Bob Ivry | Bloomberg.com

Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) – Mark Pittman, the award-winning investigative reporter whose fight to open the Federal Reserve to more scrutiny led Bloomberg News to sue the central bank and win, died Nov. 25 in Yonkers, New York. He was 52.

Pittman suffered from heart-related illnesses. The precise cause of his death wasn’t known, said his friend William Karesh, vice president of the Global Health Program at the Bronx, New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.

A former police-beat reporter who joined Bloomberg News in 1997, Pittman wrote stories in 2007 predicting the collapse of the banking system. That year, he wonthe Gerald Loeb Award from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, the highest accolade in financial journalism, for “Wall Street’s Faustian Bargain,” a series of articles on the breakdown of the U.S. mortgage industry.

“He was one of the great financial journalists of our time,” said Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University in New York and the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for economics. “His death is shocking.”

Pittman’s fight to make the Fed more accountable resulted in an Aug. 24 victory in Manhattan Federal Court affirming the public’s right to know about the central bank’s more than $2 trillion in loans to financial firms. He drew the attention of filmmakers Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, who gave him a prominent role in their documentary about subprime mortgages, “American Casino,” which was shown at New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival in May.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) will not give the public a week to review the final text of a health-care reform bill before it is voted on later this year.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) has also declined to commit to giving the public a week to read and consider the final health-care bill.

At her press briefing on Thursday, Pelosi was asked whether the health-care bill would be handled differently than the stimulus bill, which came up in February. The 1,071-page final text of that bill was posted on the House Appropriations Committee’s Web site late on a Thursday night and then voted on the next day.

“When the stimulus bill came out earlier this year, members and citizens had less than two days to review the final version that came out of the conference committee before it was voted on,” CNSNews.com asked Pelosi on Thursday. “Will you commit to giving Americans at least a week to review the full conference version of the health care bill before it is voted on? And also will you commit to submitting the final version to the CBO [Congressional Budget Office] so that they can report the cost to the public?”

Pelosi would not commit to giving the public a week to review the bill, and did not respond to the question of having the CBO report on the cost of the final bill.
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Free Society | DailyKos.com

The Central Bank Monopoly might finally be audited sometime in the future for the first time in over 95 years (since the inception of the Federal Reserve system).  House Resolution H.R. 1207, the Bill to Audit the books of The Federal Reserve Oligarchs, now has 222 Congressmen/Congresswomen signed on as official co-sponsors.

The Federal Reserve Transparency Act (official title of H.R. 1207), is now co-sponsored by a majority of the U.S. House members, with Dennis Kucinich D-OH being the offical 218th co-sponsor. The bill is expected to pass by a very comfortable margin in the House, as long as Nancy Pelosi (”Bank Bailout” puppet) doesn’t find some parlimentary way to torpedo this opportunity for some long overdue government transparency.

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tommorrow morning.”

          –Henry Ford

Apparently nobody at the Federal Reserve now can account for some $9 Trillion dollars ($9,000,000,000,000.00) in off-balance sheet transactions.

• FreeSociety’s diary :: ::

When Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Orlando) asked Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman of the Federal Reserve some very basic questions about where the trillions of dollars that have come from the Fed’s expanded balance sheet, the Inspector General didn’t know. Worse, nobody at the Fed seems to have any idea what the losses on its $2 trillion portfolio really are.   Rep. Alan Grayson said: “I am shocked to find out that nobody at the Federal Reserve is keeping track of anything.”  

Story at:  Whoops…Federal Reserve “loses” $9 Trillion dollars

Jim Grant, editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, told CNBC, that The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is so out of whack that is undercapitalized in a way that Citicorp is undercapitalized.

In addition to H.R. 1207, progressive Senator Bernie Sanders also has drafted a U.S. Senate Bill, S.604, called The Federal Reserve Sunshine Act, which currently has one U.S. Senate co-sponsor, Senator Jim DeMint.
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So what or who are “The Federal Reserve“, besides just the biggest Robber Barons on the Earth? Dennis Kucinich explains:

“The Fed, when it was created in 1913, actually the money creation power of the Country was removed … to private hands. This is something that most Americans don’t have any clue about. So the Federal Reserve, first of all, needs to be held accountable within their sphere of activities now, because they played a role in looking the other way when the sub-prime loan scandal was burgeoning. They played a role in looking the other way not regulating activity in hedge funds, and the speculators on Wall Street. And they played a role in looking the other way with respect to the practises of the financial community .. which essentially they’ve taken a laissez-faire approach.  You know, the Fed at least should be reformed, and at best there should be a repeal of the 1913 authorization, and we need to look at the money power issues in order to reclaim our democracy.

I have long believed that the debt-based nature of our monetary system, has a lot to do with way in which wealth accumulates and accelerates upward.”

      –Dennis Kucinich, -Democratic Congressman, OH

If you’ve ever wondered just who owns and profits by the Federal Reserve System (off the backs of American citizens money), here is some of the documented ownership history:  Who Owns The Federal Reserve.

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Ari Levi | Elizabeth Hester | Bloomberg | Seattle Times 

JPMorgan Chase stands to reap a $29 billion windfall, thanks to an accounting rule that lets the second-biggest U.S. bank transform bad loans it purchased from Washington Mutual into income.

Wells Fargo, Bank of America and PNC Financial Services Group are also poised to benefit from taking over home lenders Wachovia, Countrywide Financial and National City, regulatory filings show.

The deals provide a combined $56 billion in so-called accretable yield, the difference between the value of the loans on the banks’ balance sheets and the cash flow they’re expected to produce.

Faced with the highest U.S. unemployment in 25 years and a surging foreclosure rate, the lenders are seizing on a 4-year-old rule aimed at standardizing how they book acquired loans that have deteriorated in credit quality.

By applying the measure to mortgages and commercial loans that lost value during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the banks will wring revenue from the wreckage, said Robert Willens, a former Lehman Brothers Holdings executive who runs a tax and accounting consulting firm in New York.

“It will benefit these guys dramatically,” Willens said. “There’s a great chance they’ll be able to record very substantial gains going forward.”

When JPMorgan bought Seattle-based WaMu out of receivership last September for $1.9 billion, the New York-based bank used purchase accounting, which allows it to record impaired loans at fair value, marking down $118.2 billion of assets by 25 percent.

Now, as borrowers pay their debts, the bank says it may gain $29.1 billion over the life of the loans in pretax income before taxes and expenses.

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Rep. Alan Grayson asks the Federal Reserve Inspector General about the trillions of dollars lent or spent by the Federal Reserve and where it went, and the trillions of off balance sheet obligations. Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is.

traderview.com

$14 million, million, or stated another way $14 trillion.  The annual GDP of the US is approximately $14 trillion or $46,666 for every man, woman and child in the US - either way you view it, this is the INCONCEIVABLE amount that has been spent, printed or guaranteed since January 2007 in the US; it does not include the government machinations in other G7 countries.  And what have you and your family received  from that $46,666 per person?  MOSTLY nothing and you will get mostly nothing from the next $46,000 and the next $46,000; ut you will get one thing from it:  the bill. 

The greatest transfer of wealth from those who hold their money in paper to those who don’t has commenced. A “Crack-up Boom” approaches. 

So far, the governments and central banks of the US, UK and Switzerland have embarked upon QUANTITATIVE easing, aka “printing money out of thin air,” to liquefy their financial systems, generate financial system bailout funds and devalue their currencies for competitive reasons.  This is set to continue indefinitely as public serpents socialize the costs of their follies and transfer the benefits of it to their elite special interest campaign supporters.

The Euro zone shall soon be forced to do so in a defensive measure and as a practical response to the credit markets increasingly ceasing to function;and the bulk of the problems have not been addressed, so future efforts will dwarf what has gone before.  The demise of the G7 financial and currency systems is, as some would say, “baked in the cake”.  The only thing we do not know are the various roads we will travel in reaching the ultimate destination.  It is a battle between Mother Nature, the government and banking elites.  I know who will win this battle, and it is not man.

The Federal Reserve balance sheet has expanded from under a trillion dollars to over $2 trillion since September, and with last week’s announcement of an additional $750 billion MBS (mortgage backed securities) and $300 billion long-dated US treasuries in the next six months, it can be expected to rise to over $4 trillion during this period.  Before this is over, this balance sheet EXPANSION will probably approach $15 to 20 trillion.   Bill Gross of Pimco estimates another $5 trillion is needed; unfortunately, that is just what is needed in the next two years;and they will tax you to death and print it to SAVE you.

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http://RestoreTheRepublic.com

PBS station, KBDI, in Denver Colorado broadcast the groundbreaking expose, America: Freedom To Fascism to raise funds for the station. They invited Gary Franchi to come and talk about the points of the film during breaks.

To support KBDI please consider making a pledge so they can continue broadcasting the message to truth to the American people.

1-800-690-5234 or http://KBDI.org

IF YOU CANNOT make a pledge please call them and thank them for their support of our message.
Category: News & Politics

Matthias Chang | GlobalResearch.ca 

INTRODUCTION

The disinformation by the global financial dailies in the last twelve months as to the cause of the global financial tsunami, serve the same purpose as the global mass media when they perpetuated the lies that lulled the people to support the war criminals Bush, Blair and Howard to launch the barbaric war against Iraq and Afghanistan which resulted in the genocide of millions, the mutilation of hundreds of thousands, physically and psychologically, and the devastation of an entire nation.

The wars unleashed thus far, specifically the “War on Terror” were launched to preserve the shadow money-lenders’ political and military power.

This War on Terror is the greatest military sideshow that distracted the American people from the financial rape and plunder of their economy and the destruction of their Constitution.

Since the Summer of 2007, we have witnessed a concerted effort by the world’s central banks and global commercial and investment banks to preserve the shadow money-lenders’ financial power, one that is founded on fraud and structured in every detail as in the infamous Ponzi scheme.

In the last seven years, the Ponzi scheme was globalised by the Shadow Money-Lenders, siphoning hundreds of billions from so-called sophisticated investors and sovereign wealth funds. At its peak, the Ponzi scheme was estimated to be worth over $500 Trillion, with the Credit Default Swap (CDS) portion just under $60 Trillion! 

Hidden behind the headlines of the financial destruction that is sweeping across the globe, lies another story – a dark tale of men who orchestrated the crisis and have amassed enormous wealth and power at the expense of the millions who are now unemployed and whose homes have been foreclosed. This select group of men is in absolute control of the unfolding events. Who are they?  THE 

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Steve Watson | PrisonPlanet.net

Texas Congressman Ron Paul has warned that passing the latest proposed economic stimulus package would be akin to pouring kerosene on an already raging fire.

Paul, who is also a member of the House Financial Services Committee, warned that such measures will cause a recession to turn into a full scale depression possibly worse than that of the 1930s.

During a Television interview with CNN, Paul explained why he believes stimulus funding is such a destructive policy.

“It’s because the government is spending it. If the people were spending it it would be fine, but the government never does anything productive. They have to take money from productive individuals and spend it in non productive ways, so it’s just digging a bigger hole, getting us into bigger debt, and that is the problem.” Paul said.
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Andrew Ross Sorkin | DealBookBlog.NYTimes

Timothy F. Geithner, President Obama’s nominee to be Treasury secretary, is testifying before the Senate Finance Committee at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

As president of the New York Federal Reserve since 2003, Mr. Geithner has been a central player in building the vast bailout plans that the government has extended to Wall Street firms and other troubled financial institutions, such as the giant insurer American International Group. After his nomination, it was disclosed that Mr. Geithner failed to pay more than $34,000 in taxes for Social Security and Medicare when he was a senior official at the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003, including a small payment in 2004 after he left.

The Senate Finance Committee hearing began at 10 a.m. in Washington, with opening statements from Senator Max Baucus, the committee chairman, and Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican.

DealBook is live-blogging the hearing, with the most recent posts on top.

1:30 p.m. | More on taxes: “What did you think you were doing” when you signed this document? That’s what Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, asked Mr. Geithner as he waved a document called a “Tax Allowance Application” that Mr. Geithner had filled out — incorrectly, as it happens — while working for the International Monetary Fund. Mr. Geithner acknowledged that the language of the document was clear but said it was an honest mistake, albeit one he repeated multiple times.
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Mark Pittman | Bloomberg.com

The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it’s allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information. The institution confirmed that a records search found 231 pages of documents pertaining to some of the requests.

“If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that’s what they don’t want us to know,” said Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York-based ICP Capital LLC, which oversees $22 billion in assets.

The Fed stepped into a rescue role that was the original purpose of the Treasury’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. The central bank loans don’t have the oversight safeguards that Congress imposed upon the TARP.

Total Fed lending exceeded $2 trillion for the first time Nov. 6. It rose by 138 percent, or $1.23 trillion, in the 12 weeks since Sept. 14, when central bank governors relaxed collateral standards to accept securities that weren’t rated AAA.

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Mark Brown | Guardian.co.uk

Politicians searching for historical precedents for the current financial turmoil should start looking a bit further back after an Oxford University historian discovered what he believes is the world’s first credit crunch in 88BC.

The good news is that Philip Kay knows how the Romans got themselves into financial bother. The bad news is no one knows how they got themselves out of it.

“The essential similarity between what happened 21 centuries ago and what is happening in today’s UK economy is that a massive increase in monetary liquidity culminated with problems in another country causing a credit crisis at home. In both cases distance and over-optimism obscured the risk,” said Kay, a supernumerary fellow at Wolfson College.

The monetary historian is giving a lecture today in which he will reveal how Cicero, the Roman orator, gave a speech in 66BC in which he alluded to the credit crunch. Cicero was arguing that Pompey the Great should be given military command against Mithridates VI, king of Pontus on the Black sea coast of what is now Turkey. He reminded his audience of events in 88BC, when the same Mithridates invaded the Roman province of Asia, on the western coast of Turkey. Cicero claimed the invasion caused the loss of so much Roman money that credit was destroyed in Rome itself.
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ritholtz.com

Whenever I discussed the current bailout situation with people, I find they have a hard time comprehending the actual numbers involved. That became a problem while doing the research for the Bailout Nation book. I needed some way to put this into proper historical perspective.

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars. People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Jim Bianco of Bianco Research crunched the inflation adjusted numbers. The bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion
TOTAL: $3.92 trillion (data courtesy of Bianco Research)

That is $686 billion less than the cost of the credit crisis thus far.
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Robert Kiyosaki | YahooFinance.com

How did we get into the current financial mess? Great question.

Turmoil in the Making

In 1910, seven men held a secret meeting on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia. It’s estimated that those seven men represented one-sixth of the world’s wealth. Six were Americans representing J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and the U.S. government. One was a European representing the Rothschilds and Warburgs.

In 1913, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank was created as a direct result of that secret meeting. Interestingly, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank isn’t federal, there are no reserves, and it’s not a bank. Those seven men, some American and some European, created this new entity, commonly referred to as the Fed, to take control of the banking system and the money supply of the United States.

In 1944, a meeting in Bretton Woods, N.H., led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. While the stated purposes for the two new organizations initially sounded admirable, the IMF and the World Bank were created to do to the world what the Federal Reserve Bank does to the United States.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon signed an executive order declaring that the United States no longer had to redeem its paper dollars for gold. With that, the first phase of the takeover of the world banking system and money supply was complete.

In 2008, the world is in economic turmoil. The rich are getting richer, but most people are becoming poorer. Much of this turmoil is directly related to those meetings that took place decades ago. In other words, much of this turmoil is by design.
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Paul Joseph Watson | PrisonPlanet.com 

As we reported at the time, on October 2, Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman gave a stunning speech on the House floor during which he decried the fact that, “Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day, another couple of thousand the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no.”

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Paul Joseph Watson | PrisonPlanet.com

Congressman Ron Paul confronted Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke this morning about plans to replace the dollar with a new global currency during the House Financial Services Committee meeting on Capitol Hill.

“Already we see talk….about a new international world reserve currency and to me that’s pretty important because the fiat dollar reserve system is not gonna work anymore,” said the Congressman, adding that currencies have failed throughout history.
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