by cameron | Oct 26, 2013 | banksters
Sell some weed in the United States and you can get 81 years in prison. Create a massive fraud that collapses the global economy, put thousands out of work, makes thousands lose their homes, destroy thousands of businesses – and you’ll get what amounts to a slap on the wrist. JP Morgan has assets near $2.5 TRILLION. They have been involved in criminal activity for years, defrauding American and international investors, aiding and abetting criminals from Enron to Worldcom and rigging the energy market. Do they go to jail? Are their leaders even charged with crimes? Of course not. Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO, paid himself $23 million in 2011. He even got praise from Obama.
Just one more example of how the banksters have got the system rigged. These bastards are laughing at you, especially you Democrats who still think Obama is the Great Hope.
by cameron | Sep 19, 2012 | banksters, capitalism
Step 1. Start a financial services firm.
Step 2. Make sure you are the only person in the company who sees the bank statements.
Step 3. “Using a combination of Photo Shop, Excel, scanners and both laser and ink jet printers… make very convincing forgeries of nearly every document that came from the Bank.”
At least, that’s how Peregrine CEO Russell Wasendorf Sr. did it – for over 20 years.
He wrote a suicide note explaining the whole scam before attempting suicide. He failed at that and has now pleaded guilty to fraud and embezzlement.
What about the Regulators? Why didn’t they catch him?
“It was relatively simple to deceive the Regulators” according to Russ. Good to know.
He ended his suicide note with “I am ready to die. I guess this is the only way out of a business I hate so much.”
It’s a far cry from his most recent “Chairman’s Letter”, where he wrote
“At PFGBEST, our consistent hallmarks remain: respectful and conscientious care of customers and their accounts; a keen sense of their evolving needs; and, the talent and resources to provide analytical, flexible and customized solutions.”
Guys like Wasendorf are fascinating to me. How high would he score on a test for psychopathy? Surely he would score highly on many of those factors.
You have to wonder how many CEOs, politicians and entrepreneurs are psychopaths? And what is it about capitalism that allows them to prosper?
Of course, the history of socialism and communism has it’s fair share of psychopaths as well. Why is it so hard for us to design a socio-economic system that weeds out psychopaths?
by cameron | Sep 3, 2012 | banksters, capitalism
I don’t know who created this, but I first saw it on this Facebook page. I’m not sure the top of the tree should be the banksters by themselves, as there are plenty of wealthy individuals that aren’t part of the banking system. But you get the general idea.
by cameron | Apr 1, 2010 | banksters
The very financial product that triggered the GFC – subprime mortgages, aka banks making home loans to people who can’t afford them – is apparently the hot new thing on Wall Street – again.
“Subprime-mortgage securities are rising at an accelerating pace as the U.S. begins to encourage reductions to homeowners’ balances, which may lead to fewer foreclosures and a quicker end to the housing slump….Senior-ranked bonds tied to borrowers with poor credit will mostly benefit after the Treasury Department said for the first time it would seek to cut the size of mortgages, reducing the likelihood that loan modifications will fail, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Barclays Plc. (Bloomberg)
According to the Smirking Chimp:
This is how it works: The new program offers incentives to banks and other deep-pocketed investors (in mortgage-backed securities) to slash the principal on underwater mortgages which keeps people from strategic default or foreclosure. Sounds good, right? But here’s the catch: When the mortgage is refinanced, it’s converted into a FHA-backed loan which provides an explicit gov-guarantee. So, for a slight loss on the face-value of the MBS, the investors (ie–investment banks, hedgies, etc) are able to resuscitate their moribund securitizations (MBS) and reap hefty gains. It’s like taking Fido’s steaming pile on the front lawn and turning it into the Hope Diamond. Abracadabra!
Geithner has figured out how to put together a bailout that will cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars without any money actually exchanging hands. The value of the putrid mortgage-paper will soar because of the gov-underwriting, and the ginormous losses won’t be realized until the mortgages start blowing up sometime in the future. That’s when FHA will be put-to-pasture along with fellow-homicide victims, Fannie and Freddie. Pretty clever, eh?
So, the cutthroat speculators and bunko artists who fleeced us all with their dogshit subprimes, have returned for another dip at the public trough. That means taxpayers will get scalped on the same investments a second time. Hey, it’s a double-whammy!
I’m currently reading “The Creature From Jekyll Island” and “Whoops!“, two books about how the U.S. Federal Reserve, Congress, The White House and Wall Street have been working together for nearly a century (The Fed was created in 1910) to fleece the American public. The thing most people don’t understand is that The System is designed to encourage stupid risks which deliver massive profits to a small group of bankers for a decade, then collapse, only to be bailed out by the American public. It’s been going on for a century and isn’t about to stop anytime soon, because Congress and The White House are all on the payroll.
by cameron | Nov 27, 2009 | banksters, Melbourne
On holidays in Melbourne, having an awesome time showing @fddlgrl all of my favourite haunts. Just have one quick thought to share with you.
We need to stop referring to the “Clinton” administration, the “Bush” administration and the “Obama” administration. We need to start referring to the last 16 years collectively as the “Goldman Sachs” administration.
I was prompted to think of this while reading this post on Crooks and Liars about the TARP bailout. The suggestion is that the bailout isn’t Obama’s fault, because Bush was still in power when it happened. They seem to be forgetting that the US Senate said NO to the original bailout vote, and it wasn’t until Obama took time out of his election campaign to “work Capitol Hill” that the bailout finally passed. I remember him getting the credit for it at the time. So he doesn’t get a pass on that shit.
The point, though, is that the US Treasury, under Clinton, Bush and Obama, has continued to be run by ex-Goldman Sachs executives. So let’s not fool ourselves about who is in power. Goldman were the single largest private investor in Obama’s election campaign. And now they are they have managed to wipe out their competition. As they say here, “Like on the TV program SURVIVOR – the last survivor standing is Goldman Sachs – who receives the grand prize. But in this case it is not just the fame and one million dollar prize. It is infamy with trillions of dollars in rewards.”
The banksters seem to be running things, at least in the USA. A friend of mine who works in finance told me recently how the big four banks in Australia have emerged from the GFC even more arrogant than ever. They managed to buy out most of their competition and now they have an even stronger lock on the marketplace, deciding who gets finance and at what usurious rates. Which is just another reason for all of your to join me on the “Million Bank March” campaign. It’s the only way I can see that we can start to reign them in.
by cameron | Oct 1, 2009 | banksters, capitalism
It’s time for all of us to get rid of our credit cards, once and for all.
As if the "Global Financial Crisis" (or, as I like to call it, the "Greedy Fuckers Crisis") hasn’t already taught us that we need to wean ourselves off of this credit-based culture we’ve built for ourselves, then this story should. According to News.com.au, "one in five Australians is a victim of credit card fraud or computer hackers."
More quotes:
"Credit card crime is by far the biggest single fraud issue, with almost 10 per cent of those surveyed falling victim to card theft or skimming."
"The news will be an embarrassment to the banks, who repeatedly claim that their systems are secure."
The banks make BILLIONS and BILLIONS of profits every year and they STILL can’t stop credit card fraud. Why? Because they don’t care. It would cost more to fix it than it does to pay out the claims. It’s the same reason they can’t develop an e-banking system that doesn’t look like it was made my monkeys in 1993. THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU. They care about profits, not people, not customers – PROFIT. That’s why their customer satisfaction scores are in the toilet.
Credit cards are just another way that the banks, corporations and the government manages to keep us up to our eyeballs in debt. They know that human nature means that if you CAN spend it, you WILL – eventually. And then they have you by the balls. And if you’re living on debt, you’re easy to manipulate. You can’t afford to quit your job – so they can screw you down a little bit more. You can’t afford to lose your job – so you put "the economy" ahead of other issues, like "the survival of the species" when you vote in elections. You dance to their tune.
Let’s get a campaign going to get a million people to cut up their credit cards this year. Along with my other campaign to get a million people to walk away from the "big four" banks and take their banking to a smaller, member-owned credit union.
Let’s take control of our destiny people.
UPDATE: Check out @mrshlee! He already decided to cut his up! (video)
