Washington, D.C.— Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Responsible, Probative & Relevant Journalism
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects what never was and never will be - Thomas Jefferson.
Do you love your freedom? If you love your freedom, thank the vets. Any of you here serving in uniform, past or present, raise your hand. We’re going to thank you for our freedom. God bless you guys! We salute you! We honor you! Thank you! I am so proud to be [...]
America’s Community Banks are responsible depositories, business lenders, community leaders, and prudent fiduciaries of other people’s money, savings and property. Real banks still exist, but they are threatened by the irresponsible actions of pseudo-banks and other quasi-criminal organizations that engage in high-risk gambling and high stakes trading with our bank deposits, IRAs, jobs and governmental [...]
avarice
noun
realm: General
Manic greed, miserly behavior, hoarding of wealth or riches.
Foundations
Avarice is reserved for the most excessive compulsion toward greedy behavior.
Examples
American and international bankers ( band of brothers ) who push money around and take irresponsible risks with other people’s money for their own benefit.
Jeannie Hoover did a daily Kindergarten kids show early in the morning. She was paired with me when I was Smokey the Cowboy. Jean and I made personal appearances including the famous Pumpkin Festival in Circleville.
Twin Rivers Drive
In A Word, Live Television Was Exhilarating
Today, texting and telephone captured video are commonplace. Even high school students [...]
Deficit trends of this level are not sustainable. Beginning to correct them will require cutting deficits enough to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio at a manageable level so it is no longer rising. This requires cutting the deficit to 3 percent of GDP. This Administration is committed to achieving the goal [...]
This announcement allows us to begin the thought process that’s going to answer so many of the questions that we all care about. We can’t get this halfway right or three-quarters of the way right. We have to get this really, really right.
Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
Publisher, The New York Times
Times Square
Restoring Sanity To Journalistic Enterprise
Reality [...]
In a matter of days, FRBNY officials recognized that, although the $85 billion credit line permitted AIG to meet billions of dollars of collateral calls and thus avoid an immediate bankruptcy, its terms were unworkable. Among other things, the interest rate imposed upon AIG was so onerous that, if unaddressed, the [...]
High Speed Computers Push Money Around At The Speed Of Light
The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened up an investigation into high-speed-trading practices, in particular the ability of some of the most powerful computers to jump to the head of the trading queue and — in a fraction of a millisecond — capture the evanescent trading spread before the rest of the market does.
Landon Thomas Jr.
New York Times
Nearly everyone knows that the word’s biggest and most powerful banks have done something terrible. Based on media reports, it’s increasingly clear that most Americans believe banks are out of control. Absent a clear understanding of how banks have changed, and why they are so dangerous to both our economy and political stability, few Americans know very much about what the supposed bad bankers did, or how they did it. Nor have we fully grasped the degree to which America’s Band Of Brothers mentality has infected banks and banking worldwide.
World’s 50 Largest Financial Institutions
( Ranked by Assets Based on 2008 data )
2008 Rank Institution Assets ($billions) Nationality 1 Royal Bank of Scotland 3,807,892 United Kingdom 2 Deutsche Bank 2,974,163 Germany 3 BNP Paribas 2,494,412 France 4 Barclays Bank 2,459,148 United Kingdom 5 HSBC Holdings 2,354,266 United Kingdom 6 Crédit Agricole Group 2,268,310 France 7 Citigroup 2,187,631 USA 8 UBS 2,019,173 Switzerland 9 Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group 1,817,571 Japan 10 Bank of America Corp 1,715,746 USA 11 Société Générale 1,577,745 France 12 JP Morgan Chase & Co 1,562,147 USA 13 UniCredit 1,504,134 Italy 14 Mizuho Financial Group 1,494,960 Japan 15 ING Bank 1,463,437 Netherlands 16 Banca Româneasca 1,390,853 Romania 17 Santander Central Hispano 1,343,905 Spain 18 HBOS 1,336,299 United Kingdom 19 Credit Suisse Group 1,208,956 Switzerland 20 ICBC 1,188,800 China 21 Fortis Bank 1,129,417 Belgium 22 Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group 1,072,562 Japan 23 Commerzbank 907,514 Germany 24 China Construction Bank Corporation 903,291 China 25 Dexia 889,981 Belgium 26 Intesa San Paolo 843,371 Italy 27 Rabobank Group 839,840 Netherlands 28 Agricultural Bank of China 828,263 China 29 Bank of China 820,198 China 30 Nordea Bank Norge 816,115 Norway 31 Crédit Mutuel 814,518 France 32 Wachovia Corporation 782,896 USA 33 BBV Argentaria 739,296 Spain 34 Dresdner Bank 736,359 Germany 35 Lloyds 707,966 United Kingdom 36 Danske Bank 660,006 Denmark 37 Landesbank Baden-Württemberg 652,766 Germany 38 Groupe Caisse d’Epargne 638,179 France 39 DZ BANK Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank 634,973 Germany 40 Bayerische Landesbank 611,864 Germany 41 Hypo Real Estate Holding 589,098 Germany 42 National Australia Bank 584,861 Australia 43 Wells Fargo & Co 575,442 USA 44 Nordea Group 572,728 Sweden 45 Norinchukin Bank 527,504 Japan 46 KBC Group 523,476 Belgium 47 Groupe Banques Populaires 513,639 France 48 Commonwealth Bank Group 443,905 Australia 49 WestLB 421,834 Germany 50 ANZ Banking Group 419,434 Australia Sources: The Banker, Reuters
Here in the City of London, where banking has taken on the same characteristics as in the U.S., the schism between ordinary citizens and greedy and incentivized bankers has taken on a decidedly angry tone.
Newsroom Magazine’s U.K. based Correspondent Tony Koorlander recently reported on the immense ignorance about what matters most problem not being limited to the U.S., when he wrote,
The ignorance is prevalent ( here ) . . . but not quite on the issues discussed in this survey. Like all societies, the media have blinded the public with innuendos, unresearched newsblasts and the politicians usually join the bandwagon in an attempt to seek popular votes.”
But Koorlander has also reported that most of his countrymen remain ill-informed on the realities of global banking and international finance.
I believe there is considerable danger of America being seen as the Big Bad Boy with the Big Bad Stick, backed up by a load of short-termist politicians with inward looking agendas. This is the view that perpetrates the European Union, and it is, I’m afraid, entirely created by the self interest perspective of your International Broadcasters who seem somewhat possessed with the brevity of sensationalism rather than the in depth analysis and detail of fact.
Where are the ‘good men and true’ in the American profile being presented to the media hungry consumers of the World at large?
Nor do millions of Americans realize that what passes for banking today is dramatically different from their perceptions or that the power center in banking is no longer the U.S. Only two American banks made it into the top ten based on assets.
CitiGroup, ranked at 7th on the most recent data ( 2008 ), while Bank of America earned 10th place. Massive changes in these institutions in 2009 likely changed the top 10, but the prevalence of European banks seems destined to remain for many years.
What our table of the top 50 does no reveal is the extent to which the so-called banks on this list remain responsible depository institutions for some of the most pernicious wheeler-dealer banks under investigation are the Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC Holdings — all in the United Kingdom.
Until the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission completes its work this fall, the extent of high-risk behavior by and between what were once highly responsible and prudent institutions will now be fully known. What we do know is that the blending of depository banking and financial services has produced an unholy alliance that threatens most, if not all G-20 nations.
The culprits behind the collapse of credit markets in the fall of 2008 were financial institutions that dealt in one or more types of high risk transactions. Some of these institutions were Wall Street wheeler-dealers including Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns.
Others were onetime mainline banks such as CitiBank, JPMorgan, Bank Of America and Bank Of New York who expanded beyond deposit only business models to engage in one or more forms of securities trading, leveraging or arbitrage.
A few regional banks, such as IndyMAC in California and Washington Mutual were more traditional banks who bet lavishly on, and made immense profits from the creation and resale of high risk mortgage products.
Then there were support players — non banking firms such as Goldman Sachs, Standard and Poor’s and American International Group. These firms provided illusionary insurance, or dealt in or with derivative securities, or offered high priced and usually ill-informed opinions on the validity and/or quality of certain securities or off-exchange transactions.
Some, but not all of these institutions, along with many other specialized traders and market makers, also engaged in a super-secret, high speed, computer-driven trading game known as statistical arbitrage. While statistical arbitrage has not been specifically named as a causal factor in the collapse of mortgage-backed securities, it is the ultimate ( highly profitable ) push-money around game.
In Singapore, one source told us, “They have immensely large computer networks in massive math calculating neural mode to rapidly forecast financial trends and automatically time trades in order to earn immense profits.”
Some market technicians see statistical arbitrage as more of a license to steal than a bonafide market making or arbitrage activity. The banks and trading firms that employ statistical arbitrage techniques cry foul at such charges, citing their activities as legitimate market making and trading. Still, the interference of high speed computers in public markets has a clear and sinister feel to it.
In Singapore, one source told us, “They have immensely large computer networks in massive math calculating neural mode to rapidly forecast financial trends and automatically time trades in order to earn immense profits.”
This incredibly sophisticated machinery can outperform any human or group in terms of the accuracy of determining a momentary blip on the international markets. The determination to move funds occurs in a nanosecond based on years of financial data and neural understanding.
We are no longer controlled by a bank consortium that relies on insider dealing or overt speculative trading, we are now at the mercy of a competing set of supercomputers … who have no conscience, no qualms – no discernment and worse still … a possibly inconsistent piece of code that will send our financial stability into a downward spiraling demise.
In a September 2009 article about the big players in statistical arbitrage, and their tools, the New York Times, in an article written by Landon Thomas, Jr., quoted one firm’s traders concerning alternately whacking and then bullying up oil prices for their own immense profits. While such activities are not visible, or well understood by most Americans, everyone is a daily witness to the impact of bank and financial institution intervention in commodities and securities markets as evidenced in daily fluctuation in the prices of gasoline and other commodities.
At the height of the oil price run-up in 2008 some experts claimed that as much as one third the cost of oil was due to speculation and what was previously unlawful manipulation. Not only is the average American made to pay significantly more for commodities including natural gas and heating oil, it is his money the speculators bet.
American financial institutions are not alone in raking in immense fortunes from artificially inflating the value, or trading cost of nearly every type of commodity, security or derivative. As is made clear from the table to the right, the speculative binge and immensely leveraged trading using other people’s money is now an established reality on world banking and finance.
Thus, most of the world’s largest financial institutions were principal players in some form of money sifting activity — ranging from market making in high risk securities and equities, house account trading, client account trading, and a broad range of futures market activity.
While some of these firms either are banks, meaning acceptors of depository funds, or chose to become banks when the credit markets collapsed in the fall of 2008, they were also uncontrolled, unaudited and unregulated gambling operations. Most of the firms that survived, including those bailed out directly, or indirectly by massive infusions of TARP monies, are still engaging in some or all of the high risk trading and arbitrage activities that bankrupted them only 18 months ago.
While we know some of the players who bet heavily on derivatives or pushed money around the world through statistical arbitrage, or other high risk strategies, we don’t know much about which big banks did not take inordinate risks with depositor monies or investor equity.
Perhaps the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission will open the closed doors of big time finance to show how the world was swindled so badly, and by whom.
