articles today, courtesy of "Uncle Jimmy"

First

Link: http://blog.milesfranklin.com/a-spade-can-never-be-called-a-spade

A SPADE CAN NEVER BE CALLED A SPADE!

Yesterday we looked at the situations in both Ukraine and Greece, and how they are both out of money which makes them potential “flash points” for reality to set in. What I’d like to talk about today are the various “slights of hand” and why a spade can never be called a spade.

Currently in the U.S., some (but certainly not all) of the recent economic numbers are showing an absolutely booming economy. All you need to do is look at Friday’s unemployment numbers, they were clearly bogus. The biggest driver of employment over the last five years has been the boom in the oil patch …which is now busted with 1,000′s of pink slips being handed out. BLS revised the November and December numbers to show the fastest growth of employment for any three month period …so far this century! Really? Do you believe this in any fashion at all? Duh!

The economic and financial lies are getting bigger and bigger while the economy is shrinking and the financial position is more perilous. The gap between the reality and the true conditions has never before in history been this wide. Stocks are not allowed to drop, institutions are not allowed to fail, heck, financial institutions have been “told” not to mark to market as this would expose failures. Inflation is understated, employment is overstated, gold is not allowed to rise and the game continues. Everything you now see and hear has one goal behind it, hide the reality at any and all costs.

The situation with Greece is very sticky for the West for several reasons. Each and every one of them is because a Greek failure will expose the very ugly reality that the West is one big and interconnected series of Ponzi schemes constructed in pyramid fashion. Greece cannot be allowed to fail because of what, how much, and who they owe. In order for the reality to stay hidden, Greece absolutely must be forced to borrow more money so they have the ability to pay past debts. Already this morning, a six month “trial balloon” extension has been floated. If Greece is allowed to fail, other central banks (including and particularly the ECB) and many commercial banks will take some very real losses. This CANNOT be allowed to happen because of the leverage factor and the fact that no more collateral exists within the system that’s not already encumbered.

You see, many assets have been hypothecated (lent/borrowed against) many times over, including Greek debt. In case you don’t see the problem here, I will spell it out. When something is “lent” out or “borrowed” more than one time, it is theft pure and simple. This truth cannot in any fashion come to the surface because it will create a “call”. The original owners will flood in and ask for their security, their asset, and (think gold) back. What do you think the world will look like when 100 or so “owners” of the same asset decide they will not be one of the suckers who are left with nothing? This will be a bank run on a system-wide basis and include nearly any asset type you can think of.

The following analogy sums it up pretty well I believe. This game works well …for a “while”. It works “while” everyone is confident and no one asks any questions. It works while no one at the poker table decides to cash in and leave with their chips. It works well for as long as no one believes anyone else is cheating. Actually, it even works when everyone knows that everyone else is cheating …as long as everyone is winning. The problems begin when people start asking questions. Questions begin when people start to lose money. The answers are brutally ugly when discovered so it is imperative that no questions are allowed to be asked… and this is where we are today. This is exactly what “official policy” is today.

The Chinese, the Russians, The BRICS nations and 135 other nations tagging along ALL know what the “answers” are. They fully understand the casino is 100% rigged. They understand that everything of value has already been borrowed against and in many instances, several times over. This is why there have been so many trade and currency deals signed over the last year and a half …without U.S. involvement, approval or even “dollars”.

My personal opinion is this, a spade will very soon be exposed as the spade it is and all the theft, corruption and intentional fraud will be uncovered. The relevant event could be anything. It could be Greece failing to pay, leaving the EU or even being kicked out. It could be a local currency blowing up which bankrupts someone in derivatives. It could be the failure of a debt auction somewhere in the world. It could be something already well known or not. It could be a war. It could come from the West or the East, and it could be an accident or even an intentional event. It doesn’t matter “why”, the event is coming. The event is coming because everyone knows that everyone knows the system is fraudulent.

Please don’t reply to me saying “no, not everyone knows, the sheeple are as asleep as always”. I am talking about “countries”. I am talking about the players that count. The East et al absolutely knows they are dealing and trading in a lopsided and unfair system. They know the West is massively leveraged and has been dealing unfairly for many years. Even Western countries know this to be true, for example, why are countries repatriating their gold? Because they hope there is enough still in the vault to cover what they originally deposited. Like I said, everyone knows that everyone knows.

As mentioned yesterday, it is my opinion the East would prefer to allow the West’s failure to occur “naturally” and not force the issue. Time alone will do this. The U.S. has been pushing for war at every turn. A war will be pointed at as “the reason” everything failed. A war will also be used to cover the tracks of the fraud. This is not new thought and only the way it has always been. Distract, pretend, and extend!

If you believe the meme of “recovery” or “growth”, all you need to do is look at this. The Baltic dry index has just dropped to ALL-TIME lows! This index is very basic and when broken down reflects the state of global trade. Global trade has collapsed since the 2008 crisis began, unlike ever before.

This, after huge global deficit spending and monetization. “Magic Policy” which we were assured would cure all ills has failed miserably and no amount of bogus economic reports can mask this fact.

Expect out of control markets, unimaginable financial failures and ultimately a breakdown of distribution and society itself. The truth is, we have lived in financial fantasy land since 2007. 2008 came along, markets collapsed and the reset which should have occurred was aborted …only to become a much bigger and far more painful “inevitable” event now. More debt, more money supply and of course less gold in Western vaults. We in the West have spent, frittered, and given away 100′s of year’s worth of labour and savings of our forefathers. This in an effort to resist living within our means and calling a spade a spade. Spades are almost all that is left, all the other suits have been spent, lent and borrowed 100+ times over!

Comment:

Even the biggest idiot amongst us know that everything reported is just a pack of lies.

Who do they think they're kidding?

Second

Link: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/u-s-is-seeking-felony-pleas-by-big-banks-in-foreign-currency-inquiry/?_r=1

Justice Department Is Seeking Felony Pleas by Big Banks in Foreign Currency Inquiry

The Justice Department is pushing some of the biggest banks on Wall Street — including, for the first time in decades, American institutions — to plead guilty to criminal charges that they manipulated the prices of foreign currencies.

In the final stages of a long-running investigation into corruption in the world’s largest financial market, federal prosecutors have recently informed Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Citigroup that they must enter guilty pleas to settle the cases, according to lawyers briefed on the matter. The pleas would be likely to carry a symbolic stigma, if limited actual fallout, in handing felony convictions to some of the world’s biggest banks.

Yet even as those cases head toward negotiations over potential plea deals — a development that has not been previously reported — additional currency misconduct has surfaced in a New York state investigation, confidential documents show. The documents, excerpts from online chat rooms reviewed by The New York Times, suggest that banks designed electronic trading platforms that effectively drove up the price of currencies sold to clients. In the chats, replete with expletives and industry jargon, employees described and even joked about how the platform would cancel trades that ceased to be profitable for the bank.

New York’s financial regulator, Benjamin M. Lawsky, initially focused on platforms at Barclays and Deutsche Bank, but he has since subpoenaed four other banks: Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas and Société Générale. None of the banks have been accused of wrongdoing, and they are cooperating with the investigation.

The authorities are suggesting that a group of London traders, known as the “cartel” and the “mafia,” may have been illegally dipping into the $5.3-trillion-a-day currency trade.

Video by Channon Hodge, Aaron Byrd and David Gillen on Publish Date March 11, 2014. Photo by Aaron Byrd/The New York Times.

The Justice Department’s plea deals, if ultimately reached, would not cover any wrongdoing that surfaces from Mr. Lawsky’s investigation. Negotiations with the Justice Department are likely to center on which entity will plead guilty: the bank’s parent company, or a subsidiary that housed the misconduct. The banks, which have argued that the wrongdoing was isolated to midlevel employees, prefer that a subsidiary take the fall.

The currency case is expected to ensnare traders but not top-level executives. As a result, it may add fuel to the criticism that prosecutors have not charged one top executive on Wall Street. Without charges to mollify the public anger over the financial crisis, the recent cases have presented little more than a pyrrhic victory for the Justice Department.

Still, the developments underscore a broader reality on Wall Street of late: One investigation begets another. With each settlement for money laundering, manipulating interest rates or aiding tax fraud, new cases crop up, often unearthed in the course of the previous investigation.

The currency investigation would expand on those cases, which produced guilty pleas only from foreign banks. In pursuing cases last year against those foreign banks, Credit Suisse and BNP Paribas, prosecutors confronted the popular belief that banks had grown so important to the economy that they could not be charged.

After those deals set off few if any practical repercussions — the stocks of the banks actually jumped following the news — prosecutors in the currency case are now demanding pleas from JPMorgan and Citigroup, the lawyers said, in addition to Barclays of Britain and the Royal Bank of Scotland. The banks, before entering a guilty plea for any entity, will likely seek assurances that the charges would not prompt a revocation of their licenses or cost them any major business lines. If the banks resist, the Justice Department has warned that an indictment and ultimately a trial await.

For the Justice Department, the currency case represents a last opportunity to shape the white-collar legacy of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who has announced plans to step down once his replacement is confirmed. Blamed for the lack of criminal cases against Wall Street executives, Mr. Holder has emphasized that “no financial institution, at home or abroad, is too powerful to be held accountable for wrongdoing.”

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment, as did all of the banks under investigation. The lawyers briefed on the investigations spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private settlement talks.

The Justice Department and the banks, the lawyers said, will most likely take weeks or even months to negotiate a settlement. The deals could be announced in close succession, if not on the same day.

The currency investigation began in earnest two years ago with the suspicion that traders across Wall Street manipulated the foreign exchange market, pushing prices up and down to suit their own holdings. Although foreign exchange is an enormous global market, with more than $5 trillion changing hands each day, it is one of the least regulated.

Banks eventually fired dozens of traders implicated in the scheme. Authorities around the globe scrambled to stake a claim to the investigation.

In November, six banks sought to close the first chapter of the case, agreeing to pay a combined $4.25 billion to settle with financial regulators in Washington and Britain. The settlement, which included JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, the Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS and HSBC, exposed the way banks colluded to manipulate currencies through emails and online chat rooms.

“He’s sat back in his chair… feet on desk… announcing to desk… that’s why I got the bonus pool,” one trader remarked to a rival after they colluded on a rate, earning, according to regulators, a profit of $513,000 on the trade. Traders who collaborated to rig the market called themselves “the Players” and “the Three Musketeers.”

On the eve of the settlement, Barclays withdrew from the deal over concerns that it would not completely resolve its liabilities. The bank had hoped that Mr. Lawsky’s agency would join the pact.

Now that the Justice Department has opened settlement talks in the case, demanding guilty pleas for antitrust and fraud charges, Mr. Lawsky is likely to join. Each agency will assess its own fines, the lawyers briefed on the matter said.

The Justice Department might also pursue its own investigation into the electronic trading platforms under scrutiny by Mr. Lawsky, the lawyers said. Unlike the original currency investigation, which centered on the behaviour of individual traders who altered currency prices to benefit their own positions, Mr. Lawsky’s inquiry suspects a more systematic gaming of the currency markets through electronic trading platforms.

Over the last decade, many banks began to trade currencies through electronic platforms. Not all such platforms were meant to benefit the banks at the client’s expense.

But late last year, Mr. Lawsky’s agency began to scrutinize the platforms at Deutsche Bank and Barclays, as Bloomberg News reported in December.

In the confidential documents reviewed by The Times, it appeared that at least one bank steered certain clients to its platform, which provided the bank a moment to weigh its options in an otherwise high-speed environment.

For example, once a client agreed to buy euros at a certain price from a bank, the platform would detect whether the market had suddenly moved in a way that made the trade less profitable for the bank. The platform would then allow the bank to cancel the trade, possibly setting up a chance for the bank to eventually process the trade at a higher price.

In the online chat rooms, bank employees mocked their clients for not detecting the set up. And in some cases, when clients inquired about the cancellation, the banks falsely blamed a technical glitch.

Comment:

What do they hope to gain by having anyone plead guilty?

This is a typical case of "The blind leading the Blind, at least as far as the "Sheeple" are concerned.

If only the real truth were to come out.

"We live in interesting times"

Good Luck to all!