Big Bank Mafia

[Trader]

Follow the link which leads to a series of Rolling Stone and newspaper stories.

Anyone who believes the worlds fnancial 'leaders' and banks are honest needs to give their head a shake.

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-06-29/big-banks-have-become-mafia-style-criminal-enterprises

wo stories this week prove once again that the big banks are literally criminal enterprises.

Initially, all of the big banks have engaged in Mafia-style “bid-rigging” of municipal bonds, to bilk money from every city in the nation … to the collective tune of tens billions of dollars.

And Barclays and other large banks – including Citigroup, HSBC, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lloyds, UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland – manipulated the world’s primary interest rate (Libor) which virtually every adjustable-rate investment globally is pegged to.

And see this. That means they manipulated a good chunk of the world economy.

Other recent stories also show criminal fraud as well. For example, the big banks have been cheating homeowners … especially veterans.

And as Max Keiser explains, banking giants Mellon and State Street shaved money off of virtually every pension transaction they handled over the course of decades, stealing collectively billions of dollars from pensions worldwide:

(Details here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.)

Indeed, the entire business model of the big banks is fraud. See this, this, this, this, this and this.

Fraud caused the 1930s Depression and the current financial crisis.

Regulators Have Become “Cops On the Take”

There’s no recovery because the government made it official policy not to prosecute fraud (and see this, this, this, and this).

Unfortunately, the cop is on the take … and the government’s only actions are to cover up the fraud and to leave the people holding the bag.

[DEFCON]

To fix the situation for once and for all, we have two choices:

1. Accept the situation for what it is and remain in perpetual servitude to the Banksters (the current goal).

or

2. Cut the head off the snake which is the US Federal Reserve and center-piece of this ponzy scheme which was created way back when on Jekyll Island.

[Thebean]

or 3., Buy bank stocks....

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.....

[DEFCON]

Bean

Bank stocks won't and don't work...they can be manipulated to squeeze 'you' out.

How can anyone but an insider (the US Congress & friends) make fair & informed buy / sell decisions when the 'stock markets' are regularly manipulated by the central & privately owned bank (the Fed)?

[J.O.]

Nope, there's just not enough money to pay for these things ...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/07/22/tax-havens.html

[boestar]

Shut down the Fed, Move the currency back to government control, change the colour to blue (or something) and make all that paper WORTHLESS.

[DEFCON]

"make all that paper WORTHLESS"

It' all pretty much 'worthless' already.

[DEFCON]

Three decades ago and back, we enjoyed the benefits of a fairly complex international system of trade. The concept of the day known as ‘Fair Trade’ employed a number of control tools such as ‘tariffs’ intended to regulate the importation of goods so as to preserve and protect the economic interests of the respective country.

A debate emerged on the merits of a somewhat newer concept in trade relations which became known as, ‘Free Trade’. Our minders decided free trade was good for us and like a tidal wave, it came to overwhelm us. We’re now approximately twenty-five years into the program.

For the purpose of furthering ‘global competition’, the little guy has given with his job, pension, benefits and investments. For their part, the wealth of the so-called big guy has increased at a rate that’s completely disproportionate and contrary to the experience of his less fortunate Countryman and way beyond anything seen in a historical sense.

Is the notion of ‘free trade’ something we should be re-thinking?

[DEFCON]

Jobs are part of the perpetual 'growth' problem. Regardless, any gain in the number of jobs is being lost to the forces of global competition. Manufacturing and all the other previously high-paying jobs are either going, or already have gone to the third world country with the lowest labour costs.

If you consider inflation etc, 70k may in fact be fairly representative of today's little guy. Twelve years ago, 70K was probably a fairly good salary and would likely make the recipient one of the better paid little guys of his day?

[conehead]

I made 70k 12 years ago as an AME, and I still make that today. And I'm just a little guy. I don't think you'll find too many "managers" working for 70k.

[mrlupin]

Excellent NY Times article on the banks and their shenanigans...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/opinion/banks-that-are-too-big-to-regulate-should-be-nationalized.html?_r=2

[conehead]

Outside of your very well paid industry you sure do.

No, you don't. Compare my "very well paid" industry with any other that employs highly skilled technicians, like telecommunications, power generation, computer networking, certain forms of transportation, the energy sector... You won't find any of those managers making 70,000 per year. They make a lot more. I'm not talking about the manager of a McDonald's. ( I have no idea what they make.)

[Spinnaker]

or 3., Buy bank stocks....

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.....

I'm with you... Ive had great returns on RBC, BNS and TD. My favourite... 'dirty old' JP Morgan Chase has been one of the best returns.

[DEFCON]

"the average wage earned in Canada would be slightly over 50K a year so the "little guy" would be making a lot less than that."

From my perspective, the 'little guy' can be anyone, regardless of income level, asset base, or investments that’s continuing success and security is entirely dependent upon personal effort, etc and the policies and law which strictly regulate their economic & financial activities. Interestingly, the policy and law itself is being conceived, created and introduced by the ‘big guys’, who clearly operate in an ‘exclusive’ environment of privilege that positions them somewhere out there and beyond the scope & reach of the very law they were instrumental in creating?

Jamie Diamon of JP Morgan Chase might be seen as but one excellent example of the ‘big guy’. Alternatively, Bernard Madoff is / was a ‘little guy’. It would seem, the big guys don’t like getting screwed-over by little guys and to prove it, Madoff earned himself 150 years in jail. Ironically and since the entire global economic banking scam has began to unravel, I don’t think any charges have been laid against a single ‘Bankster’?

[DEFCON]

Spinnaker

I did well with CIBC some time back, but isn't our gain akin to ‘profiting from the avails of crime’?

[Mitch Cronin]

"We learn from history that man never learns from history"

(If you give me a while I could find who wrote that, but really, I think all that matters is it's accuracy)

[Don Hudson]

Malcolm, re your statement and links, "Talking about the Mafia: :Grin-Nod: ",

You equate unions with the mafia but it was your union that gave you the pension you enjoy where millions of employees no longer have such good fortune because unions have been essentially destroyed by propaganda statements like these. There is plenty of gangsterism and banksterism to go around, so why target employee groups?

While you and I hold vastly different views on how employees should be treated, I think a post concentrated entirely on what corporations want you to think about employee organizations just falls further into the trap which the National Association of Manufacturers and "corporate America" began laying in the 30's concerning organizing employee groups to protect them against the worst ravages of unbridled profiteering.

You are fortunate and should consider where your pension came from and consider the millions who have no such potential, while calling unions "the mafia".

In a multi-trillion dollar economy where blatant disregard for employees is rampant while CEOs collection hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses, some at taxpayer expense when their corporate version of "capitalism" doesn't work out and they have to come running to the nanny-state for a bailout, wages and working conditions for ordinary employees have never been lower and saving for a retirement for most is essentially an impossibility. As I've posted many times, our society is creating a generation who will be paupers in their retirement years. Ordinary approaches to labour always took into consideration some kind of support for the labour force if only to sustain and renew sources of labour for the future of business.

What has occurred over the past fourty years is a slow downloading of that responsibility onto the state - taxpayers like you and I, while private enterprise reaps the benefits of not having to pay for the infrastructure that sustains such work forces.

Think about it... While there are no true innocents either in labour or in corporate leadership, it is hypocritical to offer the thought that labour unions are mafiosi while accepting the benefits of membership and while banksters and the bonused-one-percent extract money from your own wallet.

While I wouldn't expect most to actively support unions, given all the anti-employee sentiment today, I think that to adopt the thoughts that others want us to have and who have only short-term profit in mind just perpetuates their peculiar version of employees and their representations. The generation of employees who are now following on the path we have built must deal with the uphill battle we have left them. The legacy isn't pretty.

with respect,

Don

[deicer]

Here's something for Malcolm to fill out and carry.....

[boestar]

Once upon a time in Ontario an employee, at point and time of hiring, was able to redirect their union dues to the registered charity of their choice. This choice was made in confidence and not disclosed to the union. The employee still reaped the benefits of the union support.

I do not think this is done anymore.

[Don Hudson]

I do not think this is done anymore.

As far as I know it hasn't been done for decades, except for religious reasons. The "Rand Formula" provides for "check-off" union dues which requires dues be paid. This was to counter corporate strategies to get members to "donate" their dues or otherwise refuse to pay them under the notion of a "conscientious objector" or some such idea, thus starving the union of operating funds and neutralizing the unwelcome effects of unions on corporate priorities.

BTW, going to "Fox News" and the silly sites discussing Scott Walker only discredit the arguments made. Such sources rely on prejudice, ignorance and ostrich-like views.

Don

[conehead]

PS as a retired member of Management, my pension has / had no link to any union.

Well, in a way it is. As union wages went up, so did management pay. So you reaped the benefits of the union fighting for wage increases, and it's reflected in your pension. See? Unions are a good thing!

[deicer]

Don't forget the pension indexing that a strike brought in as well

[Mitch Cronin]

Well Malcolm, you can't deny what Conehead said is true. And I want to ask.... Why, in your opinion, should anyone feel, or otherwise want to express, "outrage" upon reading something you say is equating all banks to the Mafia? (Unless, of course the outrage was directed at the banks, but I don't believe that was your wished-for target of Don's outrage) Do you feel so strongly that you feel outraged by that? Did you look at any of the links provided in the original piece?

.....I think an even better question would be: Do you see any reason to believe our current "global economy" can continue, status quo, even with "growth" as the only engine that provides any means of sustenance? ....and then I'd want to ask how many people you think this world can sustain...... but both of those questions probably don't belong in this thread.

[conehead]

Well since my pension is not indexed, I have nothing to forget.

Neither will mine be. The indexing that was won in that contract (1987?) had a pre-defined life span, and has since expired.

[Don Hudson]

My point Malcolm is that the breadth of your view of these matters, whether management or line employee, is too narrow to be interesting to discuss. It's not that you hold them...that is perfectly fine as clearly many hold the same view of employees and unions. But you post here and as such one must assume that you wish to engage discussion and not just pronounce on matters or broadcast your particular view; otherwise, why post? Your last comment came across as "I'm alright, Jack". If you believe that, that's fine but if you post it that's another matter and you can be expected to back up your views.

The fact that you and I fundamentally disagree is interesting, it is not a battle for who's right, (if even there were a basis for being "right"!).

I sense somehow from your consistent responses that you prefer a static position which remains unchanged throughout an exchange with others.

I'm very happy that you have a satisfactory pension but millions in today's workforce do not and that interests me and many others. I'm not focussed on how "wrong" that is, I'm focussed on the outcomes which, if things don't change well ahead of time, business will have downloaded pensions onto the public, by way of the support required for a generation which has not been able to save sufficiently. You may be okay as "management" but no one is going to be untouched by these trends. I welcome disagreement in discussion. But to post links or quotes and then not submit your own views with your own thoughts but responding is just shadow boxing.

regards

Don