I guess it’s easy to label people like myself as ‘conspiracy theorists’.  It’s much easier to ignore what is happening in the world than to face the truth – and then actually do something about it.  When Karen and I first moved to Knoxville in 2000 – I got to know someone I worked with who occasionally mentioned that I should look into an organization he referred to as the ‘Illuminati’.  It sounded too far-fetched to be real – so for almost 5 years – I ignored the information he occasionally talked about. Then, on a random Saturday in May of 2005 – I was sitting in an MBA class bored out of my mind – and I decided to do some research into the things he mentioned.  I fully expected to spend 30 minutes looking at a few things, prove that he was crazy, and get on with my life.  I ended up spending weeks studying what these people are doing – because once I started researching – it became clear that I was staring at something truly evil.  My friend didn’t have much Biblical knowledge – he only knew that there was a global organization that had somehow infiltrated the world’s government and the world’s financial system.  Since I did have some knowledge of Bible prophecies – I turned my attention to the Bible and what it really had to say about end time events – antichrist, the beasts, the mark, etc.  It was then – once I could see God’s prophecies lining up perfectly with current events – that my life changed.  I could see that almost everyone (Christians included), had allowed our spiritual enemy to deceive them – just like the Bible tells us would happen.  I asked God for His plan for me – because I was ready to lead a nice, quiet life - but the answer had nothing to do with a nice, quiet life.

The article below by Chris shows us the true character of our political and corporate leaders.  I guess it doesn’t surprise me that people with almost absolute power – have been corrupted to such a degree.  What does surprise me is how fast all of this is happening.  I mentioned a couple of months ago that we’d start seeing world leaders talking about a ‘global’ solution to this financial crisis.  I think that the degree to which the world’s economy is failing has startled even them – so the rhetoric regarding a global financial solution and a new international order is speeding up (see the Reuters article at the bottom of this email).

For me – it’s a little like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings movie.  Everything is nice in the shire – until one day you’re given a glimpse of evil overtaking and destroying everything.  Suddenly, you’re faced with a choice – stay in the shire and pretend evil doesn’t exist – knowing that you’ll be overtaken someday – or arm yourself and do something about it.  Three years ago I chose to get in the game and do something about it.  It’s a decision that all of us will be faced with in the very near future.

John

US Taxpayers are Violated - the Looting Operation Continues

Monday, November 10, 2008, 5:31 pm, by cmartenson

I am trying to maintain a very level-headed approach to the changes that we are seeing. However, from time to time the looting operation becomes just a bit too obvious, a bit too overt, and I find my level of cool slipping.

This is one of those times. 

Here are the dots that I am connecting that have me concerned, if not angry.

Remember, even prior to its passage, I called the bailout the greatest looting operation of our time. I did so because the language of the Bailout Act, as originally proposed by the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, er, I mean the Treasury Secretary, requested three things: unitary power, no review, and no limits.

Frankly, it was the most plainly-worded document of theft that I had ever seen, and probably ever will see, in my life (because it was too blatant and such mistakes are rarely made again).

After that draft was defeated in the House, the Senate immediately attached a much denser 300+ page version of the bailout bill to an existing piece of legislation and passed it. The house caved after an intense week of lobbying by both banks and the people of the land, who were diametrically opposed on the issue. Naturally, they caved to the banking interests.

But We The People won some symbolic victories in that battle, including the explicit promise of complete transparency in the use of that money.

Now it turns out that We The Payers won nothing at all, and that we are not even being afforded the most basic right of being able to view how that money is being spent.

Fed Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose 

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

This is a complete outrage. Here we have been told that we cannot see how our money is being spent, and that we cannot have insight into whether this money is being used to enrich cronies of the system.

So far, the data is not encouraging.  Failed institutions have been spared (at great expense), lies and prevarications have been our signposts along the way, and each new "program" has been an affront to common sense and decency.

The common element has always been 'telling the public the least amount possible.' 

I wish there were a second currency in operation in this country, so that I could vote on this plan by dishoarding every single Federal Reserve Note and piling into a better-run currency.

And here’s your second lesson in “why larger bills with more pages are better for looting than small bills.” It turns out that the Treasury quietly slipped in a bit of language that handed a massive, unprecedented $140 billion tax give-away to major banks.

A quiet windfall for U.S. banks

The financial world was fixated on Capitol Hill as Congress battled over the Bush administration's request for a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry. In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.

But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.

The sweeping change to two decades of tax policy escaped the notice of lawmakers for several days, as they remained consumed with the controversial bailout bill. When they found out, some legislators were furious. Some congressional staff members have privately concluded that the notice was illegal. But they have worried that saying so publicly could unravel several recent bank mergers made possible by the change and send the economy into an even deeper tailspin.

I just want you to think of this when Congress agonizes over and finally determines that the nation “cannot afford” to undo the $85 billion in middle class AMT tax hikes later this year.

I want you to also think of the amount of time that Congress agonized over $14 billion in alternative energy tax credits before grudgingly passing them. Ten times that amount was handed to big banks without, to my knowledge, even a single open-floor comment or objection from a single congressperson.

Simply outrageous. We’ve been looted.

Next, as this article in The Nation makes clear, the “deals” that the Treasury department has been making on your behalf under the mandate to “protect the taxpayer” have been running roughly 100% over fair market value. In other words, a gigantic handout to the biggest banks at the worst possible price (for taxpayers), with practically no strings attached.

Paulson's Swindle Revealed 

The swindle of American taxpayers is proceeding more or less in broad daylight, as the unwitting voters are preoccupied with the national election. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson agreed to invest $125 billion in the nine largest banks, including $10 billion for Goldman Sachs, his old firm.

But, if you look more closely at Paulson's transaction, the taxpayers were taken for a ride--a very expensive ride. They paid $125 billion for bank stock that a private investor could purchase for $62.5 billion. That means half of the public's money was a straight-out gift to Wall Street, for which taxpayers got nothing in return.

But that’s okay – there’s a big G20 meeting coming up. Perhaps the world’s leaders will come up with a sensible plan for returning some of the power back to We The People?

UK's Brown: Now is the time to build global society

LONDON (Reuters) - The international financial crisis has given world leaders a unique opportunity to create a truly global society, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown will say in a keynote foreign policy speech on Monday.

In his annual speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet, Brown -- who has spearheaded calls for the reform of international financial institutions -- will say Britain, the United States and Europe are key to forging a new world order.

"The alliance between Britain and the U.S. -- and more broadly between Europe and the U.S. -- can and must provide leadership, not in order to make the rules ourselves, but to lead the global effort to build a stronger and more just international order," an excerpt from the speech says.

According to a summary of the speech released by his office, Brown will set out five great challenges the world faces.

These are: terrorism and extremism and the need to reassert faith in democracy; the global economy; climate change; conflict and mechanisms for rebuilding states after conflict; and meeting goals on tackling poverty and disease.

Brown will also identify five stages for tackling the economy, starting with recapitalizing banks so they can resume lending to families and businesses, and better international co-ordination of fiscal and monetary policy.

Whoa. Hold on there! Lots of warning signals are flashing for me here. First, rather than a new world order, I think we need to understand how we can return to the old world order – you know, where international trade is balanced, and people save, and debt growth matches economic growth. .

I definitely think it's way too early to be proclaiming that now is the right time to set off on a big building project.

From my vantage point, it rather looks like our McMansion has fallen to the ground in a jumble, and now the same architect is trying to sell us on a bigger design.

Second, I am deeply uncomfortable with the language and intent expressed by “the need to reassert faith in democracy.” What in the heck does that mean?  Seriously. What exactly is he trying to imply?

I was not aware that democracy was in need of additional faith. I rather thought it ran on such things as laws, fairness, and its own merits.

This line smacks of demagoguery, and I am deeply cautious of the messenger who hails from the country with the most security cameras and intrusive domestic government spying policies of any “democracy” out there. If Gordon Brown is selling democracy, I am suddenly no longer buying.

Worse, it is the financial crisis that is being used to peddle this tripe. A crisis that has been used to advance the power and reach of the banks, using the most overt looting and legalized theft ever seen or envisaged.

Now I am more than a little concerned about what is coming next. The decisions emanating from this G20 meeting deserve more than a little scrutiny.

Oddly, Obama is not attending, only Bush (and by extension Cheney). All the more curious.

UK's Brown: Now is the time to build global society

Sun, Nov 09 19:03 PM EST

LONDON (Reuters) - The international financial crisis has given world leaders a unique opportunity to create a truly global society, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown will say in a keynote foreign policy speech on Monday.

In his annual speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet, Brown -- who has spearheaded calls for the reform of international financial institutions -- will say Britain, the United States and Europe are key to forging a new world order.

"The alliance between Britain and the U.S. -- and more broadly between Europe and the U.S. -- can and must provide leadership, not in order to make the rules ourselves, but to lead the global effort to build a stronger and more just international order," an excerpt from the speech says.

Brown and other leaders meet in Washington next weekend to discuss longer term solutions for dealing with economic issues following a series of coordinated moves on interest rates and to recapitalize banks in the wake of the financial crisis.

"Uniquely in this global age, it is now in our power to come together so that 2008 is remembered not just for the failure of a financial crash that engulfed the world but for the resilience and optimism with which we faced the storm, endured it and prevailed," Brown will say in his speech on Monday evening.

"...And if we learn from our experience of turning unity of purpose into unity of action, we can together seize this moment of change in our world to create a truly global society."

According to a summary of the speech released by his office, Brown will set out five great challenges the world faces.

These are: terrorism and extremism and the need to reassert faith in democracy; the global economy; climate change; conflict and mechanisms for rebuilding states after conflict; and meeting goals on tackling poverty and disease.

Brown will also identify five stages for tackling the economy, starting with recapitalizing banks so they can resume lending to families and businesses, and better international co-ordination of fiscal and monetary policy.

He also wants immediate action to stop the spread of the financial crisis to middle-income countries, with a new facility for the International Monetary Fund, and agreement on a global trade deal, as well as reform of the global financial system.

"My message is that we must be: internationalist not protectionist; interventionist not neutral; progressive not reactive; and forward looking not frozen by events. We can seize the moment and in doing so build a truly global society."

(Reporting by Jodie Ginsberg; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

I mentioned in my first article on the world’s monetary system that exponential debt creation is required for the world’s economy to function.  I used the game of musical chairs as an analogy to show that this debt creation must continue indefinitely – or a worldwide economic collapse will result.  The article below shows us what happens when the music stops and someone has removed all the chairs.  Most of the large companies in the world (not just European firms) rely on short term debt to fund their operations.  What happens when this short term debt financing disappears?  Everyone searches the world over for a chair – but there are none.  This excerpt from the article below sums it up.

“According to the report, European companies will be forced to pay back or refinance $586.3 billion through 2011, with more than 40% of that debt coming due over the next year.”

So, over the next year, European companies must refinance approximately $235 billion dollars – with no way to refinance.  Sound familiar?  It should – because the exact same thing is happening in the world’s housing markets.  Many people have purchased homes with adjustable rate mortgages or some type of ARM – and now there is no way to refinance.  Many more are losing their jobs and simply cannot pay their mortgages – regardless of the terms. 

This wonderful game of musical chairs is ending – so the question becomes – who wins the game?  Certainly not the players.  We’ve all been playing a game that has been setup so that we can’t win.  You now know who the winners are – the Central Banks.  They created this mess for a reason – so when a systematic failure eventually happens – they own/control everything.  This is a simple analogy – but it sums up what’s being done to us.  All of the ‘bailouts’, interest rate cuts and liquidity/capital ‘injections’ in the world will not prevent this system from failing.  This cartel of international bankers is probably feeling pretty proud of itself.  I would tell them the same thing I would tell Bush, Bernanke, Pelosi, Greenspan, the Rothschilds and everyone else involved in this – is it worth it to gain the world and lose your soul?  Because that’s exactly what’s going to happen.  This ‘beast’ will gain the world – and spend eternity in ‘a lake of fire’.  I cannot believe we (humanity) could be so blind – but the sad truth is that we are blind – and these people who must be celebrating that their conquest is almost here – are the most blind of us all.  Maybe – when they’re staring at the gates of hell – maybe then they will realize how deceived they truly were.  I’ll never know.

I’ll end this with something for you to think about.  You really don’t need to know anything about economic theory, exponential growth or higher math to realize that this current banking system is stacked against us.  Just think about how you pay your mortgage and how the system manages your debt.  As an example, let’s say you buy a home for $200,000 and take out a 30 year fixed rate loan.  With interest, you actually owe $400,000.  You’ll be making one payment a month for 360 months (one payment a month for 30 years).  So, your monthly payment will be $1,111.  Let’s say that you always pay on time for 20 years.  After 20 years, you lose your job and have some unexpected medical bills that force you to burn through your savings – and you now don’t have the money to pay your mortgage.  After 20 years, you’ve made a total of 240 payments of $1,111 or $267,000.  When the bank forecloses, do you get any of this money back?  Do you at least get what you paid on the principal?  No – you get exactly nothing.  The banks says thanks for all your money – and up until the housing market began to decline – would then sell your house on the open market and reap the added benefit of the appreciation of your home.  So, we really haven’t owned our homes at all – we’ve simply been renting them from banks.  Obviously, as long as the housing market was good and the economy was good – this system didn’t really bother us too much because we could always sell our home or refinance.  Until now, we never really thought too much about this system – because most of us had jobs and a mortgage we could afford.  Now – things are a little different and they’re going to get a lot different.  Now – the system is exposed for what it is.  It ultimately favors only one group of people (not the private banks – they’re now failing too) – the people behind it all – the people who control the Central banking system.

jg

NOVEMBER 12, 2008

Debt Pile Looming Over European Firms

Companies Are Facing Tougher Terms in a Push to Refinance Their Obligations, Says S&P

By AINSLEY THOMSON, MICHAEL WILSON and CAROL DEAN

LONDON -- European companies, already in the middle of an economic downturn, face another uphill struggle as they seek to refinance $242.6 billion of maturing debt over the coming year, according to credit-ratings firm Standard & Poor's.

With credit still scarce and expensive, Europe's large corporate-debt pile poses an unwelcome challenge to companies, which are having to pay dearly to roll over existing debt and insure against default risk, S&P said in a report published Tuesday.

"Funding pressures in Europe have escalated sharply since September as stress in the global financial system accelerated," the report said.

According to the report, European companies will be forced to pay back or refinance $586.3 billion through 2011, with more than 40% of that debt coming due over the next year.

European Corporate Debt

Many companies are resorting to stop-gap measures such as negotiating the extension of maturities on existing loans, also at hefty mark-ups. Even healthy companies are feeling the added pressure on their books as revenue and cash flow shrink.

The few corporate borrowers able to access medium-term funding in the bond market in recent months have had to sweeten their deals with considerable risk premiums to attract investors, driving up the interest rates they have to pay.

France Telecom had to double the spread over the risk-free mid-swaps benchmark rate when it added a €300 million ($382.2 million) to its existing €1.25 billion 10-year bonds on Nov. 4. The new spread was 2.4 percentage points, from 1.1 points in May, according to the terms of the deal.

No company rated below single-A has managed to access the bond market in recent months, offering little hope for companies further down the ratings scale.

The cost of insuring €10 million of corporate debt against default for five years was €135,000 per year on Monday, up from €23,000 at the beginning of 2007.

Telecommunications is the sector with the largest needs, with $113 billion to refinance by 2011, the S&P report said. That is followed by utilities companies, which are set to repay $79 billion.

In a report published at the start of October, analysts at Unicredit estimated that Deutsche Telekom has the biggest requirement of the telecom companies, with about €4.5 billion expiring before the end of 2009. France Telecom follows closely with €3.9 billion and Telecom Italia with €3.8 billion.

French nonfinancial corporate issuers account for the largest portion of debt to be refinanced, with 26%, followed closely by the U.K., Germany, Netherlands and Italy, which have a combined share of 79%. The report examined all debts rated by S&P including bank loans, notes and bonds.

Companies with refinancing needs are entering into discussions with lenders early to try and secure funding at reasonable costs.

U.K. betting group William Hill PLC confirms it has begun discussion with its lenders to refinance its £1 billion ($1.56 billion) of debt, even though it isn't due to pay the debt back until March 2010.

French construction materials group Compagnie de Saint-Gobain SA said last week that it has agreed with lenders to extend the maturity of its €2.125 billion loan by a year to October 2010.

Saint Gobain didn't reveal pricing details, but people familiar with the matter said it had to accept costlier terms to make the deal. The company agreed to pay 1 percentage point over the Euribor benchmark rate for interbank lending, compared with 0.2 percentage point under the existing loan terms, plus a flat fee of 0.4 percentage point, these people said.

U.K. cable TV and broadband provider Virgin Media Inc. also resorted to restructuring its debt, with its creditors agreeing last week to delay repayments on its £4.3 billion debt for three years. Virgin agreed to a one-time payoff to each lender and added as much as 1.5 percentage points to the interest rate. The changes added an estimated one-off payment of £70 million and an extra £50 million to Virgin Media's annual debt-servicing bill.

Write to Michael Wilson at michael.wilson@dowjones.com and Carol Dean at carol.dean@dowjones.com

I mentioned in a post yesterday how our greed - coupled with the financial meltdown - will lead other nations to stop investing in the U.S.  Today, the Wall St. Journal published articles on how China and Russia blame the current global financial crisis on the U.S. – and may ‘rethink’ their investment strategies. 

My own belief is (as you now know) – this isn’t a surprise to any of the world’s major powers.  It shouldn’t surprise anyone that we could not continue borrowing and spending forever.  At some point, it had to end.  It also shouldn’t surprise anyone that our (U.S.) financial crisis is leading to a global financial crisis - for a couple of reasons.  The first being that the world has become dependent on our astronomical consumption rates for everything.  It’s impossible for anyone to keep growing and growing – forever.  The 2^nd reason is that (as I’ve mentioned before) – all of the world’s major powers are running on the same flawed monetary/economic system. It’s not a coincidence that everyone’s system is now failing – we’re all tied together.  We have all grown together – now we’re all going to fall together.  The world will search for a solution – and we’ll then see the plan enter the next phase – a completely integrated global financial system.  It will be heavily regulated and controlled – and we’ll be told that it’s the only viable solution – given the world’s present economic condition.  The question is – who will control it?  If you’ve read my other posts – you know the answer.

We’re dealing with some very evil, very intelligent people who know how to manipulate the world’s population.  Over centuries, they have become masters at deceiving.

JANUARY 29, 2009

Chinese Premier Blames Recession on U.S. Actions

Beijing Rethinks Some of Its American Investments

By JASON DEAN in Beijing, JAMES T. AREDDY in Shanghai and SERENA NG in

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao squarely blamed the U.S.-led financial system for the world's deepening economic slump, in the most public indication yet of discord between the U.S. government and its largest creditor.

Leaders in China, the world's third-largest economy, have been surprised and upset over how much the problems of the U.S. financial sector have hurt China's holdings. In response, Beijing is re-examining its U.S. investments, say people familiar with the government's thinking.

Mr. Wen, the first Chinese premier to visit the annual global gathering of economic and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland, delivered a strongly worded indictment of the causes of the crisis, clearly aimed largely at the United States though he didn't name it. Mr. Wen blamed an "excessive expansion of financial institutions in blind pursuit of profit," a failure of government supervision of the financial sector, and an "unsustainable model of development, characterized by prolonged low savings and high consumption."

Chinese leaders have felt burned by a series of bad experiences with U.S. investments they had believed were safe, say people familiar with their thinking, including holdings in Morgan Stanley, the collapsed Reserve Primary Fund and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As a result, the people say, government leaders decided not to make new investments in a number of U.S. companies that sought China's capital. China's pullback from Fannie and Freddie debt helped push up rates on U.S. mortgages last year just as Washington was seeking to revive the U.S. housing market.

To be sure, China's economy now is so closely intertwined with the U.S.'s that major, abrupt changes are unlikely. The U.S.-China economic relationship has become arguably the world's most important. China has been recycling its vast export earnings by financing the U.S. deficit through buying Treasurys, helping to keep U.S. interest rates low and give American consumers more spending power to buy Chinese exports.

China now has roughly $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, and has continued to buy U.S. government debt -- surpassing Japan in September as the biggest foreign holder of Treasurys, by one official U.S. measure. China must continue to recycle its trade surplus if it doesn't want its currency to appreciate too quickly.

Still, the relatively smooth financial ties between the two powers that underpinned the global economic boom of recent years are being tested. As both sides survey the wreckage of the U.S. housing bubble and credit crunch, mutual recriminations are raising doubts about the relationship.

The Chinese premier's remarks came a few days after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner fanned the flames when he accused China of "manipulating" its currency during his confirmation process. That was widely seen as an escalation of long-standing U.S. complaints that China artificially depresses the value of the yuan to bolster its exports, and prompted strong denials from Beijing. The Obama administration has since played down the statement's significance.

Frictions between the two countries began to worsen long before Mr. Obama took office. The Chinese central bank last year stopped lending its Treasury holdings for fear the borrowers will go bankrupt, according to people familiar with the discussions -- a decision that disrupted the functioning of the Treasury market. Beijing rejected pleas by Washington to resume its lending of Treasurys, the people said.

Meanwhile, China -- for years the largest foreign investor in bonds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- has been sharply trimming its holdings of that debt. After making direct net purchases of $46.0 billion in the first half of 2008, China's government and companies were net sellers of $26.1 billion in the five months through November, according to the latest U.S. data.

Weak demand for such debt from China and other foreign investors helped prompt the Federal Reserve to announce in November that it would take the step of buying up to $600 billion in debt from Fannie, Freddie and two other U.S. government-related mortgage businesses.

While Chinese officials have generally been circumspect in public, some Chinese commentators have sharpened their rhetoric in recent weeks. Washington "should not expect continuous inflow of more cheap foreign capital to fund its one-after-another massive bailouts," said a December editorial in the government-owned, English-language China Daily. Officials at the newspaper said the commentary wasn't ordered by the government.

Cash-rich Chinese financial institutions are under withering criticism at home for investments in the West that have lost money, such as a $5.6 billion stake in Morgan Stanley purchased by China's sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corp., 13 months ago. The U.S. company's shares have dropped around 60% since then. Chinese institutions have rebuffed entreaties to invest in struggling U.S. companies even as investors from Japan and the Middle East have stepped up.

For years, Washington has pushed China to adopt an economic and financial system more like that in the U.S. -- arguing, for example, that China should liberalize capital flows in and out of the country. In many cases, China has moved more slowly than the U.S. desired. Beijing has resisted American pressure to let its currency appreciate in line with market forces, for example, which economists say has helped inflate China's trade surplus.

But often, U.S. suggestions had a sympathetic audience among reformers in China's government, and many of China's financial overhauls in recent decades have been inspired by the U.S. model. Now, some of these changes, and their proponents, have lost credibility in China in the wake of the financial meltdown, and recently commentators and officials in China have been increasingly critical about Washington.

Amid high-level Sino-U.S. economic talks in Beijing in early December, Chinese officials admonished the U.S. and Europe for their financial governance.

Vice Premier Wang Qishan, China's top finance official, called on the U.S. to "take all necessary measures to stabilize its economy and financial markets to ensure the security of China's assets and investments in the U.S."

A similar complaint was issued by Lou Jiwei, chairman of CIC, the government fund established in 2007 to seek higher returns on a $200 billion chunk of China's currency holdings. Mr. Lou said in a December speech that he has "lost confidence" because of inconsistent government policies concerning support for Western banks. "We don't know when these institutions will be invested in by their governments," he said.

Fate of U.S. Investments

CIC officials are especially sensitive about the fate of their U.S. investments because they have been under fire for the poor performance of earlier deals. CIC has sustained large paper losses on the $3 billion it invested in Blackstone Group LP in June 2007, as well as the Morgan Stanley stake. Staffed by officials, some western-educated, who have helped promote financial-market liberalization in China, CIC is also viewed by some Chinese as a symbol of the country's close financial ties to the U.S. -- another reason it has been in the crosshairs.

Around October, a lengthy Chinese-language essay began circulating on the Internet excoriating Mr. Lou and other top CIC officials, along with Zhou Xiaochuan, China's central bank governor, for being too close to the U.S. and then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The diatribe quickly gained wide circulation in Chinese financial circles. One passage charged that Mr. Zhou "colluded with Henry Paulson to buy U.S. bonds, forced [Chinese yuan] appreciation, attached China's economy to the U.S. and broke China's economic independence."

Chinese and U.S. interests remain deeply enmeshed. Washington's huge stimulus plans will result in even heavier borrowing, and, while rising savings in the U.S. could create more domestic capital to help fund that, Chinese lending will remain important.

Japan investors, too, have been selling Fannie and Freddie debt and making other moves to limit their U.S. risk. An official at another Asian central bank in charge of managing hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign exchange reserves noted late last year that trading in some derivative instruments had factored in a slightly higher possibility of default by the U.S. government, though that prospect is still viewed by most investors as extremely low.

The alarm for Chinese leaders started ringing loudly in July and August as problems deepened at Fannie and Freddie. Senior Chinese leaders, who hadn't been apprised in detail of how China's reserves were being invested, learned for the first time in published reports that the country's exposure to debt from those two alone totaled nearly $400 billion, say people familiar with the matter.

Fearing that the U.S. government might not fully back the companies, China demanded and received regular briefings throughout the peak of the crisis from high-level Treasury Department officials, including Mr. Paulson, on the market for U.S. debt securities -- especially those of the mortgage giants.

Mr. Paulson and other Treasury officials spoke regularly with Vice Premier Wang and other senior Chinese officials to soothe their concerns.

The World Economic Forum in Davos was full of verbal tongue-lashings for the U.S. from countries such as Russia and China. The world is calling for the U.S. to get its act together. Video courtesy of Reuters.

Chinese officials often bombarded their U.S. counterparts with questions, according to people who were present at meetings.

While Mr. Paulson was in Beijing for the Olympics in August, he dined with Mr. Zhou, the central bank chief, at the Whampoa Club, an upscale restaurant that serves modern Chinese cuisine in a traditional courtyard building near the city's Financial Street.

On Sept. 7, Mr. Paulson announced that the U.S. government would seize Fannie and Freddie, but Chinese officials remained concerned.

At one briefing for Chinese officials to explain the change, said people present, they questioned and debated the meaning of nearly every line of the new Treasury plan.

Then Washington allowed Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. to collapse, further shaking Beijing's faith. One casualty was CIC's nearly $5.4 billion investment in the Reserve Primary Fund, the money-market fund that "broke the buck" in September as a result of the Lehman collapse.

CIC had placed money in the Primary Fund because "money market funds are supposed to be very safe," said a Chinese official in an interview late last year. But on Sept. 16, the Primary Fund's managers announced that they were delaying redemptions.

CIC officials emailed Reserve asking to withdraw all of its money from the fund, and promptly received a reply agreeing to the request, says the Chinese official.

CIC officials believed the agreement meant that CIC had become a creditor to the troubled fund, and therefore was entitled to all of its money.

A Reserve spokeswoman says the company doesn't comment on individual clients.

Later in the day on Sept. 16, Reserve announced that the Primary Fund's net asset value had fallen to 97 cents a share, below the standard $1.00 level.

Reserve initially said redemption requests received before 3 p.m. that day would be honored in full, but has since said that the net asset value already was down to 99 cents a share by 11 a.m.

As Reserve further delayed payments, CIC began to fear that it might not get all of its money.

The Reserve issue "is causing a lot of concern with a lot of financial institutions in China," said the Chinese official.

Some officials expected that the U.S. and its financial institutions would better protect China from loss.

"If the U.S. is treating us this way, eventually that will be enough cause for concern in the stability of the [U.S.] system," the official said.

A CIC spokeswoman declined to comment on the current status of the dispute.

Write to Jason Dean at jason.dean@wsj.com, James T. Areddy at james.areddy@wsj.com and Serena Ng at serena.ng@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A1

I imagine that if we could be transported back in time to the final years of the Roman Empire – it would look a lot like the United States today.  Lots of inept leaders ignoring the truth of what is happening – still pretending that nothing has changed – still clinging to failed policies and a failed system – until the entire system fails one day.

This blog post by Chris Martenson does a great job of summing up the current state of our leaders.  They are still ignoring the glaring warning signs that the party is over.  They are still adding pet projects to ‘stimulus’ bills in order to benefit themselves.  They can’t see that this is the end – we’re heading for a complete and final train wreck.  Rome is burning and everyone’s playing a fiddle.  This is the inevitable result of the blind leading the blind.  Amazing.

Stimulus Bill Causes Hope to Fade

Saturday, January 31, 2009, 2:45 pm, by cmartenson

The subtitle to this article is Bringing a Hose to a Flood

I’ll be honest, I was equal parts hopeful and doubtful that anything new would come out of Washington because, well, I’ve been watching the situation for a long time and nothing really “new” comes out of there very often.

For now, I must content myself to sit back and watch, and wait, knowing that sooner or later reality will force itself back onto the radar screens of our leaders. For now, they remain hopelessly out of touch. For example, check out this well-meaning statement:

“This is a continuing disaster for America’s working families,” Obama said at the White House yesterday. “They need us to pass the American Recovery and Investment Plan,” designed to save more than 3 million jobs, he said. House lawmakers passed the stimulus Jan. 28, moving action to the Senate next week.

I agree with the ‘disaster’ part, but I am less than certain of the ’save more than 3 million jobs’ part.

Here’s why:

An $800 billion-plus package, it turns out, gives lawmakers plenty of opportunities to rid themselves of nagging headaches left over from the days when running up the government's $10 trillion-plus debt was a bigger concern.

There's $345 million for Agriculture Department computers, $650 million for TV converter boxes, $15 billion for college scholarships — worthy, perhaps, but not likely to put many Americans back to work quickly.

There's $1 billion to deal with Census problems and $88 million to help move the Public Health Service into a new building next year. The Senate would devote $2.1 billion to pay off a looming shortfall in public housing accounts, $870 million to combat the flu and $400 million to slow the spread HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia.

But nothing is in the legislation by accident. By including in the Senate stimulus bill such far-ranging ideas as $40 million to convert the way health statistics are collected — from paper to an electronic system — lawmakers are able to thin out their in-boxes, even if they aren't doing much to create jobs.

There's also $380 million in the Senate bill for a rainy day fund for the Women, Infants and Children program that delivers healthful food to the poor. WIC got a $1 billion infusion last fall.

But some Democrats, like Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, think the $3.5 billion in the stimulus package devoted to health research, or the $14 billion-$15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships by $400 to $500 would be better spent on additional brick and mortar infrastructure projects.

Instead of directing money where it is most needed, Congress could not resist using this massive appropriation as free money for pet projects. In other words, there’s no sense that we need to be smart or careful with our money. Instead, an $850 billion package is the ideal time to do all the nifty things that couldn’t be funded during normal budget discussions.

It's exactly how we might expect a lottery winner to behave during their first few weeks in the millionaire bracket.

How is it possible that DC Congressmen can see things this way? This embarrassing quote sums it up:

"If the house is burning, you're not going to worry about which hose you grab, so long as you get water on the fire," said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., one of the chief authors of the House package as chairman of its appropriations committee.

Well, Mr. Obey, it might matter if you’ve misdiagnosed the problem and it turns out the economic house is not on fire but rather caught in a flood of debt. Then your additional “spray and pray” deficit spending could be more harmful than helpful over the long haul. Having a basic understanding of the problem is essential to picking effective solutions.

It is attitudes like Mr Obey’s that cause me to lose hope that adults are in charge in DC and have some idea what they are doing.  The vast amount of spending waste has convinced me that the actual seriousness of the predicament has not yet penetrated the thicker layers of the more obtuse lawmakers.

This relates to our discussion regarding how economic data can be manipulated by the media. 

From the Wall St. Journal this morning:

Housing Starts Jump in May for Third Month

Single-family housing starts rose in May for the third straight month, fresh evidence the beleaguered housing market is beginning to stabilize. But the glut of homes in parts of the country will continue to drag down prices. Housing starts jumped 17.2% in May from April to a 532,000 annual rate, the Commerce Department said Tuesday, boosted by an increase in multifamily units.

From CNN:

Housing starts ratchet up in May

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The nation's builders boosted their production in May, starting new housing units at an annualized rate of 532,000, up 17.2% from the revised estimate of 454,000 in April.

From Fox News:

Housing Starts Rise 17.2%

Housing starts climbed much more in May than the market expected, according to a report by the U.S. Commerce Department issued Tuesday, providing another possible sign that the beleaguered housing market is finding some stability.

Here's the actual trend:

May Housing Starts

You'll notice that the Wall St. Journal article mentions that 'multifamily' units boosted the May number.  If you look at the details behind the numbers - the total was inflated by building permits for apartment buildings - not because single family home building is increasing.  Again - to know the truth - you've got to examine the details on your own.

If you read the articles in their entirety - you'll usually see information like this buried within the article:

"Still, home construction was well below year-ago levels, with the pace of starts down 45.2% from May 2008."  Headlines never reveal this type of information.

"The good news on housing was offset by another grim report on the state of U.S. manufacturing. Industrial production tumbled 1.1% in May from April, the Federal Reserve said. Capacity utilization fell to 68.3%, well below its long-run average, an indication that there is still a great deal of disinflationary slack." 

Good news?

John

Based on the speed at which these regulatory changes are being made – I have a feeling we’re on the verge of some major economic shocks.  Things appear to be somewhat calm – but there are serious storms approaching.

This is a long article – so I’ll list the important info here:

·        One proposal being pushed by the White House takes aim at industrial loan companies, which are allowed under their state-issued charters to collect federally insured deposits, offer credit cards, make loans and process financial transactions without facing as much scrutiny as traditional banks regulated by the U.S. government.

·        President Barack Obama wants companies with ILC charters to register as bank-holding companies with the Federal Reserve. That would put them in the same regulatory category as Bank of America Corp. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., subjecting the non-banks to much greater government oversight.

·        If that happens, most companies with ILC charters likely would close them down, potentially shutting off another source of credit for consumers, industry experts predict. That's because the companies might not be able to satisfy the Fed's capital and other requirements, and thus would be ineligible to become bank-holding companies, or they would balk at heavier regulation.

I’ll keep this short – because it’s obvious what is happening here.  Who would gain regulatory authority over these firms under this proposal?  The Federal Reserve.  Are you beginning to see where these new regulatory proposals are leading? 

Our entire financial system is being consolidated under one authority. This alone should cause us concern. A private bank (a small group of powerful interests) should never be given absolute economic power over the people of the United States.  This is why our founders wrote the Constitution – to prevent this very thing from happening.

The even bigger issue is that this authority is controlled by people who have one, overriding objective – a one world socialist government.   

JUNE 19, 2009

Corporate Lenders Get Hit

Financial-Oversight Bill Snags Loan Arms of Harley, Target; Girding for Battle

By DAVID ENRICH and ROBIN SIDEL

Wall St. Journal

Target Corp., Harley-Davidson Inc., Pitney Bowes Inc. and dozens of other companies that aren't banks but pitch loans and other financial products are being squeezed by the Obama administration's financial-overhaul plan.

One proposal being pushed by the White House takes aim at industrial loan companies, which are allowed under their state-issued charters to collect federally insured deposits, offer credit cards, make loans and process financial transactions without facing as much scrutiny as traditional banks regulated by the U.S. government.

President Barack Obama wants companies with ILC charters to register as bank-holding companies with the Federal Reserve. That would put them in the same regulatory category as Bank of America Corp. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., subjecting the non-banks to much greater government oversight.

Under Scrutiny

If that happens, most companies with ILC charters likely would close them down, potentially shutting off another source of credit for consumers, industry experts predict. That's because the companies might not be able to satisfy the Fed's capital and other requirements, and thus would be ineligible to become bank-holding companies, or they would balk at heavier regulation.

As of last month, there were 45 ILCs with combined assets of $232.3 billion, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. That is equivalent in size to the 11th-largest U.S. bank, or slightly smaller than regional bank U.S. Bancorp.

Though relatively small players in the financial system, ILCs provide a wide variety of products and services to businesses and consumers. The offerings range from financing purchases of Harley motorcycles to loans that cover corporate medical payments to insurers. Eliminating or sharply curtailing those operations could make it harder or costlier for customers to get credit.

In its "white paper" outlining the reform package, the administration said the existence of ILCs and other non-bank charters have allowed certain institutions "to obtain access to the federal safety net," namely through insured deposits, while avoiding oversight by the Fed. The administration argues that in order for a regulator to be sufficiently powerful, it has to be able to see all the risks, and thus oversee all companies that provide financial services.

ILCs provide a wide variety of products and services, from financing purchases of Harley motorcycles to loans for corporate medical payments

That's setting the stage for a showdown on Capitol Hill. Some lawmakers and banking groups are vowing to fight the ILC provision, which they see as an overzealous attempt to create a level regulatory playing field at the expense of companies that didn't play major roles in the financial crisis.

"There is not a single ILC that contributed to the crisis," said Sen. Robert Bennett, a Utah Republican, at a hearing Thursday with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. "You're going to wipe them out as a source of credit, take them out of the marketplace where they're providing niche credit for people that don't otherwise get it."

Mr. Geithner responded that the change is meant to eliminate "gaps and loopholes" in financial regulation. But he said the administration is open to negotiating the plank with lawmakers. "We're going to have to work to try to persuade you of the merits of these proposals and take your concerns into consideration," Mr. Geithner said.

The brewing fight over the ILC proposal, tucked into a single paragraph in an 88-page document released Wednesday, is an early indicator of the intense scrutiny that the Obama administration's reform plan will encounter as lawmakers and industry groups pore over its details. In addition to policy disputes, lawmakers are looking to protect local industries. Utah, for example, is home to most of the nation's ILCs, although California, Nevada and other states also are popular destinations for the charters. Only a handful of states offer ILC charters, and for those that do, they can be a source of tax revenue.

Howard Headlee, president of the Utah Bankers Association, called the Obama administration proposal "extremely misguided" and said it would force many ILCs to shut down. But he said he's optimistic that lawmakers will kill the provision. "I'm confident that congressmen will see how foolish it is to be destroying sources of credit in this economy."

If the provision becomes law, the implications could be far-reaching. A diverse array of companies -- including Target, Pitney Bowes, UnitedHealth Group Inc., WellPoint Inc. and CMS Energy Corp. -- have Utah-based financing arms with ILC charters.

The companies use the charters to provide financial services that complement their main businesses and can be a source of profits. For example, Target, the Minneapolis-based retailer, uses its Target Bank subsidiary to extend credit to shoppers. UnitedHealth's OptumHealth Bank Inc. administers health-savings accounts and offers loans to cover medical payments, as does WellPoint's Arcus Financial Bank. EnerBank USA, a unit of Jackson, Mich.-based CMS Energy, finances home-improvement and energy loans nationwide. Pitney Bowes Bank Inc. allows businesses to prepay or borrow funds for postage costs.

Most of those companies said they were studying the administration's proposal and that it would be premature to comment. Pitney Bowes, which established its ILC in 1998, said it "will work to educate Congress about their role in providing credit for commercial activity -- something that is even more important during the current recession. We think it is important that these services continue."

The obscure banking charters, originally created in the early 1900s to provide loans to industrial workers, have been a sporadic source of controversy for years.

Federal Reserve officials, including ex-Chairman Alan Greenspan, have warned about the perils of allowing traditional commercial businesses to have banking operations. One concern is that the banking portion of the business could be at risk if, say, the retailing side went under. There are also competitive issues if giant companies use their existing customer base to crowd out traditional banks.

In 2006, ILCs were thrust into an especially bright spotlight after Wal-Mart Stores Inc. applied for a charter to process credit-card transactions. Banks waged an aggressive lobbying campaign to derail the retailing behemoth's application, arguing that it was laying the groundwork for a foray into retail banking.

Amid the mounting furor, the FDIC imposed a moratorium on new applications for ILC charters, to allow Congress time to debate whether to change the law. Wal-Mart withdrew its application.

In May 2007, the U.S. House passed a bill that would subject ILCs to greater federal oversight and bar the charters from being granted to nonfinancial firms. The bill died in the Senate.

—Damian Paletta and Ann Zimmerman contributed to this article.

Write to David Enrich at david.enrich@wsj.com and Robin Sidel at robin.sidel@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A1

Thursday, June 25. 2009

Posted by Karl Denninger in Bonds at 08:38

About a week ago I wrote a Ticker about my astonishment that foreign central banks would want 50% of a 30 year Treasury issue, and mused that these foreigners must be expecting (and might be intending to impose) crushing deflation.

It turns out that my skepticism was well-warranted, for a different reason:

But in a little-noticed switch on June 1, the Treasury changed the way it accounts for indirect bids, putting more buyers under that umbrella and boosting the portion of recent Treasury sales that the market perceived were being bought by foreigners.

....

The new definitions are deep in the arcane world of Treasury auctions. The change involves buyers who place orders through primary dealers. Those had been counted as direct buyers, but as of June 1 they were classified as indirect buyers, making that group larger than before. Because investors view that group as being dominated by foreign buyers, they assumed foreign demand was higher.

Very nice.

So now we have the Treasury Department changing the rules so that the investing public cannot determine what sort of actual appetite foreigners have for our Treasury Debt by obscuring what had, up until then, been a very reliable gauge of their sentiment.

This sort of intentional game-playing is obscene and pervasive in our financial system and government over the last twenty years, with this being just the latest insult.

Treasury, of course, knows the interest level of foreigners in our government debt.

Why are they suddenly afraid of letting every market participant see the same information?

Do we have a "little problem" here that someone doesn't want to talk about?

The info/analysis at the bottom of this email is from John Williams (Shadowstats.com). He re-creates Government economic data in the same way it was reported in the past – before the Government decided to make significant changes to how economic data is collected and reported.  If you're not familiar with the birth/death model - it's a model that either adds or removes jobs to 'official' Government unemployment stats (it has nothing to do with the birth/death of people).  The thinking behind this model is that the Government cannot account for new businesses or businesses that shut down - quickly enough in a given month - so instead of simply reporting the actual data (ADP employment report, etc.) each month - the Government 'estimates' how many new businesses started or businesses that closed in a given month with the corresponding addition or subtraction of jobs associated with those businesses.  If you think this sounds like a very inaccurate way to track unemployment - you'd be right.  No one really knows how this model works - it's a mystery. 

You'll also notice that this model is never mentioned when unemployment data is released each month.  Wonder why?  The stock market dropped 200 points today because job losses were 'worse than expected' at 467,000 lost jobs in June.  Imagine what would happen if the real number of 700,000 was released.  Since February 2009 - the birth/death model has added 879,000 jobs to government unemployment data during one of the worst recessions in our history.  It appears that someone is trying to make things look much better than reality.

Here’s a summary of June's umeployment report:

1.      The Government’s ‘birth/death’ model added 185,000 jobs to the June unemployment report.  Note the industries where many of the jobs were added – and ask yourself if this makes any sense.

• 31,000 jobs were added in Construction
• 21,000 jobs were added in Trade/Transportation
• 25,000 jobs were added in Business/Services
• 87,000 jobs were added in Leisure/Hospitality
• 7,000 jobs were added in Manufacturing

2.      If we disregard the birth/death model – almost 700,000 jobs were lost in June (consistent with previous months)

3.      Annual payroll decline is now the worst since 1958.

4.      Actual unemployment rate is 21% (if we consider all of the people who are looking for work – the government selectively removes ‘discouraged’ workers)

- June Jobs Loss Was 513,000 Net of

 Concurrent Seasonal Factor Bias

 Likely Topped 700,000 with Birth-Death Machinations

- Payroll Employment Growth Overstatement

 Could Top 2.5 Million Per Year with Birth-Death Modeling

- Annual Payroll Decline Deepened to 4.2%

 Equal to 1958 Trough and Near 1949 Trough

- SGS-Alternate Unemployment at 20.6%

"June Employment Reporting Showed Ongoing Economic Deterioration. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released ongoing indications of deteriorating U.S. employment/unemployment conditions in June, with a worse-than-expected 467,000 drop in June payrolls, but a narrower-than-expected rise in unemployment to 9.5%. Net of the Concurrent Seasonal Factor Bias (discussed below) and net of distortions built into the reporting by the Birth-Death Model (discussed below), the June jobs loss likely exceeded 700,000.

"The severe recession continues to deepen. My broad outlook has not changed; the worst of the financial and economic crises remain ahead of us. Before getting into the detail of the June report, a variety of special considerations are detailed, as directly related to the reporting of employment conditions as well as to broader implications for economic reporting in general."

Best regards,

The ShadowStats Team

(shadowstats.com)

Interesting article.  When you have time – go to the link and read the 22 page study of money by Christopher Weber.

jg - July 5, 2009

__________________

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Debasing the Currency is Leading to Financial Collapse . . . Just As It Has for Thousands of Years

http://thecomingdepression.blogspot.com/2009/06/debasing-currency-is-leading-to.html

In a fascinating 22-page study of money and currency, Christopher Weber shows that every government - from Athens, to pre-collapse Rome, to the Islamic countries in the Middle Ages - which stuck to the Greek standard of coins has been stable and prosperous.

Specifically, the Athenian Drachma contained 65.6 grains of silver. Even after Greece declined as a superpower, its currency remained stable.

The Roman Denarius, Byzantine Bezant, and Islamic Dinar all copied the Drachma, using around 65.6 grains of gold or silver in their coins.

For the many centuries the Romans, Byzantines, and Islamic rulers left this precious metal content alone, they had stable and prosperous money supplies and nations.

But after the Romans and Byzantines started to whittle down the precious metal content of their coins - and after the Muslims started issuing paper money - their currency went down the drain, their prosperity plummeted and their empires collapsed.

This may all sound like ancient history, except that Weber points out that:

The US dollar has been depreciating for generations. Seventy years ago it was first devalued from $20.67 a gold ounce to $35. Then 35 years ago the devaluation started gaining strength. The dollar has lost over 90% of its gold value since August 15, 1971.

History is repeating . . . Sound money is again being trashed, which is causing the collapse of the American empire.

President Obama campaigned on a platform of ‘change’.  The only change I see relates to our record budget deficits – but I don’t think this is what the American people had in mind.  Here’s another example of how nothing has changed. 

jg – July 8, 2009

Failing Upwards: The Wall Street White House

By Barry Ritholtz - July 6th, 2009, 9:00AM

We are seeing belated glimmers of understanding of the credit crisis from the White House. Still nothing on the Ratings Agencies, and Glass Steagall, and too little on Derivatives and leverage, but at least there seems to be some recognition on TBTF (see The End of Too Big to Fail ?).

However, where there is real despair has been in the cult of the sacred cow appointments.

The latest ugly data points: The number of Wall Street (versus business or academic) appointments. To wit: “How Goldman Sachs and Citi Run the Show“ via Andrew Cockburn.

Cockburn details the following recent Wall Street transplants who are running things in the Adminstiration:

• Robert Hormats, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs, is to be installed as Under Secretary of Economics, Business, and Agricultural Affairs.

• Jacob Lew, Chief Financial Officer of Citigroup Alternative Investments Group, as Deputy Secretary of State
(Lew’s dept. lost $509 million in the Q1 2008)

• Michael Froman, Citigroup, Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economic Affairs. Froman was formerly Chief of Staff to Robert Rubin at Treasury, before following him to Citi.

• Froman’s deputy, David Lipton, ran Citi’s global country risk management effort.

• Lewis Alexander, Citigroup’s chief economist and now Counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner

• Neal Wolin, President and COO, Hartford Insurance Company, Property and Casualty Group now Deputy Treasury Secretary (Hartford received $3.4 billion in TARP funds).

• Gary Gensler, Goldman Sachs partner, now Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Note: It was Gensler who was a key proponent (as Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of Treasury) in pushing the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.

• Mark Patterson, Goldman Sach’s lobbyist, now Treasury Chief of Staff

• Linda Robertson, Enron lobbyist, Chief PR Federal Reserve

Defenders of the Status Quo!

Source:
The Wall Street White House
ANDREW COCKBURN
Counterpunch, July 2, 2009
http://www.counterpunch.org/andrew07022009.html