RIGGING STOCK MARKETS IS EVEN OK ABROAD

NY Post ^ | 14 Feb 2008 | John Crudele

[oblomov]

February 14, 2008 -- IF you still don't believe me that the US government has an organization called the Plunge Protection Team that intervenes in the stock market, consider this: * A former Federal Reserve official proposed just such a market-rigging operation decades ago.

* US Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, publicly brags that he has revitalized a group that some - including me - thinks is capable of rigging the market.

* Paulson has admitted on TV that he regularly discusses financial trouble spots with "market participants," perhaps even at the Wall Street firm he once headed.

* A former official of the Clinton Administration confessed on television that a rigging operation existed at least 10 years ago - I personally have discussed this sort of effort after 9/11 with a Fed official.

If you still don't believe, then read this story written from Brussels the other day by Reuters and pay special interest to the part that I highlighted.

BRUSSELS, Feb 11

(Reuters) - Finance leaders from the Group of Seven industrialized nations discussed collective action to calm markets if price moves become irrational, Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker was quoted as saying on Monday.

Juncker, who chairs the Eurogroup - the monthly meetings of euro zone finance ministers and the European Central Bank - told the Luxemburger Wort newspaper in an interview that turbulence on financial markets could continue for months.

"We are not yet at the end of the market crisis," Juncker was quoted as saying. "The corrections will drag on for a few weeks, months.

We have agreed in Tokyo that if there are irrational price movements in the markets, we will collectively take suitable measures to calm the financial markets," he said.

[oblomov]

If indeed the markets are being propped up by the Fed and other central banks, then it will eventually fail. I expect the pressure to intervene to increase under a Democrat, no matter who it is.

[Cacique]

never mind the stock market. These guys are also rigging our elections.

[M-cubed]

It’s all here.... http://www.financialsense.com/Market/dorsch/2008/0214.html

[M-cubed]

and the problem with fiat money and the rigging of the markets is explained here .. http://www.321gold.com/fed/greenspan/1966.html By none other then Greenspan himself...before he got Political religion

[the invisib1e hand]

well no kidding. only a zealot is foolish enough to believe that markets don’t need to be managed.

[the invisib1e hand]

oy...wrap me in tinfoil and take me to the Grand Poobah.

[gondramB]

>>If indeed the markets are being propped up by the Fed and other central banks, then it will eventually fail. I expect the pressure to intervene to increase under a Democrat, no matter who it is.<<<

The various forms of intervention are not intended to permanently alter the market, they are more design to slow panics and allow free market stabilizing forces to take effect.

Now indirectly, the Fed and the Administration do favor better economics and thus higher markets. But there is nothing particularly underhanded about that.

[JasonC]

If this is what being propped up looks like, what would freely cratering every few weeks be?

Just silliness...