Glass Steagall

Confirming our ongoing observations that the pursuit of leveraged beta is the only game in town ("Levered Beta Uber Alles: NYSE Borse Margin Debt Jumps To Three Year Highs, Investor Net Worth Remains At Record Lows") is this surprising confession by hedge fund titan Carl Icahn, who not only warns that the levels of leverage achieved in the current centrally planned regime is as bad as it ever was, and that some form of Glass-Steagall should return, but that, stated simply, the entire "system is not working properly." His warning, stated in a very politically correct fashion, is that "there could be another major problem" either next week, or next year. Which is not surprising: after all not only has anything changed, but the very same drivers of risk that nearly crashed capitalism in Q3 2008, are back and arguably stronger than ever. That the Fed is the last recourse mechanism preventing an all out systemic wipe out probably should not be a source of comfort to anyone. In the end, the Fed, as any other authoritarian institution promoting central planning, will always lose.

I’ve been pouring through the Fed Reserve’s recent release of circa 2005 FOMC meeting transcripts. The most striking observation that one can make is that the consumer - the very lifeblood that determines whether our economy will live or die - has been discarded...The solution is simple, we are broke since we take in with taxes and borrowing less then we owe. Our deficit alone ensures default or Quantitative Easing from now until the wheels come entirely off. It is time we reissue the currency, tie it temporarily and loosely to gold, get our manufacturing jobs back and move on.

Prosecute or perish ...

I have one question: Are Lloyd Blankfein, Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin members of the NYC Harvard Club? If not, they should be...

In response to the bankers and governments’ global rape, pillaging and plundering of people’s assets and freedoms, we are starting a series of essays that we call “The Liberation Essays” in an attempt to educate the masses about the true nature of the global financial system. We will continue to write our essays until we feel we have achieved our goal of education and eventually liberation from the racketeering firms that call themselves Wall Street and Central Banks. Below we grant you essay No. 1.

The campaign by the big banks against the people of the US is getting louder by the day. First, it was JP Morgan' Jamie Dimon, who segued into the Goldman "god' banker" refrain that all megabanks are not just critical but need to get even bigger in the form a 36-page lament to shareholders (in which among other things he repeats that even though JPM was bailed out, and even though it was handed Bear with Maiden Lane I left to pick up all the crap he did not want, none of those activities by the US taxpayers were necessary), and today it is none other than Goldman Sachs, which after prudently keeping a low public profile for a few months, is about to remind everyone who runs the world. And with the US public comprised of phlegmatic sheep, or morts as Michael Lewis put it very graphically, it appears that nobody is willing to stand up to those who run not just the markets, the economy and the administration, than the Fed's contrarian Tom Hoenig. In an exclusive interview with HuffPo's Shahien Nasiripour, Hoenig indicates that even among members of the Fed, there are people who not only think rationally, but realize that should the big banks/hedge funds (really just JPM and GS at this point) get their wishes to continue the status quo, the next leg of the crisis can't be far behind.The only problem: this time America itself will go down with the big banks: remember - all negative swap spreads indicate is that the banks insured by America, are now perceived as less risky than America itself.

A greater government involvement in the financial sector is not something I thought I’d ever ask for, but it has turned into a necessity in order to preserve, not destroy, capitalism.

The difference between the world when Volcker was Fed chairman and today is the end of Glass Steagall. Instead of bailing out simple lenders, the Fed now faces the task of managing and saving giant securities and securitization platforms that are too big to manage in a rational fashion. Don't fool yourself into thinking that JPM chief Jamie Dimon or any CEO of a TBTF bank has the slightest idea what is really happening within their enterprise.

"This is just another bailout of the financial system, because the tens of trillions of dollars already committed are not nearly enough."

"One might argue there was no Fed bailout involved with Bank of America’s purchase of Merrill Lynch, but I am not the one to make that argument. Merrill’s purchase by Bank of America at a premium price seems to only make sense with the huge assist of the Fed’s largesse in suddenly agreeing to accept lower quality collateral for its loans."

"The main beneficiaries are the insiders who have Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on speed dial. The Fed has undertaken a massive bailout using U.S. taxpayer dollars."

- Janet Tavakoli

"We reject the assertion that we are inflators of bubbles and profiteers in busts, and we are painfully conscious of the importance of being a force for good."