America's Financial Crisis

[Azad]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

"NYU's Roubini: "Nowhere to Hide" from Global Slowdown

Nouriel Roubini of NYU’s Stern School of Business is making fresh headlines, as he's forecasting an even more dire outlook for the global economy. In an interview yesterday with Bloomberg News in Zurich, Roubini said:

The U.S. will lose 6 million jobs with unemployment reaching at least 9 percent.
The U.S. economy will expand 1 percent at most in 2010.
Economic growth in China will slow to less than 5 percent.
He reiterated his statements that the biggest U.S. banks are insolvent, and that losses could reach $3.6 trillion, far exceeding his original estiamtes.
Is Roubini -- nicknamed "Dr. Doom" for his pessimistic yet accurate forecasts in recent years --"

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/164831/NYU’s-Roubini-%22Nowhere-to-Hide%22-from-Global-Slowdown?tickers=%5Egspc,%5Edji,bac,c,jpm,wfc,xlf

[Azad]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

"Troubled Times Bring Mini-Madoffs to Light

Their names lack the Di ckensian flair of Bernie Madoff, and the money they apparently stole from investors was a small fraction of the $50 billion that Mr. Madoff allegedly lost of his clients’ savings.

But the number of other people who have been caught running Ponzi schemes in recent weeks is adding up quickly, so much so that they have earned themselves a nickname: mini-Madoffs.

Some of these schemes have been operating for years, and others are of more recent vintage. But what is causing them to surface now appears to be a combination of a deteriorating economy and heightened skepticism about outsize returns after the revelations about Mr. Madoff. That can scare off new clients and cause longtime investors to demand their money back, which brings the charade tumbling down.

“There is no way for a Ponzi to survive given the large number of redemptions and a lack of new investors,” said Stephen J. Obie, the head of enforcement at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The agency has experienced a doubling of reported leads to possible Ponzi schemes in the last year, and its enforcement caseload has risen this year.

On Monday, at a suburban New York train station, Nicholas Cosmo surrendered to federal authorities in connection with a suspected $380 million Ponzi scheme, in which investors paid a minimum of $20,000 for high-yield “private bridge” loans that he had arranged.

Mr. Cosmo promised returns of 48 percent to 80 percent a year, and none of his investors apparently minded — or knew — that Mr. Cosmo had already been imprisoned for securities fraud. In the end, 1,500 people gave him their money, often through brokers who worked on his behalf.

And in Florida, not far from the Palm Beach clubs where Mr. Madoff wooed some of his investors, George L. Theodule, a Haitian immigrant and professed “man of God,” promised churchgoers in a Haitian-American community that he could double their money within 90 days.

He accepted only cash, and despite the too-good-to-be-true sales pitch, he found plenty of investors willing to turn over tens of thousands of dollars.

“The offices were beautiful, and I was told it was a limited liability corporation,” said Reggie Roseme, a deliveryman in Wellington, Fla., who lost his entire savings of $35,000 and now faces foreclosure on his home.

According to federal regulators who have accused him of operating a Ponzi scheme, Mr. Theodule bilked thousands of investors of modest means, like Mr. Roseme, out of $23 million in all, and put $4 million in his own pocket. This money helped pay for two luxury vehicles for Mr. Theodule, a wedding, a lavish house in Georgia and a recent trip to Zurich that federal authorities are now investigating. The fate of the other $19 million is still unknown.

Investors in Idaho say they lost $100 million in a scheme that promised 25 percent to 40 percent annual returns. In Philadelphia, a failed computer salesman tried his hand at trading nonexistent futures contracts for 80 investors and surrendered to federal authorities this month after losing $50 million.

A Ponzi scheme in Atlanta that promised investor returns of 20 percent every month through something called “30-day currency trading contracts” was shut down this month after losing $25 million. And Tuesday, Arthur Nadel, a prominent money manager in Sarasota, Fla., and philanthropist turned himself in to the authorities. He had disappeared this month, just days before the Securities and Exchange Commission charged him in a $300 million investment fraud that may be a Ponzi scheme.

Investors in many of the schemes were told that their money would go into stocks, foreign currencies and other investments and earn above-average returns — a deception backed up with what appeared to be legitimate monthly statements and fancy offices. Now, Ponzi-related losses are adding up to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The S.E.C. does not keep statistics on Ponzi fraud, but it has brought cases involving losses of over $200 million since the beginning of October last year, including one against the disgraced Democratic donor Norman Hsu. Mr. Hsu was accused of using money from a $60 million Ponzi scheme to make campaign donations to leading candidates, including President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton later donated the money to charities.)

Regulators, chastened by failing to uncover the Madoff scandal, are focusing more on such swindles. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, for instance, has established a new Forex Enforcement Task Force to prosecute Ponzi cases in which investors were told their money was being invested in foreign currencies. In 2008, the agency prosecuted 15 Ponzi schemes and expects that number to increase this year.

Last Thursday, Senators Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, who are both influential members of the Senate Banking Committee, introduced legislation to provide $110 million to hire 500 new F.B.I. agents, 50 new assistant United States attorneys and 100 new S.E.C. enforcement officials to crack down on such crimes.

“Ponzi schemes are against the law,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview. “But we have not had enough law enforcement officials. Madoff should have been stopped. Our proposal would not just provide more resources, but it would work like a posse to go after this fraud.”

Lawsuits brought by bilked investors and federal regulators are piling up in courts.

One case brought by the federal government against a North Carolina company called Biltmore Financial describes an apparent $25 million fraud going back for 17 years that drew in more than 500 investors, many of whom were members of a Lutheran community in that state.

For an investment of as little as $1,000, investors were told they were buying packages of mortgages with 10 to 20 percent annual returns. In reality, the money went to buy an Aston Martin convertible, a $1 million recreational vehicle and vacation and rental properties for the head of the company, J. V. Huffman, who was charged by the S.E.C. last November.

Last week, the S.E.C. charged James G. Ossie of Atlanta with taking $25 million from 120 investors — who had to invest a minimum of $100,000 with him. Mr. Ossie even held periodic conference calls describing his trading strategy, which promised 10 percent monthly returns.

In the South Florida Haitian-American community, Mr. Theodule turned to churches. But his scheme fell apart in November when 40 investors showed up at Mr. Theodule’s office to try to get their money back.

“Theodule had been the king and lived in the community, and then one day he vanished,” said Mr. Roseme, the investor who lost $35,000 in savings.

He described Mr. Theodule as “friendly, someone you could trust, a real positive guy.”

Nerline Horace-Manasse, a 31-year-old Haitian immigrant with six children, saw her life’s savings of $25,000 disappear.

Statements showed her money had grown to $90,000, but when Ms. Manasse asked questions of Mr. Theodule, “he advised he could not tell me where he was putting the money because there were a lot of copycats out there and he’d go out of business.”

Now Ms. Manasse and Mr. Roseme are part of a class-action suit against Mr. Theodule.

Mr. Theodule’s attorney, Matthew N. Thibaut, did not return a call for comment. But in court papers, Mr. Theodule said, “Theodule admits he has told persons that he wants to help build wealth in the Haitian community.”

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/106500/Troubled-Times-Bring-Mini-Madoffs-to-Light

[Azad]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

Let us hope the therm "ponzi scheme" won't be soon replaced by "joo scheme" that would be awful.

[Azad]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

Another joo in a ponzi scheme revealed. Just the beginning.
They all look so "honorable".

"Another Bernard Madoff? Hedge-fund manager Arthur Nadel vanishes with $350 million of clients' cash
In a case with parallels to the Bernie Madoff scandal, a prominent Florida hedge fund manager has vanished - and so has up to $350 million of his clients' money.
Sarasota police are looking into claims that Arthur Nadel, 76, defrauded investors before leaving a distraught note for his family and disappearing."

http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/01/17/2009-01-17_another_bernard_madoff_hedgefund_manager.html

Arthur Nadel


"The agency said Nadel's funds appeared to have assets totaling less than $1 million — while he claimed in sales materials for three of the funds that they had about $342 million in assets as of Nov. 30. The materials also boasted of monthly returns of 11 to 12 percent for several of the funds last year, when they actually had negative results.
An investor in one fund received an account statement for November indicating that her investment was worth almost $420,000. In reality, the entire fund had less than $100,000, according to the SEC."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090121/ap_on_bi_ge/missing_money_manager

[Anonymouse]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

The Lint Age

by Bill Bonner

When Ben Bernanke gave his speech to the London School of Economics on Tuesday, our reporter was on the scene. Terry Easton put a tough question to America's central banker: aren't your interventions just making the situation worse, he wanted to know.

Amid the blah...blah...blah...of Bernanke's response was this:

"The tendency of financial systems to boom and bust ...is a very long-standing problem... but I think it's very important for us to try to put out the fire...then you think about the fire code."

In his 1988 book, The Collapse of Complex Societies, Joseph Tainter argued that all societies – like all organisms – are doomed. Tainter studied ancient Rome as well as the Mayan civilization. He noticed that problems always blaze up. Each one – whether climatic, political or economic – rings the firehall bell. And each solution – and readers may substitute the word "bailout" for solution – brings more challenges and takes more resources. Finally, the available resources are worn out.

Tainter observes that when the costs become high enough, people seem to give up. By the end of Roman era, for example, the burdens of empire were so heavy that people sold themselves into slavery to get free of them. So many people did so at one point that the authorities had to come up with another solution; they outlawed the practice. Henceforth, Roman citizens were required by law to remain free!

Another philosopher, Giambattista Vico, writing in the 18th century, put the beginning of the decline of Rome roughly at the time of the Great Fire during Nero's reign. Nero, partly to pay for his post-fire reforms and reconstruction, began taking the gold and silver out of the coins. All civilizations go through three stages, Vico said – divine, heroic, and human. The divine period is ruled by the gods. The heroic period is adorned with victories and statues. Then, comes the human era. (Here, we permit ourselves to add a footnote to Vico's oeuvre: the coin of the realm in early periods is the gods' money – gold. Later, people switch to money of their own invention – the kind of money you make from trees.) This last stage, says Vico, is when popular democracy arises, along with rational thinking and what Vico delightfully calls the "barbarie della reflessione" [the barbarism of reflection]. In earlier eras, people do what their gods and leaders ask of them. In the final era, they ask, "what's in it for me?"

Even as late as the early ’60s, John F. Kennedy could still appeal to heroic urge without drawing a laugh. "Ask not what your country can do for you," he said in his inaugural address, "ask what you can do for your country."

But 11 years later, Richard Nixon, like Nero before him, began the process of debasing the country's money. That was a solution too; the United States had spent too much. Nixon could worry about the fire code later. First he opened up with the fire hose; he defaulted on America's promise to exchange dollars for gold at the statutory rate.

Barack Obama tried a Kennedyesque appeal to civic high-mindedness last week. We need to "insist that the first question each of us asks isn't 'what's good for me' but 'what's good for the country my children will inherit,'" said the president-elect. But now, like Doric columns in a trailer park, the words are ornamental, not structural. They are the homage that one age pays to a better one.

We are in the 21st century now. Barbarous reflections rise up like swamp gas. The whole place stinks of them. Bernanke and Obama offer solutions. But their plans to save the world from a correction are little more than a swindle. They offer to bail out the mistakes of one generation with trillions of dollars' worth of debt laid onto the next.

"Regarding the current financial meltdown," writes Rony Teitelbaum, "it is very clear that two main factors underlie the political reactions to the crisis, the first being pressure originating from ties between the financial and the political elect, manifested by taxpayer bailouts of large institutions that continue to deliver bonuses to the executives and donate to political campaigns. For those of us who are not blind, these are clear signs of political corruption which would have made the worst Roman emperor blush. The second factor is political pressure originating from the mass public. The kind of solutions offered so far, and I may add which were received with very warm enthusiasm, were tax rebates and gasoline tax holidays. These are actions aimed at a public who "impatiently expected quick and obvious results," to quote Cary's description of Roman society in AD300. (A History of Rome)."

Circa 2009, there is hardly a soul in the entire world who has not been corrupted by the barbarie della reflessione of the late imperial period. Both patricians and plebes are for bailouts. Both business and labor back stimulus programs. The taxpayers and the politicians who rule them are of one mind. Liberal, conservative, rich, poor, Republican, Democrat all speak with a single voice: "Screw the next generation!"

The golden age is over, in other words. In the space of 40 years it passed from gold, to silver, to paper...and is now somewhere between plastic and navel lint.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/bonner/bonner354.html

[SoyElTurco]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group

[Anonymouse]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djgH9wA-JSU

[Armenian]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

The secretive, mysterious, exclusive all-male club called the Bohemian Club located some 75 miles north of San Fransisco at the 2500 square acre Bohemian Grove is purported by many to be the 'summer camp' of the world's most powerful and influential men. The 100+ year old Bohemian Club has been talked about by anarchists, Christian fundamentalists, conspiracy enthusiasts and occultists for many years. I was reluctant about posting information on this uniquely strange club primarily because of all the fantastic tales that have come to be associated with it. However, I now think that the time is right to post at least some of this information. The Bohemian Club may not be as fantastic or as Satanic as some claim it to be, but I nonetheless believe that it is not as innocent as its world famous club members would want us to believe. You have the information, you have the images, you decide. Nonetheless, if you want to see where the financial and the political "elite" of the West go to discuss policy and enjoy themselves please do yourselves a favor and look into the information provided. To understand how individuals are selected to run for office or to be placed into positions of authority, or to understand why such people do what they do in while they are in government, one must understand the very nature and character of their closed circuit environments. These are the people that gave rise to Bolshevism. These are the people that defeated nationalism. These are the people who are currently destroying Christianity. These are people who have all but destroyed the family. These are the people who are spreading globalism worldwide. These are the people behind multiculturalism. These are the people behind "color revolutions." These are the people behind the spread of homosexuality. These are the people behind procurement of weapons of mass destruction. These are the people behind major wars. These are the people behind the deaths of countless millions worldwide. These are the people behind unethical science. These are the people that give rise to nations such as Zionist state. These are the people behind the world's worst dictators. These are the people that set up the world's financial system. These are the people behind what you are allowed to read, hear and see. This is the face of the "elite" that has been running the West and by extension the world for the past several centuries.

Armenian

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

Inside Bohemian Grove - The Story People Magazine Won't Let You Read

1981 News report about Bohemian grove: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCDs9Vs2iYM

Alex Jones - Secrets in Bohemian Grove: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_PAqT2JZOw

Bohemian Grove explained: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc8VQ...eature=related

Ralph Nader: Bohemian Grove: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZMlI...eature=related

Ralph Nader: Bohemian Grove Pt2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCAio...eature=related

When Dirk Mathison, San Francisco bureau chief for People magazine, infiltrated the exclusive Bohemian Grove retreat this summer, he got a view into the U.S. elite that very few reporters have glimpsed. Unfortunately, that elite includes the management of Time Warner, the owner of People, which prevented Mathison from telling his story. Bohemian Grove, a secluded campground in California's Sonoma County, is the site of an annual two-week gathering of a highly select, all-male club, whose members have included every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge. Current participants include George Bush, Henry Kissinger, James Baker and David Rockefeller -- a virtual who's who of the most powerful men in business and government. Few journalists have gotten into the Grove and been allowed to tell the tale (one exception is Philip Weiss, whose November 1989 Spy piece provides the most detailed inside account), and members maintain that the goings-on there are not newsworthy events, merely private fun. In fact, official business is conducted there: Policy speeches are regularly made by members and guests, and the club privately boasts that the Manhattan Project was conceived on its grounds.

Given the veil of secrecy that surrounds the Bohemian "encampment," a reporter needs to enter the grounds covertly in order to get a full portrait. Mathison entered the grounds three times July 1991, aided by activists from the Bohemian Grove Action Network. He witnessed a speech -- "Smart Weapons" -- by former Navy Secretary John Lehman, who stated that the Pentagon estimates that 200,000 Iraqis were killed by the U.S. and its allies during the Gulf War. Other featured speakers included Defense Secretary Richard Cheney on "Major Defense Problems of the 21st Century", former Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Joseph Califano on "America's Health Revolution -- Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Pays", and former Attorney General Elliott Richardson on "Defining the New World Order". Mathison's entree into the secret world of the Grove was cut short on July 20, however, when he was recognized by two of the participants in the festivities -- executives from Time Warner, People's publisher. More loyal to the Grove than to journalistic endeavor, they had the reporter removed from the premises (San Francisco Weekly, 8/7/91).

Mathison already had plenty of material, however, and turned in an article to his editors, which was scheduled to appear in the Aug. 5, 1991 issue. They were pleased with the piece, according to Mathison: "They liked it enough to expand it a bit," he told Extra!. But then the story was suddenly killed. Landon Jones, managing editor of People, told Extra! that the decision had nothing to do with the Time Warner executives. "It was cut partially because he hadn't been there long enough to get a complete story. Secondly, we felt very uncertain about reporting what we did have, because, and this is my fault and I take responsibility for this, I simply didn't realize it was technically trespassing." For his part, Mathison said he did not know why the story was killed, and implied it would be nearly impossible to find the real reason. "It's easier to penetrate the Bohemian Grove than the Time-Life Building," he told Extra!. But the story raises questions about the ability of a media entity to report critically on an elite when its executives are enthusiastic members of that elite. Indeed, the Time organization was noted for sending a corporate plane to the Bohemian gathering every year, according to long-time Grove-watcher Kerry Richardson.

Time Warner is not the only media corporation with Bohemian connections. The list of Fourth Estate bigwigs who have been members or guests is extensive: Franklin Murphy, the former CEO of the Times Mirror corporation; William Randolph Hearst, Jr.; Jack Howard and Charles Scripps of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain; Tom Johnson, president of CNN and former publisher of the Los Angeles Times. When Associated Press president Louis Boccardi spoke at one of the Grove's "Lakeside Talks" about kidnapped reporter Terry Anderson (Spy, 11/89), he referred to his audience as men of "power and rank" and "gave them more details than he said he was willing to give his readers." Walter Cronkite, now on the CBS board, hangs out at the same lodge at Bohemian Grove as George Bush and the former chairs of Procter & Gamble and Bank of America; Cronkite's voice has served as the voice of the Owl of Bohemia, a fixture in the club's mock-druidic rituals. The media figures attending the retreat all agree not to report on what goes on inside. The prohibition seems to apply to reporters who are not guests or members as well: In 1982, NPR got a recording of Henry Kissinger's speech at the Grove -- but declined to air it (Spy, 11/89). Also in 1982, a Time reporter went undercover as a waiter in Bohemian Grove; like Mathison's People article, his story was killed.

Source: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1489

Additional sources:

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/bohemian_grove.html

http://www.atlanteanconspiracy.com/2008/07/bohemian-grove.html

http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/011206_bohemian.html

[gmd]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

It is a fully fledged state/government department can't tell which. But what I do know is all foreign policy has to go through the Ministry of Israeli affairs.

I don't know if I believe that. If they did not keep reminding the world of the Holycost then another one would have happened again in the west. Don't let the kind words for j e w s fool you on this forum. I have known of far worst.

[hipeter924]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

I think Canada, since Mexico is just a territory. I always thought Israel was just an outpost not a full fledged state.

It is a fully fledged state/government department can't tell which. But what I do know is all foreign policy has to go through the Ministry of Israeli affairs.