Free Republic

Preface: Some defendants are no longer allowed to see the "secret evidence" which the government is using against them. See this and this. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that judges can throw out cases because they don't like or believe the plaintiff ... even before anyone has had the chance to conduct discovery to prove their case. In other words, judges' secret biases can be the basis for denying people their day in court, without even having to examine the facts. Claims of national security are being used to keep the shenanigans of the biggest banks an corporations secret,...

Yesterday, when we posted the full original letter submitted by True Finns leader Timo Soini titled "Why I Won't Support More Bailouts" as presented by the Wall Street Journal in verbatim, we were surprised that the WSJ, traditionally the bastion of various Fed interests (a topic previously dissected in "On The New York Fed's Editorial Influence Over The WSJ"), would allow such a truthy letter to appear on its pages. Today, courtesy of Karl Denninger who pointed out something glaringly disgusting, we were forced to look again at the letter as it now appears on the website of the WSJ....

Throughout history, governments have fought against the use of sound money. ... Governments can only wring so much money from their citizens through taxation without inciting civil disobedience, so they make friends with bankers, who have a way of making money appear from nowhere. The money they create isn't sound, but almost no one cares. For politicians, it's sound enough; it provides them with claim tickets to market wealth, which is all they want. Sound money would not cooperate in this manner. It does not emerge from central-bank policy decisions. Governments and bankers hate gold because its supply cannot be...

If you want to cut right to the chase, start paying attention at the 4:00 minute mark. This 80% cash settlement for not taking physical delivery of silver contracts has been rumored for a while now. This is the first time I've seen someone with a name and some credibility seemingly confirm it.

Oops... it's not here.... Iceland’s special prosecutor into the banking crisis has confirmed that raids have taken place today and that arrests have been made. The Central Bank of Iceland is among the institutions under investigation. Hoh hoh hoh...... Now we're talking. Investigations into the banking crisis, and they're actually going to lock up some banksters? Now that's progress. Speaking of progress, has anyone paid attention to the labor force participation rate in Iceland lately, or the change in unemployment, or the change in imports and exports? I wouldn't say their economy is "booming", but it sure looks pretty good...

A group of about 200 union protesters overwhelmed security at a Washington, D.C. hotel and barged into a mortgage banking meeting on Wednesday, according to the Huffington Post. HuffPo says protesters dressed in hardhats and overalls yelled “Where are the jobs?“ and ”Where is the money?“ as they pushed through security in a ”scrum” and burst into a conference room of stunned bankers. The protest was reportedly aimed at the Pulte Group — which protesters say has received $900 million in tax breaks but has not created a sufficient number of jobs. “Those tax breaks were supposed to create jobs,”...

I recently found a full time job after almost two years of not being able to find one but our home is scheduled to be auctioned in February. I have heard different things and am not sure what to do. My parents, who live out of state, want to buy the house with cash, free and clear, not for them, but for me and the kids so we have a place to live. Is this possible? I have heard realtors say it is forbidden, while others say it could be done. I have not notified the agency who has our...

One may be forgiven to believe that via its FX liquidity swap lines the Fed only bailed out foreign Central Banks, which in turn took the money and funded their own banks. It turns out that is only half the story: we now know the Fed also acted in a secondary bail out capacity, providing over $350 billion in short term funding exclusively to 35 foreign banks, of which the biggest beneficiaries were UBS, Dexia and BNP. Since the funding provided was in the form of ultra-short maturity commercial paper it was essentially equivalent to cash funding. In other words,...

If you haven't been humming tunes from "Les Misérables," you haven't seen "Inside Job," the new documentary about how our economic crisis evolved. The most forgiving American will want to seize a pitchfork and march on Wall Street. Or Harvard Square. Or in front of the White House. There are so many despicable parties, it's hard to pick a favorite. Is it time to reconsider the Axis of Evil? The film, written and directed by Charles Ferguson (and narrated by Matt Damon), will be opening in select cities this week. Although much of the story is familiar, Ferguson manages to...

Banks and bankers are now potential targets for the Real IRA, leaders of the dissident republican terror group have warned in an exclusive interview with the Guardian. Despite having only 100 activists they also said that targets in England remained a high priority.

Bankers urge gov't to pull plug on Fannie, FreddieBy Corbett B. Daly Published September 08, 2010 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The federal government should take mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac off life support sooner rather than later, the Mortgage Bankers Association urged Wednesday. The bankers said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should move beyond the "conservatorship" that started two years ago and be placed "receivership." "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have already moved well beyond the points where any other financial institution would have been put into receivership," MBA Chief Executive John Coursonand MBA Chairman-elect Michael Berman wrote...

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California is notorious for her high-decibel rants against corporate executives and career exploitation of identity politics. Class warfare and racial division are her two-decade-long stock and trade. She would normally be first in line (and in front of the cameras) to lambaste the very kind of Porsche-driving, luxury beach house-partying bank officials who begged her for a government handout. If they were white, that is. But the minority fat cats who lobbied her during the fall 2008 financial meltdown represented the black-owned OneUnited Bank. They were her longtime friends, donors and fundraisers. Her husband was...

<p>When President Barack Obama signs the financial overhaul bill into law on Wednesday, many of the most recognizable faces in the banking world won’t be among the hundreds of people in attendance.</p> <p>J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive James Dimon and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein weren’t invited to the ceremony and won’t be attending, people familiar with the matter said.</p>

Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Kiyohiko Nishimura discusses "informational advantage" this week at the Lujiazui Forum on economics and finance in Shanghai: "In my understanding, the Volcker Rule [proposed legislation restricting banks from making certain speculative investments] is designed to deter banks from taking excessive risk in capital markets, where volatility is inherently high and in which bankers do not necessarily have informational advantage in predicting market developments. Rather, the Volcker Rule urges banks to return to their traditional stronghold of commercial banking business, in which they can utilize their informational advantage based on long-term relationships with their customers." Informational...

With each passing year America sinks deeper into the tyranny of bureaucratic corporatism via today's incestuous relationship between Washington and Wall Street...Our schools, our churches, our publishers, and our entertainment industries are being infested with the serpents of Cultural Marxism. Political correctness dominates the herd mentalities and philistines who overwhelm the perceptive and productive at the polls every other November. The ignominious despotism that Tocqueville warned would come from "unbridled democracy" is stealing over our lives like the debilitating paralysis that invades the bodies of the arthritic. Yet our pundits revel in hosannas to their phony "engineered economic recovery" and...

Debate on the Senate version of the Obama administration’s bank regulatory overhaul is expected to begin shortly. The House of Representatives passed its banking bill last December. Neither bill does anything to curb the power of the banks or limit their parasitic and socially destructive activities. What the media is calling the “most sweeping overhaul” of the banking system since the Great Depression in reality sanctions the ever greater monopolization of the financial system by a handful of Wall Street giants, imposes no limits on executive pay, and allows the banks and hedge funds to continue gambling on exotic and...

The trouble with Wall Street isn't that too many bankers get rich in the booms. The trouble, rather, is that too few get poor -- really, suitably poor -- in the busts. To the titans of finance go the upside. To we, the people, nowadays, goes the downside. How much better it would be if the bankers took the losses just as they do the profits. Happily, there's a ready-made and time-tested solution. Let the senior financiers keep their salaries and bonuses, and let them do with their banks what they will. If, however, their bank fails, let the bankers...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Charles Prince and Robert Rubin, who led Citigroup (Symbol : C Loading... ) in the run-up to the 2008 banking crisis, voiced regrets on Thursday but accepted no responsibility for mega-bank's massive losses. The two came under heavy fire before a congressional panel hearing for being blind to financial risks that Citi took on, which ultimately led to its near collapse, prevented only by a $45-billion taxpayer bailout. His hands visibly shaking as he answered questions, Rubin told congressional investigators he was not a decision-maker at the bank during the worst of its troubles. The former U.S....

Politics: Another bank failure is nothing new these days — except if the bank is run by the family of a U.S. Senate candidate who profited handsomely and lent millions to a convicted felon. But then, that's the Chicago way. 'I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers on Wall Street," President Obama said in a recent interview with "60 Minutes." Speaking to those bankers, he said: "You guys are drawing down 10, 20 million dollar bonuses after America went through the worst economic year that it's gone through in — in decades,...

MUMBAI — In New York and London, women remain scarce among top bankers despite decades of struggle to climb the corporate ladder. But in India’s relatively young financial industry, women not only are some of the top deal makers, they are often running the show. HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS and Fidelity International in India are run by women. So is the country’s second-biggest bank, Icici Bank, and its third-largest, Axis Bank. Women head investment banking operations at Kotak Mahindra and JPMorgan Chase and the equities division of Icici. Half of the deputy governors at the Reserve...