Infinite Unknown

See also:

- Gerald Celente Endorses Ron Paul For President – ‘The Entire Economic System Is Collapsing’ – ‘Fascism Has Come To America In Every Form’ (Video – Nov. 29, 2011)

- Have You Heard About The 16 Trillion Dollar Bailout The Federal Reserve Handed To The Too Big To Fail Banks? (The Econonomic collapse, Dec. 2, 2011):

What you are about to read should absolutely astound you.  During the last financial crisis, the Federal Reserve secretly conducted the biggest bailout in the history of the world, and the Fed fought in court for several years to keep it a secret.  Do you remember the TARP bailout?  The American people were absolutely outraged that the federal government spent 700 billion dollars bailing out the “too big to fail” banks.  Well, that bailout was pocket change compared to what the Federal Reserve did.  As you will see documented below, the Federal Reserve actually handed more than 16 trillion dollars in nearly interest-free money to the “too big to fail” banks between 2007 and 2010.  So have you heard about this on the nightly news?  Probably not.  Lately Bloomberg has been reporting on some of this, but even they are not giving people the whole picture.  The American people need to be told about this 16 trillion dollar bailout, because it is a perfect example of why the Federal Reserve needs to be shut down.  The Federal Reserve has been actively picking “winners” and “losers” in the financial system, and it turns out that the “friends” of the Fed always get bailed out and always end up among the “winners”.  This is not how a free market system is supposed to work.

According to the limited GAO audit of the Federal Reserve that was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the grand total of all the secret bailouts conducted by the Federal Reserve during the last financial crisis comes to a whopping $16.1 trillion.

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Tags: Bailout, Bank of America, Banking, Barclays, Bear Stearns, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Dexia, Dollar, Dresdner Bank, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, GAO, Global News, Goldman Sachs, Government, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Politics, RBS, Societe Generale, U.S., UBS, Wachovia, Wall Street, Wells Fargo & Co.

Flashback:

- JPMorgan Employee Who Invented Credit Default Swaps is One of the Key Architects of Carbon Derivatives, Which Would Be at the Very CENTER of Cap and Trade

- The Coming Derivatives Crisis That Could Destroy The Entire Global Financial System (The Economic Collapse, Oct. 19th, 2011):

Most people have no idea that Wall Street has become a gigantic financial casino.  The big Wall Street banks are making tens of billions of dollars a year in the derivatives market, and nobody in the financial community wants the party to end.  The word “derivatives” sounds complicated and technical, but understanding them is really not that hard.  A derivative is essentially a fancy way of saying that a bet has been made.  Originally, these bets were designed to hedge risk, but today the derivatives market has mushroomed into a mountain of speculation unlike anything the world has ever seen before.  Estimates of the notional value of the worldwide derivatives market go from $600 trillion all the way up to $1.5 quadrillion. Keep in mind that the GDP of the entire world is only somewhere in the neighborhood of $65 trillion.  The danger to the global financial system posed by derivatives is so great that Warren Buffet once called them “financial weapons of mass destruction”.  For now, the financial powers that be are trying to keep the casino rolling, but it is inevitable that at some point this entire mess is going to come crashing down.  When it does, we are going to be facing a derivatives crisis that really could destroy the entire global financial system.

Most people don’t talk much about derivatives because they simply do not understand them.

Perhaps a couple of definitions would be helpful.

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Tags: Bank of America, Banking, Citigroup, Debt, Derivatives, Derivatives market, Economy, Financial Crisis, Global News, HSBC, JPMorgan, Wall Street, Wells Fargo & Co.

- The Megabanks are trying to prevent bank runs in the United States (Video) (Activist Post, October 15, 2011):

Megabanks around the world are reeling from their customers removing their capital and closing their accounts. People are standing up worldwide in a non-participational form of civil disobedience in order to do anything possible to bring down these corrupt megabanks.

There was an Italian bank run scare in at the beginning of August that really started the gears in motion for the possibilities of future bank runs.

Financial blogs predicted a run on the French banks during the economic turmoil in the EU and Eurozone countries.] Many corporations in France have moved their money out of French banks and into safer short term holdings for the time being.

Similar bank runs in August occurred in the United States, and the megabank Bank Of America had to employ the assistance of the St. Louis SWAT Team to prevent customers from closing their accounts and moving their money to smaller banks.

YouTube Added: 14.08.2011

The bank run issue even hit mainstream media in the United States, covered here by NPR.

Since the Occupy protests have started, big banks have been the prime target of disgruntled humans for their corrupt practices of taking peoples homes, robbing the elderly, and funding many illicit activities that normal Americans would face prison time over.

On September 30th, families and individual customers of Bank of America had a sit in protest to show civil disobedience against the megabank. 20+ of the protesters were arrested.

This was also covered on the local mainstream media news in Boston.

It would seem as if America is done with the megabanks, and for good reason. I came across this blog recently and information that there is a bank run being planned in the United States on December 7th.

Operation Bank Run 7th Of December:

YouTube Added: 09.10.2011

Many have already closed their accounts with the megabanks. I closed mine years ago, after the financial disaster in 2008 and the bank bailouts. Many are closing their accounts today.

In horrendous fashion, Citibank held more than twenty of their customers hostage and imprisoned them until police could come to arrest them all.

YouTube Added: 15.10.2011

The video above shows a well-dressed customer of Citibank outside talking with another customer about having been inside and having tried to close her account. A plain-clothers officer then starts yelling from behind her and drags her and her friend inside the bank to be arrested with the other Citibank customers. This is simply egregious activity by the officers in New York and the megacorporation Citigroup.

The end of the international banking cartel, their fiat currency that is imploding society by design, and the revival of sound money is at hand. But we must first be sure to force these too big to fail banks into oblivion. Let us keep the pressure up on them, and force their monopolies to come down. If the government and our ‘elected representatives’ won’t stand up for the rule of law, then we must come together to enforce it ourselves through direct democracy and non-participation.

Tags: Anonymous, Bank of America, Banking, Citigroup, Economy, Global News, Hacker, Society, U.S.

YouTube

- Developing Story: People Arrested for Trying to Close Citibank Accounts (Gather, Oct. 15, 2011):

More ridiculous arrests coming out of New York today, as Citibank proves it’s just as bad, or even worse than Bank of America in how it treats its customers. Earlier today, about two dozen people formed a queue inside the Citibank building in order to close their accounts as a part of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Instead of allowing them to take their money elsewhere, the genius managers and security people in charge locked them inside and had them arrested.

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Tags: Banking, Citigroup, Dictatorship, Economy, Global News, Government, New World Order, Police, Police State, Politics, Society, U.S.

- 11 Facts You Need To Know About The Nation’s Biggest Banks (Think Progress, Oct 7, 2011):

The Occupy Wall Street protests that began in New York City more than three weeks ago have now spread across the country. The choice of Wall Street as the focal point for the protests — as even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said — makes sense due to the big bank malfeasance that led to the Great Recession.

While the Dodd-Frank financial reform law did a lot to ensure that a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis won’t occur — through regulation of derivatives, a new consumer protection agency, and new powers for the government to dismantle failing banks — the biggest banks still have a firm grip on the financial system, even more so than before the 2008 financial crisis. Here are eleven facts that you need to know about the nation’s biggest banks:

– Bank profits are highest since before the recession…: According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., bank profits in the first quarter of this year were “the best for the industry since the $36.8 billion earned in the second quarter of 2007.” JP Morgan Chase is currently pulling in record profits.

– …even as the banks plan thousands of layoffs: Banks, including Bank of America, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, and Credit Suisse, are planning to lay off tens of thousands of workers.

– Banks make nearly one-third of total corporate profits: The financial sector accounts for about 30 percent of total corporate profits, which is actually down from before the financial crisis, when they made closer to 40 percent.

– Since 2008, the biggest banks have gotten bigger: Due to the failure of small competitors and mergers facilitated during the 2008 crisis, the nation’s biggest banks — including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo — are now bigger than they were pre-recession. Pre-crisis, the four biggest banks held 32 percent of total deposits; now they hold nearly 40 percent.

– The four biggest banks issue 50 percent of mortgages and 66 percent of credit cards: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup issue one out of every two mortgages and nearly two out of every three credit cards in America.

– The 10 biggest banks hold 60 percent of bank assets: In the 1980s, the 10 biggest banks controlled 22 percent of total bank assets. Today, they control 60 percent.

– The six biggest banks hold assets equal to 63 percent of the country’s GDP: In 1995, the six biggest banks in the country held assets equal to about 17 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product. Now their assets equal 63 percent of GDP.

– The five biggest banks hold 95 percent of derivatives: Nearly the entire market in derivatives — the credit instruments that helped blow up some of the nation’s biggest banks as well as mega-insurer AIG — is dominated by just five firms: JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo.

– Banks cost households nearly $20 trillion in wealth: Almost $20 trillion in wealth was destroyed by the Great Recession, and total family wealth is still down “$12.8 trillion (in 2011 dollars) from June 2007 — its last peak.” Continue reading »

Tags: Bank of America, Banking, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Economy, Global News, Goldman Sachs, Government, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo & Co.

- Five Banks Account For 96% Of The $250 Trillion In Outstanding US Derivative Exposure; Is Morgan Stanley Sitting On An FX Derivative Time Bomb? (ZeroHedge, Sep. 24, 2011):

The latest quarterly report from the Office Of the Currency Comptroller is out and as usual it presents in a crisp, clear and very much glaring format the fact that the top 4 banks in the US now account for a massively disproportionate amount of the derivative risk in the financial system. Specifically, of the $250 trillion in gross notional amount of derivative contracts outstanding (consisting of Interest Rate, FX, Equity Contracts, Commodity and CDS) among the Top 25 commercial banks (a number that swells to $333 trillion when looking at the Top 25 Bank Holding Companies), a mere 5 banks (and really 4) account for 95.9% of all derivative exposure (HSBC replaced Wells as the Top 5th bank, which at $3.9 trillion in derivative exposure is a distant place from #4 Goldman with $47.7 trillion). The top 4 banks: JPM with $78.1 trillion in exposure, Citi with $56 trillion, Bank of America with $53 trillion and Goldman with $48 trillion, account for 94.4% of total exposure. As historically has been the case, the bulk of consolidated exposure is in Interest Rate swaps ($204.6 trillion), followed by FX ($26.5TR), CDS ($15.2 trillion), and Equity and Commodity with $1.6 and $1.4 trillion, respectively. And that’s your definition of Too Big To Fail right there: the biggest banks are not only getting bigger, but their risk exposure is now at a new all time high and up $5.3 trillion from Q1 as they have to risk ever more in the derivatives market to generate that incremental penny of return.

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Tags: Bank of America, Banking, Citigroup, Derivatives, Derivatives market, Economy, Global News, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo & Co.

YouTube Added: 22.08.2011

- Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Fed’s Secret Loans (Bloomberg, Aug 22, 2011):

Citigroup Inc. (C) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) were the reigning champions of finance in 2006 as home prices peaked, leading the 10 biggest U.S. banks and brokerage firms to their best year ever with $104 billion of profits.

By 2008, the housing market’s collapse forced those companies to take more than six times as much, $669 billion, in emergency loans from the U.S. Federal Reserve. The loans dwarfed the $160 billion in public bailouts the top 10 got from the U.S. Treasury, yet until now the full amounts have remained secret.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s unprecedented effort to keep the economy from plunging into depression included lending banks and other companies as much as $1.2 trillion of public money, about the same amount U.S. homeowners currently owe on 6.5 million delinquent and foreclosed mortgages. The largest borrower, Morgan Stanley (MS), got as much as $107.3 billion, while Citigroup took $99.5 billion and Bank of America $91.4 billion, according to a Bloomberg News compilation of data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, months of litigation and an act of Congress.

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Tags: Bank of America, Banking, Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Global News, Goldman Sachs, Hypo Real Estate, Morgan Stanley, RBS, Societe Generale, UBS, Wall Street

YouTube Added: 16.04.2011

Tags: Bonds, Citigroup, Debt, Derivatives, Derivatives market, Fed, Federal Reserve, Global News, Government, Obama administration, U.S.

Flashback:

- Former Assistant Secretary of Housing: The U.S. is the Global Leader in Illegal Money Laundering

See also:

- Matt Taibbi On RT: ‘Nothing Stops Big Banks From Ripping Off People AGAIN’

- Matt Taibbi: The People vs. Goldman Sachs (Rolling Stone)

- S.E.C. Files Were Illegally Destroyed, Lawyer Says (New York Times, August 17, 2011):

WASHINGTON — An enforcement lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission says that the agency illegally destroyed files and documents related to thousands of early-stage investigations over the last 20 years, according to information released Wednesday by Congressional investigators.

The destroyed files comprise records of at least 9,000 preliminary inquiries into matters involving notorious individuals like Bernard L. Madoff, as well as several major Wall Street firms that later were the subject of scrutiny after the 2008 financial crisis, including Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and Bank of America.

The S.E.C. is the very agency that is charged with making sure that Wall Street firms retain records of their own activities, and has brought numerous enforcement cases against firms for failing to do so.

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Tags: Bank of America, Banking, Citigroup, Crime, Economy, Global News, Goldman Sachs, Government, Lehman Brothers, Politics, SEC, U.S., Wall Street

Flashback:

- Former Assistant Secretary of Housing: The U.S. is the Global Leader in Illegal Money Laundering

See also:

- Matt Taibbi On RT: ‘Nothing Stops Big Banks From Ripping Off People AGAIN’

- Matt Taibbi: The People vs. Goldman Sachs (Rolling Stone)

- Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes? (Rolling Stone, August 17, 2011):

A whistleblower claims that over the past two decades, the agency has destroyed records of thousands of investigations, whitewashing the files of some of the nation’s worst financial criminals.

Imagine a world in which a man who is repeatedly investigated for a string of serious crimes, but never prosecuted, has his slate wiped clean every time the cops fail to make a case. No more Lifetime channel specials where the murderer is unveiled after police stumble upon past intrigues in some old file – “Hey, chief, didja know this guy had two wives die falling down the stairs?” No more burglary sprees cracked when some sharp cop sees the same name pop up in one too many witness statements. This is a different world, one far friendlier to lawbreakers, where even the suspicion of wrongdoing gets wiped from the record.

That, it now appears, is exactly how the Securities and Exchange Commission has been treating the Wall Street criminals who cratered the global economy a few years back. For the past two decades, according to a whistle-blower at the SEC who recently came forward to Congress, the agency has been systematically destroying records of its preliminary investigations once they are closed. By whitewashing the files of some of the nation’s worst financial criminals, the SEC has kept an entire generation of federal investigators in the dark about past inquiries into insider trading, fraud and market manipulation against companies like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and AIG. With a few strokes of the keyboard, the evidence gathered during thousands of investigations – “18,000 … including Madoff,” as one high-ranking SEC official put it during a panicked meeting about the destruction – has apparently disappeared forever into the wormhole of history.

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Tags: Bank of America, Banking, Citigroup, Crime, Economy, Global News, Goldman Sachs, Government, Lehman Brothers, Matt Taibbi, Politics, SEC, U.S., Wall Street