Goldman-Sachs Caught Manipulating US Dollar -- No One Arrested, Slap on Wrist Instead. The same company that paid Hillary Clinton nearly $700,000, for three one-hour speeches, has now been ordered to pay a nine-figure sum for currency market manipulation. Goldman-Sachs was ordered to pay 120 million, “to settle charges that it often tried to manipulate a global dollar benchmark for interest rate products over a five-year period,” according to Reuters. The investment corporation was levied the “civil penalty to settle charges that it often tried to manipulate a global dollar benchmark for interest rate products over a five-year period,” the report states. Citing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s report, Reuters stated Goldman-Sachs engaged in its illegal activity in an attempt to “manipulate the U.S.
Dollar International Swaps and Derivatives Association Fix benchmark,” and was ordered to cease from doing so in the future by taking measures to prevent a recurrence. Goldman-Sachs is just the latest in a series of intentional missteps by investment firms. Switzerland Follows Iceland in Declaring War Against the Banksters. By Isaac Davis “If you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit.” – Josiah Stamp Iceland has gained the admiration of populists in recent years by doing that which no other nation in the world seems to be willing or capable of doing: prosecuting criminal bankers for engineering financial collapse for profit. Their effective revolt against the banking class, who drove the tiny nation into economic crisis in 2008, is the brightest example yet that the world does not have to be indebted in perpetuity to an austere and criminal wealthy elite. In 2015, 26 Icelandic bankers were sentenced to prison and the government ordered a bank sale to benefit the citizenry.
Switzerland is in a key position to play a revolutionary role in changing how global banking functions. Reserve banking is the policy that guarantees insurmountable debt as the outcome of all financial transactions. Image Credit. Roisin Davis: Truthdigger of the Week: Offshore-Banking Whistleblower Hervé Falciani - Truthdigger of the Week. Hervé Falciani is pictured during an interview in Spain in June 2012. (eldiario.es/licencia / Wikimedia Commons)(CC-BY-SA 3.0) Every week the Truthdig editorial staff selects a Truthdigger of the Week, a group or person worthy of recognition for speaking truth to power, breaking the story or blowing the whistle. It is not a lifetime achievement award. Rather, we’re looking for newsmakers whose actions in a given week are worth celebrating. In Switzerland on Friday, a federal tribunal handed down a five-year sentence against whistleblower Hervé Falciani, whom some have dubbed the “Edward Snowden of banking.” After Falciani, then an IT expert at HSBC’s Swiss bank, hacked into the bank’s customer files in late 2007 he triggered a major scandal, exposing stunning corruption within an industry built in the shadows.
Hired in 2001 to create a client management database, Falciani soon came to realize that the way information was managed by the organization fostered tax evasion. Robert Reich: Hillary Clinton’s Glass-Steagall. Editor’s note: This article was originally published on RobertReich.org. Hillary Clinton won’t propose reinstating a bank break-up law known as the Glass-Steagall Act – at least according to Alan Blinder, an economist who has been advising Clinton’s campaign. “You’re not going to see Glass-Steagall,” Blinder said after her economic speech Monday in which she failed to mention it. Blinder said he had spoken to Clinton directly about Glass-Steagall. This is a big mistake. It’s a mistake politically because people who believe Hillary Clinton is still too close to Wall Street will not be reassured by her position on Glass-Steagall.
Many will recall that her husband led the way to repealing Glass Steagall in 1999 at the request of the big Wall Street banks. It’s a big mistake economically because the repeal of Glass-Steagall led directly to the 2008 Wall Street crash, and without it we’re in danger of another one. For the banks, it was an egregious but hugely profitable conflict of interest. Greece — The One Biggest Lie You Are Being Told By The Media | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization. First published in July 2015 By Truth and Satire Every single mainstream media has the following narrative for the economic crisis in Greece: the government spent too much money and went broke; the generous banks gave them money, but Greece still can’t pay the bills because it mismanaged the money that was given.
It sounds quite reasonable, right? Except that it is a big fat lie … not only about Greece, but about other European countries such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland who are all experiencing various degrees of austerity. It was also the same big, fat lie that was used by banks and corporations to exploit many Latin American, Asian and African countries for many decades. Greece did not fail on its own. In summary, the banks wrecked the Greek government, and then deliberately pushed it into unsustainable debt … while revenue-generating public assets were sold off to oligarchs and international corporations.
Now, let’s map the mafia story to international finance in four stages. Obama’s Attorney General Nominee Caught in Huge Scandal that Could Send Her to Jail. Loretta Lynch is in some relatively hot water. Looks like she has been implicated in allowing one of the world’s largest banks to evade criminal charges after it was found to be guilty of laundering money for all kinds of illicit activity. World Net Daily originally broke the story back in 2012 before Lynch was looking to assume Holder’s role. An employee from HSBC bank brought in over 1,000 pages of documentation that showed HSBC was involved in a billion dollar global money-laundering scheme. The story came and went, and nary a thought given to it. Until only very recently. Now the scandal has received more attention from the press, and there is even the suggestion Lynch might have been involved in an illegal deal to help get HSBC off the hook.
Drew Zahn writes, “Obama Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch may have struck a sweetheart deal with the banking giant that Rolling Stone now calls ‘preposterous even by Eric Holder’s standards.'” So what happened? As WND writes: Ohio U.S. US government faces pressure after biggest leak in banking history | News. The US government will come under intense pressure this week to explain what action it took after receiving a massive cache of leaked data that revealed how the Swiss banking arm of HSBC, the world’s second-largest bank, helped wealthy customers conceal billions of dollars of assets. The leaked files, which reveal how HSBC advised some clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities, were obtained through an international collaboration of news outlets, including the Guardian, the French daily Le Monde, CBS 60 Minutes and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The files reveal how HSBC’s Swiss private bank colluded with some clients to conceal undeclared “black” accounts from domestic tax authorities across the world and provided services to international criminals and other high-risk individuals. The disclosure amounts to one of the biggest banking leaks in history shedding light on some 30,000 accounts holding almost $120bn (£78bn) of assets. HSBC files show how Swiss bank helped clients dodge taxes and hide millions | Business.
HSBC’s Swiss banking arm helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars of assets, doling out bundles of untraceable cash and advising clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities, according to a huge cache of leaked secret bank account files. The files – obtained through an international collaboration of news outlets, including the Guardian, the French daily Le Monde, BBC Panorama and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – reveal that HSBC’s Swiss private bank: • Routinely allowed clients to withdraw bricks of cash, often in foreign currencies of little use in Switzerland. • Aggressively marketed schemes likely to enable wealthy clients to avoid European taxes. • Colluded with some clients to conceal undeclared “black” accounts from their domestic tax authorities. • Provided accounts to international criminals, corrupt businessmen and other high-risk individuals.
Robbing Argentina in the US court in Manhattan - fraud of medieval style and proportions. No summons, invalid Notice of Assignment for US Judge Thomas Griesa, and denial of public access to the authentication records in a court that is notorious for fraud in banking matters... Conduct of the US courts over the past decade should be deemed an unannounced regime change in the United States. It is also central to abuse of the people of the United States and failing banking regulation. In the case of NML v Republic of Argentina the US courts reach beyond the territorial US, to rob the people of Argentina through fraud of medieval style and proportions. OccupyTLV, September 6 - f or the second time in 15 years, the US is causing the collapse of the Argentinian economy, inflicting poverty and misery on millions.
[i] In 2001, Argentina showed "a decline without parallel". The collapse of the Argentinian economy puzzled many.... In 2014, the fraud is more brazen. NML Capital, Ltd. v. (image by Public) US Judge Thomas Griesa; Street scene from the Argentinian economic collapse of 2001. Big Banks Fined Mega-Billions; CEOs Remain Untouched, Above the Law. Above the law by geoffreygnathanlaw.com Get arrested for robbing a bank or shoplifting and you will go to prison. Get caught selling cocaine or steal a car and you will do jail time. But if you are a CEO of one of the biggest banks in America and that bank is fined mega-billions for fraudulent practices you need not worry because the U.S. Justice Department will give you a free pass; you are, in effect, above the law. That is beyond comprehension, a clear travesty of justice, but it has become commonplace in America. Just look at the following list of U.S. and some foreign banks that have been fined billions of dollars.
Not one of their top executives has been prosecuted in connection with the violations of the law that led to these fines: $25 billion - Wells Fargo, J.P. . $13 billion - J.P. . $9.3 billion - Bank of America, Wells Fargo, J.P. . $8.5 billion - Bank of America -- June 2011: $2.6 billion - Credit Suisse AG -- May 2014: 1.9 billion - HSBC Holdings, HSBA - 2012. Dust off the pitchforks - Home Foreclosure racket continues. Dust off the pitchforks - Democracy is broken(image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com) Back in April 2009 President Obama told a meeting of the nation's top bankers that he was all that was standing between them and the pitchforks. Presumably he was trying to intimidate the 1% who really run this nation and simultaneously placate the 99% who actually pay for everything. It's nice to see he is still doing such a stellar job and that nothing has changed. By way of proof I offer an example of what's happening in my little backwater of Kent County, Maryland.
It's just one example of hundreds of thousands of home foreclosure auction scams currently active on the steps of local courthouses across the nation. The property in question, a modern townhouse, had originally been purchased by the homeowner for $170,100 in June of 2006 with a 30 year mortgage of $136,080 from the Peoples Mortgage Corporation at an interest rate of 7.5%. The Global Banking Game Is Rigged, and the FDIC Is Suing. Rigging the game. by Pinerest Taxpayers are paying billions of dollars for a swindle pulled off by the world's biggest banks, using a form of derivative called interest-rate swaps; and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has now joined a chorus of litigants suing over it. According to an SEIU report: Derivatives . . . have turned into a windfall for banks and a nightmare for taxpayers. . . . While banks are still collecting fixed rates of 3 to 6 percent, they are now regularly paying public entities as little as a tenth of one percent on the outstanding bonds, with rates expected to remain low in the future.
Over the life of the deals, banks are now projected to collect billions more than they pay state and local governments -- an outcome which amounts to a second bailout for banks, this one paid directly out of state and local budgets. It is not just that local governments, universities and pension funds made a bad bet on these swaps. The Largest Cartel in World History The Sting. The New York Times Authors the Most Ironic Sentence of the Crisis. By William K. Black The author of the most brilliantly comedic statement ever written about the crisis is Landon Thomas, Jr. He does not bury the lead. Everything worth reading is in the first sentence, and it should trigger belly laughs nationwide. “Bank of America, one of the nation’s largest banks, was found liable on Wednesday of having sold defective mortgages, a jury decision that will be seen as a victory for the government in its aggressive effort to hold banks accountable for their role in the housing crisis.”
“The government,” as a statement of fact so indisputable that it requires neither citation nor reasoning, has been engaged in an “aggressive effort to hold banks accountable for their role in the housing crisis.” There are four clues in the sentence I quoted that indicate that the author knows he’s putting us on, but they are subtle. Third, for what exactly was DOJ “aggressively” holding BoA “accountable?” Benjamin Wagner, a U.S. “They” refers to the CEO. Greg Palast | Investigative Reporter. By Greg Palast for Vice Magazine When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn't believe it.
The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak's fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3% unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears. The Treasury official playing the bankers' secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama's leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world's central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn't be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world.
The memo is authentic. Greg Palast | Investigative Reporter. The Incredible Con the Banksters Pulled on the FBI. Reprinted from neweconomicperspectives.org This is the second in my series of articles based on the FBI's most (2010) "Mortgage Fraud Report. " In my first column I began the explanation of how many analytical conclusions one can draw from a close reading of what is left out of the FBI report. In particular, I emphasized the death of criminal referrals by the SEC and the banking regulatory agencies. The FBI report implicitly confirms the investigative reporting of David Heath that first quantified the death of criminal referrals by the banking regulatory agencies. Because banks will not make criminal referrals against their own CEOs, this means that criminal referrals have virtually vanished against the "accounting control frauds" that drive our recurrent, intensifying financial crises.
[M]any economists still seem not to understand that a combination of circumstances in the 1980s made it very easy to loot a financial institution with little risk of prosecution. Banksters Love Holder; The FBI's 2010 Mortgage Fraud Report Reveals Why.