"The chattering classes still blame desperate borrowers for not reading the fine print, but perhaps they should reserve some vitriol for Wall Street's watchdog. If there's one lesson the commission should have learned long ago, it's that booms aren't fueled by market forces alone, but also by healthy doses of fraud, deception, and unchecked opportunism. And it's invariably everyday folks who pay the price. ‘The SEC, instead of watching Wall Street, insulates it,’ notes Aguirre. ‘The subprime issue is a direct consequence of the sec's failure to act proactively to intercept fraud as it develops.'" www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2008/03/subprime-lendings-smartest-guys-in-the-roomSeveral years ago I went to the theater to see the documentary Smartest Guys in The Room. It was a film about Ken Lay and the crooks who masterminded the massive Enron scandal. While the documentary focused on Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, Richard Causey, Andrew Fastow and the other key players in an elaborate corporate scheme to: bribe elected officials, conspire with Wall Street investment banks to promote and sell risky stocks, rip off their shareholders, manipulate electricity and energy rates and defraud countless people across the county; it also revealed how insiders and well connected white collar criminals use the system to get rich. In the corporate worlds of energy and finance, Skilling, Lay and the Enron upper echelon were held up as Wiz Kids, wunderkind and nicknamed “the smartest guys in the room”. Alas it turned out Lay and company were running a multi-tiered scam, which included international money laundering, securities fraud, energy price rigging and corruption. Enron was noted for the politicians on both sides of the aisle they gave donations to including George W Bu$h. Enron executives like Lay served on Dick Cheney’s super secret energy task force helping to set policy for the country and enriching themselves in the process.The Enron scandal proved to be, along with the Savings and Loan scandal of the ‘80's, the 1929 stock market crash and 1930's Great Depression models the current crooks and con artists used to facilitate the current global economic implosion. The core of the current economic collapse is not the “Subprime mortgage” crisis at all; that’s just for public consumption. At the core of the global economic meltdown is the collapse of the Shadow Financial System, with its “structured financial” transactions, Hedge Funds, derivatives, and exotic sounding entities. These entities are the creation of Ivy League MBA’s, actuarial experts and Wall Street wizards who created innovative ways to used minimal collateral and capital to leverage massive returns while taking advantage of totally unregulated and scrutinized markets. These wiz kids were called “The Smartest Guys in the world.” What they did was set up high stakes casino and Ponzi schemes that used global markets to sell what they called “securtized assets” and “asset backed securities”. These were mortgages, auto, commercial and student loans that has been pooled, bundled, repackages and sold around the world as high yield bonds. Just like the Enron scandal, the bond rating agencies: Standard and Poor, Moody’s and Fitch rated these structured financial entities triple A and vouched for their safety. And just like the Enron swindle there was massive and systemic accounting fraud by the accounting firms, the banks ,Hedge Funds and insurance companies who kept these bonds (especially when they started to unravel and go belly up) off their books so no one really knew how toxic they really were.It is the unraveling of these over-leveraged, debt based transactions that are spreading like a financial sexually transmitted disease throughout the global economy. This contagion is wrecking havoc in Asia, Europe and the US. These rigged casino and Ponzi pyramid schemes like the Madoff rip off are causing the whole economy to grind to frightening halt. The fraud, scams and corruption are so widespread, a total lack of trust and confidence has befallen the system. In a system as rigged and tainted as this one, once trust wanes, it is hard to keep the con game going. Once the suckers realize the game is thoroughly rigged, what’s the uses of playing? That is why the corporate media is busy making excuses for the system. The cable channels like CNN MSNBC and CNBC are trying to keep interest in the stock market alive and working hard to convince the suckers the game is legit. It’s not.I have a question, if these guys were so smart why is the whole system unraveling? If they were as sophisticated and innovative and they claimed; why is global capitalism on the verge of collapse? With all their insider trading, all the collusion, the deliberate deregulation and the SEC falling down on the job (just like the US military and intelligence services fell down on 9-11) one could easily conclude, this was deliberately planned. If the Wall Street Wiz Kids and actuarial experts were so smart with their algorithms and statistical probability and they knew what happened during the “Roaring Twenties”, how inflation wrecked the US economy during the Vietnam War, and they knew about the fraud which took place during the Savings and Loan fiasco and Enron, why is the US about to go belly up?But the real question is, when are the common folks going to get smart, wake up and realize we are being played for chumps and suckers. When are the US taxpayers going to say enough is enough?! When are we going to say we are not going to bail out these crooks and replace the money they’ve stolen from us out of our pockets? When are we going to demand these criminals be held accountable? When are we going to rise up and demand these rip off artists, crooks and corrupt politicians get arrested, have their day in court and go to jail?Food for thought for 2009.-30-

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  • Ture but bernie Madoff isn't the only one who's gotten away with grand theft. The Bu$h family are big time world class criminals. So is Dov Zakheim who facilitated the 3 trillion dollar theft of Depaertment of Defense funds and no one knows where the money is. Like you said they can steal rob and get away Scott free. The can kill innocent people like Oscar Grant the Brother the BART cop lilled in Oakland and not do a day in jail.
    As long as the people are asleep and frozen by fear the real criminals will continue to get away with it. Stay strong!
    JRS
  • The Fascist imperialists are moving to use the "pirate" situation in Somalia as a pretext to establish their AfriCom base on the continent. they desporately want to get a toehold on the continent so they can create further strife as a justifcation to steal the resources and riches. Keep in mind one aspect of the NWO agenda is gloal depopulation. The wars raging across Afria are part and parcle to that plan. Somalia is merely on example, Congo, Chad, Sudan and don't forget the demonization of Mugabe and Zimbabwe that are currently going on are part of that. Stay strong!
    JRS
  • Caricom
    All eyes on me
    Yes Tupac...all eyes on me...Mama Afrika and Africom...

    Watch the necolonist drive in Afrika beginning with Somalia. Foremember that Icent Nubia extended there too. PLAN:...Plant the pirates in Somalia, Ethiopia attack Somalia, dump all nuclear waste in the waters off Somalia then the world navies assemble for the "Grapes of Wrath" against Afrika.

    "Keep it "LIT"
  • Obama is being used by the ruling elites just like Clinton, Ford, Truman, Nixon and the others were. Just like Rome fell AmeriKKKa is falling, only in shorter time. It is by design. The guys like Paulson, Bernanke, Cheney Wolfowitz Rumsfeld and the NeoCons who are supposedly "so smart" have driven the country off a cliff and we are about to take a hard fall. They will probably ramp up the military industrial complex machine (the warfare corporate welfare state) invent a new enemy or threat somewhere (probably Pakistan or Russia) to keep the economy flowing and our minds off of the coming depression.
    JRS
  • At least you are actively attempting with the Bell boycott to bring attention to the murder and redress the ills of police brutality. it will take time because the advarsary has gate keepers, shills and hankerchef heads to do their bidding in our communites. Just stay strong and continue to rumble.
    JRS
  • One component of the New World Order agenda is massive global depopulation via wars, chemical and biological warfare, famine GM seeds/foods, political destablization etc. )Murder, either of one person or millions doesn't make them smarter just more psychopathic. There are reports Connell's friends warned him his plane would be sabotaged. if they didn't get him that way they would have tried another.
    JRS
  • The elites know it's only a matter of time before a significant number of AmeriKKKans wake up and rise up against their lapdogs in Congress and the courts as you pointed out. They are watching the events in Greece with interest. They are well prepared with REX-84, FEMA and Army Labor camps and the military. The question is how many of us can they cow and beat down? There are no white or black revolutionaries out there I'm aware of. But if we band together boycott their corporate products (especially during the coming depression), stop consuming their media and institute massive general strikes and demonstrations like the Montgomery Bus boycott we can be successful. We need righteous leaders who will not sell us out and bend to the white boy's pressure. Don't think in terms of an armed struggle, the fascists are too well armed and they will use mercenaries as well as the state to fight for their interests. The thing is I don't see or hear Africans even contemplating dealing with the coming economic collapse and political lock down or how we are going to save our people from a nation wide Katrina like situation (minus the water). Perhaps such a discussion/action plan will begin here.
    Peace
    Junious
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