'Nuff said.

Last edited Wed Mar 25, 2015, 08:04 AM - Edit history (1)

WHAT CAN I TELL THEE? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS...APOLOGIES TO ELIZABETH BARRET BROWNING.

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/why-did-ted-cruz-refuse-disclose-how-much-his-wife-vp-goldman-sachs-makes

Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz has announced his intention to run for the presidency. He is widely expected to tap into the Tea Party base of the Republican party and posit himself as anti-establishment – in this case, an establishment that is too weak-kneed and too willing to compromise with the Democrats.

But a curious statement on Cruz's financial disclosure shows that he may not be so opposed to the establishment he rails against. See, Cruz's wife is a vice president at Goldman Sachs, the megabank so close to the powers in Washington that it is often jokingly referred to as “Government Sachs.” Because spousal income is shared, it is required for Members of Congress to list their spouse's employement if it gives them over $1,000. They are not required to list the exact income their spouse receives, but they are certainly allowed to if they are willing to be that transparent.

Cruz was not. Below you'll find a recent disclosure by the Senator. As you can see, he only lists his wife''s income as “Over $1,000.”



She's listed the same way in a May 2014 update:

Now, as we said before, Cruz is not required to list the exact amount his wife earned. But given the fact that he is as a Senator responsible for taking major votes on financial regulation and certainly as president that would be a big part of his duties to oversee the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, it's certainly important information.

And his chief rival from the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, didlist her spouse's exact income while she was a Senator, because it was paid in honoraria, which through a loophole asks exact amounts paid. Here's what a page from her financial disclosures looks like:


I THINK THE PROPER QUESTION TO ASK IS: WHY DID SHE MARRY HIM? DOES GOLDEN SACKS ASK SUCH SACRIFICES OF ITS EMPLOYEES?


Ted Cruz to lose Goldman Sachs health benefits

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/23/politics/ted-cruz-goldman-sachs-health-care/index.html

WIFEY TOOK "LEAVE OF ABSENCE", HENCE HIS GOING ON OBAMACARE....

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41322.htm

While Washington works assiduously to undermine the Minsk agreement that German chancellor Merkel and French president Hollande achieved in order to halt the military conflict in Ukraine, Washington has sent Victoria Nuland to Armenia to organize a “color revolution” or coup there, has sent Richard Miles as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan to do the same there, and has sent Pamela Spratlen as ambassador to Uzbekistan to purchase that government’s allegiance away from Russia. The result would be to break up the Collective Security Treaty Organization and present Russia and China with destabilization where they can least afford it.



Look closely at this statement. It defines the “international community” as Washington’s NATO puppet states, and it defines strengthening security and stability as removing buffers between Russia and Georgia so that Washington can position military bases in Georgia directly on Russia’s border...In Poland and the Baltic states Washington and NATO lies about a pending Russian invasion are being used to justify provocative war games on Russia’s borders and to build up US forces in NATO military bases on Russia’s borders.

We have crazed US generals on national television calling for “killing Russians.”

The EU leadership has agreed to launch a propaganda war against Russia, broadcasting Washington’s lies inside Russia in an effort to undermine the Russian people’s support of their government. All of this is being done in order to coerce Russia into handing over Crimea and its Black Sea naval base to Washington and accepting vassalage under Washington’s suzerainty. If Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Assad, and the Taliban would not fold to Washington’s threats, why do the fools in Washington think Putin, who holds in his hands the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, will fold?

European governments, apparently, are incapable of any thought. Washington has set London and the capitals of every European country, as well as every American city, for destruction by Russian nuclear weapons. The stupid Europeans rush to destroy themselves in service to their Washington master. Human intelligence has gone missing if after 14 years of US military aggression against eight countries the world does not understand that Washington is lost in arrogance and hubris and imagines itself the ruler of the universe who will tolerate no dissent from its will. We know that the American, British, and European media are whores well paid to lie for their master. We know that the NATO commander and secretary general, if not the member countries, are lusting for war. We know that the American Dr. Strangeloves in the Pentagon and armaments industry cannot wait to test their ABMs and new weapons systems in which they always place excessive confidence.

We know that the prime minister of Britain is a total cipher. But are the chancellor of Germany and the president of France ready for the destruction of their countries and of Europe? If the EU is of such value, why is the very existence of its populations put at risk in order to bow down and accept leadership from an insane Washington whose megalomania will destroy life on earth?

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

LIKE JOHN THE BAPTIST--A VOICE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS

http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2015/03/23/house-passes-resolution-urging-obama-to-send-arms-to-ukraine

The House on Monday overwhelmingly approved a resolution urging President Barack Obama to send lethal weapons to Ukraine to protect its sovereignty in its fight against Russian-backed rebels.

The resolution was approved 348 to 48.

There is bipartisan support in Congress to provide the arms to Ukraine forces battling the rebels. Russian President Vladimir Putin denies arming rebels in the war in eastern Ukraine, which began last April after Moscow annexed the mostly Russian-speaking Crimean Peninsula.

State Department officials say Obama administration officials are discussing lethal assistance but are waiting to see whether the agreements that led to February's cease-fire are implemented.

I GUESS THAT ACTION DESCRIBED ABOVE IN THE PREVIOUS POST WOULD COUNT AS AN OFFICIAL CONGRESSIONAL WAR DECLARATION, THEN?


http://www.themoscowtimes.com/top_stories/article/newsletter/515654.html

U.S. provision of military aid to Ukraine would be seen by Moscow as a declaration of war and spark a global escalation of Ukraine's separatist conflict, Russian defense analysts said.

With Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine seizing new territory from the Ukrainian army, voices in Washington are demanding that Kiev be given defensive weapons and hardware — including lethal equipment — to hold the line.

But if such aid were sent, "Russia would reasonably consider the U.S. to be a direct participant in the conflict," said Evgeny Buzhinsky, a former lieutenant general on Russia's General Staff now at Moscow-based think tank the PIR Center.

Speaking to The Moscow Times on a condition of anonymity, a member of the Russian Defense Ministry's public advisory board warned that Moscow would not only up the ante in eastern Ukraine, "but also respond asymmetrically against Washington or its allies on other fronts."

MORE

(Continued from yesterday)

Apparently an agreement has been reached where the government can keep their person with the understanding there will be no auditing of the books. I don't see that holding out a long time.

Kolomoisky has either resigned or been forced out as governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region.

One of Kolomoisky's associates who's been governor of the Odessa region appears to be pulling some of Kolomoisky's battalions out of Odessa, possibly as a warning to the government in Kiev to "don't mess with us" or you'll have pro-Russia uprisings all over the place. Places where medium to strong pro-Russia sentiments exist are in Odessa (Black Sea), Mariupol (Sea of Azov), Kharkov (east, near the Russia border), and Dnipropetrovsk (halfway between the war zone and Kiev).

On Tuesday MP’s controlled by Kolomoisky left the party of President Poroshenko and accused him and the Cabinet of corruption, misrule leading to the death of thousands.

Vitaly Kupriy, a people’s deputy and associate of oligarch Igor Kolomoisky accused President Poroshenko of entering a secret deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin and for the failure of the reforms.

In particular, the politician published on his Facebook page a “black list” of acts of the President:

• Failed to fulfill his election promises to sell his business – Lipetsk factory and “Channel 5?
• Colluded with anti-state oligarchs and gave instructions not to investigate the crimes of the regime of Viktor Yanukovych as a criminal organization
• -Together with his stooges – the Chairman of the Ukrainian Central Bank Valeria Gontareva he amassed billions from the instability in the monetary system
• By covering the unprofessional leadership of the General Staff and treason in the Security services contributed to the death of our soldiers in the Donbas
• Acting in favor of Putin, violated international obligations of Ukraine to the European Union and stopped the process of ratification of the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court, so as not to sit in jail for the massacre of civilians in the Donbas
• Sabotaged the reforms of law enforcement, the tax system, and contributed to the adoption of an anti-people budget and reduced social standards.
• Hinders the establishment of an independent Anti-Corruption Bureau.
• Wrongfully affects the justice of major criminal cases. In the “Gongadze case” he has blocked the process of declassification of the case documents, to enable the people having ordered the murder to escape punishment
• Blocked the process of rehabilitation of political prisoners of the Yanukovych regime and created a precedent prosecution of peaceful protesters who criticize the government
• Supports the principle of “selective justice” and inaction in cases of obvious violation of the rights of people

“Poroshenko continues to deceive the Ukrainian people”, – concluded the MP.

http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/03/24/4887

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/business/dealbook/for-clintons-a-hedge-fund-in-the-family.html?partner=socialflow&smid=tw-nytimesbusiness&_r=0

Since marrying Chelsea Clinton five years ago, Marc Mezvinsky, a money manager, appears to have settled into his life as Bill and Hillary Clinton’s son-in-law. He has regularly appeared at charitable events, once introducing the former president at the Clinton Foundation’s celebrity poker tournament by dryly saying, “You may have heard of my father-in-law.” And at the recent N.B.A. All-Star Game, Mr. Mezvinsky took a seat next to Mr. Clinton and his partner in charitable endeavors, Dikembe Mutombo, the former basketball star. Beyond the glamour, being part of the Clinton family has provided Mr. Mezvinsky with another perk: access to wealthy investors with ties to the Clintons.

When Mr. Mezvinsky and his partners began raising money in 2011 for a new hedge fund firm, Eaglevale Partners, a number of investors in the firm were longtime supporters of the Clintons, according to interviews and financial documents reviewed by The New York Times. Tens of millions of dollars raised by Eaglevale can be attributed to investors with some relationship or link to the Clintons. The investors include hedge fund managers like Marc Lasry and James Leitner; an overseas money management firm connected to the Rothschild family; and people from Goldman Sachs, including the chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein. Some of the investors in Eaglevale have contributed campaign money to the former president and Mrs. Clinton, who is widely expected to run for president again in 2016. Some have also contributed to the family’s foundation. Identifying who put money into Eaglevale, a roughly $400 million fund that has had underwhelming returns for much of its brief history, is difficult because hedge funds do not publicly disclose their investors. Still, the overlap between at least some of Eaglevale’s investors and backers of the Clintons illustrates how politics and finance can intersect and shows the fine line the Clinton family must navigate as their charitable and business endeavors come under scrutiny in an election cycle. A person briefed on the matter and close to the firm said the amount of investor money recruited by Mr. Mezvinsky is not large, amounting to less than 10 percent of the firm’s total outside capital. Clinton supporters also say there are more direct ways to cultivate favor with the family, such as giving to the foundation, where Chelsea Clinton is vice chairwoman, than by investing with a hedge fund that her husband co-founded...


In 2012, Eaglevale raised $15 million from an investment vehicle in the domain of Jacob Rothschild, who with members of his far-flung family has donated to the Clinton Foundation. The investment, financial records show, came before President Clinton spoke at a conference in Oxford that was sponsored by the Rothschild Foundation, of which Mr. Rothschild is chairman. Mr. Rothschild declined to comment through Tom Burns, a spokesman for his firm, RIT Capital Partners. A person briefed on the matter and close to Eaglevale, but not authorized to speak publicly, said Mr. Clinton’s appearance at the conference had nothing to do with the investment from the Rothschild-managed firm, Trading Capital Holdings.

Eaglevale’s flagship fund, with about $380 million in assets, is up about 10 percent this year, but that follows a poor performance in 2014. Last year that fund lost 3.6 percent largely because its bets on an economic recovery in Greece failed to pay off. By comparison, hedge funds using the same kinds of macro strategies as Eaglevale on average rose 5.62 percent in 2014, according to Hedge Fund Research, an industry performance tracking firm. Eaglevale had worse luck with a fund that raised $25 million solely to bet on a recovery in Greece. Its 40 percent plunge last year was previously reported by The Wall Street Journal. Some investors in Eaglevale have withdrawn from or reduced their investments. The investment linked to the Rothschild fund, for example, withdrew about half of its allotment. The two public pension investors that invested in Eaglevale at the recommendation of the Rock Creek Group are out of the fund altogether. Calpers left the fund as part of a retreat from hedge fund investments. The other pension fund, whose identity could not be determined, left because of the firm’s poor performance, said another person briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

POOR HILLARY....GOT A SCHLEMIEL FOR A SON-IN-LAW. SURE HOPE HE'S GOT OTHER, REDEEMING QUALITIES...OR BETTER CONNECTIONS IN THE SUB ROSA WORLD OF HIGH FINANCE.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2015/03/21/have-the-banks-escaped-criminal-prosecution-because-theyre-spying-surrogates/

I’m preparing to do a series of posts on CISA, the bill passed out of SSCI this week that, unlike most of the previous attempts to use cybersecurity to justify domestic spying, may well succeed (I’ve been using OTI’s redline version which shows how SSCI simply renamed things to be able to claim they’re addressing privacy concerns). But — particularly given Richard Burr’s office’s assurances this bill is great because “business groups like the Financial Services Roundtable and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association have already expressed their support for the bill” — I wanted to raise a question I’ve been pondering. To what extent have banks won themselves immunity by serving as intelligence partners for the federal government?

I ask for two reasons.

First, when asked why she, along with Main Justice’s Lanny Breuer, authorized the sweetheart deal for recidivist transnational crime organization HSBC, Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch implied that there was insufficient admissible evidence to try any individuals associated with this recidivism.



That’s surprising given that Carl Levin managed to come up with 300-some pages of evidence. Obviously, there are several explanations for this response: she’s lying, the evidence is inadmissible because HSBC provided it willingly thereby making it unusable for prosecution, or the evidence was collected in ways that makes it inadmissible. It’s the last one I’ve been thinking about: is it remotely conceivable that all the abundant evidence against banksters their regulators have used to obtain serial handslaps is for some reason inadmissible in a criminal proceeding?

I started thinking about that as a real possibility when PCLOB revealed that Treasury’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis has never once — not in the 30-plus years since Ronnie Reagan told them they had to — come up with minimization procedures to protect US person privacy with data collected under EO 12333. Maybe that didn’t matter so much in 1981, but since 2004, Treasury has had an ever-increasing role in using intelligence (collected from where?) to impose judgments against people with almost no due process. And those judgements are, in turn, used to impose other judgments on Americans with almost no due process. The thing is, you’d think banks might care that Treasury wasn’t complying with Executive Branch requirements on privacy protection. Not only because they care (ha!) about their customers, whether American or not, but because many of them are, themselves, US persons. US bank US person status should limit how much Treasury diddles with bank-related intelligence, but Treasury doesn’t appear bound by that. Which leads me to suspect, at least, that there’s something in it for the banks, something that more than makes up for the serial handslaps for sanctions violations. And one possibility is that because of the way this data is collected and shared, it can’t be used in a trial. Voila! Bank immunity.

All that’s just a wildarsed guess. But one made all the more pressing given that Treasury is among the Appropriate Federal Entities that will be default intelligence recipients for cyber information under CISA.



MORE AT LINK
SEE THE COMMENTS AS WELL---THIS IS A BIG ONE!

http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2015/03/monetary-policy-politics-and-economy?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/central_banks_in_the_firing_line



THE protests in Frankfurt yesterday (MARCH 18) outside the offices of the European Central Bank may have had a "rent-a-mob" component, resembling previous violent affairs targeting G8 and World Trade Organisation meetings. But they may be part of a broader trend. Central banks are at the heart of economic policy, supporting governments with their bond purchases and the economy via zero rates, deciding whether or not to offer liquidity to individual banks and national banking systems. Inevitably, the role of these unelected technocratic bodies is going to be subject to democratic scrutiny.

What is slightly odd is the direction from which this criticism is coming. The Frankfurt protesters focused on the ECB's role as part of the dreaded "troika", imposing austerity in Greece as elsewhere. But that rather ignores the role played by the ECB in 2012, when Mario Draghi's "whatever it takes" pledge stabilised the financial markets and the European economy. And it also ignores the ECB's just-launched quantitative easing programme which, by buying €60 billion a month of bonds, makes it easier for European governments to fund their social spending more cheaply. Indeed, German resentment of the ECB is based on the fact that the bank is making it too easy for spendthrift European countries to avoid much-needed reform.

Criticism of the ECB comes from both left and right. On the other side of the Atlantic, the criticism comes largely from the libertarian right. The Audit the Fed movement wants to subject the US central bank to much closer scrutiny; examining its bond portfolio, for example. At root, the critics dislike the Fed's use of quantitative easing, both for the way it helped bail out the banking sector and for the way it helps the Obama administration to fund its deficit. This offends the free market, small government philosophy of the movement.

Historically, support for this movement is a curiosity. In the late 19th century, William Jennings Bryan led a revolt of the farmers in "heartland" states against a tight money policy and in favour of bimetallism which would both inflate crop prices and reduce the burden of farm debts. The eastern states were seen as dominated by the "hard money" interest. Now the views have switched. It seems doubtful that voters in the heartland states have turned into rentiers worried about the return of inflation; they have debts like everyone else. Another puzzle is that some of the most prominent opponents of the Fed's QE policy are hedge fund managers who must have benefited from the way that QE has boosted asset prices. Indeed, one might have expected this development to have led to criticism of the Fed from the left, not the right...

MORE BLATHER AT LINK

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-20/the-fed-keeps-getting-more-and-more-pessimistic?hootPostID=17a30f1c6ee6a1b15628f34a9ca0fb5e



In its latest outlook for the U.S. economy, the Federal Reserve once again lowered its projections for GDP growth.

On Wednesday, the Fed moved a step closer to hiking rates for the first time since 2006 by removing the word "patient," but appeared overall dovish as it downgraded economic growth and inflation projections. Earlier Bloomberg pointed out that unlike in December, Fed officials no longer see economic growth reaching 3 percent -- this year, next year, the year after that, or in the long run.

Deutsche Bank Securities Chief International Economist Torsten Sløk sent out a chart today that crisply shows how the Fed is becoming more and more pessimistic as time goes on. You can see the recent projections in the dark blue line.

"The bottom line in the chart below is that the Fed is no longer expecting a strong rebound over the coming years. In my view, the risks are rising that the Fed is becoming too pessimistic about the outlook," he said.


OH, REALLY? HOW ABOUT "MORE REALISTIC?"

http://www.grreporter.info/en/10_steps_drachma/12504


Grexit is again hot, although most of the partners have publicly denied it is probable.

Large foreign banks have many times acted out their scenarios of Greece's exit from the Eurozone and keep adapting them to fluctuating conditions. Kathimerini has gathered university studies carried out for other countries or central banks, as well as the views of various sources, as to what will happen should this scenario come true.

There are 10 steps to be taken if Greece is compelled to quit the euro and hark back to its own currency. Once all the legal, political and administrative problems are addressed, the process will be set off, leading to a new currency, which just as well could be the old drachma. The Kathimerini publication has listed them:

1. All bank currency stocks in euro become frozen.
   
   
2. Both deposits and loans in euro are converted into drachma, at a rate of 1 to 1. The same goes for bank deposits in the Bank of Greece and for the loans (even from ELA) received by banks.
   
   
3. A preliminary debt reduction in the public and private sectors might be decided at the political level. Technically, this might be done by an early drachma devaluation, even before the currency is actually in use.
   
   
4. Capital transfers from the new drachma accounts into euro accounts are disallowed.
   
   
5. Wages, commodity and service prices, loans, etc. will be converted into drachma, at a rate of 1 to 1.
   
   
6. The ECB will make available an extra loan to the Bank of Greece so it can have the euro stocks that it needs.
   
   
7. Once the drachma is circulated, the market players start negotiating. A substantial devaluation is expected here, which might reach 60%. All the benefit of the debt truncation is lost.
   
   
8. The freeze on accounts and capital movement shall remain in force until the big exchange-rate fluctuations settle down.
   
   
9. Currency exchange points will convert customers’ euros into drachmas as all transactions in the country will be done in drachma, as required by the law.
   
   
10. The inflation resulting from the drachma depreciation will strongly affect prices across the board. Imported products, e.g. fuels, will perhaps be influenced upwards most dramatically.
    

http://www.mlive.com/auto/index.ssf/2015/03/ford_edge_to_be_built_at_new_7.html

Ford Motor Co. announced Tuesday it has opened its sixth assembly plant in China, with a $760 million investment for the Changan Ford Hangzhou Plant.

The new facility increases the production capacity for Ford by 250,000 vehicles, and the Dearborn automaker said it will help meet growing demand across the country.

"This world-class facility will help us accelerate the delivery of high-quality, innovative products to our customers in China," Mark Fields, Ford president and CEO, said in a release. "The new 3-row Edge demonstrates Ford's commitment to producing quality, safe, fuel-efficient and smart vehicles."

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/03/john-helmer-imf-loan-to-ukraine-props-up-failing-banks-enriches-oligarchs.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Yves here. One reason for our continued coverage of the IMF generosity to Ukraine isn’t simply to demonstrate how the institution is bending its rules to support US adventurism. It’s also to highlight the striking contrast with the treatment of Greece. While Greece has a class of oligarchs that specialize in tax-evasion, Ukraine is widely recognized as a spectacularly corrupt country, to the degree that it makes Greece look like a paragon of virtue.

By John Helmer, the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has decided to give the Ukrainian banks R&R&R – that’s rest from regulation and refinancing. Inspection of the foreign exchange book, unwinding related-party credits, recovery of non-performing loans, and obligatory recapitalization, which were all conditions of the Fund’s 2014 Ukraine loan, have been relaxed. The new loan terms announced by the IMF last week, postpone reform by the commercial banks until well into 2016. In the meantime, the IMF says it will allow about $4 billion of its loan cash to be diverted to the treasuries of the oligarch-owned banks. That is almost one dollar in four of the IMF loan to Ukraine.

The biggest beneficiary of last year’s IMF financing is likely to repeat its good fortune, according to sources close to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). This is PrivatBank, controlled by Igor Kolomoisky (lead image), governor of Dniepropetrovsk region and financier of several units fighting on Kiev’s side in the civil war.

Last Thursday, the IMF’s chief spokesman, Gerry Rice, claimed in a press conference that “the authorities [in Kiev] have demonstrated a strong commitment to reforms. They have implemented, as you have seen, last week a set of prior actions that in many respects breaks from the past and tackles issues that were once considered taboos.”

The taboo against admitting failure is one the IMF hasn’t broken. The new loan dossier reveals that IMF supervision of the Ukrainian banks, introduced last April and pursued through ten months, failed to staunch capital outflow from the Ukrainian banks; failed to recover value from the assets of insolvent institutions; and failed to require control shareholders to recapitalize their bank balance-sheets. These include Kolomoisky’s PrivatBank; Rinat Akhmetov’s First Ukrainian International Bank (FUIB, Cyrillic acronym PUMB); and Credit Dnepr Bank of Victor Pinchuk. The remedy, newly proposed by the IMF last week, lets the oligarchs off the hook, promising to feed their banks with public funds. That’s to say, IMF funds. According to the latest IMF staff report, the Ukrainian banks are now in a worse condition than they were last June. This is because the cash provided by the IMF and the World Bank through the NBU and the Deposit Guarantee Fund (DGF) has disappeared from bank balance-sheets and left the country. “As of end-January 2015,” the IMF reported last week, “the banking system’s capital adequacy ratio (CAR) stood at 13.8 percent, down from 15.9 percent at end-June.” Fund officials now reveal they were novices at Ukrainian accounting, admitting “the balance sheets of intervened banks turned out worse than the books indicated; little value has, so far, been recovered from the assets of failed banks.”

AND THERE'S SO MUCH MORE!

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/03/rebuke-cronyistic-new-york-fed-tbtf-bank-supervision-shifted-fed-board-governors.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29


The Wall Street Journal has published an important account of a behind-the-scenes power struggle at the Federal Reserve over authority for regulation. The result that the New York Fed has had significant amounts of its authority shifted to the Board of Governors in Washington, DC. This is a major win for Fed governor Dan Tarullo, who has emerged as one of the toughest critics of big financial firms at the Fed in the wake of the crisis. It is also a loss for the banks, since the New York Fed is widely recognized as close to Wall Street. Moreover, the Board of Governors is more accountable to citizens (its governors are Federal employees, the Board of Governors is subject to FOIA, although confidential supervisory of all financial regulators is exempt), while the regional Feds can best be thought of as public/private partnerships with weak governance structures,* so this move in theory is also a gain in terms of accountability to the public. However, since Greenspan holdover, deregulation enthusiast and Dodd Frank opponent Scott Alvarez remains as the general counsel of the Board of Governors, it’s unlikely that any newfound serious intent by the Board of Governors will go all that far in practice, given the powerful role that Alvarez exerts over matters regulatory.

Moreover, as proof of how secretive the Fed is and how voters are kept in the dark, this change was designed five years ago and has been in the process of implementation since then. The consequence is that, as the Journal points out, the Congressional committees responsible for bank regulator oversight have wound up directing questions to the New York Fed, and in particular its president Bill Dudley, that should more properly have been aimed at the Board of Governors.

Here is the Wall Street Journal’s overview of the changes (hat tip Adrien):


The major change is in the supervision of the biggest banks. Although the article does not mention this issue, the “broader review of risks across the banking system” language suggests that the power shift came about at least in part as a result of the creation of the Financial Stability Oversight Council. As Wikipedia describes its role:



The chairman of the Fed sits on FSOC. The New York Fed has no formal role it it. From a simple organizational perspective, it’s hard to see how you can have the Fed chair be a key voice on FSOC yet be at a remove from the actual supervision of the biggest banks.

However, the reduction in the New York Fed’s authority has clearly also come about as a result of the (correct) perception that it is too close to the banks. It appears that the New York Fed’s cluelessness during the JP Morgan London Whale debacle was a major wake-up call. We pointed out at the time that JP Morgan’s risk controls fell alarmingly short of well-established trading room practice. For instance, major financial firms place risk control, which among other things, is responsible for reviewing how traders mark their position, in units outside the profit centers whose head reports directly to the CEO. By contrast, risk control for the CIO was located in the CIO. That is tantamount to choosing to put the foxes in charge of the henhouse. It means the value of positions can be, as occurred in this case, be fudged, which allows losses to balloon before they are caught. Another factor that contributed to Tarullo winning this internal power struggle was the Carmen Segarra whistleblower case, where a former New York Fed employee charged the bank with supine supervision of Goldman, and later released 46 hours of tape recordings she had made in secret to substantiate her charges.

The article mentions one very important change in passing:



AND STILL MORE AT LINK

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/geithner-end-capitalism-know.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Bill Black flags yet another Geithner moment that deserves to live in infamy...

By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Originally published at New Economic Perspectives

Timothy Geithner’s penchant for speaking about things he does not care enough about to get right has led to him uttering many of the most cringe-worthy phrases about the economic crisis. The latest example is in David Axelrod’s new book about the Obama administration’s response to the financial crisis. This column was prompted by Sam Stein’s piece in the Huffington Post about Axelrod’s key points.




This story confirms two pathologies that are well-known about the Obama administration. First, Geithner was a faithful servant of his Wall Street masters when he was Treasury Secretary, just as he was when he was the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Notice that there is a contradiction in the description of the issue. Preventing banks that received bailouts from paying future bonuses is not “clawing back” bonuses. Clawing back bonuses means recovering bonuses that were improperly paid based on false accounting statements that massively overstated bank income. Neither of the practices I have described would have “violated existing contracts.” The people that “violated existing contracts” were the bankers who massively inflated reported net income in order to collect massive bonuses while the bank suffered huge losses and the bankers that made massive bonuses by leading frauds that ripped off customers. Both forms of fraud invalidate any contractual claim by the managers to bonuses. Bankers should not get paid in full under normal bankruptcy provisions when they run the bank into insolvency (including a liquidity crisis).

The perverse incentives of the compensation systems were a major contributor to the three financial fraud epidemics that bankers led that caused the greatest financial losses of any property crimes in history. It was grotesquely improper and immoral to pay the bonuses. It literally made crime pay. It was (and is today) vital that those perverse compensation incentives (which include the deliberate generation of the “Gresham’s” dynamics that suborn supposed “controls” such as the loan officers and brokers, credit rating agencies, auditors, and appraisers) be ended to make the financial world far less criminogenic. The “sure thing” of “accounting control fraud” (aka “looting”) makes “capitalism” as we know it a disgraceful oxymoron. What “we know” bears no resemblance to “capitalism.” Our largest banks became criminal enterprises virulently opposed to markets, competition, democracy, and customer service. At best, we suffered from crony capitalism, a variant of plutocracy.

Anyone that wants to save “capitalism” must destroy the current corrupt system “we know” that is posing as “capitalism.” To sum it up, there was no greater service that the Obama administration could have done for (real) capitalism than to produce “the end of capitalism as we know it.” Geithner was absolutely right in his diagnosis and absolutely wrong in his response. Wall Street hates “capitalism” – Geithner and Summers acted to save, rather than exorcize, its corrupt doppelgänger.

Geithner and Summers were so wedded to serving the interests of Wall Street – and crony capitalism – that they secretly sabotaged the efforts of progressives (supported in this unusual case by President Obama) to enact a legislative reform of compensation that was (1) legal, (2) economically efficient, (3) essential to restore “capitalism,” (4) essential to justice, and (5) politically popular. Obama discovered that he, and more importantly the American people, had been betrayed by Summers and Geithner – and did nothing. His administration died that day when he failed the most elemental test of leadership and integrity.

YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS? BOOMERS ARE OVER THE HILL, AT LAST.

3/25/15 H.J. Heinz Company And Kraft Foods Group Sign Definitive Merger Agreement To Form The Kraft Heinz Company
Press Release.....

Combination Creates Unparalleled Portfolio of Powerful and Iconic Brands

-- Merger will create the 3rd largest food and beverage company in North America and the 5th largest food and beverage company in the world.

-- Combined company to be named The Kraft Heinz Company and to be co-headquartered in Pittsburgh and the Chicago area.

-- The new company will have revenues of approximately $28 billion with eight $1+ billion brands and five brands between $500 million-$1 billion.

-- Stock and cash transaction, with Kraft shareholders to receive a special cash dividend of $16.50 per share upon closing and stock in the combined company representing a 49% stake in the new company.

-- Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital will invest an additional $10 billion in The Kraft Heinz Company; existing Heinz shareholders will collectively own 51% of the new company.

-- Significant synergy opportunities with strong platform for organic growth in North America, as well as global expansion, by combining Kraft's brands with Heinz's international platform.

-- The Kraft Heinz Company is fully committed to maintaining an investment grade rating; Company plans to maintain Kraft's current dividend per share, which is expected to increase over time.

-- Investment community conference call at 8:30 a.m. EDT; Media conference call at 10:00 a.m. EDT.


http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hj-heinz-company-and-kraft-foods-group-sign-definitive-merger-agreement-to-form-the-kraft-heinz-company-300055709.html

and an ice storm, but who's counting? I heard a couple of loud bangs, too...wonder if that was on the highway? I think I should go back to bed and stay there....

Today is the warmest it will be until next Monday...and it isn't that warm. So, what's a couple more days below freezing? Sigh.

In March

Of course, it was well above freezing for several weeks or months at that point.

2 years ago Dexter was a record-breaking 75F and hit by a tornado. This week, we hit a record low with record snowfall.

http://www.eclectablog.com/2014/03/2-years-ago-dexter-was-a-record-breaking-75f-and-hit-by-a-tornado-this-week-we-hit-record-a-low-with-record-snowfall.html

Pretty crazy, eh?

Billl Black: The Lessons Richard Bowen’s FCIC Testimony Should Have Taught the Nation

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/03/billl-black-lessons-richard-bowens-fcic-testimony-taught-nation.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Bill Black: The DOJ and the SEC Spurn their Ace in the Hole – Richard Bowen

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/03/bill-black-doj-sec-spurn-ace-hole-richard-bowen.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

PART THREE TOMORROW?

MORE DETAIL ON THE EVENTS OF THE PAST DECADE AND THE CRASHING OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY AND THE TOTAL LACK OF PROSECUTION....

Greece Raids Public Health Service Kitty as It Scrambles for a Short-Term Lifeline; ECB Refuses to Cut a Break

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/03/greece-raids-public-health-service-kitty-scrambles-short-term-lifeline-ecb-refuses-cut-break.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

IT'S TIME TO THROW IN THE TOWEL, SYRIZA, AND GREXIT. THERE TRULY IS NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE....

Spain, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and (yes indeed) FRANCE. And, hell, maybe even this country will wake up to what we "vote" for with each "s"election, 2016...coming soon, ripe and full of Citizens United & TPP.

So, it will be the end of the world as Germany knows it.
Silly Germans, their fate is in the hands of those they imposed desperation and suicide on.
Disaster capitalism is becoming, well...a disaster.