Posted on 05/03/2009 10:08:46 PM PDT by rightwingcrazy
Last week, almost every major US bank manufactured profits out of thin air by changing their regular reporting periods to exclude months in which huge losses occurred by changing their definitions of bad debt, and by revaluing their assets at fantasy land valuations that they will never receive in the open market, courtesy of FASB. This event was a non-event to me because it merely continued the process known as the Enronization of America. This event, the systemic injection of fraud and deceit into nearly every aspect of American life, has been unfolding for decades, even prior to the Enron scandal itself.
Recently, Bank of America (BAC) CEO Ken Lewis testified that former US Treasury Secretary and ex-Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO Hank Paulson instructed him to disobey securities law and conceal material losses in the Merrill Lynch merger from investors. Lewis additionally testified that Paulson threatened to fire him and his entire board if he tried to back out of the Merrill deal. These revelations, too, did not surprise me, for these kinds of activities, devoid of all morals and ethics, have been occurring regularly within the financial industry for decades. It only seems as if such transgressions are more numerous today because of the recent attention given them in the media, but in reality, they have neither proliferated in frequency nor expanded in egregiousness.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at seekingalpha.com ...
Up until the Obama Administration, the Federal government was the good guys and they prosecuted financial fraud. Now, they are encouraging it "for the greater good." Its crazy. Government encouraging the financials to lie and cheat! The Lone Ranger is dead!
I agree with everything that was said, but why haven’t the markets tanked?
Smart people aren’t fooled by this craziness.
I think he’s still kicking, but it was him that was told to “get outta Dodge” instead of the bad guys.
According to him
“The greater the deceit by our leaders, the more likely stock markets will act irrationally and rise when there is no foundation to support the rise, including the most recent rally that we have witnessed in US markets in March and April of 2009. I will go on record here in believing that we will see another waterfall decline in US and global markets by the end of this summer.”
The Enronization of the Media. Ha! So true. I don’t think its because of industry consolidation. I just think the financial press is lazy, sourced soley by hedge funds, treasury officials, etc. He is also right about all the bogus bank earnings the past few weeks. And Lewis,Paulson, Bernanke. A totally orchestrated stock rally so they can sell bank stock to the dumb at inflated prices. They used to call this fraud. Joe Kennedy would be envious.
I think a lot of those “buyers” were short sellers of bank stocks forced to buy back at inflated prices.
No argument there. When industry and gov’t get together to orchestrate a rally, shorts cover.
bump 4 later
Short term sellers...manipulating stocks;also traders reacting emotionally...I want an option in 401Ks to invest in money market or treasury. I don’t want what’s left of my money in the hands of these banker liars...they will never stop their unethical, criminal behavior, and it doesn’t look like either political party has the guts to stop them; do the banks own the government?
bookmark for later
The “bezzle” — that part of the economic numbers due to fraud and embezzlement began to shoot up and overgrew all else in the early 1970’s, fueled by cocaine. Once the auditors were coked up there was no stopping the decline in common ethics and fiscal morals. Today? We are morally insane.
Before the 1970’s books were fairly clean, and scandals uncommon and made news. Bastardy — which is ALSO a fiscal crime, for the bastard’s Dad skips out on financial obligations that otherwise society is on the hook for — was still prosecuted then.
Those rockerfellers have their hands in everything like trying to take away the internet
http://bluelori.blogspot.com/2009/05/hey-big-brother-what-ya-gonna-do.html
NEVER assume those who invest other people's money on Wall Street are smart. If they were smart they would have all gotten out before the market tanked (ponder the logic in that!)!!! Its lemmings. They all stampede up and they all stampede down.
If all “vital” information is restricted to Internet II, the government would have little excuse to meddle with Internet I, where all the little people share information and buy and sell things, and nothing else happens. Let’s see.
Good article, bookmark to read slowly and in depth.
You may be right, but I don’t believe this explanation.
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