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Jim Brown: We’re too Big to Fail so Let the Taxpayers Cover Our Losing Bets!

Friday, May 18th, 2012

Jim Brown
GCN Live.com

I drive each day by my local bank; it’s a Chase branch of J.P. Morgan.

I don’t have much to save, but I count on my bank to invest my money. Not bet my hard earned dollars, but invest it. If I want to gamble for winnings, I’ll take my chances on the red and the black at a casino. I don’t need or want my bank to lay down a bet on some complicated credit default swap or other exotic roll of the financial dice. But that’s exactly what Chase has been doing with my money. They have taken a big hit. And I’m not happy.

J. P. Morgan Chase & Co. put a lady named Ina Drew in charge as chief investment officer. They paid her $14 million a year to grow my small investment. And she had a team of highly paid executives to follow her lead and see that my small savings continue to grow. But she bungled her responsibility to me and millions of other Chase savers, and now she’s been fired. Good riddance.

She apparently bears the bulk of the responsibility for a $2 billion investment loss that involved complex derivatives that were not adequately insured. There was a “make the big bucks” mentality rather than a focus on the quality of the loans that were being made.

Now don’t lecture me about taking chances and how any investment can lose money. I certainly understand, as do most Chase’s investors, that a bank investment can go bad. Yes, there is the risk that the business will fail. However, any bank should go into an investment with the understanding that it is supplying funds to a borrower that will create value.

But a responsible bank will review the business plan, look for adequate collateral, and continue with due diligence throughout the life of the investment. If the investment is sound, then everybody wins. The bank makes a profit; the business is set on sound financial footing and my investment in J. P. Morgan Chase continues to grow. Value is created and, of course, that is good for the investors and for the economy as a whole.

But when J. P. Morgan Chase & Co. “bets” my money, there is a different end result. There are winners and there are losers. It’s called a zero sum game, and the whole point is to beat the odds and win the bet. No new value is created, and the whole transaction is simply shifting dollars from winner to loser. And that’s exactly what my bank was doing — betting my money instead of investing it.

Oh, but you say, J. P. Morgan Chase is awash with taxpayer-insured deposits, and my money is protected. That’s true, as far as the bank deposits themselves are involved. Not true for any investments I might have with J. P. Morgan as an investment entity. Extra fees on my Chase account as well as some of my tax dollars are charging me for the privilege of insuring my account. In other words, I’m having to pay, through higher bank fees and taxes, for the insurance to protect what savings I have at Chase. As far as my investments through J. P. Morgan, I’m on my own with no protection.

Jamie Dimon

My banker is a guy named Jamie Dimon. Well, I don’t know him, but he’s the top dog at J. P. Morgan Chase, so I consider him “my banker.” Bankers nationwide took major pay cuts last year because of the economic doldrums and lack of bank profits. Not my guy. He was paid $23 million and apparently is in line for a hefty pay raise this year. I don’t mind Dimon making the big bucks as long as he produces. But the buck stops with him, and he apparently knew about the questionable loan portfolio problems for a good while. And he sure does have a conflict of interest.

I was surprised to learn that Dimon sits on the board of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. This is the federal oversight board that regulates banks all over the east coast. So let me get this straight. Dimon sits on the federal board that regulates his own bank? You can’t get much more “insider” than that. How can Dimon be expected to regulate his own bank, which is regulated by the oversight board on which he sits, in the public interest?

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer puts it this way — “The Fed conflict is so obvious that it defies any possible rationalization or explanation. For a decade, the New York Fed has failed to pick up on any of the significant Wall Street threats: excess leverage, subprime fraud, dangerous concentration in ‘too big to fail’ entities. Maybe the reason is that the board is controlled by the very voices that have been at the root of the failure.”

The use of derivatives backed by credit default swaps are all part of the tangled web of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. losses. This is the same tar pit that A.I.G. found itself in a few years back when insurance regulators allowed this insurance giant to take some $200 million in losses without properly regulating the company’s shenanigans. If J. P. Morgan Chase is allowed to continue down its current path of rolling the dice for wishful high returns, they will be following the AIG path and praying for a government bailout if the bet goes bad.

All this complicated financial gibberish is a smokescreen created by the likes of J. P. Morgan Chase and insurance companies like A.I.G. to make this financial mess too complex for the average Joe to understand. And for good reason. Literacy is power. Remember that it used to be a crime in the Deep South to teach slaves to read.

In an excellent summary of the financial and insurance regulatory bungling appearing in Rolling Stone Magazine, Matt Taibbi concludes that in the age of CDSs, most of us are financial illiterates. “By making an already too – complex economy even more complex, a historic revolutionary change has taken place in our political system – transforming democracy into a two-tiered state, one with plugged-in financial.

Despite J.P. Morgan Chase & Company’s $2 billion dollar bad bet, it is still not in deep financial trouble. But even with new and tougher regulations, the high waging, go for broke mentality points out how little has changed n Wall Street. After all, they are “too big to fail.” And they have this marvelous safety net protecting them no matter how irresponsible they might be. It’s called the American taxpayer—you and me. We continue to get stuck with the bill.

******

“I sincerely believe… that financial establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
– Thomas Jefferson

Peace and Justice
Jim Brown

talk radio hostJim Brown is the host of Jim Brown’s Common Sense talk radio show, which airs on GCN Sundays 9:00am-11:00am Central Time. Listen to the show On Demand.

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Posted in Featured News/Exclusives, U.S. News

Barb Adams: The Fight Against Economic Slavery

Friday, May 18th, 2012

Barb Adams
GCN Live.com

Michael Tellinger, of South Africa, is fighting for transparency in banking by challenging the global financial system in a landmark lawsuit.

Michael Tellinger

In what is being called an historic, landmark case challenging the global financial system, author, researcher and scientist Michael Tellinger recently filed a notice of motion against Standard Bank of South Africa accusing the bank of “unlawful and unconstitutional activity.” Tellinger also served notice on the Reserve Bank and Minister of Finance as well. Tellinger’s suit, CCT 28/12, has now made its way to the Constitutional Court, and takes aim at the heart of the banking system. Although Tellinger chose Standard Bank, he says “ultimately it is the other banks as well,” and hopes this case will bring light to the myriad of “deceitful” activities practiced as part of the overall banking system worldwide.

Tellinger decided to take on South Africa’s largest bank after he realized, during the course of his research into the origins of humanity, that money just “suddenly appeared.” As a result, he began wondering about the origins of money itself, and how it became so intrinsic in society. Upon further investigation, Tellinger began realizing that it’s just a small number of families that control the supply of money worldwide, citing the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and Morgans as examples. He hopes his suit will redress the imbalance that has taken place by these banking elite.

Tellinger’s premise for his suit against Standard Bank is based on their “unscrupulous activities,” which he believes are also practiced routinely by banks worldwide. The lawsuit is 1,100 pages of actual case law, evidence, and arguments defining the laws, acts, and bills that are broken on a daily basis by banks, including the Reserve Bank, all under the “watchful eye of the Minister of Finance,” who Tellinger claims is aware of these behaviors but has “done nothing to prevent this from happening.” Tellinger believes this is “pure exploitation of every South African citizen.”

In addition, Tellinger believes that banks are fueling inflation by issuing and printing money without having the assets to back those monies. Many in the financial industry argue that this is how the system was built, doing business this way for decades, and that leveraging is just part of standard operating procedure. But Tellinger argues that just because the banks do this “does not mean it is right.” He has had several meetings with shareholders of the Reserve Bank and states that he has been “amazed” at some of the revelations as to how the Reserve Bank works and how “absolutely deceitful the activities are.”

Using the bank loan process as an example of how banks create money out of “thin air,” Tellinger says that when someone applies for a loan, the banks don’t actually have the physical cash in their vaults to give. Instead, they “punch some numbers into a computer and magically just create money that is not backed by anything.” This process of issuing money as interest-bearing loans is akin to “counterfeiting” according to Tellinger, and if ordinary citizens tried to do anything like this, they would be prosecuted for it.

Tellinger obtained much of his information from the Supreme Court of South Africa, which he has been to on three occasions arguing against the “highest-paid lawyers money can buy.” His case has now moved to the Constitutional Court “because it’s not just about unlawful activity of banks on a daily basis…it’s also about breaking and breeching constitutional rights.” Tellinger says this suit is about his and other South African citizens’ “constitutional rights,” which he believes the banks are breaking on a daily basis.

Support for Tellinger’s initiative continues to grow, especially among those who have researched this topic for themselves and “figured out what the banks are doing.” As Tellinger points out, “Some are really smart lawyers and advocates who have offered their work pro bono, for free, because they realize that what is going on is absolutely wrong.” New ERA, or New Economic Rights Alliance, is one such group that is bringing together support for “those who have been abused by banks.” Their mission is to support victims of corporations that put profit ahead of human rights.

“It’s all about economic freedom, economic liberty,” says Tellinger. Citing Nelson Mandela’s release and the fight for political freedom in South Africa, he believes it is now time to end “economic slavery.”

Tellinger realizes he is going up against a global system that has been in place for decades “since the creation of the Federal Reserve system on Jekyll Island,” he says. These are privately owned institutions that answer to “nobody,” as he states. Tellinger’s suit also includes the government, stating that the Minister of Finance knows banks are breaking the law. He says that the Minister of Finance and the government are “supposed to be servants of the people,” and believes the Minister of Finance should have intervened on the behalf of citizens against the banks.

Ultimately, Tellinger believes his case will challenge the Constitutional Court to see just how constitutional it really is, and if they will rule in favor of the people and “stop supporting through the legal system the banks that have been exploiting the system.”

For too long, the banking giants have been untouchable, especially by common citizens. Tellinger’s case is important in that it allows the “common man” direct access to a constitutional court. Everyone could be affected by this case, because if Tellinger is successful, the repercussions will be widespread, and the global banking industry may be facing a radical overhaul through major public policy shifts and the changing of laws governing the banks.

For more information about this landmark case, see www.thebigcase.co.za.

Michael Tellinger joins Amerika Now this Saturday, May 19th, from 8 to 10 p.m. Pacific, 11 to 1 a.m. Eastern, to discuss his landmark lawsuit against economic slavery.

talk radio hostBarb Adams is the host of Amerika Now talk radio show, which airs on GCN Saturdays 10:00p-1:00am Central Time. Listen to the show On Demand.

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Posted in Featured News/Exclusives, World News

Steve Sanchez: Does 2+2 Still = 4???

Friday, May 18th, 2012

Steve Sanchez
GCN Live.com

When you look around at our world many times you may feel like a character in a Superman comic named Bizarro.

Is the grass always greener on the other side?

It seems that what made sense at one time absolutely makes no sense today. We have same sex marriage issues, 51-year-old celebrities marrying 16-year-old girls. We have Facebook where young people vent their hostilities and post racy pictures without any regard to the embarrassment of their parents yet alone themselves. Marijuana is now legal in many states and well you get the picture.

If that isn’t bad enough, we have a sitting President who claims that Mitt Romney is so rich he is out of touch with the people to be President, but a recent financial disclosure which was released to the public has shown the President himself being worth over 10 million dollars, yet again he states Romney is too rich to be in touch???

One area that I find to be very bizarre – where the math just does not add up – is with a group called the seasoned citizen; aka the elderly. Living in one of the Mecca capitals of the country for this group, I can say some of my observations come from studying this group for many, many years. This is the only group of people that can get invitations daily to a financial seminar and literally have their breakfast, lunch and dinner provided for every day of the week just by attending one of these events. AND TRUST ME, MANY OF THEM DO! The danger in this is that many of these seasoned members of our community get more than just the meal they originally were there to have. What I have seen is that many of the Wall Street Bookies that conduct these financial cattle calls can actually and have actually hurt many unsuspecting people with lies and pie in the sky promises. They are the master illusionists taking a chapter out of David Copperfield book of magic tricks.

After 20 years being a Business and Financial Consultant, I have seen first hand the trickery that has been perpetrated from people calling into my Radio Show or visiting my office sharing the horror stories of the victimization that has occurred. Many times, the trickery was almost a lesson deserved because of the greed that comes into the psyche of people chasing down the too good to be true scenario. Yes, this sounds harsh but many of these so-called victims have created the mess at their own hand.

Not too long ago, I spoke with a friend who is actively in the financial business. He shared with me a story regarding this very situation. He shared that he had worked with a client for more than 10 years and had a very good business relationship with them as well a friendship. He went on to say that they had called his office and wanted to review their holdings which he had thought strange since they had just did this not more than two months earlier. He goes on to say that, being very important clients as well as friends, he setup a luncheon at a very affluent eatery. He said that they had a wonderful visit and reviewed thoroughly the portfolio, talked about family and had a fabulous lunch. He shared with me that there were no signs of any issues or concerns just pretty cut and dry. He said they had close to a two hour lunch like they’ve had many times before. He then tells me that one month later he receives a call from his home office stating that this client had requested a new financial advisor to handle their portfolio. He said the shock of the news lasted for what seemed an hour. He said once he composed himself he called his long time clients and friends to no avail. He emailed, sent a letter and never heard a thing. Once the shock wore off the anger set in and he stated to me that they ordered the most expensive meal on the menu, Norwegian Salmon and knew that they were making plans to leave me. He said Steve, these people have never lost a penny with me and knew my family. We had a friendship as much as a business relationship, they were so happy. What went wrong Steve? My answer was pretty simple, I told him they probably went to one of these free dinner seminars and got convinced that the grass was greener on the other side.

Less than two weeks later my friend called me and said, “Steve, you were exactly right.” He went on to say that a local wall street bookie convinced his client to move over one million dollars to his control and placed them with a substandard company that gave them a large bonus to sign on and just one percent more per year in earnings. He said the worse part of it is that this client would have their money tied up for 20 years and knew there was nothing he could do about it because what was done was done. He said, “Steve, $128 for lunch and a smile a hug and a handshake, but what they were really doing is placing a knife in my back.” I shared this wisdom with my friend and told him that the Bible is clear about we reap what we sow, and that honest people like himself will still stand another day and we do not allow the depravity of ones heart to make us bitter, angry or non-trusting. But we move in life with grace and mercy as much as that sometimes does not make sense. Yes, as I told my friend, we FORGIVE even when we don’t feel like it and when it doesn’t make sense.

So I ask you America, does 2+2 still = 4?

Steve Sanchez is the host of the Steve Sanchez Show, which airs on GCN Saturdays 9:00a-11:00a Central Time. Listen to the show On Demand.

The above article is merely opinion and Steve Sanchez is not offering investment advice and suggests you seek counsel from the proper professionals with the correct licenses that can help you determine your goals and objectives.

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Posted in Economy, Featured News/Exclusives

Bradlee Dean Video Pulled by YouTube for Hate Speech

Thursday, May 17th, 2012

GCN Live.com

Preacher and Hard Rock Drummer Bradlee Dean recently created a video (Wed. May 16th, 2012 at around 11:25 AM) to accompany his weekly column published by WorldNet Daily and other news outlets.

The video contains offensive facts about the HATE that is promoted by the radical homosexual agenda in Canada toward people of faith, those who hold to traditional marriage, and the law that exposes this deviant behavior. The video also details a solemn warning to American’s to get vocal on the issue or prepare for the cultural overhaul we see in Canada.

The video was shut down by YouTube (see email below) within 2 hours of being uploaded after it was flagged by a discriminatory individual for “hate speech”.

The video now appears in its original version on Media Research Center’s website.

Below is the “shut down” email from YouTube.

Regarding your account:

The YouTube Community has flagged one or more of your videos as inappropriate. Once a video is flagged, it is reviewed by the YouTube Team against our Community Guidelines. Upon review, we have determined that the following video(s) contain content in violation of these guidelines, and have been disabled:

Homosexual Marriage (WARNING!) Look to Canada – (BdeanSonsofLiberty)

For more information on YouTube’s Community Guidelines and how they are enforced, please visit the help center .
Sincerely,

The YouTube Team

talk radio hostBradlee Dean is the co-host of Sons of Liberty talk radio show, which airs on GCN Monday-Friday 2:00-3:00pm Central Time. Listen to the show On Demand. In addition, catch the Sons of Liberty on Saturdays 2:00-4:00pm CT.

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Posted in Featured News/Exclusives, Talk Radio News

LA County health enforcers conduct door-to-door raw milk confiscation operations

Thursday, May 17th, 2012

Mike Adams
Natural News
Thursday, May 17, 2012

California food police gone wild.

In a bombshell revelation of the depth of the food police state that now exists in LA County, California, NaturalNews has learned that the LA County health department has unleashed door-to-door raw milk confiscation teams to threaten and intimidate raw dairy customers into surrendering raw milk products they legally purchased and own.

According to Mark McAfee (see quotes below), both LA County and San Diego county have attempted to acquire customer names and addresses from Organic Pastures (www.OrganicPastures.com) for the sole purpose of sending “food confiscation teams” to customers’ homes to remove the raw milk from customers’ refrigerators. Using both phone calls and home visits, these teams intimidate customers and try to force them to give up their milk.

These revelations have surfaced in a recorded NaturalNews interview with Mark McAfee, the founder of Organic Pastures and a food rights advocate. Here’s what he told us:

LA County health enforcers go door to door, demanding your fresh milk

“I received a phone call yesterday morning from a wonderful young gal, a 36-year-old mom out of LA County. She’s one of our UPS customers that we deliver overnight raw milk to her house. When the CDFA was in here the other day on our recall, they demanded to have all our delivery addresses for overnight UPS delivery. We screwed up and [inadvertently] gave it to them, they got it from one of our secretaries here. The LA County health department started calling her, six or seven times, demanding that she give up her raw milk from her own home to the health department.

She refused, then they showed up at her house and demanded that she give her raw milk to them. She was getting ready to call 911 for the Sheriff’s department and have them removed from her front doorstep, and she was threatening to use her camera to take a picture of them and post it on Facebook for harassing her over her raw milk… The investigators left after she told them she was not going to give them the raw milk and to get the Hell off her property.

This is what’s going on, it’s like food Nazis, it’s incredible what these people are doing, trying to collect food from people’s houses, that have not made them ill!

Then the San Diego health department called me up and said oh we want a list of all your buyer’s club members, and I said no… and they said we want all their addresses and their names, because we want to go to their homes. I said it ain’t happening, we aren’t going to give it to you.”

Are armed raids on raw milk customers next?

LA County has already conducted armed raids on raw milk distribution centers — arearmed raids on raw milk customersnext? Will LA County Health Department investigators start calling on the police to go door to door, arresting raw milk owners as if they were crack dealers?

Remember: The raw milk from Organic Pastures is legally sold, legally purchased, and greatly enjoyed by its customers. There are virtually no complaints about this product. Customers love it. Only the government wants to confiscate it and destroy it.

And even as the county is unleashing food police to confiscate raw milk that authorities say might be dangerous, they cannot find anyone actually harmed by it. Nor do they pay any attention to the fact that upwards of 70 percent of the fresh chicken meat sold at grocery stores across California is routinely contaminated with salmonella and other pathogens.

What this clearly demonstrates is yet another ratcheting up of the California police state, where county authorities reach right into your refrigerator and confiscate food that they claim might not be safe — food that you’ve legally purchased and wish to consume knowing full well that it’s fresh and raw!

Regulators operating as lawless, idiotic tyrants

The question on all our minds is simple: Where does this end? Having already criminalized raw milk distribution at Rawesome Foods, thrown James Stewart in jail (http://www.naturalnews.com/035208_James_Stewart_torture_county_jail.h…) and completely shuttered the Rawesome operation, California’s bureaucrats seem to have too much time and money on their hands, so they target real food and local farms while ignoring the truly dangerous criminals running loose across the streets of L.A.

Such is the inevitable result of big government gone bad, which is almost an oxymoron because big governmentalwaysgoes bad. Eventually, the power granted to authorities at any level (county, state, federal) is turned against the People, and food, farms and freedoms are among the first targets to be threatened.

Read NaturalNews for more breaking news on this food police confiscation story. In the mean time, I also recommend readingwww.TheCompletePatient.comfor timely coverage of this topic, as well as “Raw Milk Freedom Riders” (http://rawmilkfreedomriders.wordpress.com).

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Posted in Featured News/Exclusives, Health News

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