Stacy Summary: Though I wouldn’t put it past Goldman, the first headline of vote rigging of an online poll claims sounds like a very obvious publicity ploy on the part of the Robin Hood Tax site; but the second headline suggests Goldman and their DOJ are certain they can keep secret how their HFT skims markets, or perhaps they are just counting on the population not caring or understanding what is revealed in court?
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What a quandary this must be for Goldman. Having their code exposed to the world or having buy off the courts to get justice.
Seems like a regular day at the office for those guys.
sadly i think your right Stacy. Accountability is the issues and in part the reason for disengagement from politics. Secret Services and kidnap, torture and kill with impunity, Companies can steal and defraud at will, Governments serve the few.
Soverign alchemy will fail by Ergon Von Greyerz
http://matterhornassetmanagement.com/2010/02/11/sovereign-alchemy-will-fail/
excerpt from the aticle i have likned right above:
“The problem is not just the current debt levels of these nations, because the deficits in all the countries are rising. Tax revenues are collapsing and with rapidly rising unemployment, the governments’ expenses for social charges are soaring. In the US for example the federal deficit in 2009 was $1.5 trillion (10.7% of GDP) and is forecast to stay around that level for many years. The plight of the US states is just as bad. Out of 50 states only 4 are expected to have a balanced budget in 2010. Up to 40 states, including California, New York, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and New Jersey, are virtually bankrupt.”
“Total US debt, including private and corporate debt as well as unfunded liabilities, comes to $430,000 per individual. It is an absolute certainty that every man, woman and child in the US cannot pay off almost half a million dollars with normal money. Only massive money printing will take care of that. ”
“Governments have two choices – continue to borrow and print money or reduce government spending. This is a lose – lose situation and whatever choice they make it will end in disaster. Countries within the EMU like Greece or Spain are introducing austerity programmes that forecast their deficits to come down to 3% of GDP which is the EU maximum deficit limit. These are totally unrealistic targets that are mainly based on an improvement in the economy which is total fantasy. The dilemma is that not one single country within the EU is below the 3% limit, not even Germany. And the effect of the austerity programmes will lead to such a major contraction of the economies that tax revenues will collapse, further exacerbating the plight of these countries.”
Continued:
Average annual return on over 5 and 10 years:
Period/Currency US Dollar Pound Euro Yen Swedish Kr.
2000 – 2005 9.7% p.a. 5.2% p.a. 2.3% p.a. 8.8% p.a. 11.0% p.a.
2005 – 2010 20.4% p.a. 25.0% p.a. 19.1% p.a. 19.2% p.a. 19.4% p.a.
2000 – 2010 15.1% p.a. 15.1% p.a. 10.7% p.a. 14.0% p.a. 15.2% p.a.
“In the last 5 years until the end of 2009, the lowest annual return on gold was in Euros with 19.1% per annum and the highest in Pounds with 25% p.a.
These are absolutely outstanding returns which most investors are totally oblivious of.
But the awareness will change in the next few years as gold rises even faster.”
Continued:
“Governments have suppressed the gold price in the last 30 years by both overt operations (official gold sales) and covert operations (manipulations in the paper gold market and unofficial sales). Central banks are supposedly holding 30,000 tons of gold but credible estimates suggest that this figure is around 15,000 which means that 15,000 tons of central bank gold has been sold covertly to depress the price. But the effect of manipulation of any market has a limited time span, especially if it is done in connection with a total mismanagement of the economy. Central banks have now stopped official sales and China, India, Russia and many other countries are major buyers. Production is falling steadily and investment demand is soaring. With the fundamentals so much in gold’s favour, it should have no problem to reach the 1980 inflation adjusted high of $ 6,400. With inflation or hyperinflation gold will go a lot higher than that.”
@Nobody:
I don’t know….I think Germany’s ‘sovereign alchemy’ concerning their ‘bad bank’ deep freeze of those nasty cmbs won’t fail seeing as the support is their for their tin-gold miracle through the EU commission:
“Bad banks are created when state-guaranteed banks need to unload loans which have lost most or all of their value. These “toxic assets” are concentrated in the bad bank until they eventually recover, ideally reducing the cost of saving the state bank to taxpayers….
The European Commission has temporarily approved plans by the German government create a so-called “bad bank” that would absorb toxic assets from the state-owned bank WestLB.”
http://www.german-info.com/press_shownews.php?pid=2038
How can robbing a bunch of neo-nazis robbers like Gldman Sachs can be a crime ? I am surprised the Sergey wasn’t sent to Guantanamo by Obanana.It’s a nice nice software that allows front running. Godamn neo-nazis protected by the american government and fed by the taxpayers and ALL investors. With the internet coming under the control of the FCC courtesy of this neo-nazi eugenist Jay Rockefeller, you can just imagine that the same thing will be happening to internet. Just imagine. USA is a monster because it pretends to be free. In the past it was. But today the worl freedom means less and less. Goldman Sachs is a good example of what I call nazi corporatism.
What”s the amount stolen by these Nazis every single day again ? 100 millions srolen with this software every single day to all investors. 36,5 billion stolen from investors each year.
@Marc:
The Nazis were controlled by the same guys that controlled the Jacobins.
yo
good morning, ronron
And who is suing Goldman Sachs for stealing 100 million dollars per day during all this time ? They had been front running like that for at least 10 years. 36,5 billion per year multiplied by 10. It make a total market robbery of 365 billion !
That’s what happens when there is no competition.
“Bad banks are created when state-guaranteed banks need to unload loans which have lost most or all of their value. These “toxic assets” are concentrated in the bad bank until they eventually recover, ideally reducing the cost of saving the state bank to taxpayers….
The European Commission has temporarily approved plans by the German government create a so-called “bad bank” that would absorb toxic assets from the state-owned bank WestLB.”
Now it’s the Fed that needs a “bad bank”. Oh wait….it’s Freddie Mac. But Timmy put the taxpayer on the hook for all of the FRE/FNM badness on Christmas Eve to the tune of infinity. How has this stayed so quite? As posted yesterday:
http://freddiemac.com/news/archives/mbs/2010/20100210_pc_securities.html
Why aren’t Geithner, Bernanke, Paulson, et al in prison? Hey wait, Obama recently gave himself the authority to assassinate anyone at anytime if deemed a terrorist threat to America. Hmm, the possibilities.
@Sherri
It’s called fascism. USA is becoming pure and simple a fascist country. I call it a elected dictator runned country. That’s what the stinking place has become.
A dictatorship mimicking a democracy. Curious. They say that Russia is like that.
I find always funny when I hear American politicians talking about how free this country is. When in reality the place is more and more like an arab middle eastern tyranny or like Iran. The trick is to keep up appearances whil doin the killin and assasinations.
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Why aren’t Geithner, Bernanke, Paulson, et al in prison? Hey wait, Obama recently gave himself the authority to assassinate anyone at anytime if deemed a terrorist threat to America. Hmm, the possibilities.
==============================================================
Ex-Goldman programmer indicted over HFT code theft http://tinyurl.com/yhns5pm
Reject ‘Buy American’ deal: labour groups
Canadian labour groups are urging provincial governments to reject a deal that would temporarily exempt the country’s firms from the U.S. “Buy American” policy — warning Canadians would lose more than they gained.
Last week, federal government officials managed to convince U.S. legislators to amend their controversial “Buy American” program to allow Canadian firms access to bid on potentially lucrative stimulus projects.
Officials within U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration have approved a pact that would exempt Canadian firms from some of the controversial “Buy American” legislation. (Associated Press)
The federal government trumpeted the deal as a major win, but the labour groups — in releasing a leaked version of the agreement at a news conference at the Ontario legislature on Thursday — condemned the plan.
“This is a deal under which we give and they take,” international trade lawyer Steven Shrybman told journalists at a news conference at Queens Park in Toronto.
In particular, the Ontario wing of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the Council of Canadians criticize the deal for giving permanent and unrestricted foreign access to publicly funded contracts that supply schools, universities, social services and hospitals.
[...]
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/02/11/buy-american-deal-opposition.html
CRTC struggling to rein in rising phone, TV prices
The CRTC wants better co-operation with government departments such as Industry Canada and Heritage Canada.
Skyrocketing phone and television prices are a key area of concern for the CRTC, but the regulator has no easy answers for fixing the problem, according to a report issued this week.
“Although it requires further study, it appears that bundling strategies are having the effect of enabling service providers to maintain price levels,” the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission said in its lengthy Navigating Convergence report, released on Tuesday.
“With the exception of internet pricing (which has fallen slightly), telephone and [television] pricing has been on an upward trajectory in comparison with the overall consumer price index.”
The regulator said cable and phone companies are using bundled services — where customers are offered a package of phone, wireless, television and internet — as their main “competitive weapon” because subscribers with multiple services are less likely to defect to a competitor.
[...]
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/02/11/crtc-technology-report.html
We are all banana republics now
It’s rare for Canadians to bask. When we inarguably do something better than anyone else — for instance, our banks are rated by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development as the safest in the world — we groan.
Banks? That’s only because in the 1990s, the federal Liberals didn’t let Canada join the worldwide bacchanalia of banks merging until they became too big to fail and began drinking, one and all, the absinthe of toxic derivatives.
Canada went to bed early, comparatively speaking. We had our hedge funds but they were never pruned into the shapes of dollar bills (yes, one Connecticut hedge funder shaped his shrubs just so).
But we didn’t have thousands of them prancing down Bay Street, nobody flew to Muskoka in baby Boeings, and the breasts of Canadian bankers’ wives didn’t balloon and turn orange overnight.
So we missed that burst of fluid from the elation gland (which has been found in the torso but never in the brain). We missed those party nights when the money flowed into our bank accounts — not old money, which is made of Harris tweed spun with gold and smells of old leather — but new money, which is digital. The resultant zeroes emit a subdued beep as they bump into each other on bank statements.
On the bright side, though, we weren’t financially roofied, raped and dumped outside a hospital emergency room, as were the Americans, the Brits and, most weirdly, the Irish and the Icelanders.
[...]
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/02/05/f-vp-mallick.html
=============
Last of the Canada news
=============
From bottom to top: Canada now among top places to park money, invest: report
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/business/100211/b0211141A.html
OTTAWA – The investment world is knocking on Canada’s door and the rapping will only get louder as sovereign debt issues in Europe and the United States escalate, according to a new bank report.
CIBC World Markets says Canada is increasingly being recognized as a “safe harbour” from the debt crisis engulfing southern Europe and one which some fear could spread to the United States.
“It’s a case of the country never having looked so good by comparison,” said the bank’s global strategist, Warren Lovely.
“Before the crisis hit in 2008-09, Canada already stood out in terms of our fiscal position, and the simple matter is that our edge will continue to grow in the years ahead.”
Despite a massive $56-billion deficit this year, Ottawa has the Group of Seven’s best fiscal position by far. National debt stands at 35 per cent of the economy, the country has sound banks and a solid AAA credit rating, and there are expectations it will lead its peers in growth over the next few years.
Add another important edge – one that may surprise people both inside and outside the country – is that Canada is primed to become a low-tax zone for business with a combined federal-provincial corporate rate of 25 per cent after 2012.
The pay-off, says Lovely, is that foreign investors will be increasingly attracted to Canada because of its stronger economic prospects and a currency likely to appreciate rather than depreciate.
The loonie had a strong day Thursday, closing up 1.06 cents at 95.13 cents US, while the Toronto stock exchange gained 149.16 points.
New-Jersey about to declare bankruptcy.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/02/governor-christie-declares-new-jersey.html
http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com/2010/02/more-polish-on-goldman-shine-part-63.html
Paul Solman is dynamite on PBS. It’s about “God’s work” at Government Sachs.
Superb breakdown. A hedge fund mascarading as a bank.
“On the bright side, though, we weren’t financially roofied, raped and dumped outside a hospital emergency room, as were the Americans, the Brits and, most weirdly, the Irish and the Icelanders.”
Heh, the Irish are backed by the Germans….maybe?
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKWLB740820100211
http://www.openeurope.org.uk/media-centre/summary.aspx?id=792
“God’s work.” Good old insider crime. Good old freakin front running on a systematic and massive basis. “What we do is risk management.” Lloyd Blankfien. That scumbag is just a fuckin criminal crooked bookie.
http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com/2010/02/more-polish-on-goldman-shine-part-63.html
@Bill Stewart
Leve it some time. I am sure with our Democrats/Republicans, in Canada it’s the Liberals/Consevatives gangsters, it’s just a question of a couple or years and will be in the same situation. I am sure of that.
@Bil Stewart.
The CRTC is the problem. These government whores from the federal government in Ottawa sleep with these companies. ALL the members on the CRTC board come from the same companies. The CRTC should be eliminated.
Not an economist!
Not an historian either…
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Ferguson
Niels T. Ferguson (born 10 December 1965, Eindhoven) is a Dutch cryptographer and consultant who currently works for Microsoft. He has worked with others, including Bruce Schneier, designing cryptographic algorithms, testing algorithms and protocols, and writing papers and books. Among the designs Ferguson has contributed to is the AES finalist block cipher algorithm Twofish as well as the stream cipher Helix and the Skein hash function.
So if your a whistle blower the government/goldman sachs will put you in jail. Geez. The usa is so crooked now its siick.
The USA needs real vicious and mean competition. I am nostalgic of the Cold War. USSR in some sort vety useful to keep these bastards scared. Today. Competition is weak. We need a New Cold War to at least scare. Was this Russian programmer working for somebody else. A pissed off russian oligarch ? Most probable. I don’t believe it was free lancing anyways. Good for him. It’s a shame he was caught. Goldman Sachs is a menace to democracy and World peace and I forgot, to free markets.
@nobody
That’s why these global criminals needed the carbon tax on every living, breathing human being and animal in order to get more money to keep them in power and happy. It’s truly Diabolical. I don’t use that word much, but it fits here.
@Naomi
Freedom or Death ? Liberty or Slavery ? Welcome to Al’s Gore plantation.
@Naomi
Bill Gates wants to soon introduce sun contracts. You don’t pay Microsoft or have Linux on your system ? No sun light for you. Just rain and clouds.
http://www.cio.com/article/497378/Can_Bill_Gates_Control_the_Weather_
How’s that Naomi ? A total demonic piece of manure. Wheather technology ? Yeah why not ? This bastards wants to play God. Bil Gates the rainman and the sunman. Scary nazi monopolist shit from Microsoft buying from the Pentagon all the wheather makin technology patents. You really think that it’s just the CO2 ?
These bastards want it all. Even the clouds and the sun. The whole shabang.
@marc
I have been totally blind after the 2000 election. I knew of course that the election was rigged, thought that Gore really won the election and when Bush started the travesty of his Presidency Gore would have been much, much better. I also thought that 911 would not have happened if Gore was the president.
Looking now at the Climate Change, Carbon tax derivitives adgenda that was allowed to flower during Bush, I see it’s all the same. All of it is the same.
I about fell out of my chair when I listened to Max Keiser on a financial network interview taking on the talking heads about a year ago.
I am so angry. I’m trying to awaken people as much as I can. But people in the US (mostly) don’t want to hear it. I’m accused of wearing tin foil hats and under the patriot act, I’m a terrorist. This just blows me away. The more I read of Antony C. Sutton’s books on the Trilaterial commission, the Federal Reserve and secret organizations like Skull and Bones the more awake I am and it’s not a pretty picture. But at least I’m awake.
@marc
Truly Diabolical is all I can say. It’s the only word that comes to mind.
It will get to the point that a person can’t plant a tomato seed without permission. Let alone water the plant. Because these truly criminally insane people think that they own the earth and the DNA that is part of the web of life. I always wondered about the research going into the human genome…..for science, for man? Uhhhh…..well based on the trends I see now…NOT!
Looks like the Swiss are finally punching the hypocritical liars back.
http://washingtonindependent.com/76529/credit-suisse-declares-the-u-s-a-riskier-investment-than-indonesia
How about those CDS spreads?
http://av.r.ftdata.co.uk/files/2010/02/ScreenShot316.jpg
@Marc – having a revival of the cold war will strengthen the US.
The politicians will be able to argue the “security” and “stronger military” position.
If the international crisis resolved and there were no terror attacks, then the economy would prevail as the predominate political matter.
Did this ever get resolved:
http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/financial-crisis-threatens-bbc-ascension-island-relay
The BBC relay station on Ascension Island could become victim to a financial crisis on the island caused by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). According to The Times, the threat comes because the MoD is determined to cut costs to pay for Afghanistan. Its refusal to pay back-taxes on the airbase that Britain shares with the US has left Ascension with a £900,000 deficit on its £6 million budget. The island’s small council and government, responsible for all services to the 900 inhabitants, have cut spending to the bone.
The Times says that the 50 specialist engineers who maintain the power station and vast array of transmitters, antennas and satellite dishes at the BBC relay station would leave overnight if they were forced to send their families off the island. Without the BBC relay there would be no power generation or desalination plant. There would be no water for anyone on the island except the Americans, who operate their own power and desalination plants.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6882948.ece
More US political prisoners?
http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/ny-man-sentenced-to-5-years-for-broadcasting-hezbollah-tv
NY man sentenced to 5 years for broadcasting Hezbollah TV
A Pakistani man was sentenced in New York yesterday to more than five and a half years in prison for broadcasting the Hezbollah television channel Al Manar and selling it to US customers. Javed Iqbal, a 45-year-old Pakistani citizen living in New York, was charged with supporting Hezbollah in 2006. He pleaded guilty to the charges in December.
“I did not make a profit off of broadcasting Al Manar and it cost me my life.” Iqbal’s lawyer, Joshua Dratel, read out in a prepared statement on behalf of Iqbal which included an apology to the judge before he was sentenced to 69 months. “I am a human being and human beings make mistakes,” Dratel said on behalf of Iqbal, who owned a small satellite television company, HDTV Ltd.
The US Treasury branded Al Manar a terrorist organization in March 2006, saying it supported Hezbollah’s fund-raising and recruitment activities.
Prosecutors said Iqbal, who moved to the United States more than 26 years ago, provided transmission services to the Beirut-based channel in return for payment between 2005 and 2006 and then sold the channel to US customers. “He was, in a very real sense, Hezbollah’s man in New York City,” prosecutor Eric Snyder said during the sentencing hearing, adding Hezbollah used the channel to recruit new members.
But Iqbal’s defence lawyer, Joshua Dratel, said Iqbal had no ideological support for Hezbollah and sold the channel to make money as part of his satellite television business that also included Christian channels and adult entertainment. Iqbal was broke and the charges “had devastated him and his family,” including his pregnant wife who sat behind him in court and five children, Dratel said. He also suffered from anxiety and depression.
“This is someone who made bad judgments for a reason that had nothing to do with terrorism or supporting terrorism and he paid a very high price for it,” Dratel said after the hearing. He added he believed it was the only terrorism case in the US courts that had been brought against a person providing satellite services.
A second man, Saleh Elahwal, who also worked for the company, has also pleaded guilty.
(Source: Reuters)
Old news but still true:
VOA audience in Russia ‘obliterated’ by BBG – Free Media Online
http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/voa-audience-in-russia-obliterated-by-bbg-free-media-online
Free Media Online reports that according to an independent study commissioned by the US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the total annual audience reach in Russia for the Voice of America (VOA) Russian-language radio, TV, and Internet dropped from 10.3 percent in 2007 to 2.5% in 2008.
It is believed to be the greatest audience loss in the history of international broadcasting in a one year period for a major media outlet which maintains its market presence. In fact, Free Media Online estimates that the annual reach for VOA in Russia is now well below 1 percent.
According to FreeMediaOnline.org president Ted Lipien, the BBG is to blame for causing a 98% loss of audience in just one year. Lipien said that BBG’s actions have caused hundreds of thousands of US taxpayer dollars to be wasted at a time when audiences in Russia are faced with increased media censorship and need access to objective news and opinions from the United States.
Max Keiser is not on this:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page
Many of his pet beefs are not strictly speaking out of line with the site’s overall content. Sadly, this is US not UK conservatives — like apples vs quinces.