FedUpUSA

Archive for May 18th, 2010

The German Government Has Had Enough

Posted by Karl Denninger

If you thought the German government was going to be a lapdog for Sarcozy, or worse, was going to fellate Brussels and the ECB, you got a rude shock today.

It appears that the German Government has just plain had enough of the crap that the banksters have tried to pull, and has decided to do what Barack Obama should have done in early 2009.

That is:

• No more naked credit crap, especially against sovereigns but not only against sovereigns.  No insurable interest, no CDS – period.
• Naked shorting will now be actually stopped in 10 leading financial institutions.
• Germany has had it with naked shorting of Gold, and specifically noted bank manipulation of gold prices via naked shorts beyond intent or ability to deliver.
• Germany has also said that they’re not going to permit Euro derivatives that are not a “bonafide” FX hedge.  That is, no more naked bets on Euro movements either.
• Hedge funds are going to be regulated, position size limits mandated and enforced, reporting enhanced and a transaction tax is coming.

It’s about damn time.

Oh, and it appears that instead of telling all the banksters what they were going to do and “getting permission” first, or even discussing it with other governments, the German Government did what all governments should do – make up your mind and then do it without giving a good damn whether the banksters or other governments like it – and without giving them input into the decision or notice that it’s coming.

The bid rigging, the game-playing and the rest are all a bunch of crap.  I’ve been hollering about this now for more than three years and yet our government spends it’s time fellating the bankers and their dogs instead of enforcing the law.

It is illegal to defraud people.

It is illegal to rig markets, including the massive bid-rigging that I wrote about this morning, the Jefferson County Alabama scam and dozens if not hundreds more – all committed, it is alleged (and in some cases proved) by the major banks.

It is illegal to short stocks with no intention or ability to deliver.

And it is illegal to bribe government officials, no matter how you accomplish it.

These are not “isolated incidents” or even a pattern of conduct – as the bid-rigging report this morning makes clear ripping people off has become an institutionalized practice and policy throughout the entire banking system.

Many said that the Germans were not “really” arm-twisted by Sarcozy and the French Banking interests a week or so back.  I think we can put that to rest here and now, as it’s pretty clear that the truth is something else entirely.

Now Barack, about your willingness to get up off your knees and kick these banksters in the nuts?

Better late than never.

ALL The Banks Ripped Off Taxpayers?

Posted by Karl Denninger 

Title looks great, huh?  Congress essentially just vetoed Greece’s bailout and anyone else who is next in line to go begging.  The problem is, the bailout already occurred.  The Federal Reserve opened up almost $1 Trillion in swap lines with the European Central Bank.  Much of that money is already gone – and guess what?  They didn’t need the approval of Congress to do it.  This means, they won’t need the approval of Congress to do it AGAIN!   And without a complete audit of the Federal Reserve, Title 31 of the USC specifically prohibits the US Government from viewing the records of any ‘foreign transactions’ of the Federal Reserve.

So, there you go.  These turds in Congress did this all for SHOW and to dupe you into reelecting them.  Don’t be that gullible.

Congress Blocks Indiscriminate IMF Aid for Europe

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Europe may have to clean up its own mess after all. The US Senate has voted 94:0 to block use of taxpayers’ money for IMF rescues that make no economic sense or bail-outs for countries like Greece that far are beyond the point of no return.

“This amendment will help prevent American taxpayer dollars from underwriting dysfunctional governments abroad,” said Texas Senator John Cornyn, the chief sponsor. “American taxpayers have seen more bailouts than they can stomach, and the last thing they should have to worry about are their hard-earned tax dollars being used to rescue a foreign government. Greece is not by any stretch of the imagination too big to fail.”

Co-sponsor David Vitter from Louisiana said America had run out of money. “Our country already owes trillions of dollars in debt. We simply can’t afford to take on other countries’ debt in addition to our own.”

It is unclear where this leaves the EU’s $1 trillion “shock and uh” package. Urlich Leuchtmann from Commerzbank said the IMF share of $320bn was the only genuine money on the table, the rest being largely euro smoke and mirrors, or plain bluff.

The measure is an amendment to the US financial overhaul law. Backed by both parties, it can hardly be ignored by the Obama administration whatever Tim Geithner may or may not want to do. The bill has to go to Conference for reconciliation with the House, but the point is made.

It instructs the US representative at the IMF to determine whether a country with a public debt above 100 per cent of GDP can be expected to repay IMF loans. If this cannot be certified, the US must oppose the rescue package.

This is obviously aimed at Greece, which will have a debt of 130 per cent by the end of this year. The debt will rise to 150 per cent by the end of its the rescue/death package, leaving Greece in a worse position than before.

The IMF share of the Greek bail-out is 30 times quota, more than double any other rescue in the history of the Fund. There is a very strong suspicion in Washington that the IMF is being misused by French chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn – French presidential candidate in waiting – to support ideological purposes regardless of economic logic or sanity. This can (and in my view most likely will) destroy the credibility of the Fund itself unless the US and Asians can wrench the institution back from the Europeans.

The US is the IMF’s biggest shareholder and can veto aid packages, though it has never done so because the Fund has never been so stupid as to defy the world’s dominant financial and strategic power.

In this case it fair to assume that China shares many of the Senate’s concerns. The latest US Treasury Tics data shows that China is rotating is vast reserves back into dollars, and presumably away from euro bonds. If we treat this as Chimerica – the US/Chinese single currency or condominium – we have a force in the world that cannot be pushed around.

Personally, I have changed my mind on Greece. My initial reaction earlier this year was that it had to be saved to avoid a sovereign Lehman. Many posters on this blog cried “shame”, saying it was just another moral hazard rescue for bankers. They were right. I flagellate myself and wear a dunce’s hat.

The correct policy would have been – and still is – to help Greece out of its debt-deflation death spiral through an orderly “pre-emptive debt restructuring” along the lines of the IMF package for Uruguay. In Greece’s case it would require a haircut of 50 per cent or so for foolhardy creditors, ie your bank and mine, your pension fund and mine. This would not do much good unless Greece also devalued by 30 per cent to 40 per cent to retrieve competitiveness and put the whole fixed-exchange nightmare behind it.

This would be the normal IMF policy in these circumstances as countless ex-IMF officials have stated. I suspect that many in the Bundesbank and the Bundestag finance committee would have liked this policy too – making an example of a country that was so far gone, and had so flagrantly broken the rules.

The IMF-EU should instead have drawn up its defences in Iberia, along the Lines of Torres Vedras – to borrow from Wellington. Portugal and Spain are at least defensible – arguably – and more deserving.

The solution is being blocked because Brussels views any step back in the EMU Project as intolerable. So the IMF is squandering its scarce resources on an unworkable plan in Greece.

As we can now see, by misusing the IMF so cavalierly the euro-elites have provoked a reaction from Washington that will vastly complicate any future rescue for any eurozone state.

In fact, we are already living in a post-IMF world. There is no bailer-of-last-resort. Sobering, isn’t it?

You can take that to the bank.  Goldman never expends effort on something that isn’t a guaranteed deal courtesy of our captured government.

May 18 (Bloomberg) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc., fighting a fraud lawsuit from U.S. regulators who accuse the company of misleading investors, is trying to persuade more Americans to trust the firm with their retirement funds.

The New York-based company is promoting alternative asset funds and designing target-date funds that provide guaranteed income to grab a bigger piece of the $2.7 trillion 401(k) market, said Bill McDermott, a managing director at Goldman Sachs Asset Management and head of its defined-contribution business.

“We understand risk and we understand asset allocation,” said McDermott, who joined the firm in February to strengthen its retirement-plan products and marketing. “We’re looking to leverage that for the 401(k) market.”

Goldman’s 401(k) plan assets totaled $17.5 billion as of March 31, according to the company. Fidelity Investments, the largest 401(k) asset manager, had $347.8 billion as of December 31. Assets in 401(k) plans are estimated to increase 41 percent, to $3.8 trillion, by the end of 2014, according to data from Cerulli Associates in Boston.

Goldman and BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager, don’t administer retirement plans and have been seeking more 401(k) business. The business has been dominated by firms such as Boston-based Fidelity and Vanguard Group, based in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, which administer plans as well as manage assets.

‘Writing on the Wall’

“A lot of investment-only managers are trying to get in,” said Lori Lucas, defined contribution practice leader at San Francisco-based Callan Associates, an investment consulting firm. “They see the writing on the wall,” as traditional pensions are replaced by 401(k) plans.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Goldman on April 16 accusing the company of misleading investors in a mortgage-linked investment. Goldman denies those allegations and said it will fight the charges. A Senate panel grilled executives, including Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, on April 27 about the case.

“Having issues certainly isn’t going to help. But all the signs so far are telling us that clients are sitting tight,” said Teresa Epperson, a partner at Mercatus, a Boston-based financial consulting firm. “Goldman’s capabilities are in trading strategies and hedging risks. The extension of those absolute-return strategies could be attractive to plan sponsors.”

Fiduciary Duty

The asset management division that McDermott works in is separate from the mortgage unit that sold the securities at the center of the SEC’s fraud suit against Goldman. A key difference between the two businesses is that the asset management division operates under a fiduciary duty to its clients, whereas the sales and trading division doesn’t.

“When a client gives us their money and their assets to manage, we are 100 percent their fiduciary, we must manage their money in the most prudent fashion possible using our best judgment possible,” Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn said on May 11 at an investor conference in New York. “The rest of Goldman Sachs is not in the fiduciary business.”

Goldman’s total assets under management at the end of the first quarter were $840 billion, down 4 percent, primarily because of outflows in money market funds, according to the company’s first-quarter earnings release. Asset management is a smaller department at Goldman than investment banking or trading, representing 8.8 percent of the firm’s 2009 revenue of $45.2 billion, according to Goldman’s yearend earnings release.

Lower Risk

Alternative assets, such as commodities and real estate, can increase a portfolio’s return and lower risk. They’re gaining in 401(k) plans because more companies are creating their own custom target-date funds, said Callan’s Lucas. Target- date funds move money from riskier investments such as stocks to more conservative alternatives like bonds as an investor approaches retirement.

The market drop of 2008, when the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index declined 38 percent, showed that “there were very, very, very few safe havens,” said Bud Pernoll, senior managing director of Santa Monica, California-based Bay Mutual Financial LLC, which advises corporate retirement plans on their investment options and works with Goldman. “You’re starting to see plan sponsors look outside the traditional asset classes.”

Large-Company Sales

Pernoll has added Goldman’s Satellite Strategies Portfolio, a mutual fund with a portfolio of other mutual funds invested in assets such as real estate, commodities and emerging markets, to more than a dozen 401(k) plans he advises since the start of the year. The fund, with $585 million in assets, returned 28.6 percent in the last 12 months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Goldman already has sold its funds to the 401(k) plans of companies including Intel Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., and Sysco Corp., according to data compiled by BrightScope Inc., the San Diego-based 401(k) research firm.

The most popular Goldman funds for 401(k) plans are Goldman Sachs Mid Cap Value Fund and Goldman Sachs Small Cap Value Fund, according to BrightScope. The mid-cap fund returned 42.9 percent for the last 12 months, and the small-cap fund returned 45.2 percent in the same period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Goldman is developing target-date offerings that include guaranteed income during retirement, McDermott said. That puts it in competition with BlackRock and AllianceBernstein L.P., the money management unit of AXA Group, in developing target-date funds that include annuities.

‘Major Player’

“There’s a lot of interest in product development, but not a lot of plan sponsor usage,” Callan’s Lucas said. That may be because big corporate plan sponsors are waiting for guidance from regulators. The Department of Labor has been studying annuities in retirement plans, and the Senate’s Special Committee on Aging is scheduled to hold hearings on lifetime income June 16.

“We want to be a major player,” said Goldman’s McDermott, who previously worked in the corporate retirement divisions of AXA Equitable and Fidelity. He said he expects to increase the number of people on his team to 30 from 20 by yearend.

Goldman’s alternative asset push “is ahead of the curve right now, so they see an opportunity to dominate that niche,” said Steven Dimitriou, managing partner of Mayflower Advisors LLC, a Boston-based retirement plan consultant. “As soon as these funds start gaining traction, they’re going to get copy- catted.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Amy Feldman in New York at afeldman16@bloomberg.net.

The Responses to the Gulf Oil Spill and to the Financial Crisis Are Remarkably Similar … And Have Made Both Crises Much Worse

? Washington’s Blog

The Gulf oil spill and the financial crisis were both caused by excessive risk-taking by industry giants and the “capture” of politicians and regulators by the corporate behemoths.

Moreover, the response to the Gulf oil spill and the financial crisis are remarkably similar.

With regards to the financial crisis, the response has been to cover up the truth:

William K. Black – professor of economics and law, and the senior regulator during the S & L crisis – says that that the government’s entire strategy now – as during the S&L crisis – is to cover up how bad things are (“the entire strategy is to keep people from getting the facts”).

Indeed, as I have previously documented, 7 out of the 8 giant, money center banks went bankrupt in the 1980′s during the “Latin American Crisis”, and the government’s response was to cover up their insolvency.

Black also says:

There has been no honest examination of the crisis because it would embarrass C.E.O.s and politicians . . .

Instead, the Treasury and the Fed are urging us not to examine the crisis and to believe that all will soon be well.

PhD economist Dean Baker made a similar point, lambasting the Federal Reserve for blowing the bubble, and pointing out that those who caused the disaster are trying to shift the focus as fast as they can:

The current craze in DC policy circles is to create a “systematic risk regulator” to make sure that the country never experiences another economic crisis like the current one. This push is part of a cover-up of what really went wrong and does absolutely nothing to address the underlying problem that led to this financial and economic collapse.

Baker also says:

“Instead of striving to uncover the truth, [Congress] may seek to conceal it” and tell banksters they’re free to steal again.

Economist Thomas Palley says that Wall Street also has a vested interest in covering up how bad things are:

That rosy scenario thinking has returned to Wall Street should be no surprise. Wall Street profits from rising asset prices on which it charges a management fee, from deal-making on which it earns advisory fees, and from encouraging retail investors to buy stock, which boosts transaction fees. Such earnings are far larger when stock markets are rising, which explains Wall Street’s genetic propensity to pump the economy.

The same is true for the Gulf oil spill.

As ABC News notes, the White House allowed BP to suppress video of the oil spill for 3 weeks; and a top oil spill expert says that BP’s use of booms around the spill site now won’t really do anything … and is just an exercise in public relations so that it looks like it’s doing something.

BP is also using dispersants to hide the extent of the oil spill. Specifically, as many commentators note, the dispersants cause much of the oil to sink, so that it appears that the spill isn’t that big. But the dispersants are not only highly toxic, but will also probably make the damage from the oil itself even worse.

Moreover, just as the cover-up about the severity of the financial crisis has allowed Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke and most of Congress to kill real financial reform, BP and the government’s drastic underplaying of the size of the spill has allowed BP to skate by without taking emergency actions, such as bringing in booms on an emergency basis, or to undertake more pro-active and creative responses.

And just as nothing has changed going forward with regard to the economy since the 2008 meltdown, nothing has changed with regard to offshore drilling.

For example, since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded on April 20th, the Obama administration has granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico. And a whistleblower who survived the Gulf oil explosion claims in a lawsuit filed today that BP’s operations at another oil platform risk another catastrophic accident that could “dwarf” the Gulf oil spill, partly because BP never even reviewed critical engineering designs for the operation.

Indeed, the industry and government spokespeople have used the exact same word as each crisis – financial and environmental – unfolded. They said the problem was “contained”.

In both cases, we the people are left holding the bag because the giant companies and their campaign-contribution-buddies in DC are trying to sweep the severity of the problem under the rug, to manage the crisis as p.r. campaigns to protect those who let it happen … instead of actually taking steps necessary to solve the problems, and to make sure they won’t happen again.