Hank Paulson

Financial fraud is any method by which deception or duplicity induces those with money to "invest" in a scheme...   

A simmering rage is bubbling below the surface as 20% of American households rely on food stamps to survive, the percentage of Americans in the labor force stands at a four decade low, real household income remains stagnant at 1988 levels, corporate profits have reached record levels while corporations continue to fire Americans – shipping their jobs overseas, and the six mega-corporations representing the mainstream media cover up the truth, mislead the public with propaganda, while celebrating the .1% as saviors of our economy. There is nothing more volatile to societal stability than millions of unemployed men, growing angry and resentful towards the ruling class for their lot in life.

The Federal Reserve has been telegraphing to markets that they are going to raise the fed funds rate by 25 basis points next month at its December Fed Meeting.

While the saying goes "good fences make good neighbors," it appears the leadership of The EU is starting to get frustrated with the lack of acquiescence among some of the 'union's' newer or more marginal members. In a somewhat stunning statement, following ongoing and contentious meetings to discuss solutions to the migrant 'problem', EU Commissioner Timmermanns appeared to warn disagreeable member states, "There is an alternative to everything. I believe in EU cooperation because of all other forms in history have been tried to help Europeans get on better, and with the exception of this one, all other forms have led to war - so let's stick to this one."

It is now open season on "climate change deniers" everywhere.

Most investors don’t take kindly to change. “The market” chooses to stay in the here and now; each human component vibrant and alert while the whole is passive and inert…like a herd of wildebeests, protected by its mass and collective wisdom that each one of them is statistically safe from lions as long as they stay together.

While the Valeant soap opera has had constant, heart-pounding drama for weeks and following yesterday's report that it allegedly fabricated prescriptions, even an element of career-ending (and prison-time launching) criminality, so far one thing had been missing: an antagonist tied to Goldman Sachs. We are delighted to reveal the "missing link", one which ties everything together. Its name is Howard Schiller.

Did Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott just lose his job because of fears that a probe and audit of the "data" and "statistics" behind global warming could threaten to destroy Goldman Sachs' best laid cap-and-trade, emissions trading scheme and carbon tax plans?

Did Goldman just hand out the blueprint to crush the next "Lehman" and unleash the next global bailout? Read on to find out.

"The Goldman blowback is a particularly challenging subject to understand and analyze. Taken to extremes, criticism of the firm, which was founded and built by Jewish Americans, smacks at times of anti-Semitism. Fed officials don’t want to fall into the trap of ostracizing qualified people merely because of their association with the firm or its Jewish roots."

- John Hilsenrath

The last time former Goldman employee and then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson bailed out the hedge fund known as Goldman Sachs, and its closest peers (but not its biggest fixed income competitor Lehman Brothers of course), even the traditionally confused American public pushed back on the structure of the bailout which converted the Goldman holding company into an FDIC-insured company, which led many to ask: just where are Goldman's deposits? The answer, of course, was nowhere, so perhaps in anticipation of the logical pushback against its second, upcoming bailout which would see the taxpayer-backed depositor insurance company once again provide trillions in cash to banks as well as the glorified hedge funds such as Goldman, the firm moments ago decided to do something it has never done before: become an actual bank with checking accounts and such.

Goldman has truly outdone itself with this one: in addition to purchasing the former Danish PM, and by implication, the current PM and his former fin-min protege, and assuring the DONG scandal quietly goes away, Goldman just hired the former head of NATO: from 2009 to 2014 Anders Fogh Rasmussen served as  the 12th Secretary General of NATO.

"Public statements, media reports and market data reveal that Beijing unleashed 5 trillion yuan in funds - equivalent to nearly 10 percent of China's GDP in 2014 and greater than the 4 trillion yuan it committed in response to the global financial crisis - to calm a savage share sell-off. Beijing has thus produced the equivalent of around 1 index point gain for every $1 billion committed," Reuters reports.