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BoomBustBlog Visits Financial Ground Zero To Check Out The Occupy Wall Street Movement
This is the BoomBustBlog view of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests, the view that you just won't get through the MSM...
Here's some more evidence of the risks of journalism when cops are out to defend those who pillage their pensions...
It appears as if I may have went over the head of a few skeptical readers with the "rape the police pension" bit, so here's an indepth tutorial of how it works for those so inclined to learn...
The
Conundrum of Commercial Real Estate Stocks: In a CRE "Near Depression",
Why Are REIT Shares Still So High and Which Ones to Short?
Key excerpts...
re_fund_returns.pngre_fund_returns.png
re_fund_returns_tables.png
Let’s take a look at another big bonus development exercise, marketing push they made into residential MBS a few years ago…
Apathy
and the need to masochistally follow name brand investors is what
enables this malarchy, and is what has allowed CRE prices to be
artificially elevated this high for this long. Believe you me, reality
will reassert itself and will do so in quite the destructive fashion.
Again, For Those Who Chose Not To Heed My Warning About Buying Products From Name Brand Wall Street Banks, and “Blog vs. Broker, whom do you trust!”
Believe
it or not, very few institutional investors are interested in seeing
the mechanics of how they have been bilked to fund Wall Street bonuses. I
have been very generous with the CRE analysis on BoomBustBlog, but
there have been relatively few takers for custom analysis. For those institutional investors who actually care about making money, or at least not losing 91% of it, I suggest you go through the public version of the model designed to create the analysis above. You can download it here: 
Real estate fund illustration & Interactive model 2009-12-23 12:54:21 174.50 Kb. For those with even more interest, you should download our 2010 CRE outlook: 
CRE 2010 Overview 2009-12-16 07:52:36 2.85 Mb and our CRE consulting capabilities statement: CRE Consulting Capabilities 2009-12-17 14:17:01 655.48 Kb. I
must say, any client of mine would have been very hard pressed to lose
91% of their money in a Goldman or Morgan Stanley fund.
»
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Go Reggie bro', you are a man of the people ... not just a man with understanding of financialism.
Love the rap.
I am a life-long 'leftist/liberal' (at 68) and I have been assaulted by the pigs/cops on a few occasions since Vietnam days.
I expect attacks, here, for admitting to being a 'socialist'; but I assert that it is good that the diverse 99% is coming out to protest against the 1%.
"Divide and conquer."
It is tragic that the PTB have it easy in setting the "underclass" against each other.
Reggie if you associate with these people so much perhaps you should shut down shop and go holler with them as well.
Seems to me that Reggie has his finger on the pulse of growing protest against Wall Str/Washington/the Fed.
Why should he shut up shop? He is very informed about financialism and able to focus protest.
Who are you, ZeroPower? Just a shill for Wall Str?
Right on Reggie!
Reggie,
I agree on your short JPM position. What's your downside target?
Kudos Reggie for getting down there and reporting the story.
Reg - I was kinda hoping to see a word or two from you on the passing of Jobs today...weird synergy that piece yesterday on Apple and today's news. There is nothing about bombastic self promotion that rules out dignity and common sense, and the amount of over the top animosity driven comments on ZH today beg for a wise word from somebody who has the saavy to separate the forest from the trees...a trader, like a warrior (you seem to be copping BOTH roles these days brother!) always has time to salute a worthy opponent...least that used to be the way it was played!
Apologies if I missed your comment on same somewhere along the line today.
Go to my site. It was picked up on CNBC as well.
"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former directors of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc won the dismissal of a lawsuit seeking to hold them liable for losses suffered by the fallen investment bank's employee retirement plan program.
U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled on Wednesday that the plaintiffs -- participants of a Lehman retirement plan -- had not sufficiently alleged that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties leading up to the bank's historic bankruptcy in 2008."
http://news.yahoo.com/ex-lehman-directors-win-ruling-over-retirement-pla...
if some poor slob steals a loaf of bread from Walmart they spend more time in jail then ANY of these corporate Barrons.....
Reggie (your work stands above all others): The popo do not understand what happened to them. This is the case with most Americans. You are the right person to tell them. All these young people. All thier energy but with no direction re: the root of the problem or the true nature of those fraudsters who work within it.
Very nice coverage - Keep on keeping on!
THE ROOT OF OUR SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, MILITARISTIC WOW'S IS AN EVIL MONETARY SYSTEM. EVERYTHING ELSE IS A SYMPTOM OR AN ACTION THAT SUPPORTS IT. AT THE HEART OF THIS SYSTEM ARE THE CENTRAL BANKS (THE FED), THEIR DISHONEST MONETARY POLICIES AND THOSE WHO CONTROL IT. SUCH POLICIES, LAWS AND THE CAPTURE OF REGULATORS ARE FOR THEIR BENEFIT. AN ACCOUNT OF THE PEOPLE HAS NO PLACE IN IT. INDEED, IF THE PEOPLE WERE ITS PRIMARY CONCERN, THE WORLD WOULD BE MORE FREE, LESS VIOLENT AND MORE PROSPEROUS; PROVIDING INDISPUTABLE PROOF OF MAN'S EVOLUTION, BEYOND THAT OF TECHNICAL INNOVATION AND EMPTY SOPHISTICATION .
"OccupyWallStreet's Young People are the tip of the spear... demonstrating what is our birth right. We The People must take up our Patriotic Duty and demand the restoration of The Rule of Law, Our Constitutional Democracy, Free Market Capitalism and FIRST a Sovereign, Honest Monetary System. It is the only path to true and lasting change!... Wall Streets crimes and Washington's complicity make them legitimate targets. Many of these sociopaths have to go. They are however, the minions for a larger more evil construct. That is a monetary system that demands constant growth of debt and war. And that criminal enterprise is controlled by the central banks (THE FED) and those behind them." - Inflection Point
See: OccupyWallStreet: The Kids Are Alright! - but Don't get fooled again
All Americans should consider the following
"The bane of humanity is we learn nothing from the horrors of past atrocities and history repeats itself. Our/Your passive acceptance of one transgression always makes way for another. This and the belief that injustice, visited on our neighbor, will not one day come knocking at our door is the banality of evil..." - Inflection Point
See: RAPE OF THE REPUBLIC
Here's something you might find interesting.
Graphic: Financial World Dominated By A Few Deep Pockets
- Inflection Point
Ripoffblican candidates:
"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself!" Cain
Doesn't this fool understand that his customers are middle class? This guy wants his customers to be poor. I guess when you become POTUS, you no longer need customers.
"I think it's dangerous, this class warfare," Romne, a son of a governor (born into top 1%) who got richer ($240M) with off shore tax shelter services (aka. class warfare against the middle class).
While in private business, Mitt Romney utilized shell companies in two offshore tax havens to help eligible investors avoid paying U.S. taxes, federal and state records show.
In the Cayman Islands, Romney was listed as a general partner and personally invested in BCIP Associates III Cayman, a private equity fund that is registered at a post office box on Grand Cayman Island and that indirectly buys equity in U.S. companies. The arrangement shields foreign investors from U.S. taxes they would pay for investing in U.S. companies.
Romney still retains an investment in the Cayman fund through a trust. Campaign disclosure forms show the investment paid him more than $1 million last year in dividends, interest and capital gains.
In Bermuda, Romney served as president and sole shareholder for four years of Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd. It funneled money into Bain Capital's Sankaty family of hedge funds, which invest in bonds and other debt issued by corporations, as well as bank loans.
Like thousands of similar financial entities, Sankaty maintains no office or staff in Bermuda. Its only presence consists of a nameplate at a lawyer's office in downtown Hamilton, capital of the British island territory.
"It's just a mail drop, essentially," said Marc B. Wolpow, who worked with Romney for nine years at Bain Capital and who set up Sankaty Ltd. in October 1997 without ever visiting Bermuda. "There's no one doing any work down there other than lawyers."
Investing through what's known as a blocker corporation in Bermuda protects tax-exempt American institutions, such as pension plans, hospitals and university endowments, from paying a 35% tax on what the Internal Revenue Service calls "unrelated business income" from domestic hedge funds that invest in debt, experts say.
Only you pay the real tax.....while rich and institutions pays less. That's what Romney's all about. Tax cut ONLY FOR THE RICH.
Aldous -- Romney is a corporate bureaucrat, the only ones who support him are the Republican establishment, not the grass roots. Cain's recent surge is a desperate hope among the base that he may be something other than a typical establishment hack. I expect further disappointment when they realize he isn't.
That said, the fact that not a single banker has been prosecuted lies squarely on the Democrats. Justice dept. sits under Obama, he's been in control since Jan '09 and hasn't lifted a finger to hold anyone on Wall St. accountable for their plunder --not a single arrest.
Thanks, Reggie.
It appears as if I may have went over the head of a few skeptical readers with the "rape the police pension" bit,...
Working at the NYPD is still a pretty nice gig and even if their collective pension fund gets to a point where obligations outstrip assets that does not mean that checks will actually stop coming in the mail.
NYC will find a way to keep that money flowing.
Like London, NYC is practically an autonomous city state at this point. The S may yet HTF in a big way but public employee well being will be the last shoe to drop. Particularly the well being of those (current and former) public employees that are also the only people in the city legally allowed to have guns.
Financial rape flows downhill and if police pensions do go belly up the people who will actually be left rubbing their asses are the owners of private wealth to whom the city will turn to make up the shortfall.
Seems to be a bunch of kids holding cameras watching life unfold without actually participating in it. I know Reg was doing this as a reporting/documentary function, but dude, there's only so many people you need on the media team. People need to put down their telephones and cameras and actually get busy doing a real protest.
The cameras are the weapons; they show America and the world the fight in progress and raise the awareness that, make no mistake, is part of the fight. That is why the media cover-up and disinformation.
And for those who would mischaracterize the protesters, they should listen to reports such as the one provided by Reggie, or visit the internet and see the messages being brought to the streets by these cameras.
Here, for example, are a few protester signs demonstrating just how targeted the protests really are:
A Few Prosper: Billions Suffer
2ND TIME I’VE FOUGHT FOR MY COUNTRY. 1ST TIME I’VE KNOWN MY ENEMY
Bradley Manning: In Prison for Telling the Truth
The Whole World Is Going Bankrupt. To Who? Debt Equals Slavery.
Welcome to the Media Blackout
Wall Street Is Nero and Rome Is Burning
Why Are So Many Out of Work When There’s So Much Work to Be Done?
End the Fed
I’m 84 and Mad as Hell
Come Together
It Is Class Warfare and We’re Losing
Wall Street Gambles and the 99% Pay
Decolonize Wall $t.
I’ve got 99 problems because Wall Street is 1.
I Can‘t Afford My Own Politician So I Made This Sign
I’m a Human Being Not a Commodity
I could lose my job for having a voice.
Wall Street Has the Real Weapons of Mass Destruction
Bernanke: Wall Street’s Santa
TEAR DOWN THIS WALL STREET!
And for those suggesting that movement is or is going to be co-opted, many are aware of that particular danger. Just saw this poster via twitter:
http://dailybail.com/home/photo-of-the-day-dear-moveonorg.html
Whatever legit grievances are being coherently presented down there are being drowned out by a traveling circus of juvenile bellyaching and just plain idiocy: http://dealbreaker.com/2011/09/wall-street-protest-2011-how-long-must-a-child-of-parents-with-multiple-degrees-beg-to-be-arrested/
If one guy at a Tea Party rally calls Obama a Nazi, it's the lead story in the NYT for three days. But if 500 gender studies majors block traffic for five hours in the name of genetically modified food protest they're somehow carrying on the holy legacy of civil disobedience in the name of "social justice".
Isn't that Marla's site, i.e, Bess Levin, who last time I checked was Dealbreaker's editor?
Marla was there in other guises semi-regularly at one point but Bess is her own woman.
Glass Adjustment, Hash Table Handshake, & Backlash Amperage
How much time you “create” determines backlash amperage.
Steve Jobs, among others: “Good artists copy; great artists steal.”
Apple does not have 3-5 years of viable product in the pipeline. Like Microsoft and Boeing, the proprietors “thought” they understood the process. Yes, the zombies will exchange their credits for Apples, but where is the baking powder required to make the system profitable, and restore link integrity?
Money must be directed to the small businesses capable of delivering economic profit and central planners have no way of knowing which they are, because gravity seeks to define you by possession and always runs out of time doing so. If outcome frequency is an adventure, not a destination, time is irrelevant. What is the ratio of amplitude to frequency?
As Team Obama amply demonstrated, the AMA is the hinge point. Notice the parasitic unions smothering the kids once the latter reached media threshold for coverage? Should be quite an education event. A debate between Sharpton and Cain would be interesting at this point, but Romney is more of the same.
At the end of the consumption half cycle economic producers are locked out. Consumer lock out, torque, is relevant. No one is in charge of the gravity wave traveling through History. The Wall Street types jump on and whoever makes the most consecutive guesses correct ends up in front, temporarily.
Backlash amperage depends upon how the economic producers transfer/translate intellectual property. If they teach directly by example, the result is recession bound. If they plant seed at the base of the phase, the result is depression bound. If they skip seed across peaks, the result is dark bound.
Every enterprise system reaches saturation on the event horizon, at the looking glass, where it begins. For return from the return, watch efficiency of medical device commodification, where human design meets planetary design. It’s not order; that may be changed at any point in the reaction. It’s relative compilation at spring tension that matters.
What is the difference between life and energy?
In the spirit of Occupy Wall Street - I put together a collection of videos for people interested in learning more about our financial system. People here have probably seen some of these before... Some are must views, such as The Warning by PBS
http://jeffreygtc.blogspot.com/2011/10/resources-to-learn-more-about-us.html
Reggie-Thanks for 1st-person acount of Wall St protests.
Recall the Hard Hat Riot also in Wall St....1970, few days after Kent State, 100's of orchestrated Construction Union members attacked antiwar protesters in NYC...unimpeded by NYPD. Then, the Head of NY Trades Council was appointed by Nixon to become U S Sec of Labor [Peter Brennan].
Difference between then and now - those were antiwar protests. There's a strong solidarity between cops and soldiers. This time around, the issues are drawn much more on class lines, lines that extend into both the military and police forces. If you're a cop belonging to a union and the people who are protesting are themselves union, protesting about attacks ON unions by the senior management, I can assure you your loyalty's going to be a lot less certain. I still contend that this could turn out badly for those hoping to use cops as their personal bully boys.
Indeed, here's how I see it playing out. The protests continue, and the police become more lax about busting heads, especially when those heads are people who have much the same beef as they do - remember that cops do go on strike too, and union members remember things like this. After a while, cops begin to come down with strike flu.
TPTB then will choose to rent out their cops from Blackwater, etc., at which point the s**t hits the fan. TPTB want heads busted - they want these people to go home and to stop protesting. Cops generally hate the rent-a-cops, because they are often pulled in as scabs. The rent-a-cops, on the other hand, are being paid better, and don't generally have to deal with the consequences of their actions. People begin going home bloody or in body bags. At that point, the cops are faced with a very real problem - things are spinning out of control, the peace is not being kept, and they have armed mercenaries in the streets with carte blanche. Passive inaction becomes active resistance.
Note: A lot of private security is ex-military. They go back into security because the pay is real good, people don't look too closely at your military indiscretions, and you get the kick of being in authority again. Remember that a lot of the recent crop of hard-right governors and mayors have begun opting for private security forces over public police, especially when they're promoting union busting. There's usually no real savings (and in many cases the costs are hire) but mercenaries generally stay bought so long as the money keeps coming, whereas cops live in the real world and have a different mandate - keeping the peace.
These protests are in early days. They'll wane somewhat over the winter, but by spring they'll be even larger, be more experienced, and will have had months of forming alliances, finding common ground, and an opportunity for planning. By then, the body count will likely start to rise, and the loyalty of the police will definitely be called into question.
In my direct experience the blue shirt cops generally are in sympathy with the whole anti-wall street theme. Many wer uneasy and cleaarly reluctant to be participating in arrests on Saturday - 'We're doing what we wer told to do..." but were pretty reasonable and ecven accommodating (as much as they could be with supervisory cops watching). At the station house I was outside of the Arresting Officers wer objecting to the inclusiopn og 'failing to disperse' charges saying THEY never heard any such thing and f they didn't the protesters didn't - nevermiond thst ther police would not let the protestors disperse - thy had them kettled.
Some supervisory types - white shirts - are more hard nosed and some downright out of control biut they seem to have been vbriefed - or think - that these protestors are all subversives, professional activists, possible terrorists - while they're not. Increasiongly they are VERY 'normal' people - people getting screwed over through no fault of their own. The 'hippie protestors' that may have drawn cracks from some cops at first are being supplemented with their cousin working for the MTA, an uncle who served in Iraq or even WWII, a guy who just got off wqork ON Wall Street and hundreds, thousands, more.
I was skeptical of OWS at first but they're serving as a catalyst for the rightful outrage that is building in the US. People want ACCOUNTABILITY, EQUAL TREATMENT UNDER THE LAW.....
The 99% are tired of being bled to feed the vampire 1%. The current system - crony capialism and and bought off government is NOT working.
LOL! Obama and his terrorist rich boy murderer Bill Ayres appear to have a lot more involvement in OWS. Obama takes loads of Wall Street money then gets his lemmings to do street theater. What a joke. This is to distract from Solyadra and Fast & Furious. He is just like Chavez and Mugabe.
I'm a f-n journalist you mother f-rz.
Yeah, right.
Actually that really was the local Fox 5 reporter!
It takes a nation of billionaires to keep us down.
I believe the the list of demands should be much shorter and would be more effective.
1) end the fed.
2) end all welfare/entiltements to both individuals and corps (including bailouts)
3) bring failure back. let heads of house holds and heads of companies reap the rewards for their success and feel the pain for failures.
4) Shrink the federal goverment. the "reduce Staffing count to be reduced to 1980 levels" mentioned above would be a nice start.
You omitted the biggest Uncle Sam titsuckers of them all, the D.o D.
How about modifying 4:
end all non-constitutionally defined federal government spending.
reggie, what do you expect if they were smart, they wouldn't be police, and they wouldn't be allowed to be police. Now, I get why in east germany you'd be stassi, or in russia KGB, then you are likely tp get a good piece of the pie. these fools just bash the people who are on their side in the battle.
I can only hope that as muni's go bankrupt from wall street games (see muni bond rigging, how about the sewage bonds, interest rate swaps (not sure if I am saying correctly), that these people loose their pensions real fast. it serves the cops right if they are protecting those stealing their future.
I don't think I have ever had the hatred of the police I have now, we really live in Nazi land
they cut private sector pension
they cut government employee pension
they cut teacher pensions
You know whose pension they haven't cut?
Police thugs and Congress. because elites still need them to beat up the rest of the 99%.
Even Meg Whitman who campaigned on cutting CA public pensions and salaries, gave into police unions even 6 months before the election.
Civil service is the classic carrot-and-stick model. People submit to being robbed under the implied threat that the corporate structure will stop buttering their bread.
http://georgesblogforum.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/war-under-heaven-the-wo...
the outsourcing token nigger of #occupywallstreet! shows up 3 weeks late! LOL!!
take your uncle tom ass in the house, where your scary ass belongs!
here is your cheap tablet, from India for $45 Bucks.. with load speeds of a snail!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUUaiS_fuNs&list=FLbRZZAixeFXZfqszvKisEdQ&index=4
Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish on Oct 5, 2011
At the low price of $45, the world's cheapest computer tablet, made in India, is targeted mostly at students.
In a country where laptops range from anywhere between $400 and $1,000, and where the average income is much lower, the hope is that more people, particularly the country's youth, will have greater access to technology.
In the next few months over 100,000 such computers will be available in select universities. If successful, India may even sell it commercially, but experts say the design still has a long way to go.
Did ya know Goldman Sachs is setting up the financing, the Bonds and Investors, and getting the "Tower/(relay) business a bump? Poor India, hope they take a lesson from Greece and Chinas experience with the "Squid".
Tool
Wow........not only an idiotic asshole, but a racist to boot. The ultimate trifecta for ignorant white trash. I live and was raised in Florida, and unfortunately, turds like JDuhbya are all too common.
why am I racist?
you shouldnt jump on bandwagons so quickly, your ignorance is showing.
I believe this quote says it all moron.
"the outsourcing token nigger of #occupywallstreet! shows up 3 weeks late! LOL!!"
do you know Reggie?
how long have you supported Reggie?
how many hours have you lifted Reggie up for all to see?
well, I will tell you that I have done all of that and more..
so when I have a problem with someone I support.. its not your problem.
you are new.. or someone old that had to change thier name becuase you are a coward..
so, either get up to speed or fuck off.. either way.
Now, that was rude, disrespectful and uncalled for. A little "brother envy fixation" have we?
You came to the party 3 weeks late? and its me? are you sure?
I am only kidding.. now that you see the Cause has legs you should jump on the Band Wagon!
A punk is a punk is a punk..
Pretty sure the dude is into "black buck" cuckhold porn. I wouldn't take it too personally.
people seem to forget this is "Fight Club".. and it has NEVER! been the Politicly Correct, G Movie Rating Web Site.
Hence why I "went there" with an equally un-PC retort.
I was agreeing with you not challenging, pussy face fag!
JW is a sack of shit. Very informative Reggie, nice work.
this troll is one of the worst on here i see him here all the time with his conspiracy theories and racial bating of immigrants, jews, blacks, anyone else he can try to annoy.
i wish he would go back to commenting on alex jones info wars where he belongs. people like him are not planted by the cia to infiltrate, remember every group has it's share of total idiots hanging around. there is a reason why freedom of speech should have its limits within a private directed group of people.