"Everything is Rigged" (important article)

[neilgin1]

Its more than obvious the main stream press/media is lying/whoring for food. You simply cant trust ANYTHING they pen. It doesn't have to do with the phony "left/right" construct, its all has to do with TRUTH...that's obvious. Now, some of you may not think of "Rolling Stone" as "main stream press/media", but it does have currency in the national dialogue. One of the FEW bright lights left is a man named Matt Tabibi....he's fearless, and the article, i'm going to link you to, is HUGE, in its implications. So much so, I do WORRY for Matt. I believe Rolling Stone can still get away with this, because if i'm correct Jann Wenner STILL owns the magazine. I do NOT believe this piece would have run in ANY corporate owned rag.....and I urge you all to read this shot across the bow by a brave man.

Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever

The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There's no price the big banks can't fix.


By Matt Taibbi

April 25, 2013 1:00 PM ET

Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything.

You may have heard of the Libor scandal, in which at least three – and perhaps as many as 16 – of the name-brand too-big-to-fail banks have been manipulating global interest rates, in the process messing around with the prices of upward of $500 trillion (that's trillion, with a "t") worth of financial instruments. When that sprawling con burst into public view last year, it was easily the biggest financial scandal in history – MIT professor Andrew Lo even said it "dwarfs by orders of magnitude any financial scam in the history of markets."

That was bad enough, but now Libor may have a twin brother. Word has leaked out that the London-based firm ICAP, the world's largest broker of interest-rate swaps, is being investigated by American authorities for behavior that sounds eerily reminiscent of the Libor mess. Regulators are looking into whether or not a small group of brokers at ICAP may have worked with up to 15 of the world's largest banks to manipulate ISDAfix, a benchmark number used around the world to calculate the prices of interest-rate swaps.

Interest-rate swaps are a tool used by big cities, major corporations and sovereign governments to manage their debt, and the scale of their use is almost unimaginably massive. It's about a $379 trillion market, meaning that any manipulation would affect a pile of assets about 100 times the size of the United States federal budget.

It should surprise no one that among the players implicated in this scheme to fix the prices of interest-rate swaps are the same megabanks – including Barclays, UBS, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and the Royal Bank of Scotland – that serve on the Libor panel that sets global interest rates. In fact, in recent years many of these banks have already paid multimillion-dollar settlements for anti-competitive manipulation of one form or another (in addition to Libor, some were caught up in an anti-competitive scheme, detailed in Rolling Stone last year, to rig municipal-debt service auctions). Though the jumble of financial acronyms sounds like gibberish to the layperson, the fact that there may now be price-fixing scandals involving both Libor and ISDAfix suggests a single, giant mushrooming conspiracy of collusion and price-fixing hovering under the ostensibly competitive veneer of Wall Street culture.

The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia

Why? Because Libor already affects the prices of interest-rate swaps, making this a manipulation-on-manipulation situation. If the allegations prove to be right, that will mean that swap customers have been paying for two different layers of price-fixing corruption. If you can imagine paying 20 bucks for a crappy PB&J because some evil cabal of agribusiness companies colluded to fix the prices of both peanuts and peanut butter, you come close to grasping the lunacy of financial markets where both interest rates and interest-rate swaps are being manipulated at the same time, often by the same banks."

rest of the article:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... t-20130425


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... z2RjiVNiYb
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

[neilgin1]

here's another great Taibibi piece from mid 2009 on Goldman entitled, "The Great American Bubble Machine"

The Great American Bubble Machine

From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression -- and they're about to do it again


By Matt Taibbi

July 9, 2009

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.

rest of article: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... e-20100405

[neilgin1]

its sad when you reply to an OP you wrote, but read THIS!!........this is just terrible!

"After the oil bubble collapsed last fall, there was no new bubble to keep things humming — this time, the money seems to be really gone, like worldwide-depression gone. So the financial safari has moved elsewhere, and the big game in the hunt has become the only remaining pool of dumb, unguarded capital left to feed upon: taxpayer money. Here, in the biggest bailout in history, is where Goldman Sachs really started to flex its muscle.

It began in September of last year, when then-Treasury secretary Paulson made a momentous series of decisions. Although he had already engineered a rescue of Bear Stearns a few months before and helped bail out quasi-private lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Paulson elected to let Lehman Brothers — one of Goldman's last real competitors — collapse without intervention. ("Goldman's superhero status was left intact," says market analyst Eric Salzman, "and an investment banking competitor, Lehman, goes away.") The very next day, Paulson green-lighted a massive, $85 billion bailout of AIG, which promptly turned around and repaid $13 billion it owed to Goldman. Thanks to the rescue effort, the bank ended up getting paid in full for its bad bets: By contrast, retired auto workers awaiting the Chrysler bailout will be lucky to receive 50 cents for every dollar they are owed."

[68Camaro]

I'll read these over morning coffee Neil, thanks for the links.

[68Camaro]

Overall, I say it's well written. The very nature of this makes specifics very difficult to prove. It's insidious. Regardless of what is being done, the system is inherently corrupt because if it can be corrupted it well - eventually - be corrupted. So the warning is real. Even if it hasn't been done yet, or hasn't been done everywhere it can be done, because it can be corrupted it will be corrupted, sooner or later.

(It's that some of believe it's already well underway that makes us want to get out of paper as much as possible.)

A key quote

Translation: When prices are set by companies that can profit by manipulating them, we're f***ked.

"You name it," says Frenk. "Any of these benchmarks is a possibility for corruption."

[IdahoCopper]

They used to cut off the hand of a thief. They used to hang horse thieves in public. In the crowd, little Johnny would see the thief strung up, kicking with s#!t running out his pants legs. Johnny would turn to his father and say, "I don't ever want to steal no horse, Papa." Too-big-to-fail bankers will never s#!t their pants dangling from a rope.

I think that whenever a government mandates its selected curriculum, in mandatory government-run schools, you will see a free people enslaved within 150 years. Out time is nigh. We need to get rid of this government, before it gets rid of us. And that is not Obama's government, nor is it Bush's government, it is the entire government and the two complicit parties that have run America into the ground. It is time to hit the big reset button, or pop the canopy and pull the eject lever to exit.

[blackrabbit]

Important articles. There is more truth in Rolling Stone than most other media outlets. Surprise, surprise, the financial system is rigged for the insiders to rob everyone else. Did not that most kindly of old gents Buffet just take a commanding position in the Vampire Squid? Must be nice to have public relations firms at your command so you can seem like a kind old man while robbing everyone.

[beauanderos]

They used to cut off the hand of a thief. They used to hang horse thieves in public. In the crowd, little Johnny would see the thief strung up, kicking with s#!t running out his pants legs. Johnny would turn to his father and say, "I don't ever want to steal no horse, Papa." Too-big-to-fail bankers will never s#!t their pants dangling from a rope.

I think that whenever a government mandates its selected curriculum, in mandatory government-run schools, you will see a free people enslaved within 150 years. Out time is nigh. We need to get rid of this government, before it gets rid of us. And that is not Obama's government, nor is it Bush's government, it is the entire government and the two complicit parties that have run America into the ground. It is time to hit the big reset button, or pop the canopy and pull the eject lever to exit.

reset button, yes. But it seems to me the banks run the governments. Our only safety valves are precious metals, and you need the funds to purchase them. That is why the next target, after this price take down, will be your means of buying them. Your deposits in banks are NOT safe, and those who delay in deploying them immediately into physical-in-your-possession-precious-metals are naive in thinking they can wait just a bit longer... for a better price, etc. Even among the precious metals community there exists a tier of understanding where perhaps only 1% are awake to threat while others dream of wealth, there are just as likely 99% of present holders who grasp NO real concept to the clear and present... immediate... danger to the global currency/banking deposits paradigm. When only 1% of even knowledgeable members have only an inkling of what's transpiring before them... and even those few would be part of an ignorant 99% compared to the tiny 1% informed subset privy to insider banking knowledge... well you can understand that there might be only fifteen CEO's in the banking industry... AND the few dozen people (the Bilderberg Group?) in the world whose plans they carry out... who even know what is about to happen. And they are stockpiling up ALL and ANY available physical precious metals assets as fast as they can, through the benefit of their manipulations-derived bargain-priced sale, hoping to do so before the ENTIRE derivatives time bomb implodes... which they intend... if they can time it right... and get away before the wick ignites the dynamite. They can set in motion their plan, and have. Some understand their strategy, but do not anticipate the timing of their tactics. No one has a real grasp of the repercussions that will ensue when the system disintegrates. Your money is not safe if it is paper, only if it is real, sound, physical precious metals... IN your possession. Quit worrying whether silver will outperform gold... flee fiat for safe haven as fast as you can, while you still have a chance. Those who maintain that vast paper riches are there to be made in equities must also bear in mind the adage..."only play with what you can afford to lose." Are you willing to bet that every deposit you have in banks, every cent you have in brokerages, every dime you've slaved to save in IRA's and 401K's won't evaporate? If they can smell opportunity, they will steal these last few pools of wealth from us. Unfettered by fear of reprisals, their greed has no bounds. The only way to fight back is to not play by the rules of their game. Withdraw (your fiat) from their engagement.

Am I an alarmist?

Yes, with VERY good reason.

[beauanderos]

I hope Taibbi (while he is still alive) writes about the precious metals take-down.

[beauanderos]

They used to cut off the hand of a thief. They used to hang horse thieves in public. In the crowd, little Johnny would see the thief strung up, kicking with s#!t running out his pants legs. Johnny would turn to his father and say, "I don't ever want to steal no horse, Papa." Too-big-to-fail bankers will never s#!t their pants dangling from a rope.

I think that whenever a government mandates its selected curriculum, in mandatory government-run schools, you will see a free people enslaved within 150 years. Out time is nigh. We need to get rid of this government, before it gets rid of us. And that is not Obama's government, nor is it Bush's government, it is the entire government and the two complicit parties that have run America into the ground. It is time to hit the big reset button, or pop the canopy and pull the eject lever to exit.

reset button, yes. But it seems to me the banks run the governments. Our only safety valves are precious metals, and you need the funds to purchase them. That is why the next target, after this price take down, will be your means of buying them. Your deposits in banks are NOT safe, and those who delay in deploying them immediately into physical-in-your-possession-precious-metals are naive in thinking they can wait just a bit longer... for a better price, etc. Even among the precious metals community there exists a tier of understanding where perhaps only 1% are awake to threat while others dream of wealth, there are just as likely 99% of present holders who grasp NO real concept to the clear and present... immediate... danger to the global currency/banking deposits paradigm. When only 1% of even knowledgeable members have only an inkling of what's transpiring before them... and even those few would be part of an ignorant 99% compared to the tiny 1% informed subset privy to insider banking knowledge... well you can understand that there might be only fifteen CEO's in the banking industry... AND the few dozen people (the Bilderberg Group?) in the world whose plans they carry out... who even know what is about to happen. And they are stockpiling up ALL and ANY available physical precious metals assets as fast as they can, through the benefit of their manipulations-derived bargain-priced sale, hoping to do so before the ENTIRE derivatives time bomb implodes... which they intend... if they can time it right... and get away before the wick ignites the dynamite. They can set in motion their plan, and have. Some understand their strategy, but do not anticipate the timing of their tactics. No one has a real grasp of the repercussions that will ensue when the system disintegrates. Your money is not safe if it is paper, only if it is real, sound, physical precious metals... IN your possession. Quit worrying whether silver will outperform gold... flee fiat for safe haven as fast as you can, while you still have a chance. Those who maintain that vast paper riches are there to be made in equities must also bear in mind the adage..."only play with what you can afford to lose." Are you willing to bet that every deposit you have in banks, every cent you have in brokerages, every dime you've slaved to save in IRA's and 401K's won't evaporate? If they can smell opportunity, they will steal these last few pools of wealth from us. Unfettered by fear of reprisals, their greed has no bounds. The only way to fight back is to not play by the rules of their game. Withdraw (your fiat) from their engagement.

Am I an alarmist?

Yes, with VERY good reason.

"Maintaining significant deposits inside banks in the current financial system is setting up that portion of your wealth to be destroyed or stolen from you. The time to get out of the system is immediately in order not to be destroyed... It is going to be about control of the masses, for the benefit of the few. Derivatives will be a primary tool for the destroyers of wealth, and bank deposits all over the Western hemisphere will be invaded. So investors must get out of the system and have physical gold and gold related investments in order to survive what is still to come.” Jim Sinclair http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/4/28_Sinclair_-_The_Elites_Frightening_Plan_To_Control_The_Masses.html

[theo]

While I do think that there is potential of a complete system collapse, I don't think its inevitable and I definately don't think its planned. When the banking system nearly collapsed at the start of the Great Depression it took the better part of two generations to rebuild trust. When I was growing up I remember an elderly nieghbor who used to keep tens and twenties in her books. Do you think they haven't learned from that? I think the goal is to keep the system viable as long as possible for it is the mechanism for the transfer of wealth. Kill the system and remove the ability (at least temporarily) to appropriate wealth from the masses. Like any good parasite they know not to kill the host.

[beauanderos]

While I do think that there is potential of a complete system collapse, I don't think its inevitable and I definately don't think its planned. When the banking system nearly collapsed at the start of the Great Depression it took the better part of two generations to rebuild trust. When I was growing up I remember an elderly nieghbor who used to keep tens and twenties in her books. Do you think they haven't learned from that? I think the goal is to keep the system viable as long as possible for it is the mechanism for the transfer of wealth. Kill the system and remove the ability (at least temporarily) to appropriate wealth from the masses. Like any good parasite they know not to kill the host.

What you say makes good sense. Let's hope you're right