Banksters

Post Crisis Scorecard – Global Debt Up $57 Trillion, 60% of American Jobs Created Are Low Level, Record Youth Living with Parents

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This morning, my Twitter stream was filled with some of the most outlandish bullish economic victory laps from pundits I’ve ever seen. The source was the monthly employment report, which showed a larger than expected increase in employment as well as higher wages. In addition, there was a huge upward revision to employment data in November. Interestingly enough, on the same day this report was released, several important articles came across my screen that make me as concerned as ever about the true state of the economy and where we are headed.

First, CNN Money just yesterday published an article titled: Obama Jobs: More Caregivers, Servers and Temps. Here are a few excerpts:

Got a job while Obama was president? Then there’s a good chance you are working in healthcare or food service or as a temp.

Those sectors were responsible more than 60% of the jobs created since Obama took office in January 2009.

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The Face of the Oligarch Recovery – Luxury Skyscrapers Stay Empty as NYC Homeless Population Hits Record High

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Screen Shot 2015-02-02 at 11.20.14 AMNowhere is the fraudulent and criminal “oligarch recovery” more on display than in my hometown of New York City. Despite benefitting more than any other community from an enormous taxpayer bailout of the industry that destroyed the economy, financial services, the vast majority of the wealth has been allocated to a handful of oligarchs.

To make matters even worse, American public policy, if you can even call it that, has been to encourage overseas oligarchs to park billions of dollars in U.S. real estate that largely sits uninhabited. Manhattan is a perfect example of this unproductive behavior and misallocation of capital. I covered this theme last year in the piece, Introducing Ghost Skyscrapers – NYC Real Estate Goes Full Retard, where it was noted that:

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Occupied by Wall Street Part 2 – Creating CLOs to Bypass Regulations

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Leon Black’s Apollo Global Management LLC, Carlyle Group LP and a unit of Credit Suisse Group AG have all taken steps in the past two months to create CLOs now that they may be able to refinance after the rules take effect in December 2016 without having to comply with the new regulations, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. The firms are trying to avoid a requirement to hold a stake in the funds they manage.

– From the Bloomberg article: Wall Street Creating CLOs That May Bypass Rules: Credit Markets

As the U.S. inches closer to a cyclical downturn within the secular theft up-cycle known as the oligarch recovery, the craftiest of financial oligarchs will be scurrying to position themselves as beneficially as possible while not missing out on any crumbs that remain ripe for the taking. As such, it behooves us all to pay increasingly close attention to their shenanigans. In this regard, we have some excerpts from the following Bloomberg article:

(Bloomberg) — Wall Street has another rule it’s trying to get around: regulations seeking to limit risk-taking by managers of collateralized loan obligations.

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Occupied by Wall Street – The Latest TARP Taxpayer Screw-Job is Revealed

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Screen Shot 2015-01-28 at 1.25.20 PMThe Treasury-created market has benefited a few savvy investors, while saddling taxpayers with a loss. Three private funds, which the report didn’t name, have won almost half the shares available at auction, often netting either a profit on paper or on the resale, according to the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The Treasury, which has held 185 auctions to date, said it has raised about $3 billion on TARP investments that were originally valued at $3.8 billion, for a loss of $800 million at the auctions.

The Treasury “set up this market where investors could come in quickly and flip and profit,” said Christy Romero, TARP’s special inspector general, in an interview.

– From the Wall Street Journal article: Hedge Funds, Private Equity Win Big at TARP Auctions

One story that I’ve told several times on this site has to do with the day TARP passed. How I got into work extremely early and starting irately yelling about how TARP represented the end of America as we knew it. There weren’t many people on the trading floor at the time, but my boss was there and he told me to take a “walk around the block.” I politely declined, but continued to seethe at my desk.

It’s almost shocking to see the horrific transformation that has occurred in the subsequent six years. It’s so bad, that many people now take things that would’ve been considered unconscionable just a few years ago as part of the “new normal.” There will be a horrible price to pay for this perspective.

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Meet the Extreme Super Rich – A List of the 80 People Who Own as Much as the World’s Poorest 3.6 Billion

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Screen Shot 2015-01-27 at 1.41.05 PMBefore I get into the meat of this post, I want to make it clear that the definition of oligarch, a term I use a lot, does not center solely around money.

Late last year, in the post Inside the Mind of an Oligarch – Sheldon Adelson Proclaims “I Don’t Like Journalism,” I attempted to frame the word oligarch as I use it. I wrote the following:

In a nutshell, while many oligarchs are extremely wealthy (or have access to extreme wealth), not all people with extreme wealth are oligarchs. The term oligarch is reserved for those with extreme wealth who also want to control the political process, policy levers and most other aspects of the lives of the citizenry in a top-down tyrannical and undemocratic manner. They think they know best about pretty much everything, and believe unelected technocrats who share their worldview should be empowered so that they can unilaterally make all of society’s important decisions. The unwashed masses (plebs) in their minds are unnecessary distractions who must to be told what to do. Useless eaters who need to be brainwashed into worshipping the oligarch mindset, or turned into apathetic automatons incapable or unwilling to engage in critical thought. Either outcome is equally acceptable and equally encouraged.

With that out of the way, Five-Thirty-Eight provided the following:

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“What’s Up, You F—ing N—-r?” – What a Debt Collector Hired by Bank of America Said to a Customer

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Screen Shot 2014-12-12 at 1.30.18 PMI can’t believe I missed this one. Although the following happened back in 2010, given how captured our entire society remains by the “too big to fail and jail” banks, it’s worth putting this in front of readers. Here’s the disturbing encounter. From ABC News:

Back in 2010, an ABC News investigation found that a Texas-based company Bank of America had contracted to make debt collection calls were using racist and obscene language to try to coax debts from customers.

“What’s up, you f—ing n—-r?” said one of the collection agents in a message to 32-year-old Allen Jones of Dallas, who at the time owed $81 on his Bank of America credit card.

“This is your f—ing wake up call, man,” the debt collector said in a message left at Jones’ home at 6:30 a.m. Then another call: “You little, lazy ass bitch, get your mother f—ing ass up and go pick some mother f—ing cotton fields, bitch.”

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Welcome to the Recovery – McKinsey Survey Shows 40% of Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck, Up From 31% in 2012

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Screen Shot 2014-12-09 at 11.22.38 AMNothing screams economic recovery like 2 out of every 5 Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Especially when that number has reportedly increased by 33% since 2012.

Perhaps someone should inform these destitute plebs that the stock market is up nearly 45% over the past two years, and after all, nothing says economic success like the 0.01% enriching themselves via fraud and financial engineering.

Here are two of the most sobering findings from the survery:

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Wall Street Moves to Put Taxpayers on the Hook for Derivatives Trades

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Screen Shot 2014-12-05 at 3.39.28 PMWall Street has for some time attempted to put taxpayers on the hook for its derivatives trades. I highlighted this a year ago in the post: Citigroup Written Legislation Moves Through the House of Representatives. Here’s an excerpt:

Five years after the Wall Street coup of 2008, it appears the U.S. House of Representatives is as bought and paid for as ever. We heard about the Citigroup crafted legislation currently being pushed through Congress back in May when Mother Jones reported on it. Fortunately, they included the following image in their article:

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The U.S. Department of Justice Handles Banker Criminals Like Juvenile Offenders…Literally

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Screen Shot 2014-11-14 at 1.52.39 PMThese agreements were created 100 years ago to give juvenile defendants and first-time offenders a chance to for rehabilitate themselves. Only in the last 20 years have DPAs migrated to the field of corporate criminals, treating them like kids who’ve just gone down a bad path in life.

The Justice Department is leaning on these toothless agreements more and more. Of the DoJ’s 283 deferred prosecution agreements since 2000, half have come since 2010, Reilly found in a working paper for BYU Law Review.

Why has the DoJ been so keen on deferred prosecution since 2010? It coincides exactly with investigations into the 2008 financial crisis.

– From the Guardian article: In market-rigging case, US Justice Department treats corporate criminals like juvenile offenders

We all know by now that if you’re a woman with an overgrown lawn, a child walking by himself to the park, a homeless person, or someone feeding a homeless person, you’re a contemptible criminal in the eyes of the U.S. injustice system. As such, police and prosecutors will come down on you as hard as they possibly can. Subjecting you to the full and brutal force of the law, including jail sentences for non-crimes.

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Glenn Greenwald on Hillary Clinton: “Soulless, Principle-Free, Power Hungry…”

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Screen Shot 2014-11-14 at 10.08.22 AMOne attribute I like most about Glenn Greenwald is that he never pulls punches. One of his most prescient and cutting political lines came earlier this year when he made some observations on the upcoming 2016 Presidential election, in which two status quo, corrupt, bloodthirsty con-artists will compete for the Oval Office. While we don’t yet know which crony the GOP will put up, Hillary is pretty much a foregone conclusion for the Democrats. Greenwald observed:

Hillary is banal, corrupted, drained of vibrancy and passion. I mean, she’s been around forever, the Clinton circle. She’s a fucking hawk and like a neocon, practically. She’s surrounded by all these sleazy money types who are just corrupting everything everywhere. But she’s going to be the first female president, and women in America are going to be completely invested in her candidacy. Opposition to her is going to be depicted as misogynistic, like opposition to Obama has been depicted as racist. It’s going to be this completely symbolic messaging that’s going to overshadow the fact that she’ll do nothing but continue everything in pursuit of her own power. They’ll probably have a gay person after Hillary who’s just going to do the same thing.

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