Wachovia

Though the banking elite are now increasingly being exposed for their criminal activities against humanity in their theft of citizens’ wealth, rarely is another one of their greatest transgressions, their theft of citizens’ minds and the process by which they target and transform young adults into docile, obedient creatures through institutional academia, ever discussed.

“The Government Has Bought Into the Notion that Too Big to Fail Is Too Big to Jail”

I just finished reading Octopus by Guy Lawson, and it's one of those that fit the "I Couldn't Put It Down" category, much like Den of Thieves, published in 1992. It is the tale of Sam Israel, whom you may remember in 2006 was on the lam from his failed hedge fund/Ponzi scheme. He faked his suicide, was captured, and is now hanging out for the next couple of decades (with none other than Bernie Madoff) in a state prison named, of all things, Valhalla.

In today's episode of blast from the past, Bloomberg's Jonathan Weil takes us on a time journey, which presents the Too Big To Fail bank problem from a different perspective: that of the Cocaine Cowboy roaming the streets of Miami in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Just like today's big banks they were untouchable; just like today's banks they were collaborating and existing in perfect symbiosis with the Federal Reserve; just like today the Cocaine Cowboys existed in an untouchable vacuum courtesy of endless bribes to the local law enforcement and judicial officials, and just like today, the TBTF institution du jour isn't "merely an economic problem. It is a great moral failing of our society that poisons our democracy." Back then, Ronald Reagan stepped in just when Miami (whose real estate market had soared in 1979-1981 courtesy of rampant crime and money laundering: hint hint NAR anti money-laundering exemptions) was about to be overrun, forming a task force that in the nick of time restored law and order. Today we are not that lucky, as there is not a single politican willing to risk it all just to eradicate the modern version of a classic scourge: only this time they don't hand out 8 balls; they give away 0% introductory APR cards and 3 Year NINJA Adjustable Rate Mortgages. Both however get you hooked for life: either on drugs or on debt. Will someone step up this time and form a task force to eliminate the second coming of the Cocaine Cowboy? Sadly, we don't think so. At least not until the next great crash happens.

Someday, it will go down in history as the first trial of the modern American mafia. Of course, you won't hear the recent financial corruption case, United States of America v. Carollo, Goldberg and Grimm, called anything like that. If you heard about it at all, you're probably either in the municipal bond business or married to an antitrust lawyer. Even then, all you probably heard was that a threesome of bit players on Wall Street got convicted of obscure antitrust violations in one of the most inscrutable, jargon-packed legal snoozefests since the government's massive case against Microsoft in the Nineties – not exactly the thrilling courtroom drama offered by the famed trials of old-school mobsters like Al Capone or Anthony "Tony Ducks" Corallo. But this just-completed trial in downtown New York against three faceless financial executives really was historic. Over 10 years in the making, the case allowed federal prosecutors to make public for the first time the astonishing inner workings of the reigning American crime syndicate, which now operates not out of Little Italy and Las Vegas, but out of Wall Street.

The middle class has a gut feeling they are being screwed by somebody, they just can’t figure out who to blame. The ultra-wealthy elite keep up an endless cacophony of propaganda and misinformation designed to confuse an increasingly uneducated and willfully ignorant public while blurring the facts for those educated few capable of understanding the truth. They have been able to keep the masses dumbed down through government run education; distracted by sports, reality TV, Facebook, internet porn, and igadgets; lured by mass media messages of materialism; and shackled with the chains of debt used to acquire the goods sold by mega-corporations. We’ve become a society oppressed by a small faction of ultra-wealthy masters served by millions of impoverished, uneducated, sedated slaves. But the slaves are getting restless and angry. The illegally generated wealth disparity chasm is growing so large that even the ideologue talking head representatives of the elite are having difficulty spinning it. Even uneducated rubes understand when they are getting pissed on.

This brings up a lot of interesting legal questions. 

As either taxpayers or long-term JPM investors, we should be more grateful than sorry about the JPM CIO Ina Drew.

Injection will have its desired affect.

The CDS index market remains one of the most liquid sources of hedges and positioning available (despite occasional waxing and waning in volumes) and is often used by us as indications of relative flows and sophisticated investor risk appetite. However, as Kamakura Corporation has so diligently quantified, the broad CDS market (specifically including single-names) remains massively concentrated. This concentration, evidenced by the Honolulu-based credit guru's findings that three institutions: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citibank National Association, have market shares in excess of 19% each has shown little to no reduction (i.e. the market remains as closed as ever) and they warn that this dramatically increases the probability of collusion and monopoly pricing power. We have long argued that the CDS market is valuable (and outright bans are non-sensical and will end badly) as it offers a more liquid (than bonds) market to express a view or more simply hedge efficiently. However, we do feel strongly that CDS (indices especially) should be exchange traded (more straightforward than ever given standardization, electronic trading increases, and clearing) and perhaps Kamakura's work here will be enough to force regulators and the DoJ to finally turn over the rock (as they did in Libor and Muni markets) and do what should have been done in late 2008 when the banks had little to no chips to bargain with on keeping their high margin CDS trading desks in house (though the exchanges would also obviously have to step up to the plate unlike in 2008).

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to do nothing...