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Global Research, March 27, 2008
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Was Alan Greenspan really as dumb as he looks in creating the late housing bubble that threatens to bring the entire Western debt-based economy crashing down? Was something as easy to foresee as this really the trigger for a meltdown that could destroy the world’s financial system? Or was it done, perhaps, "accidentally on purpose"? And if so, why? Let’s turn to the U.S. personage that conspiracy theorists most often mention as being at the epicenter of whatever elite plan is reputed to exist. This would be David Rockefeller, the 92-year-old multibillionaire godfather of the world’s financial elite.
This speech was made 17 years ago. It came at the beginning in the U.S. of the Bill Clinton administration. Rockefeller speaks of an "us." This "us," he says, has been having meetings for almost 40 years. If you add the 17 years since he gave the speech it was 57 years ago—two full generations. Not only has "us" developed a "plan for the world," but the attempt to "develop" the plan has evidently been successful, at least in Rockefeller’s mind. The ultimate goal of "us" is to create "the supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers." This will lead, he says, toward a "world government which will never again know war." Just as an intellectual exercise, let’s assume that David Rockefeller is as important and powerful a person as he seems to think he is. Let’s give the man some credit and assume that he and "us" have in fact succeeded to a degree. This would mean that the major decisions and events since Rockefeller gave the speech in 1991 have probably also been part of the plan or that they have at least represented its features and intent.
The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement by the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations has led to the elimination of millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs as well as the destruction of U.S. family farming in favor of global agribusiness. Similar free trade agreements, including those under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, have led to export of millions of additional manufacturing jobs to China and elsewhere. Average family income in the U.S. has steadily eroded while the share of the nation’s wealth held by the richest income brackets has soared. Some Wall Street hedge fund managers are making $1 billion a year while the number of homeless, including war veterans, pushes a million. The housing bubble has led to a huge inflation of real estate prices in the U.S. Millions of homes are falling into the hands of the bankers through foreclosure. The cost of land and rentals has further decimated family agriculture as well as small business. Rising property taxes based on inflated land assessments have forced millions of lower-and middle-income people and elderly out of their homes. The fact that bankers now control national monetary systems in their entirety, under laws where money is introduced only through lending at interest, has resulted in a massive debt pyramid that is teetering on collapse. This "monetarist" system was pioneered by Rockefeller-family funded economists at the University of Chicago. The rub is that when the pyramid comes down and everyone goes bankrupt the banks which have been creating money "out of thin air" will then be able to seize valuable assets for pennies on the dollar, as J.P. Morgan Chase is preparing to do with the businesses owned by Carlyle Capital. Meaningful regulation of the financial industry has been abandoned by government, and any politician that stands in the way, such as Eliot Spitzer, is destroyed. The total tax burden on Americans from federal, state, and local governments now exceeds forty percent of income and is rising. Today, with a recession starting, the Democratic-controlled Congress, while supporting the minuscule "stimulus" rebate, is hypocritically raising taxes further, even for middle-income earners. Back taxes, along with student loans, can no longer be eliminated by bankruptcy protection. Gasoline prices are soaring even as companies like Exxon-Mobil are recording record profits. Other commodity prices are going up steadily, including food prices, with some countries starting to experience near-famine conditions. 40 million people in America are officially classified as "food insecure." Corporate control of water and mineral resources has removed much of what is available from the public commons, and the deregulation of energy production has led to huge increases in the costs of electricity in many areas. The destruction of family farming in the U.S. by NAFTA (along with family farming in Mexico and Canada) has been mirrored by policies toward other nations on the part of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Around the world, due to pressure from the "Washington consensus," local food self-sufficiency has been replaced by raising of crops primarily for export. Migration off the land has fed the population of huge slums around the cities of underdeveloped countries. Since the 1980s the U.S. has been fighting wars throughout the world either directly or by proxy. The former Yugoslavia was dismembered by NATO. Under cover of 9/11 and by utilizing off-the-shelf plans, the U.S. is now engaged in the military conquest and permanent military occupation of the Middle East. A worldwide encirclement of Russia and China by U.S. and NATO forces is underway, and a new push to militarize space has begun. The Western powers are clearly preparing for at least the possibility of another world war. The expansion of the U.S. military empire abroad is mirrored by the creation of a totalitarian system of surveillance at home, whereby the activities of private citizens are spied upon and tracked by technology and systems which have been put into place under the heading of the "War on Terror." Human microchip implants for tracking purposes are starting to be used. The military-industrial complex has become the nation’s largest and most successful industry with tens of thousands of planners engaged in devising new and better ways, both overt and covert, to destroy both foreign and domestic "enemies." Meanwhile, the U.S. has the largest prison population of any country on earth. Plus everyday life for millions of people is a crushing burden of government, insurance, and financial fees, charges, and paperwork. And the simplest business transactions are burdened by rake-offs for legions of accountants, lawyers, bureaucrats, brokers, speculators, and middlemen. Finally, the deteriorating conditions of everyday life have given rise to an extraordinary level of stress-related disease, as well as epidemic alcohol and drug addiction. Governments themselves around the world engage in drug trafficking. Instead of working to lower stress levels, public policy is skewed in favor of an enormous prescription drug industry that grows rich off the declining level of health through treatment of symptoms rather than causes. Many of these heavily-advertised medications themselves have devastating side-effects. This list should at least give us enough to go on in order to ask a hard question. Assuming again that all these things are parts of the elitist plan which Mr. Rockefeller boasts to have been developing, isn’t it a little strange that the means which have been selected to achieve "peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity" involve so much violence, deception, oppression, exploitation, graft, and theft? In fact it looks to me as though "our plan for the world" is one that is based on genocide, world war, police control of populations, and seizure of the world’s resources by the financial elite and their puppet politicians and military forces. In particular, could there be a better way to accomplish all this than what appears to be a concentrated plan to remove from people everywhere in the world the ability to raise their own food? After all, genocide by starvation may be slow, but it is very effective. Especially when it can be blamed on "market forces." And can it be that the "us" which is doing all these things, including the great David Rockefeller himself, are just criminals who have somehow taken over the seats of power? If so, they are criminals who have done everything they can to watch their backs and cover their tracks, including a chokehold over the educational system and the monopolistic mainstream media.
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Richard C. Cook is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Richard C. Cook |
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Is An International Financial Conspiracy Driving World Events?
Posted on Friday, March 28 at 11:39 by C.M. Burns
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When one has a greater grasp on the definition of communism they will begin to to se it does in deed work. The definition we were sold is a setup backed by the power elites
It's in the book!
"And can it be that the "us" which is doing all these things, including the great David Rockefeller himself, are just criminals who have somehow taken over the seats of power? If so, they are criminals who have done everything they can to watch their backs and cover their tracks, including a chokehold over the educational system and the monopolistic mainstream media.
One thing is certain: The voters of America have never knowingly agreed to any of this."
Richard C. Cook's unique position qualifies him to speak with authority.
And what he spoke of is a conspiracy to control
Their chokehold over the educational system and the monopolistic mainstream media as well as law courts, legislation,health care big pharma et al is well documented and I have been speaking to that at the risk of "time outs" suspension and outright bannishment.
The power elites touch every aspect of society, world wide.
The thing about Conspiracies, is that they tend to try and not be obvious or known. On the flipside, many Conspiracies are merely the imaginations of Theorists who see an event and try to understand how such a thing could occur. These Theorists are often on the verge of paranoia and thus "see" Conspiricists everywhere pulling strings and causing "events".
I don't doubt that many conspire this or that, but most times an Event is just an Event and not the workings of power mad Individuals/Groups.
"I don't doubt that many conspire this or that, but most times an Event is just an Event and not the workings of power mad Individuals/Groups."
Dio edits
"I don't doubt that many conspire this or that, and most times an Event is just the workings of power mad Individuals/Groups."
What is happening in the financial markets is enormously complex and could not possibly be "planned" by anyone.
The problems in financial markets today are due to incompetence and the human nature of greed.
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/11/9/c ... ic_hit_man
"20 years ago Perkins began writing a book with the working title, “Conscience of an Economic Hit Men.”
Perkins writes, "The book was to be dedicated to the presidents of two countries, men who had been his clients whom I respected and thought of as kindred spirits–Jaime Roldós, president of Ecuador, and Omar Torrijos, president of Panama. Both had just died in fiery crashes. Their deaths were not accidental. They were assassinated because they opposed that fraternity of corporate, government, and banking heads whose goal is global empire. We Economic Hit Men failed to bring Roldós and Torrijos around, and the other type of hit men, the CIA-sanctioned jackals who were always right behind us, stepped in."
http://www.adb.org/Documents/Periodical ... historical
"Some Historical Bubbles
Perhaps the earliest modern bubble was the Dutch tulip craze in the 1600s, when supposedly rare tulip bulbs were traded at such increasingly ludicrous prices that some good burghers were willing to trade the family farm for a single bulb. They may have believed the bulb was really worth this amount; more likely they hoped that a bigger fool would later give two farms for the bulb. The bursting of the bubble led to enormous personal financial distress but established the tulip industry, which is still an important export market for The Netherlands.
At the peak, the value of the land in metropolitan Tokyo was supposedly greater than that of all the United States
Britain—as the first country to industrialize on the basis of stock market finance—had a history of bubbles in the 19th century, based on canal and railway finance, first in Britain, and then increasingly overseas as investment followed the flag. But it is in the United States (US) where the largest bubbles have occurred at regular intervals over the past 200 years. These major speculative bubbles have usually been related to the introduction of new technology that promised untold economic growth and riches.
The building of the cross-country railroads and the opening of the western US led to the greatest speculation in the 19th century. Unlimited visions of easy wealth attracted money from around the world for financial propositions that were never viable, with small investors almost inevitably ruined by the resulting collapse. Some railroads survived, but often the survivors became successful enterprises only through mergers and recapitalizations in the wake of the crash. Initial investors saw little or no return.
The US boom of the 1920s had as its rationale the introduction of electric power utilities and promises of new efficiencies for an urbanizing and industrializing population—financed through the stock market. Although they were essentially mundane businesses with modest and predictable rates of return, they were increasingly packaged as high-return instruments through an early form of financial engineering—speculative and had no earnings and no realistic earnings expectation, companies were “valued” at multiples of possible distant revenues. leverage investment trusts—to increase their appeal with promises of instant wealth. The inevitable collapse and its aftermath have been well documented."
http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_ord ... ressio.htm
http://www.seobook.com/archives/001772.shtml
England was at war for 56 of the first 119 years after the bank of England was created. Many banks finance both sides of a war. Many times the loans are placed with the guarantee that the winner will pay the debts of the loser.
Nathan Rothschild had started selling English stocks and bonds after the defeat of Napoleon to misdirect the market while he secretly started buying assets at a fraction of the price. As Napoleon Bonaparte stated:
The hand that gives is above the hand that takes. money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency: their sole object is gain.
Ernest Seyd admitted that in 1872 he was set to bribe US congressmen to demonetize silver. By 1873 gold was the only accepted form of coin money in the US. Since gold was quite scarce and monopolized, putting America on the gold standard allowed the owners of gold to manipulate the markets.
In 1933 private ownership of gold in the US was confiscated by the government (for the price of $20.66 an ounce). After most gold was turned in the price per ounce was raised to $35, but only foreigners could sell gold at the new higher price. Then over the years gold was likely smuggled out of Fort Knox to wealthy foreigners associated with international bankers at cheap prices. In 1982 Regan commissioned a group to study the feasibility of going back to a gold standard. They reported that the US treasury had no gold at the time. This is a perfect example of why true patriots chose to fight or ignore bad laws.
In 1891 the American Bankers Associate sent out a memo stating that on September 1st 1894 they would cause a deep depression to seize assets at pennies on the dollars. And it happened.
There has been a nongovernment ran US central bank at least 4 times. In 1913 the current one was put in place. WWI occurred a year after the federal reserve was created. Within the first 25 years of its existence the Federal Reserve caused 3 major economic downturns, including the great depression.
http://www.gata.org/node/5593
Central banking's main purpose now is market suppression
Submitted by cpowell on Wed, 2007-10-03 05:54. Section: Daily Dispatches
1:45a ET Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
The Financial Times story, appended here, about the eurozone's alarm at its strengthening currency suggests a few things:
1) Worldwide currency devaluations are ahead -- competitive devaluations if cooperative ones cannot be arranged.
2) Eurozone central bankers are getting awfully sarcastic about the U.S. government's supposed "strong dollar policy," but sarcasm is not likely to get them anywhere. The Europeans remain the craven stooges of the American empire even as it starts to fall of its own weight.
3) The most important developments in the world economy now are plainly currency market manipulations by governments, increasingly undertaken shamelessly, in the open. That is, when the central banks work together in the name of preventing "exchange rate volatility," as the FT reports here, they are actually undertaking to rig all sorts of markets everywhere. Indeed, the primary purpose of international central banking now is to prevent markets from breaking out and thereby undoing the venality of the central bankers themselves.
4) Notice in the FT's reporting here and in nearly all financial market reporting how it is simply taken for granted that everything the central banks do in the name of stabilizing markets is done in secret -- from the G7 meetings cited in the FT story to the distribution lately of ever-more-fantastic amounts of public credit to private financial houses. The central bankers are conjuring up and passing out all the money in the world to a financial aristocracy whose only claim on the money is that it has taken the rest of the world hostage. Yet the proletariat, which does the actual work of the world, is not to inquire into the particulars. And how would the proletariat even know to do so when the press itself doesn't try?
All this is simply ruthless expropriation on a planetary scale -- and yet it is portrayed as the natural order of things.
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
* * *
I can do this all day long
the evidence is counter to your claims
I think the conspiracy theorists will latch onto anything and to rationalize to themselves a conspiracy.
What is happening in the financial markets is enormously complex and could not possibly be "planned" by anyone.
The problems in financial markets today are due to incompetence and the human nature of greed.
Hmm? not planned no conspiracy?
Scandals involving Central Banks
"To a foreign exchange trader with access to large sums of money, and the cover of regular dealings in the market, having a mole in G7 was like having the key to the central vaults at Fort Knox."
Nest of Vipers by Linda Davies
Nest of Vipers, a novel dealing with MI6, insider trading involving central banks and the finance ministers of the G7 countries (now the G8) was written before the allegations below regarding real cases in central banks came to light. However insider trading is only one of the types of scandals that have hit the pillars of the international financial system.
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Central Bank Corruption in General
Non-Benevolent Central Banks
A paper by Johann Graf Lambsdorff and Michael Schinke of the Center for Globalization and Europeanization of the Economy (CeGE) in the University of Göttingen. In this discussion paper they consider the effects of central bank corruption on the economy which, they point out, can be a source of distorted central bank policy that leads to inflation; distrusting a corrupt central bank can be helpful in reducing this distortion. They also note that although giving central banks a high level of independence shields them from troublesome political interference it also provides the leeway necessary to carry out corrupt transactions.
International Monetary Fund
Abramovich is being investigated
The Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich, and his Runicom trading group, was one of the key suspects in the lingering mystery over the possible misuse of a $4.8 billion loan from the IMF to Russia. This is an edited version of a story originally published in the Times, 16 August 2004.
World Bank
Blowing the World Bank Whistle
Blowing the World Bank Whistle is an ongoing effort which started in 2004 with a Parliamentary Commission study into a World Bank financed project in the Republic of Armenia, and it continues on to an effort to persuade the Bank’s watchdog organisation, the Department of Institutional Integrity (INT), to instigate a full investigation into the wide-ranging and high-level fraud, corruption and embezzlement, exposed by the study.
World Bank President Resigns
The World Bank website contains a statement by the Executive Directors and a statement by the President of the Bank, Paul Wolfowitz about his career in the Bank and his resignation. May 17, 2007.
Wolfowitz's girlfriend problem
Not only did the World Bank president find his companion Shaha Ali Riza a cushy job in the State Department, but she received a security clearance - unprecedented for a foreign national in the United States. Sidney Blumenthal, Salon, April 19, 2007.
Wolfowitz email backfires
An attempt by the World Bank president, Paul Wolfowitz, to reach out to disaffected and angry employees backfired with a new wave of outrage at the pay rises and promotion given to his partner. Guardian, April 11, 2007.
Combating Corruption in the Multilateral Development Banks
Hearings held by the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
World Bank corruption may exceed $100 billion
Senator Richard Lugar, at a hearing on corruption at the multilateral development banks,cited experts who calculated that between $26 billion and $130 billion of the money lent by the World Bank for development projects since 1946 has been misused. May 13, 2004.
See the links on insider trading below for more details of allegations against the World Bank.
MI6 and Foreign Financial Institutions
The secret reality of spying on allies
An intriguing snippet of Treasury information, clearly not intended for wider circulation, has exposed an apparent covert British intelligence operation in 1993 against the French. The Times, February 10, 2005.
MI6 Spied on the Bundesbank
A former British secret agent, Richard Tomlinson, has alleged that MI6 had a spy in the Bundesbank code-named Orcada, who provided inside information on Germany's proposed interest rate movements.
Insider Trading
Leaks from the Bundesbank
In one of his rants, dated 2 January 2003, "Mr Angry" briefly mentioned a case in the late 1980s involving Achim Schmidt, a broker who was well informed about decisions of the Bundesbank because the secretary Karl Otto Pöhl, the governor, supplied him with advance transcripts of her bosses speeches.
U.S. Hedge Fund Supposedly Knew About Intervention
The newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on 27 September 2000, rumours that a leak of information from a central bank outside the Euro zone led to Citibank, one of the leading currency traders worldwide, buying up euros in large volumes for a U.S. hedge fund company.
World Bank Clears Ex-Aide of Disclosing Secret Data
The World Bank said this week that an eight-month investigation found no evidence to support allegations that a former Russian representative, Leonid Grigoriev, passed confidential information to a Russian commercial bank in 1993, although it did conclude that he had established a business relationship with Inkombank. New York Times, July 8, 2000.
Dangerous Liaisons
The World Bank is investigating allegations that Leonid Grigoriev passed on inside information to a Russian bank, Inkombank, enabling it to make large profits in various deals. October 1999.
Chilean Central Bank president resigns
Carlos Massad, Chile’s Central Bank president resigned on 31 March 2003 following a string of financial scandals involving the stealing of privileged information from his office by unreliable staff.
The Case of the Central Banker's E-Mail
Banco Central de Chile Governor Carlos Massad is on the hot seat, thanks to a scam involving confidential messages being passed to an investor. The governor's secretary, Pamela Andrada, is said to have passed the information to Enzo Bertinelli, the general manager of Inverlink. According to some other reports Andrada and Bertinelli were lovers. Business Week, February 11, 2003.
Congressional investigations could damage the administrations economic efforts
Investigations into claims that Salvatore Cacciola paid to get inside information from the Brazilian Central Bank. May 2001.
Former president of the Brazilian central bank arrested
Francisco Lopes, a former president of the Brazilian central bank, was arrested on 26 April 1999 after refusing to testify in a probe into allegations of insider trading on the foreign exchange market.
N.B. He was later released and the charges dropped.
Former Brazil bank chief to testify
Francisco Lopes changed his mind about testifying.
Brazil: Congressional corruption probe may be resurrected
The Brazilian government may have to re-open the investigations into claims that Salvatore Cacciola blackmailed former central bank head Chico Lopes who was allegedly selling information on exchange rate and interest rate policies to bankers ahead of the local currency devaluation in 1999. May 21, 2001.
The Vatican Bank and Banco Ambrosiano
One of the most long-running of all financial scandals. See Classic Financial Scandals for information sources.
The Bank of France and the European Central Bank
Acquittal clears Trichet's path to European Bank
Jacques Chirac, the French president, will formally propose Jean-Claude Trichet as the next head of the European Central Bank this week after the governor of the Bank of France was acquitted on charges of complicity in the Crédit Lyonnais banking scandal. Guardian, June 19, 2003.
Jean-Claude Trichet: Banker in a bind
A review of the career of the head of the Banque de France, and heir-apparent to the president of the European Central Bank, who is one of nine defendants on trial over irregularities at Credit Lyonnais, one of France's biggest banks. BBC, 6 January 2003.
The Central Bank of Nigeria and the Fashanu Report
Tracking The Fashanu Report
Information about the claims of John Fashanu, London-based former soccer star and now a successful businessman, to have uncovered a $17 billion debt-buy-scam perpetrated on Nigeria ostensibly by the very people who should have been guarding the country's money. April 10, 2000.
The Real Story about John Fashanu's so-called Private Investigator
A defence of Bob Minton who was criticised in the Fashanu Report. Nigeria Today, 27 August 2000.
Senate Committee says Nigeria saved $5 Billion from 1988-93 debt buyback scheme
The Nigerian Senate defended the scheme, criticised in the Fashanu Report, whereby the Central Bank of Nigeria used the offshore company, Greenland Holdings in buying back debt.
Central Banks of Other Countries and other types of scandals
Gono now a serious national security threat
Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono is described as the head of the “corporate aristocracy” who dominates the speculative economy in Zimbabwe. 31 December 2007.
Gono funded Grace Mugabe extravagancet
Gideon Gono, now the governor of Zimbabwe's reserve bank, personally raised thousands of US dollars to fund first lady Grace Mugabe's foreign shopping sprees when he was chief executive of one of the country's largest commercial banks. 11 September 2006.
Russia’s central bank faces reform calls amid claims of corruption and murder
The Russian Finance Ministry is meeting senior figures from the banking sector this week to discuss making reforms to the country’s central bank. The move comes as the central bank has become subject to intense scrutiny and found itself at the centre of allegations of corruption and even murder. The Times April 4, 2007.
Russian central banker shot dead
Andrei Kozlov,deputy chairman of Russia's Central Bank died after being gunned down by two assailants. His driver was also killed. The authorities were looking at the possibility that criminals involved in money laundering may have been behind the killing. CNN, September 14, 2006.
Bank of England deputy governor faces calls to resign - report
Sir John Gieve, deputy governor of the Bank of England, is being pressed to resign following revelations of financial mismanagement at the Home Office, where he was permanent secretary. The Independent on Sunday, 30 April 2006.
Brazil Central Bank Robbed of $67 Million in Bills
Brazil's central bank was robbed of 156 million reais ($67.3 million) by thieves who dug a 200 meter tunnel under the bank's office in the northeastern city of Fortaleza. Bloomberg, 8 August 2005.
Brazil chief banker urged to quit
Henrique Meirelles, the Governor of Brazil's Central Bank is coming under mounting pressure to resign following new allegations about his financial affairs. BBC, 6 August 2004.
Brazil's central bank rocked by resignation
Luiz Augusto Candiota, the director of monetary policy at Brazil's central bank, has resigned amid accusations of tax evasion that have also focused on the bank's president. July 2004.
Argentina's banking scandal deepens
A congressional committee originally set up to investigate accusations that the governor, Pedro Pou, had failed to investigate cases of alleged money laundering through Argentina's financial system will also investigate the bank's directors. The BBC, 21 February, 2001.
Berlin steps into Bundesbank row
Bundesbank chief Ernst Welteke stepped down temporarily after it was revealed that he accepted a stay in a luxury hotel from a bank he regulates. Now the Finance Ministry wants him to resign. BBC, 8 April 2004.
Bank of Italy governor Antonio Fazio steps down
Antonio Fazio, who is under criminal investigation, has succumbed to months of intense pressure and handed in his resignation. Scotsman, 20 December 2005.
Fazio, humiliated, still fails to take the hint
The refusal of Italy's central-bank chief, Antonio Fazio, to resign over a banking scandal has led to extraordinary scenes at an international finance meeting in Washington, in which Mr Fazio was openly mocked by Giulio Tremonti, Italy's new finance minister, and then stripped of his authority to represent the country. The Economist, September 26, 2005.
Italy bank chief will not quit
Bank of Italy governor Antonio Fazio has no plans to resign, despite growing pressure from government ministers, a central bank spokesman has said. Mr Fazio has been accused of favouring an Italian bank in a cross-border bid battle. BBC. 5 September 2005.
Bank of Italy's Fazio Investigated for Aiding Fraud, Ansa Says
Antonio Fazio, Italy's central bank governor, is likely to hang on to his authority in spite of being included in a fraud investigation, according to analysts. Prosecutors have announced that Fazio had been placed under investigation on suspicion of abetting suspected fraud in bond sales by Banca 121, a unit of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Bloomberg, February 24, 2004.
Royal Mint boss cleared of fraud
A Royal Mint manager awarded an OBE for distinguished services has been cleared of charges of striking a secret deal with the governor of the Central Bank of Gambia of an African bank in a commission scam. BBC, 21 September 2005.
Royal Mint manager 'pocketed fortune' with Central Bank of Gambia contract
A Royal Mint manager allegedly struck an illicit deal with the head of the Central Bank of Gambia to share commission payments in return for a substantial re-coinage contract. Western Mail, September 13, 2005.
Gambia Central Bank Five Paraded for Trial
Five individuals formerly in the senior cadre of the Central Bank, including the ex-governor and the former manager of the bank's foreign exchange department have been put on trial in the Gambia for alleged illegal foreign exchange transactions. March 1, 2004.
Dodgy rumours
The governor of the Bank of Canada, David Dodge, was criticised because of a financial scandal involving the Ministry of Health that took place when he was the Minister for Health. November 2003.
Saddam 'took $1bn from bank'
Saddam Hussein ordered his son to take about $1bn in cash from the Iraqi Central Bank just hours before the first bombs fell on Baghdad, the United States has said. BBC, 6 May 2003.
The Social Contradictions of Japanese Capitalism
An article by Murray Sayle in the Atlantic Monthly, June 1998, in which he discusses Japan's financial problems, including the arrest of a high official of the Bank of Japan on a charge of bribery - the first-ever arrest in the Japanese central bank's 116-year history.
What Next Japan?
The fall of the central bank chief, who took responsibility for alleged wrongdoing at the bank following the arrest of an official there on bribery charges, damages the bureaucrats and boosts the power of politicians.
Kenya: Corruption Scandal
The Goldenberg export compensation scandal cost Kenya billions of shillings in the early 1990s. According to witnesses at the commission's hearings, as much as 60 billion Kenyan shillings (US$850 million) - a fifth of Kenya's gross domestic product - was looted from the country's Central Bank through Kamlesh Pattni's Exchange Bank.
Central Bank of Kenya Staff Implicated in Fraud
Managers at the Central Bank of Kenya uncovered a fraud involving some of their own staff. Detectives from CBK's Anti-Fraud Unit are tracking down CBK staffers who masterminded the scandal. A report from the Daily Nation, November 19, 1999.
Former Indonesian central banker jailed
A former director of the Indonesian Central Bank, Heru Supraptomo, has been jailed for three years after being found guilty of corruption. BBC, 4 April 2003.
Central Reserve Bank of Peru and BCCI
In 1992 the New York District Attorney claimed that in 1986 and 1987, BCCI president Abedi and number two official, Swaleh Naqvi, opened a bank account in a Swiss bank in Panama to "transmit bribes and kickbacks in the amount of a percentage of the deposits maintained by the Central Reserve Bank of Peru to the two senior officers of that bank," in a total amount of $3 million, in return for Peru maintaining large central bank deposits in BCCI.
Indonesia's bankchief found guilty
The head of the Indonesian central bank was convicted of stealing 904 billion rupiah (£63 million) of Bank Indonesia funds in 1999 that were meant to be given to a local bank, Bank Bali, but was used by the then president, BJ Habibie, in his failed attempt to get re-elected. The banker claims he was framed by the new president. The Guardian, 14 March 2002.
Court acquits Indonesian banker
The Indonesian court of appeal has overturned a corruption conviction passed on the Central Bank governor, Sjahril Sabirin. BBC, 29 August, 2002.
Collapse of the National Bank of Fiji
The National Bank of Fiji crisis was, to date, the biggest financial scandal in Fiji. In mid-1995 the state owned bank was running bad and doubtful debts of at least $90 million. The figure progressively rose to $220 million, or 8 percent of Fiji's GDP.
The Economy: Scandal at the bank
The Russian prosecutor's office has accused central bank officials of secretly putting more than $50bn into the virtually-unknown offshore accounts of a company called Fimaco, based in a tax haven off in the Channel Islands. BBC February 11, 1999.
Fimaco Wouldn't Die: Russia's Missing Billions
An article claiming that Russia's Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance were involved in the decision to use Fimaco, a secret to manage some of the funds the International Monetary Fund lent to Russia in 1993.
Russia: Central Bank Under Scrutiny For Hiding Assets
Russia’s Central Bank is under close scrutiny following allegations that it channelled some $50 billion of hard currency reserves to a tiny, offshore company Financial Management Co. (FIMACO) based in Jersey, from 1993 to 1997.
Cubans clamber for fabled fortune
Does the Bank of England owe descendants of a Spanish nobleman $30-billion? National Post, March 31, 2001.
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U.S. considers overhaul of financial industry
Saturday, March 29, 2008 | 1:09 AM ET
The Associated Press
The U.S. government is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the way the nation's financial industry is regulated.
In an effort to deal with the problems highlighted by the current severe credit crisis, the new plan would give major new powers to the Federal Reserve, according to a 22-page executive summary of the proposal obtained Friday by the Associated Press.
The proposal would designate the Fed as the primary regulator of market stability, greatly expanding the central bank's ability to examine not just commercial banks but all segments of the financial services industry.
<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/03/29/federal-reserve.html">source</a>
For this to have been a conspiracy, the conspirators must have, over a decade ago, convinced central bankers to not respond to asset bubbles, to instead convince them that the proper course of action was to respond to asset bubbles by lowering interest rates and gun the monetary base, which would have created not one but at least three global asset bubbles in ten years. Then, you would have to convince dozens of banks to create structured products and over 10,000 institutional investors across the planet to buy opaque structures that yielded 50 basis points above comparable-rated paper. Then, to supply the structured product, you would have had to convince thousands of banks - large and small - to lower credit standards to a point so that basically, if you were breathing you could get a mortgage. Then, you would have to convince the ratings agencies to deviate from their process by which to rate credit, sovereign and municipal debt and instead to convince them to rate structured products based on Monte Carlo simulations and probability theories based on past history of which there was no past history on subprime mortgages, particularly for collateralized debt obligations rated AAA comprising of mezzanine residential mortgage backed securities. Then you would have to convince the monoline insurers, based on the same assumptions - of which there was no history - to assume the liabilities above certain attachment points for any losses on CDOs.
You see what I'm saying? Do you understand how enormously complex this system is? You wouldn't even have to convince all these actors, just some of them, and that is statistically improbable.
Yes, I see what you're saying. Unfortunately, I disagree. You're making some very big assumptions about the players in the conspiracy. It's not necessary for 'everyone' to be involved. It's not even clear that 'everyone' is on the same side. Money will follow the market. A market was made, deliberately, and 'everyone' followed. With respect, the foundations of your analysis are flawed.
BTW - I do have a very good idea about the size of the problem. I worked as a programmer analyst for one of the largest financial services companies in Boston - I designed a securities lending system (> $1 billion traded) for their Treasury. I also worked for one of the largest financial services companies in the US - in the transfer accounting and audit control division (> $1 trillion under management).
Check the following article out and then ask yourself, who got Bear Stearns for a song?
J.P. Morgan!
Yes, I know the deal has been amended, but 39.5% of the company @ $10/share is still a... steal
The Financial Tsunami, Part IV.
Endgame: Unregulated Private Money Creation
by William F. Engdahl
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... a&aid=8032
Their attraction was that it was all off the bank’s own books, hence away from the Basle Accord’s 8% capital rules. The goal was to increase bank returns while eliminating the risk, a kind of "having your cake and eating it too," something which in the real world can only be very messy.
J.P.Morgan thereby paved the way to transform US banking away from traditional commercial lenders to traders of credit, in effect, into securitizers. The new idea was to enable the banks to shift risks off their balance sheets by pooling their loans and remarketing them as securities, while buying default insurance, Credit Default Swaps, after syndicating the loans for their clients. It was to prove a staggering development, soon to hit volumes measured in the trillions for the banks. By the end of 2007 there were an estimated $45,000 billion worth of Credit Default Swap contracts out there, giving bondholders the illusion of security. That illusion, however, was built on bank risk models of default assumptions which are not public and, if like other such risk models, were wildly optimistic. Yet the mere existence of the illusion was sufficient to lead the major banks of the world, lemming-like, into buying mortgage bonds collateralized or backed by streams of mortgage payments from unknown credit quality, and to accept at face value a Moody’s or Standard & Poors AAA rating.
Just as Greenspan as new Fed chairman turned to his old cronies at J.P. Morgan when he wanted to grant a loophole to the strict Glass-Steagall Act in 1987, and as he turned to J.P. Morgan to covertly work with the Fed to buy derivatives on the Chicago MMI stock index to artificially manipulate a recovery from the October 1987 crash, so the Greenspan Fed worked with J.P. Morgan and a handful of other trusted friends on Wall Street to support the launch of securitization in the 1990’s, as it became clear what the staggering potentials were for the banks who were first and who could shape the rules of the new game, the New Finance.
It was J.P. Morgan & Co. that led the march of the big money center banks beginning 1995 away from traditional customer bank lending towards the pure trading of credit and of credit risk. The goal was to amass huge fortunes for the bank’s balance sheet without having to carry the risk on the bank’s books, an open invitation to greed, fraud and ultimate financial disaster. Almost every major bank in the world, from Deutsche Bank to UBS to Barclays to Royal Bank of Scotland to Societe Generale soon followed like eager blind lemmings.
None however came close to the handful of US banks which came to create and dominate the new world of securitization after 1995, as well as of derivatives issuance. The banks, led by J.P. Morgan, first began to shift credit risk off the bank balance sheets by pooling credits and remarketing portfolios, buying default protection after syndicating loans for clients. The era of New Finance had begun. Like every major "innovation" in finance, it began slowly.
Very soon after, the new securitizing banks such as J.P. Morgan began to create portfolios of debt securities, then to package and sell off tranches based on default probabilities. "Slice and dice" was the name of the new game, to generate revenue for the issuing underwriting bank, and to give "customized risk to return" results for investors. Soon Asset Backed Securities, Collateralized Debt Securities, even emerging market debt were being bundled and sold off in tranches.
On November 2, 1999, only ten days before Bill Clinton signed the Act repealing Glass-Steagall, thereby opening the doors for money center banks to acquire brokerage business, investment banks, insurance companies and a variety of other financial institutions without restriction, Alan Greenspan turned his attention to encouraging the process of bank securitization of home mortgages.
I highly recommend this rather complete analysis of the current financial meltdown by William F. Engdahl which can be found at GlobalResearch.ca
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... me=Engdahl
It starts here:
The Financial Tsunami: Sub-Prime Mortgage Debt is but the Tip of the Iceberg
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... a&aid=7413
The article you post is one about ideology of the regulators and the failure of regulation. It is not about a conspiracy.
I am a money manager for an institution that has been hit my the collapse of the structured products market. You may have even read about us in the MSM. I have been asked to join the fixed income desk to help clean up the mess. I see it first hand, every day. I could see this coming, and kept my group out of this when we had some bulge-bracket firm try to sell us some of this shit a year ago.
It is absolutely massive and complex, and there is no way that any sort of conspiracy could be contrived to do this. To see this coming, all you had to do was understand financial markets history, understand the potency of leverage, and recognize a mania.
Indeed, good post, Dio. Thanks for the feedeback, Milton!
To see this coming, all you had to do was understand financial markets history, understand the potency of leverage, and recognize a mania.
And yet they went ahead and did it anyway!
Why?
I think you miss the main point of my posts, perhaps that's my fault, they're spread all over the place. The first point has to do with the nature of conspiracy. I think we have different ideas about its meaning.
The point of the Engdahl post is to illuminate some simple facts.
J.P. Morgan
The Fed/Greenspan
They all clearly understood what would happen if etc., as you did.
JP Morgan is a commercial bank
Bear Stearns is an investment bank, now controlled by JP Morgan.
re: the proposed changes
"In the medium term, Paulson proposes (among many other changes):
- Eliminating the distinction between thrifts and banks under federal law."
from the LA Times
The new Fed regulations appear to allow the takeover of thrifts via harmonization of banking regs/changes in the law.
Right now there are very different laws/regs for commercial banks, investment houses and thrifts, as I am sure you're well aware. What position will JP Morgan be in after these proposed reg changes? It will be in the position to swallow up as many thrifts as it can afford. It has already acquired the fifth largest investment house.
The conspiracy, as I see it, is to consolidate control of the financial system in as few hands as possible. If this plan is eventually approved there will be little standing in the way of the largest banks in the US from taking near total control of the financial system and the economy of the US of A.
I'm sure that you will admit that the proposed changes are sweeping and would put the Fed and it's member banks in the most powerful position they or the world have ever seen.