Flawed US Economic System Mathematically Guarantees Fraud.

[georgephillip]

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."
...Frederick Bastiat.

William K. (Bill) Black concurs in this interview from last May. The former bank regulator compares the plunder of the Savings and Loan Scandals of the late 80s and Wall Street's most recent lootings and "laments the US has descended into a type of crony capitalism that makes continued fraud a virtual certainty..."

"A warning: there's much revealed in this interview to make your blood boil. For example: the Office of Thrift Supervision. In the aftermath of the S&L crisis, this office brought 3,000 administration enforcements actions (a.k.a. lawsuits) against identified perpetrators.

"In a number of cases, they clawed back the funds and profits that the convicted parties had fraudulently obtained.

"Flash forward to the 2008 credit crisis, in which just the related household sector losses alone were over 70x greater than those seen during the entire S&L debacle. So how many criminal referrals did the same agency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, make?

"Zero."

Good thing there's a Socialist in the White House.

Bill Black: Our System Is So Flawed That Fraud Is Mathematically Guaranteed | Zero Hedge

 

[iamwhatiseem]

We have all know this to be true for several decades.

 

[georgephillip]

We have all know this to be true for several decades.

How many of us knew about Wall Street's premeditated intent to deceive consumers, government, and auditors? I'm guessing many who doubt that will be very surprised when sub-prime auto loans blow up in the near future.

"Operation LeakS" Releases Initial BofA Emails Indicating Premeditated Intent To Deceive Government And Auditors | Zero Hedge

 

[iamwhatiseem]

We have all know this to be true for several decades.

How many of us knew about Wall Street's premeditated intent to deceive consumers, government, and auditors? I'm guessing many who doubt that will be very surprised when sub-prime auto loans blow up in the near future.

"Operation LeakS" Releases Initial BofA Emails Indicating Premeditated Intent To Deceive Government And Auditors | Zero Hedge

Anybody who pays attention.
The few who do pay attention get zero attention for all of the noise made by the red vs. blue war.

 

[Kimura]

William K Black is a brilliant guy. He basically invented the term "control fraud". He was also involved in blowing the lid on the S&L crisis.

 

[georgephillip]

William K Black is a brilliant guy. He basically invented the term "control fraud". He was also involved in blowing the lid on the S&L crisis.

Bill took notes during the Keating Five congressional meeting which were later published in the press. The resulting national furor nearly ended the political careers of John Glenn and John McCain.

William K. Black - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The former Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention now teaches Economics and Law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. During the savings and loan crisis, it was Black who accused then-house speaker Jim Wright and five US Senators, including John Glenn and John McCain, of doing favors for the S&L's in exchange for contributions and other perks.

"The senators got off with a slap on the wrist, but so enraged was one of those bankers, Charles Keating — after whom the senate's so-called 'Keating Five' were named — he sent a memo that read, in part, 'get Black — kill him dead.' Metaphorically, of course. Of course."

I vaguely remember the S&L scandals when over 1000 bankers were charged with crimes and over 800 convicted. Five years ago, I was suspecting similar numbers for the latest looting.

 

[Publius1787]

It never ceases to amaze me how liberals advocate for expanded federal power then act shocked when the rate of cronyism, lobbying, quid pro quo, legal exemptions, and fraud explodes. This is the government liberals asked for.

 

[georgephillip]

We have all know this to be true for several decades.

How many of us knew about Wall Street's premeditated intent to deceive consumers, government, and auditors? I'm guessing many who doubt that will be very surprised when sub-prime auto loans blow up in the near future.

"Operation LeakS" Releases Initial BofA Emails Indicating Premeditated Intent To Deceive Government And Auditors | Zero Hedge

Anybody who pays attention.
The few who do pay attention get zero attention for all of the noise made by the red vs. blue war.

Possibly those who are paying attention and have ballots offering third party choices for US Representatives and Senators should consider changing their red v blue voices? If millions of US voters decide to select their congressional representatives from already established third party candidates instead of "choosing" between Democrat OR Republican, politics becomes much more interesting.

 

[georgephillip]

It never ceases to amaze me how liberals advocate for expanded federal power then act shocked when the rate of cronyism, lobbying, quid pro quo, legal exemptions, and fraud explodes. This is the government liberals asked for.

Rich liberals are just as subservient to oligarchs as rich conservatives. Possibly a wall of separation between private wealth and the means by which state policy is created, interpreted, and enforced would reduce liberal and conservative shock to regular instances of control accounting fraud?

 

[Publius1787]

It never ceases to amaze me how liberals advocate for expanded federal power then act shocked when the rate of cronyism, lobbying, quid pro quo, legal exemptions, and fraud explodes. This is the government liberals asked for.

Rich liberals are just as subservient to oligarchs as rich conservatives. Possibly a wall of separation between private wealth and the means by which state policy is created, interpreted, and enforced would reduce liberal and conservative shock to regular instances of control accounting fraud?

Even rich conservatives opposed FDR's radical interpretation of the Constitution. It was FDR who made specific welfare possible, and thus, made corporate welfare possible on a grander scale. "General Welfare" originally was meant to limit the governments power to benefit one group at the expense of another. In this sense, the laws had to be applied "generally" to everyone. The military, for example, protects the general welfare of the entire nation. But nope, it started with New Deal programs such as Social Security and was expanded by the great society. Rich and poor had to take their position for their own interests and lobbying exploded. Thus, here we are today. It was not a conservative interpretation of the Constitution that did this. It was liberal all the way!

 

[georgephillip]

It never ceases to amaze me how liberals advocate for expanded federal power then act shocked when the rate of cronyism, lobbying, quid pro quo, legal exemptions, and fraud explodes. This is the government liberals asked for.

Rich liberals are just as subservient to oligarchs as rich conservatives. Possibly a wall of separation between private wealth and the means by which state policy is created, interpreted, and enforced would reduce liberal and conservative shock to regular instances of control accounting fraud?

Even rich conservatives opposed FDR's radical interpretation of the Constitution. It was FDR who made specific welfare possible, and thus, made corporate welfare possible on a grander scale. "General Welfare" originally was meant to limit the governments power to benefit one group at the expense of another. In this sense, the laws had to be applied "generally" to everyone. The military, for example, protects the general welfare of the entire nation. But nope, it started with New Deal programs such as Social Security and was expanded by the great society. Rich and poor had to take their position for their own interests and lobbying exploded. Thus, here we are today. It was not a conservative interpretation of the Constitution that did this. It was liberal all the way!

Corporate greed brought about the need for the New Deal. Would you say conservatives champion the corporate cause more than liberals?

 

[Publius1787]

Rich liberals are just as subservient to oligarchs as rich conservatives. Possibly a wall of separation between private wealth and the means by which state policy is created, interpreted, and enforced would reduce liberal and conservative shock to regular instances of control accounting fraud?

Even rich conservatives opposed FDR's radical interpretation of the Constitution. It was FDR who made specific welfare possible, and thus, made corporate welfare possible on a grander scale. "General Welfare" originally was meant to limit the governments power to benefit one group at the expense of another. In this sense, the laws had to be applied "generally" to everyone. The military, for example, protects the general welfare of the entire nation. But nope, it started with New Deal programs such as Social Security and was expanded by the great society. Rich and poor had to take their position for their own interests and lobbying exploded. Thus, here we are today. It was not a conservative interpretation of the Constitution that did this. It was liberal all the way!

Corporate greed brought about the need for the New Deal. Would you say conservatives champion the corporate cause more than liberals?

Your going to blame the bad medicine that made the country sicker on the virus?

 

[georgephillip]

Even rich conservatives opposed FDR's radical interpretation of the Constitution. It was FDR who made specific welfare possible, and thus, made corporate welfare possible on a grander scale. "General Welfare" originally was meant to limit the governments power to benefit one group at the expense of another. In this sense, the laws had to be applied "generally" to everyone. The military, for example, protects the general welfare of the entire nation. But nope, it started with New Deal programs such as Social Security and was expanded by the great society. Rich and poor had to take their position for their own interests and lobbying exploded. Thus, here we are today. It was not a conservative interpretation of the Constitution that did this. It was liberal all the way!

Corporate greed brought about the need for the New Deal. Would you say conservatives champion the corporate cause more than liberals?

Your going to blame the bad medicine that made the country sicker on the virus?

I'm thinking the blame for the virus and the bad medicine is private wealth.

 

[Publius1787]

Corporate greed brought about the need for the New Deal. Would you say conservatives champion the corporate cause more than liberals?

Your going to blame the bad medicine that made the country sicker on the virus?

I'm thinking the blame for the virus and the bad medicine is private wealth.

Gee, if we could just have public wealth instead huh? I kind of like the boom and bust cycle. Its a hell of a lot better than the death cycles experienced by those places where wealth wasn't private. In anycase, this is what private wealth has done for the world.

 

[georgephillip]

Your going to blame the bad medicine that made the country sicker on the virus?

I'm thinking the blame for the virus and the bad medicine is private wealth.

Gee, if we could just have public wealth instead huh? I kind of like the boom and bust cycle. Its a hell of a lot better than the death cycles experienced by those places where wealth wasn't private. In anycase, this is what private wealth has done for the world.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo]Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC Four - YouTube[/ame]

I couldn't help noticing your animation consists of data points labeled "countries."
Geographical regions composed of peoples with distinct political/economic interests containing public resources that have been redistributed over the last two hundred years for the enrichment of 1% of private citizens. Gee...maybe boom and bust and war and debt aren't all that great, after all?

All property is not theft; however, theft becomes possible only through property.

 

[eagle1462010]

Have You Heard About The 16 Trillion Dollar Bailout The Federal Reserve Handed To The Too Big To Fail Banks?

According to the GAO audit, $16.1 trillion in secret loans were made by the Federal Reserve between December 1, 2007 and July 21, 2010. The following list of firms and the amount of money that they received was taken directly from page 131 of the GAO audit report....

Citigroup - $2.513 trillion
Morgan Stanley - $2.041 trillion
Merrill Lynch - $1.949 trillion
Bank of America - $1.344 trillion
Barclays PLC - $868 billion
Bear Sterns - $853 billion
Goldman Sachs - $814 billion
Royal Bank of Scotland - $541 billion
JP Morgan Chase - $391 billion
Deutsche Bank - $354 billion
UBS - $287 billion
Credit Suisse - $262 billion
Lehman Brothers - $183 billion
Bank of Scotland - $181 billion
BNP Paribas - $175 billion
Wells Fargo - $159 billion
Dexia - $159 billion
Wachovia - $142 billion
Dresdner Bank - $135 billion
Societe Generale - $124 billion
"All Other Borrowers" - $2.639 trillion

 

[eagle1462010]

Unheralded Warnings from the Founding Fathers... | Gather

"Usury has existed for thousands of years, and may have been perpetuated by every worldly creed. Untold multitudes have died in the perpetual struggle against usury. Jesus Christ Himself was crucified soon after His famous demonstration at the temple of the money changers.

In a train of events that would eventually inspire the American colonies to revolution, a German-born embezzler, trained by his father in matters of money and trading that he could become a Rabbi, rose from a Jewish slum to become the present world's father of international bankers. He would change his name from Mayer Amschel Bauer to Mayer Amschel Rothschild.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his sons -- equally trained in unearned profit (usury) and its vital complements of corruption, subversion, and deceit -- would comprise the House of Rothschild, intervening upon production, consumer and government altogether, to amass, at the expense of everyone but the perpetrators, the greatest forfeitures of prosperity the world could know.

Thomas Jefferson speaking on the first attempt to establish a central bank in America:

"The system of banking is a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction. I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

"The end of democracy, and the defeat of the American revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations."

"If the people ever allow the banks to issue their currency, the banks and corporations which will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property, until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

James Madison speaking on the first attempt to establish a central bank in America:

"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit and violent means possible, to maintain their control over governments, by controlling money and its issuance."

 

[georgephillip]

Have You Heard About The 16 Trillion Dollar Bailout The Federal Reserve Handed To The Too Big To Fail Banks?

According to the GAO audit, $16.1 trillion in secret loans were made by the Federal Reserve between December 1, 2007 and July 21, 2010. The following list of firms and the amount of money that they received was taken directly from page 131 of the GAO audit report....

Citigroup - $2.513 trillion
Morgan Stanley - $2.041 trillion
Merrill Lynch - $1.949 trillion
Bank of America - $1.344 trillion
Barclays PLC - $868 billion
Bear Sterns - $853 billion
Goldman Sachs - $814 billion
Royal Bank of Scotland - $541 billion
JP Morgan Chase - $391 billion
Deutsche Bank - $354 billion
UBS - $287 billion
Credit Suisse - $262 billion
Lehman Brothers - $183 billion
Bank of Scotland - $181 billion
BNP Paribas - $175 billion
Wells Fargo - $159 billion
Dexia - $159 billion
Wachovia - $142 billion
Dresdner Bank - $135 billion
Societe Generale - $124 billion
"All Other Borrowers" - $2.639 trillion

Michael Hudson and others have been making the same point and even speculating on why Democrats and Republicans are favoring one economic class at the expense of another:

"Why is it that these complaints focus on one particular small part of the budget, Social Security and medical care and health care? And the reason is this is pure, naked class war.

"There’s no other word for it.

"You can’t believe that people are being honest when they don’t talk about the whole budget or the overall economy when they’re singlemindedly tunnel-visioned, focused only on how do we pay retirees less, so that we can give the bankers more when President Obama continues the bank deregulation he’s sponsoring.

"The idea is to cut back Social Security in order to gear up for the next big bank bailout that’s going to result from current policies.

Hopefully, the next big bank bailout will occur in November of 2014 or '16.

Obama?s ?Cat Food? Social Security Reform » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

 

[editec]

It never ceases to amaze me how liberals advocate for expanded federal power then act shocked when the rate of cronyism, lobbying, quid pro quo, legal exemptions, and fraud explodes. This is the government liberals asked for.

Well no what liberal people are demanding is honest government, Pub.

Their real mistake is believing that honest government is possible under our current system.

And of course their other major mistake is believing that anyone in power in government is really a liberal (or a conservative for that matter).

 

[georgephillip]

Unheralded Warnings from the Founding Fathers... | Gather

"Usury has existed for thousands of years, and may have been perpetuated by every worldly creed. Untold multitudes have died in the perpetual struggle against usury. Jesus Christ Himself was crucified soon after His famous demonstration at the temple of the money changers.

In a train of events that would eventually inspire the American colonies to revolution, a German-born embezzler, trained by his father in matters of money and trading that he could become a Rabbi, rose from a Jewish slum to become the present world's father of international bankers. He would change his name from Mayer Amschel Bauer to Mayer Amschel Rothschild.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his sons -- equally trained in unearned profit (usury) and its vital complements of corruption, subversion, and deceit -- would comprise the House of Rothschild, intervening upon production, consumer and government altogether, to amass, at the expense of everyone but the perpetrators, the greatest forfeitures of prosperity the world could know.

Thomas Jefferson speaking on the first attempt to establish a central bank in America:

"The system of banking is a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction. I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

"The end of democracy, and the defeat of the American revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations."

"If the people ever allow the banks to issue their currency, the banks and corporations which will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property, until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

James Madison speaking on the first attempt to establish a central bank in America:

"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit and violent means possible, to maintain their control over governments, by controlling money and its issuance."

"If the people ever allow banks to issue their currency, the banks and corporations which will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property, until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

I don't remember the first time I read that particular quote.
The first time I remember understanding what Jefferson meant was during the summer of 2008 when I was homeless and living beneath a bridge just west of downtown LA. My question is, if banks don't issue our currency, who does?