Money R' Us: We Break It, We Fix It

12 Comments

1. So what’s going to be the situation under Obama?
   My guess is we will have “transparency” for hundreds of billions, lots of hoopla, and that’s plenty of opportunity for “news” about “The New New Deal”, while trillions are disappearing. Keep your eyes open.

2. Chris:

   I am with you. I keep coming back to the missing money again and again. The algebra of time and money does not lie. There is a drain going on that is an inherent part of what I call the “slow burn.” The financial system is engineering drains through the federal credit and monetary system in a myriad of ways and they are reaching unbearable levels. For many years, I would not go back to helping clients until I had a framework for this process. Here an article that was written at the time I finally felt I had the gist of the system: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0408/S00277.htm

   Keep up the good work,

   Catherine

3. Catherine, this comment may not be fitting here but could not find an appropriate article. I keep coming back to the missing money, and money that is in my opinion stolen in broad daylight. I have been in the financial planning business for 15 years and have witnessed gross abuses which have resulted in significant fines and penalties for brokers and firms. A recent example of this would be Bear Stearns who after their economic hit received government funds, and two weeks later paid the SEC a 27 million dollar fine. This in my opinion is outright theft, the burden always ends up with the taxpayer and we seem to pay the same bill over and over again.

4. Hi again for a televised presentation of the above…
   http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2009/01/20/lpactv-citigroup-breaks-apart-time-new-national-bank.html
   Cheers
   Bruce

5. Hi Cathrine, this action is also necessary!
   LaRouche: Use Citibank Breakup to Rebuild National Banking System
   January 19, 2009 (LPAC)–Lyndon LaRouche called today upon the incoming Obama administration to use the breakup of Citibank into two parts, as announced on Friday, to take a crucial first step toward salvaging the national banking system by protecting the legitimate and necessary functions of chartered banks, as he had originally called for that in his Homeowners and Bank Protection Act of 2007.

   LaRouche said that the Obama administration should move to separate out and protect all the chartered commercial banking functions of the mega-banks, like Citibank, and let the other components be up for grabs. It is time to put an end to the idea of bailing out foreign banks, through taxpayers’ money, while allowing American banks to be dumped.

   There are a number of other big American banks, LaRouche continued, beyond Citibank, that are going to have to be put through the same dismantling, with protection for the chartered bank functions. By putting two or three of the big American banks through this type of reorganization, under Federal protection of the chartered functions, we can build a system that is, at its core, a national banking system. This is an urgent step that must be taken, right away. The incoming Obama Administration can act on this initiative on day one. The breakup of Citibank is the precedent for how to proceed.

6. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/business/18bank.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
   “Bailout Is a Windfall to Banks, if Not to Borrowers”

   “…Most of the banks that received the money are far smaller than behemoths like Citigroup or Bank of America. A review of investor presentations and conference calls by executives of some two dozen banks around the country found that few cited lending as a priority. An overwhelming majority saw the bailout program as a no-strings-attached windfall that could be used to pay down debt, acquire other businesses or invest for the future.

   Speaking at the FBR Capital Markets conference in New York in December, Walter M. Pressey, president of Boston Private Wealth Management, a healthy bank with a mostly affluent clientele, said there were no immediate plans to do much with the $154 million it received from the Treasury.

   “With that capital in hand, not only do we feel comfortable that we can ride out the recession,” he said, “but we also feel that we’ll be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves once this recession is sorted out.”

7. Seems like every has been or wanne-be hoodlum is coming out of the woodwork with a “plan” to rescue. More of the same old same old B.S.
   Found “Reality Sandwich” website visa vie Lynne Hayes. I haven’t finished Part II yet, but I’ll bet their plan tops Volker’s anyday:

   Reiventing Money: An Eco-systemic Approach (part I)
   http://www.realitysandwich.com/reinventing_money_ecosystemic_approach_part_1
   Part II
   http://www.realitysandwich.com/reinventing_money_ecosystemic_approach_part_2

8. LaRouche on the Obama Presidency: Will he make the Presidency function as it should, as a sacred trust for all humanity?
   Increase DecreaseJanuary 17, (LPAC)–At the conclusion of his Jan. 16th webcast,
   Lyndon LaRouche addressed the question of the prospects of the
   Obama Presidency, which had been posed by a group described by
   moderator Debra Freeman as comprised of some of the senior
   members of the institution of the Presidency. We include the
   question and the answer.

   “Mr. LaRouche, as you know, for many of us, the
   President-elect was not necessarily our candidate of first
   choice. Nevertheless, as we’ve come together to shape the policy
   options of this new administration, we must say that we are
   optimistic, and we are optimistic even as each day seems to bring
   a new more escalated phase of the problems that we have to
   contend with. We’re interested in knowing your view of this.
   Certainly you’ve contributed a great deal in terms of specifics
   and in terms of broad ideas, as we embark on the shaping of the
   policies that our nation so desperately requires, but when all is
   said and done, are you optimistic?”

   LAROUCHE: (laughs) Well, I’ve been emphasizing for some time, and
   more so as this Presidency has been coming in, that we have to
   understand ourselves from a higher level than the usual press and
   related type of gossip like the Sunday talk show gossip, that
   sort of nonsense. The United States is unique. Very few people
   really understand history these days. One of the difficulties in
   discussing this kind of subject, is that the dynamics of history
   are not things that people know, especially educated people. As a
   matter of fact, the more educated they are, the more they’re
   educated against knowing this sort of thing. They’re distracted
   by other concerns.

   But the fact is that the Presidency of the United States is
   a product of a development in European civilization whose
   proximate root was the Council of Florence, in the mid-15th
   century Council of Florence, and this conceived the idea of both
   the modern nation-state and modern physical science, both of
   which are ideas associated largely with the seminal work of
   Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa. And despite the mobilization of
   religious warfare, in the attempt to prevent this from
   succeeding, we had in the 1620s, 1630s, we had in North America
   an acceptance of an idea which had been formulated by Nicholas of
   Cusa.

   When Nicholas of Cusa saw what was happening with the Fall
   of Constantinople and the continuing wars in the Balkans, he
   recognized that the great transformation upward in science and in
   culture which had occurred at the Council of Florence, was now in
   jeopardy. That things were going to get worse. That old Euroope,
   in its worst sense, was coming back to dominate the younger
   Europe of that time, modern Europe. And the religious war of
   1492-1648 in Europe became a characteristic feature of this
   problem. But in this process, Cusa, in his writings towards the
   end of his life, had proposed that we recognize this corruption
   of Europe, and that we have to look across the oceans to other
   people, and form bonds with other people in other places across
   the oceans, in order to bring about a unification of humanity, in
   the sense of modern nation-states united for a common cultural
   purpose.

   You had a fellow in 1480, Christopher Columbus, who was a
   Genoese sea captain in the Portuguese service, and through a
   series of coincidences, Columbus in Portugal came across the
   correspondence of Nicholas of Cusa, and then wrote to Cusa, who
   had by that time died, and then wrote to leading associates of
   Cusa for scientific advice. As a result of this, Columbus adopted
   a commitment to sail across the Atlantic, to find the people on
   the other side of the Atlantic, and he had a map which was his
   guide. He, also being a sailor in the North Atlantic service,
   knew something about ocean currents, and realize that you could
   foresee that land-area on the other side of the Atlantic would be
   located in approximately a certain position. And so on the basis
   of this information, in 1492, he finally got the support to
   conduct this voyage and opened up the Americas for development of
   this type.

   Now, there were several projects of this type; some came
   into the Hispanic areas. Certain layers of Spain fleeing from the
   Inquisition, for example, in Spain, fled into South America, in
   the attempt to found republics in America, which would be an
   extension of Spanish culture, but would be of this type that Cusa
   was talking about.

   Then, in 1620-1630, 1640, you had my ancestors finally
   arrived on the scene, in the Massachusetts area. And they found
   an idea of a republic, which came through the tradition of Henry
   VII in England, the same kind of thing, which became the birth of
   the idea of a culture, a nation, built in North America. In
   which the idea of New England was first established with this
   conception.

   Now, in this process, with the rise of this corruption,
   represented by Paolo Sarpi, and the aftermath of the Council of
   Trent, Europe became more and more hopeless, even after 1648,
   even after the end of this religious warfare period. And so,
   Europe tended to degenerate. There was a brief renaissance
   period, post-1648, under Cardinal Mazarin and Jean-Baptiste
   Colbert, of which Leibniz was a part. But nonetheless, Louis
   XIV, this crowd were corrupt and became tools of an Anglo-Dutch
   Liberal, actually Sarpian, conspiracy, and began to degenerate.

   So, we had founded, therefore, in that latter part of that
   16th and 17th century, –you had in the United States, the
   development of the idea of a republic, which was to bring the
   greatest contributions of european culture into North America, in
   order to rescue a European civilization which was degenerating in
   Europe, and seemed to be determined to continue to degenerate.

   So, we in the United States, though based around an
   English-speaking culture, we have common roots with the English
   culture, in general, as we find from time to time, as in the case
   of Shelley and Keats, for example. But! We are free, in our
   tendency, in this country, apart from Wall Street and similar
   kinds of things–we are free of the corruption, the oligarchical
   corruption, which is still characteristic of European culture
   today. And we represent, therefore, because to the degree we
   are willing to play that destiny out, the leading representative
   of the accomplishment of European civilization within the
   Americas, and to reach out around the world to establish what the
   Council of Florence had intended to accomplish with its great
   reform. To that degree, we represent something special. We are
   not an extension of the British, and so forth and so on.

   But, because we were weak in numbers relative to the British
   Empire, from 1763 on, we have been in a constant war with the
   British, because the British became at that point, an empire, in
   the worst sense of the term, and we were the point of resistance
   to that empire. But we found in ourselves, as centered especially
   in the British East India Company and centered in New York City
   finance around traitors like Aaron Burr, we found ourselves also
   dominated by a foreign influence among us, which is centered in
   London and in the Anglo-Dutch Liberal population.

   – A Sacred Trust for All Humanity –

   Thus, today, we represent, those of us who share this
   tradition, who adopt it and share it, we represent a sacred
   trust for all humanity, continued from the proposition of Cusa,
   to reach out around the world, to make ties with people of other
   cultures, to form a union of sovereign nation-states on this
   planet, which shall be the only power controlling this planet, as
   a community of respectively sovereign nation-states, of which we
   ourselves must be an example.

   Thus, when we look at the Presidency of the United States,
   we’re not talking about a head of state, we’re not talking about
   one of these things. We’re talking about something much more
   profound, much more sacred. That, through our institution, we
   represent the embodiment of something which is necessary for the
   sake of all humanity.

   So therefore, when we elect a President, if he’s not a bum
   like the most recent one, or worse, or Andrew Jackson, another
   pig, contrary to some fables. He’s a bad Democrat. You know, we
   have bad banks, we have bad Democrats, too.

   So we represent something sacred. So this institution of our
   Presidency, which is our system. It’s not a parliament plus the
   executive, no! The Presidency is our government, not the
   Congress! The Congress is an appendage. It’s a control mechanism
   which determines the character of our Presidency, our
   Presidential system. But what’s our Presidential system? What’s
   the Presidency? It’s an individual, but that’s not the
   Presidency. It’s an individual entrusted with a post in the
   Presidency, but how does this individual function in that post?

   It functions on the basis of all kinds of people and advice,
   institutions. Institutions of government, institutions outside of
   government, or people like me as individuals who come to play a
   part in respect to the policies of our government. And we form a
   community–that doesn’t mean that we always agree with each
   other, by no means. But we form a community as a process, as the
   Presidency of the United States. This Presidency of the United
   States is a living institution in its own right. It’s not the
   Presidency of this guy or that guy. It’s an institution of our
   nation. It’s the characteristic institution of our nation, and
   it’s most immediately represented by those who have experience
   and trust, and who are voices within the community of people,
   former officials and so forth, who shape the thinking of the
   Presidency as an institution.

   Now, we come to another case. We have an individual, Barack
   Obama, President-elect, if they don’t shoot him between now and
   Tuesday! And the Presidency with Barack Obama has now come into
   existence. It’s now a Presidency. It’s not Barack as President.
   It’s the Presidency, under Barack Obama as President. And all of
   the factors in the Presidency converge, as a deliberative
   process, to try to steer this nation through, for the
   realization of the purpose of its having come into being in the
   first place.

   And therefore, my concern is that Barack Obama recognize the
   institution, the character of the institution which has been
   bestowed upon him, and respond to this institution in the terms
   that I’ve just described. It’s not his decision, it’s not his
   reaction. It’s his responsibility to be an agent in that office
   for what must be done by that office, and what we do to help make
   that.

   I don’t know if he’ll make the right decision, the initial
   decisions on Tuesday. I have no idea. He may not have had the
   experience, he may not have gotten the judgment, he may not have
   gotten the seasoning which yet shows him what his mission has to
   be. He may make a great number of mistakes; that’s important but
   that’s not the issue. The issue is, is the Presidency of the
   United States going to function with him as President, as it
   should? And pray that he will.

9. such a feeling of futility…

10. Volcker’s Group of 30, the brain trust to fix our problems, included so many who created it, such as Greenspan. But the one that caught my eye, was Hank Greenberg. Hank Greenberg led the NY Fed at the same time he headed AIG. Definitely part of the problem. As far as I know, his legal problems went kaput with Spitzer’s erection. I had read up on the insurance fraud early on and was amazed to learn it wasn’t the first time the Feds had shut down a similar scheme by the same people. I think they had been told to go and sin no more, but alas these guys never get their accounts cleaned out or sent to jail. They are above the law.

11. The revolving door between regulators and those being regulated must be stopped. Rubin is an example. He helped get the regulations decimated so that Citi become the monstrosity that is too big to function and then climbed on board and took 110 million as it went into the abyss.

    Lobbying should be limited in some manner. Political candidates should be limited in where they get their funds. 78% of the funds for Congressional races come from outside the district. This gives the incumbant such power that it is hard for fresh blood to get in.

    Regulation is expensive, but we’ve just been shown that no regulation is more expensive.

    We need to get rid of the credit card companies’ exemption in bankruptcy filings. That was pushed through by Biden whose son was a lobbyist for the banking industry. Instead of credit card companies pushing all the risk out to sometime in the future, they need to accept that some people are not credit worthy and to not allow people to spend money they don’t have. If the TARP includes these bonds, they are deterorating daily as the economy collapses. Instead of the taxpayer taking on these worthless debts, the individual should be able to declare bankruptcy to clear the system. That change in the law was a bailout for the credit card companies who let the least creditworthy have credit. That law has just passed the overspending of some into indebtness to the taxpayer instead of to the credit card companies who had a risky model.

12. Heck, The Market Ticker was plenty mad enough already. This could just send him over the edge!
    Short version: the music has stopped and there aren’t enough chairs.

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