I've come to the conclusion that destroying our economic future so the top international bankers can recapitalize themselves and protect themselves from derivative bets gone sour is nothing less that TREASON.
At least there is 'one' Congress Person who is not 'owed by the Banks' and that would be a woman I have long admired for her independence, her courage and hard hitting fight to stop the 'gang rape' that is still going on in our financial sectors.
Maxine Waters puts our other Congress people to shame, she really does. Not one finger has been lifted to place even 'temporary' measures into place to stop the Banks and Wall Street from what caused our financial meltdown in the first place. Outrageously, it just continues.
Here is some background on Maxine Water's bill:
Congresswoman Maxine Waters introduced the Credit Default Swap Prohibition Act of 2009 (H.R. 3145) last night. Citing concerns that current regulatory reform proposals would require central-counterparty clearing but provide exceptions to supervision over customized credit default swaps, Congresswoman Waters offered H.R. 3145 to put a total prohibition on these financial instruments.
"Credit default swaps are one of many contributing factors to the current economic crisis," said Congresswoman Waters. "I applaud the sweeping reforms to the financial regulatory system that have been proposed, but I believe we must go even further. Preventing all credit default swaps is essential to bringing stability to the market and preventing a similar crisis in the future."
Congresswoman Waters is joined in her concerns by some of America’s top financial minds. Leading financier George Soros has called credit default swaps "instruments that should be outlawed" and has compared these swaps to "buying life insurance on someone else’s life, and owning a license to kill." Charles Munger, Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway also believes credit default swaps should be eliminated, calling their prohibition "the best solution." Munger has also noted that "it isn’t as though the economic world didn’t function quite well without it, and it isn’t as though what has happened has been so wonderfully desirable that we should logically want more of it."
"Unless credit default swaps are banned entirely, I am concerned that the industry will find a way to loosen standards and widen exemptions for customized contracts and then we will be right back to where we are today, with capital markets hobbled and the financial system in need of additional government intervention," said Congresswoman Waters.
http://www.house.gov/...
Make no mistake about is, 'we the people' have now become THE BANK for these blood sucking leeches to continue to sell their worthless pieces of chopped up paper for the quick buck to satisfy their insidious unrelenting greed. They are like a bunch of out of control drunks swigging down Mad Dog 20/20.. running as fast as they can to spend the money flowing freely from our Treasurer and Federal Reserve. Meanwhile Geithner and Bernanke are fighting tooth and nail to do whatever it takes to obstruct the taxpayer from getting any 'real' answers as to who is getting what, why they got it, how much they got, and President Obama wants to place even more power in the hands of Federal Reserve as the new super-Regulator.
And while our 'paid off' Congress looks the other way while the 'gang rape' continues:
The Top 5 International Banks Are Keeping The Derivatives Beast Alive.....
It hasn’t just been growing rapidly for the last year, but is poised to balloon even bigger. This is due to the near total lack of any regulation on the part of governments. The central bankers conspiring with the top 5 banking houses are keeping this business going. They do NOT want the derivatives market controlled. This is a source if immense income flows for them. They want all the risks of the derivatives markets to move effortlessly to government ledgers so the public eats any losses. The latest OCC derivatives report is an eye-opener.
European banks including Societe Generale SA and BNP Paribas SA hold almost $200 billion in guarantees sold by New York-based AIG allowing the lenders to reduce the capital required for loss reserves. The firms may keep the contracts to hedge against declining assets rather than canceling them as AIG said it expects the banks to do, according to David Havens, managing director at investment bank Hexagon Securities LLC.
The main function of the Derivatives Beast was to get rid of even the pretense of ‘fractional reserve banking’. That is, these gnomes could then lend money based not on any capital at all but based on ‘insured risks’ palmed off onto other organizations. These, in turn, sold ‘insurance’ that also didn’t have any capital base. They insured merrily while having absolutely no ability to pay off even 10% losses. Much less, the total collapse we just witnessed last year.
AIG is, in particular, a very bad problem since they did this the most and did it in concert with the biggest 7 (now 5) international banking entities. The news here is dire: instead of canceling out these stupid derivative swaps, these top banks will hold these contracts so they can STILL pretend, they are capitalized! HAHAHA. Great.
"For counter parties to voluntarily terminate those contracts makes no sense," Havens said in an interview. "There’s no question that asset values have soured on a global basis. With the faith and credit of the U.S. government backing those guarantees, why would they give that up?"
See? Our own government is the ‘faith’ involved! We are the guarantees, not AIG and not GS or JPM or Citigroup. The entire fractional banking system these guys have created is basically the US public being the bank and them being the recipient of our largess. While California and then, all other states slide off the fiscal cliff and we tighten our own belts and have less and less social services, the top 5 banking entities are enjoying record profits and are doubling their looting of the public till! This is beyond disgusting.
http://emsnews.wordpress.com/...
As the International Bankers continue dumping all of the derivative losses into the publics lap and the TARP watchdog Neil Barofsky prepares his comments and report for Congress, the reality of just how much money that 'has been dumped into the laps of the American taxpayers' is becoming clear:
Barofsky provides a numerical and detailed update as to the extent and scope of the financial industry bailout. Treasury, he notes, has created a dozen programs "involving Government and private funds of up to almost $3 trillion." Of the $643.1 billion that Treasury has committed to the TARP $441 billion has actually been spent. The TARP, however, is just one component of the bailout. Finally, through the end of June, SIGTARP has launched 35 criminal and civil investigations into the misuse of taxpayer money.
Bloomberg News adds that the bailout and related rescue efforts could total $23 trillion, according to Barofsky:
"[Treasury] has repeatedly failed to adopt recommendations that SIGTARP believes are essential to providing basic transparency and fulfill Treasury's stated commitment to implement TARP 'with the highest degree of accountability and transparency possible."
It is very difficult to truly understand the magnitude of just how much this financial meltdown has cost of the world, and the American taxpayer. I found a very good way of describing it:
It is exceedingly difficult to convey exactly how much we are spending on all these bailouts. Whenever I start talking trillions (versus mere billions), I get puzzled looks from people. Humans have a hard time conceptualizing any number that large. I wanted a graphic way to clearly show how astonishingly ginormous the amounts involved were.
So I once again went to Jess Bachman at Wallstats. I gave him my list of expenditures (inflation adjusted of course!) and he went to work. This early Bailout Nation graphic shows the the total costs to the taxpayer of all the monies spent, lent, consumed, borrowed, printed, guaranteed, assumed or otherwise committed. It is nothing short of astonishing.
It includes the total outlay for all the bailouts to date. In just about one short year (March 2008 - March 2009), the bailouts managed to spend far in excess of nearly every major one time expenditure of the USA, including WW1&2 (omitted from graphic), the moon shot, the New Deal, total NASA budgets (omitted from graphic), Iraq, Viet Nam and Korean wars — COMBINED.
206 years versus 12 months. Total cost: ~$15 trillion and counting . . .
http://www.ritholtz.com/...
Perhaps this is why I keep going back in history to a picture in my mind. It was during the original Gulf War, when insanity ruled in the mind of Saddam Hussein, when he burned the oil fields of Kuwait:
I keep asking myself what is the difference between what this mad man did and what Wall Street and the Bankers are doing? As far as I'm concerned, nothing. One is called 'Eco-terrorism and the other is called Economic terrorism.'
And it's nothing less than TREASON.
I urge you to call your representatives and support the courageous Maxine Waters on her bill HR 3145 to outlaw Credit Default Swaps. If we don't stop this madness, nobody will. The Bankers, Wall Street, our Treasurer and the Federal Reserve have lost control and can no longer be trusted.
I repeat what has actually happened: In less than 12 months these out of control insane people have spent more than what we spent in 206 years on all the major expenditures as listed above.
$15 trillion and counting...and still no safeguards have been put into place by our Congress or the Obama administration.
Thanks god for people like Congress Woman Maxine Waters. She deserves huge support for her bill and her courage to stand up and be counted. At least there is one person with integrity left in our Congress.
Thank you for your interest.