Occupy Wall Street - Part 2 - Corporate Responsibility

October - 2011
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Occupy Wall Street - Part 2 - Corporate Responsibility - Social Justice

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Never forget that this economic collapse is not "Our Fault". It was not caused by "Greedy Citizens" and by people who purchased homes which they could not afford. The housing market in the U.S. is only worth a total of 30 Trillion dollars. It is not because "Americans Spent Too Much". The total "Consumer Debt" in the U.S. is only 60 Trillion dollars. It is the 6 or 7 hundred trillion dollars in "Toxic Assets" created by the banks which caused this economic collapse.

Once the American Capitalists began to manipulate the credit ratings system, that spelled doom for the system itself.

You would think that they would find the "Missing Money" elsewhere and before any cuts were made to social programs.

The Missing Money
Trillions Of Dollars Are Missing From The U.S. Government
Trillions of dollars are missing from the US government. What's going on? Where is the money? How could this happen? Where are the checks and balances? How much more has gone missing? What would happen if a corporation failed to pass an audit like this? Or a taxpayer? Who is responsible for this? Would your banks continue to handle your bank account if you behaved like this? Would your investors continue to buy your securities if you behaved like this?
http://solari.com/archive/missing_money

Rabbi Dov S. Zakheim
During his term as Comptroller, he was tasked to help track down the Pentagon's 2.6 trillion dollars ($2,600,000,000,000) worth of unaccounted transactions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dov_S._Zakheim

Here is a "Defense Of U.S. Capitalism".

Root Causes of the Current Crisis
"During a period of strong global growth, growing capital flows, and prolonged stability earlier this decade, market participants sought higher yields without an adequate appreciation of the risks and failed to exercise proper due diligence. At the same time, weak underwriting standards, unsound risk management practices, increasingly complex and opaque financial products, and consequent excessive leverage combined to create vulnerabilities in the system. Policy-makers, regulators and supervisors, in some advanced countries, did not adequately appreciate and address the risks building up in financial markets, keep pace with financial innovation, or take into account the systemic ramifications of domestic regulatory actions."
--G-20 Meeting - The Final Declaration, November 14-15, 2008--
http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/2008-lead...on-081115.html

It could just as well have read:

"You asses are so stupid that you didn't appreciate the risks or the see through the fraud related to these mortgage-backed securities. If you had done due diligence or your homework, we couldn't have robbed you. Toxic means poisonous and you ate the poison we fed you; so, you fools deserve everything you got."
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_55344.shtml

At the very core of the "U.S. Capitalist System" are the credit rating agencies. Standard and Poor or Moody's and The Clowns.

For the Financial System to garner any faith or confidence, the Credit Rating Agencies must remain pure as snow. Above reproach. All faith and confidence towards the U.S. Capitalist system is built upon the "Saintly" activities and oversight by Standard and Poor or Moody's and The Clowns.

The Credit Rating Agencies have been found to have actively participated and actively promoted Worthless Paper Derivatives (600 Trillion Dollars Of Toxic Assets were rated as Triple A Credit Risk) and which in turn were then "Insured" or "Guaranteed" by the U.S. Government/Taxpayer.

Only these three "Privately Owned" Commercial Rating Corporations are allowed to distribute government bonds. This fact alone would explain that Capitalism is for the very few. No competition allowed in this type of work. Hundreds of other companies have asked the SEC to be licenced and the SEC refused. A monopy. Check-Out who owns these three rating agencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating_agency

Where were the rating agencies?
S&P: Moody's : Fitch ?
The rating service employees knew they were acting fraudulently.
Employees at Moody's Investors Service told executives that issuing dubious creditworthy ratings to mortgage-backed securities made it appear they were incompetent or "sold our soul to the devil for revenue,'' according to e-mails obtained by U.S. House investigators.
The Securities and Exchange Commission in a July report found the credit-rating companies improperly managed conflicts of interest and violated internal procedures in granting top rankings to mortgage bonds.
An e-mail that a S&P employee wrote to a co-worker in 2006, obtained by committee investigators, said, "Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters.''
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ac8Bkp_7F4Rc

"These errors make us look either incompetent at credit analysis or like we sold our soul to the devil for revenue, or a little bit of both."
--A Moody’s managing director responding anonymously to an internal management survey, September 2007--

Ratings Agencies "Sold Their Soul" . . . Joining Wall Street and the Government

This instant message exchange between two unidentified Standard & Poor's officials about a mortgage-backed security deal ... :

Official #1: Btw (by the way) that deal is ridiculous.

Official #2: I know right...model def (definitely) does not capture half the risk.

Official #1: We should not be rating it.

Official #2: We rate every deal. It could be structured by cows and we would rate it.

A former executive of Moody's says conflicts of interest got in the way of rating agencies properly valuing mortgage backed securities.

Former Managing Director Jerome Fons, who worked at Moody's until August of 2007, says Moody's was focused on "maxmizing revenues," leading it to make the firm more "issuer friendly."
October 22, 2008
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/10/ratings-agencies-come-under-fire-but.html

This program discussed the Senate Hearings:

Credit and Credibility
What role did the credit rating agencies play in the current economic crisis? This week, a former managing director at Standard & Poor's speaks out on U.S. television for the first time about how he was pressured to compromise standards in a push for profits. Frank Raiter reveals what was really going on behind closed doors at the credit rating agencies the public relies on to evaluate the safety of their investments.
"During this period, profit was primary; analytics were secondary," Raiter tells NOW Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa.
Who was watching the watchers? Surprising new revelations about the economic debacle, this week on NOW.
PBS NOW
Host David Brancaccio
Correspondent Maria Hinojosa
November 21, 2008
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/446/index.html

Debt Watchdogs: Tamed or Caught Napping?
By Gretchen Morgenson
December 07, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/business/07rating.html

Rating Agencies
Committee Holds Hearing on the Credit Rating Agencies and the Financial Crisis
Corporate Accountability
Chairman Henry A. Waxman
October 22, 2008
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=2250
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/446/index.html
(Flash Video)
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=2258

Moody’s Says Don’t Inhale the Smoke It’s Puffing
By Jonathan Weil
March 12, 2009
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aQzRB3sWOivE

.... WILLIAM K. BLACK: IndyMac specialized in making liars' loans. In 2006 alone, it sold $80 billion dollars of liars' loans to other companies. $80 billion.

BILL MOYERS: And was this happening exclusively in this sub-prime mortgage business?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: No, and that's a big part of the story as well. Even prime loans began to have non-verification. Even Ronald Reagan, you know, said, "Trust, but verify." They just gutted the verification process. We know that will produce enormous fraud, under economic theory, criminology theory, and two thousand years of life experience.

BILL MOYERS: Is it possible that these complex instruments were deliberately created so swindlers could exploit them?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Oh, absolutely. This stuff, the exotic stuff that you're talking about was created out of things like liars' loans, that were known to be extraordinarily bad. And now it was getting triple-A ratings. Now a triple-A rating is supposed to mean there is zero credit risk. So you take something that not only has significant, it has crushing risk. That's why it's toxic. And you create this fiction that it has zero risk. That itself, of course, is a fraudulent exercise. And again, there was nobody looking, during the Bush years. So finally, only a year ago, we started to have a Congressional investigation of some of these rating agencies, and it's scandalous what came out. What we know now is that the rating agencies never looked at a single loan file. When they finally did look, after the markets had completely collapsed, they found, and I'm quoting Fitch, the smallest of the rating agencies, "the results were disconcerting, in that there was the appearance of fraud in nearly every file we examined."

BILL MOYERS: So if your assumption is correct, your evidence is sound, the bank, the lending company, created a fraud. And the ratings agency that is supposed to test the value of these assets knowingly entered into the fraud. Both parties are committing fraud by intention.

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Right, and the investment banker that — we call it pooling — puts together these bad mortgages, these liars' loans, and creates the toxic waste of these derivatives. All of them do that. And then they sell it to the world and the world just thinks because it has a triple-A rating it must actually be safe. Well, instead, there are 60 and 80 percent losses on these things, because of course they, in reality, are toxic waste.

BILL MOYERS: You're describing what Bernie Madoff did to a limited number of people. But you're saying it's systemic, a systemic Ponzi scheme.

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Oh, Bernie was a piker. He doesn't even get into the front ranks of a Ponzi scheme...

BILL MOYERS: But you're saying our system became a Ponzi scheme.

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Our system...

BILL MOYERS: Our financial system...

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Became a Ponzi scheme. Everybody was buying a pig in the poke. But they were buying a pig in the poke with a pretty pink ribbon, and the pink ribbon said, "Triple-A."

BILL MOYERS: Is there a law against liars' loans?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Not directly, but there, of course, many laws against fraud, and liars' loans are fraudulent.

BILL MOYERS: Because...

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Because they're not going to be repaid and because they had false representations. They involve deceit, which is the essence of fraud.

BILL MOYERS: Yeah. Are you saying that Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others in the administration, with the banks, are engaged in a cover up to keep us from knowing what went wrong?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Absolutely.

BILL MOYERS: You are.

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Absolutely, because they are scared to death. All right? They're scared to death of a collapse. They're afraid that if they admit the truth, that many of the large banks are insolvent.....
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/transcript1.html

What about the property appraisers and their fraudulent appraisals?
http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/luap/articles/entry/1264

Insider Trading Defendants and Cases Charged Since August 2009
Defendant Charged Status
May 31, 2011
Total Charged: 49
Total Convicted: 39
Total Sentenced: 8
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/05/...trial-to-begin

Congressional Staffers Gain From Trading in Stocks
By Brody Mullins, tom McGinty and Jason Zweig
October 11, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703431604575522434188603198.html

In five of our 12 Patchwork Nation county types, 50 percent or fewer of the households have stock portfolios of any kind, including retirement accounts. Those county types are the socially conservative Evangelical Epicenters (14.6 million people), heavily Latino Immigration Nation (18.8 million), heavily black Minority Central (13.3 million), small town Service Worker Centers (30.6 million) and LDS adherent-filled Mormon Outposts (1.8 million).
http://patchworknation.org/communiti...cal-epicenters
http://patchworknation.org/communiti...gration-nation
http://patchworknation.org/communities/minority-central
http://patchworknation.org/communities/mormon-outposts

Madoff Whistleblower Tells KWN Banks Stealing From Pensions
In this King World News exclusive interview, Harry Markopolos the Whistleblower who brought down Bernie Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme reached out to KWN with the latest fraud he and his team have uncovered. Markopolos stated, “The Bank of New York is going to go down, Eric. Between Bank of New York Mellon and State Street, these two institutions have stolen between $6 to $10 billion from tens of millions of Americans retirement savings accounts. It’s been a hell of a crime spree for the bank, but now they are being brought to justice.”
Markopolos also told KWN, “The New York Attorney General filed suit on Tuesday (against Bank of New York Mellon) for stealing money from pension funds on currency transactions. This theft has been from tens of millions of Americans, policemen, firemen, librarians, municipal workers, judges and the list goes on and on and they’ve been doing it for decades.
At this pace Harry Markopolos and his team are fast becoming synonymous with fighting corruption and crime on a massive scale. Who knows, they may be this centuries new “Elliott Ness” and legendary team of law enforcement agents nicknamed “The Untouchables.”
Harry Markopolos is a Certified Fraud Examiner and CEO of Boston Security Analysts Society. Mr. Markopolos investigates fraud full-time against Fortune 500 companies in the financial services and health care industries. He and his team bring fraud cases to the U.S. Department of Justice, Internal Revenue Service, and various state attorney generals under existing whistleblower programs.
Author of “No One Would Listen”- David Einhorn from Greenlight Capital wrote the foreword for Mr. Markopolos’ new book and called Harry a hero for what he did.
----
In a King World News exclusive interview, the man who brought down Bernie Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme informed KWN, “Bank of New York is going to go down, Eric. Between Bank of New York Mellon and State Street, these two institutions have stolen between $6 to $10 billion from tens of millions of Americans retirement savings accounts. It’s been a hell of a crime spree for the bank, but now they are being brought to justice.”
Harry Markopolos has lead the team that spearheaded this investigation from the beginning. Harry and his team were the first to expose this fraud. Markopolos also told KWN, “The New York Attorney General filed suit on Tuesday (against Bank of New York Mellon) for stealing money from pension funds on currency transactions. This theft has been from tens of millions of Americans, policemen, firemen, librarians, municipal workers, judges and the list goes on and on and they’ve been doing it for decades.
It’s clear that the banks executives, their strategy is we have to lie to maintain the fraud. We can’t admit to our board how much we stole...of course we’d be fired. They are saying the charges are baseless and they are going to defend them vigorously. Well, talk is cheap. If they are going to defend them there is only one place to defend those cases and that is before a jury and they refuse to set trial dates. The government is ready for trial tomorrow. Why won’t the bank agree to trial dates if they are so innocent? The answer is they are not so innocent.
Every day, every time a state pension fund traded, the bank would steel approximately three tenths of one percent from every transaction. As an example, every time a pension fund bought a currency what the Bank of New York would do is look back twenty hours and assign all of the state pension funds purchase transactions at the high of the day.
Every time a state pension fund tried to sell a currency they would assign them a price at the lows of the day and the bank would pocket the difference. The bank has done this for not years, but for decades, every business day for decades. This bank didn’t learn to steal just ten years ago, they’ve been doing it for many decades.
I’m certain that the clients are concerned and calling the bank. If they read the complaints by the Florida Attorney General, by the Virginia Attorney General, by the New York Attorney General and by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Manhattan, if they read the emails and look at the math and look at how much was stolen, they would realize that they too are victims. They would have cause for concern and pull their accounts from the Bank of New York....
“I would expect the shareholders to be filing class action suits once they realize the extent of the fraud. I’m thinking that if Al-Qaeda had done this to Americans, Seal Team 6 would be dropping in, but the banks did this. So maybe law enforcement needs to drop into those corporate board rooms and treat them like Seal Team 6 treated Osama Bin Laden.
My whistleblowers tell me this is an industrywide practice and that all of the custody banks do it. So basically, anybody who has a retirement account that’s invested in international assets, whether it be bonds or stocks, has been a victim of this scheme and they need to get their money back.”
Markopolos also discussed how Americans are ripped off by banks when they travel, “Every American who travels overseas is a victim of foreign currency fraud. There is a bank cartel out there and they charge 3% foreign exchange transaction fees. They are charging people one hundred times more than what it costs them to trade foreign exchange. So they are stealing from you every day, in every way.
But finally, I think, thanks to these cases that we have against Bank of New York and State Street, you are seeing two firms break away from cartel pricing. I would like to congratulate them. Capital One offers zero foreign transaction fees, so they are treating you honestly.
The other one that is treating you honestly is American Express for the platinum and black card holders, there are no foreign currency fees. The rest of the credit card companies are out there to steal from you.”
Harry Markopolos is a national hero for breaking open the $65 billion Madoff Ponzi scheme and his internationally televised Congressional testimony which blasted the SEC.
Host Eric King interviews Harry M. Markopolos
October 06, 2011
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/10/6_Madoff_Whistleblower_Tells_KWN_Banks_Stealing_From_Pensions.html
http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2011/10/8_Harry_M._Markopolos.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Markopolos

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