JPMorgan Chase

• France's Sarkozy faces corruption probe in blow to comeback hopes (Reuters)
• Ukraine Says Military Offensive Against Rebels Yielding Results (WSJ)
• JPMorgan Investors Show Support for Dimon in Cancer Fight (BBG)
• World’s ATM Moves to Frankfurt as Yellen’s Fed Slows Cash (BBG)
• Argentina Seen Backtracking on Fernandez Vows as Legacy at Risk (BBG)
• Palestinian teen killed in possible revenge attack (Reuters)
• The Bill and Hillary Clinton Money Machine Taps Corporate Cash (WSJ)
• London House Prices Surge the Most Since 1987, Nationwide Says (BBG)
• Last Jew in Afghanistan faces ruin as kebabs fail to sell (Reuters)

• Yellen Spending Recipe Lacking Key Ingredient: Bigger Wage Gains (BBG)
• Ukraine signs trade agreement with EU, draws Russian threat (Reuters)
• GM Documents Show Senior Executive Had Role in Switch (WSJ)
• Australian Report Postulates Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Lost Oxygen (WSJ)
• World’s Biggest Debt Load Lures Distressed Funds to China  (BBG)
• GPIF Rushing Into Riskier Assets Before Ready, Okina Says (BBG)
• Japan Prices Rise Most Since ’82 on Tax, Utility Fees (BBG)
• Italian Debt Swells to Rival Germany as Bond Yields Slide (BBG)
• China’s Manhattan Project Marred by Ghost Buildings (BBG)
• BOE's Carney Says Rates Won't Rise to Levels Previously Considered Normal (WSJ)

At the heart of the last financial crisis, some compared CDS to buying home insurance on a neighbor's home and burning it down; it appears the USA has come a long way in the last few years. As NDTV reports, employees at The Orange County Register received a rather unusual request from their employer - Freedom Communications - writing to request workers' consent to take out life insurance policies on them.... But the beneficiary of each policy would not be the survivors or estate of the insured employee, but the Freedom Communications pension plan. Because such life insurance policies receive generous tax breaks, they are ideal investment vehicles for companies looking to set aside money to pay for pension plans. But in many cases, companies and banks can use the tax-free gains for whatever they choose, "Companies don't promise regulators they will use it for any specific purpose." Of course, it is the banks that are the biggest utilizers of this. Forget buybacks, just unleash some anthrax to really juice EPS this quarter?

The numbers that you are about to see are likely to shock you. They prove that the global financial Ponzi scheme is far more extensive than most people would ever dare to imagine. The truth is that our financial system is little more than a giant pyramid scheme that is based on debt and paper promises. It is literally a miracle that it has survived for so long without collapsing already. But at some point a day of reckoning is coming, and when it arrives it is going to be the most painful financial crisis the world has ever seen.

Timothy Geithner is likely to go down in American history as one of the most dangerous, destructive cronies to have ever wielded government power. The man is so completely and totally full of shit it’s almost impossible not to notice. The last thing we’d ever want to do in our free time is read a lengthy book filled with Geithner lies and propaganda, so we owe a large debt of gratitude to former Congressional staffer Matt Stoller for doing it for us. Stoller simply tears Geither apart limb from limb, detailing obvious lies about the financial crisis, and even more interestingly, Geithner’s bizarre bio, replete with mysterious and inexplicable promotions into positions of power..."Geithner is at heart a grifter, a petty con artist with the right manners and breeding to lie at the top echelons of American finance..."

Meet Mieko Tatsunami, a 70 year old retired kimono dresser from Tokyo. Unlike the scores of paid actors ordered to pitch Abenomics and to spread the gospel of rising asset prices, Mieko shares a most rare commodity in this day of pervasive propaganda: the truth. “The price of everything we eat on a daily basis is going up,” Tatsunami, 70, a retired kimono dresser, said while shopping in Tokyo’s Sugamo area. “I’m making do by halving the amount of meat I serve and adding more vegetables.” Ironically, that's what Americans are doing too. Only here the "halving" of the food is done by the food producers, while the consumers rarely if ever notices that they are paying the same amount for ever lesser amounts of food. At least in Japan they are honest about the food inflation. As Bloomberg shows, Tatsunami’s concerns stem from the price of food soaring at the fastest pace in 23 years after April’s sales-tax increase. Rising prices helped push the nation’s misery index to the highest level since 1981, while wages adjusted for inflation fell the most in more than four years.

Has the next major economic downturn already started? The way that you would answer that question would probably depend on where you live. If you live in New York City, or the suburbs of Washington D.C., or you work for one of the big tech firms in the San Francisco area, you would probably respond to such a question by saying of course not. In those areas, the economy is doing great and prices for high end homes are still booming. But in most of the rest of the nation, evidence continues to mount that the next recession has already begun for the poor and the middle class.

After the crisis, many expected that the blameworthy would be punished or at the least be required to return their ill-gotten gains—but they weren’t, and they didn’t. Many thought that those who were injured would be made whole, but most weren’t. And many hoped that there would be a restoration of the financial safety rules to ensure that industry leaders could no longer gamble the equity of their firms to the point of ruin. This didn’t happen, but it’s not too late. It is useful, then, to identify the persistent myths about the causes of the financial crisis and the resulting Dodd-Frank reform legislation and related implementation...."Plenty of people saw it coming, and said so. The problem wasn’t seeing, it was listening."

• Eric Holder proves he is no US banker puppet by smashing another foreign bank: BNP Falls as U.S. Probe Said to Cost More Than $5 Billion (BBG)
• Fuld Was Top CEO When Fed Last Raised as New Neutral Era Beckons (BBG)
• Tymoshenko loses her magic in Ukraine presidential race (Reuters)
• GOP Sees Primaries Taming the Tea Party (WSJ)
• Heard that one before: Russian troops preparing to leave Ukraine border area (Reuters)
• Vietnam riots land another blow on the global supply chain (FT)
• Heard that one before too: Bank of England minutes show some members closer to voting for rate rise (Reuters)
• BOJ Refrains From Easing With Signs Japan Weathering Tax Rise (BBG)
• Miner Freeport Pressured by Water Costs as Copper Prices Slide (WSJ)
• Talks to end Thai crisis inconclusive, new round called (Reuters)
• Japan Court Blocks Reactor Restarts (WSJ)

Just one day after the FBI issues arrest warrants for 5 Chinese military officials, Caixin reports that Fang Fang - the former CEO of JPMorgan Asia - has been arrested in Hong Kong by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (or anti-graft agency). Coincidental timing we are sure; and while details are sparse, the arrest appears linked to the hiring of the children of Chinese officials. Bloomberg reports that Fang declined to comment after being released on bail (under restrictions not to leave Hong Kong).

Just as the Fed started the Taper large banks began ramping up their U.S. Treasury holdings.

Everyone has seen them: those "inexplicable" bouts of furious selling in gold and silver, coming out of nowhere with no news or catalyst. In fact, look no further than what happened first thing this morning, when an unknown seller, smashed all stops in one big sale, and took silver to its lowest price for 2014.  This was a premeditated and deliberate selling of silver with one simple purpose: push and reprice silver lower. But this is nothing new: precious metal traders, especially those who are on the other side of the table of the BIS' Mikael Charoze or Benoit Gilson, and countless other commercial banks, are all too aware of this behavior and they take it for granted.  No, the real surprise is that suddenly none other than the CME is getting worred that manipulation this blatant is finally chasing regular retail traders away who are tired of being fleeced on a daily basis, leaving central banks and a few "fixing" banks to trade only with each other, which is not acceptable - after all it is the muppets' money that is fair game, not that of other cartel members. 

Today's FOMC announcement may be one of the more anticlimatic (if long-winded) in a long time: consensus largely expects the taper to continue by another $10 billion, and the Fed will, erroneously, suggest that the economy is growing at a "modest" pace (if only one ignores such things as a complete collapse in US GDP growth due to harsh weather: who knew that all it takes to stop a $17 trillion juggernaut economy was cold winter weather), but it doesn't mean there can't be surprises. Courtesy of Bloomberg, here is a list of the key things to look for in today's statement.

It doesn’t get any more Orwellian than this: Wall Street mega banks crash the U.S. financial system in 2008. Hundreds of thousands of financial industry workers lose their jobs. Then, beginning late last year, a rash of suspicious deaths start to occur among current and former bank employees.  Next we learn that four of the Wall Street mega banks likely hold over $680 billion face amount of life insurance on their workers, payable to the banks, not the families. We ask their Federal regulator for the details of this life insurance under a Freedom of Information Act request and we’re told the information constitutes “trade secrets.”

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• Russia-West tensions pressure stocks, buoy oil prices (Reuters)
• Toyota Said to Plan to Move U.S. Sales Office to Texas (BBG)
• Egyptian court seeks death sentence for Brotherhood leader, 682 supporters (Reuters)
• Greece warned of 14.9 billion euro financing gap (FT)
• Comcast to shed 3.9 million subscribers to ease cable deal (Reuters)
• Big U.S. Banks Make Swaps a Foreign Affair (WSJ)