The “F” Business Plan: Mathematically Proven Formula to enrich CEO’s and? impoverish everyone else.
1. Grow like crazy
2. Bad loans – high yields
3. Extraordinary leverage
4. No meaningful loss reserves
Never “Fuzzy” & No “Boundaries”: The Best Way to Rob an Icelandic Bank Was to Own One
(Discussions)
Holding Abusive and Fraudulent Elites and Enablers Accountable
(Discussions)
National Newspapers Editor:
” I’ve been monitoring this for 50 years. It’s a disgusting society, it’s all disgusting. There are no principles, there are no ideals, there is nothing. It is just opportunism and power struggle.”
Kaupthing Bank HQ:
“Hi Magnus, We didn’t finalize our bonuses for last year. I suggest 1 million euros. What say you. Bye. Se. ”
Sigurdur Einarsson email to Magnus Gudmundsson, date. 9th July 2008.
Kaupthing Bank Luxembourg:
“Thank you more than enough :-).”
Responses to Magnus Gudmundsson, date. 9th July 2008, to the above Email from Sigurdur Einarsson.
. . .
” The largest owners of all the big banks had abnormally easy access to credit at the banks they owned, apparently in their capacity as owners.”
” Unfortunately, it seems to be unavoidable to conclude that the state’s budget policy increased in fact the imbalance.”
” The Board of Governors of the CBI was more often in favour of less restraint than the chief economist of the Bank had proposed.”
” All the banks purchased their own shares on a large scale in automatically matched trades in the Stock Exchange.”
” During the meetings of the Board of Governors of the CBI with ministers, the bank would not be in the habit of handing out documents with summarised information, along with the bank’s review of that information and proposals for actions, where applicable.”
” In statements by ministers and representatives of the governmental institutions before the SIC, each pointed a finger at the other concerning positive obligation and no one assumed responsibility.”
” On 15 April 2008 Mr. David Oddsson sent a formal request for a currency swap agreement to the Bank of England. Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, replied to Mr. Oddsson’s letter on 23 April and rejected the request by the CBI. However, he declared that foreign central banks could help Iceland find an effective way to reduce the size of its banking system. In his opinion, this was the only practical solution to the problem. In closing, King said that he offered all the help he could provide to tackle the issue at hand. The CBI did not accept this offer.”
” The aforementioned procedures by the authorities with regard to contingency plans for protecting the financial system of the country, and other fundamental interests of state and the nation, were unacceptable. These methods were not in keeping with the manner in which nations with developed financial markets and administration operate in general.”
” In its supervisory duties the FME was lacking in firmness and assertiveness, as regards the resolution of and the follow-up of cases. The Authority did not sufficiently ensure that formal procedures were followed in cases where it had been discovered that regulated entities did not comply with the laws and regulations applicable to their operations.”
” However, when the size of the financial system of a country is nine times its gross domestic product the roles are reversed. This was the case in Iceland. It appears that both the parliament and the government lacked both the power and the courage to set reasonable limits to the financial system.”
” … the Commission was not expected to address possible criminal conduct of the directors of the banks in their operations. …
the SIC is of the opinion that Mr. Geir H. Haarde, then Prime Minister, Mr. Árni M. Mathiesen, then Minister of Finance, and Mr. Björgvin G. Sigurðsson, then Minister of Business Affairs, showed negligence, within the meaning of Article 1(1) of Act No 142/2008, during the time leading up to the collapse of the Icelandic banks, by omitting to respond in an appropriate fashion to the impending danger for the Icelandic economy that was caused by the deteriorating situation of the banks.
The SIC is also of the opinion that Mr. Jónas Fr. Jónsson, then Director General of the FME, and Mr. Davíð Oddsson, Mr. Eiríkur Guðnason and Mr. Ingimundur Friðriksson, then Governors of the CBI, showed negligence, within the meaning of Article 1(1) of Act No 142/2008, in the course of particular work during the administration of laws and rules on financial activities, and monitoring thereof.” …
After a successful spell of Shock Doctrine, the Vultures flock to our shores in all shapes, forms and disguises.
Our own Vultures either attack or welcome them according to their own Vulture interests. Foreign investment in a “free” market system is paramount. To hell with the fact that we can’t pay “our” current debt, lets borrow some more money. We can’t save our selfs without more, without more “stuff” we suffer from irritability, insomnia, depression, anorexia, you name it.
What can we sell, how can we prostitute our selfs, we must satisfy our addiction for more, more, yes for the golden sustainable and endless growth.
Yes, our next fix will come from: casinos, money laundering, destroying our natural resources, and inviting “Blackwater” to use our airspace to prepare for the next war. Sure, our daughters could do with some money.
Vulture Capitalism
Keiser Report:
No.23 Greg Palast @gregpalast.com
No.28 Helen Skopis @Athens International
The speculators are still in control. Max Keiser stated that in 2006 Bankers from Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were planning to destroy the Icelandic financial system. He went on to say that the speculators had an agenda to bankrupt all the major economies of the world and to pocket the profits (hedge funds plot to cash in on fall of the euro).
The Keiser, estimated that the value of the ‘real’ world economy was $60 trillion and the value of the ‘derived’ or ‘speculative’ market was grater than $700 trillion, which is roughly the same ratio 1:11 to our own madness.
The successor to Orwell’s Newspeak, the Derivatives Acronyms is the new language of the private banking cartel, sounds something like this. “The FAST FOX SAFEly LEAPS over CHAPS with CHIPS on SWINGS but will DIE and ROT to the ECHO of the buddhist OM.” Understood all that? Or more importantly does your ‘representative’ or your Government?
Conspiracy theory or Bernanke’s contempt for US Congress
Stephen Zarlenga, Director of The American Monetary Institute writes “Over time, whoever controls the money system controls the nation.” – Presenting the American Monetary Act (as of July 18, 2009) (pdf)
Ellen Brown wrote It’s the Derivatives, Stupid! ““The point everyone misses,” wrote economist Robert Chapman a decade ago, “is that buying derivatives is not investing. It is gambling, insurance and high stakes bookmaking. Derivatives create nothing.” They not only create nothing, but they serve to enrich non-producers at the expense of the people who do create real goods and services. In congressional hearings in the early 1990s, derivatives trading was challenged as being an illegal form of gambling. But the practice was legitimized by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, who not only lent legal and regulatory support to the trade but actively promoted derivatives as a way to improve “risk management.” Partly, this was to boost the flagging profits of the banks; and at the larger banks and dealers, it worked. But the cost was an increase in risk to the financial system as a whole.”
–
” The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or so dependent upon its favors that there will be no opposition from that class while, on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending . . . will bear its burdens without complaint.”
Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863
–
” I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few and the Republic is destroyed.”
Abraham Lincoln (attributed)
–
“…commands are dispatched from a computer terminal, or a cell phone. Relevant data are instantly relayed to major financial markets – often resulting in immediate disruptions in the functioning of national economies. “Financial warfare” also applies complex speculative instruments including the gamut of derivative trade, forward foreign exchange transactions, currency options, hedge funds, index funds, etc. Speculative instruments have been used with the ultimate purpose of capturing financial wealth and acquiring control over productive assets.”
Michel Chossudovsky
” “Sustainability” has to mean “for a long time,” where “long” means compared to a human lifetime. The basic exponential arithmetic shows that growth of numbers of real things can’t continue for long times. This simple observation leads to the First Law of Sustainability. “Growth of populations and / or growth in rates of consumption of resources, cannot be sustained.” It follows that the term “sustainable growth” is an oxymoron. It remains a mystery as to why all the ardent advocates of sustainability talk about everything except the First Law of Sustainability.”
Albert A. Bartlett
“No money changer who may hereafter fail, and none who has recently or in times passed failed, shall again keep a bank or hold any office under the crown. Any such shall be proclaimed bankrupt and disgraced by public crier throughout the city and also in the place he had his office. Until he shall have satisfied all demands, he shall be detained on a diet of bread and water.”
Barcelona banking laws passed in 1300
Keiser Report ?14: Markets! Finance! Scandal!
Derivative (finance)
Janet Tavakoli
Web of Debt – Ellen Brown – 1 of 5
Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free by Ellen Hodgson Brown
Brooksley Born’s Nightmare Comes True
Al Bartlett: In Growth We Trust (the simple math 1 to 8 ) and The Essential Exponential!
Stephen Zarlenga: The Lost Science of Money
Carroll Quigley: Tragedy and Hope .(pdf 5.43MB )
ATTAC: ..Let’s shut down the financial casino (pdf)
Sponsor an Executive 🙂
A Pre-referendum documentary [John Zufelt]
“I used to think of Wall Street as a
financial center.
I now think of it as a crime scene.”
– Filmmaker Danny Schechter, Plunder (2009)
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men,
they create for themselves in the course of time,
a legal system that authorizes it,
and a moral code that glorifies it.”
– Political economist Frederic Bastiat, The Law (1850)
Plunder: The Crime Of Our Time
Financial Crime: Did white collar crime and fraud trigger the meltdown?
Above the law? Thinking Allowed investigates white collar crime
Suite Violence: Why managers murder and corporations kill
Robin Hood (Toibin) Tax
Max Keiser on Egill Helgason (1/2)
Max Keiser on Egill Helgason (2/2)
In 1848 Karl Marx predicted that “Capitalism would collapse on its own weight because the repetition of business cycles would eventually bring the economy past the point of no return”
In 2007 Niño Becerra wrote: “This is not a crisis like the ones we’ve known for the past 30 years, this is the beginning of the end of the economical system that startet with the Industrial revolution by 1820s.”
Niño Becerra goes on to give this timetable:
Artículos de Santiago Niño Becerra (spanish)
Is this what happens when we let the criminals write the law?
Ex-Lehman-Banker bekommen Milliarden-Boni
From Haiti, Germany, Japan, Iraq to Iceland.
In Africa they support us and say that we are refusing to turn up for our own funeral. Some of us predict that we are becoming the next Haiti, not because of the current tragedy but because of the Revolution(1791–1803) and resulting reparations(1825). 75 years later they where sill paying 80% of their national income to predatory creditors, this finally ended in 1947, 122 years later. The first step is always to establish a liability (which is easy for the powerful) and then the rest is history.
War reparations
The Haitian Revolution (1791–1803)
“La dette de l’independance”
Human rights must be at the core of relief efforts and the reconstruction of Haiti
Protesters from the pots and pans revolution have been indicted while the”bankers” continue their luxury lives in London and Lux.
Reporters are made to apologize for their factually correct reporting as the “tone” did not comply.
The multi nationals will kindly grace us by using more of our natural resources if we ask “pretty please”.
The “left” is behind closed doors negotiating with Empires and working in unison with the IMF.
The referendum result is already in. Damned if we do – damned if we don’t.
The grater the change the more things are the same. – Where is our ?”Pecora”?
The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies”
The Two Faces of Money by Geraldine Perry & Ken Fousek
“Debt crisis in millionaires’ playground could herald new phase in global financial meltdown”
“You say it was always obvious to you that because Britain had such a large financial sector we would be among the worst affected and that our recovery would be delayed. Why then did the prime minister say Britain would be leading the world out of recession?”
Others say that wallpapering the cracks in the capitalist wall – with public money – will not fix structural faults.
I sincerely hope though that the Tamerlane HQ will be saved.
Fears of double-dip recession grow as Dubai crashes
A morally bankrupt dictatorship built by slave labour
” Depending on which international agency you ask, criminals launder anywhere between $500 billion and $1 trillion worldwide every year. The global effect is staggering in social, economic and security terms.
. . .
Developing countries often bear the brunt of modern money laundering because the governments are still in the process of establishing regulations for their newly privatized financial sectors. This makes them a prime target. ”
Rumors relating to money laundering and connections between the fallen banks and the Russian mob continue. It is told that these are so ’embarrassing’ and reach so high up in the ranks and across boarders, that it will be about the last ‘material’ to be uncovered, – if at all.
In the meantime, low-level bank-employees are being investigated where the sums of money allegedly embezzled are in the range normal people can identify with.
No wonder that people delighted in the story about Tony Musulin – Best Thief of the Year 2009.
We are told that this letter (Lost article) did not find its way onto the editorial pages of the once largest newspaper in this country.
Preventing Google translate to start many and deadly wars as did the Babel fish, I have patched-up some of the more insulting passages to the text here. (Lost article)
This will have to suffice until I find a proper translation.
In my not so humble opinion (IMNSHO) I think this letter gives a better glimpse of the situation in my land than many a book written to perception manage the subject.
I myself (with all my respect for television intact) do not believe that the use of the Anti Terrorist Act (Oct. 9) was anything other than U K’s response to the Icelandic governments own Emergency Banking Act (no. 125 7. October 2008). Two governments protecting it’s people (i.e their respective plutocracies) – only unfettered history will tell.
How the men behind Iceland crisis are still calling the shots By Archie Bland
“The only truly surprising thing about the 2008 financial meltdown is how easily the idea was accepted that its happening was unpredictable. Recall the demonstrations that throughout the last decade regularly accompanied meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank: the protesters’ complaints encompassed not only the usual antiglobalization motifs (the growing exploitation of Third World countries, etc.) but also how the banks were creating the illusion of growth by playing with fictional money and how this would all have to end in a crash. It was not only economists such as Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz who warned of the dangers ahead and made it clear that those who promised continuous growth did not really understand what was going on under their noses. In Washington in 2000, so many people demonstrated about the danger of a financial collapse that the city had to mobilize 3,500 local policemen. What ensued was tear–gassing, clubbing, and mass arrests. The police were used to stifle the truth.” – Slavoj Zizek – Democracy Now! & Harper’s Magazine
“Capital must protect itself in every possible manner by combination and legislation. Debts must be collected, bonds and mortgages must be foreclosed as rapidly as possible.
When, through a process of law, the common people lose their homes they will become more docile and more easily governed through the influence of the strong arm of government, applied by a central power of wealth under control of leading financiers.
This truth is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of Capital to govern the world. By dividing the voters through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance.
Thus by discreet action we can secure for ourselves what has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished.”
