But, it has become clearer to everyone that "this time is different". Reinhardt and Rogoff wrote the book: This Time is Different -- Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. I highly recommend the book. In their book, they chronicle what has happened throughout history when countries have a bad financial crisis. They (countries) wind defaulting in one way or another. Either not paying their debts internally, externally (like Argentina did in this new century) or by hyperinflation. These financial crises are either banking crises (as ours has been since 2007) or sovereign debt crises (Greece and now Italy) or both (right now). Just, what, two days ago our national debt crossed $15 trillion (the debt widget above shows a slightly different figure). $122,400 + for every taxpayer, how will that be paid? It won't in real terms.
Confidence in the financial markets is very weak now, today might have been one the the rare "Minsky Moments", when those sell even their good assets (gold, stocks) to cover the losses of their bad ones (European) bonds. Almost everything went down today. Look at the top of my blog, as I am writing gold continues downward... How else can you explain gold falling in a toxic environment like this? Keep in mind that is the "paper gold" price.
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And now the word is getting out about the wolves who are feasting upon the carcasses of their victims. Zero Hedge, in a remarkable article today (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/entire-system-has-been-utterly-destroyed-mf-global-collapse-presenting-first-mf-global-casualty) focused the spotlight on the shutdown in disgust by a financial adviser, she then went on to write a scathing letter demonstrating corruption to the very core... Not just "It's Bush's fault" anymore, but that Obama and his puppets are even worse. Here is a part of the letter Ann Barnhardt sent out to her clients and the financial community today (underlining and bold in this quotation are hers):
Perhaps the most ominous dynamic that I have yet heard of in regards to this mess is that of the risk of potential CLAWBACK actions. For those who do not know, “clawback” is the process by which a bankruptcy trustee is legally permitted to re-seize assets that left a bankrupt entity in the time period immediately preceding the entity’s collapse. So, using the MF Global customers as an example, any funds that were withdrawn from MFG accounts in the run-up to the collapse, either because of suspicions the customer may have had about MFG from, say, watching the company’s bond yields rise sharply, or from purely organic day-to-day withdrawls, the bankruptcy trustee COULD initiate action to “clawback” those funds. As a hedge broker, this makes my blood run cold. Generally, as the markets move in favor of a hedge position and equity builds in a client’s account, that excess equity is sent back to the customer who then uses that equity to offset cash market transactions OR to pay down a revolving line of credit. Even the possibility that a customer could be penalized and additionally raped AGAIN via a clawback action after already having their customer funds stolen is simply villainous. While there has been no open indication of clawback actions being initiated by the MF Global trustee, I have been told that it is a possibility.
And so, to the very unpleasant crux of the matter. The futures and options markets are no longer viable. It is my recommendation that ALL customers withdraw from all of the markets as soon as possible so that they have the best chance of protecting themselves and their equity. The system is no longer functioning with integrity and is suicidally risk-laden. The rule of law is non-existent, instead replaced with godless, criminal political cronyism.
MF Global customers who got out BEFORE it went under are at risk of having their money seized in a clawback... Does that bother anyone? Read that last sentence again, ends with "criminal political cronyism". The above quotation should be very alarming to all of us.And just now we learn (http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/european-bailout-fund-greek-money-laundering-and-fraud) that the EFSF (the European agency trying to shore up Club Med there in Europe) put $1.3 billion into a failing Greek bank just had about $1 billion stolen. Here's a quote from Wolf Richter's piece:
The ink wasn’t even dry yet on the European bailout fund, the EFSF when it paid $1.3 billion to bail out Proton Bank in Greece. Turns out, Proton had siphoned off $1 billion in a scheme of fraud, embezzlement, money laundering, and offshore front companies, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung. And then a bomb exploded.
The bomb, fabricated of dynamite, demolished four cars in front of a building in Halandri, a suburb of Athens. Not a coincidence: in the building lived a senior employee of the Bank of Greece, whose meticulous investigation of Proton Bank had exposed the massive criminal scheme. According to the police, the bomb was intended as a warning to those who attempt to shed light on these kinds of machinations.
Just today.
MF Global appears to be the catalyst that may be the domino that sets the others off. There is $600,000,000 missing from accounts there at MF Global. Famed CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli reportedly spoke today with traders in tears who have lost their money... The truly evil (ex-CEO) Jon Corzine will almost surely skate from this unharmed, but even if he were to be tried, found guilty and sentenced (big if), he will then be pardoned by our president. Don't believe me? Think about it. Corzine bankrupted New Jersey as governor. And now MF Global. What a swell guy.
Tell us, Jon Corzine: Where's the money?
Tell us, Proton Bank: Where's the money?
It looks like the money has been stolen. So much money has been stolen since 2007. So much money... Who stole it? I will tell you: the Banksters, the corrupt in our .gov (including Congress) and the puppets behind the throne.
Will the perpetrators of these actions be found out and prosecuted? Most will likely NOT be punished. Perhaps a couple of cases, show trials, to throw some red meat to the sheeple-becoming-people. But the Big Money is gone, it looks like it will never be found nor will we get it back.
The "cognitive dissonance" that so many of us feel is one of the results of all the lies that not even we believe, deep down inside. We are being lied to, every day, by TPTB. Not just lied to, but robbed on a huge scale never before seen in history. The word is getting out.
Everybody knows. Or will very soon.
