July 2011

An Economy Destroyed -- The Enemy Is Washington

Originally published by OpEdNews.com
by Paul Craig Roberts
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Recently, the bond rating agencies that gave junk derivatives triple-A ratings threatened to downgrade US Treasury bonds if the White House and Congress did not reach a deficit reduction deal and debt ceiling increase. The downgrade threat is not credible, and neither is the default threat. Both are make-believe crises that are being hyped in order to force cutbacks in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

If the rating agencies downgraded Treasuries, the company executives would be arrested for the fraudulent ratings that they gave to the junk that Wall Street peddled to the rest of the world. The companies would be destroyed and their ratings discredited. The US government will never default on its bonds, because the bonds, unlike those of Greece, Spain, and Ireland, are payable in its own currency. Regardless of whether the debt ceiling is raised, the Federal Reserve will continue to purchase the Treasury's debt. If Goldman Sachs is too big to fail, then so is the US government.

Obama's Budget Betrayal - Questions and Answers

Question: Why did President Obama put Social Security and Medicare on the table in the budget negotiations when 80% of the people oppose cuts to these programs?

Answer: The president is not in office to represent those people. He was selected, funded and carried over the finish line by corporate America. Look at the appointment of Wall Streeter Timothy Geithner, the bailouts, and the failure to prosecute any of the crooks who caused the current recession. He's serving the people who put him in office. Those people don't need Social Security and Medicare.

Q: Doesn't the president need to worry about reelection? Why would he risk that by going against such a large majority?

A: President Obama has no personal or financial risk if he loses his job.. He has a tidy lifetime pension and will, no doubt, be on plenty of corporate boards, not to mention the opportunities for huge speaking fees. There is less political risk than you might think. The only Republican presidential candidate who might be other than certifiable is the largely unknown John Huntsman, former governor of Utah and Obama's ambassador to China. The rest would do much more harm to seniors than Obama concessions this time around (if they materialize) and people know that.

Cisco's Dirty Pool

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Most know Cisco is pretty damn evil. Regardless this story should have you stopped in your tracks. Cisco literally had someone who was suing them for anti-trust, arrested and....amazingly enough Canada actually did it!

High-tech entrepreneur Peter Adekeye's yearlong nightmare began after he dropped his wife off at the Vancouver International airport and headed downtown to The Wedgewood, a posh boutique hotel. Inside a tasteful boardroom adorned with gilt-framed mirrors, the US District Court for Northern California, San Jose division, had convened a special sitting to hear Adekeye's deposition as part of a massive antitrust action he had launched against his former employer, the computer giant Cisco Systems. An official court video camera recorded the proceedings on May 20, 2010—Adekeye affably answering questions in an elegant black suit accented with a pale blue shirt and a coral tie.

At 5:15pm, however, two plainclothes women—the shorter one brandishing a badge—and two uniformed police officers entered the room. Adekeye was confused, as were his two Wall Street lawyers and the special judicial master conducting the hearing. But the four lawyers for Cisco knew exactly what was going on.

This is an ex-Cisco executive, a British citizen and never in trouble a day in his life. This is what the trumped up charges became:

Adekeye was described as a "sinister" figure of uncertain citizenship on the run from 97 charges of illegal computer hacking that carried a penalty of almost half-a-millennium in prison.

Worse, Cisco managed to get this guy's bail denied:

Another Slap on the Wrist for Bad Bank Wells Fargo

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wrist slap
Wow, Wells Fargo is guilty of pushing well qualified home owners into subprime loans and ripping them off.

Wells Fargo Financial, the lender’s consumer- finance unit, pushed customers who may have been eligible for prime interest rates into loans carrying higher rates intended for riskier borrowers, the Fed said today in a statement announcing the settlement. Separately, sales personnel used false documents to make it appear borrowers qualified for loans when their incomes made them ineligible.

The Financial unit was of course shut down when their evil doings started to be exposed. Who is taking the rap? Not Wells Fargo executives, nope, 16 of the fired employees will be banned from the banking business. The guy who oversaw this operation, Mark Oman? He gets to retire.

This measly $75 million dollar fine is being touted as a record. Worse, harmed homeowners might have to be compensated up to $10,000! Wow! $10k when you've lost your home, awesome! That might pay for the moving van.

Credit slips is warning victims to watch out for settlement papers, getting them to sign their right to sue away for the paltry sum of $7000.

As far as I could tell the agreement does not provide for consumers to release claims in exchange for these paltry sums, but advocates would be well advised to review settlement notices with affected consumers carefully.

Chrysler Bail Out Loss - $1.3 Billion

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The Treasury has just exited, stage left, from the Chrysler Bail Out. The probable loss? $1.3 billion dollars or 10% of the bail out. Even more ridiculous, if Treasury had just held onto the stock exchanges until 2017, they would have made a profit. Oh well, what's few billion here and there.

The government has received $560 million from Italian auto company Fiat in exchange for the 6 percent stake it held in the company. Treasury expects the U.S. will ultimately lose $1.3 billion from the effort to save Chrysler.

Fiat, which is implementing plans to merge with Chrysler, in May agreed to buy the government's stake in the company. Thursday's transaction marks the end of Treasury's financial backing for the auto manufacturer, which was on the verge of collapse at the height of the financial crisis.

While the government ultimately lost money in its efforts to save Chrysler, Treasury touted the end of the bailout as happening earlier than expected and said it saved American jobs.

“With today's closing, the US government has exited its investment in Chrysler at least six years earlier than expected,” said the Treasury's assistant secretary for financial stability, Tim Massad. “This is a major accomplishment and further evidence of the success of the Administration’s actions to assist the US auto industry, which helped save a million jobs during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.”

Senators Rockefeller, Boxer Want Dow Jones News Service and the WSJ Investigated

Senators John D. (Jay) Rockefeller (D-WV) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) called for a thorough investigation of Dow Jones News Service and the Wall Street Journal amid ongoing revelations of illegal activities by News Corporation's largest United Kingdom publication,  
 
The Senators issued their call in a joint press release and letter to the Dow Jones Special Committee on journalistic integrity made part of the Murdoch acquisition. The committee was created to oversee acquisition and assure that DJNS and the WSJ not suffer degraded integrity and journalistic standards due to the sale of the properties to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. (Image: Guardian "denials" video)
 
Boxer and Rockefeller cited a recent report, July 20, from the British House of Commons on the Murdoch scandals involving. The full report can be found here, Report: Unauthorised tapping or hacking of mobile communications  
 

While Social Security is Under Attack, Billions are Lost in Afghanistan

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shrink wrapped dollars iraq
This is just an amazing insult to the U.S. middle class and tax payer. While our social security is being decimated under the Congressional and Administration made debt ceiling crisis, a new report shows the United States is losing billions in Afghanistan. Literally the money disappears.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction released an audit that shows, literally, our U.S. tax dollars are disappearing and probably into the hands of those who are trying to kill us.

efforts to safeguard U.S. cash entering the Afghan economy and to develop the Afghan financial sector have been hampered by limited interagency coordination, inconsistent Afghan cooperation and insufficient cash controls.

SIGAR found that U.S. agencies have limited visibility over U.S. cash that enters the Afghan economy -- leaving it vulnerable to fraud and diversion to the insurgency. SIGAR also found that poor cooperation by the Afghan government has impeded U.S. efforts to help develop the Afghan financial sector.

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