When Obama nominated current White House chief of staff and former Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew for Treasury Secretary all the main stream press could talk about was his loopy signature.
You f---ing Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we‟re not going to deal with Iranians. -- SCB‟s Group Executive Director
Laudering money for rogue nations and drug cartels seems to be par for the course. The latest scandal is this bomb: a British bank has been laundering Iranian money for over a decade. The New York State Department of Financial services filed an Order Pursuant to Banking Law § 39, which that describes willful and egregious violations of law by Standard Chartered Bank, aka SCB. The above quote is part of the documentation against SCB.
For almost ten years, SCB schemed with the Government of Iran and hid from regulators roughly 60,000 secret transactions, involving at least $250 billion, and reaping SCB hundreds of millions of dollars in fees. SCB‟s actions left the U.S. financial system vulnerable to terrorists, weapons dealers, drug kingpins and corrupt regimes, and deprived law enforcement investigators of crucial information used to track all manner of criminal activity.
China is now mainlined directly into U.S. debt. Reuters uncovered an astounding thing. The U.S. Treasury has literally set up a direct line for China to buy U.S. treasuries, bypassing brokers and any third party. China is the only country with this privledge. Those thinking this administration would confront China on currency manipulation, think again. Instead our government gave China real time direct access to dynamically control the value of the Yuan.
China can now bypass Wall Street when buying U.S. government debt and go straight to the U.S. Treasury, in what is the Treasury's first-ever direct relationship with a foreign government, according to documents viewed by Reuters.
China, which holds $1.17 trillion in U.S. Treasuries, still buys some Treasuries through primary dealers, but since June 2011, that route hasn't been necessary.
The documents viewed by Reuters show the U.S. Treasury Department has given the People's Bank of China a direct computer link to its auction system, which the Chinese first used to buy two-year notes in late June 2011.
China can now participate in auctions without placing bids through primary dealers. If it wants to sell, however, it still has to go through the market.
The change was not announced publicly or in any message to primary dealers.
Yes the title is crass, vulgar. Yet the never ending trading of mortgage backed securities, previously titled toxic assets in some game of musical chairs justifies the analogy. Take just this latest revolving door as an example. Did you know a former New York Federal Reserve Official, in charge of overseeing AIG now works for AIG?
In an article several months ago in the UK's Telegraph, the sovereign credit default swap market made the news. Until now, not that much was made of the sovereign CDSes; in fact, many didn't even realize the existence, and contagion, of such a market.
Laurence Fink, CEO of BlackRock appears to have guided his company through the minefields of the 2007-2008 financial collapse and emerged a well-positioned entity.
The shear amount of information uncovered is staggering. Hopefully it will keep your interest.
Let me warm up here with a couple of interesting quotes.
"Gold was not selected arbitrarily by governments to be the monetary standard. Gold had developed for many centuries on the free market as the best money; as the commodity providing the most stable and desirable monetary medium." Murray N. Rothbard
Why Gold and Why Now?
"If you don't trust gold, do you trust the logic of taking a beautiful pine tree, worth about $4,000 - $5,000, cutting it up, turning it into pulp and then paper, putting some ink on it and then calling it one billion dollars?" Kenneth J. Gerbino
Ever wonder why banks and governments like a paper currency system? Why they fully embraced the Keynesian theory of deficit spending?
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