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Guest Post: U.S. Financial Markets: The Well Has Been Poisoned (Anger of the Honest Part II)
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
U.S. Financial Markets: The Well Has Been Poisoned (Anger of the Honest Part II)
When financial markets have become riddled with fraud, embezzlement and corruption that goes unpunished, then institutional players will avoid that market as crooked: the well has been poisoned.
The full consequences of what I termed The Rot Within: Our Culture of Financial Fraud and the Anger of the Honest (October 15, 2010) are now unfolding: the well has been poisoned. One of my most astute correspondents made a critical observation that I've seen nowhere else: once a market has been poisoned by fraud which goes unpunished, then institutional players will avoid that market as untrustworthy.
Without institutional trust and participation, the market then withers on the vine-- exactly what has happened to the U.S. mortgage securities market. The market for mortgage-backed securities has vanished, except for one player: the Federal Reserve, which has bought a staggering $1.2 trillion in the past 18 months to create the facsimile of an active market.
The well has been poisoned. The only mortgages being traded are those 100% guaranteed by the U.S. government: in effect, the risks intrinsic to a corrupted market have been shifted to the taxpayers, while the criminals who profited from the fraud and embezzlement got away scot-free.
Here are the correspondent's comments:
RE: Will bankers Go to Jail for Foreclosuregate?:
When I was in the Wall Street game, our small-cap fund was for a time in the top 5% of performers. I got bored and left, which is a longer story. Anyway, I observed a phenomenon about fraud. First it happened. Then it was widely publicized. Then it was prosecuted, and some big names were jailed. At that point, it was safe to go back into the water.
This happened in a few industries prior to the mid-1990s, at which point basic law enforcement was neutered and there were no more fraud prosecutions that mattered. I have always thought that the lack of fraud prosecutions for Internet/telecom fraud was a significant reason why the NASDAQ has never made a significant recovery to anything close to its peak reached in March 2000.
Watch carefully on the foreclosure frauds. If real jail terms are handed out to some (doesn't need to be all) big players, that will be a green flag. The public at large won't see it or believe it, but the professionals will. I am not predicting that this will happen. In fact, I'm quite skeptical that it will. However, any intelligent skeptic considers all the possibilities.
This is why no institutional investor will touch private-market mortgage securities with a 10-foot pole. The U.S. government and the Fed had a stark choice: either impose the rule of law and indict and convict hundreds, if not thousands, of people who perpetrated and profited from the systemic fraud and embezzlement at the heart of the mortgage and mortgage-securities industries, or socialize the corrupted, poisoned markets and use taxpayer funds to prop up the wizened shell of a stripmined market and reward the criminals with freedom.
They chose to reward the criminals and prop up a simulacrum market with only one buyer: the Federal Reserve. You can go to the the Fed's balance sheet and see the $1.2 trillion in mortgage-backed securities it owns. There is no effort to hide the brazen socialization of what once was a private-sector, free market.
When the well has been poisoned, the only players dumb enough to drink from it are the taxpayers, who have no choice as the politico toadies of the investment banking/financial Power Elites have funneled some $13 trillion in cash, backstops and guarantees into their "partners" who fund their campaigns and write the laws via their lobbyist proxies.
The Fed isn't dumb--it's desperate. The markets, systemically riddled with collusion, cronyism, fraud, embezzlement, misrepresentation and outright lies, have no participants except Central State proxies and "marks" who sadly still believe the ceaseless propaganda about "rising corporate profits," "recovery" and "a free-market economy." Hahahahaha--free market! Please don't make me laugh that hard, I might hurt myself.
If you are so confident in the "transparency" and trustworthiness of the mortgage securities market, please tell us how many private institutional investors are buying mortgage securities which aren't 100% guaranteed by the Central State.
The same distrust has poisoned U.S. stock markets. The high keening cry to "get into the market while stocks are cheap" which has been spewed daily for months on end on network TV and other channels of raw propaganda has been ignored by the "retail investor," a.k.a. the top 20% of Americans who have financial wealth to preserve and invest.
For 24 straight weeks, retail investors have been pulling tens of billions of dollars out of U.S. mutual funds and plowing hundreds of billions into low-yield Treasury bonds.
Why? Because they sense the stock market is hopelessly, deeply corrupt and by comparison Treasuries are trustworthy. You won't make a lot of yield in Treasuries, thanks to the Fed's zero-interest rate policy (ZIRP) which is designed to drive money into risky assets, but then you won't lose 40% like you did in 2008-09 or 2000-2002 in the stock market.
We can also see how insiders are responding to the knowledge that the well has been poisoned: they're selling 500 shares for every share they buy. This unprecedented cascade of insider selling has been noted elsewhere many times, as has the declining expectations for the "recovery" of U.S. CEOs.
Those who know the most are selling their shares as fast as they legally can, and are publicly expressing their lack of faith in the tricked-up "recovery."
The U.S. financial markets have been poisoned, with long-term negative consequences. Only crooks, fraudsters and "marks" (those who still believe the propaganda about the "recovery" and "stocks are cheap" poison) will be left in a stock market propped up by the same socialization of risk which keeps the flimsy facade of a mortgage market from crumbling. High-frequency trading machines create the illusion of a market, and State intervention via proxies and other corrupt games provides the liquidity needed to fund the facsimile of a "rising market" and a "recovery" in the U.S. economy. But the public isn't buying the fraud any longer; they finally "get it": The well has been poisoned and only a fool drinks from a poisoned well.
This is why we can safely anticipate a hollowed-out stock market which trades at a steep discount to its present propped-up levels in the years ahead--until the crooked players are indicted and the financial markets thoroughly cleaned. That will take political will which is completely lacking in the Demopublican-Republicrat status quo. For more on this, please read:
The Loss of Trust and the Great Unraveling To Come
(October 18, 2010)
The Normalization of Sociopathology in America
(October 16, 2010)
The Rot Within: Our Culture of Financial Fraud and the Anger of the Honest
(October 15, 2010)
The Coming Collapse of the Real Estate Market
(October 14, 2010)
Runaway Feedback Loops, Wealth Concentration and Gaming-The-System
(October 13, 2010)
Bernanke's QE2 Heading for the Shoals
(October 11, 2010)
Look Out Below (I've got a bad feeling about this)
(October 8, 2010)
Special podcast: Steve over at Two Beers with Steve was kind enough to let me ramble semi-coherently for an hour; we had a great time and I think I should have interviewed him.... Check it out if you have an hour of sitting in traffic to invest: Two Beers with Steve podcast.
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Awesome article. The correspondent's observations have a real ring to them.
But I have to disagree with the desperation of the Fed thing. They are being so brazen with what they are buying on taxpayer money. They are not desperate in the least.
To anyone with the slightest systems thinking bent, it's clear that it's a controlled or at the very least predicted out-of-control system.
The hand-wringing is kabuki for the masses.
Poisoned well indeed. With Flouride at that!
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com
You're right on time.
I think the hot money makes it into equities, which is why they are still propped up. Everything is overpriced by 25-40% because thats how much inflation is coming this way, IMO. We have to become aware of the oligarchy's tactics. Most of the time we take no notice at all because the tactics are so brazen.
Take the biggest bank robbery in history, the banker bailouts... Any way, providing perspective on the Oligarchy, Foreclosuregate and the Currency Wars over on PsychoNews http://psychonews.site90.net
Suggestions welcome, as always!
Markets don't work as static entities, or linear quants anyway. If 20% inflation is already priced into the market, then there will be some bounce in that area. Once people realise that, despite printing money out the wazoo, there is no inflation, the markets will revert to the mean.
More likely, somewhere in the middle.
For???
ORI
already priced in. ;)
As Forrest Gump would say, "Fascism is as fascism does."
__________
The state can kiss my ass.
First thought that came to my mind as well...FASCISM...No need to wonder why the Constitution is being bypassed in so many ways. What is happening is illegal! It's outright fraud! and when it all comes crashing down our lame Congress will have some serious explaining to do. If the Federal Reserve is a private entity from the government then they have no right manipulating the markets the way they do. Most of their so called "efforts" to stabilize the system are merely actions to cover up the mess they created.
"and when it all comes crashing down our lame Congress will have some serious explaining to do"
No, they won't. They aready have _all sorts_ of explaining to do. Do you hear enough people saying that they won't vote for ANY of these bastards? No, they still play the "lesser of two evils" voting game, too stupid to realize that BOTH major parties are too OWNED to even consider voting for.
No, the sheep know they're being sheared but haven't yet begun to realize to what extent. When they finally do, they'll be too dumbed-down clueless to understand what actually occurred. Hell, the "smartest" ones among them read the WSJ and watch CNBS and everyone here knows how much reality is reflected at those two mainstream financial media outlets. What about the majority whose favorite TV show is American Idol?
No, as is documented throughout history, the more intelligent but totally unethical types take the majority ignorati for a ride. Intelligent, ethical people are doomed to watch the crisis unfold since the ignorati can't be mobilized in the correct direction due to their ignorance, apathy and constant exposure to the propanda foisted upon them by the oligarchy.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s08e08-douche-and-turd
IGNORATI.....my new favorite word....I G N O R A T I
pjb used it frequently on roubini's blog in 2008.
ignorati.
.
http://verbewarp.blogspot.com/
Greetings, Blindman. Good to see you posting. I remember those days when Roubini's blog was a real hot spot. Talk about a poisoned well. I cruise by there from time to time, but ZH is so much more interesting.
Alarmist is here, too.
Independent Contractor
i have been seeing you around here too. the experience
is rough, gathers no moss if you know what i mean.
i've seen others too. ms. a, gloomy, mark, exvr (sp),
and i suspect a few others.? best to you.
Well said...in italian it's ignoranti, but it means the same as your ignorati.
Very, Very, Very simple. Wild west justice. The banksters, FED RES, SEC are ALL targets now. Do whatever you can to harass them, do whatever you can to disrupt or destabalize these enemies of the Republic. Because they are enemies of the republic. NOBODY would allow this level of lawlessness.
It is not far from just taken these SOBs out behind the shed and at least beating the hell out to them. I myself would like to see a lot more done to these criminals. I would like to see people like Angelo Mizilo and Lolyd Blankfiend drug behind a pickup on a rocky road. And make Benny and Timmy sit in the bed and watch as their buddies and partners and beneficiaries of their corruption come apart.
Little dark? Maybe. But what these pricks have done by nuking the economy and reducing everybody's net worth destroying our employment sector, they deserve NO QUARTER.
The Virtues of a Disorganized Resistance
Stephen DeVoy
Break Your Chains
American opposition movements have always focused on the notion of organization. It has always been their goal to organize the people. Their hope has been to wield the collective power of the disaffected, downtrodden, and exploited as a single unit against the concentrated power of the ruling class. While their hope has been noble, their methods have been foolish. Organized resistance has many drawbacks. These drawbacks have seldom been discussed by the opposition. We believe that the only effective resistance is a completely disorganized, decentralized, and leaderless opposition.
While, on the face of it, this claim may impress you as absurd. Of course it seems absurd! It is counterintuitive. Never the less, it is the ONLY method of resistance that will work within American society. We will explain why organized resistance has never worked in the United States. In addition, we will promulgate a new formula for effective resistance.
Why has organized resistance failed in the United States?
There are many reasons for the failure of organized resistance. The two primary causes of failure are intimately connected to the culture of the United States and the political system laid down by our nation's founding fathers.
The Cultural Cause
Americans, culturally, are anarchists. Few Americans realize this. Most Americans have a false understanding of the term "anarchism." However, upon examining the beliefs of your average American, you will find that most Americans: do not trust leaders, do not trust government, wish to be left alone, value their privacy, think of themselves as independent from society, do not believe that there is a systemic solution to their problems, believe that others should be free to do what they choose, provided they do so in private and do not harm others
While it is undeniable that political culture in the United States often speaks to the opposite of the above list, it is also undeniable that most Americans register as neither Democrat or Republican and most Americans do not vote. Thus, despite the political culture, most Americans choose not to participate in it. This is not only due to their belief that the American political system is hopeless, but also is due to the cultural clash between the wider culture and the political culture.
Any attempt to organize large numbers of Americans into a single political movement will fail. Any attempt to create an organization led by a strong group of leaders will fail. Americans reject submersion into the collective. In a sense, Americans are anti-collectivists.
The Political Cause
American political culture is not ideological. Politicians attempt to draw ideological distinctions between the two major parties, but these distinctions are a matter of splitting hairs. The only significant difference between the two political parties is the degree of compassion represented by the rhetoric of the two parties. Compassion is not a political concept. Compassion is an attitude. Thus, the two parties differ, primarily, in attitude and not ideology.
Despite this, there remain two political parties. One is prompted to ask "why?" If each party is basically the same, with respect to ideology, why do they not merge into one party? The answer to this question is best found in viewing each political party according to its true nature. American political parties are, for all intents and purposes, organized crime units. American political parties have more in common with the Mafia than they have with their counterparts in more democratic societies. Like Mafia, each political party competes for control of territory in order to maximize the benefit to their business constituency. Like Mafia, the political parties attempt to mold the system to maintain their positions and access to resources. Like Mafia, the political parties force the average citizen to pay "protection" under the threat of violence (taxes). Like Mafia each political party uses the "protection" money collected for its own advantage.
By defining our political system in terms of the "majority" and the "opposition," our Constitution enshrines this two mafia system into law. Each Mafia passes laws to exclude new comers from the game while focusing the rest of its energy in destroying the other Mafia.
Thus, any resistance movement that chooses to become an organization is in competition with these Mafiosi. The deck is stacked and the power of the state, wielded by these organized crime units known as the Democratic and Republican parties, will waste the time and resources of any newcomer. A newcomer can only succeed by rejecting the political system, draining its resources, and undermining the rule of the state.
How is disorganized resistance superior?
In some societies, dissidents become heroes. In American society dissidents are systematically slandered, libeled, harassed, and villainized. If they become successful, they are murdered (e.g. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X). In the American experience, movements that look to leaders are decapitated. Leaders are a liability, not an asset. Organizations can be (and are) infiltrated. Organizations can be taxed. Organizations have legal responsibility. Organizations have membership lists and lists are wonderful tools for the oppressor. Organizations take on a life of their own. They struggle to exist and their continued existence takes priority over their mission. Organizations attract opportunists, power mongers, and attention seekers. Organizations tend to exploit their rank and file for the benefit of their inner circle. Disorganizations share none of these defects.
Bureaucracy cannot comprehend disorganization. Disorganization is invisible. The asymmetry of the relationship between organization and disorganization favors disorganization. Organization depends upon planning. Planning requires predictability. Disorganization cannot be predicted. This leaves organization at a disadvantage.
Organization requires a supply chain. Supply chains can be disrupted. Disorganization depends only upon the resources of its members. Supply chains that do not exist cannot be eliminated.
Disorganized movements rely upon swarming. Swarms are difficult to defend against. If you cut a swarm in half, you have two swarms. If you eliminate one of the resulting swarms, you still have a swarm. Disorganization breeds. Organization grows. The many and dispersed are a more difficult target than the large and concentrated.
Organizations takes their steps by design. If the design is flawed, the organization fails. Disorganization relies not upon design but upon evolution. The motivating notions of disorganization are memes. Memes evolve and memes compete. This process improves the motivating notions of disorganization. This process produces multiple courses of action. While some may fail, others are likely to succeed. Taken as a whole, disorganization is more likely to succeed.
The important thing to remember is that it is easier to destroy than to create that which is designed. Thus, the cost to those who lose the manifestation of their design outweighs by leaps and bounds the cost it takes to destroy it. That which evolves is cheap and when an effort is created to destroy the evolved entity, it merely mutates and evolves again, adjusting to the new conditions. As a process that fosters evolution, a movement based on disorganization will continue to survive, evolve, and expand without cost. The resource constraints placed upon the designed (e.g. government and corporate) and those absent from the evolved (a decentralized and disorganized opposition movement), favor the later.
The limits of disorganization
We do not propose a complete absence of organization. Instead we propose a disorganization of units. Units can be as small as a single individual, or as complex as cell of individuals working together. Cells may be internally organized, but they should not be statically organized cell to cell. The movement should have no commander. It should have no central committee or governing body. No global plans should be made. The modus operandi of each unit should be to think globally and act locally. Ideas, strategies, and tactics should float freely and compete as memes within the medium of the collective conscious.
Conclusions
We need to construct a disorganized movement. You need not apply to join. In fact, it might be better if you did not contact anyone except those with whom you wish to form a unit. Your ideas, strategies, tactics, and lessons learned should be spread anonymously or by word of mouth. When you act, should you decide to act in resistance, attribute your actions to "the Resistance." The growing din of disorganized disruption will be felt as an earthquake. There will be trembles. There will be pre-shocks. The tension will mount and, in time, there will be an earthquake. When that earthquake strikes, the organized edifice of the oppressor will fall like a house of cards.
Please excuse the long post.
Under disorganized systems, who wins?
The answer, history tells us without exceptions is that it is the people who are willing to follow the rules least and already have the advantages of wealth, location and marshal power.
The smaller the social "units", the more power is concentrated among those units that can differentiate themselves by, again, wealth, location, and marshal power.
The primary reason that society organizes into large units is to combat warlordism.
Of curse the American man lives in a perpetual fantasy that he is a warlord. Because he lives almost completely in his imagination where he constantly engages in combat that he wins, he cannot see - and really does not care - that he is constantly losing.
The US is the new Rome, hadn't you heard?
ROFLMAO!
"Under disorganized systems, who wins"?
The Individual
Decentralized network, yes. Disorganized, no. Self-organized, yes. Organically grown of course.
Sounds like he's describing a nation of 'akward children', as in uncooperative chlidren.
If nothing else, it should drive our government nanies insane. Oh wait, they already are.....
Best comment in Zero Hedge history.
Good answer. Good answer. I like the way you think. I'm gonna be watching you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bfgrj_62-Y
I agree with you. I'd like to see them drawn and quartered myself.
U.S. Financial Markets: The Well Has Been Poisoned
Yes it has
Mulligan!
[T]he stress tests of 2009 (known as the Supervisory Capital Assessment Program) did not consider the possibility of large losses arising from the litigation now surrounding mortgage-backed securities. When Representative Brad Miller, Democrat of North Carolina, asked Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner about this at a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Sept. 22, the exchange went like this:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/time-for-some-new-stress-te...
Indeed the "pickins" are getting slim in the casino, when the blackjack and farrow dealers start cannibalizing each other! The exits are getting crowded with the last of the "marks" leaving not only the town but the country!
I have a friend who recently inherited a decent sum of money ($50,000 or thereabouts) when his grandfather passed away.
We were talking about what he could do to protect it in the coming years. He's not a financial guy but he understands the basics of how money works. Outside of gold, he understands there is nothing he can but speculate in the market or buy non-returning treasuries.
The US banking system. What a crock. My friend's grandfather envisioned a better life for my friend and his wife...not for Uncle Sam.
friends don't let friends go long.
Exactly. I forgot to add that he didn't put any of his inheritence into the market b/c he's smart enough to know speculation is a fool's game. I forgot to add that detail in my previous post. Oops.
There is a way to speculate in the markets like the banksters, with several buy / sell points, no leverage, and solid returns in an up or down market. Simply stated: buy weakness and sell strength in pyramid formation with limit orders. All you need is a market with consistent volatility for the cash register to ring consistently, in your favor. :D
It works, and the returns range from 15% to several times that per year. Most traders don't know about this, judging by how many price chasers and trend followers there are vs. bankster style, small scale liquidity providers.
http://www.gracelandupdates.com
It's important that everyone look at the arc of their own experiences in this mess. I grew on John Wayne and GI Joe. Scouts, county, church, the flag, family - the whole apple pie. When things got bad in 2008 and in each bubble before, it chalked it all up to the market and my fault for not reading the tea leaves. Its my responsibility. Now after the last two years, especially after everyday seems punctuated by another unpunished act or omission, those in the know seem to run away with billions uncaring for this country or its Citizens. During the 2008 crisis and before, I was one of those interested "smart guys" that had CNBC on in the background all day in addition to all the other information that crosses an active investor's desk. I have not watched any main stream media in months, except for the occasional "perfect reverse barometer" reading - meaning whatever they are saying - the "truth" must be the opposite. All these institutions, media, government, police, the market have cried wolf too much and now I am not filled with hate, but apathy in this express elevator to Hell. I have tuned and dropped out because my family's needs are not being represented, nor is the "government" upholding its end of the mythical social contract. Both political parties are nothing more than corporate bag men and this Obama character and his wrecking crew crossed the Rubicon.
I really don't care what these characters do or say. They are looting the Republic. There is no law - only what you can get away with.
I could'nt have said it better
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
For I am of him who liveth forever?
Dancing With the Stars is on Monday night with the results show on Tuesday, on ABC (US). It is very interesting to me how the personalities evolve over a season, while all the dancers become friends, companions and competitors.
Really, you should watch it. The dynamic is fascinating and the musical guests ain't bad, either.
:D
Good summary. Work through the grief and give it time for your sense of purpose to emerge. It takes time to reorient yourself to a world completely different from the one you thought you knew.
We need to recognize that the entire credit and money system is in severe broad organic contraction. This means virtually every industry is undergoing necessary shrinkage. In such a background, negative growth must pass through to all the sectors of corporate structure (and the innocents and ignorants who unwittingly derive sustenance from the same).
Deep contraction must share loss to all participants. Capital cannot expect a return when growth rate is negative. Capital MUST be destroyed if it has been allocated to such risk exposure. Positive returns can only occur IF the dispensing entity is using the surpluses of prior growth years to pay them OR the settling unit of account is expanded (inflated) in excess of the underlying contraction. Economic actors who seek to preserve purchasing power by removing their accumulated substance from the debasing powers of the exchequer wizard, put those actors who remain in the "paper" system at snowballing greater ruination.
This is the operating mechanism now in effect! Depression and economic atrophy are being masked by monetary expansion. By the money pump, nominal returns are given to show a net positive increase, while purchasing power necessarily reflects the real losses borne throughout the system.
This kills the entire term-investing complex because regardless of nominally expressed gains, capital at risk is suffering unrecoverable loss. All business models which depend upon growth income streams to stay viable are dead. Insurance will see capital destroyed. Pensions will see capital destroyed. Entitlements will see capital destroyed. Just as demand from the models spike. And in quickening paces. Quickening the exponential approach of death.
Fed will print, gaining somewhat the system, as other participants cannot immediately adjust to the baseless increase in money. Inevitably price adjustments will occur until either hyperinflation renders currency transactions meaningless, or the increasing scale and tempo of money emission debase the value of money instruments to zero and destroy the confidence in creditor/debtor and all markets.
Endgame we are in. By fiat, increase the money supply just as the resource/labour inputs shrink away. It can mask much of the depression for a time, can wreak havoc in all markets, give disproportionate power to the issuer of the currency to the detriment of the productive whose creations REALLY are the fundamental backing for the money, and eventually FAIL spectacularly. Unsophisticates will suffer horrifically, some must perish. The whole economic organism can only endure so much denial of growth nourishment until it capitulates. Like organic bodies having grown enormous over time, they cannot then peaceably dwindle back to a net zero starting point by gradual starvation, but can starve only so much before life is no more.
Best comment I have read here (or anywhere) in a long time.
I'm happy to read that one more person is awake. Like you, I finally realized that John Wayne, GI Joe, Scouts, country, church, the flag, the whole apple pie were just tools used to indoctrinate us. Please watch this video presentation if you haven't already done so:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6718420906413643126#
please stay awake
Golly Charles,
Art thou shocked that gambling is occurring in the owner's casino?
That rule of state law applies to citizens bound by that law by not to others not so bound?
I think that part of the whole growing up thing is to read a few books about the status of how the world works and figure out who you are.
Me, personally, at this time, I am owned chattel of the Bankrupt Corporation called United States.
I have no rights. I have no voice in my future and the "government" that is supposed to re-present me does just that RE PRESENT my straw man, the paper fiction that is me in this material manifestation.
I certainly may not have this concept right, but I have worked very hard to have the most information about what is going on **for me** as I can.
Many many writers want to make us all piss and get upset because we are being violated.
Horse !!!!
I have NO rights. I was "born into bondage." I was registered at birth.
I will have to achieve mighty things in order to free my self from slavery.
And the first thing to do is realize **who you are**.
Nice misdirection Charles.
You are a very good writer, but not for me.
this word "who" that you use, what does it signify?
in the sentence context: "who you are"
Thank you for the attention to detail, that phrase is misleading and imprecise.
"How the body that you have manifested and the adventure that it (your vehicle and maybe to some extent *you*) is on fit into the drama that is taking place."
If you could see yourself as a thread in the cosmic tapestry the the more you "know" about the tapestry then the "better" you are able to see the whole.
But that is hogwash because everyone sees what they are meant to see.
>>>>>>Sometimes I wish I could refrain completely from commenting. I just end up appreciating my own "being in judgement." But I accept it.
I hope this helps and thanks for allowing me to reflect on my words.
:) LB
permanent living presence in a temporary body in the mental creation of space and time. Thats us, then we get lost in our ego and think we are merely human. We are supposed to manage our bodies, emotions and thoughts. Most fail to even try.
Our "ATTENTION" is in a sense where we are and why many want to influence our "attention" . Depending where you put your attention ends up being very important. To be able to focus ones attention is needed yet many find their attention to be scattered.
We are so much more that mere bodies in suits.
disclaimer...short on suits
Meant to by whom (or what)?
I'd say themselves, off the top of my head, but I'm mighty interested in your thoughts there, LB.
LOL: your POV is what I have arrived at as well. Who in the cosmic thing are we dancing for? For our own entertainment of course.
I think (today) that we dance in the dream of a master, who hosts us in this reality, their dream, so that we can have certain experiences.
Once we have experienced their dream every which way you can (your avatar sir [or should I say "your spurs!"]), then we too can be a hosting master.
There is choice though and I have not worked out if beings can "not make the grade." Although it is a choice so it must be.
Take care, LB.
seems ... who / what ....
who demands description, with commonality,
of one identity in relation to another identity but
both identities are socially intimate / connected based
on fundamental commonalities. as in I in relation to
you or "my son" or "my father's brother" etc ... the "who"
being a description of relationship. (time) commonality.
this is what we lack, commonality and "brotherhood", where
all is not possible because there are rules and respect and
concern for the "other" "who" may be damaged by my carelessness
or ignorance or unconscious state. ?
"what" is less relative and potentially dehumanizing and fantastic,
in the sense of imaginative, or metaphorically open or blatant.
watch in conversation the difference when people refer to people
as a "what" rather than a "who". it is easier to refer to "whats", generalizations.
than "who s", too specific and descriptive, narrative required is infinitely
exhausting and requiring empathy. ?
when it comes to self inquiry we know that we "are". if nothing else
at least the mirror of all creation and that ain't too bad a start.
thoughts..
:) I sort of start with the question: "Can we be other than we are at this instant?"
With an answer of "If we were meant to be other than we are then we would be that other way, therefore we are as we should be to receive the experience at this time." then an interesting thing happens.
You are "as you are supposed to be to receive the experience in this instant." means you are perfect.
All the time. Perfect means bliss, all the time. It also means everyone is in bliss, we just have a narrow definition of bliss (see the post above about being here for a wide variety of experiences). With perfect and bliss, there is no possibilities of damage, sin, illness, etc.
These words exist within a judgement system. That too is bliss.
To stand in this concept allows much of the judgmental suffering (entertainment) to fall away. To stand in this concept is to understand that in an always perfect blissful state one is always in Heaven. But if existence is "perfect bliss", extreme dualistic concepts like heaven/hell, sick/fit, sin/good deed, etc fall away.
I hope this gets at part of your statement set where you address harm / damage.
How can one damage another with any experience when they are all defined as perfect bliss?
:) LB
Perfect bliss could be defined as the absence of belief, no?
you swim in the beautiful waters with the sentient sirens.
damage can be done because acts can be, are routinely, performed
by unconscious ( not aware of bliss ) beings. this perpetuates ignorance
and mindless destruction, destroys that value that was there but
then is gone, sometimes forever. but the universe, the earth, is so rich
and so resilient that we may not even notice. it happens though.
and we as beings, cells, life forms can suffer the same by being
unaware of that which you speak. :-) .. something about these
stick figure faces ? funny
bliss is of a moment of repose and that moment can be carried
throughout all your time if you choose it. once you know it.
so the earth follows the sun and the moon follows the earth and
one rules the day and the other the night. one the heat the other
the height, of water. water. so we on the earth are bathed in the
light of both, and water. water. dynamic and varying degrees of
states and conditions must be negotiated in time as we both follow
and lead ourselves through the darkness of eternity.
shed the light brother.
peace.
The "strawman" see> http://www.nmcservices.net/strawman.html
As another poster has recently reviewed power is the issue, not law.
The strawman is something that is used as a fiction and people struggle with it, but consider themselves "oppressed" and "lacking their unalienable rights."
This stance is prefaced in the basis that they are "free."
I do not believe that is the case.
Regardless of whether that is the case or not those individuals certainly do not have the power and universally fail when they "kick the power indelicately."
LOL: I might refer interested parties to George Carlin's video on "The Owners."
:) LB
[quote]
Dog: I've got a million proofs that we're not free.
Cat: I've got one proof that we are.
Dog: What's that?
Cat: Who asks "What's that?"
[/quote] -- R. A. Wilson
*ceiling cat approves this message*
you've started a wonderful little offshoot here LeBalance, and within the questions being asked are probably the most important answers to existence. . .
once the "straw man" concept begins to sink in, a certain bubble of fermentation begins to form, grow, float apart, soar. . . with any luck, *burst*. . .
me thinks you might be due another viewing of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" !
(great comments in this little branch of reality - an oasis among the angry shouty)
The Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index showed that only 14% of those surveyed in September 2010 trusted the stock market. The mythical money at the sidelines is not waiting for the economy to improve, they simply see the system is corrupt and they won't come back until that changes. Same thing with the RMBS crisis - the Fed thinks the greatest danger is one or more of the big banks collapsing, but the real danger is if they protect criminal behavior and don't punish the bank.
http://www.financialtrustindex.org/resultswave8.htm
thanks for the link.
"once a market has been poisoned by fraud which goes unpunished, then institutional players will avoid that market as untrustworthy"
Give me a colossal fucking break.
If you read Zero Hedge you would know that the biggest circle jerk known to man is occurring right now.
Barry, Nancy, Ben, Lloyd, Jamie, and whoever leads the major Pension Funds, etc. etc. are trying to sweep everything under the carpet.
TPTB are fucking hideous scumbags.
The wrath is hard to control.
That's exactly what I was thinking. I already had that silly statement locked and loaded into the clipboard to, errr...rebut that idea.
"Ninja, puh-leassszzzzze," is what I would say.
For real? Like the "Institutional Investor" is not in cahoots with the Fed on this one.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Saint Niclaus.
Suppose the well is less poisoned than we think? LOL
Caught up with a friend this weekend who worked at structured products making CMBSs at UBS.
Just as those have been worth exactly 0 for the past months, soon all MBSs will no doubt follow the same route.
And guess what, markets will still be up. :-/
and "there it is." Look! Truth accidentally spoken! There IS no MBS market! This article needs to fact check itself. Can't we have that as button, too along with Spell Check? Again..."the Government bought all the debt." There is "a pittance" as they say in issuance in the MBS space now. Needless to say "the same is true in ACTUAL MORTGAGES now. Amazingly "the FRB of NY is a party to a lawsuit against Bank America."!!!!????? And in the Treasury market "it will 100 billion this week alone." Now "smell the glove you capitalists" (?) and "what do you mean they just publicly hung the Americans in Iran?" and "what do you mean the Governor of New York just invaded Vermont? With whose Army"?
I read a book several years ago, titled "Who Will Tell The People", by William Grieder. He was speaking to issues that I am sure were apparant to others at the time, but those issues had not yet been understood by me. I was completely shaken.... I began to realize that all that I thought I had learned about how government worked, the accepted authority and good intentions of local and national leaders that I had accepted as obvious was drawn into question. I was for the first time shocked that the political classs was driven by objectives and influences that I could not have believed. Something can not be believed unless it first can be imagined. And I had never imagined that our political leaders could be so veneal and self serving and so manipulated by monied special interests. Or that so many of those monied special interests could be so completely self seeking and so comtemptable of the general public interest.
It is so easy to focus attention on the current crop of national leaders.. and recognize their short comings and affection for the commonly approved solutions (also known as the politically possible). It is much harder to understand the lack of courage and will by well educated, smart and well connected people to pursue unfamiliar or uncomfortable solutions to what are certainly well understood systemic problems. I think most everyone, here on this forum, in the national capital, in both major political parties, in business suites and universities and small and large cities, see the same broken economy and political structures. It is not rationally possible to accept that our national leaders are stupid, or that they are part of some frightening foreign conspiracy or religious cabal.
What is rationally possible, though difficult to accept is that those same leaders are as human and as flawed and committed to their personal paradigm as the rest of us are to our own. What is not so easy to accept, or to understand, is how difficult it is to come to accept that our paradiigm is broken, is not working and must be abandoned. It is easy to see that things around us are crumbling, or are no longer working, and to believe that if only we try harder, or work harder, or if those we disagree with will only change, that the brokeness can be repaired. Unfortunately, with this most common outlook, very little new or divergent information can be accepted. We are commited to our paradigm. And in that commitment, we become ignorant. Not stupid, but ignorant. Committed to our outlook, nothing new can get into our process.
Scott Peck called this commitment to ignorance "Evil" Committed ignorance. It is only by accepting that we have failed, that what we have done is done, and that we must accept that something new can be experienced.... only then can we change and stop hurting ourselves and all those around us.
Billy Bob
Here's an ad I found today.
Seems like a lot of guys out there predicting a crash.
Here's a quote I found today.
Seems a lot of folks out there can't see the wood for the trees.
.....brilliant of him not to disclose the year of this disaster. POMO has other plans methinx.
RobotTrader, why would you even post this? It's obscene and does not reflect well on your strained facade. It is a useless and petty comment.
Note he only says could collapse as soon as.
In other words he has no idea.
Maybe he is loaded to the gills with Treasuries & wants to shift some.
This ad runs every month for the past year. Only the date changes. Your Point is well taken. Only Prechter is as
evil for running his own ponzi scheme selling Fear. But, tonight I did get a dose of reality on what the bankers
are doing again. Cramer is a good guy right? Parts 1 and 2 are just as good. Try this :
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-12-2009/jim-cramer-pt--2
what kind of name is "Slothblower." Sounds worse than...than...
@".. then institutional players will avoid that market as untrustworthy."....
.
?. the institutional players are the ones that demand untrustworthy ness
in the markets. that is what they are there for, feeding risk freely. and always
on labor and natures bounty ("free stuff"). or as cheap as possible.
Where can we find 20,000 tons of gold?
http://www.financeandeconomics.org/Articles%20archive/2010.10.22%20Gold%...
You can't find the 20,000 tonnes of gold, which will be quite the problem. Good essay from Macleod.
Check this too: It's the Flow, Stupid
FOFOA at his finest. Seriously.
excellent article; thanks!
I posted it here.
http://www.voy.com/64855/
Collapse of the markets by Halloween? That's a ghostly prediction.
Institutional investors responsibly avoiding fraud-tainted markets? Oops, I must have stumbled into the born yesterday support group meeting.
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
Ripped from a yahoo comment page.
Yep all Odummo's fault. The last 100 years of non-stop thievery by the ruling elite had nothing to do with it. Yep it was the black man who did it all.
Nice Avatar! Divide and conquer is the tactic of our leaders (not the ones you see on TV).........
Banksters place (or shall I say "select") the actor to represent "the system". As you can see, the system is not working as designed, nor has it for 100 years. Obama was placed, in my opinion, to vindicate the worshipers of equality and multiculturalism. The religion of "strength in diversity" is a facade - the one we embrace, as a nation, and our leaders represent it with the most suitable actor.
what are you trying to go Hollywood? BACK OFF bro...you're a NOBODY! Made for TV movie is ALL YOU GOT.
Dapper Dan> Last time I heard that story it wasn't Obama that was the subject but Democrats in general, and before that it was Clinton. I imagine it probably started well before that, just change the name to fit the time frame, but hey, whatever...
One major hole in this article is that the biggest bond fund in the world has been buying MBS. So I don't think you can say all institutional players are out of the MBS market.
Right! MBS for sure have value....soon to be backed by the full faith & credit of the FED. PIMCO got the tip early, and they have been busy scooping up MBS on the cheap. WILL absolutely make another huge fortune from the FED put on these putrid piles of dung.
The well has been poisoned yet "by comparison Treasuries are trustworthy"?
Is this some sort of joke?
The well poisoned, bull shit, theres no money to be made,investors are buying but only if they can make a buck and mortgages ain't it
"Watch carefully on the foreclosure frauds. If real jail terms are handed out to some (doesn't need to be all) big players..."
bbbwbaahhhhaaahahhahahahahhahahhaaaahhhhhaaaahhaha
haahhahahahhaaah
satan's laughing with delight the day the market died....bye bye miss american pie drove my lemo to the levy but the levy was dry
A Goldman Sachs affiliate paid $930 million for 11 Seattle and Eastside office properties in 2007 but now — as a balloon payment looms ever larger — it's reeling from plunging real-estate values and emptied cubicles." http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2013214897_arch...
As we watch the huge cost of fraud in the MGT market, stock market, accounting rules that allow many to cook the books, one set of law for major corps, banks, defense contractors and corrupt lobbyist why would anyone invest in anything now? The cards and the law is stacked against the middle class.
You write: "One of my most astute correspondents made a critical observation that I’ve seen nowhere else …. Without institutional trust and participation, the market then withers on the vine – exactly what has happened to the U.S. mortgage securities market. The market for mortgage-backed securities has vanished, except for one player: the Federal Reserve, which has bought a staggering $1.2 trillion in the past 18 months to create the facsimile of an active market."
I comment: "I relate that the distressed securities mutual fund, FAGIX, the mortgage laden intermediate mutual bond funds, such as GSUAX, and the mortgage-backed bond ETF, MBB, rose stunningly the week ending October 22, 2010, giving credence to the concept that the Fed is going to not only be buying short term bonds, SHY, and those in Pimco’s Mint, MINT, but the mortgage-backed bonds as well, in its QE II. That to me is a big wow.
I believe we will see in the future a dramatic combine of the institutions of banking and government …. The Dodd Frank legislation established a Federal Financial Regulator, that being the Treasury Secretary, and granted him wide discretionary power of the economy.
From the Robert Wenzel, EconomicPolicy Journal article Secret SEC Meeting with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, I conclude that in the US, through an October 6, 2010, meeting of bankers, investment bankers and SEC officials, that an elite group of stakeholders has arisen to act as a “banking, lending, credit, and investment Regulatory Council”, supporting the Financial Regulator in overseeing the US economy.
I believe that the Dodd Frank legislation, empowers the Federal Financial Regulator, to intervene in today’s QE II, foreclosure and mortgage securitization issues.
And I believe that at some point in the future he will provide a solution that integrates the banks with the Government in state corporate governance over housing, banking, and mortgage securitization.
Perhaps this “solution” will involve extensive purchase of mortgage-backed securities, debt forgiveness, resolution of securitization issues, and leasing of bank owned properties so the banks have some income coming in, and so the US Government has some income too, as it also owns a lot of Mortgage Backed Securities stored now at the Fed.
Leasing, of properties, if it takes place would end the entitlement that millions now enjoy to payment free-living, an entitlement, that came through the GSE/Banking Housing Cartel and the SEC/AICPA’s FASB 157, which enabled banks to mark properties to the manager’s best estimate rather than mark to market.
And of course, when all this gets underway, the US Dollar, $USD, will go down in flames.
The International Treasury Bonds, BWX, have now turned down. The US Federal Reserve’s program of renewed easing with QE 2 has monetized sovereign debt globally. The interest rate vigilantes called interest rates higher globally on October 15, 2010, turning BWX down to 61.56 from 62.04.
And the currency vigilantes did likewise in response to the approaching Ben Bernanke Death Star, by selling the world’s major currencies, DBV to 23.42 from 23.46 …. and by selling the world’s emerging market currencies, CEW, to 23.37 for 23.39.
The Euro, FXE, which seems to be the landmark currency these day, the thing by which things are measured, turned down October 15, 2010 to 139.25 from 140.22.
Debt Deflation is underway as World Stocks, ACWI, turned down October 15, 2010 to 45.00 from 45.13. China shares, FXI, gave in to debt deflation by closing at 45.67 on October 22, 2010.
QE II Is monetization of debt and that’s inflationary for somethings and deflationary for others …. the short term US Government bonds, SHY, have gone up in value and the mortgage backed bonds as well …. but the longer out sovereign debt bonds, and the currencies, and the stocks have lost value as well, as the US Dollar, as traded by the ETF, UUP, has gone up in value from 22.21 to 22.47. Gold has gone down, but as the Fed starts up its printing press, there will be an investment demand for gold, GLD, and probably for food commodities, FUD, and agricultural commodities, RJA. All I can say is …. “Got gold?”
The entirety of federal, state and local government is fraud.
The entire financial system of the USSA is fraud.
Every so-called market in the USSA is fraud.
Everything "official" must be terminated.