Those at Zerohedge have a huge claim from their analysis of the flow of funds report. They are saying there was a mass flight from European bonds into U.S. funds, dollars, Treasuries and this masked a $357 billion Q3 plunge in shadow banking.
I haven't had time to really analyze their analysis, but they have found things in obscure corners of spreadsheets previously, so I think it's probably right and worth a read.
It's extremely volatile, but if you get caught with your pants down, let it ride. Although I'd put auto triggers if you're buying GLD since Gold is extremely confusing to predict.
I've been working on some modifications to the server site today. Our site is as slow as a dog, so I'm looking to improve performance and some things.
There was a lot of server reconfigurations today, which hopefully I've fixed anything that affects the site, but I can miss stuff in test, so please anyone having problems, hit the email button and let me know. (contact).
This adds to the post greatly. It's been the bane of law and now a 200 year legal precedent history, so I don't see how all of that can be overridden without a constitutional amendment, but then, I am not a constitutional scholar, be nice to see what the opinions are. I just assumed this is why they introduced them and at the opportune time when we have a corporate sponsored "wag the dog" event called elections 2012.
"Sanders' amendment is actually a key critical agenda. It ends corporate personhood. ... it tackles that Supreme court 1819 bad decision giving corporations rights as if they were natural persons." -- Robert Oak
There are five key decisions of the SCOTUS to be considered here.
1. The 1819 case (Dartmouth College v. Woodward) did depart from warnings of Thomas Jefferson, creating a key precedent in that it elevated corporations to some degree of personhood. However, this precedent applied only respecting the right to contract and to enforce contracts. Of course, that was before the XIVth Amendment.
2. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886), did not create any precedent. That was all about an insertion into the decision's headnotes by the clerk, J.C. Bancroft Davis, which mistakenly led many to believe the Supreme Court had recognized corporations as persons for purposes of the XIVth Amendment.
3. Of greater interest today is the Blaisdell decision, concerning foreclosure.
During the New Deal Era, the Supreme Court began to depart from the Lochner era constitutional interpretation of the Commerce Clause, Due Process, and the Contract Clause.
In Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell 290 U.S. 398 (1934) , the Supreme Court upheld a Minnesota law that temporarily restricted the ability of mortgage holders to foreclose. The law was enacted to prevent mass foreclosures during a time of economic hardship in America. The kind of contract modification performed by the law in question was arguably similar to the kind that the Framers intended to prohibit. The Supreme Court held that this law was a valid exercise of the state's Police Power. It found that the temporary nature of the contract modification and the emergency of the situation justified the law.
Further cases have refined this holding, differentiating between governmental interference with private contracts and interference with contracts entered into by the government. Succinctly, there is more scrutiny when the government modifies a contract to alter its own obligations. (See United States Trust Co. v. New Jersey, 431 U.S. 1 (1977).
Here's a question: if a State were to cite Blaidell in defense of the constitutionality of a law seeking widespread relief from a foreclosure crisis, would the 5-4 Supremes hesitate to reverse Blaisdell?
4. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), is the source of the original "money is speech" holding of the Court. The Court ruled that spending money to influence elections is a form of constitutionally protected free speech, and struck down portions of law that they found would limit that right. This is the precedent that has sunk virtually all meaningful campaign finance reform for more than a third of a century, resulting in what we have today.
5. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 08-205 (2010), 558 U.S. ––––, 130 S.Ct. 876 (2010), torpedoed the last great effort at campaign finance reform -- the McCain–Feingold Act (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002). In Citizens United, the Court struck down those provisions of McCain–Feingold that prohibited corporations, both for-profit and not-for-profit, and unions from broadcasting “electioneering communications.” Worse yet, the Citizens United 5-4 majority reversed pre-existing case law to an unprecedented extent, effectively allowing unlimited secrecy even for foreign interests. (The DISCLOSE Act, designed to limit secrecy in corporate donations, was defeated through GOP party-line use of the filibuster or cloture rule.)
The country needs campaign finance reform! The country needs financial and monetary reform! The country needs election, media and judicial reform!
"The American dream will die and our children will suffer if the people do not know what their government leaders are doing, if the people are not able to vote ineffective or corrupt leaders out of office, or if judges can ignore the law and the facts with no repercussions!" -- Mark A. Adams (The Daily Censored)
If we are to save American free enterprise from more raids by kleptocrats of finance globalism, Supreme Court decisions granting corporate personhood must be reversed!
We're written tons of articles on Goldman Sachs, they basically used the bail outs to get 100% AIG payouts and are a major player, if not the player in a host of financialization, rip off scandals. Never mind they run the government too.
Can more than one person or entity own the same piece of gold or silver? No wonder goldbugs today are almost entirely committed to "physical" -- meaning what you have buried under your house.
An HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) unit sued the MF Global Inc. brokerage trustee to establish whether he or another person is the rightful owner of gold bars worth about $850,000 and silver bars underlying contracts between the brokerage and a client.
Five gold bars and 15 silver bars underlie eight Comex contracts between the brokerage and its client Jason Fane of Ithaca, New York, the unit of London-based HSBC said in a court filing yesterday. Both parties have asserted claims to the bars, creating difficulties for HSBC, which is storing them, the bank said. HSBC asked a judge to decide who the rightful owner is.
“HSBC has received conflicting instructions regarding ownership and disposition of the property,” it said. “Accordingly, HSBC is exposed to multiple liabilities with respect to the disposition of the properties.” The unit is HSBC Bank USA National Association.
____
“These bars are mine,” Fane said in an e-mail today. “We had a letter from HSBC that they were on the loading dock to be shipped to our warehouse contractor when there was some action taken by a third party to stop or delay shipment.”
The trustee, James Giddens, expects this “relatively minor and not unusual dispute” to be successfully resolved, his spokesman, Kent Jarrell, said in an e-mail.
Fane wrote HSBC after the bankruptcy, asking the bank to transfer the bars to his account at Brink’s, according to a copy of his letter filed in court. The trustee wrote HSBC saying the gold and silver was “customer property,” and the bank shouldn’t turn it over to Fane, HSBC said in the filing. Brink’s provides vaults and other services for the safekeeping of valuables.
The judge handling the bankruptcy said today that in January he would address the matter of distributing physical goods, such as gold and silver bars ...
Reuters got a sense of humor, it's great, especially if you suffered through the testimony on TV and watched the utter lack of information. At minimum one wonders what exactly are the qualifications to become a CEO.
I couldn't agree more. The court system is so stacked against the little guy,there just is no justice. Most small claims limits are too low and to sue, attorneys won't even take cases unless they are a million +. They the lawyer games are unbelievable, stretching out cases, 10, 20 yrs, hoping the plaintiff drops dead before there is any actual hearing or trial.
We haven't even gotten to the actual law yet.
A judge in Oregon ruled a blogger not covered under Journalistic protections. Well, they haven't been paying attention to social media and what's going on. Of course a corporation shouldn't be able to sue an individual for millions on libel, defamation and thus 100% ruin the rest of their lives financially. That's outrageous that a billion dollar corporation can sue an individual at all, never mind for such large sums.
I could go on and on about the misuse and abuse of the legal system in the U.S.
Courts are failing to "take decisive measures to sanction [injustice] and bring it to a halt" even when acknowledging "clear and convincing proof of ... fraudulent conduct."
Your work is appreciated by those of us who are paying attention to end of the rule of law in America (and there is no other conclusion that can be rendered).
The outrageous facts of this case cried out for a precedent setting ruling that such conduct must expose the perpetrator to serious and heavy contempt of court sanctions. A ruling fining GMAC Mortgage an amount of money proportionate to the hundreds of thousands of dollars it had saved by cutting corners in its affidavit signing practices was called for. The Maine Supreme Court didn’t see it that way, and missed an exceptional opportunity to send a message to the mortgage servicing industry that its fraudulent and unethical conduct will not be tolerated.
This case was a perfect opportunity to have the Maine justice system speak out loudly and clearly in favor of the rule of law, to demonstrate its willingness and ability to protect the little guy against corporate bullies, and to take decisive action to protect the integrity of our judicial system. Such a decision could have been a beacon of justice to homeowners everywhere and a precedent to be relied upon by courts all over the country in sanctioning the similar conduct that has been perpetrated in their courts. Yet our effort to achieve this has failed and my devotion to exposing this injustice has for the most part been for naught.
My faith in our courts’ willingness to protect individuals against what the Maine Supreme Court itself called the “fraudulent” and “unethical” conduct of the nation’s fifth largest mortgage loan servicer (which is also largely owned by the American people — Ally Financial, the parent of GMAC Mortgage, is 76 percent owned by taxpayers) is broken. Two days after this unfortunate decision, and exactly one and a half years after exposing this fraudulent and unethical conduct, I, as a lawyer who spent his entire career believing in our justice system, am left with a deep sense of despair and a lot of questions. If we could not succeed in obtaining justice in this case, what more can we possibly do? What will it take to cause courts to stand up to and halt this “serious and alarming lack of respect for the nation’s judiciaries” by America’s largest financial institutions? Is my continuing effort to try to help homeowners in foreclosure really worthwhile? How can I possibly tell clients to believe that our justice system will protect them against the depredations of America’s financial industry? Why should I continue my volunteer efforts to expose injustice when the courts will not take decisive measures to sanction it and bring it to a halt when we provide such clear and convincing proof of such fraudulent conduct?
I have devoted my career to the legal system and to seeking justice for my clients. I believed in the integrity of the judicial system and its capacity to prevent fraud and injustice. It is sad to be nearing the end my career with that belief so deeply shaken.
(Thomas Cox is a retired bank lawyer in Portland, Maine who serves as the Volunteer Program Coordinator for the Maine Attorney’s Saving Homes (MASH) program. He represents homeowners in foreclosure, and assists and consults with other volunteer lawyers in providing pro bono legal services to these Maine homeowners.)
There is no need in this country for so-called tort reform.
The answer why there are no Justice Dept prosecutions is very simple, but no one cares.
In @ 2005, Harvard held a conference on the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.
Dean Kagan, now Supreme Court Justice Kagan in her Introductory Comments, noted that in attendance were two possible Presidential Candidates, Sen. Obama and Governor Spitzer. Larry Sommers, stood up and took exception to her comments, by stating that indeed, only one Presidential Candidate was in attendance, as Governor Spitzer had alienated Wall Street and could never become President without their financial backing.
With that, Governor Spitzer and his wife unceremoniously walked out!
Knowing this incident, can anyone seriously believe that President Obama would risk alienating Wall Street and thus jeopardizing his fund raising campaign for the 2012 Election?
This is fact, not fiction. Not until Holder and Obama are removed will there be any substantive effort to prosecute a bank.
Side with oligarchy or pay with you credit rating. The law is bought and paid for here in our capitalist paradise. Austerity benefits the rich and the sucking sound is deafening. Its blatant theft.
I agree, they suck, but on the other hand, they are way less than watching on regular broadcast. I think regular TV, esp. cable has to be majority commercials than actual content and less we not forget the product placements within the content.
They have to make money somehow to pay for the shows, so at least these are available and you don't have to be clued to your chair at 7pm Sunday, or own a Tivo to see them.
Maybe I'm overly suspicious, and that's my temptation. I don't really know, but with constant news of the decline in standards of probity for all matters and persons financial, my temptation to give in to cynicism is tough to resist.
it seems to me that a lot of money can be and is made in very short period of time through international currency trading. Like, if a speculator knew in advance about the downgrade news ... wouldn't it be tempting to speculate that the € will fall relative to the USD, as it is currently?
Those at Zerohedge have a huge claim from their analysis of the flow of funds report. They are saying there was a mass flight from European bonds into U.S. funds, dollars, Treasuries and this masked a $357 billion Q3 plunge in shadow banking.
I haven't had time to really analyze their analysis, but they have found things in obscure corners of spreadsheets previously, so I think it's probably right and worth a read.
It's extremely volatile, but if you get caught with your pants down, let it ride. Although I'd put auto triggers if you're buying GLD since Gold is extremely confusing to predict.
Regarding:
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2011/12/so-id-recommend-putting-your-money-i...
and the included link about MF Global and the need for forced Fed changes to Regulation T causing a "Black Swan event":
http://www.businessinsider.com/mf-globals-us-and-uk-customers-got-screwe...
does it make any sense to have any money in the stock market right now?
Hi Folks,
I've been working on some modifications to the server site today. Our site is as slow as a dog, so I'm looking to improve performance and some things.
There was a lot of server reconfigurations today, which hopefully I've fixed anything that affects the site, but I can miss stuff in test, so please anyone having problems, hit the email button and let me know. (contact).
The Fed has offered foreign swaps to the tune of $586 billion and no one knows who actually got them because foreign countries do not disclose.
I'm sure there will be more to this story, but Bloomberg has the latest.
If you demand disclosure, possible to crash the system? Don't know about that one.
This adds to the post greatly. It's been the bane of law and now a 200 year legal precedent history, so I don't see how all of that can be overridden without a constitutional amendment, but then, I am not a constitutional scholar, be nice to see what the opinions are. I just assumed this is why they introduced them and at the opportune time when we have a corporate sponsored "wag the dog" event called elections 2012.
"Sanders' amendment is actually a key critical agenda. It ends corporate personhood. ... it tackles that Supreme court 1819 bad decision giving corporations rights as if they were natural persons." -- Robert Oak
There are five key decisions of the SCOTUS to be considered here.
1. The 1819 case (Dartmouth College v. Woodward) did depart from warnings of Thomas Jefferson, creating a key precedent in that it elevated corporations to some degree of personhood. However, this precedent applied only respecting the right to contract and to enforce contracts. Of course, that was before the XIVth Amendment.
2. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886), did not create any precedent. That was all about an insertion into the decision's headnotes by the clerk, J.C. Bancroft Davis, which mistakenly led many to believe the Supreme Court had recognized corporations as persons for purposes of the XIVth Amendment.
3. Of greater interest today is the Blaisdell decision, concerning foreclosure.
From Wiki article Contract_Clause, at heading 'The Contract Clause Since Blaisdell' --
Here's a question: if a State were to cite Blaidell in defense of the constitutionality of a law seeking widespread relief from a foreclosure crisis, would the 5-4 Supremes hesitate to reverse Blaisdell?
4. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), is the source of the original "money is speech" holding of the Court. The Court ruled that spending money to influence elections is a form of constitutionally protected free speech, and struck down portions of law that they found would limit that right. This is the precedent that has sunk virtually all meaningful campaign finance reform for more than a third of a century, resulting in what we have today.
5. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 08-205 (2010), 558 U.S. ––––, 130 S.Ct. 876 (2010), torpedoed the last great effort at campaign finance reform -- the McCain–Feingold Act (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002). In Citizens United, the Court struck down those provisions of McCain–Feingold that prohibited corporations, both for-profit and not-for-profit, and unions from broadcasting “electioneering communications.” Worse yet, the Citizens United 5-4 majority reversed pre-existing case law to an unprecedented extent, effectively allowing unlimited secrecy even for foreign interests. (The DISCLOSE Act, designed to limit secrecy in corporate donations, was defeated through GOP party-line use of the filibuster or cloture rule.)
See, dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Stevens in Citizens United. There has perhaps never been a more activist court than the Roberts court, legislating rather than interpreting statute! See also, dissenting opinion of Justice Stevens in Bush v. Gore (2000).
_________
The country needs campaign finance reform! The country needs financial and monetary reform! The country needs election, media and judicial reform!
The country needs the DISCLOSE Act!
The country needs the OCCUPIED Amendment as introduced in the House by Rep. Deutch -- and/or as introduced by Sen. Sanders in the Senate!
The country needs Rep. Kucinich's NEEDS Act!
If we are to save American free enterprise from more raids by kleptocrats of finance globalism, Supreme Court decisions granting corporate personhood must be reversed!
We're written tons of articles on Goldman Sachs, they basically used the bail outs to get 100% AIG payouts and are a major player, if not the player in a host of financialization, rip off scandals. Never mind they run the government too.
I see the OWS people are going to be in downtown NYC bright and early on Monday morning at Goldman Sachs.
Wonder how many will come out? Corzine is long gone but of course that's where he made his money.
Here's the kind of thing that investors are faced with today --
Ann Barnhardt: The Entire Futures/Options Market Has Been Destroyed by the MF Global Collapse
Can more than one person or entity own the same piece of gold or silver? No wonder goldbugs today are almost entirely committed to "physical" -- meaning what you have buried under your house.
Here's from Bloomberg report late today (9 December 2011) --
Naked Capitalism went through some of the criminal penalties for violations of Sarbanes Oxley.
What the hell is Sarbanes Oxley? Basically an accounting clean up resulting from Enron and Dot Con. Obviously so effective, yeah, right.
Reuters got a sense of humor, it's great, especially if you suffered through the testimony on TV and watched the utter lack of information. At minimum one wonders what exactly are the qualifications to become a CEO.
I couldn't agree more. The court system is so stacked against the little guy,there just is no justice. Most small claims limits are too low and to sue, attorneys won't even take cases unless they are a million +. They the lawyer games are unbelievable, stretching out cases, 10, 20 yrs, hoping the plaintiff drops dead before there is any actual hearing or trial.
We haven't even gotten to the actual law yet.
A judge in Oregon ruled a blogger not covered under Journalistic protections. Well, they haven't been paying attention to social media and what's going on. Of course a corporation shouldn't be able to sue an individual for millions on libel, defamation and thus 100% ruin the rest of their lives financially. That's outrageous that a billion dollar corporation can sue an individual at all, never mind for such large sums.
I could go on and on about the misuse and abuse of the legal system in the U.S.
Courts are failing to "take decisive measures to sanction [injustice] and bring it to a halt" even when acknowledging "clear and convincing proof of ... fraudulent conduct."
Here's a quote from a comment to an article by Thomas A. Cox, attorney for an aggrieved Maine homeowner, published by newdeal2.0.org (8 December 2011).
The underlying matter is a key case that has been decided on appeal in the Maine Supreme Court, FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION v. BRADBURY 2011 ME 120 (FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION, v. NICOLLE M. BRADBURY et al..)
From the article --
(Thomas Cox is a retired bank lawyer in Portland, Maine who serves as the Volunteer Program Coordinator for the Maine Attorney’s Saving Homes (MASH) program. He represents homeowners in foreclosure, and assists and consults with other volunteer lawyers in providing pro bono legal services to these Maine homeowners.)
There is no need in this country for so-called tort reform.
The crying need is for judicial reform!
The answer why there are no Justice Dept prosecutions is very simple, but no one cares.
In @ 2005, Harvard held a conference on the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.
Dean Kagan, now Supreme Court Justice Kagan in her Introductory Comments, noted that in attendance were two possible Presidential Candidates, Sen. Obama and Governor Spitzer. Larry Sommers, stood up and took exception to her comments, by stating that indeed, only one Presidential Candidate was in attendance, as Governor Spitzer had alienated Wall Street and could never become President without their financial backing.
With that, Governor Spitzer and his wife unceremoniously walked out!
Knowing this incident, can anyone seriously believe that President Obama would risk alienating Wall Street and thus jeopardizing his fund raising campaign for the 2012 Election?
This is fact, not fiction. Not until Holder and Obama are removed will there be any substantive effort to prosecute a bank.
Yes folks, politics as usual.
Side with oligarchy or pay with you credit rating. The law is bought and paid for here in our capitalist paradise. Austerity benefits the rich and the sucking sound is deafening. Its blatant theft.
I agree, they suck, but on the other hand, they are way less than watching on regular broadcast. I think regular TV, esp. cable has to be majority commercials than actual content and less we not forget the product placements within the content.
They have to make money somehow to pay for the shows, so at least these are available and you don't have to be clued to your chair at 7pm Sunday, or own a Tivo to see them.
GD commercials. I am not waiting a fukng minute to watch this video
Oh, are we getting into a war of how to tabulate. Fun fun.
Bloomberg article here. They basically went through Bernanke's letter on a point by point basis and said they made no mistake.
Maybe I'm overly suspicious, and that's my temptation. I don't really know, but with constant news of the decline in standards of probity for all matters and persons financial, my temptation to give in to cynicism is tough to resist.
it seems to me that a lot of money can be and is made in very short period of time through international currency trading. Like, if a speculator knew in advance about the downgrade news ... wouldn't it be tempting to speculate that the € will fall relative to the USD, as it is currently?
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