21 Articles

Wednesday, October 8, 2008
THE FED NOW OWNS THE WORLD'S LARGEST INSURANCE COMPANY -- BUT WHO OWNS THE FED?
(6 comments) The Federal Reserve has assumed sweeping new powers in the last year. These increasingly controversial encroachments on the public purse warrant a closer look at the central banking scheme itself. Who owns the Federal Reserve, who actually controls it, where does it get its money, and whose interests is it serving?

Thursday, October 2, 2008
BAILOUT BEDLAM: ROBBING THE TAXPAYERS TO SAVE THE BANKS
(2 comments) The bank bailout bill would turn the banks' worst assets into good U.S. dollars. The figure was $700 billion a few days ago and has already climbed to $800 billion after the pork was added in. That's nearly the cost of two Iraq wars, but it still won't be enough, because the covered instruments eligible for conversion include the black hole of derivatives. Derivatives held by U.S. banks are now estimated at $180 trillion . . .

Sunday, September 28, 2008
Thanks But No Thanks: What Lincoln Would Have Said to Paulson's $700 Billion Ransom
(5 comments) Last week, Treasury Secretary Paulson pulled out his bazooka and held it to Congress's head. "Seven hundred billion dollars or your credit system will collapse!" President Lincoln was faced with a similar threat from the bankers. He said, "Thanks but no thanks; I'll issue my own."

Thursday, September 18, 2008
It's the Derivatives, Stupid! Why Fannie, Freddie and AIG Had to Be Bailed Out
(35 comments) Why the extraordinary bailouts of Fannie, Freddie and AIG? The answer has less to do with the insurance business, housing, or foreign investors than with the greatest Ponzi scheme in history, one that is holding up the private global banking system. What had to be prevented at all costs was an "event of default" that could have collapsed a quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble, taking the global banking system down with it.

Friday, September 5, 2008
Take a Load Off Fannie: Bailout or Nationalization for the Mortgage Giants?
(6 comments) The Treasury just sought and was granted an unlimited credit line to the GSEs, along with the authority to buy their stock, effectively nationalizing them; but this could mean $5 trillion more in liabilities for the federal government, causing it to lose its own triple-A rating. What to do? There is a solution that would salvage the mortgage giants and cost the taxpayers nothing . . .

Thursday, August 14, 2008
WAG THE DOG: HOW TO CONCEAL MASSIVE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
(8 comments) The dollar and the Dow are up, gold and oil are down, when all economic indicators point the other way. What's going on? Manipulation . . .

Thursday, August 7, 2008
Fannie and Freddie: Giving Away the Farm
(1 comments) Fannie and Freddie, two private for-profit mortgage giants, are being bailed out from their risky ventures with an $800 billion credit line from Congress. Meanwhile, Fannie and Freddie have sold off the mortgages to 10 percent of our real estate to foreign central banks and governments. Why are we letting our property be "nationalized" by other nations, and what can we do to reverse this alarming trend?

Friday, July 25, 2008
PUTTING THE "FEDERAL" BACK IN THE FEDERAL RESERVE
(4 comments) Where is the outrage? Remove the myth that the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac act by and for the people rather than being run for private gain, and we will soon see the outrage curiously missing today.

Monday, July 14, 2008
Let the Lawsuits Begin: Banks Brace for a Storm of Litigation
(2 comments) Lawsuits threaten the banks from all sides -- from state attorneys general, consumer class actions, and investor backlash. Shifting liability for the subprime debacle back to the banks could bankrupt even the biggest banks. But that might not be the end of the world . . .

Thursday, June 26, 2008
THE SUBPRIME TRUMP CARD: STANDING UP TO THE BANKS
The majority of subprime homeowners may have a valid defense to foreclosure. A coalition of beleaguered homeowners armed with this defense could have significant clout with Congress.

Saturday, June 14, 2008
What's the difference between Lehman Bros and Bear Stearns? Lehman's CEO is on board of NY Fed
Bear Stearns, far from being "rescued" by JPMorgan, was eaten alive. But Lehman Brothers, the next investment bank expected to fall, probably WILL be rescued by the Fed. What's the difference? The CEO of Lehman Brothers -- like that of JPMorgan and unlike that of Bear Stearns -- sits on the Board of the NY Fed . . . .

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
DID BEAR STEARNS FALL OR WAS IT PUSHED? HOW INSIDER TRADING SAVED JPMORGAN AND LOOTED TAXPAYERS
(9 comments) Who was bailed out, Bear Stearns or JPMorgan? The evidence for illegal insider trading.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Speculating in Hunger: Are Investors Contributing to the Global Food Crisis?
Investment newsletters are now featuring headlines like "How You Can Profit from the Global Food Crisis." The recommended investments will no doubt do very well in the global food crisis; but before you put your money down, you may want to explore whether you will be helping to alleviate the problem or actually contributing to it.

Thursday, April 10, 2008
Credit Default Swaps: Derivative Disaster Du Jour
(12 comments) When the smartest guys in the room designed their credit default swaps, they forgot to ask one thing – what if the parties on the other side of the bet don't have the money to pay up? . . .

Monday, March 31, 2008
APRIL FOOLS: THE FOX TO GUARD THE BANKING HENHOUSE
(10 comments) The Federal Reserve, which has been credited with creating the current housing bubble and bust just as it created the credit bubble of the Roaring Twenties and the bust of 1929, is now to be given vast new powers to oversee regulation of the banking industry and promote "financial market stability." At least, that is the gist of a Treasury Department proposal to be presented to Congress on Monday, March 30, 2008 . . . .

Monday, March 24, 2008
Another Way Around the Credit Crisis: Minnesota Bill Would Authorize State Banks to "Monetize" Productivity
(11 comments) While the Federal Reserve is lowering the interest rates charged to banks, the interest municipal governments must pay on bonds is skyrocketing, seriously impairing their ability to do public works including repairing bridges and roads. A bill scheduled to be heard before the Minnesota Senate Transportation Committee on March 25, 2008, could represent a major innovation in the way local government projects are funded.

Friday, January 11, 2008
Patrol Boats in the Straits of Hormuz: Another Gulf of Tonkin Incident?
(2 comments) Despite a recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) finding that Iran is not engaged in a nuclear weapons program, the push for war continues. The question is, why? The Project for a New American Century provides some clues . . .

Sunday, November 11, 2007
Letter To The United Nations: How To Cut Sustainable Energy Costs In Half
(4 comments) Development loans have become debt traps for Third World countries, as interest compounds annually on money created by banks with accounting entries. If governments or the United Nations would take over that function, advancing credit created with accounting entries themselves, the crippling expense of interest could be eliminated. Interest-free loans could help ease climate change and other global crises.

Saturday, November 10, 2007
Behind the Drums of War with Iran: Nuclear Weapons or Compound Interest?
(10 comments) Why the relentless push for war with Iran? The nuclear weapons explanation is suspect. The most important impetus for war may not be oil or the bomb but that Iran has managed to escape the heel of an international clique of private bankers. We may be involved in a war of banking schemes, with Iran's innovative interest-free banking model pitted against the compound interest trap that has captured most of the world in debt.

Monday, September 24, 2007
Bank Run or Stealth Bail-Out? The Global Credit Crisis Comes to Main Street
Our debt-based monetary system is basically a Ponzi scheme, and it has reached its mathematical limits. The choices are bank runs, as we just saw in England, or stealth hyperinflation to keep the bubble afloat. But there's a third option: returning the monetary scheme to something closer to the vision of our forefathers.

Thursday, September 6, 2007
Market Meltdown: The End of a 300 Year Ponzi Scheme
(7 comments) The market is collapsing because we have come to the end of a 300 year Ponzi scheme, dating back to the privatization of money creation in the seventeenth century. The only way out of this fix is the way we got into it: by retrieving the power to create money from a cartel of private bankers and returning it to the people themselves.