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Barofsky Likely To Seek Criminal Or Civil Charges Against New York Fed, Geithner Targetted?
And so the Abacus fallout is about to hit precisely where the culprit for it all resides: the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Could there be justice in this world after all? From Bloomberg:
Barofsky says the question of whether the New York Fed engaged in a coverup will result in some sort of action.
“We’re either going to have criminal or civil charges against individuals or we’re going to have a report,” Barofsky says. “This is too important for us not to share our findings.”
He won’t say whether the investigation is targeting Geithner personally.
In Senate Finance Committee testimony on April 20, Barofsky said SIGTARP would investigate seven AIG-linked mortgage-related securities similar to Abacus 2007-AC1, the instrument underwritten by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that is at the center of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit filed against the investment bank on April 16.
“I’ve been in contact with the SEC,” he told the committee. “We’re going to coordinate with them, but we’re going to lead the charge. We’re going to review these transactions.”
Barofsky and Geithner’s offices have gone toe-to-toe over AIG, alleged lax oversight of TARP funds and even over the question of whom Barofsky reports to.
We are too busy salivating to comment much on this. Read the whole thing here.
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Go Barofsky!!! The thought of Geithner doing a perp walk makes my day.
In my dreams!!
Maybe Geithner and Bove can Rochambeau for the top bunk?
Epicness!
Thank you Tyler!!!!!!!
New mug for those who want to support at the ZH approved charitable store!
Timmy behind Bars!
http://www.zazzle.com/timmy_cup_mug-168436340329023164
Priced low even though it took 2 hours of Photoshop.
This is a fundraiser for ZH. I will add products every day that I am able. It will continue to grow and all ideas are welcome.
For a view of all items:
www.zazzle.com/Howard_Beale
Yes please.
Shifty little asswipe needs to go to prison.
Don't worry timmy.... I'll come and visit you.
Can we have Barofsky go in and audit the Fed next?!?!!?
OH PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!!
Congrats TD-- I heard all this shit here first.
Why don't you and John Stewart make a network.... I'll close all my other browser windows and throw my TV off the balcony...
+Edward Norton
Barofsky is a modern day Untouchable. Hope someone on the Hill has his back. Catching Turbo Tim will be like grabbing a greased hog, but it should be done.
All you need is a net, piece of pie
Let's have some fun at the NY Fed
Robespierre for president!
i knew the city was rehabbing that park on Maiden & William for a reason! wonder if they'll get Damien Hirst to design the guillotine?
http://www.luxist.com/2008/06/20/damien-hirsts-golden-calf/
Love all the pictures you add! Aw this is such a shame...little Timmy G, in the guillotine and he always seemed like such a nice little lad. Well, if you can put aside the evil Satatic stares from under his eyebrow-less brow, and the total lack of ability to tell the truth and give a straight answer about anything, ever.
Thank you. I love this picture for the details. Look around and you will find Gold. Just behind and to the left are people (Chinese?) with what I presume are buckets of waters to wash away the blood. In the left center foreground is a guy with a closed umbrella leaning around someone else for a better view, what looks like a priest in white (can barely make him out as an outline) walking back towards the gates (left of center tree) after giving the last rites, the guy holding down the unfortunate while the other reaches up to pull the rope and so on.
And the unfortunate himself. Imagine your last few seconds, fighting to break free, looking down into a blood spattered basket and wondering how much this is going to hurt.
One can dream, can't one?
CogDis, etal -- if you like MPython, you should really rent this movie...it's just out on DVD:
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_Imaginarium_of_Doctor_Parnassus/7011353...
you might find yourself living the dream of the above photo.
The buckets are for the heads. It is the easiest way to transport them to the site where they will be hoisted up on pikes.
Need to see heads all up and down Wall Sreet, Broad Street etc.
Ah, the heads. I wasn't thinking beyond the one head. :>)
Beheading is too too nice a penalty. Anatomy says the body would experience little to no pain and even that not for very long, the immediate shock would not wear off until long after consciousness ceases. Without consciousness there is no pain.
Better that a 240 volt electrocution be the preferred method of execution for The Masters of the Universe. More like being in hell for a short time.
Really?? Have you ever been beheaded?
This just in from the internet:
"Then I received a note from a U.S. Army veteran who had been stationed in Korea. In June 1989 the taxi he and a friend were riding in collided with a truck. My correspondent was pinned in the wreckage. The friend was decapitated. Here's what happened:
One can also live in the present, live and don't can your dream, and the future stumbles in before you know it rarely by accident.
i would prefer dipping them in chum and dragging them behind a boat in the Great Barrier Reef....
How about dipped in honey and staked down on top of a fireant hill? With the eyes sewed open!
TD, sorry to quibble, but simply adding a ? after 'geithner targeted' would have made the headline much more reflective of the text that you wrote and much less PuffHo-ish.
Good point. Meant to do that
no prob...thanks for the hard work.
+1
Dude's gonna get black bagged if he keeps this up.
The only thing stopping complete deflationary collapse is printing and Fed shenanigans. The truth is that without the confidence racket that the FRN is, this nation is at ALL STOP.
I agree. Risk of getting suicided is now dangerously high. Hope he lasts long enough to get some heads rolling.
I think the power-elite are long past the point of utilizing suspected suicide as a means of controlling real & potential enemies. That's only effective if the objective is to instill a general sense of fear, uncertainty & doubt.
I suspect we're now entering the stage where getting whacked in full public view, alongside perhaps a view innocent bystanders, may be deemed necessary to send an appropriately clear message.
Remember, we're talking national security here; and not just the USA. There are other foreign interests of whom some culprits share dual citizenship which may have a vested interest in preserving the status quo.
I think the elite now know that the game is up. They are going to throw TT and BB under the bus, and focus public anger at the economic collapse to the enabler's so that the public doesn't dig too deeply. So that's why the SEC has charged GS, and Barofsky is going after others. So I think Barofsky is fully back-stopped, and the previously "untouchables" aren't getting their phone calls returned.
I'm in agreement with you, I sincerely hope Mr. Barofsky doesn't go to the top of any skyscrapers (and get thrown off like that intel analyst with State's Bureau of Intelligence & Research, and that NSA contractor, nor that journalist down in Florida), and certainly hope he doesn't go skiing anytime soon.
But am highly doubtful of anybody being brought to justice outside of a crazed mob or vigilante assassins.
While it was heavily played up that those intel guys were whacked due to differing with cooked intel regarding the Iraqi invasion by the USA, it was seriously more dangerous intel they had come across.
Barofsky is like Samson, pulling down the pillars, hope it happens but highly, highly unlikely given that there are exactly two honest people in positions right now, SIGTARP Barofsky and E. Warren.
Can Bernanke keep his beard in prison?
Why do you ask? Do you suppose he has no chin?
It does not and should not matter whether ACA was aware of who was going short or who was going long. Applying fiduciary standards to market-makers doesn't fly either. Parsing how 'sophisticated' a sophisticated investor really is ... holds no water.
Sole authority versus designing/selecting, sophisticated versus 'less-sophisticated', losing money versus couldn't dump the 's&*t', ...ah the stuff with which show trials are made.
The metaphorical perp walk and the enabling pablum narrative solvent of cleansing with the, of course, obligatory turning of the page.
Consider if you will, Deutsche 's proclamation that they have nothing to fear (never a good sign) : 'Both the long and short investors were given the opportunity to select the specific collateral to which they were seeking exposure and mutually agreed on the CDO portfolio.{The bank} said it did not use third-party collateral managers, which eliminated the potential for deception with respect to the role of such a manager.'
And compare this to a 'salient' point from the FT: 'When Mr. Levin asked whether an internal memo saying the CDO's composition had been agreed by ACA and Goldman was accurate, Mr. Tourre said, It's not very accurate...It could have been more accurate. He admitted he should have added that Paulson & Co. and IKB, a German bank that invested in the deal , had also participated in the CDO's creation - a crucial point in the regulators' complaints.'
Well, your humble blogger doesn't think the SEC is complaining that Goldie didn't disclose that IKB participated in the CDO creation for the SEC is rewriting its' mandate to protect what is allegedly an un-sophisticated sophisticated investor, but it is interesting that this representation of a finely parsed point that could help the SEC with a - harumphh- impartial jury is basically representing Deutsche's defense less the 'objective' third party 'deception-enablin' collateral manager.
Whatever...
In my limited dealings with Goldie and the like the principal question to ask was always, 'Where am I getting screwed?'. Because I hate to break it to you folks... that is the essence of capitalism. Screw or be screwed. Personal disclaimer: this fella chose quality over quantity, a process initiated when Morgan tried to backstab my sponsor by replacing him with me - and I walked much to utter astonishment and chagrin of my bond team - but the aphorism that if you can't find the sucker at the table, its' you...is the bedrock of our economic system.
If the case against Goldie is not a 'sad joke' as suggested in a previous post, then every other big bankster on the planet should be brought up on similar charges. Full stop.
In truth, the sucker here is apparent, and that sucker would be you gentle reader.
If Goldie was the pit boss, the accuser of same, the pontificating politico and her cohorts, was in fact the House. The fraudulent conveyan' , Nancy Capitalist enablin', Federales, abetted and abided the 'everything must go' free-market fire sale that spawned a multitude of pit bosses that were hell bent to seek rent.
Without prudent regulation, Marx, not Groucho was right.
Well we could always reinstate Glass-Steagal Mr. Levin... oh that's right, you voted to repeal that in '99 didn't you?
The magician's ability to get folks to ask the wrong questions belies the need for coherent answers, and we are fast approaching magic hour in the Bananarama Republic.
Financial reform derailed because Buffet is calling on his ~$50,000 investment in Ben Nelson to obviate the ~8 billion in collateral he would need to put up for the ~5 billion dollar premium he pocketed?
Rend it like Buffet!
A Grecian downgrade right after the enemies of the people, the rating agencies, got wrist-slapped on the hill and curiously timed with the purported cessation of our debt monetization?
News breaks with the cycles and the cynics...
I've always held firm to the thesis that deflation is the midwife to hyperinflation. A real deflation, not just disinflation, requires liquidity evaporation due to multiple sovereign crises, where the backstop is called into question.
Deflation is the dollar bid, hyper-inflation is the downgrade of America's citizenry commensurate with a currency devaluation.
Would suggest that the quantity of liquidity evaporation will very much define the quality of any hyper-inflation.
We have a free skate while there are troubles in Euroland (should stretch over months not weeks) and then we'll find out just how thin our ice really is.
Don't let the sucker at the ice-skate stand be you.
yep
"In truth, the sucker here is apparent, and that sucker would be you gentle reader."
What is the difference between illegal vs unethical vs uninformed vs the sucker? I've always said that financial laws aren't enacted to prevent the lions from mauling each other but to minimize the mauling of the suckers.
Focus on the word minimize. I didn't say eliminate or stop, just keep it within the "reasonable" category, sort of like inflation. Too much and the suckers wise up, too little and you don't vacation in Europe this year.
What is the difference between illegal vs unethical vs uninformed vs the sucker?
A. illegal - laws
B. unethical -conscience
C. uniformed - education
D. sucker - Misapplication of C and B when enacting A and believing the pablum narrative when describing A
Prudent regulation to minimize the abuses of (waxing nostalgic) free-market capitalism...
Interesting read and perspective - thanks for sharing. I am familiar with the saying that if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen and that taking advantage of good arbitrage opportunities can look very different from the other side. However, I have wondered how tranches with nothing higher than BBB got an AAA. I think that went beyond the normal gamesmanship and rough and tumble.
Nah it was the game, the structure was rigged by reverse engineering what was needed for the rating agencies to sprinkle their AAA pixie dust...
Let's be clear, Goldie was not the aberration.
This was the game.
"This was the game."
The slippery slope. My complaint is that "the game" is sold to the public as being one way when in fact it's another. The reality is the the public doesn't have the heart or desire to demand anything other than what they are getting as long as they are (or believe they are) being dealt in for their share of the pie, even if it's the crumbs.
But the game can work both ways. While I understand it's impossible, how many people would be complaining about GS if they were cut in for a piece of the action? Very few. And this is the real danger, that once most understand that it's a dog eat dog world and the authorities are protecting the dogs, the masses will no longer play by the rules assigned to them. Already seeing it with strategic defaults on personal debt a la home mortgages while paying the CC's.
CD,
You are on top of your game.
Exactly right.
and history proves your point. It seems more anger than principle, more the insight to injustice than the epiphany of empowerment that moves the masses to revolt.
"And this is the real danger, that once most understand that it's a dog eat dog world and the authorities are protecting the dogs, the masses will no longer play by the rules assigned to them."
Well said, CD, well said. Once enough zombies begin to be reanimated, and understand that those two goombahs, Collins and Levin, are the same two, like all the other corruptions in congress, who voted to de-criminalize fraud for the super-rich, while criminalizing everything for the rest of us.
As soon as they realize it was the passage of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, and all those exemptions accorded to Goldman & Co., and the exception to the net capital rule, while offshoring all the jobs, increasing visa programs to bring in more foreign scab workers, and upping the refugee program to bring in more foreign scab workers, etc., etc., etc., a few will begin to finally...finally comprehend.
But, of course, kinda late in the day.....
...indeed... game, set and match...
This was the game.
And as I've been telling people, "it's the system!"
Every damn one of these folks know that the pace that they engage in is NOT sustainable, that they are only participating in what amounts to rape, rape made legal (because the smaller fuckers get their peice too).
It has been all but one big cycle. Capitalism's big cycle is coming to a close: Mother Nature is calling the game.
The ship is sinking. The rats are running. There aren't any lifeboats and the rats have too far to swim (they will face the guantlet of populist uprising- no laws will protect them).
"....or we're going to have a report"
oh no, not the dreaded 'report'... that'll be too harsh!
Don't forget, they are coordinating with the SEC - this could go well beyond a 'report' and actually lead to a 'strongly worded letter'. *shudder*
+1 HAHAHAHAAHAAHAAAA!
and in all caps. Some are even calling for bold, underlines and italics
Strongly worded letters: F U (to the NY FED)
I wonder why the relationship between Treasury under Obama and Bush has been "tense"? The closer he gets to the truth on the use of this "slush fund" the closer he comes to the end o f his timeline.
Dear Mr. Neil M. Barofsky,
Fight the power!
Turbo Timmy's signature on federal reserve notes is a perfect indication of their true value.
Jack (V.O.)
I'm a recall coordinator. My job is to apply the formula.
....
Jack (V.O.)
Take the number of $100 bills with Geithner's autograph in the field, (A), and multiply it by the probability of criminal charges, (B), then multiply the result by the potential damage to the current administration, (C). A times B times C equals X...
Jack
If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Fantastic. Tar and feather that Geithner asshole.
He could be after Hankster too...
Barofsky, a former federal prosecutor who was once the target of a kidnapping plot by Colombian drug traffickers, says he’s also looking into possible insider trading connected to TARP. He says his agency would want to know if bankers bought stock in their companies before it was made public that their institutions would get TARP money, for example.
“There was a time when, if you got that word the stock price would go up, and if you were to trade on that information prior to the public announcement, that would be classic insider trading,” Barofsky says.
‘Tea Partiers’
A Democrat named by a Republican president, Barofsky says missteps by both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations are to blame for TARP’s failures.
“There’s a reason there are Tea Partiers out there, and when you look at it, anger at the bailout is one of the first things they talk about,” says Barofsky, referring to the anti- Obama political movement. “This Treasury Department and the previous Treasury Department bear some of the responsibility for not being straightforward with the American people.”
Barofsky criticized Geithner’s predecessor, Paulson, in an October 2009 report, saying Paulson publicly described the initial nine TARP bank recipients as healthy when he knew that at least one of them risked failure.
Oh, he is good. Barofsky "gets it" however, he is either; just another DC sociopath pandering to populist rage, or he truly possesses character.
No doubt his star is on the rise.
If you've read his last SIGTARP report last January, you will understand that he fully "gets it."
He pointedly explained that PPIP was designed for fraud, which numerous others, beginning with Prof. Michael Hudson, had first pointed out.
Those public-private partnerships, along with the credit derivatives which allow them to rig and manipulate the markets (plus their ownership of all the exchanges), constitute the scam.
“We’re either going to have criminal or civil charges against individuals or we’re going to have a report,” Barofsky says. “This is too important for us not to share our findings.”
We don't need no education.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_bvT-DGcWw&a=M2eWJg2W2mY&playnext_from=ML
This cannot be true because CNBC has not reported it yet..right?
They do decide news and opinions as well now correct?
Neil Barofsky = Captian Cojones
Why do I think Hank Paulson and Geithner have been in tipping their Wall Street
cronies all the way?
Is there no way that the US could prosecute Hank? Does he think he could get
away with the murder, perhaps the greatest wealth transfer in the history of the world?
Why do I think Hank Paulson and Geithner have been tipping their Wall Street
cronies all the way?
Is there no way that the US could prosecute Hank? Does he think he could get
away with the murder, perhaps the greatest wealth transfer in the history of the world?
Sorry for the double post..
Q: Could there be justice in this world after all?
A: "What you have gentlemen, is a system of rules and laws. For Justice I'm afraid you must wait till you get to heaven."
Where is the "Geithner needs to go to jail guy"???? We need him now more than ever.
GEITHNER NEEDS TO GO TO JAIL.
Little wimp needs an ass-woopin' behind bars.
Where is the "Geithner needs to go to jail guy"???? We need him now more than ever.
Steve to Barofsky, "Shut up and show me."
Hank and Timmy are the untouchables.
This forum is swimming in "hope and change" and should be ashamed. These aren't decisions made in the present - this plan has been going on for more than 8 years.
The joke will be on the public (again).
Precisement.
Steve to Barofsky, "Shut up and show me."
Hank and Timmy are the untouchables.
This forum is swimming in "hope and change" and should be ashamed. These aren't decisions made in the present - this plan has been going on for more than 8 years.
The joke will be on the public (again).
Perhaps.
When the November elections are a bloodbath FOR ALL INCUMBANTS, perhaps we will see some of this type of thing move forward.
WAKE UP SHEEPLE!
NY Fed & a cover up?? Preposterous!
Hopefully we will finally see a just outcome and punishment of those with a level of arrogance and criminality never before imagined by anyone.
20 years in the clink will crush that arrogance. Fuck these filthy bastards. I hope they all rot.
"Tavakoli says the CDO managers sometimes replaced relatively high-quality securities with new ones that were more likely to default.
‘Phony Labels’
“It is securities fraud if you take securities and package them and knowingly pass them off with phony labels,” she says."
This is what ABK claims in one of its Law Suits against some of the Banks it is suing which includes JPM.
Yes, many of the people that insured thoes CDO's had the Securities in the CDO's changed after the Ratings were established. This may even implicate Goldman if they "replaced" Morgages in the CDO's after they were rated.
I would like to compare the CDO's as they existed when they were Rated to the CDO's that were Sold.
I would like to see if the Securities in the CDO's were the same when Rated and what Investors Owned after the Sale
...CDO's were structured/priced with "proxy" collateral... when deal closed traders delivered collateral with same/similar characteristics... not necessarily same physical collateral as used to price deal... this is standard practice in ALL structured securities... including REMICS...
Now that is encouraging. I really hope this Barofsky fellow follows through. For what it's worth, here is their reports page: http://sigtarp.gov/reports.shtml. It's alot, but I think useful reading (i.e., at least it provides more realistic background/backdrop to the actual events and continuing drama in the financial markets, ad especially real estate related).
Most telling line:
In April 2009, Treasury asked the Justice Department for a ruling on whether Barofsky and SIGTARP reported to Secretary Geithner. In a letter to Justice, Barofsky argued that he reported only to the president
Bad ass!!! I wonder if Barofsky means Jackson in....what, Austrian? Polish? I don't know but that is one bad ass statement! I wonder what happens when he rings Barry.
RING Rrring! "Mr. President," says the hot secretary, "Mr. Barofsky is on the line." "Oh shit." pause. "Hallo?" "Mr. President this is Mr. Barofsky." "Yes hi Neil." "Sir, we have some major issues concerning..." He is interupted. "Send my the notes and we will get back to you. "I have a full report on what I believe..." "Then send me the report." "OK, but there are many..." "Just send me the report!" The phone is heard to be slammed down from the other end, but not before an exclaimation of "Fuck." is made.
This is bad ass. I want Barofsky as Attorny General in my "Dream Cabinet" where Bill Black is SEC Chair and Ms. Tavakoli is Treasury Sec....there is no Fed, as it will be the States issueing coinage.
are you sure about this Tavakoli lady?
http://www.tavakolistructuredfinance.com/biography.html
Don't forget to add Brooksley Born, Paul Craig Roberts, Catherine Austin Fitts to the team (and maybe Elizabeth Warren).
And a televised dragging by Cossack horses for S. Bair, T. Geithner, H.Paulson, L.Summers, etc etc etc. Tho we might need two horses to drag Larry's girth around.
Sweet dreams are made of these.....
And if this team is assembled, I will gladly have have Ms. Warren. She is capable, but gun shy.
thanks for all the insight TD, ZH has been keeping people informed well ahead of the curve. it's been inspiring for me, because it gives me confidence that maybe one day what i've known has been wrong with the 'system' for so long might actually be righted.
Fraud vitiates all contracts, agreements, laws etc. If Paulson and others Knowingly, Intelligently and willingly intended to defraud the President, the CON-gress and the public by writing in immunity for him/herself and others under fraudulent means and motives then that law would be void ab initio. There are nine elements to fraud and all nine elements in this instant case can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
I'm wondering at the point why the debate on fraud is so limited.
I'm seeing the formation of risk cartels on Wall St through credit default swaps, but there is absolutely no debate about it. In fact, it all seems to be hearsay on he said she said. Why would government debt require credit default swaps in the first place, for example?
My question would be how they're doing an end run around anti-trust violations with nobody noticing.
Barofsky Likely To Seek Criminal Or Civil Charges... Geithner Targeted?
"Let's give 'em the gunsel."
"The fall guy's part of the price I'm asking."
"Anyway, he's made to order for the part, look at him."
"I'm in this up to my neck, Gutman (Fat Larry Summers). I've got to find somebody - a victim - when the time comes. If I don't, I'll be it."
"Let's give him to 'em..."
Gutman: "BAHHA-hahahaha... ah ha. Really sir, you astound me. There is no telling what you wil say or do next..."
"I like talking to a man who like to talk"...now what about that Hankster with the bazooka in his pocket? It turned out to be a smoke grenade that worked to occlude the robbery and create amnesia, because he's still walking around free.
Fraud. Corruption. Facing the boot of the State. It reminds one of the case of Paul Craig Roberts.
And it’s akin to the Jesse Ventura case. Jesse isn’t anything if he isn’t a performer. He’s dramatic, funny, sometimes profound, sometimes unprofound. And while he’s always hot media copy, why won’t his latest book (he’s a best selling author) see reviews in the NY Times or Washington Post? And why was an excerpt from the book pulled on Huffington shortly after appearing?
You see, Jesse’s book touched the government media’s latest third rail, doubts about the government’s version of 9/11.
These doubts have created established printing censorship for many columnists and authors in recent years. And it’s one of the reasons that the powerful voice of Paul Craig Roberts was banished from “mainstream” media and why, last month, he ended his regular writing endeavor.
“Truth,” he wrote in a sign-off column at http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03242010.html, “is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded “anti-American,” “anti-semite” or “conspiracy theorist.”
“Truth is an inconvenience for government and for the interest groups whose campaign contributions control government.
“Truth is an inconvenience for prosecutors who want convictions, not the discovery of innocence or guilt.
“Truth is inconvenient for ideologues.
“Today many whose goal once was the discovery of truth are now paid handsomely to hide it. ‘Free market economists’ are paid to sell offshoring to the American people. High-productivity, high value-added American jobs are denigrated as dirty, old industrial jobs. Relicts from long ago, we are best shed of them. Their place has been taken by ‘the New Economy,’ a mythical economy that allegedly consists of high-tech white collar jobs in which Americans innovate and finance activities that occur offshore. All Americans need in order to participate in this ‘new economy’ are finance degrees from Ivy League universities, and then they will work on Wall Street at million dollar jobs.”
Wrote Roberts: “The government’s account of 9/11 is contradicted by much evidence. Nevertheless, this defining event of our time, which has launched the US on interminable wars of aggression and a domestic police state, is a taboo topic for investigation in the media. It is pointless to complain of war and a police state when one accepts the premise upon which they are based.
“These trillion dollar wars have created financing problems for Washington’s deficits and threaten the U.S. dollar’s role as world reserve currency. The wars and the pressure that the budget deficits put on the dollar’s value have put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block. Former Goldman Sachs chairman and U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is after these protections for the elderly. Fed chairman Bernanke is also after them. The Republicans are after them as well. These protections are called ‘entitlements’ as if they are some sort of welfare that people have not paid for in payroll taxes all their working lives.”
Roberts, an economist and former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, was associate editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal and was Business Week’s first outside columnist for 15 years. He was columnist for a decade for Scripps Howard News Service, carried in 300 newspapers and was a columnist for the Washington Times and for newspapers in France and Italy and for a magazine in Germany. He was a contributor to the New York Times and a regular feature in the Los Angeles Times.
“For the last six years,” he said, “I have been banned from the ‘mainstream media.’ My last column in the New York Times appeared in January, 2004, coauthored with Democratic U.S. Senator Charles Schumer representing New York. We addressed the offshoring of U.S. jobs. Our op-ed article produced a conference at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and live coverage by C-Span. A debate was launched. No such thing could happen today.”
In his closing column, Roberts wrote: “With over 21 per cent unemployment as measured by the methodology of 1980, with American jobs, GDP, and technology having been given to China and India, with war being Washington’s greatest commitment, with the dollar over-burdened with debt, with civil liberty sacrificed to the ‘war on terror,’ the liberty and prosperity of the American people have been thrown into the trash bin of history.
“The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off.
He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
I read that column when it first came out and I think Roberts is a very smart guy. Problem is that he posits that the "truth" hiders are all the right wing guys and that no one from the left ever, ever hides the truth. Thus, if someone is called say, racist it must be true regardless of the merit of the accusation (notice that "racist", a much-used perjorative, is conveniently excluded from the laundry list in his column).
In his definition, ideologues are all right wingers (thus there can be a plot to cover up the truth about 9/11 but the "birthers" are just nuts and are not entitled to believe that there is a plot to cover up the "truth" about the President's birth) while left wingers like himself are merely just sweet-hearted, enlightened truth seekers and truth tellers. That's why he did us all a favor by leaving the business.
Shall we go back to economics and business?
Paul Craig Roberts is barred from the mainstream media because mainstream media, such as the NY Times, Huffington Post, and the networks, are not only left of center they are left of everything. Roberts eschews both left and right. Anyone familiar with his columns understands that he was one of the most important truth tellers in recent years. To label him leftwing is a filthy lie.
There is no media, there is no economy.
The sooner you face the truth, the sooner you can begin to take action.
Exactly.
Prison, here I come.
Jail-bird Timmy is my name.
I am a sociopath that needs to be put in a cage.
If we jailed all of the sociopaths, we would have to build alot more jails.
Let's start with Timmy anyway.
"I was just following orders... ask my Aunt Lloyd and Uncle Jamie." Little Timmay G.
If you guys think GS got abused yesterday, wait until it comes out about all the CDS they bought on rmbs! HAHHAHA! yeah motherfuckers!
Which is more entertaining, watching AIG/GS and the US banking sytem implode, or watching the entire continent of europe return to the dark ages?
Is an investigation into the Fed's knowledge/facilitation of the REPO 105 trasaction part of SIGTARP's mandate? Does nayone know if he is looking into this as well?
on repeat since seeing this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2TbqNcvLVU
Wonder if Barofsky's looking into Steve Freidman's little fraud. That alone could start the heads rolling. How did he get that little waiver in 09/08 from "Senior Fed Officials" to buy 30K shares of GS while at FRBNY? Timy, you hearing this?
Man, there's always one last little fraud that gives the game away after countless "successes".
Steve Friedman is one of the untouchables, nothing will happen to him.
He's on the board of In-Q-Tel, still on the foreign intelligence advisory board, was on a bunch of intelligence advisory committees and boards, including the panel to revise the National Reconnaissance Office.
He's one of the members of the Financial-Intelligence Complex which runs everything --- he's safe from everything but vigilante assassins and crazed mobs.
Another piece in the New American with yours truly...
Fed Facing Lawsuits, Criminal Complaints Over Market Manipulation
In addition to valiant congressional efforts for increased transparency, the Federal Reserve System and its cohorts are being targeted with criminal complaints and multiple lawsuits that attempt to shed to light on the central bank’s “bailouts” and its manipulation of the stock market, the precious-metals market, and more.
Some startling revelations have already surfaced, like the fact that under Timothy Geithner, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York set up front companies to purchase toxic assets from various firms. It has also become public knowledge that the Fed handed out hundreds of billions to foreign central banks and trillions to financial institutions. But there is still much more hidden in the shadows, and efforts to expose the secrets are growing.
Fox Business Network announced on April 20 that it was expanding its lawsuit against the Federal Reserve’s secret bailouts. And "The New American" has provided extensive coverage of Bloomberg’s lawsuit, which aims to force the banking cartel to disclose information about its so-called “emergency” lending program, which unconstitutionally and without appropriations from Congress provided trillions of dollars to various financial institutions.
read entire article: http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/economy/economics-mainmenu-44/3425-fed-facing-lawsuits-criminal-complaints-over-market-manipulation
If I might offer this little ditty for those at the receiving end of my efforts at making their life suck to the max. Timmay! Bennay! Hankay! Blanks! and all the rest.. This is for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xxgRUyzgs0