been no financial crisis. 6.3% ain’t even close to 15%.
June 30 2017 — [My opponent’s] pro Wall Street bills from 2013, ’14, ’17, won’t do. Here’s my solution:
June 30 2017 — From Eurozone, US taxpayer faces a clear & present danger of a eurobank contagion spreading to Wall Street. Nobody’s talking about that. Instead, they’re ensnared in bitter inter-party and intra-party feuds that’ve turned into politically-suicidal circular firing squads.
June 29 2017 — The Democrats’ 2010 Dodd-Frank Act WON’T prevent bailouts at the next crisis. The Fed’s Oct 18 2013 Banking Resolution conference and its admission of an absence of cross-border agreements to resolve multinational megabanks across int’l jurisdictions most certainly made that clear, but Dodd-Frank does restrict Wall Street in ways that inconveniences bankers. My opponent’s H.R.10 bill seeks to remove those restrictions/inconveniences.
June 29 2017 — [My opponent]co-sponsored H.R.10 bill to undo Dodd-Frank regulation of both mini & mega banks. I support MINI bank regulatory relief ONLY.
June 28 2017 — Fed’s Janet Yellen says no more fin’l crises “in our lifetimes.” That’s like Ben Bernanke saying Fannie, Freddie, subprime were fine in 2007 and 2008
June 28 2017 — Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, together hold $231 TRILLION in derivatives, saying the $231 Trillion nets out to little more than billions of dollars in the end, presenting no threat to taxpayers. Under normal circumstances, with derivative counterparties still standing and not falling like dominos, some of that’s true — but, in the thick of a crisis, when falling dominos are what counterparties become, nothing could be further from the truth.
June 27 2017 — Wealth concentration, US worse than the Arabs: http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user245717/imageroot/2017/06/10/wealth.JPG
June 27 2017 — Oldest bank in the world, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, founded 1472, has been help up by taxpayer props since the end of 2016. It’s survived five-and-a-half centuries thru hell and high water, but now it’s dying. Ought to tell you something.
June 27 2017 — Sizable banks in Italy, Spain crashed in June this year. As I predicted, the Eurobanking crisis is slow-morphing into a U.S. banking crisis. I’d say we’re 18 months to financial D-Day on our shores.
June 25 2017–57 executives of 10 health insurers were paid $300 million in 2013. The law used to allow insurers to tax deduct $81 million of that. House GOP health plan allows $288 million deduction.
June 23 2017 — Elites say economy is fine, yet 93% of new jobs since 2008 were result of a gov’t Birth-Death model for businesses, despite more businesses dying off than being born. Go figure.
June 23 2017–1980 thru 2008, 120,000 more businesses were BORN than died each year in US. After crisis & bailouts, 30,000 more businesses DIED each year.
June 22 2017–236 million opioid prescriptions, 59000 O.D. fatalities, #1 cause of death for age under 50. Why the sudden spike — financial duress & broken families, I suspect, have much to do with it.
June 21 2017 — Half our wage-earning workforce, 117 million people, earn just $16K a yr. Our student-loan debt-soaked education system has failed us all. Student debt $1.3 Trillion. Average per head $37,000. Defaults high & rising as job market weakens. Need a plan for 1 & 2 year specialized degrees for jobs that pay, with n0 debt. Solution:
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June 19 2017 — Trump Admin says infrastructure must be a joint venture between taxpayer and Blackstone Group and Saudi Arabia. I say Main Street owns our tolls, not Wall Street, not Saudi Arabia.
June 5 2017 — Together, we must sanitize money in politics, sterilize public service, disinfect our nation’s capital, and save her from future infestation
May 31 2017–30 Year Treasury bond born 1977 with debt growing. 30Y T-bond put to rest 2001, reborn 2006, again with Iraq War related debt growing. Treasury now wants 50Y & 100Y bonds! Count on a T-bond crisis coming in 2020. All long-dated T-bonds will be especially affected as the Fed loses power to suppress spiking interest rates.
May 26 2017 — Politicians cut farm programs and rural programs while mega corporations use tax deferment, tax inversion, tax havens, and all sorts of tax dodges to line the pockets of multinational corporate execs.
May 24 2017 — GOP budget assumes 3% GDP out to 2027, for a balanced budget 10 yrs from now, per their assessment. No recession or crisis anywhere, in between, in their assumption. Are you kidding me?
May 23 2107 — Treasury Sec. Steve Mnuchin says Trump budget “will prevent taxpayer bailouts.” What he’s implying is that there will be bailouts on the horizon for Wall Street. This Trump Budget, even if it did pass, will NOT prevent bailouts. They’re just blowing smoke to cover their behinds when bailouts do happen again on Wall Street.
May 14 2017 — DC corruption: $140B tax credit to bailed out banks, by Congress, kept secret from public, see:
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April 19 2017 — on March 16 2017 Federal Reserve began paying 1% interest to money parked at the Fed by Wall Street — a $2 Billion a month taxpayer giveaway to the megabanks.
April 11 2017 — One of America’s biggest banks writes: SUBPRIME consumer debt totals $1.25 Trillion, but Wall Street is NOT worried because loan-loss risk is now INCREASINGLY borne by taxpayers — suggests banks have been lending money to high risk borrowers to earn fees, then moving the risk onto us.
April 7 2017 — Next crisis, in 2018/2019, will be much BIGGER. Will make 2008 look like a walk in the park. Why? See:
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April 7 2017 — Between 1776 and 2007, Treasury issued $9 Trillion in debt. 2008 to 2014 U.S. issued as much debt as prior 231 years. Why? The crater left behind by the 2008 crisis.
April 3 2017 — Why our small & medium businesses need a fighter & champion in Washington DC:
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March 31 2017 — Obama jobs council was packed with multinational CEOs. Trump jobs council also packed with multinational CEOs. On both Obama and Trump jobs councils, some of the same CEOs, with one thing in common: all were net domestic jobs outsourcers. Why not a jobs council of small & medium business owners/managers? Answer: Because we’re invisible to DC, and we don’t cut big enough checks to D.C. campaigns.
March 29 2017 — At one of Washington DC’s swanky new hangouts for lobbyists and politicians, Grey Goose vodka martini goes for 4X federal minimum wage — $30 incl. tax & tip.
March 29 2017 — Gini Coefficient measures income equality. Score of zero equals total equality, score of one equals total inequality. Closest to 1 and near-perfect inequality in all of USA: District of Columbia. A close second to near-perfect inequality, Wall Street’s New York City.
March 24 2017 — Nat’l Debt up $100K every 11 seconds, Federal Tax Revenue up $100K every 21 sec. Notice the BIG FAT 10 SECOND DEFICIT.
March 23 2017 — A bill grows after the vote. The vote is for the shell. After the shell’s passed Congress and the White House, Wall Street & K Street fill the shell with exemptions, exemptions, and loopholes, until — yep — our goose is cooked.
March 23 2107 — In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was 1 page. In 1933, the Wall Street reform bill was 37 pages. In 2010, Wall Street reform started at 848 pages when it passed Congress and WH, but got to 14,000 pages by 2013. Probably heading for 35,000 pages before it’s done, before we’re cooked.
March 22 2017 — Between 2001 and 2016, DEBT was up a whopping $14 Trillion, while GDP got up only $8 Trillion. Borrowing $14 Trillion to make $8 Trillion — does that sound like one helluva good deal to you?
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America has become a land of three streets: Wall Street, K Street, and Main Street.
The first two go into Washington DC. The third, the longest and hardest-traveled, criss-crosses our nation to its far reaches — yet, it finds only side-roads, dirt-roads, to where the levers of power reside.
The first two intersect often, coincide often, merge and converge on their way to our capital. The third runs alone.
Dark, is that third course on many a stretch. But, the light cometh.
