Posts Tagged ‘Wall Street’

Wall Street shenanigans highlighted in ‘INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$’

Posted: November 22, 2015 in INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

When researching INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$: The Global Banking Elite Exposed and the Case for Restructuring Capitalism – Book #5 in our Underground Knowledge Series – the following comment by American business magnate Warren Buffet got us thinking: “If a graduating MBA student were to ask me, ‘How do I get rich in a hurry?’ I would not respond with quotations from Ben Franklin or Horatio Alger, but would instead hold my nose with one hand and point with the other toward Wall Street.”

Now when the man recognized as the world’s most successful investor speaks, you gotta take note, right? So we did, and we included our own critique of Wall Street bankers in INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$, in a chapter somewhat appropriately titled ‘Banksters on the rampage.’

An excerpt from the chapter follows:

In an article dated November 23, 2014 in USA Today, columnist John Maxfield predicts “There will come a time in the not-too-distant future when Wall Street banks won’t be regularly chastised for ripping off customers, defrauding the federal and state governments, facilitating tax evasion, laundering money for sworn enemies of the United States, and manipulating bond, interest rate, foreign-exchange, and energy markets. When this time comes, however, it shouldn’t be interpreted as a sign that things have changed”.

Maxfield says, “Between 2012 and 2013, eight banks – UBS, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Rabobank, Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale, Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup – paid $6 billion to settle allegations that they manipulated the London interbank offered rate benchmark, one of the most widely tracked interest rate indexes in the world”.

Among the examples he lists, from 2013, is a combined US$9.3 billion payment from “more than a dozen banks… to make amends for systematically submitting fraudulent documents to courts in foreclosure proceedings”.

Maxfield says, “Thus, the question is whether these practices are indeed isolated incidences of employee misconduct, as the banks would like us to believe, or instead whether they’re indicative of a pattern of behavior that’s endemic on Wall Street. I suspect it’s the latter”.

He concludes, “Of course, it’s impossible to forensically prove that corruption is woven into the fabric of Wall Street banks – and, specifically, at companies with significant trading operations where the temptation to skirt the rules seems to be greatest. That’s certainly what history suggests. And it’s also what the ongoing regulatory assault on the industry implies. But, again, there is no way to quantitatively demonstrate this.

“But what we can say is that there is a noxious air of impropriety that has enveloped these operations. And, rightly or wrongly, this reputational baggage subjects shareholders of these banks to more risk than, at least in my opinion, is warranted by any reasonable estimate of future returns”.

As Maxfield implies, the major Wall Street banks seem to have fraudulent activities down to a science and it’s often virtually impossible to detect the sleight of hand in their activities.

TBC

 

You have been reading an excerpt from INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$.

INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$: The Global Banking Elite Exposed and the Case for Restructuring Capitalism (The Underground Knowledge Series Book 5)

This book is available exclusively via Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/INTERNATIONAL-BANKSTER-Restructuring-Capitalism-Underground-ebook/dp/B015QN5RTY/  

 

********************************* 

 

‘INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$’ examines phenomenon known as Fiat Money

Posted: November 6, 2015 in INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
0

Many veterans of the banking and financial sectors have either stated or heavily implied that the world’s money supply is essentially being created out of thin air and has no real value. Those who subscribe to this school of thought say the shaky foundations of financial systems in the 21st Century is mainly down to the fact that all countries use Fiat Money, or inconvertible paper money made legal tender by government decree.

We examine the phenomenon that is Fiat Money in INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$: The Global Banking Elite Exposed and the Case for Restructuring Capitalism – Book #5 in our Underground Knowledge Series.

An excerpt from INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$  follows:

Throughout history, at various times and as recently as only several decades ago, other monetary systems were traditionally used such as Commodity Money or Representative Money. This meant the value of the money was either in the currency itself (e.g. real gold and real silver coins) or else the currency was a direct representative of a real commodity in physical storage (e.g. gold and silver certificates).

However, other financial whistleblowers argue the monetary and inflationary problems undermining the world at present have more to do with the fraudulent activities within elite banking circles than they do with the Fiat Money system.

This headline in The Washington Post edition of May 20, 2015, caught our eye: “Five big banks agree to pay more than $5 billion to settle regulatory charges.” That sounded like a reasonably large fine to us…until one critic described it as “a slap on the wrist”. When you consider the monies involved, that critic is probably right.

Excerpts from The Washington Post article follow:

“Five of the world’s largest banks have agreed to pay more than $5 billion in fines to settle charges made by regulatory agencies and the Justice Department that the banks had acted in concert to manipulate international interest and foreign currency exchange rates.

“Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said the banks had engaged in ‘brazenly illegal behavior . . . on a near-daily basis.’ She added that the deal showed that the government ‘intends to vigorously prosecute all those who tilt the economic system in their favor (and) who subvert our marketplaces’.”

The article continues, “The scale of the price-fixing scandal is hard to grasp, yet it touched, imperceptibly, almost every company and individual in the financial markets. By tweaking global benchmarks used to set foreign exchange and interest rates for a staggering number of transactions a day, the banks — over several years — bilked billions of dollars of extra profits by altering rates in their favor.

“Critics complained that the Justice Department had failed to prosecute any additional individuals… The fines, however, are among the largest ever. Barclays will pay $2.4 billion and fire eight employees who violated New York banking law for attempting to manipulate spot foreign exchange markets, in which $500 billion worth of dollars and euros are traded every day — five times as much as on all U.S. stock markets combined…

“Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, a non-profit group, said that the Justice Department had not done enough, saying ‘it talks tough, but winks at Wall Street’s too-big-to-fail banks’ criminal conduct, structuring sweetheart deals to minimize the impact on the criminals.’ Kelleher said the fines alone wouldn’t deter future criminal acts and that the Justice Department should punish bank executives and their supervisors for bad behavior. ‘Banks don’t commit crimes, bankers do,’ he said”.

_______________________________________________

“We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.” –Franklin D. Roosevelt

_______________________________________________

“Banking is changing, slowly, but its culture is still corrupt.” That’s according to a headline in The Guardian newspaper’s edition of November 16, 2014.

In the article beneath that revealing headline, Guardian columnist Will Hutton says, “Another week, another financial scandal. Six global banks, including RBS and HSBC, were fined £2.6bn last week for rigging the foreign exchange markets. Since 2008, total fines levied in Europe and the US for banking crimes and misdemeanours now top £100bn, with banks making provision for a further £60bn. British banks alone have set aside an estimated £30bn for fines, provisions and litigation costs.”

Hutton asks, “What has gone wrong with Western finance?”

We are asking the same question.

Hutton continues, “The systemic ripping off of customers continued after the financial crisis to constitute what is now the biggest-ever global corporate scandal. Banks worldwide duped clients into buying products that were either not needed or provided no purpose. Worse, they organised financial markets whose purpose was to serve their own interests rather than those they purported to serve. It has proved a hard habit to break.

“British banks selling payment protection insurance (PPI) products on an industrial scale were doing what a street vendor in a bazaar might try. It shouldn’t have happened but it’s a perennial temptation. Finance is more exposed to this sort of risk, because customers are more credulous about financial products; and also because regulators have allowed banks to book the profits from products they sell on the moment of sale rather than over their life”.

Hutton concludes, “And yet reading the chatroom banter, with its echoes of the banter over mis-selling PPI, rigging interest rates or derivatives, offers a window into a very degraded culture. Making money from money, with the clients’ interest last, is too dominant an element in the culture of investment bankers. Companies are seen by too many people, notably shareholders, as just instruments for self-enrichment”.

But honestly, what can we expect from banksters when all they usually receive is a “slap on the wrist” from lawmakers whenever they get caught doing wrong?

TBC…

You have been reading an excerpt from INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$.

INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$: The Global Banking Elite Exposed and the Case for Restructuring Capitalism (The Underground Knowledge Series Book 5)

This book is available exclusively via Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/INTERNATIONAL-BANKSTER-Restructuring-Capitalism-Underground-ebook/dp/B015QN5RTY/  

 

*************************************

Welcome to the world of banking…creating $$$$$ outta thin air!

Posted: October 20, 2015 in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Many veterans of the banking and financial sectors have either stated or heavily implied that the world’s money supply is essentially being created out of thin air and has no real value. Those who subscribe to this school of thought say the shaky foundations of financial systems in the 21st Century is mainly down to the fact that all countries use Fiat Money, or inconvertible paper money made legal tender by government decree.

We address this in book five in The Underground Knowledge Series – the contentious new release, INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$: The Global Banking Elite Exposed and the Case for Restructuring Capitalism.

INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$: The Global Banking Elite Exposed and the Case for Restructuring Capitalism (The Underground Knowledge Series Book 5)

An excerpt from INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$  follows:

Throughout history, at various times and as recently as only several decades ago, other monetary systems were traditionally used such as Commodity Money or Representative Money. This meant the value of the money was either in the currency itself (e.g. real gold and real silver coins) or else the currency was a direct representative of a real commodity in physical storage (e.g. gold and silver certificates).

However, other financial whistleblowers argue the monetary and inflationary problems undermining the world at present have more to do with the fraudulent activities within elite banking circles than they do with the Fiat Money system.

____________________________________

“The bankers and financiers are badly overplaying their hands, again, and people are starting to catch on to the scam. Real wealth is tangible things produced with tangible effort. Loans made out of thin-air ‘money’ require no effort and are entirely ephemeral. But if those loans are used to acquire real ownership of real assets, then something has been exchanged for nothing and one party is getting screwed.” –Chris Martenson

____________________________________

This headline in The Washington Post  edition of May 20, 2015, caught our eye: “Five big banks agree to pay more than $5 billion to settle regulatory charges.” That sounded like a reasonably large fine to us…until one critic described it as “a slap on the wrist”. When you consider the monies involved, that critic is probably right.

Excerpts from that article follow:

“Five of the world’s largest banks have agreed to pay more than $5 billion in fines to settle charges made by regulatory agencies and the Justice Department that the banks had acted in concert to manipulate international interest and foreign currency exchange rates.

“Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said the banks had engaged in ‘brazenly illegal behavior . . . on a near-daily basis.’ She added that the deal showed that the government ‘intends to vigorously prosecute all those who tilt the economic system in their favor (and) who subvert our marketplaces’.”

The article continues, “The scale of the price-fixing scandal is hard to grasp, yet it touched, imperceptibly, almost every company and individual in the financial markets. By tweaking global benchmarks used to set foreign exchange and interest rates for a staggering number of transactions a day, the banks — over several years — bilked billions of dollars of extra profits by altering rates in their favor.

“Critics complained that the Justice Department had failed to prosecute any additional individuals… The fines, however, are among the largest ever. Barclays will pay $2.4 billion and fire eight employees who violated New York banking law for attempting to manipulate spot foreign exchange markets, in which $500 billion worth of dollars and euros are traded every day — five times as much as on all U.S. stock markets combined…

“Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, a non-profit group, said that the Justice Department had not done enough, saying ‘it talks tough, but winks at Wall Street’s too-big-to-fail banks’ criminal conduct, structuring sweetheart deals to minimize the impact on the criminals.’ Kelleher said the fines alone wouldn’t deter future criminal acts and that the Justice Department should punish bank executives and their supervisors for bad behavior. ‘Banks don’t commit crimes, bankers do,’ he said”.

File:Exchange Money Conversion to Foreign Currency.jpg

We gotta ask…What value do currencies really have?

“Banking is changing, slowly, but its culture is still corrupt.” That’s according to a headline in The Guardian  newspaper’s edition of November 16, 2014.

In the article beneath that revealing headline, Guardian  columnist Will Hutton says, “Another week, another financial scandal. Six global banks, including RBS and HSBC, were fined £2.6bn last week for rigging the foreign exchange markets. Since 2008, total fines levied in Europe and the US for banking crimes and misdemeanours now top £100bn, with banks making provision for a further £60bn. British banks alone have set aside an estimated £30bn for fines, provisions and litigation costs.”

Hutton asks, “What has gone wrong with Western finance?”

We are asking the same question.

Hutton continues, “The systemic ripping off of customers continued after the financial crisis to constitute what is now the biggest-ever global corporate scandal. Banks worldwide duped clients into buying products that were either not needed or provided no purpose. Worse, they organised financial markets whose purpose was to serve their own interests rather than those they purported to serve. It has proved a hard habit to break.

“British banks selling payment protection insurance (PPI) products on an industrial scale were doing what a street vendor in a bazaar might try. It shouldn’t have happened but it’s a perennial temptation. Finance is more exposed to this sort of risk, because customers are more credulous about financial products; and also because regulators have allowed banks to book the profits from products they sell on the moment of sale rather than over their life”.

Hutton concludes, “And yet reading the chatroom banter, with its echoes of the banter over mis-selling PPI, rigging interest rates or derivatives, offers a window into a very degraded culture. Making money from money, with the clients’ interest last, is too dominant an element in the culture of investment bankers. Companies are seen by too many people, notably shareholders, as just instruments for self-enrichment”.

But honestly, what can we expect from banksters when all they usually receive is a “slap on the wrist” from lawmakers whenever they get caught doing wrong?

____________________________________

“We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.” –Franklin D. Roosevelt

____________________________________

You have been reading an excerpt from INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$. (To be continued).

This book is available exclusively via Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/INTERNATIONAL-BANKSTER-Restructuring-Capitalism-Underground-ebook/dp/B015QN5RTY/  

*****************************************************

Authors take a real close look at banking in the 21st Century – and don’t like what they see!

Posted: October 9, 2015 in INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

You don’t need to be a financial wizard to know that corruption is alive and well inside the global finance sector. On a daily basis we are bombarded with mainstream news headlines confirming exactly that – the corruption rumors swirling about the European Union (EU) and the escalating Greek financial crisis being a case in point.

We explore these themes in our new release book INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$: The Global Banking Elite Exposed and the Case for Restructuring Capitalism.

An excerpt from the book follows:

Banks and bankers, of course, are at the very apex of the finance sector. So let’s take a closer look at banking in the 21st Century.

Surprisingly, some of the most perceptive insights into today’s banking system and the problems that pervade it are to be found within alternative media. It turns out there’s a number of former bankers and money men (and women) to be found within the ranks of the citizen journos, or lay journalists, who ‘man’ these alternative media sites.

One of the best summaries of corruption of the banking system, in our opinion, is to be found on the appropriately named TheAlternativeMedia.com  site. On that site, one Mitchell Cagle writes:

“Banks for decades have been the central source of where we save, manage and deposit our money. Many people do not know what actually goes on when your money is deposited. The bank uses your money to invest then gives you a fraction of what they make in interest. Sometimes that interest can actually end up being nothing due to the “fees” they actually charge that are excessive and fraudulent in most cases.

“Lately, banks have increased these fees some 54% resulting in profits of 34 billion dollars per year. It becomes increasing(ly) difficult to balance a checkbook anymore because of these “hidden fees”. If you have a savings account, you are also being ripped off with monthly fees just for having the privilege”.

Cagle lists the following as “examples of how we are being ‘feed’ to death by the banks:

“Banks engage in abusive practices that maximize overdraft fee revenue. The most common triggers of these fees are small debit card transactions that could easily be denied for NO fee.

“They charge exorbitant fees that bear NO relationship to the cost of covering an overdraft.

“They charge excessive numbers of overdraft fees over the course of a day, month or year.

“Automatically enrol customers in the most expensive overdraft protection possible.

“Monthly fees from nine dollars to thirty dollars for checking and savings accounts that used to be FREE.

“They push customers to use debit cards because it cost them LESS to process but GOUGE retailers and customers because of the monopoly setup of the payment system”.

But of course hidden fees are minor tools, or strategies, compared to other tricks of the trade employed by banksters.

 

A sea of never-ending debt

For a more ‘qualified’ insight into the money system, money markets and banking, you can’t go past Ellen Brown’s bestseller Web of Debt. An attorney, Ms Brown is founder of America’s Public Banking Institute. She’s also a harsh critic of what she describes as the money system.

Web of Debt’s blurb reads:

“Our money system is not what we have been led to believe. The creation of money has been “privatized,” or taken over by private money lenders. Thomas Jefferson called them ‘bold and bankrupt adventurers just pretending to have money.’ Except for coins, all of our money is now created as loans advanced by private banking institutions — including the privately-owned Federal Reserve. Banks create the principal but not the interest to service their loans. To find the interest, new loans must continually be taken out, expanding the money supply, inflating prices — and robbing you of the value of your money.

“Not only is virtually the entire money supply created privately by banks, but a mere handful of very big banks is responsible for a massive investment scheme known as ‘derivatives,’ which now tallies in at hundreds of trillions of dollars. The banking system has been contrived so that these big banks always get bailed out by the taxpayers from their risky ventures, but the scheme has reached its mathematical limits. There isn’t enough money in the entire global economy to bail out the banks from a massive derivatives default today”.

Even if Ms Brown is only partially right in that assessment, it still means there is a massive monetary predicament looming.

 

“The bankers and financiers are badly overplaying their hands, again, and people are starting to catch on to the scam. Real wealth is tangible things produced with tangible effort. Loans made out of thin-air ‘money’ require no effort and are entirely ephemeral. But if those loans are used to acquire real ownership of real assets, then something has been exchanged for nothing and one party is getting screwed.” –Chris Martenson

 

You have been reading an excerpt from INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$. (To be continued).

INTERNATIONAL BANKSTER$: The Global Banking Elite Exposed and the Case for Restructuring Capitalism (The Underground Knowledge Series Book 5)

This book is available exclusively via Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/INTERNATIONAL-BANKSTER-Restructuring-Capitalism-Underground-ebook/dp/B015QN5RTY/  

 

*************************************