S&P on the Kill List: U.S. Government Seeking Vengeance for S&P Downgrade of U.S. Credit.

S&P On the Kill List By Douglas French Thanks to Douglas French and The Daily Reckoning

“Paybacks are a bitch,” as they say.What was Standard & Poor’s thinking back in August 2011, when the ratings agency took the Red, White, and Blue’s AAA rating away? A rating the most powerful government in the history of the world had held for 70 years. S&P downgraded long-term US debt to AA-plus. That score ranks lower than over a dozen governments, including Liechtenstein’s, and is level with Guernsey’s and France’s.McGraw-Hill Companies (S&P’s owner) may be a big corporation, but you don’t kick sand in Uncle Sam’s face like that and get away with it. Now the government, in the person of Attorney General Eric Holder, is kicking back. The US government is accusing the ratings agency of committing fraud by inflating the ratings of mortgage investments, which, of course, created the financial crisis.S&P, along with its competitors Fitch and Moody’s, famously rated the mortgage security goulash that Wall Street concocted AAA, thus allowing everyone everywhere to participate in America’s housing boom. And why not? According to computer models, housing prices never go down. Pension funds as far away as Reykjavik and Heerlan were gobbling up what Wall Street was serving because all three ratings agencies provided their stamp of approval. According to the government’s suit, S&P “knowingly and with the intent to defraud, devised, participated in, and executed a scheme to defraud investors.” Yep, in the minds of the government’s gumshoes, the clairvoyants at S&P knew these securities stunk to high heaven. They knew, or should have known, that the housing market was ready to crash any moment, but they were greedy capitalists who, while they were making a buck, created and carried out a diabolical plan to bring the financial world to its knees. Yeah sure, that’s what happened. S&P should be ashamed for maintaining that it ratings “were objective, independent, uninfluenced by any conflicts of interest,” the suit said. The suit centers around 40 collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) created from 2004-2007. The firm was paid $13 million for rating these securities. Giving these securities the highest rating must have been fraud, because everyone knew by that time that the market was toast. Right? After all, in 2004, the nation’s deposit insurer and bank regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), published a paper on housing that concluded: “It is unlikely that home prices are poised to plunge nationwide, even when mortgage rates rise.” This is because “housing markets by nature are local, and significant price declines historically have been observed only in markets experiencing serious economic distress.” Plus, housing markets have “characteristics not inherent in other assets that temper speculative tendencies and generally mitigate against price collapse.” In conclusion, “it is highly unlikely that home prices would decline simultaneously and uniformly in different cities as a result of some shift, such as a rise in interest rates.” Whoops. Where’s the lawsuit against the FDIC?

Why the U.S. Government Hates -and Fears- Gold

By Alan Walsh

The U.S. Government hates Gold because it serves as a clear, unambiguous, and constant sign of their fiscal irresponsibility.

U.S. currency used to be issued by the U.S. Government, and was backed by Gold. You could literally trade-in your dollars for Gold. Then, the Federal Reserve system was created, the dollar was disconnected from Gold, and the U.S. government stopped issuing currency. To really “seal the deal”, the government even outlawed individual ownership of Gold for awhile and forced citizens to sell it to them at a fixed price they set; then they raised the “official” price of Gold, devaluing every dollar citizens held by about 40%.

The Federal Reserve (also referred to as the U.S. central banking system, or central bank) is not a government agency; it’s a private bank, owned by other big banks, and run by people from those banks. When the U.S. Government wants additional money to spend, it buys it at face value ($100 for a $100 bill, for instance) from the Federal Reserve; which creates the currency. That’s why your dollars say “Federal Reserve Note” on them. In order to buy the currency, the U.S. government goes into debt  via Treasury Notes & Bills, etc. The government then spends that money.

Why did the U.S. government do this? So politicians could avoid accountability, buy votes, get reelected, increase their power, and transfer the effect of their spending to the future. This is how the federal government got to be the monster it is today. Under the old system, the government could only spend as much as it held in gold-backed dollars. If they wanted to spend more, they had to tax citizens. Citizens don’t like higher taxes, and get upset. Politicians lose jobs. Government was held accountable. The new Federal Reserve system removes this nasty inconvenience by letting the politicians just go buy currency from the Federal Reserve, creating new debt in the process; and government debt is a claim on the productivity of the nation – therefore it is your debt. Government doesn’t produce; it only consumes – your wealth. The income tax was created at the same time as the Federal Reserve system to pay for this debt.

As government buys more dollars from the Federal Reserve (and creates more debt in the process), it increases the number of dollars in circulation; thus creating inflation – plus damaging boom & bust cycles in the economy – plus interest expense on the debt. This is where Gold becomes very annoying to them. Gold, like any other commodity, adjusts in price with inflation and glaringly points it out. As the number of dollars in circulation goes up, the price of Gold rises.  People see their purchasing power in dollars go down, so they trade them for Gold; which holds its purchasing power in times of inflation and serves as alternative money. Government doesn’t want you to notice their little shell game, and they don’t want you to stop using and holding their inflationary dollars, so they hate Gold.

Our government, and other governments who play the same shell game, try to control the price of Gold and hold it artificially down through surreptitious trading activity in league with major financial firms. They try to send you false signals about their inflationary borrow & spend activity by artificially holding the cost of Gold down. If the price of Gold is low, everything must be okay, right? Wrong! Very, very wrong!

We’ve now reached a point where government borrowing and spending is so extreme that they can’t artificially hold Gold down to the price level they would like anymore.  Thus, Gold is trading near $1,700.00 per ounce. Many experts argue that if the government wasn’t surreptitiously intervening in the market to hold the price of Gold down, it would be trading for $3,000 or more.  Regardless, the rise in the price of Gold is a clear and unambiguous signal that government spending is out of control. The effect of this is to undermine peoples’ faith in the dollar and our government.  That makes it hard for government to keep up their shell game. Their borrowing & spending has also created a debt that the income tax can’t begin to cover – plus those nasty and growing interest obligations.

Sober people have also questioned how much of the Gold the government holds it actually owns anymore. They suspect that the government’s secret Gold sales to flood the market and hold the market price of Gold down have been so extensive that very little of the Gold they hold is actually owned by them anymore. Large Gold sales usually don’t involve physical transfer. An electronic record is created to note the new ownership. Therefore the government may be sitting on a large cache of Gold that “we the people” don’t own anymore. Perhaps this is partly why the price of Gold has risen despite government’s best efforts to hold it down. Maybe they’ve run out of Gold to sell. We can’t know for sure, because the government hides this activity behind a thick wall of secrecy. But bits and pieces of info leak out now and then, and they paint a dismal picture. Investigators have even uncovered documents created by central bankers for central bankers on how to execute market intervention between each other to hold the Gold price down.

As the government shell game grows, people start paying attention, and realizing how they’re being hosed by the government’s inflationary, destructive borrow and spend policy. If more Americans understood how our monetary policy works, and what government’s doing to them, they’d be screaming. Government does everything it can to keep us in ignorance.

Faith in the U.S. Dollar has been so severely undermined that other nations, who are not so naive in these matters, are seriously talking about abandoning the dollar as the “world currency”, a beneficial status which the U.S. has enjoyed since the end of World War II. If that happens, investment coming into the U.S. will decline and government will find it increasingly difficult to sell or roll-over their debt; China being our largest current creditor. Then the U.S. will hit a “fiscal cliff” that makes the current one look like a ride in the park.

The U.S. national debt is now over $16 Trillion dollars; over $52,000 per person, and approx. 125% of gross domestic product (gross domestic product being our productivity as a nation – your productivity – the productivity our government taxes you on) – a new record by far. The current government’s policies alone added $8 Trillion to that debt in the last four years. Then there’s the interest on all that debt. Budget projections indicate that the national debt could hit $20 Trillion in the next couple years if we keep going the way we are. Other nations are starting to look at the U.S. like Greece; a bankrupt financial disaster. We’re mortgaging our nation to entities like China, who are not exactly our friends. The current administration’s indebted the nation to a greater extent than any other, but they’re not the only perpetrators. This has been going for decades since the new system was created. It’s not a Democrat or Republican problem – it’s a national tragedy.

Gold at $1,700 an ounce sends this signal clearly – which government fears and hates.

The government wants you to hold their inflationary dollars. The Federal Reserve does too; and bad-mouths Gold. The finance houses who surreptitiously work with the government to control the price of Gold tell you that Gold is an unproductive asset, and you should hold dollars instead; while they quietly buy it for their own accounts. They’re all propagandizing you to keep their shell game going. I remember one time a couple of years ago when one of the major financial houses (JP Morgan I believe) was publicly telling it’s clients to sell Gold, while privately buying it for their own account.

The national tragedy goes even deeper. The Federal Reserve holds secret meetings where it shares inside information with the finance houses who help it; information that they use to make millions and billions on the markets from you unknowing investors. If you think the equity & debt markets are free and open, think again. It’s all manipulated.

Let’s talk about one of the many ways in which your government shafts you with this shell game – Social Security. You are required to make tax payments into Social Security. These payments are made with post-income tax dollars (you’re first income-taxed on the income you pay the social security tax with). The government spends the social security revenues (money) and replaces them in the social security trust fund with government debt instruments; thus, the government spends your social security contributions as it sees fit, and replaces them with new government debt. Of course, government debt is a claim on the productivity of the country – your productivity – and therefore represents a new debt you as citizens take on. This is important to note, because government spends your social security contributions, and creates a new debt owed by you as a citizen (another tax) for payment of benefits to you. Then, when you receive your benefits, up to 85% of them are subject to income tax depending on your filing status and how much income from other sources you have coming in.

To recap, the government first taxes the income you pay social security taxes with (income tax), then taxes you for social security (social security tax), then spends the money and replaces it with new debt (a new claim on your productivity, or tax), and then taxes you on your benefits (income tax). That’s three taxes on the money you put into social security, plus the social security tax itself. Of course, the government must pay interest on the new debt they created (another claim on your productivity, or tax), so really you pay five taxes; and your contributions are spent now for anything the government wants. Most citizens think the government is taking their money and putting it into a social security trust fund (savings account) to pay your benefits. Nope! That money’s gone. They spent it and replaced it with debt – debt that you owe as citizens.

The government says that your benefits money is safe because it’s invested in instruments guaranteed by the U.S. government. What they really mean is that your benefit claims are backed by their ability to tax you; or create new debt that you owe as a citizen; and that’s the only way those benefits are going to be paid. They just keep spending the tax money as it comes in, and pass the buck for social security obligations to future generations. Neat trick huh?

Additionally, “people retiring today are part of the first generation of workers who have paid more in Social Security taxes during their careers than they will receive in benefits after they retire. It’s a historic shift that will only get worse for future retirees, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.”  The government absorbed all the money you put in, plus the employer contributions, and you won’t even get back what you alone put in; let alone all the interest you could have earned on that money over the years. This is what your government has done for you. Isn’t it great? What a deal!

Your wealth, purchasing power, and financial stability are being undermined every day by the government’s borrow & spend shell game, the underhanded dealings of the Federal Reserve and it’s finance house cronies, and very likely the sale of our nation’s Gold reserves (your Gold reserves) to manipulate the markets and fool you. Even your most basic “protections” are being undermined by government subterfuge. Gold serves as a clear warning, and an alternative.

That’s why the U.S. government hates -and fears- Gold.

Be informed.

Learn More About the U.S. Government Monetary Policy:

http://walshal.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/monetary-policy-a-primer/

Other Suggested Reading:

America Has Become a Pinata

http://walshal.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/america-has-become-a-pinata/

America Has Become a Pinata

“America’s national government has moved way beyond a political spoils system,” wrote Charles Goyette in his book The Dollar Meltdown. “A spoils system leaves the host alive so that a politician’s occasional ne’er-do-well brother-in-law can be put on the payroll.”

In contrast, Goyette suggested, “America has become a piñata: Everybody gets a crack at it. Presidents and other elected officials pass the big stick around as a reward to those who help keep them in charge of the piñata party.”

Goyette’s book came out in 2009. Since then, we have learned that the party is even more debauched, nay demented, than he ever imagined. And you, dear reader, were not invited…

Link to Full Article:

“America Has Become a Piñata…” http://dailyreckoning.com/america-has-become-a-pinata/#ixzz2GMmf3bfQ

Other Reading:

Monetary Policy – A Primer

http://walshal.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/monetary-policy-a-primer/

Why the U.S. Government Hates -and Fears- Gold

http://walshal.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/why-the-u-s-government-hates-gold/

Why is the U.S. Government Civil Arm Buying So Much Ammo? .. And Why Are They Militarizing the National Guard and Police?

An open question by Alan Walsh:

I usually post about Business, Economy, and Career.. but this came to my attention and raised immediate questions.

Just what is our “peaceful democratic government” up to?

The Department of Homeland Security (the guys who are supposed to protect you) has purchased over 1.1 Billion (yes, Billion) rounds of ammunition since 2009, including 750 million rounds of high-power ammo, 450 million hollow-points, and 200 million sniper rounds.

The Social Security Administration (yes, the Social Security Administration) is set to purchase 174,000 rounds of .357 hollow-point ammo.

The National Weather Service (yes, the National Weather Service) has placed orders for 16,000 rounds of .40 caliber hollow-points.

What the heck is our “peaceful democratic government” up to?  That’s a whole lot of man-killing firepower!

Why are peaceful civil agencies that have nothing to do with national defense stocking up on ammo?

The official excuse is bulk purchases for cost savings (apparently the Social Security Administration and the National Weather Service need bulk ammo discounts).

None of this includes the military arms; who acquire their own.

One person suggested that they’re stocking up to protect federal offices. At approximately 1,300 federal offices, that works out to about 845,000 rounds of man-killing hollow-point and high-caliber ammo per office. Wars have been started with 845,000 rounds; let alone 1.1 Billion.

Ammo only stays good for so long.  They must be planning some heavy-duty use.  For what?  One does not purchase hollow-points for target practice.

The federal government has also been militarizing the national guard and police departments. providing them such things as Black Hawk helicopters and heavy armaments. Even small police departments now have SWAT teams. They’ve been training Marines in domestic police techniques.

What the heck is going on? What is our “peaceful democratic government” up to?

The mind wonders…

Credit and Credibility: by Greg Canavan

Is it laughable, or lamentable? The market, that is. In the past few years, it has become a joke…a tool of manipulation, an unreliable source of information. Despite the outperformance of the US equity markets this year, ordinary investors (presumably people with savings they would like to invest in productive and attractive businesses) are not interested.

Reuters columnist Felix Salmon recently posted a few charts to highlight this trend. This one, originally appearing at ZeroHedge, shows the decline in trading volumes since the credit bubble bust in 2007/08.

Using the Monday after Thanksgiving as the comparison date (the first day of trade after the 2-day Thanksgiving holiday) trade volumes in 2012 are back to 1997 levels. So while you’re being told a recovery is underway, it’s clearly not a recovery in investor confidence or involvement in the stock market.

Read more: Credit and Credibility http://dailyreckoning.com/credit-and-credibility/#ixzz2DkEOKUxw

14 FACTS OBAMA DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW

FOURTEEN  FACTS OBAMA DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW:

1. Prosecution For Financial Fraud Hit A 20-Year Low During The Obama Administration (There were more prosecutions during every year of George W. Bush’s presidency than during every year of Obama’s).
2. Income Inequality Is Worse Under Obama Than Under Bush (The gap between the rich and the poor was more pronounced under Obama’s presidency than under George W. Bush’s).
3. Obama Wants To Lower The Corporate Tax Rate (Obama proposed a tax overhaul that would cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent).
4. Obamacare Won’t Make Health Care Cheaper For Most Americans (After Massachusetts enacted a similar health care plan in 2006, premiums for an individual plan in the state rose 18 percent over three years).
5. Obama’s Housing Programs Have Largely Been A Failure (In 2009, Obama announced the Home Affordable Mortgage Program, promising to help 3 to 4 million borrowers, but as of January — more than three years into the program — HAMP had only reached 1 million borrowers).
6. Homeowners Haven’t Seen Much Out Of That Huge Mortgage Deal (As part of the settlement, banks said they would offer at least $10 billion in loan forgiveness to homeowners. But months after the deal was inked, banks have been slow to hand out the money).
7. Democrats Have Received Lots Of Campaign Cash From Bain Employees (Democratic candidates and committees had actually netted double the amount of campaign cash from Bain workers as of May than their Republican counterparts since 2008, according to the Boston Globe).
8. Goldman And Other Wall St. Firms Have Largely Escaped Punishment For Their Role In The Financial Crisis (The announcement last month that the Justice Department wouldn’t be prosecuting Goldman Sachs over allegations surrounding the financial crisis was a reminder for many that the Obama Administration has largely let banks off the hook for their role in the meltdown).
9. The Wall Street “Revolving Door” Is Alive And Well In Obama Administration (Many current and former members of the Obama Administration have ties to Wall Street. The list includes the president’s current and former chiefs of staff — Jacob Lew and Bill Daley, respectively — as well as his former budget director, Peter Orszag, and others).
10. “Too Big To Fail” Banks Have Grown Under Obama (At the end of 2011, five big banks, including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, held 56 percent of the U.S. economy, according to Bloomberg, compared to 43 percent five years earlier. That’s right, the too-big-to-fail banks have actually gotten bigger).
11. The U.S. Has Gained A Lot Of Low-Wage Jobs During The Recovery (Most of the jobs lost during the recession paid middle wages, while most of those gained during the recovery were low-wage jobs, according to a recent study from the National Employment Law Project).
12. Incomes Declined More During The Recovery Than The Recession (Median household income fell 6.7 percent between June 2009, when the recession technically ended, and June 2011, according to a Census Bureau study cited by The New York Times. That’s more than the 3.2 percent incomes fell during the recession, between 2007 and 2009).
13. Payroll Tax Cut May Expire On Obama’s Watch (The White House won’t be pushing for another payroll tax cut extension this year).
14. Many Top Obama Donors Are Employees Of Major Corporations (Of the top 10 companies with employees donating money to Obama’s campaign, three are big banks: JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Some of Obama’s other major contributors include employees from big companies such as Microsoft and Google).

Source:    Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/fiscal-cliff-richard-trumka-unions_n_2134229.html?utm_hp_ref=politics#slide=more248394

Scroll Down Page

Gold Just Became Money Again

Courtesy of Doug Hornig at The Daily Reckoning

 

On June 18, the Federal Reserve and FDIC circulated a letter to banks that proposes to harmonize US regulatory capital rules with Basel III.

BASEL III is an accord that tells a bank how much capital it must hold to safeguard its solvency and overall economic stability.

It’s a global standard on bank capital adequacy, stress testing, and market liquidity risk.

Here’s the important bit:

At the top of the proposed changes is the new list of “zero-percent risk weighted items,” which now includes “gold bullion,” right after “cash.”

That’s the part to take notice of.

If the proposals are approved by regulators — and that seems likely since adoption of Basel III will be — then this is a momentous change for the gold market.

Now banks will be allowed to hold bullion in their vaults and count it among their Tier 1 assets — in other words, the least risky assets.

That by itself would be bullish for the gold price, as banks that recognize gold’s unique characteristics seek to stockpile more of it.

But that’s not the whole story…

Gold Regains Money Status

For one thing, Basel III also stipulates that a bank’s Tier 1 holdings must rise from 4% of assets to 6%.

That means that banks may not only replace a portion of their existing paper with bullion, but may use it to meet some of the extra 2% as well.

In addition, this vote of confidence from the highest monetary authorities gives further impetus to the remonetization of gold.

In essence, what’s happening is that from now on gold will be considered “money” in virtually the same way as cash or bonds.

And banks will be given the choice between holding more of their core assets in history’s most reliable store of value vs. paper backed by nothing more than the promises of increasingly wasteful governments.

Finally, there is the impact on individual and institutional investors.

Jeff Clark, in Casey Research’s BIG GOLD newsletter, has been guiding gold investors for years. In his view, this news looks set to really shake up the gold market, because as regulators and banks increasingly view gold as having safety on a par with the various paper alternatives, it is logical that they will also see the need to beef up their own holdings.

There are a number of positives for gold going forward.

Though it remains speculation on our part, we believe that the net result of Basel III and associated adjustments to US regulations will be an increased recognition of gold’s safe-haven status across all markets.

And that translates into higher global demand for the metal next year, and a concomitant increase in its price.

A Dummy’s Guide to the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis

Helga is the proprietor of a bar.  She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.

To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.  Helga keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger; thereby granting her customers loans.

Word gets around about Helga’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Helga’s bar.  Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in town.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Helga gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer; the most consumed beverages.

Consequently, Helga’s gross sales volume increases massively.  A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Helga’s borrowing limit.

He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.  At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions; and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS.

These “securities” then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.

Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as “AA Secured Bonds” are really debts of unemployed alcoholics.  Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Helga’s bar.  He so informs Helga, who then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons.  But being unemployed alcoholics, they cannot pay back their drinking debts.

Since Helga cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy.  The bar closes and Helga’s 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%.  The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank’s liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.  The suppliers of Helga’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the BOND securities.  They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.

Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations.  Her beer supplier is taken over by a venture capital asset management firm; which immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though – the bank, the brokerage houses, and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings-attached cash infusion from the government.

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who’ve never been in Helga’s bar.

Now do you understand?

Interesting Facts About U.S. Small Businesses

• There are more than 22 million small businesses in America.

• Small business accounts for 99% of all U.S. businesses.

• Small businesses employ 53% of the private sector workforce and contribute over half of the nation’s private gross domestic product.

Still Think Gold and Other Financial Markets Aren’t Manipulated? – Read Their Ad!

The Bank for International Settlements Bares It’s “Dirty Little Secret”.

Thanks to;

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. -and- Researcher R.N.

The powers-that-be do their best to hide their manipulations of the financial markets, but every now and then the truth leaks out.

A researcher found a 24-page brochure prepared by the Bank for International Settlements to introduce itself to prospective members at a seminar at BIS headquarters in Basle, Switzerland, in June 2008.  The brochure includes an advertisement for the gold market-rigging services provided by the BIS to its 50 or so member central banks.  Page 17 of the brochure touts “Our Products,” including “Gold & Forex Services — Interventions.“

Can they make it any clearer?