:: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 ::

Wipe Israel off the Map

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last ..."

While publicly declaring strong support for Israel, the Bush administration is increasingly nervous about the 4-day-old campaign in the Gaza Strip and is urging its ally to settle on a timetable and exit strategy, say foreign diplomats and Middle East experts close to the discussions.

The Los Angeles Times offers insight into reaction to Israel's latest series of war crimes. Washington is increasingly using a new diplomatic sop to excuse Zionist atrocities. Beyond the global propensity to decry "violence on both sides and seek a swift end to violence", the Yanks have developed — as if to claim some illusory authority, the request for "a timetable".

As the LA Times points out, this hopelessly transparent phrase was used extensively during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon two years ago. And we all know what happened there. Israel had its ass kicked, won't go back, and has now made bloody sure its "enemy" comprises starving people who cannot strike back.

First off, the United States wields no authority over Israel. Israel, through AIPAC, wields authority over the United States and uses it to fund its murderous rampages. Hence the USian administration's need to maintain two fictions; a) it has nothing to do with the Israeli war machine and, b) it's able to assert some nebulous power over the murderous Zionazi butchers.

It's bullshit. The world has changed. This is the Twenty-first Century and even trailer trash no longer swallow the swill shovelled out by the Ministry of Truth. Can the U.S. administration not get it?

Nobody believes it anymore. And by that I mean nobody.

Globally, we elect governments because we don't know what else to do. But, despite our impotence, we know that once we put politicians in office, all they do is lie.

It's become a full time occupation. "We condemn the actions of both sides and seek a swift end to this terrible violence."

Ho ho.


"... Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

"You're not hearing that same confidence you did in 2006 that the Israeli military can impose a new strategic reality and should go full force," said one Arab diplomat in Washington. "There's a real contrast between their words then and now."

Maybe some policy wonk has tipped off powerful people in powerful places — during a brief flash of lucidity, that things are not as they were. Perhaps the Arab diplomat quoted above did so in less tactful language. When the oppressed, blockaded, and starved citizens of Gaza were hit by a wave of F-16s, Apaches, big tanks, and even bigger guns, he was probably called into some lame-ass authoritative office decked out with flags and polish for a dressing down or "briefing".

I imagine his response to such a briefing might have been: "Go fuck yourselves. Who do you think you are? You no longer matter, you fucktards. Get used to it."

He'd be right. The article cites concerns that Israel's image might be further tarnished by prolonged "action". Go figure. Some retard — paid a salary, actually thinks Israel has a reputation worthy of maintenance. I guess, by electing these brutal fuckers, we are somewhat to blame for their delusions.

But it's now time some reality was introduced to their ongoing narrative.

Israel, a U.S. military base in the Middle East, produces nothing but carnage. It serves no good purpose, produces nothing of value, and exports only bloodshed. Its existence ensures the perpetuation of suffering.

Put simply, there is no good reason for its continued existence. Besides, I reckon most Americans are tired of paying for it and — of this I'm certain, most people elsewhere are more than gatvol hearing about it.

More, it is, was, and always will be a failed experiment in barbaric social engineering. The world wants a Palestine populated by Palestinians, be they Muslims or Jews. It doesn't matter to us. Just get rid of this "Israel" thing. It doesn't work. We don't want it or its silly flag.

If the Knesset won't dissolve itself, chuck 'em out. Use sanctions. Blockade the buggers. Dismantle their nukes and don't allow them to travel. Deport the bastards and tell them to go get their house in order.

We're tired of Israel. Wipe it off the map.

"... said the Americans, like the Israelis, wonder whether Hamas will emerge politically stronger, even if its military arsenal is badly depleted."

Los Angeles Times | Behind closed doors, U.S. seeks Israel exit strategy

I wonder who really "wonders". Hamas is the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people under occupation. Their stature grows with each refusal to acknowledge their real and legitimate authority. It doesn't matter whether you like them or not. They're there and they're not going to go away. Grow up and deal with it.

Labels: we seek a timetable to wipe israel off the map and end this needless violence

:: Mike Golby 8:09 AM [+] :: | :: :: ::
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:: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 ::

The Levee's Gonna Break

Lewis Gay Dam, Red Hill

Well, I worked on the levee, mama, both night and day | I worked on the levee, mama, both night and day | I got to the river and I threw my clothes away

How many ways can one spell Warsaw? I dunno, but I reckon the Israelis ree-ally feel bad about that one. Humiliated maybe. Ashamed, if you will. I mean, if you look at Gaza, the Knesset and IDF must share the Nazi view and, as such, continue to deny every memory of the Holocaust.

Israelis, by their actions, deny the Holocaust daily. They are all David Irvings now.


Brooklands

I paid my time and now I'm good as new, | I paid my time and now I'm as good as new. | They can't take me back unless I want them to

How is it that Israelis, who profess kinship and a shared religion with those who suffered during WWII, can look back and view their antecedents as inferior untermenschen good only for labor, medical experimentation, and extermination?

For is this not what the Zionists and all who support them have been acting out for sixty years in Gaza? It's not as though war crimes being perpetrated on a massive scale in Khan Younis, Rafah, and Gaza City are new to us.

"Hey, it's election time; let's fuck up some sand niggers." We're used to it. Hell, we accept it. In fact, let's be honest, we support it. Ask Barack Obama.

Worryingly, this time round it looks more serious.

It's as though the little Eichmanns in the Knesset are hellbent on implementing their Endlösung der Arabierfrage.

If it keep on raining, the levee's gonna break | If it keep on raining, the levee's gonna break | Some of these people gonna strip you of all they can take

Bob Dylan | The Levee's Gonna Break

I look forward to quoting Dylan's Death Is Not The End come payback time. It's been running around my mind these past few days: "When the cities are on fire with the burning flesh of men | Just remember that death is not the end | And you search in vain to find just one law abiding citizen | Just remember that death is not the end."

What goes around comes around. Trust me. They call it the Warsaw Syndrome.

We've got so used to the carnage of the Middle East that we don't care any more – providing we don't offend the Israelis. It's not clear how many of the Gaza dead are civilians, but the response of the Bush administration, not to mention the pusillanimous reaction of Gordon Brown, reaffirm for Arabs what they have known for decades: however they struggle against their antagonists, the West will take Israel's side.

Robert Fisk | Leaders lie, civilians die, and lessons of history are ignored

Labels: zionazis final solution in gaza

:: Mike Golby 9:24 PM [+] :: | :: :: ::
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:: Sunday, December 28, 2008 ::

Blitzkrieg

Ground assault imminent

Iran has likened Israeli atrocities and its offensive against the defenseless people of Palestine to Hitler's crimes during World War II.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an anti-Israeli demonstration held by Iranian parliamentarians on Sunday, senior lawmaker Allaeddin Boroujerdi said the Zionists were committing the same crimes that Adolph Hitler did during World War II.

"The Israeli's are killing the oppressed people of Palestine brutally," he said.

Israel launched heavy air strikes against 30 targets in Gaza, leaving more than one thousand people killed and wounded. The Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak has warned that the operation "will go on and be intensified as long as necessary."

The Israeli strikes against Gaza continued for a second day on Sunday, bringing the number of those killed to 285. Israeli attacks against Gaza come amid reports of another ineffective Sunday UN Security Council resolution vetoed by Israel's staunch ally, the United States.

PressTV | Israel likened to Nazi Germany

At least one country remains unafraid of appropriately labeling the Zio-Nazis and their atrocities for what they are.

Again.

Labels: nazi zionists blitzkrieg gaza atrocities continue

:: Mike Golby 6:40 PM [+] :: | :: :: ::
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:: Thursday, December 25, 2008 ::

Peace and Grace ...

"Now, where are those bloody fish?"

There are two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other when perhaps a torrent of language is employed. This speech is speaking a language locked beneath it. That is its continual reference. The speech we hear is an indication of what we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smokescreen which keeps the other in its place. When true silence falls, we are still left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.

[On silence as a theme and as a stage technique in Silence and Landscape.]

Harold Pinter 10.10.1930 — 24.12.2008

Labels: Season's greetings Christmas wishes Loaves and fishes

:: Mike Golby 10:47 AM [+] :: | :: :: ::
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:: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 ::

Feed the World ...

Tokai Manor, Tokai — December 24, 2008


Christ Church, Kenilworth — December 24, 2008


Main Road, Kenilworth — December 24, 2008

"Let them know it's Christmas time again."

Band Aid | Do They Know It's Christmas? November 29, 1984

• Gary Younge | Greed has pushed political credibility and financial trust into freefall

Labels: feed the world

:: Mike Golby 9:43 PM [+] :: | :: :: ::
...

Truth and Politics

The Remains of the Day: Rhodes Memorial

The global financial system was teetering on the edge of collapse when President Bush and his economics team huddled in the Roosevelt Room of the White House for a briefing that, in the words of one participant, "scared the hell out of everybody."

It was Sept. 18. Lehman Brothers had just gone belly-up, overwhelmed by toxic mortgages. Bank of America had swallowed Merrill Lynch in a hastily arranged sale. Two days earlier, Mr. Bush had agreed to pump $85 billion into the failing insurance giant American International Group.

The president listened as Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, laid out the latest terrifying news: The credit markets, gripped by panic, had frozen overnight, and banks were refusing to lend money.

Then his Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., told him that to stave off disaster, he would have to sign off on the biggest government bailout in history.

Mr. Bush, according to several people in the room, paused for a single, stunned moment to take it all in.

"How," he wondered aloud, "did we get here?"

Eight years after arriving in Washington vowing to spread the dream of homeownership, Mr. Bush is leaving office, as he himself said recently, "faced with the prospect of a global meltdown" with roots in the housing sector he so ardently championed.

The New York Times | White House Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire

Such writing I cannot resist. It suggests the apocalyptic, promising all manner of catastrophe and calamity — perhaps even Armageddon. There's great injustice here. Good. It feeds my sense of moral indignation.¹

Who is this Hannah Arendt? What is she speaking about?² Bring her to me.

Needless to say, the White House did not appreciate the Times's well-researched, sympathetic overview of George W. Bush's ineptitude, published as part of a series of articles entitled The Reckoning.

Their discomfort probably had something to do with the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's December 2003 Report of the Special Examination of Freddie Mac, the subsequent January 2004 Subcommittee on Capital Markets hearing, and the later shooting of the messenger, OFHEO chief Amando Falcon.

Bloomberg now tells us:

"A 13 percent drop in the median resale price was the most since records began in 1968 and was likely the largest since the 1930s, the National Association of Realtors said." ... "The figures were worse than economists had forecast and signal that the battered housing market that led the economy into a recession may be taking another lurch down."

Mind you, back in 2003 Americans were otherwise occupied and had little time to indulge rational or factual truths. I wrote at the time:

"Robert Jensen and Sam Husseini were out of the blocks at CounterPunch before anybody, running a scorching piece of satire, New Bush Tape Raises Fears of Attacks, within hours of Dubya's return. They've since been followed by a more serious look at America's freewheeling Jamie Oliver by Dave Lindorff. In Bush's Baghdad Pitstop, he revisits war zones trodden by former U.S. presidents, notably Johnson and Nixon in Vietnam, and raises the possibility:

"...this latest presidential war-zone junket will someday be seen as a precursor not of victory, but of increased bloodshed, a wider war, and quite possibly, of another humiliating defeat for American forces."

Military defeat was an unpopular truth four years ago. Today, it is accepted with equanimity. U.S. forces have been humiliated and their commander-in-chief has been dutifully pelted with shoes. On the same day, I compared Bush to Mugabe:

Now that Western media monopolies have successfully airbrushed Bush's crimes (his rape of the U.S. economy and illegal invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq), he is free to consolidate his beachhead on the Middle-Eastern mainland and his hold on the U.S. political system. As Democrats squabble over who should oppose the GOP death's head late next year, his political axmen are ridding the corridors of political power of all opposition, ensconcing themselves in the belly of a beast displaying a rapacious appetite for excess, deception and deceit.

Mugabe, promising retirement and a retreat from mainstream politics, is steaming ahead with plans to expel white farmers from Zimbabwe, crush his opposition and entrench Zanu-PF's position for decades to come. When the smoke and mirrors are removed, politics becomes a simple exercise in clawing one's way to the top and staying there.

Bush and Bob have much in common.

Little, bar the battlefield of choice, has changed — as Amando Falcon warned, and today's mainstream messengers are decidedly more blunt. Miguel Fernandez Ordonez, Governor of the Bank of Spain warned Sunday of total economic meltdown.

"This is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression" he said.

We're hearing that a lot. I call my fascination with it "the visceral realisation of an emerging factual truth" to which most persist in turning a blind eye and, to ensure their continued ignorance, a deaf ear. The Associated Press tells us it's business as usual on Wall Street.

"Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals." ... "Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found."

This in the face of a recent 57-page report on business insolvencies worldwide released by Paris-based Euler Hermes, the world's largest credit insurer. After a 47 percent increase in U.S. bankruptcies during 2008 — including, worryingly, many household names, the report looks forward to 2009 and concludes:

"Credit to households and businesses has hardened, presaging a growing number of bankruptcies among US companies, with an increase of 50%, potentially to some 60,000 cases, a level last seen in 1993."

The news is bad. 2009 promises to bring worse. Is there a way out of this? Yes. Last month, I posted a detailed comment on a recently published book, Ellen Brown's The Web of Debt. Here it is again and, should we not effect meaningful systemic change globally, we'll (again) be unable to resort to "But we didn't know."³

¹ Phillip Hansen Hannah Arendt — Politics, History and Citizenship Stanford University Press 1993 pp90—116
² Alexander García Düttmann Making Poverty Visible — Three Theses Parrhessia Issue 4 2007 pp1—10
³ Stanley Hauerwas Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Truth and Politics The Center of Theological Inquiry Reflections Vol 6 2002

"Secretary Paulson, out in the real economy, the unbridled pursuit of greed that you and your friends on Wall Street have celebrated as a national religion has taken a terrible toll on ordinary Americans. Jobs with stagnant real wages have now given way to massive lay-offs, home foreclosures and real suffering."

Leo Gerard (USW) | Letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson October 28, 2008

The shifting of the political "site of struggle" from the bloodied sands of Mesopotamia to Wall Street was accompanied by a growing realization that the global economic crisis is far graver and more complex than many of us care to admit — but the solution far simpler.

However, economic illiteracy obscures both the problem and its solution.

If you read one book over the next year, choose The Web of Debt. Should you find yourself changing one or two misperceptions, you'll find Ellen Brown's skilfully researched reportage from the front lines of the global economy changing your view of economics radically and unequivocally.

The nut of it? We've fallen lock, stock, and barrel for one of the simplest, oldest, most dangerous, and frequently-practiced con tricks of all time.

Put simply, a private elite is charged with issuing money — created out of nothing — to the public and private sectors, for which it charges interest (not issued). The result is a dog-eat-dog world in which income disparity, scarcity, and the absolute concentration of wealth are inevitable. Bailouts of the uber-wealthy banking fraternity are not new and a derivatives collapse, worth several hundred trillion dollars and against which there is no insurance, looms.

In short, if you think the past few months have been rough ... When it comes to money, regulating a private sector given carte blanche to legally create its own wealth at the expense of others ain't gonna cut the mustard.

The scam is as blunt as it is craven. Rigging, fixing, and manipulation are entrenched, pandemic, pervasive and legal — infecting every part of the system. Share and gold prices will never again behave rationally.

Not for nothing is the current contrived charade posing as an economy derided as a Ponzi scheme. Yet, because we fail to question or do anything about it, it's hidden in plain sight. We are living in a cocoon of self-delusion and that's something for which we cannot blame the banks, the government, the economists, or the stockbrokers.

They have not deceived us. We have built our castles in the air and, a long time ago, decided to take up permanent residence. They're merely collecting the rent. We have conned ourselves and sought refuge in denial.

It's time to wake up and move beyond calls for Roosevelt-style New Deals to systemic change. Will Obama go the distance? It's not his call. It's up to the American people and central bankers worldwide to salvage a fundamentally sound infrastructure from the terminal folly of fiscal fools.

The author of Forbidden Medicine, Brown's remarkable work — unashamedly draws on the likes of Von Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, and LaRouche†, runs to 500 pages but, covering every rejoinder she might encounter to proposed solutions, it is current, immediately relevant, and reads as easily as a novel.

There is a way out of this mess — and it does not include cooperatives and credit unions, which do not address the interest problem; but it demands economic literacy (which this book provides in great measure), a willingness to take on the most powerful vested interests in the world, and the fortitude needed to endure changing to an equitable, sustainable system.

The good news? As it stands, and epitomized by the private Federal Reserve, much of the dysfunction tacked to the present system has been around less than a century — the 1913 Federal Reserve Act formed a tipping point. It forms a mere blip on the history of economics. Its solution, wholly American and capitalist — refining age-old European economic practices, was the norm in saner times.

Better still, it worked (you can blame the Brits and the gargoyles of Wall Street — watering away the wealth of taxpayers, for its disastrous demise).

It's time to spread the wealth.

† On making a couple of references to the controversial Lyndon LaRouche (an undoubtedly brilliant but morally repugnant man), Brown comments:

"On LaRouche, I'm neither a supporter nor a detractor; I'm just a researcher, reporting what I read that seems interesting and worth repeating, and his researchers have some of the most interesting material available on the subject, as you acknowledge."

To her credit, Brown's rigorous and all-inclusive research shows neither fear nor favor. She eschews embellishment and partiality. Our practice of economics, underpinning our daily reality, is far stranger and infinitely more terrifying than any fiction.

Note: If anyone can point to comprehensive reviews by recognized economists criticizing or highlighting technical or substantive shortfalls in The Web of Debt, please send me the links. I doubt there will be many. It'd take a sage or a fool to argue the veracity of the fundamentals espoused by this most necessary antidote to the malignant tumor destroying our global economy.

"And perhaps the most important, there's been — the Fed in 1989 created what is called the Plunge Protection Team, which is the Federal Reserve, big major banks, representatives of the New York Stock Exchange and the other exchanges, and there — they have been meeting informally so far, and they have kind of an informal agreement among major banks to come in and start to buy stock if there appears to be a problem."

Clinton economic advisor George Stephanopoulos [September 17, 2001]

No matter the size of the lie, a factual truth will always surmount it. Somehow, though, I've a feeling we'll have to go through a full-blown Depression before we come to accept it.

Labels: web of debt ellen brown economics federal reserve treasury depression recession

:: Mike Golby 12:20 AM [+] :: | :: :: ::
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:: Friday, December 19, 2008 ::

The Color of Money

Kanonkop

The World's Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud
November 7, 2005 Submission to the SEC
Madoff Investment Securities, LLC
www.madoff.com

Opening Remarks:

I am the original source for the information presented herein having first presented my rationale, both verbally and in writing to the SEC's Boston office in May, 1999 before any public information doubting Madoff Investment Securities, LLC appeared in the press. There was no whistleblower or insider involved in compiling this report. I used the Mosaic Theory to assemble my set of observations. My observations were collected first-hand by listening to fund of fund investors talk about their investments in a hedge fund run by Madoff Investment Securities, LLC a SEC registered firm. I have also spoken to the heads of various Wall Street equity derivative trading desks and every single one of the senior managers I spoke with told me that Bernie Madoff was a fraud. Of course, no one wants to take undue career risk by sticking their head up and saying the emperor isn't wearing any clothes but....

I am a derivatives expert and have traded or assisted in the trading of several billion $US in options strategies for hedge funds and institutional clients. I have experience managing split-strike options strategies for hedge funds and institutional clients. I have experience managing split-strike conversion products both using index options and using individual stock options, both with and without index puts. Very few people in the world have the mathematical background needed to manage these types of products but I am one of them. I have outlined a detailed set of Red Flags that make me very suspicious that Bernie Madoff's returns aren't real and, if they are real, then they would almost certainly have to be generated by front-running customer order flow from the broker-dealer arm of Madoff Investment Securities, LLC.

Due to the sensitive nature of the case I detail below, its dissemination within the SEC must be limited to those with a need to know. The firm involved is located in the New York Region.

As a result of this case, several careers on Wall Street and in Europe will be ruined. Therefore, I have not signed nor put my name to this report. I request that my name not be released to anyone other than the Branch Chief and Team Leader in the New York Region who are assigned to the case, without my express written permission. The fewer people who know who wrote this report the better. I am worried about the personal safety of myself and my family. Under no circumstances is this report or its contents to be shared with any other regulatory body without my express permission. This report has been written solely for the SEC's internal use.

As far as I know, none of the hedge fund, fund of funds (FOF's) mentioned in my report are engaged in a conspiracy to commit fraud. I believe they are naive men and women with a notable lack of derivatives expertise and possessing little or no qualifying finance ability.

There are 2 possible scenarios that involve fraud by Madoff Securities:

1. Scenario # 1 (Unlikely): I am submitting this case under Section 21A(e) of the 1934 Act in the event that the broker-dealer and ECN depicted is actually providing the stated returns to investors but is earning those returns by front-running customer order flow. Front-running qualifies as insider-trading since it relies upon material, non-public information that is acted upon for the benefit of one party to the detriment of another party. Section 21A9(e) of the 1934 Act allows the SEC to pay up to 10% of the total fines levied for insider-trading. We have obtained approval from the SEC's Office of General Counsel, the Chairman's Office, and the bounty program administrator that the SEC is able and willing to pay Section 21A(e) rewards. This case should qualify if insider-trading is involved.

2. Scenario # 2 (Highly likely) Madoff Securities is the world's largest Ponzi Scheme. In this case there is no SEC reward payment due the whistle-blower so basically I'm turning this case in because it's the right thing to do. Far better that the SEC is proactive in shutting down a Ponzi Scheme of this size rather than reactive.


[...]

Harry Markopolos | Report to the SEC, November 2005


Cape Point

The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly | Saying, "Death to all those who would whimper and cry" | And dropping a bar bell he points to the sky | Saving, "The sun's not yellow it's chicken"

This is weird shit man ...

Harry Markopolos's 2005 submission [pdf 1.5 MB] to the SEC is made more remarkable by it being the second time, since an original complaint lodged in 1999, that he alerted the regulatory body to Bernie Madoff's self-admitted $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Madoff was investigated in 1992 for brokering $500million in unregistered securities. ProPublica tells us:

Starting in 1999, Markopolos sent detailed memos to SEC staff outlining his case against Madoff. It had all started, he said, when he was working as a money manager at a rival investment firm. His bosses wanted him to match Madoff’s remarkable returns. But when he tried to replicate Madoff’s supposed strategy (trading a mix of stocks and stock-index options), he found that he couldn’t. And when he asked other derivatives experts, they agreed it was impossible to match Madoff’s legendarily steady returns. From there, he built a massive circumstantial case. He presented it in 1999, again in 2001 (an SEC official told him it appeared to have fallen through the cracks), and then again in 2005.

ProPublica | ‘The World’s Largest Hedge Fund Is a Fraud’

In the wake of Madoff volunteering culpability, SEC chief Christopher Cox has 'apologized' for his organization's signal failure to act on Madoff but, as BusinessWeek points out, Cox's "grave concerns" ring exceedingly hollow:

If you stop and think about it, the SEC failed to do its job at almost every level of the current mess we’re in. Who allowed Wall Street firms to increase their leverage to 30 and 40 times their capital and endanger the entire financial system? Why, the SEC. And who was supposed to be regulating the rating agencies and policing them for conflicts of interest as they signed off on trillions of dollars of toxic mortgage-backed securities? Again, the SEC. When it turned out that Wall Street had rigged the entire $300 billion auction rate securities market, who was then regulator that investigated but did virtually nothing until after it was too late? Right again, the SEC. And when Bear Stearns was running a couple of over-leveraged, mislabeled, highly-risky hedge funds, which regulator’s inspector general said it had failed to act in time? Yep, the SEC. Finally, which agency had an inside view of the risk management procedures at all the big firms but never asked any tought questions? Right again, SEC.

BusinessWeek | Lack of SEC oversight and enforcement at the center of too many messes

Acting specifically on Harry Markopolis's allegations, SEC Staff Attorney Simona Suh, Assistant Regional Director Doria Bachenheimer, and Branch Chief Meaghan Cheung concluded in their Case Closing Recommendation of November 21, 2007:

"The staff found no evidence of fraud."

Read Report to the SEC, November 2005. It is easily comprehended. A substantial, frightening, and highly informed document written in colloquial English, it raises — and details, twenty-five (25) Red Flags. Many of these constitute irreconcilable logical inconsistencies. Others posit that returns in certain circumstances — if valid, would constitute securities fraud or insider trading. At least half the allegations could not be explained away and should have led — several years ago, to Madoff's arrest.

Unless Markopolos is a fraud, there is something terribly wrong at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Either Suh, Bachenheimer, and Cheung were paid or coerced — from within the SEC — into NOT disclosing the nature of Bernie Madoff's scheme or their gross negligence warrants their arrest and conviction. The same applies to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which has direct oversight over securities companies.

Look, I'm not weeping for those who take money from the poor. My brain and labor subsidize them and that hurts. However, there are millions of investors around the world — many of them retired, who are seeing their so-called 'wealth' or 'worth' plummet with the markets (truly the world's greatest Ponzi Scheme by dint of fractional reserve banking).

With investors now having to pay the Treasury to store their notes, investors are better off stashing their cash under their mattresses. Or in large warehouses.

Like it or not, the dollar is the global reserve currency and the SEC wields more than a domestic regulatory power. SEC chairman Christopher Cox, with Paulson, Bernanke, and Lukken, is a member of the Working Group on Financial Markets, i.e. the President's Working Group (PWG) or Plunge Protection Team (PPT).

These people have proved themselves worthy of less trust than even Bernie Madoff. They run, "... basically, a giant Ponzi scheme." Would that we had a Harry Markopolos to blow the whistle on them. For now though, we can but reflect on an earlier BusinessWeek article, Ponzi Nation, and draw our own conclusions.

Mama's in the fact'ry | She ain't got no shoes | Daddy's in the alley | He's lookin' for the fuse | I'm in the streets | With the tombstone blues

Bob Dylan | Tombstone Blues

Note: Paul Krugman pins the tail to the donkey with The Madoff Economy.

"Yet surely I’m not the only person to ask the obvious question: How different, really, is Mr. Madoff’s tale from the story of the investment industry as a whole?"

Nope, you surely are not.

Labels: harry markopolis bernie madoff and mickey spillane

:: Mike Golby 6:48 PM [+] ::