....and in the Darkness Bind Them.
Sauron (a.k.a Ben Bernanke) has labored long in his tower, with many late night talks with Saruman (a.k.a. Timothy Geithner) via the power of the Palantir (the communication stone of the FOMC). Sauron has stirred his power to forge the Ring of the FRN (a.k.a. the Federal Reserve), the mighty One Ring which will serve to find all of the banks and money in the world, and in the darkness bind them.
This mighty token, this Ring of the FRN, will also magically bind all of the gaping wounds of the Palantir, and knit its sinews together with magic.
For another Ring exists, the Ring of the Gold. Sauron desperately hides the Ring of the Gold, for to wear it shows the Ring of the FRN for the pale imitation that it is. He cannot destroy the Ring of the Gold, for it is too powerful, but Sauron does have the power to hide it and make it appear as if it had disappeared from the monetary landscape.
Saruman, who is really Gollum in disguise, lusts after this Ring of the FRN. It was partly his to wield in the past, when he occupied a throne, I mean a post, in the inner sanctum of the Palantir. He was ousted from Sauron's presence to appear in the court of Denethor, the Steward of Gondor (a.k.a. the President of the US).
Sauron told him that this was a boon, a reward if you will, for faithful service in the courts of the FOMC, but in truth it was to remove a jealous and distrusted servant. Sauron may have even thought "good riddance. Denethor's court needs a jester, and he will distract that annoying Frodo".
The Ring of the FRN is slowing calling all of its minions to it. Its power is increasing, and increasingly all is laid bare before it. Sauron invests it with more and more of his power, it is his one and only "tool". All other "tools" are merely different variations on a theme.
Sauron wears only the Ring of the FRN as he goes out to survey his domain (a.k.a appear before Congressional Hearings). He chuckles to himself as the Orcs (a.k.a. Congress) grovel before him. He even allows them to put on a show of "questioning" him and "grilling" him. These Orcs are his creatures, bound by the Ring of the FRN. The few Elf Lords (a.k.a. Ron Paul) are mostly powerless, since the Ring of The Gold has been hidden for ages past.
Frodo (a.k.a. the American Public) has gained possession of this false Ring of the FRN, and doesn't know it. He is told by the wise and kindly Gandalf (a.k.a. GATA) that this ring is his to destroy. Gandalf urges him to go to Mount Orodruin (a.k.a. the Constitution) and throw the false Ring of the FRN into the refining fire of this moutain. The Ring of the Gold would then be freed from Sauron's grasp and immediately would cast its light. Frodo would then be the Ring-Wielder, transforming the drear and seared landscape of Orthanc (a.k.a the United States).
Frodo begins his quest, with fear and trembling. He is not sure that Gandalf knows whereof he speaks, but Frodo's pain is so great that he is willing to endure the journey.....
Is there an Aragorn among us? If so, would he kindly step forward, pick up his sword, mount his steed and go valiantly to meed the Orcs?
(I ask the pardon of everyone who is a fan of Tolkien for this mangling of his epic tale of greed, lust, power and redemption. I would that our Frodo would have the courage of Tolkien's Frodo. We need an Aragorn to come and lead the charge.)
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
When Only Martha Stewart went to Jail
I must say at the outset, that while I bear no particular animus toward Martha Stewart, I am not really a fan. My idea of decorating is to make sure that the place is clean, otherwise I am more of a function over form type person.
I reflect on her, though, because of the recent escapades of financial foolery prominent in the press. Poor Martha goes to jail over a $100,000 insider trade (!) while Bernie Madoff awaits, ahem, justice (I can't even write that with a straight face) in his penthouse. I really, truly, am glad that Martha bounced back, went on with her life, got her groove back so to speak. Many that Madoff touched won't do as well. Bernie gets his penthouse, many of his clients will get the poorhouse.
What a buffoon. But then, he is in very good company.
But back to Martha. The 7-16-2006 posting of money.cnn.com reported:
"While comparatively small in terms of the dollars at stake and the gravity of the crime, Stewart's obstruction of justice case has been a powerful public relations vehicle for government officials to send the broad message that corporate malfeasance will not be tolerated."
Now that had to be hard to write with a straight face. Or perhaps I am judging yesterday with today's wisdom.
Because we are witnessing "corporate malfeasance" on a scale never envisioned by law makers. Government prosecutors are reluctant to attempt to bring the big boys to justice when those same prosecutors hope to get a job with a big house after their government stint.
The revolving door policies of the alphabet soup of government regulatory agencies from government "service" to private sector to academia and back again foster only judicial incest, not impartial justice.
From the same CNN article Stewart said "I didn't cheat the little people. ... We're all little people. I didn't cheat anybody out of anything." She's right, almost. MOST of us are little people. Leona Helmsley once quipped that "only the little people pay taxes".
So that leaves a small percentage of "big people", similar in nature but larger in scale, to the so-called "one percenters" of the motorcycle gang world. These "one percenter" types of the financial world, (well I won't say they don't pay taxes, but I would love to see their income tax returns), are very large indeed, and very busy, lurching from one disaster to the next.
They might not be guilty of corporate malfeasance, and we will almost assuredly never know if they are, but they certainly are tried and found guilty in the court of public opinion.
Citigroup has had to cancel its order for a new $50 million corporate jet; poor babies, I do wonder how they will bear up. This is upon orders of the new Treasury Czar, Timothy Geithner. He at least has the advantage of not being a Goldie, at least not yet.
There is nothing wrong with being rich. There is nothing wrong with ordering a $50 million corporate jet. What is wrong is cheating and committing fraud to do so. Ford Motors made a public relations faux pas with flying in corporate jets to testify before Congress, begging for money. There is no inherent virtue in flying coach. There is virtue in using wisely money given to you, extorted, I mean volunteered, from the American Taxpayer.
Hindsight is always 20-20. Accusations have been flung far and wide as the manure hit the air handling unit. Nassim Teleb, in his book,The Black Swan calls this the "narrative fallacy". We look backwards and tell ourselves that we could have seen the sub-prime mortgage problem coming, that we SHOULD have seen it coming, we Should Have Done Something to stop it. The answer, of course, is that we probably could not have done anything. This was an outlier, a cascade of errors, one of which alone would have had a negative impact on one or another segment of society, but acting in concert with each other were disastrous.
The "little people" are here, I would suppose, to fund the bailouts, pay the taxes, take the risk and keep quiet about it. We have become tax serfs, we the "little people."
I now believe I know why only Martha went to jail. There were no SEC regulators or Federal prosecurotrs that wanted a job with Martha Stewart.
I reflect on her, though, because of the recent escapades of financial foolery prominent in the press. Poor Martha goes to jail over a $100,000 insider trade (!) while Bernie Madoff awaits, ahem, justice (I can't even write that with a straight face) in his penthouse. I really, truly, am glad that Martha bounced back, went on with her life, got her groove back so to speak. Many that Madoff touched won't do as well. Bernie gets his penthouse, many of his clients will get the poorhouse.
What a buffoon. But then, he is in very good company.
But back to Martha. The 7-16-2006 posting of money.cnn.com reported:
"While comparatively small in terms of the dollars at stake and the gravity of the crime, Stewart's obstruction of justice case has been a powerful public relations vehicle for government officials to send the broad message that corporate malfeasance will not be tolerated."
Now that had to be hard to write with a straight face. Or perhaps I am judging yesterday with today's wisdom.
Because we are witnessing "corporate malfeasance" on a scale never envisioned by law makers. Government prosecutors are reluctant to attempt to bring the big boys to justice when those same prosecutors hope to get a job with a big house after their government stint.
The revolving door policies of the alphabet soup of government regulatory agencies from government "service" to private sector to academia and back again foster only judicial incest, not impartial justice.
From the same CNN article Stewart said "I didn't cheat the little people. ... We're all little people. I didn't cheat anybody out of anything." She's right, almost. MOST of us are little people. Leona Helmsley once quipped that "only the little people pay taxes".
So that leaves a small percentage of "big people", similar in nature but larger in scale, to the so-called "one percenters" of the motorcycle gang world. These "one percenter" types of the financial world, (well I won't say they don't pay taxes, but I would love to see their income tax returns), are very large indeed, and very busy, lurching from one disaster to the next.
They might not be guilty of corporate malfeasance, and we will almost assuredly never know if they are, but they certainly are tried and found guilty in the court of public opinion.
Citigroup has had to cancel its order for a new $50 million corporate jet; poor babies, I do wonder how they will bear up. This is upon orders of the new Treasury Czar, Timothy Geithner. He at least has the advantage of not being a Goldie, at least not yet.
There is nothing wrong with being rich. There is nothing wrong with ordering a $50 million corporate jet. What is wrong is cheating and committing fraud to do so. Ford Motors made a public relations faux pas with flying in corporate jets to testify before Congress, begging for money. There is no inherent virtue in flying coach. There is virtue in using wisely money given to you, extorted, I mean volunteered, from the American Taxpayer.
Hindsight is always 20-20. Accusations have been flung far and wide as the manure hit the air handling unit. Nassim Teleb, in his book,The Black Swan calls this the "narrative fallacy". We look backwards and tell ourselves that we could have seen the sub-prime mortgage problem coming, that we SHOULD have seen it coming, we Should Have Done Something to stop it. The answer, of course, is that we probably could not have done anything. This was an outlier, a cascade of errors, one of which alone would have had a negative impact on one or another segment of society, but acting in concert with each other were disastrous.
The "little people" are here, I would suppose, to fund the bailouts, pay the taxes, take the risk and keep quiet about it. We have become tax serfs, we the "little people."
I now believe I know why only Martha went to jail. There were no SEC regulators or Federal prosecurotrs that wanted a job with Martha Stewart.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Global Cooperation to Save USA and UK
Clive Hyman of Hyman Capital Services in the UK was interviewed on CNBC on January 19, 2009 following a press conference by Gordon Brown and Alex Darling of the UK.
Mr. Hyman, with whom I am not familiar, appears to be relatively unflappable. Perhaps the famous Brit "stiff upper lip"?
His comments were, however, very alarming, to wit:
"Things happening in the market on Thursday and Friday that were very disturbing". (Things he would NOT go into on the air.)
"Assets being traded in the world economy that are too big to be traded right now"
"I am expecting one or two US institutions to go to the wall this week".
"..got to the point where all governments have got to pull together.."
So, let's put all of this together, and try to parse this.
We have JP Morgan (a.k.a Federal Reserve) at a new low of 18.09
BofA at $5.10 (close to being a penny stock)
Wells Fargo - same
CitiCorp - same
In fact, Citicorp just gave its prime benefactor, Prince Alwaleed, a $10.7 billion haircut.
So things are tough all over. To paraphrase a Depression era song "Brother, can you spare a trillion?". The deficits we are accruing will probably never be paid off in the lifetime of the world, never mind our own lifetime.
Mr. Brown, in his press conference, blames the US for unleashing this debacle, with the onset of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. And there is some validity to that. There is plenty of blame to spread around; like fiat dollars, there is an endless supply of blame.
However, what he, and all other politicians, fail to acknowledge at least publicly, is that the subprime issue is just a proximal cause. The true, root, cause is the fiat money system prevailing in the world today. Governments, always, everywhere, in all times, have debased their currency and reaped the results. Proverbs says "Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind". We are now just seeing the start of the harvest.
The gold standard provided a system of checks and balances upon banks, bankers, and the credit system. That is the reason for its demise - bankers could not then and cannot now tolerate being reined in, cannot tolerate oversight and will run roughshod over anyone, be it king or commoner, attempting to control their activities.
Much has been said and written, in Christian and secular circles, about the End Times, a man titled Anti-Christ and Armageddon.
Part of the end times scene has always been a global governing system. This would be an imperative for anyone seeking to rule the world - the one cannot occur without the other.
My belief is that we are seeing the beginnings of this system. No frontal assault on national sovereignty is needed. What government or politician in their right political minds would go before their people and say "Look. We know things are bad, and they are probably going to get worse before they get better. We all need to tighten our belts, let the markets correct, take it on the chin for a while, hunker down, and when the dust has settled, come back out and regroup." Yeah, I know that is too many metaphors,but you get the point. What politicians will do is what they have always done. Try to make things better. Isn't that why we have elected them? They have promised us the earth on the cheap and we expect them to deliver.
So, rather than come out and pass laws and treaties to merge governments all around the world, they will sit back and let the bankers do the deed. "International cooperation" is perhaps new code for "World Governance"?
If we do not start, on a personal level, to change the way we think and act, and force our governments to do the same the world will have a far different aspect in less than a decade.
And we will find ourselves apologizing to Zimbabwe for all of the nasty things we have said about them.
Mr. Hyman, with whom I am not familiar, appears to be relatively unflappable. Perhaps the famous Brit "stiff upper lip"?
His comments were, however, very alarming, to wit:
"Things happening in the market on Thursday and Friday that were very disturbing". (Things he would NOT go into on the air.)
"Assets being traded in the world economy that are too big to be traded right now"
"I am expecting one or two US institutions to go to the wall this week".
"..got to the point where all governments have got to pull together.."
So, let's put all of this together, and try to parse this.
We have JP Morgan (a.k.a Federal Reserve) at a new low of 18.09
BofA at $5.10 (close to being a penny stock)
Wells Fargo - same
CitiCorp - same
In fact, Citicorp just gave its prime benefactor, Prince Alwaleed, a $10.7 billion haircut.
So things are tough all over. To paraphrase a Depression era song "Brother, can you spare a trillion?". The deficits we are accruing will probably never be paid off in the lifetime of the world, never mind our own lifetime.
Mr. Brown, in his press conference, blames the US for unleashing this debacle, with the onset of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. And there is some validity to that. There is plenty of blame to spread around; like fiat dollars, there is an endless supply of blame.
However, what he, and all other politicians, fail to acknowledge at least publicly, is that the subprime issue is just a proximal cause. The true, root, cause is the fiat money system prevailing in the world today. Governments, always, everywhere, in all times, have debased their currency and reaped the results. Proverbs says "Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind". We are now just seeing the start of the harvest.
The gold standard provided a system of checks and balances upon banks, bankers, and the credit system. That is the reason for its demise - bankers could not then and cannot now tolerate being reined in, cannot tolerate oversight and will run roughshod over anyone, be it king or commoner, attempting to control their activities.
Much has been said and written, in Christian and secular circles, about the End Times, a man titled Anti-Christ and Armageddon.
Part of the end times scene has always been a global governing system. This would be an imperative for anyone seeking to rule the world - the one cannot occur without the other.
My belief is that we are seeing the beginnings of this system. No frontal assault on national sovereignty is needed. What government or politician in their right political minds would go before their people and say "Look. We know things are bad, and they are probably going to get worse before they get better. We all need to tighten our belts, let the markets correct, take it on the chin for a while, hunker down, and when the dust has settled, come back out and regroup." Yeah, I know that is too many metaphors,but you get the point. What politicians will do is what they have always done. Try to make things better. Isn't that why we have elected them? They have promised us the earth on the cheap and we expect them to deliver.
So, rather than come out and pass laws and treaties to merge governments all around the world, they will sit back and let the bankers do the deed. "International cooperation" is perhaps new code for "World Governance"?
If we do not start, on a personal level, to change the way we think and act, and force our governments to do the same the world will have a far different aspect in less than a decade.
And we will find ourselves apologizing to Zimbabwe for all of the nasty things we have said about them.
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