Wall Street Blooms at Public Expense

The past couple weeks has seen a lot of discussion about Wall Street's ability to manipulate markets. Both JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have announced strong earnings while the world economy lies severely wounded. One of the most comprehensive articles is in this month's "Rolling Stone Magazine" - an unusual publication for this type story, but that is because the financial media avoids discussion of such issues.
www.rollingstone.com...

Here are articles on each firm's recent unexpectedly good performance:

Goldman Sachs, www.washingtonpost.com...

JP Morgan, www.nytimes.com...

Wall Street gets away with this because the financial industry contributes 40% of all donations to Congress and because senior government policy makers operate in such collusion with it. Until the public cares enough to march, it will continue as it has for decades. Each time an effort is made to reign in the banking industry, even after flagrant abuse, its arguments are the same: "markets will collapse", "we won't be able to make a profit", "we won't be able to compete internationally", "the market will be subject to more volatile swings," etc. This subject has been a favorite of mine for the past few weeks.

Both chairman of the Fed Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner testified before the Congress in the past three weeks. Our local cable company doesn't even carry such hearings because it provides only one C-Span channel. First place in the nation where I've seen that. Their testimony can be seen at these links below. Click the "View in Timeline" links to watch.

Bernanke
www.c-spanarchives.org...

Geithner (Part 1 & 2)
www.c-spanarchives.org...
www.c-spanarchives.org...

Good thread..

Government Sachs is just begging for the masses to bring out the torches and pitchforks.

I've been talking with a friend who is knee deep in this stuff. Crony capitalism going on without any checks and we're being made to believe that everything is fine. That the roaches have scattered. The roaches are still in the walls at Wall St. and they won't leave until the American people kick them out.
[edit on 16-7-2009 by projectvxn]

[edit on 16-7-2009 by projectvxn]

Another great must read article...

For all the Pumpers and Pollyannas on CNBC and elsewhere..

Avoiding the Real Problem

As you know, CIT is deeply troubled, and most likely heading towards some sort of managed bankruptcy. The company is said to be holding counter party risk with many banks including Goldman Sachs. The rally may be based on strong rumours of an imminent bailout for CIT. The word on the Street is that Geithner and Summers caved again after a few key phone calls.

Let’s see how the Obama Administration handles yet another financial institution brought low by bad risk management in pursuit of outsized profit. Wall Street and their demimonde in the government and the media hate stimulus packages designed to assist the ordinary Joe, even if all it does is ease the pain during a steep downtrend (which was caused by the financial sector). They hate it, unless there is a way to charge fees in its distribution, and turn it into a profit-making venture for them where they derive most if not all of the benefits.

Until the banks are restrained, and the financial system is reformed, and balanced is restored to the economy, there will be no sustained recovery. The Obama team is incompetent, and probably worse. Its a great disappointment. They are showing all the wrong moves on the economy.

And my personal favorite...

$12 trillion is spent on bailing out Wall Street and it results in billions of dollars in earnings for these firms even though everything was done to reduce the bonanza in public view. Of course, you screw Main Street and the common man in the process. Then you dump CIT, ushering in phase two of the disaster - the death of the real economy. If you are a sociopath you do not care at all. I know these Wall Street guys, and Jeffrey Dahmer was more trustworthy.

[edit on 16-7-2009 by RolandBrichter]