Three Biggest US Finance Giants Destroy Nation

August 16, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch are all in the news because they are either trying to evade taxes or tax us more via rigged bond bids. The banking collapse continues and indeed, far from improving, are accelerating. All attempts at fixing this will fail because the fundamentals are not being fixed, they are being jerry-rigged. Also, we must visit last year's postings on this day to see how people in charge of our systems lied in the past. Just as they lie to us today. It is very important to see how they do this so we can be armed against them.

First, a visit to exactly one year ago, here at Culture of Life News. As usual, the guys running the US systems were totally wrong, lying or just being bastards. And I was right.

Stock Market Rout Continues

The captain and his crew of gangsters who run the USS Titanic are assuring us all is well even as the first class passengers try to bail out the ship as it sinks. China's stock markets were the very last to go into the red. I keep telling everyone, the Chinese government doesn't want too much wealth or power to evolve into an outside force from the Communist Party. And the yen continues to rise rapidly. The Japanese are in total hysteria now. This was NOT part of the game plans! They are issuing contridictory statements and trying desperately to re-inforce their fake depression. But global industry is going into a depressionary cycle of dropping prices. And we get to visit the Security and Exchange Commission to see the red blood of bankruptcies.

From Bloomberg:

William Poole, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, said the subprime mortgage rout doesn't threaten U.S. economic growth, and only a ``calamity'' would justify an interest-rate cut now.

A thousand calamities would still not allow an interest rate cut unless we first cut our trade deficit. Nearly all statements of our rulers leave out the business of the trade deficits. Just like the stories of Mattel selling poisoned toys to toddlers leaves out the Mattel's responsibility of supervising their Chinese slave factories. The refusal to connect various things to where they need to be connected is an ongoing feature of world news and the statements our vicious gang of looters leave out. The US is caught in a liquidity trap of our own devising. No one made us outsource all our industries. We allowed our businesses to do this in order to escape high oil price inflation. To wipe that out, we didn't restrict oil imports by taxing them, for example. All we had to do was to raise the gasoline tax and the SUV revolution would never have happened. If gas was $3 a gallon 17 years ago, no one would have bought gas guzzlers.

And here is another story which came along as the stock market was struggling to its final top levels. Already, there were scares and shaking going on and the Plunge Protection Team was sweating bullets.

Plunge Protection Team Gets A Japanese Helping Hand

Wow. In the last few minutes of today's markets as the Plunge Protection Team schemed hard to stop the slide into hell, they pulled a few rabbits out of a very expensive hat. I figure we are approaching a trillion in the attempt at propping up the status quo here. The Stock Market board of directors imposed a slow down today to stop things in their tracks so they could figure out how to stop this crash landing. The deal was finished at about 3pm. One thing about natural forces: you can't command the sea go back when the tide is roaring in. And time to examine the main character who was saved today: Countrywide.

From the NYT:

At the close, the Dow was off 15.69 points for the day, or 0.1 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was showing a gain, and the Nasdaq composite was down only slightly.
“It was a pretty remarkable turn, and I don’t think anybody can really make sense of it,” said Tobias M. Levkovich, chief United States equity strategist for Citigroup. “It’s not about any fundamental development because we didn’t get any news today that would push you any one way or another.”

Um, the NYT's owner knows everyone involved in the Plunge Protection Team. They socialize together. They marry each other. They go to each other's bat or bar Mitzvahs, or celebrate Christmas together. They hire reporters who can't go to the owners directly and ask for them to tell the truth for once. Instead, the owners and their buddies all smirk as they read the news.

Actually, they are terrified right now. The fake prosperity that they all concocted this last 7 years is crashing like the housing values in California and Florida. Now it is out in the open and the masses are scared. The Plunge Protection Team, around since the Gilded Age when many of the great granddaddies of these same people protected their interests or destroyed the markets so they could buy up cheap the properties and businesses of their rivals, they no longer want to crash things like Morgan or Getty. They want things to keep rolling while they stuff their mouths and pockets.

Let's be frank here: whatever the mainstream people say, the guys who are constantly consulted with and interviewed, are wrong. They say either the stupidest things. Or openly lie. Or are insane. The main thing is to NEVER TELL THE TRUTH. Even when they are forced to admit to past truths that are now obvious to even babies, they surround this with a host of evasions, lies and misdirections. One reason for this is very simple: like a child who is caught with their hands in the cookie jar, they can't deny this. So they cry loudly or say, 'But Jimmy told me I could take the cookies!' Etc.

Now that everyone on the entire planet knows that the US and now, the European housing markets are collapsing, the US leaders have to lie about this. 'It is almost over!' they shout. Or, 'It can't get worse', they assure us as it gets worse and worse and worse. Then they make a 'fix' that fixes exactly nothing. The housing bill passed by Congress won't save hardly anyone thanks to the fact that we are in a declining market. It saves Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so both can keep on lending even though both are bankrupt. Indeed, all the 'fixes' have been schemes to disguise the fact that our entire financial system is bankrupt.

This is being done in a very obvious conspiracy between the ruling elites of Europe, Asia and America. They are in deep collusion with each other to continue deficit spending and deficit trading with the US. The US cannot take on infinite red ink. But we are trying our best to achieve this impossibility.

Now on to today's news: the dollar was supposedly getting stronger due to the US getting better. This was pure fantasy. Both US traitors and foreign banking powers put forwards this obvious lie in order to gain their goal which is to weaken all currencies of all trade rivals so they can all flood free trade US markets with their exports. This is VERY BAD and VERY WRONG as well as VERY DANGEROUS for the US. But instead of fighting this tooth and nail, the US wants cheap OPEC oil so they have to allow this. The US public supports this wholeheartedly because the leaders won't tell them the end result: third world status for the vast majority of Americans in the next 20 years.

Goldman, JPMorgan May Prove `Mortal' as Earnings Drop, UBS Says

(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., which weathered the credit crisis better than most of their peers, may prove ``mortal'' in the third quarter as loan losses increase and banking revenue drops, UBS AG said.

Goldman Sachs is ``not immune'' to declining profits even after the biggest U.S. securities firm ``escaped many of the pitfalls that have snagged rivals,'' said UBS analyst Glenn Schorr in a research note today. JPMorgan, the second-biggest U.S. bank by market value, faces more asset writedowns and deteriorating consumer credit, he said.

Both companies have outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 Financials Index as their results for the past two quarters topped analysts' estimates and writedowns and credit losses totaled less than those at peers Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. Goldman dropped 27 percent since the financial index hit a peak in October, while JPMorgan lost 21 percent. The broader measure has plunged 41 percent.

These massive financial investment banking houses exist for one purpose: to make more money than inflation. This year, they didn't perform this function. They very definitely control the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury as well as many other power systems. Despite draconian and authoritarian control over our entire government's financial systems, despite being able to use this to prevent losses, these giant organizations lost money. The people who park their funds with these organizations are extremely displeased with all this, to put it mildly. Not only did Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan not make them money, both also fell far behind the rate of inflation.

The ideal happy-happy talk world of the wealthy investors is for all their assets and equities rising in value while their investments in other systems also rise in value. The trick here is obvious: this is INFLATION unless it is due to more discoveries of commodity resources or more human labor being exploited at less and less cost [called 'productivity' but really is degree of either enslavement or mechanization via robots, etc.]. This is the elusive 'capitalist profits' we hear about. The entry of India and China in global labor markets was a one-shot deal bringing a long period of declining prices for labor which led to greater profitability for investors.

This cycle is now nearly complete. The number of industries that can be sent to cheap-labor frontiers is reaching its upper limit. The US is still trying to export jobs via various schemes. For example, the US government has extended the politically unpopular 'cheap Mexican truck drivers' scheme. This is being opposed with disjointed fury by US truckers. They suffer from the same weakness almost all American workers suffer from: lack of unions, lack of leverage. The GOP hopes to get a good grip on truck driver's ancient fears of black Americans and get them to slit their economic throats rather than vote for anyone who might listen to their needs.

This is how 'inflation' is being killed. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan absolutely hate inflation....that is noticed by the working classes. They adore inflation of say, fine art works or mansions or yachts, when they are reselling these things. They hate it when they have to buy. This is why they love auctions and bargains and boast about making killings in auction markets. Workers fear auctions and correctly associate these with bad times, losing homes, etc.

Bloomberg:

He expects Goldman to earn $2.25 a share in the third quarter ending this month, down from a prior projection of $3.20. The New York-based analyst reduced his profit estimate for JPMorgan to 25 cents from 62 cents. He rates both companies ``neutral.''

Schorr also reduced his estimate of Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, citing weakness ``across the board'' in the industry.

This really hurts investors. Most investors prefer to plop down their money in some system that does two things: the shares should always become more expensive thanks to bidding auctions in the markets. And they should provide a steady stream of more money, we call this 'coupon clipping'. The ideal Victorian situation was to hold some sort of stock or bond that paid quarterly amounts like the money in the previous paragraph. If one held enough paper assets that paid dividends, one didn't have to work at all! This was the ideal leisure status so beloved by Victorian novelists. As I get older, I re-read old novels with an eye for discussions about money. The writers mostly wrote because they needed to make money. So money was always on their minds and the minds of their readers.

The lust for some investment bank or system that would provide eternal dividends that was more than inflation was heaven for the Victorians. And still is, today! This is why news about stock drops are often greeted by coupon clippers as a golden opportunity. But dividend cuts? That hurts! And enrages them. So the fact that the two top manipulators of our financial system are cutting dividends is yet another sign that wealth creation is now flagging.

I wish to add here that wealth creation in oil and gold is also collapsing! As I expected. People thought that attempts at making greater inflation would obviously lead to gold shooting upwards. But the present wealth destruction is, as I explained in the past, outpacing all systems now. Wealth destruction, once it is underway, is very hard to stop. Even with the government trying desperately to re-inflate select systems.

Merrill, Goldman Pressed on Auction-Rate by Cuomo

(Bloomberg) -- New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo stepped up pressure on Merrill Lynch & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to settle claims they misled investors in auction-rate securities after Wachovia Corp. agreed to buy back $9 billion of the bonds.

Merrill faces an ``imminent'' lawsuit from New York because the firm's offer last week to buy back $10 billion of the debt wasn't adequate, Cuomo said at a news conference today. New York has subpoenaed about 25 firms involved in sales of auction-rate securities, including five that have already settled. Merrill has five days to explain why the attorney shouldn't act, according to a letter from Cuomo's office.

``The larger the firm, the larger the portfolio, the more intense our effort,'' Cuomo said. ``We have an ongoing investigation with Goldman Sachs. In the course of investigations, we're also having discussions.''

Both Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are frantically trying to evade paying for the little scam they pulled. Back when the entire markets for taxpayer-backed bonds collapsed and interest rates shot through the roof, it was obvious this was a trick pulled to bring in more profits. The guys doing this thought the political operators at the top levels of our government would assist in this open theft of public funds. But as usual, ambitious politicians in NY nailed them to the ground for this nasty business.

This is yet another paradox and trap: so long as these giant banking/investment organizations pay NY high fees and taxes, the state doesn't care what they do. But this year, the money flowing to the state has dropped by 95%. It is now a bare trickle. So the government is turning a baleful eye upon their workings. Cuomo will successfully attack them and this will be very popular with the voters as well as others.

U.S. banking giant switches billions in debt to Britain to avoid paying corporation tax for 60 years

Merrill Lynch might not pay any corporation tax for the next 60 years, it emerged today.

The giant American investment bank, which employs thousands in the City, has made losses of $29 billion (£15 billion) for its exposure to the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis.

But it has charged the amount to its British arm, meaning it can offset the losses against corporation tax for decades to come. Accountants say that the move, which is set to spark anger among ordinary taxpayers, is legal but unusual.

Merrill Lynch made dramatic writedowns on investments linked to the U.S. housing market. With millions of Americans now struggling to keep up mortgage repayments, the investments have sunk in value causing an economic crisis across the globe.

All big banks have suffered, but so far Merrill is the only one to charge the entire loss to the UK.

And what is England again? HAHAHA. Pirate paradise! England has descended from being the global trade and manufacturing giant of 1900 to the world's premier banking pirate cove in 2000. Responsible for protecting and enabling a chain of Crown colonies across the entire planet, England has devolved into a huge Switzerland. This, in turn, has been a giant hole in the US tax collection bucket. As the US protects and maintains the English empire of pirate coves, they, in turn, drain out all taxable wealth in the US.

NO NATION SHOULD EVER ALLOW AN ALLY TO DO THIS. Note that the Swiss were and still are 'neutral.' But certainly not Britain! They are supposedly our number one ally. And like Japan, are ravaging our economic systems. Allies who drain wealth away are no allies. And indeed, there is no such thing as an eternal ally. Israel is no ally, either. Since our nation is losing money by the microsecond, since all our systems are set to drain out our joint wealth, all allies who exploit this and make it worse are really enemies.

This is true across the planet! Any nation that allows outsiders to systematically wreck internal economic systems is not a friend. Until the US figures this out, we are in trouble. Note how all our political powers here are lining up to shove us into a confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia who is in an alliance with China! But Russia and China are not our only trade rivals and are not the only ones seeking to beggar us. ALL our allies at this point have gotten into this game and are doing exactly the same.

Merrill Lynch is in the grips of the fearful Derivatives Beast to the tune of many trillions of dollars of obligations. They are basically bankrupt. The slightest shifts in global finances will hammer them into the ground. They just saw how Bear Stearns fell and was eaten by bears. So off they skip to London to get the Queen's protection! The US should not allow this. If any investment or banking house wants US protection, they better PAY and PAY BIG. If they don't want to pay for our damn empire's overhead costs, they can damn well lobby to cut our military spending to the bone! Then let our trade rivals protect themselves!

Instead, the political push is for our government to pay for itself by taxing or eliminating social systems of the working classes. This is being done by our closest allies, Japan and England. Both are seeking the same solutions. Except both want to be big players on the international stage but not pay for this. They want a free ride on the back of the US military system. Our navy is their navies.

GM Recovery Swaps Signal 73% Bond Losses on `Highway to Hell'

(Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp.bondholders may lose as much as 73 percent in the event of a default by the world's biggest automaker, based on the price of contracts used to fix a recovery value for the securities.

The recovery swap rate on GM dropped to 26.5 percent, from 39.5 percent at the end of June, meaning investors expect to get only 26.5 cents on the dollar in an insolvency, CMA Datavision pricing models show. Investors are pricing in a lower recovery rate than the average of 40 percent in bankruptcies as capital is eroded by $69.8 billion of losses since 2004.

``GM is on the highway to hell, there is no signal there is a way out for them,'' said Jochen Felsenheimer, the Munich-based head of credit strategy at UniCredit SpA, Italy's biggest bank. ``Recovery on GM might be significantly below 40 percent.''

GM's $29 billion of debt was downgraded by Moody's Investors Service this week to Caa1, a category for borrowers that may be in default or show ``elements of danger.'' The cost to protect the bonds using credit-default swaps indicates an 88 percent risk of the Detroit-based company reneging on its obligations within five years, compared with a 77 percent risk for competitor Ford Motor Co., according to Bloomberg data.

So, $30 billion or so in debt is really worth only $7.5 billion? Here is yet another typical example of wealth destruction. As everyone goes bankrupt, the investors who hold the bonds go under, too. Coupon clippers hate this with a passion!

The difference between a simple downturn in the economy and economic collapse is that there is NO SAFE HAVEN when we have an economic collapse! Period. History is very stern about all this. All systems end up getting into trouble. Wherever savers park their funds, the value of that drops. Any small bubbles that are due to people rushing into things to park money there and have it grow, collapse. So restlessly, people run from place to place, seeking shelter from some terrible storm. And these various actions only make the storms worse and worse!

This is why avoiding this situation is so vital. Back when the 'cure' for wild US military spending in the Cold War was to stop the Cold War, Nixon went to China to surrender to Mao. But he refused to surrender to Brezhnev. So the Cold War continued as the US limped along. Only when Russia finally began to fall apart in 1980 and onwards due to the stupidity of invading Afghanistan, did the US have a chance to stop wild Cold War spending. But since the fall of Russia, US military spending has doubled and redoubled. This continues. So the destabilization of the US economy is not only continuing but worsening. The fact that our neocons went totally crazy after provoking Russia this week is proof that their goal is to gain power and wealth by expanding on Cold War spending, not reducing military spending.

And all our trade rivals approve of this. For virtually none of this military activity is on behalf of America's interests. It is entirely for increasing the military domination of NATO and the European Union or expanding Japanese power and influence in Asia and other world markets. This is suicidal, as I keep pointing out. If we can't stop our allies from exploiting our need for tax revenues by protecting our corporations when they want to evade taxes, our nation dies. If we can't stop our allies from shoving us into confrontations and wars, we die, literally. Russia was bled to death by the Warsaw Pact. In the end, it brought few benefits and a lot of economic pain to Russians.

And we have yet to figure this out.

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Comments

[whine and cheese]

gold and oil are down because people think that Germany and France are worse off than the US, and hence the Euro trade...

or at least that's what the media says=)

[rockpaperscizzors]

The Earth is Flat, authored by Friedman the Putz, was nothing more than a propaganda tool to create a collective psychosis. Countrys without trade barriers was nothing more than the offshoring of USA industries and a flood of imports onto our shores. With free trade why the need for any world military? To protect the country's borders from what? Hell, we are in the midst of the most invasive war of all. An all out Economic Assault.

Our voices will be heard loud and clear when we stop buying. live within our means, and start thinking of saving our hard earned labor as the new "must have."

[Paul S]

Elaine: Didn't you hear? "Dubaya" explained it completely and so even the lowly peasant could understand: "Wall Street got drunk." I can't beleive the media does not take him to task for such stupid remarks, but I guess if one thinks about it, it isn't a surprise. Little wonder the US has lost so much credibility in the world.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Not only were they drunk, they were chasing lovely, lithesome MSNBC Wall Street news chicks.

[TL]

The US and Big banks are all like Enron. They believe there own lies, its a sickness. Rome burns and they push and shove any responsible, reasonable solution into the ground. Insane, the Neocons want WWIII and it looks like were gonna get it. Only religious cults act like this. Pure justification, with divine right, and the worshiping of $$$ gods. I ask neocons all the time: where are you gonna get your clean water and air? Maybe they'll have it piped in from the Caymans while we all starve to death.
Credibility? that was lost with the value of the dollar, the collapse of our infrastructure and the absence of any intelligent discussion.....nor any knowledge of recent history!

[Carli]

The problem that plagues America is very basic. There is no doubt as to the quality and sincerity of it's people. It's leadership however, since mid-19th Century has had a very shallow bench.

Leadership has one, and only one goal, that is, to SERVE the people it LEADS. That sadly, has not happened in America for a long, long time.

The false illusion of prosperity created by the corporate interests has lulled the majority of Americans into buying this "American Dream".

rockpaperscissors, this is the collective psychosis you speak of.

To quote George Carlin, ..."Because the owners of this country know the truth, it's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it!" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ4SSvVbhLw)

If one reads War is A Racket, by Maj. Gen Smedley Butler, one realizes that this has been going on for a very long time, but only now because of the Internet, people are starting to wake up.

I'm with you Elaine, the US is in dire need of a PATRIOTIC leader. But it is the American people who must first decide that they have had enough putting up with these parasites for generations. Americans have to stop feeding the tapeworm, according to Catherine Austin Fitts (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2984480718427930625)

Then they must act, it is their country, they have to take it back.

[Paul S]

TL: the problem with the US is its ruling class. As a group, they are smug, arrogant and completely without an ethical or moral code of ANY kind. The Bush crime family is a perfect example. They have a complete aversion to taking ANY responsibility for their actions. This is why the elites so-called economists think rising wages cause inflation no matter how much evidence there is that they are wrong. It's always somebody else's fault. This is also how they cope with being scorned everywhere in the world. This part is only a guess of mine, but the ruling class MUST be mostly hemophiliac: these people like to breed only with their own kind. Finally, it is the general US public that enables these criminals. These are the people who look to Jerry Springer for direction while eating a bowlfull of Cheetos. They know more about Angelina Jolie's baby than they do of their own members of Congress. You can thank the US public education lobby for this outlook. And yes, the ruling elites WANT the education system thie way it is. The elites know that an informed, engaged public will not let the ruling/criminal class get away with their schemes. You see, these spolied rotten rich kids know FULLY well right from wrong: they just don't care.