Meltdown of the US Economy
Corruption, Whispers & Receivership by Jim Willie, CB. Editor, Hat Trick Letter
| September 24, 2008
The United States has transformed itself, the most radical degraded aspects having occurred in the last eight years. Many might object or cringe at repeated mention of the Fascist Business Model implemented by the Clinton Administration, and carried to extreme by the Bush II Administration. It is a harsh departure from Beacon of Freedom. Too bad, fact of life! This merger of state and big business in the midst of a climax, the biggest display of exported financial toxin in modern history, and the disintegration of the financial structure for the nation owning the world reserve currency. The Fascist Business Model has criminal fraud & corruption as its chief characteristic, alienation & resentment as its chief foreign effect, and systemic failure & collapse as its chief outcome. Broad war often follows. How anybody could think the sharing of bank and oil executives with federal government leadership as a move toward progress on the evolution chart, that is moronic. Surely, it is about political power and corruption. The military budget is sacred, and private contractor deals are made without bids. Now five to six energy giants will hog all Iraqi oil service contracts. The terrorism topic is untouchable for dispute. A Coup d’Etat is in progress as the Wall Street conmen and fraud kings have taken implicit control of the USGovt. This will be recognized in time, even while resistance is evident. To me the ongoing drama smacks of a comedy of corruption. US citizens are in shock & awe, while foreigners are aghast in disgust.
Hidden in the bowels of the Lehman Brothers failure cleanup process was a convenient provision. The JPMorgan firm was given $138 billion to settle ‘private accounts’ in what seems like a clear case of corruption, a handout of counterfeit money, enabling JPMorgan to reload for costly credit default swap losses or for costly gold suppression games, or both. Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch have succeeded in converting to private banks, just in time to benefit from the trough devised to benefit banks. Is there a secondary benefit of averting legal liability for bond fraud, since now a new financial firm? These are two more egregious examples of the deep collusion in the Fascist Business Model, a theme that has reached climax proportions. The Securities & Exchange Commission, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the Debt Ratings Agencies, the military contractors, and professional lobbyist groups work toward rounding out the collusion pentagrams. See a list of dumbfounding factors, angles, stories, and developments at the end of this article, in outline form. The bust continues.
The final battle is underway, for USGovt bailout of practically the entire US banking and mortgage system. Its ancillary businesses like insurance are next. The Credit Default Swap segment represents nitroglycerine soon to be brought under the crippled USGovt aegis. The mega bailout plan puts Wall Street firms first in line to benefit. The plan in my view is the culmination of arrogant criminality, as its architects and promoters are the primary agents for the banking system collapse itself. Only one or two senators in Congress had the stones to confront Treasury Secy Paulson and USFed Chairman Bernanke, calling them on their extreme gall to dictate to Congress on bailout responsibility, when failures by the collection of banksters caused the problems even as their cohorts stand in line for deep financial assistance. The claims by Paulson that taxpayer protection is first and foremost is another total lie. His first priority is to funnel as much public money into Wall Street balance sheets before the grand game is shut down. Another phony call, deep lie, pure nonsense!
The desire for punishment, prosecution, and avoidance for benefits has come like a wave. We will see if its legislative delays result in months of grandstanding debate as Rome burns. In haste, the nationalization of the banking and mortgage industry might achieve legislative passage in the same manner as the Patriot Act, without reading its provisions. Pressure builds for passage without examination, with questions and objections regarded as unpatriotic. The next step is for big bold lies of assurances to be given, enough for satisfying sleepy Congressional senators and representatives, few of whom are aware of the deep fraud laced into the banking and asset base being rescued. The plan is being sold as a pre-emptive maneuver to ward off a disaster, providing necessary liquidity ahead of the likely unfolding events instead of providing funds after a bank failure. Fraud’s best friend is amplified liquidity doled out during times of emergency expedience.
One should have noticed on Tuesday that Paulson totally overshadowed a confused bewildered Bernanke, as the seasoned Wall Street conman even answered questions directed at the university rookie. Gentle Ben is totally out of his league when dealing in financial crime syndicate circles. No college courses on syndicates! Bernanke himself is shocked at how wide the ‘Too Big To Fail’ umbrella has become, this from a man who once claimed the subprime mortgage crisis would be contained and not result in any contagion. My retort was to expect total systemic bond contagion, a correct forecast. Bernanke actually is telling Congress today that he expects no inflationary impact from the banking and mortgage bailout program, a truly gigantic package with monstrous inflation implications! The estimated $700 billion bailout cost is laughable, when it will ultimately cost between $1500 and $2000 billion. The entire mega bailout package (let’s be clear) covers the entire US banking industry.
Congressman Ron Paul made a great quote after lecturing the inept misguided and naïve USFed Chairman Bernanke on the high risks of price fixing. The bailout constitutes the quintessential price fix. Ron Paul said, “Most illiquid bond assets are illiquid because they are not worth anything.” The Wall Street fraud kings want the USGovt to pay inflated values for their illiquid worthless assets that clog and obstruct the banking industry. Bernanke actually regards the payment for bank bailouts can come from other funds. He implies the Exchange Stabilization Fund can use its funds. If Plunge Protection Team funds are co-mingled, these funds might be closely connected to USGovt security agency fraud associated with gutting of Fannie Mae. That is a perverse irony! By the way, where is Greenspan, whose fingerprints are on every object being dusted by intrepid examiners. He handed over the reins to a bagholder named Ben, just another dumb university economics professor. To succeed in academic economics circles, one must embrace heresy and weave logic like pretzels.
Paulson is attempting to shove a package down Congressional throats. Bernanke looks in body language like a boy caught in a disaster as his entire neighborhood burned down despite his best (but late) efforts to call in a district full of fire trucks. He actually looks like a man who has slept little in two weeks. To be sure, the Congress has been slow to react to the mortgage and banking crisis, choosing to delay until the new presidential term in office. Congress has become a den of irrelevant men and women owing more to lobbyists than to the people. Their chief function is to apply rubber stamps to directives crafted by others, usually from an array of bankers themselves. Why even GeorgeW himself is aghast!
Events are moving toward climax. The next sequence of events can no longer be regarded as coming from traditional ‘Inside the Box’ solutions. We are way beyond that arena, now firmly in the Twilight Zone. My past forecasts have been verified for bank system collapse, housing market’s unending decline, nationalization of soon everything under the US tainted sun, and finally the New Resolution Trust Corp. The New RTC is being argued as it takes shape. It is called the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). That name conjures up images of the roof tarps that are dotted across the New Orleans landscape from federal programs to repair roofs after Hurricane Katrina. After numerous subcontractor steps, the $150 per square foot allotted by the USGovt resulted in cheap flimsy tarps instead of nice shingled roofs. A better title for the mortgage relief program would be the Securitized Housing Investment Trust (SHIT), offered by an emailer to CNBC. These bond assets are not troubled assets, but rather fraudulent assets. The new finance czar Paulson has asked for a blank check with trust given, laden with low-ball cost estimates, or else the system will surely fail. Why should representatives and elders of Congress trust Wall Street executives? They deserve prosecution, indictment, prison terms, and forced restitution instead. We are witnessing financial treason. Instead, some executives like at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac received huge severance packages, and Lehman Brothers executives were granted the same. The events are moving toward some upcoming surprises of historical magnitude. Think default and receivership, with foreign control. The massive rollover and refunding requirements from USTreasury Bonds will put monumental strain on the system, which the monetization US$ printing press cannot alone manage. Unless and until foreign creditors step in, the US financial sector will continue to operate like a crime syndicate, since regulatory bodies and law enforcement officials are all part of the coordinated congame.
PREFACE Many of the overwhelming impressions from the unfolding events are to appear in the October Hat Trick Letter report. First attention must go to paid subscribers. Events is in progress in an accelerated pace, enough to take my breath away on a given day. But rain and cheery faces in Costa Rica straighten me quickly. For more evidence in backing up my claim that private brokerage accounts being open for financial parent firm claim, see the October report also. Numerous (dozens) of emails came in request. The report will show the best information on this subject, with quotes freshly hidden within the US Federal Reserve website. No need to make such stuff up, since the US financial authorities are better than fiction! By the way, if my analysis and forecasts have any advantage over others, it is because my thought process comes from always thinking like a thief. Never think the best thoughts, hope for the best of human dignity, or expect fair play to emerge when forecasting the US financial markets. Their plan seems obviously to gut the system before it fails. Then they blame foreigners. False flag attacks then seal the deal, much like cauterizing a wound with a knife made hot in a bivouac fire.
Here is an outline of topics covered in the next report, due out in the next couple weeks. The date is not set, but the messages are becoming clear. Pardon the brevity of important points, but details are difficult to describe with brievity, and are saved for the next Hat Trick Letter. The ongoing format no longer will be continued as from past issues. Every report is a report of an emergency nature. We are observing the painful steps from failure of a system, with 330 million inhabitants, and commercial tentacles the world over. The four primary features that have pushed the United States into a certain position in Third World status are these:
globalization with deep Western investment in China insolvency of four pillars of federal, trade, housing, banking export of fraud with mortgage bonds, mainly to China, Europe, Russia, England military aggression and annexation with continuous deceit and propaganda. The many points describe a system broken without remedy, inviting default and receivership. Both are in progress behind the curtains, but on foreign soil. As Mohamed El-Erian of PIMCO (formerly Harvard Univ) said recently, “The unthinkable is thinkable.” Little known to the majority of Americans, foreign disgust grows. Their desire to isolate the United States is growing, in order to protect themselves from financial collapse and further spread of fraud. The German economics experts are saying “The World Shouldn't Have to Bear the Burden for America's Lapses” in Spiegel Online (click here) in a public article.
Listen to my interview this week handled by Contrary Investors Cafe Radio (click here), where we covered several of the topics mentioned throughout this article.
GOLD LAUNCH & USDOLLAR DEMISE Not exactly mirror images of each other, the gold price and US$ index are moving in typical opposite directions. A peak in the USDollar occurred in early September, at the same time a bottom occurred for gold. The forewarned timing of events turning sharply around in the week of September 15th happened on schedule. Once again, the short rule restriction against bank stocks helped to stem the flow that favored the euro currency rise by 330 basis points on Monday. The USDollar fundamentals have begun to resemble those of a Third World. The USGovt federal deficits are accelerating. The US trade gap has turned toward a rise again. The housing market continues to hurtle down in its price decline, that being the primary force behind the bank collapse. Now finally comes the climax. USEconomic recession is intensifying, notwithstanding absurd USGovt statistics to the contrary. The nationalization movement for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, not to mention the steady handouts to JPMorgan, have assured of continued heavy red ink in deficits to the USGovt federal budget. Monetization under the table to firms like JPMorgan are happening somewhat in the open, but not properly understood by the masses, trained and untrained. The endless war is a sacred cow of bottomless costs, largely to support the other syndicate, the US security agency clandestine trafficking out of Afghanistan. Foreigners watch the heightened risk having become acute. The USDollar will be sold, and gold will be bought. A COMEX delivery default in gold is in progress.
Few are thinking in nonlinear or discontinuous terms. When (not if) the USTreasurys suffer a default, totally assured in my mind, confirmed by my sources of information, the gold price will launch onward and upward in huge steps. Even without a default, the strains on the USGovt budget will result in extraordinary risk either on the USTreasury Bond yield from added supply, OR on the USDollar from cowardly requisite monetization of debt. My conjecture is the first couple fundings for USGovt bailout debt obligations will be done with normal USTreasury auctions, not to mention some off-budget games. The next fundings will be done via pure monetization. The entire nationalization will cost another $1500 to $2000 billion for banks assets and mortgages, on top of another $1000 billion for an array of US industrial and financial giants outside the banking world. The failed US firms like General Motors are already lining up. So foreigners will be expected to foot the bill??? No way! They will pull the plug, or at least diversify in a huge way out of the USDollar and US$-based bonds.
NOTES & WHISPERS IN ILL WIND The list of breakdown items, evidence, and criminal overtones is vast.
Money market funds almost caused a seizure earlier this week, which means the banking system almost went into a fatal cardiac arrest episode. The seizures spread across entire the financial system, even to brokerage funds, and extended to foreign banks. The commercial paper market was also affected. The Exchange Stabilization Fund was used, having possible currency implications. Foreign entities were blocked from participation in both the Lehman Brothers and American Intl Group (AIG) busts, partly to retain control, but also most likely to limit opportunity for foreigners to obtain data, documents, and records of extreme fraud. The Germans pursued the AIG insurance units in a natural acquisition, far more prudent than inefficient USGovt conservatorship. The USEconomy would move toward a centralized Soviet structure, not socialism, if liberties are curtailed further, especially if martial law is imposed. Rationing is a very real prospect. Watch freedom of speech, assembly, and more. The nationalization of Fannie Mae puts the $1500 billion documented fraud since 1988 on the national tab. The New Jersey burnout home selling for $230k in a Fannie loan, the micro example, has played out on a national aggregate scale. The subprime mortgage movement used to be the visible portion of the mortgage crisis. The Fannie Mae gigantic fraud has been covered by the greater mortgage crisis, perhaps in a wildly successful multi-year project. Thanks to the intrepid Aaron Krowne of www.ML-implode.com for his shared ideas. Final banking & mortgage system bailout by the USGovt might not occur until issues are addressed regarding prosecution, confessions, resignations, state’s evidence, and eventually restitution. The concept of RICO law enforcement against Wall Street would be both unprecedented and empty, since most assets have been gutted. No, on second thought, despite objections, the Congress will pass the bailout bill without reading it. The move to halt home foreclosures is a typical stupid Congressional idea, which might result in civil disobedience and scoffing at mortgage payment on a broad scale. Worse, almost all cost estimates are wrong by a factor of 10x from reasonable forecasts. The pattern is to establish the plan, and deal with cost overruns later. Foreigners are still expected to pay the bills for American deficits anyway. Watch the Lehman Brothers liquidation process, kept hidden. The dead are still trying to marry the dead in farcical ceremonies. The bond cemetery within the New RTC was crafted when it become clear the Lehman liquidation would kill all of Wall Street. Don’t expect any consummation of such necro-marriages to bear offspring. They will not make love with each, but rather EAT EACH OTHER. Wall Street firms are now almost all aligned in similar fashion. If one fails, they all suffer the same risk from similar balance sheet of assets. Marking down one firm’s asset in liquidation would result in the failure of all of them. Any USGovt bank bailout has an unintended consequence of instant markdowns in market value of assets held widely throughout Wall Street and bank industry balance sheets. These banks have resisted writedowns in honest accounting, as only a small handful of financial firms have taken losses in earnest. Any New Resolution Trust Corp for mortgage bailout rescues (a correct big forecast) would ostensibly be managed by the same Wall Street villains who are implicated in massive trillion$ fraud. Expect one in three dollars to be stolen by further fraud, just like the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. To question their fraud in unpatriotic. Private brokerage stock accounts can now be borrowed by financial firms, evidence produced in Federal Reserve documents. A gigantic final heist might be in the works, requiring a massive event that provides the cover of confusion like a World Trade Center attack. The Glass-Steagall Act was not repealed without a reason and plan! Its removal enables co-mingling of bank, brokerage, and insurance assets. A pattern seems evident among failing Wall Street firms. It seems Wall Street firms without extensive stock brokerage accounts are permitted to fail first, leaving private accounts vulnerable. It seems Wall Street firms with big foreign equity ownership are set to fail last, leaving foreigners outside the loop. The bank short rule restriction once more has been brought back. That emergency measure is as corrupt as possible, a horrible black eye to a nation that claims to be the home of free markets. The re-enacted rule has helped support the USDollar. Tremendous strong high pressure zones are building on monetary inflation, while tremendous strong low pressure zones are building on asset price decline. The combination will surely make for some of the greatest financial storms in modern history, some already witnessed, and more sure to come. Much talk has come of continuing independence of US financial firms, when they are beset by insolvency and worsening liquidity problems. The same applies to the USGovt, whose liquidity flow depends upon foreign credit supply. They have been defrauded, treated with hostility in trade and currency management issues, and in the case of Russia, subjected to military aggression and NATO treaty violation. The totality of events has placed enormous concentrated risk on the USDollar, and consequently on the USTreasury Bond. Expect sharp decline in the US$ and default of the USTBond. Both fraud and nationalization has amplified the pressures. The Global Energy War has opened a new front in the Global Capital War. Aggressive US actions to secure energy supply have endangered its capital supply. The backlash is not even on the American radar systems, as arrogance prevails. In high commerce and banking circles, the US is being isolated. Many European firms do not return phone calls to US bankers, on orders. An analogy of ‘glow candles for diesel engines’ has been stated for upcoming response to US bankers. Reports have come from a London source that gold futures contracts are being settled in cash only at the COMEX, rather than with physical gold metal. That leaves would-be buyers without the metal they wish to take on delivery under contract. IS THAT NOT A DEFAULT? The Hurricanes Gustav & Ike have hit the Southeast region hard, resulting in gasoline rationing. This trend might soon extend nationwide, and broaden to include more items. Hits to AIG and other insurance firms come at a bad time. A solution comes from foreign creditors that does not require Congressional approval or vote, constituting an event to pull the rug from under the Americans. The avenue will be via bank channels. A receivership committee is being formed. More details are a main feature of the October HTL report. The accumulative debt held by US and foreign entities is so grand, that every single day interest of almost $1 billion is owed to them on a daily basis for the USGovt Treasury and Agency mortgage bonds. If the USGovt were to shut down all operations and provision of services, including military, the USGovt might achieve a balanced budget. It could balance its budget from tax revenue against just the interest expense on debt, with no other official function whatsoever. An interesting concept. Maybe that is part of the next Receivership Committee plan.
Copyright © 2008 Jim Willie, CB Editorial Archive
Jim Willie CB is a statistical analyst in marketing research and retail forecasting. He holds a Ph.D. in Statistics. His career has stretched over 24 years. He aspires to thrive in the financial editor world, unencumbered by the limitations of economic credentials.
Jim Willie CB is the editor of the “HAT TRICK LETTER” Use the below link to subscribe to the paid research reports, which include coverage of several smallcap companies positioned to rise like a cantilever during the ongoing panicky attempt to sustain an unsustainable system burdened by numerous imbalances aggravated by global village forces. An historically unprecedented mess has been created by heretical central bankers and charlatan economic advisors, whose interference has irreversibly altered and damaged the world financial system. Analysis features Gold, Crude Oil, USDollar, Treasury bonds, and inter-market dynamics with the US Economy and US Federal Reserve monetary policy. A tad of relevant geopolitics is covered as well. Articles in this series are promotional, an unabashed gesture to induce readers to subscribe.
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