A Close Look At Fidelity, A Huge Financial Octopus

Elaine Meinel Supkis

For a variety of odd reasons, I decided to delve into the complex entity called 'Fidelity Investments®, a typical octopus of an organization that schlumped all over the planet, popping new arms and lopping off old ones over the years. It has some interesting intersections and name changes as well as encounters with the Security and Exchange Commission especially under Clinton's administration, no wonder they wanted to get rid of him an replace him with the monkey that has turned them all lose on us to do their worst! I contend, close supervision SAVES THEM FROM FOLLY, not that they appreciate this at all.

From Fidelity.com:

BOSTON, August 1, 2007 -- National Financial, a Fidelity Investments® company, today announced it has strengthened its alliance program with the addition of eight firms, including EverBank® Advisor Services1, one of the nation's largest privately held banks. Through EverBank, broker/dealers and their brokers are now able to access a selection of residential mortgage and home equity products.

EverBank is the first residential mortgage and lending member in National Financial's alliance program. The other new members in the alliance program include Beacon Research; BenefitProtect; Fixed Income Securities, LP; Forefield Inc.; NetWorth Services, Inc.; thinkorswim, inc. and Seabury & Smith, Inc.

"We have forged alliances with some of the most well-known organizations in the financial industry, providing broker/dealers a single point-of-access to a variety of technologies, resources and services designed to help them drive growth, create efficiency and manage risk," said Jody Meth, executive vice president of product management and development for National Financial. "National Financial's alliance program enables broker/dealers to select a provider that we believe offers a best-of-breed solution and meets the growing needs of our clients."

This little press announcement from the beginning of the month has a long list of names of new arms of this mega-octopusian organization. I like to look inside of these conglamorations to see if they send any messages. Many mega-near-monopolies skirt the laws as they add on superstructural layers. They long ago learned to keep the older names of things they absorb because this gives the illusion of choice when selling whatever to whomever. By the way, I still like useing the dative form of 'who' because it comes from ancient Germanic usages. Whommmmmmever. Heh. Back to the story: I took one look at the aren'twesoverycute name, 'thinkorswim'. Aside from the pun (pun attack! Danger!) and the lisping silliness, this is a very silly name for a company. I hope the CEO has to say this name outloud at least once a week. Just for the entertainment value. And he better lisp the last syllables.

They are a discount, online brokerage. Like everything else, this old profession is being hollowed out by technology and of course, outsourcing. Many an investor swears to buying and selling overseas rather than domestic sales. Globalization of everything under the sun is closely coupled with the rise of modern information structures and either cheap fuel or bigger transportation devices.

Giganticism coupled with electronic transmissions has completely changed the world since my childhood. Early prop planes have been dwarfed by huge jets that get bigger and bigger as profits from hauling shrink due to higher costs. When I used to fly DC 4s in the fifties, there was a high staff-passenger ratio. Today, with the mega monster jets coming online, there is an extremely low staff-passenger ratio and speed has increased and service collapsed. In Europe and Asia, train service sped up but they couldn't use giganticism like in air transport so it has withered on the vine in many places especially in the US.

When I was a child and my parents stationed in distant India or Africa, to call them meant passing messaged via telephone operators and it was quite funny how simple messages got garbled by the time it arrived at one end or the other. I remember the first telecommunications satellites. We could talk without this game of yelling simple messages! It was quite a relief for us kids to be able to call so long as our parents were not off to some totally incommunicato situation like deep in the Himalayan mountains.

With the computer revolution, direct communication sped up and soon the world was covered by a net of interfacing computer transmissions which ended up with the internet's amazing orb of interactions. I remember the early net: it was for NASA scientists and we could talk to our parents by typing out messages. Then we started, nearly instantly, spreading gossip about each other on this new net. I was even the subject of a flame war back in the mid-1980's when only scientists and students of computer or space sciences used the web. One of my sisters was an early target of early hackers on the new web, too.

Today, the web is part of the system that is tapping into global resources to transfer wealth but its weakness as far as money making was revealed very early on: increased competition meant falling profits which could be counteracted only by increasing volume. The NYT, for example, made much more money and an easier profit when it reached less than one million readers than it gets from one billion readers. For example, I used to buy it and now I read it for free online. So the reader/profit margin has nearly collapsed.

The need for giganticism is everywhere. No single entity survives on its own, instead, the world has seen a massive move towards consolidation and interactions whereby many related industries buy each other in and out until they resemble thickets or hedges and thus we get the present situation where any difficulty in the system instantly begins difficulties in an amazing array of allied or even distant organizations and systems. I want to examine Fidelity's mega-monster grouping to see how this works. And the purchase of an online brokerage that cuts profits from sales of stocks is intersting since Fidelity is a financial house that buys and sells its own stocks or buys others stocks. So of course, they want to own the system that does this because this way they can retrieve their own costs in their own deals as well as gain access to a diminishing profit base before it eats away at their traditional systems.

Here is the Fidelity Trust:

ASSET-BACKED SECURITIES include interests in pools of the following:
purchase contracts, financing leases, or sales agreements entered into by municipalities; lower-rated debt securities; or consumer loans. The value of these securities may be significantly affected by changes in interest rates, the market's perception of issuers, and the creditworthiness of the parties involved. Certain asset-backed securities rely on continued payments by a municipality, and may also be subject to prepayment risk.

MORTGAGE SECURITIES are interests in pools of commercial or residential mortgages, and include complex instruments such as collateralized mortgage obligations and stripped mortgage-backed securities. Mortgage securities may be issued by the U.S. Government or by private entities. For example, Ginnie Maes are interests in pools of mortgage loans insured or guaranteed by a U.S. Government agency. Because mortgage securities pay both interest and principal as their underlying mortgages are paid off, they are subject to prepayment risk. This is especially true for stripped securities. Also, the value of a mortgage security may be significantly affected by changes in interest rates. Some mortgage securities may have a structure that makes their reaction to interest rates and other factors difficult to predict, making their value highly volatile.

STRIPPED SECURITIES are the separate income or principal components of a debt security. The risks associated with stripped securities are similar to those of other debt securities, although stripped
securities may be more volatile and the value of certain types of stripped securities may move in the same direction as interest rates. U.S. Treasury securities that have been stripped by a Federal Reserve Bank are obligations issued by the U.S. Treasury.

This was filed with the SEC in 1996! More than 10 years ago. Note how they talk about this new trust that is really a close relative to the destructive trusts of the 1920's! They note right off the bat that the 'securities' were NOT secure at all but very much weakened or strengthened by interest rate changes. They mention the 'perception of issuers' as a RISK. Namely, issuers could, themselves, be seen as risky in themselves. And the credit worthiness of the people owing money is mentioned. Obviously, risky issuers coupled with poor-credit-worthy borrowers is seen, in the SEC filing, as RISKS. The second paragraph admits that 'stripped securities', the very things that are now destroying the world banking system, were especially risky and especially affected by changes in interest rates. They even admit that the big dealers in mortgages, the hedge funds and the other Fidelity-type conglomerates could make these things not only more difficult to understand but also even less secure and more changeable. As well as faster to react, exaggerating both increases or falls in interest rates.

The obvious dangers were admitted to when Fidelity opened the doors to their brand-new Trust Fund! It is annoying as hell to see everyone who built up this system, pretending everything is a mystery to themselves and they had NO IDEA these things would happen! The SEC, when this dangerous entity was proposed, was naive about the Federal Reserve. They bought into the hype that Greenspan was a conservative and would never, ever do something so radical and dangerous as to drop interest rates to 1% for a year during a time of rapidly rising energy costs! A system that is stable works differently from a destablized system.

When the tax cuts were first passed by the Republicans the same month Bush came to power, the Federal Reserve should have raised interest rates to make up for this sudden infusion of money into the markets. Instead, Greenspan began dropping rates rapidly when Bush first asked for huge tax cuts. This amazed and irritated me at the time. I knew what would happen next. The rate cuts were half way to 1% from 6% when 9/11 happened. Undercover of that event, Greenspan continued dropping rates to 1%, an astonishing number, one we have never seen before.

The effects were immediate and quite destructive: a frenzy of buying hit world markets and US consumption of foreign manufactured goods shot through the roof. Before Bush and Greenspan played their funny-money game, our trade deficit was below $100 billion a year and we fretted endlessly about it. After this funny money flood hit, caution was thrown to the wind and the rate of importation climbed EVEN as prices fell due to outsourcing all possible manufacturing and office work.

Back to Fidelity's filings with the SEC: far from being clueless as to the effects and dangers of their new funds, they knew perfectly well, what would happen if interest rates destabilized. So when Greenspan began dropping rates rapidly in tandem with GOP tax cuts, did Fidelity yell about this? Did they demand both stop? Did they give money to push Bush into office? HAHAHA. They rejoiced! They were happy as pigs in plop! They WANTED THIS.

An ancient Chinese curse: may your wishes come true.

All the big finance houses wanted four things: interest-free money from Greenspan, no oversight from the SEC or any government agencies and a resurrection of the 1920's trust funds. And huge tax cuts for themselves. They also wanted to get the Social Security 'savings' but failed in that mission. But the Republicans had lured the Democrats into overspending in the government since Reagan, allowing the Democrats to run social programs using this onerous tax on the working class that is heavier on the bottom 50% of workers and which the Republicans had doubled playing on fears the baby boomers wouldn't be able to retire.

Back to the falling profits angle: the ability of workers to tap into the profit streams from capitalism via unions and voting for parties that represent working class interests, was eating into the profits of the capitalists and technology, far from enriching them, was suddenly a danger because of the internet, the need to crush working class unions and to spread out motivated the corporate interests to move heaven and earth to transfer wealth via financial instruments offering debts in stead of pay raises.

This sytem which we call 'consumerism' was pioneered by giants like Walmart. They allowed the lowest levels of workers to gain credit so they could buy things that were sold with very small profit margins. As the sales grew, the need to drop prices while increasing margins grew and so all the sales in Walmart which began by selling American made goods turned into an outlet for Asian goods. Despite rising taxes and rising inflation in energy, health, housing and schooling, the average worker felt rich thanks to cheap credit and dropping prices.

But when the working class got hammered by the rising prices elsewhere as well as their own wages now dropping like a rock, they floundered for several years and are now drowing in debt. Each year of the cheap credit times brought by Greenspan put them deeper into debt. And unlike the well-to-do who can tap stable interest rates, nearly every debt owed by the lower classes were adjustable rates. Never, ever did I hear of buying something costing over $200,000, with a credit card!

Yet this is what Fidelity proposed doing in this little, obscure SEC filing. They were basically going to use Greenspan's power to run interest rates below the rate of inflation and turn it into a tool to lure people into buying housing with credit cards! Indeed, to this day, no one calls these fake 'mortgages', 'credit cards.' But what are they? The rate isn't stable. They have 'teaser rates' that are now an old feature created by credit card companies once they realized people would fall for that and soon be vulnerable to continuous rate hikes they can't control anymore. The falling profit margin created by modern information systems was solved by cutting the tie between a stable mortgage rate and housing!

The profits on paper from selling mortgages that were really open-ended credit cards make fortunes for all the many financial houses that encouraged this. Soon, everyone was offered these deals and the ruling rih rubbed their hands with glee at thoughts of perpetual financial slavery that would eat up the working class while keeping themselves rolling in dough for perpetuity. The forever money making machine was now going to grind out wealth forever and forever! The financiers would win totally, finally.

But early on they noticed a slight flaw in their little schemes: bankruptcy. The 'risks' they had to admit to the SEC in their own filings! How could they remove that danger? Ah! Human ingenuity strikes again! They used their money to buy enough Democrats to pass a bankruptcy bill that pretty much closed that door for good. Now they were ready to rock and roll.

These risky CDOs were repackaged as SECURE! They were not subject to bankruptcy at all, eh? Blood would flow from a million little stones! All the big houses began to create a huge number of hedge funds. These little puppies were designed to shield the parent corporation from risk. To redouble this, all these hedge funds were parked in various tiny islands offshore from the major banking centers so if they did get in trouble with this ridiculous scheme of theirs, they could run off to some territory swearing fealty to the corrupt and evil Queen of England who was shielded by British press laws and lots of lawyers who know my name, hello, chaps!

Hahaha. Well, there were a few flies in this scheme. Namely, a lot of rich investors like pension funds and rich people clipping coupons, who would also demand an accounting and the arrest of these scheming little monsters hiding under Her Majesty's ermine robes. Now that the working poor no longer can hold up the world's financial house, now that it is painfully obvious that Congress can't squeeze blood from stones, the whole thing is collapsing and along with it, the world's entire financial systems.

Here is this week's news about Fidelity from CNN Money:

By Patricia Sellers, Fortune editor-at-large
August 31 2007: 8:41 AM EDT

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The Yankee way of facing setbacks, as any Boston Brahmin knows, is to stiffen the upper lip and suffer in silence. As three of Fidelity Investments' key executives quit in rapid succession this year - mutual funds boss Steve Jonas in January, COO Bob Reynolds in April, and Ellyn McColgan, the head of operations and distribution, in August - the company's billionaire owner and CEO, Ned Johnson, has played to type. He has not gone out of his way to discuss the upheaval with worried employees. He hasn't admitted any problems in the press, which he has long shunned. Nor has he addressed another personnel matter, not even to Fidelity's senior brass: the health of his daughter, Abby, who runs the multibillion-dollar 401(k) and employer services division.
*snip*
Fidelity's talent exodus, meanwhile, continues. Abby's division has lost several key executives. In July, Jeff Carney, president of Fidelity Retirement Services, jumped to Bank of America, while EVP Michael Sternklar went to Mercer Human Resources Consulting. Star 401(k) salesman Bill McDermott is also leaving. "We're talking to people who we could never get out of Fidelity," says one recruiter who likes to poach from the company. "Now they're desperate to get out because there's no end in sight to the inconsistency of leadership."

Can Fidelity be saved by the same stupid, greedy git that got Fidelity in trouble in the first place? HAHAHA. Hint to anyone interested in keeping Fidelity alive: get rid of Mr. Jonas. Better still, arrest him. And of course he and his sick daughter won't tell anyone what is going on because the entire structure was turned into a bottomless pit from hell when they filed to do the stupid things they said they would do back in 1996 when they said they were going to go off the cliff in that SEC filing above! How painfully obvious is this????

All the rats that learned how to game this system they created in collusion with the entire Republican party and some top Democrats, are now jumping ship. Are they going to do good things? Are they rats or are they plague rats? Did these felonious rodents think they are geniuses who can make money magically appear forever or are they getting honest jobs scrubbing toilets or making toys in China? HAHAHA. Of course not, they are spreading the germs they carry! They are running to NEW con jobs so they can pretend it wasn't the system they created that is cratering world finances but rather, 'wrong choices' on the micro-scale. Each of these little dirty rats imagine they will tap into the magic money stream and continue to roll forwards.

Which is why they are all screaming at Bernanke to save them via low interest rates! This is the KEY to the KINGDOM of FUNNY MONEY! There is one problem to all this: at least 10% of the Magic Mountain of Money has to be real! You need savers somewhere. Back to the news story: Fidelity makes money off of pension money flowing in, needing to be protected from inflation that rages higher than mere interest rates offered by the government or banks. Everyone wants to pay less than inflation! But the Fed has to force rates to at least cover inflation which is why there has been a conspiracy to make inflation statistics lower than the rate of inflation! A vicious circle that eats away at the working class who has few protections from all these conspiracies to lower rates by crushing the working class. All these financial wizards are waving wands...AT BERNANKE. Demanding he fall under their spells so he can force everyone to play ever-riskier financial games in order to keep ahead of inflation.

But savings are dropping!!! OH NO!!! Why? Well, everyone is deep in debt, for starters. Thanks to all these little games turning mortgages into credit cards and of course, running credit cards so the real profits are from fees wrung from people behind in their payments. And unable to go bankrupt thanks to the stupid laws passed by our corrupt Congress. The mainspring for all this is in the Fed who has to 'expand' money supply by making it easier to get from the Fed thanks to super-low rates only this requires savers!

Again, that is the rock that punctures this pirate ship filled with plague rats hold! The baby boomers are retiring! The pension funds must pay out! There will be more and more houses for sale in industrial cities like Cleveland or Detriot, looking for buyers and finding none! And if they don't sell, the vacation houses in the South won't sell! And the dominoes will fall, not stand up higher and higher.

The hurry to lower rates is going to fail this time because of another force: China is no longer saving dollars. A developing story I have covered for years and years.

From Morningstar:

Fidelity Betting Big on Growth (and Homebuilders)
by Dan Lefkovitz | 05-22-07As Google and other top 10 holdings demonstrate, Fidelity portfolio managers will pay up for stocks. Morningstar equity analysts believe Google's share price vastly overestimates the company's growth potential. Apple, AT&T, Celgene, and Fortress Investment Group are also trading well above Morningstar's intrinsic value estimates.

But not all of Fidelity's moves are super-aggressive, in our view. The shop flashed contrarian stripes in buying beaten-down homebuilder stocks, as Morningstar equity analysts view Lennar, KB Home, and Centex as good buys. Bank of America, Cisco, Disney, and Western Union also look attractively valued to Morningstar equity analysts, so those additions may have been opportune. Why Fidelity sold down its PetroChina stake is unknown; we do know that Fidelity has no history of incorporating social criteria into its stock-picking.

Last May, Fidelity thought buying all thes big home builders who specialize in building baby boomer vacation/retirement homes would come back with a vengence once the Fed is muscled into dropping rates. Of course, this depends on energy being cheaper and the desire for this is overwhelming which is why we see in the news story after story about how evil the Iran Kitty really is. We must bomb Iran Kitty and steal all that oil. We can't back out of Iraq if Iran Kitty gets the oil. Iran Kitty won't sell us the oil, it will go to China instead. And not by ship but by pipeline! So we have to kill the cat in order to save the global banking system now that China is no longer giving us free loans by holding ever-weaker dollars.

Note also how Fidelity is increasing holdings in Bank of America that is the bank the rich financiers used to save Countrywide, a foul lending organization looted by its own officers that is in huge trouble because despite the bankrutpcy blood-from-stones laws, is facing bankruptcy due to the rising housing abandonments by former clients. The only reason Countrywide was being saved was pure, unadulterated fear. But the mess that is destroying the financial base of Countrywide is still growing, not shrinking. This is why everyone who knew perfectly well, the dangers of the present system also knows that the cure is to lower rates and being fools, they don't understand, the Fed can't lower rates unless someone saving dollars gives them permission to do this.

Because that someone might dump a trillion+ dollars into the world's banking system, killing the entire US economy, our money system and everything, it will all collapse instantly. And we will have another Great Depression.

Ah, here we are, again, the SEC in 2004! Fidelity is in trouble already and interest rates are very low. This is where Elito Spitzer steps in: Fidelity is listed in New York so even though the Republicans run DC, they can't force New York's government to overlook crimes. Nor can they pass laws preventing NY from investigating corporate frauds. As Elito Spitzer tried to pry open the locks of Fidelity's pirate chests, the staff was destroying the evidence as fast as possible. They knew they would be better off, being charged with destruction of evidence rather than much bigger frauds and crimes. They knew that if this was in the news a short time, the investors trusting them would not notice and therefore, not close their accounts.

Washington, D.C., and New York, Aug. 3, 2004 — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York Stock Exchange today announced the initiation and settlement of enforcement actions against Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC as a result of the alteration or destruction of documents in numerous Fidelity Brokerage branch offices. In settlement of these actions, Fidelity Brokerage will pay a total of $2 million, consisting of a $1 million civil penalty imposed by the SEC and a $1 million fine imposed by the NYSE. In addition to these coordinated enforcement actions, the NYSE separately took disciplinary actions in related cases against seven individuals.

In a joint investigation, the SEC and the NYSE found that between January 2001 and July 2002, Fidelity Brokerage violated the broker-dealer record-keeping requirements of the federal securities laws because employees in at least 21 of its 88 branch offices altered or destroyed the firm's books and records. The violations related to Fidelity Brokerage's annual internal inspections, which were designed to determine whether branch offices were complying with the firm's policies and procedures, NYSE rules, and the federal securities laws. The firm's managers pressured branch office employees to obtain perfect inspections and gave advance notice of when the inspections would occur. Certain Fidelity employees took advantage of the advance notification and improperly prepared for the inspections.

In preparing for these inspections, the employees discovered that some branch office records were incomplete or not completed in accordance with firm policies and procedures. The employees then altered or destroyed the records so that the inspectors would not discover the incomplete records. The records included new account applications, letters of authorization, and variable annuity forms maintained at the branch offices.

Would anyone sane entrust pension funds or investments and savings to such an organization? Will lawyers from Fidelity attack me for asking questions? HAHAHA again. Everyone looks away from these organizations because they use an army of lawyers to attack anyone looking at them. In this regard, they are very much like the Mafia that insures there are no witnesses to crimes by terrifying the witnesses and pressuring the news media to look away.

When the Mafia worked with unions, suddely they were in the news and pretty much crushed because anyone working with unions is destroyed since this is what the government does: destroy unions so that the people paying bribes to politicians can make higher profits off of smaller margins. A nice circle! The Fidelity story is also funny because the geniuses running Fidelity weren't fired by the Board of Directors for running an organization that violated SEC rules. I remember the Enron mess: the heads of Enron blamed everyone below themselves for all the many horrible things they did to make a profit. It also reminds me of how both Bush Sr. and Reagan both pretended they were 'out of the loop' during the Iran/Contra crimes. That were run out of the White House basement.

One of the many companies bought up by Fidelity, as we saw at the top of this article, Networth Services:

On October 4, 2002, the National Research Project (NRP) received the Commissioners Award for the successful design and implementation of a random audit of 50,000 taxpayers. NetBasis served as a critical component of this study which allowed the NRP to effectively access historical cost basis information. The financial securities data available through the NB2 system is used by institutions around the world including the United States Federal Reserve system, universities and endowments.

NB2 provides highly accurate cost basis data on stocks and mutual funds through batch and automated processes to government tax agencies, accounting firms, large financial institutions, shareholder services companies, and money managers.

At the same time the SEC was after Fidelity for bad bookkeeping, NRP was designing a system for checking taxpayers! In addition to this, it also devises systems for exploiting the laws concerning taxes so people can avoid paying taxes! A nifty scheme. Gets them coming and going. It is part and parcel of the present system to manipulate finances and to finess the present systems so they all can be exploited for profit. Note how the picture grows clearer: Fidelity wants to have a hand in as many systems as possible that lie in the dark heart of our present financial systems. I would suggest this push to get all these component parts into their own hands is not for beneficial reasons but so they can turn the wheel in their own direction and that is obvious: they want to limit risk by running as much of the system as possible and this includes govenrment agencies so that irritating episodes like in past won't trouble them so much. Enron, for example, wanted Bush to protect their schemes. They were his major sponsors when he pulled his coup. But the Senate went briefly to the Democrats so they were able to drag their heels on some of the things Bush wanted for Enron and it went under.

The proliferation of satellite entities used to hide things was supposed to stop after Enron's fall but instead, they moves out of the main office and offshore and became the proliferation of hedge funds. Which are still destroying their parent organizations as we see with Bears Strearns, just for example. Bear Stearns thought they could ditch their own sub-organizations and claim no responsiblity but they got hammered for this which scared the other financial houses like Fidelity which is why they are all being forced to spend precious profits, bankrolling and securing their hedging operations. This is why they are screaming for help and why Europe and America just wasted over half a trillion trying to keep this mess going.

Putnam is part of Fidelity and also has been in trouble:

Washington, DC, March 23, 2005--The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Putnam Investment Management, LLC (Putnam) will pay $40 million to settle charges related to Putnam's "shelf space" arrangements with broker-dealers. The Commission issued an order that finds Putnam failed to adequately disclose to the Putnam Funds' Board of Trustees and the Putnam Funds' shareholders the conflicts of interest that arose from these arrangements for increased visibility within the broker-dealers' distribution systems. The $40 million penalty will be distributed to the affected Putnam Funds.

Tracking and stopping conflicts of interest become more and more difficult as the various big funds buy up or suck into their organizations, smaller funds. And tracking these are hard as hell! As I roamed about within the inside of Fidelity's many connections and changes of name. Keeping an eye on a ball rolling across a landscape that is filled with rifts and mountains is very difficult. Putnam is a story all by itself! Note how the $40 million wasn't given to the government, it was the government FORCING the heads of Putnam to give these funds to....ITSELF!!! Gads. This entire story makes me angry. The guys scamming Putnam to skim off profits so they could give themselves huge bonuses and goodies, they were cheating their own organization! And they used their own conflicting system built to be conflicting so they could exploit this inside mess and enrich themselves. Of course, the collapse of confidence this caused hurt them but not enough to drive them out of business...yet.

Here is their own history from their homepage:

1937

Putnam is founded by George Putnam Sr. with the establishment of The George Putnam Fund of Boston, a balanced mutual fund offering a flexible portfolio of stocks and bonds.

The Social Security Act of 1937 prompts employers to seek advice on retirement programs.

1982
MMC consolidates its insurance program management business in a separate entity; in 1990, it is renamed Seabury & Smith, Inc. after two former chairmen, Charles W. Seabury and Hermon D. Smith.

2003
At Putnam, inappropriate market timing by a few investment professionals is discovered. MMC installs new leadership at Putnam and institutes new policies and procedures to strengthen compliance. Restitution is pledged to affected shareholders of Putnam funds.

2004
MMC confronts significant issues raised by New York regulators about improper conduct at Marsh. MMC cooperates fully with the investigation and conducts its own comprehensive internal review. MMC names new leadership, introduces significant business reforms to ensure complete transparency in dealing with clients, and institutes new compliance procedures. Michael G. Cherkasky is named president and CEO of MMC upon the resignation of MMC chairman and CEO Jeffrey W. Greenberg.

Exit one bad set of leaders and continue onwards. Weakened by all this, Putnam became part of various other interlocking organizations and ended up on Fidelity's lap. After 2004, Putman's utility as a means of draining funds into the pockets of whoever was running it was used up for a while. And this pushed forwards the schemes to make a profit off of the new credit-cardization of American mortgages which was taking off. The basic dishonesty of the present system reveals itself in all these seemingly disparate ways. The US has not been a strong economy for quite a while and since the Bush tax cuts and Greenspan interest rates cuts, we have been a very ill economy indeed! Even this week's speeches by Bush and Bernanke and a host of other yappers have all been launched with the ritualistic line, 'America is still a great economy, a strong economy.' Which is a downright, flat lie!

The many twists and turns and evasions of the guys trying to enrich themselves off of our dying economic system is a symptom of this deadly disease's progress. The switch in leadership at Putnam didn't fix the true problem, it probably made it much worse. All the financial houses were needing the same crutches: tax cuts and interest rate cuts, in order to keep things going. The regulators of this system can't protect it from its own follies because any time a road to illicit wealth is cut off by regulators, these people move into new schemes and open new holes up so their rats can run riot some more, eating up the world's wealth.

The fact that the US can't admit it is the #1 rat eating the world's wealth is why we are getting into more and more serious trouble. And this is causing a lot of mayhem in the world. Significantly, in the Middle East as we try to conquer Palestine without looking too much like Hitler and why we are, like him, expanding our wars there. The wealth lying in this region is both religious and physical. The desire to fix our messes by messing up the Middle East is overwhelming.

Deep inside the data surrounding this Fidelity story is the crazy mess of the Walmart executives taking out life insurance on its workers without telling them.

From Findlaw:

Facts Relating to the Dismissal Motion

Wal-Mart’s claims arise out of its purchase from the insurer-defendants of
some 350,000 corporate-owned life insurance (“COLI”) policies, under which
Wal-Mart was named as the beneficiary. Those COLI policies, which insured the
lives of Wal-Mart’s employees, were purchased as part of a plan whereby the
insurers granted Wal-Mart loans that were used to pay the premiums on the
policies. Wal-Mart would then deduct the interest payments on those loans from
its income for purposes of reducing its federal income taxes.

During the 1980s
and early 1990s, many large corporate employers besides Wal-Mart had purchased
COLI policies under similar tax-reducing COLI plans.

Defendant AIG Life Insurance Company (“AIG”) is a Delaware corporation with its principal
place of business in Wilmington, Delaware. Defendant Westport Management Services, Inc.
(“Westport”) is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Trumbull,
Connecticut. Westport served as AIG’s representative in connection with the policies at issue in
this case. Defendant Hartford Life Insurance Company (“Hartford”) is a Connecticut
corporation with its principal place of business in Hartford, Connecticut. Defendant
International Corporate Marketing Group, LLC (“ICMG”) is a Delaware limited liability
company with its principal place of business in Florham, New Jersey. ICMG served as
Hartford’s representative in connection with the policies at issue in this case. In this Opinion,
AIG, Hartford, and their respective representatives are referred to collectively as “the insurer-
defendants.” Defendants Seabury & Smith, Inc., Marsh Financial Services, Marsh, Inc. and
Marsh & McLennan National Marketing Corporation (“the Marsh entities”), and National
Benefits Group, Inc. (“NBG”) acted as insurance brokers for Wal-Mart in obtaining the
insurance policies at issue in this case. In this Opinion, the Marsh Entities and NBG are referred
to collectively as “the broker-defendants.”

Another favorable benefit of the COLI plan was that any policy benefits paid out thereunder
would be tax exempt.

In August 1993, Wal-Mart retained the broker-defendants to advise it about
using COLI policies to obtain tax benefits. After proposals from several insurance
companies were received, the broker-defendants recommended that Wal-Mart
purchase COLI policies from AIG and Hartford. The broker-defendants also
recommended that Wal-Mart create and use a Georgia “grantor trust” as the
vehicle to purchase the policies, so that Georgia law would govern any “insurable
interest” issues that might arise after the policies were purchased. The broker-
defendants advised Wal-Mart that Georgia law would provide a favorable result if
any employee(s) challenged whether Wal-Mart had a legally valid insurable
interest in the lives of its workers.

Between 1993 and 1995, Wal-Mart purchased approximately 350,000 COLI
policies from the insurer-defendants, and retained Marsh, Inc. to administer and
service those policies. Wal-Mart sought—and obtained—assurances from both the
insurer defendants and the broker defendants that: (i) the policies complied with
the Internal Revenue Code, (ii) future changes to the tax law were unlikely to
impact the policies adversely, and (iii) Wal-Mart had a valid insurable interest in
the lives of its employees.

Through 1995, Wal-Mart claimed the federal tax deductions as contemplated
under the COLI plan. In 1996, however, the legal landscape changed. As part of
the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”), Congress

prospectively disallowed interest deductions for loans used to fund COLI plans.
HIPAA also provided for “transitional relief” that allowed taxpayer companies to
take deductions in 1997 and 1998 for up to a maximum of 20,000 COLI policies.
HIPAA did not, however, disallow any deductions that were taken before January
1, 1996. In response to the HIPAA legislation, Wal-Mart immediately began
“unwinding” its COLI policies, although it took whatever deductions for 1997 and
1998 were allowed under HIPAA’s transitional relief provision.

Of importance to Wal-Mart's claims is that HIPAA eliminated the
deductibility of interest payments for loans funding COLI policies prospectively,
but did not disallow deductions taken before 1996; i.e., retrospectively. In 1997,
nonetheless, the United States Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) brought several
lawsuits in which it sought to disallow retrospectively COLI-related tax deductions
that the defendants in those cases had taken before 1996. In those lawsuits the IRS
characterized the COLI programs as “sham transactions.” Wal-Mart was not
included among the companies that were named as defendants in the IRS lawsuits.
The first of the IRS cases, Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. v. C.I.R.,

After those adverse decisions were handed down, Wal-Mart negotiated a
settlement with the IRS. In that settlement, which was concluded in 2002, most of
the COLI-related tax deductions that Wal-Mart had claimed before 1996 were
retrospectively disallowed.

Separate and apart from the tax deductibility issue, beginning in 2001 Wal-
Mart found itself confronted with lawsuits brought by the estates of deceased
employees, wherein the estates claimed that Wal-Mart had no legally valid
insurable interest in its employees’ lives. In August 2002, in one of these lawsuits,
Mayo v. Hartford Life Ins. Co., the Court held that Texas law, rather than Georgia
law, governed the insurable interest question, and that under Texas law Wal-Mart

In its complaint, Wal-Mart alleges that the IRS was threatening litigation against it, and that in
the face of the decisions in Winn-Dixie, In re CM Holding, and American Electric Power, Inc.
Wal-Mart had little choice but to settle. In their answering brief the defendants argue that Wal-
Mart “voluntarily” settled with the IRS, and point to cases decided after that settlement which
found that the deductions were not sham transactions. See, Dow Chem. Co. and Subsidiaries v.
U.S., 250 F.Supp.2d 748 (E.D. Mich. 2003) appeal pending, No. 00-10331-BC (6
th
Cir.) (filed
Oct. 10, 2003). For purposes of a motion to dismiss, however, we accept as true all of the
plaintiff’s well-pleaded facts. It is for the trial court ultimately to resolve whether Wal-Mart
should have settled with the IRS.
*snip*
Wal-Mart’s Chancery complaint alleges several claims arising out of both
the retrospective disallowance of the COLI-related tax deductions and the adverse
“insurable interest” litigation. Specifically, Wal-Mart’s complaint asserts claims
against all defendants for: (i) unjust enrichment and restitution, (ii) breach of
fiduciary duty, (iii) equitable fraud, (iv) breach of contract, (v) violation of the
Delaware Consumer Fraud Act, and (vi) declaratory relief. Wal-Mart also asserts a
separate claim against the broker defendants for negligence.

With one possible exception, the gravamen of those claims is that the
defendants failed to disclose material facts and risks of the COLI plan at the time
that Wal-Mart, in reliance upon the defendants’ advice, purchased the COLI
policies.
*snip*
The relief that Wal-Mart seeks is an award of money damages equal to the
“hard dollar losses” that Wal-Mart incurred by reason of the failure of the
contemplated benefits of the COLI policies. Wal-Mart also seeks to recover all
profits the defendants made in connection with the COLI transactions. In addition
to and apart from damages, Wal-Mart seeks a declaratory judgment that the
defendants are liable for any future losses Wal-Mart may incur that are associated
with the failed policies, including the costs of future “insurable interest” litigation
to which Wal-Mart may be subjected. Importantly, however, Wal-Mart does not
seek to recover any COLI-related deductions that were prospectively disallowed
under HIPAA. Rather, Wal-Mart seeks to recover only those tax benefits that were
disallowed retrospectively as a result of the adverse federal court rulings, plus the
costs it incurred as a result of the insurable interest litigation.
In December 2002, the defendants moved to dismiss Wal-Mart’s complaint
on the ground that all Wal-Mart’s claims were time barred and (alternatively) that
Wal-Mart’s complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.
The Court of Chancery granted the motion on the first ground, concluding as a
*snip*
The Court grounded that conclusion upon various news articles, all
published between 1992 and 1995, that discussed certain risks related to COLI
policies. The Court also considered two technical advisory memoranda (“TAM”)
that the IRS had issued to companies other than Wal-Mart. Those TAMs
expressed the IRS’s legal position that COLI interest deductions should be
disallowed because they were “sham” transactions.

Walmart sued the financial advisors who suggested Walmart...and a host of other American corporations...be able to cut taxes by taking out life insurance on their employees. As an added bonus, these same employees, when they died, enriched the executive officers who could collect funds. When this was revealed, a shudder of revulsion ran through America. The true nature of the vultures and hell hounds running our financial systems was briefly illuminated. There was now incentive for corporations to work their employees to death! To withhold health care!

This ended up in court as outraged families sued to get the life insurance funds that were secretly taken out on their loved ones. Then Walmart sued their advisors. Everyone sues. And the government had to close that little tax loophole. Since this case was judged, things have only gotten worse because we have had 7 years of nearly 100% Republican rule. And of course, this meant opening many a rat hole for these creatures to rush into the public and private wheal and steal.

Emailed by a reader, from the IHT:

Politicians, regulators and financial specialists outside the United States are seeking a role in oversight of American markets, banks and rating agencies in the wake of recent problems related to subprime mortgages.

Their argument is simple: The United States is exporting financial products, but losses to investors in other countries suggest that American regulators are not properly monitoring the products or alerting investors to the risks.

"We need an international approach, and the United States needs to be part of it," said Peter Bofinger, a member of the German government's economics advisory board and a professor at the University of Würzburg.

The calls for someone to regulate America rise. And they ought to rise! The philosophy of the leaders in the US is pitched towards trying to find some magical, often destructive means of profit from systems that have little profit potential left except for quasi-legal or totally immoral and utterly illegal ways. The destruction of the classic mortgage systems set up over a thousand years of tweaking how to buy and sell houses is a classic example. We can see from this examination of Fidelity how the temptation to destroy old systems so a bunch of guys can get rich quicker MUST be curbed! The 'new' finances we have set up in America are all based on exploiting outsiders especially outsiders who save money or make profits off of selling here in the US. And this is why the whole system has to be examined in whole and not as small parts while also taking apart the inner machinery that is the working parts of this system. I felt like a watch maker trying to find all the inner gears inside of clever clock. These gears all interlock and drive each other, they are chosen for this purpose. And the whole world is part of this system. Fidelity and Putnam both have reached overseas to expand their influence and extend their ability to milk present systems for personal gain.

There is no way there can be an international organization that can control this if the top empire in the world, an empire that is filled with WMD and is openly talking about disarming and invading even more countries with oil, there is no way we can be stopped externally except by another empire! And there are two such empires capable of doing this and thinking about doing this. Only they won't fix our arrogance and our desire to take over everything and suck it down, but they can stop us in our tracks. By dumping $2 trillion in FOREX dollars on top of us. The only people that can control our empire's desire to eat up the world and destroy world finances as we try to have our cake and eat it too, is...THE AMERICAN PEOPLE! We can stop it!

This means paying taxes, paying our own way, saving instead of going into debt. Working harder and making the upperclasses pay their own way by tripling their tax rates. They MUST be taxed! They MUST pay for our military that benefits them, THEY own the companies profitting off of our military! They are the ones who are shirking their fair share of the load here. And Americans have to be more realistic. We can't get easy profits while sucking down more than our fair share of energy. We MUST use more renewable energy even if it costs more than oil! This is because, we use too much oil. This will bring world peace because we would have no more reason to steal oil, just for example. In the long, long run, this will make us much stronger because our trade balance will return and we will also be energy-indepenent of our own energy systems if we own our own production by putting solar panels on every roof of every house! The more energy one produces, the cheaper it is. If someone wants to shade their solar panels, they pay more for electricty because they need to buy it from a neighor, for example.

This laughably simple solution to many of our root problems is virtually never mentioned, of course. Instead, we are tempted into war with Iran.

From the Financial Times:

A troubled hedge fund run by Australia’s Basis Capital is insolvent and has appointed liquidators to wind it up in the Cayman Islands, according to court filings.

The Basis Yield Alpha Fund – until recently one of Australia’s best-rated hedge funds – collapsed after investments linked to US subprime mortgages went sour and Wall Street banks seized assets to cover debts.
*snip*
It told investors a fortnight ago that it was considering legal action against some of its banks, although it has not said against which.

Among lenders which issued default notices were JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, Basis said.

Here again, it is obvious there is no World SEC that can stop these clowns. They are all in the same boat. England is as bad if not worse than the US in this regard. Everyone saw the easy money from our own system and imitated it. Or in the case of England, originated this. For it goes back to how the Royals fixed their financial problems that troubled them after WWII: they didn't wish to downsize as their empire vanished into thin air. They lost China except for a while, Hong Kong, they lost India and then Africa. So the offshore tax shelter was born. And it bears its vile fruits. The Queen is doing quite while, thank you, while everyone rushes off to scheme on these many remaining tiny islands owned by Her Majesty DIRECTLY. She owns them. PERSONALLY.

Ha. Take that, you lawyer scum hired by hedge funds to silence me! Now on to the really bad news for a change.

From Bloomberg:

China needs to boost imports and domestic demand to better balance the economy, Yi Gang, assistant central bank governor, said at a financial forum in Beijing. Exchange-rate changes alone wouldn't be enough, he said.

China wants to curb the dependence of the world's fastest- growing major economy on exports and investment. It has resisted U.S. calls for a faster appreciation of the yuan, which would cool gains in overseas sales by making its goods more expensive.

China exported $88.3 billion more to the U.S. than it imported from that country in the first seven months of the year. Tensions have been exacerbated by proposed U.S. legislation to press for currency gains and recalls of products including toys.

``Don't change China's policies, to give in to pressure from the U.S., Europe and Japan, when politics are forcing protectionism,'' John Rutledge, an economist, former U.S. presidential adviser, and chairman of Rutledge Capital LLC, said today at the conference.

Currency revaluation ``alone, can't resolve the imbalances in China's economy,'' Yi said today. ``China needs a package of measures, mainly to boost domestic demand and spending.''

As I kept saying, the Dragon is pissed off at us and is now openly talking about cutting us down to size. They will succeed, they have the funds to succeed. I love how the Dragon talks about spending its money at home. They know the US is out to cheat them, anyway. Besides, their plans always were to bankrupt the US by building up the world's biggest FOREX reserves and I noted this nearly two years ago which is why I always tracked the Chinese FOREX reserves so closely. Japan can't add more than $100 billion a year to their own reserves and they owe over $4 trillion in red ink on their own wild government spending! So they have been unable to sop up the extra $700 billion the US generates in red ink and Saudi Arabia has been able to soak up another $100 billion a year but this has a price tag: the US must control Iraq and kill the Iranian Kitty! This is costing us a literal arm and leg, a trillion dollar in debts as well as many, many arms and legs. And the more we spend fighting, the more money we need from China to pay for this and the more the Chinese threats can work! Another vicious circle within many vicious circles. The gears in this clock are breaking. The spring is sprung and the many clock figures that roll out at midnight to ring the bells are followed by the figure of the Grim Reaper who cracks the world economic bell with one blow of his scythe.

And last, here is a story of a man who stockpiled weapons and ammo and then flipped out and threatened his girlfriend giving the ATF cause to raid his home and arrest him,from Prison Planet:

The 16-page document also reveals that the ATF’s Project Disarm Task Force has been investigating the man since mid-April, and that a mental health investigation found he was “suffering from delusions with persecutory tendencies.”

Investigators believe the man thought the global economy was on the verge of a collapse that would result in widespread violence, the affidavit says.

If anyone thinks stockpilling guns will work, here is another warning: power doesn't just grow out of the barrel of a gun, it comes ultimately from the People as our own revolutionary founding fathers liked to say. Fixing this system will probably be very messy. The desire to go fully fascist is great. The saga of the Jewish people going from liberalism and hope to turning themselves into conquerers bent on tormenting and stealing from helpless people shows how even the noblest of intentions can turn into Naziism in just a few years. And we can be the ultimate Nazis! I have great fears of people turning against the Jewish people who are very deeply involved in running our finances and media, and looting them just as frustrated German burgers and bauern turned against their Jewish minorities in the collapse of the German/Austro-Hungarian empires after WWI. I want a stable system. And this means controlling greed at the top.

And readers ask me how to protect themselves from all this. I hate to say this, but when mega-systems collapse, when mega-empires go bankrupt, we all will be hit, one way or another. Yet there is always hope: fixing things by fixing them are much preferable to bombing out way out of problems. This is why I call up on the US to dismantle our nuclear bombs, for all nations to disarm. When we demanded Saddam disarm, we should have, too. When Russia surrendered to us in 1990, we should have surrendered to the world! Instead, we hyper-armed ourselves and set out to conquer the world. And this is the problem. And the war-desires of the Jewish people wanting to see all Muslims defeated, must stop. And Palestinian lands should be returned to those poor people. And religious dicatatorships should end in Israel, Saudi Arabia and all lands that have religious laws. The Constitution of the United States should be spread, not destroyed even at home.

And our strength is in our communal desires to return our Constitution to its roots: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness coupled with civil rights for the people. Our homes should be our castles and not our prisons! Peace and love to everyone. May we find our way out of this imperial mess.

Culture of Life News Main Page

Comments

[Al]

Fuck. Fidelity, where all my companies pension $ for us workers is holed up. And the only way you can get your $ is to retire/get your ass fired. Then good luck trying to find another job if you're still raising a family.

I hadn't connected the timing of the Greenspan interest rate drop with the bush tax cuts - I can understand the need to raise rates to encourage savings to make up for the loss of $ caused by the cuts, but raising them to make up for the infusion of $ into the marketplace-this would be to soak up $ to prevent inflation, right ?

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Yes, that is what happens. Lower taxes=higher interest rates. Proof this works is the disaster caused by the opposite.

[Al]

Elaine, you keep us informed but you always give a little hope too. Thanks.

[tom]

your writing is both educational and inspirational. you show the depth and range of perception possible when everywhere one gets mostly shallow commentary. you have my sincere appreciation for how much you add to my life. you're awesome!

[Saul]

Elaine:

First of all, I think your completely out of your mind. It would be helpful if you actually knew somthing about Fidelity Investments. Fidelity doesn't originate mortgages. They don't sell mortgages. Fidelity investments is not a mortgage company. They have 250 mutual funds and some of them (very few) invest in mortgage-back securities. Of their 250 plus mutual funds, only one has experienced year to date losses due to the sub prime debt sell-off. Most of their funds are up nicely this year. If you knew anything about investing you would know that securities including mortages can increase in value and decrease in value. That's why investors need to read about what their buying and decide how much risk they want to assume. It's not rocket science but since you pine for the old days of mom and pop stores and fear globalization I'm not sure you care about reality. Did you think that everyone should receive a guarantee when they make an investment that it will be worth more that what they paid?

Every mutual fund (from every US fund company) is required to deliver information on fees and risks in writing before an individual can invest in a fund. This is a US law. By the way, this law has been in place for many years. Even before your Bogeyman, George Bush arrived on the scene.

Also, Fidelity is probably the most sucessful firm in the financial services industry. They have the largest fund complex and the largest discount brokerage business in the US. I see on the web where they've grown their workforce by about 8000 employees in the last 4 years and they now employ 44000+. Many of these employees live in our communities, and do business in our shops. Our government ensures that they pay hefty income and property taxes which we all benefit from.

The alliance parters that you mention such as Think or Swim are firms that Fidelity does not own. They simply provide Fidelity customers access to services that these firms provide at a discount. Private companies like Fidelity usually don't buy many firms since they cannot use their own stock to acquire other companies. Fidelity usually grows from within, or they work with another company to provide a service to their clients that they don't. What's wrong with that? Oh, and I see on the web that Fidelity had net income last year of more than a billion dollars. If that's trouble...please give me some.

Also, just because the press comments that the CEO of the company, Ned Johnson should step aside and choose a successor doesn't mean he should do so. He's 77 years old and still running his own company. I'm sure he has succession plans that have been detailed to all those that need to know. I get a kick out of you and others in the media that love to tell private business owners when they should step down and pass their companies that they've built to someone else. I'd do just what Ned Johnson is doing if that's what I wanted.

Of course, you had to blame the Jews for something at the end of your long rant. Brilliant. You make so much sense we you write that we should have disarmed when we forced Sadam to do so. What a great idea. I can hear you now...Let's just disarm. Why can't we all just hug and make up? Good grief! I can see why you have such a huge following of beatniks (3) that have posted positive comments above. What a loser.

Dan

[jose kanusee]

Saul, do you work for fidelity? My wife, myself, and other family members have lost large sums of money using fidelity over the years.

[blues]

Elaine:

First of all, I think your completely out of your mind. — Saul (Dan?)

I like Elaine a lot. I scanned your screed and I have no intention of even looking into your supposed "facts." Anyone who would insult Elaine that way is not worthy of my reading time. Take your "facts" and insert them in some dark place.

And the proper English is "you're completely," not "your completely."

[blues]

Another thing, Saul (Dan?):

Your rant looks to be filled with alleged "facts," yet you provide no links to back them up. A casual glance at my posts would make it clear that when I make assertions, I usually provide many links to substantiate them.

So after you get your grammar issues straightened out, you might try your hand at finding some links to back up your "facts."

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

I never said they orginated loans! HAHAHA. I said, they are part of the hell hound hedge fund funny money cylists and they hold or passed along a lot of trash. And they are an OCTOPUS or maybe a CENTIPEDE. With so many facets, I could write a dozen articles and still not cover all their bases. But I picked and chose some interesting tie-ins and alliances and conflicts of interest which makes Fidelity a fun place to run about, picking apart their complex organization. I want to thank the SEC for forcing these guys to tell the truth once in a blue moon. Heh.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

As for the 'Jewish' part: I was Mrs. Levy for many, many years and a part Jewish. I am very , very, VERY afraid of Naziism and Nazis and I know how they think because I look like a total Aryan as most half-Jewish Germans look like perfect Aryans as expounded by Hitler.

And so Nazi types don't hold back around me! They WANT to loot the Jews! And the Jews must worry about this, they are grossly outnumbered in the USA and are, if the Jews working for the Bushes stupidly continue to destroy our Constitution, they will bring upon themselved the fate they wanted to do to others: concentration camps like Gaza!

I fear this tremendously! For good reason! I am 1/2 German and my father's family in Germany was split by Jewish marriages which is why that half ended up in the USA! And my father testified at the Nuremburg trials. He saw many horrors. And one of his cousins ran a death camp! My god. What a mess.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Oh, by the way, Saul/Dan, I have more readers across the planet than you think. Heh. And I want to thank every one of them for spending precious time here. I am aware of where readers come from and how long they stay, etc. And it is humbling and gratifying to see the statistics rise each month. This is a complex site with a wide range of topics and I am not a stereotypical person. I sometimes assume people are familiar with my whole body of work but this is very time consuming which is why I cover and recover the same ground regularily. But I have to avoid boring older readers. It is a difficult mix and I worry about this all the time.

[DeVaul]

Saul (aka Dan),

You are the true idiot. Do you not feel any remorse after being ordered by your creepy boss to attack someone you hardly know with unsubstanciated facts and ungrammatical gibberish?

If you tried to write a brochure for Fidelity Investments, Trump would fire you if he was in charge.

Why don't you actually read what Elaine wrote and then reply to specific points instead of waving your wand in hopes that all she says will just disappear.

And yes, we know that Fidelity does not technically "own" most of its subsidiaries and (I love this one) "alliance partners" outright because then they would be legally liable for the actions of their "allies".

We do appreciate your rant because we rarely get to hear from such deluded nincompoops like yourself. It reminds us very clearly of why we come to Elaine's website for real news instead of corporate lies.

[Al]

Saul/Dan,
What DeVaul said. Also, your final paragraph indicates your political ignorance is on a similar level with your economic ignorance. And as one of the "beatniks" I'd also like to point out that your grammar sucks. English is my second language yet I express myself without embarrassing those who read my posts.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Al, you just aroused my curiosity. What is your first language?

[Al]

Hi Elaine, Spanish is what I spoke when I was a kid. My father was Indian but his family lived near the border and spoke Spanish. My aunts did much of raising me when I was little. When I went back to the city (LA)I learned English and that was about all I spoke afterwards. Spanish-speaking was discouraged growing up in the fifties. It's nice to see young people speak it proudly now.

[blues]

From the Prison Planet link:

The 16-page document also reveals that the ATF’s Project Disarm Task Force has been investigating the man since mid-April, and that a mental health investigation found he was “suffering from delusions with persecutory tendencies.”

Investigators believe the man thought the global economy was on the verge of a collapse that would result in widespread violence, the affidavit says.

I presume Alex Jones is just wondering why a giant federal task force is going after one guy with a lot of ammo. That would be his angle. It would seem to be a job for the local cops. The odd thing is that the State of New York would have to after giant corporations. All my life it was the feds who did that; and they used to do it all the time.

This is peculiar to me because I was once very close with a rather large cult, which actually was a very benign and friendly cult. The people in it just seemed to need someone to sell them on odd notions about flying saucers and such. In fact, the way things seem to be going, I probably need someone to do that about now. But they had absolutely no tendency to harm any one. The people in the little town thought I was foolish, perhaps sinful, to have anything to do with them. But they had all kinds of interesting, albeit nutty, ideas.

But seeing how these things work, I am sure there are lots of outfits that are far from benign. Maybe I'm a bit paranoid, but the Manson type groups must be out there. And people must know who those groups are. For example, giant corporations somehow knew that my friends in the little cult were harmless, as they would pay them to give seminars!

If I ran a huge corporation, I don't think I would invite strange little cults to meetings. At some point, it's all a big X-files scenario. But what do I know?

[Cato]

Saul,

You write like a cover-up artist out of Fidelity’s Investor Relations department. Let’s just say that your premise is true and most of Fidelity’s 250 funds do not invest in mortgage-backed securities. Fidelity does business with many company pension and 401k plans to provide investment services to their workers. Many plans do not give the rank and file employee access to all Fidelity funds. Instead employees are corralled into limited and select funds that, wouldn’t you know it, are loaded with mortgage-backed securities and other crap. And I think you know that.

How many big-shot fund managers have had enough clout to say no to MBS, ABS and CDOs stuffed down their throats and into their portfolios? It’s not hard to figure out. Just get all the fund prospectuses and analyze the investments. That’s your homework assignment. I’m too busy moving pixels around the screen.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Fidelity DOES have subprime exposure. I saw it inside their SEC data. I thought it would be too messy to publish. But maybe I should have.

And Al, I spoke several languages in the past, am fluent in German. Viva Zapata! Heh. I lived next to Mexico much of my youth and I love the music, love the beer, love the art and love the people.

[Al]

Yes Emiliano Zapata was a great man. And don't forget the best food in the world ! Eat with tortillas and never use a fork, sing and dance around till you drop. Pre-NAFTA anyways.
ten cuidado
(take care)

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

My first babysitter was a wonderful Chinese woman but my second was not only Mexican but Indian Mexican and she taught me to adore the cuisine. I still love it very much.

[Chantal]

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