CEOs

The directors of corporations voted to pay their CEOs fat salaries hoping to gain for themselves greater earnings, higher stock prices, and greater popularity and importance for their shareholders. But, the CEO's were wiser then their directors and all others in the company. And they took that wealth and translated it into gold and other tangible treasures that would endure the remainder of time. They retired in their nobility and brilliance each to a rural country house where they raised horses, crop and good feelings with all people for the insights and knowledge they had gained was profound and their decisions sound.

Soros, Socialism and Conspiracy

Back in the seventies I read the popular thesis by the gifted Stanford University research scholar, Gary Allen, called "None Dare Call it Conspiracy". Today the book is a book of prophesy because a great deal of what he spoke about has been unfolding year by year ever since it's initial publication. What I enjoy most about the book is that it is insightful. It takes the reader beneath the surface of politics, finance and government and provides a much deeper modus operandi for why and how people gather on high political levels and who controls whom. It is an intriguing world that few of us understand unless one is willing to transcend the media and begin a lifetime of one's own research into the subject. Other individuals who do this and have shown exceptional accuracy and reliability are generally disregarded by what has come to be known as the "Establishment". For, what is classically established is a highly organized cadre of wealthy movers who create politics, government, finance and media to support their objectives and visions. Although some say that their world is too disorganized to be a conspiracy then I would pose the question, "How do the events match the predictions so accurately ?" The major prediction is for a New World Order. What we are seeing today is the NWO alive and present and Soros is quite near the very top. The reasons why he and others like him are as powerful a force for democratic socialism will be discussed in the article which follows. Happy reading.

You Lose, Soros Wins by Richard W. Rahn

Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.

Added to cato.org on October 24, 2008

This article appeared in The Washington Times on October 24, 2008.

Have you ever wondered why billionaires like George Soros financially support politicians who say they will "increase taxes on the rich"?

The answer quite simply is that the tax increases are most often put on people trying to become rich, not those already rich. ... read on

Obama Sued Citibank Under CRA to Force it to Make Bad Loans

- UPDATED - http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/obama-sued-citibank-under-cra-to-force-it-to-make-bad-loans/

September 30, 2008 — iusbvision

UPDATE 10-12-2008: Hotair.com posts a video From April 3, 1998 of Clinton’s HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo telling how they forced banks to make high risk affirmative action loans. See Update VIII towards the bottom of this post.

UPDATE V: AUDIO - OBAMA SAID IN 2007 THAT GIVING SUB-PRIME LOANS TO PEOPLE WHO COULDN’T AFFORD THEM WAS A GOOD IDEA!!! Hotair.com comments HERE. ---------> Watch Video

“I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.” — Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007

Do you remember how we told you that the Democrats and groups associated with them leaned on banks and even sued to get them to make bad loans by abusing the Community Reinvestment Act (see HERE and HERE)? The abuse of this act by ACORN and officials like Janet Reno was a factor in causing the economic crisis. The harasment suits filed under this act were used to get banks to lower credit standards and hand out high risk loans. Fellow bloggers have dug up the lawsuit below while researching Obama’s legal career. It is a typical example of an ACORN harassment lawsuit.

In these lawsuits, ACORN makes a bogus claim of Redlining (denying poor people loans because of their ethnic heritage). They protest and get the local media to raise a big stink. This stink means that the bank faces thousands of people closing their accounts and get local politicians to lobby to stop the bank from doing some future business, expansions and mergers. If the bank goes to court, they will win, but the damage is already done because who is going to launch a big campaign to get the bank’s reputation back?

It is important to understand the nature of these lawsuits and what their purpose is. ACORN filed, or threatened to file, tons of these lawsuits and ALL CRA suits allege racism (usually the press involved and such with the threat of the CRA lawsuit is enough to get the bank to give in and put them in a catch 22, they also had a willing Janet Reno Justice Department to work with - see below for more on Reno). As we have said in our series or articles analyzing every aspect of this story (links at the very bottom of this post), the series of ACORN harassment lawsuits and intimidation against banks to lower credit standards was not the sole reason for the mortgage crisis, it was one important layer of many that brought us to the mortgage crisis and the largest financial scandal in the history of the world. Continue Reading.

Study on Acorn
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDZiMjkwMDczZWI5ODdjOWYxZTIzZGIyNzEyMjE0ODI=#more

Inside Obama’s Acorn
By their fruits ye shall know them.

By Stanley Kurtz

This is a story we’ve largely missed. While Obama’s Acorn connection has not gone entirely unreported, its depth, extent, and significance have been poorly understood. Typically, media background pieces note that, on behalf of Acorn, Obama and a team of Chicago attorneys won a 1995 suit forcing the state of Illinois to implement the federal “motor-voter” bill. In fact, Obama’s Acorn connection is far more extensive. In the few stories where Obama’s role as an Acorn “leadership trainer” is noted, or his seats on the boards of foundations that may have supported Acorn are discussed, there is little follow-up. Even these more extensive reports miss many aspects of Obama’s ties to Acorn.

An Anti-Capitalism Agenda
To understand the nature and extent of Acorn’s radicalism, an excellent place to begin is Sol Stern’s 2003 City Journal article, “ACORN’s Nutty Regime for Cities.” (For a shorter but helpful piece, try Steven Malanga’s “Acorn Squash.”)

Sol Stern explains that Acorn is the key modern successor of the radical 1960’s “New Left,” with a “1960’s-bred agenda of anti-capitalism” to match. Acorn, says Stern, grew out of “one of the New Left’s silliest and most destructive groups, the National Welfare Rights Organization.” In the 1960’s, NWRO launched a campaign of sit-ins and disruptions at welfare offices. The goal was to remove eligibility restrictions, and thus effectively flood welfare rolls with so many clients that the system would burst. The theory, explains Stern, was that an impossibly overburdened welfare system would force “a radical reconstruction of America’s unjust capitalist economy.” Instead of a socialist utopia, however, we got the culture of dependency and family breakdown that ate away at America’s inner cities — until welfare reform began to turn the tide.

While Acorn holds to NWRO’s radical economic framework and its confrontational 1960’s-style tactics, the targets and strategy have changed. Acorn prefers to fly under the national radar, organizing locally in liberal urban areas — where, Stern observes, local legislators and reporters are often “slow to grasp how radical Acorn’s positions really are.” Acorn’s new goals are municipal “living wage” laws targeting “big-box” stores like Wal-Mart, rolling back welfare reform, and regulating banks — efforts styled as combating “predatory lending.” Unfortunately, instead of helping workers, Acorn’s living-wage campaigns drive businesses out of the very neighborhoods where jobs are needed most. Acorn’s opposition to welfare reform only threatens to worsen the self-reinforcing cycle of urban poverty and family breakdown. Perhaps most mischievously, says Stern, Acorn uses banking regulations to pressure financial institutions into massive “donations” that it uses to finance supposedly non-partisan voter turn-out drives.

According to Stern, Acorn’s radical agenda sometimes shifts toward “undisguised authoritarian socialism.” Fully aware of its living-wage campaign’s tendency to drive businesses out of cities, Acorn hopes to force companies that want to move to obtain “exit visas.” “How much longer before Acorn calls for exit visas for wealthy or middle-class individuals before they can leave a city?” asks Stern, adding, “This is the road to serfdom indeed.” Continue ...

The Cause of the 2008 Financial Crisis By James F. Davis | October 14, 2008

As someone who spent the majority of his life as an international bank analyst and executive, I learned, that to fix a problem, one needs to understand what caused it. It can be difficult to see because sometimes it takes time for the effects of bad decisions to manifest themselves. It also requires that we examine the facts rather than our emotional biases.

The facts are that approximately 6% of all mortgage loans in United States are in default. Historically, defaults were less than one-third of that, i.e., from 0.25% to 2%.

A huge portion of the increased mortgage loan defaults are what are referred to as ‘sub-prime’ loans. Most of the sub-prime loans have been made to borrowers with poor credit ratings, no down payment on the home financed, and/or no verification of income or assets (Alt-A’s). Close to 25% of sub-prime and Alt-A’s loans are in default.

These loans increased dramatically as a 9/30/99 New York Times article explained, “In a move that could help increase homeownership rates among minorities and low income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corp. is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.” ... continue

Greenspan's Laissez-Faire or LaRouche's Firewall

Greenspan has continually suggested to keep the economics simple, legislate against corruption, and let the markets play out the way they must. He believes it all balances out in the end, and will eventually adjust itself. Sadly, half the world may drop dead in the process. After Atlas Shrugged in the sixties, Greenspan became a social Darwinist letting the strongest survive, and permitting the weakest to peter out gracefully in traditional systems of sub minimum wage slavery. His philosophy is to keep from over-regulating, never never freeze anything and hunker down.

La Rouche that old sage and prophet of doom says just the opposite calling for a braking system he calls a "firewall". The alternative he fears at this stage of the turbulence is the end of civilization. If one open the time honored book of Revelation it might appear that we are durn near close. He writes:

"So therefore, we need a method of firewalls; now I mentioned two kinds of firewalls. I mentioned this act; it's a firewall. It is a feasible form of firewall under U.S. law. We just need that one piece of legislation, no more complicated than what I've written. That piece of legislation will create a firewall.

Now, we need another firewall: We need a firewall for the transition from the way the U.S. financial system is operating now, to what we are installing. We also need, in that, we need a firewall in the form of treaty agreements among a powerful aggregation of nations. In other words, if the majority of the powerful nations of the world agree that something is going to be protected, it can be protected. Without such an agreement, it can't be protected: That's a firewall. If these nations agree to come to each others' support and defense, on this issue, knowing that it's their interest that's at stake—a firewall, a transition from a system that has failed, the Cold War system, the present system, the globalization system: These systems have failed. We must, with one fell swoop, get rid of them! Well, you can not reform them, piece by piece: You have to create a firewall, to contain the disease." [This presentation appears in the September 28, 2007 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.This Present World Financial Crisis]

This is your typical convoluted LaRouche read filled with unedited streams of economic alter-consciousness. The wise, however, will find many interesting details and perhaps a piece of the great puzzle of history.

BBC - Fear Grips Global Stock Markets

Stock markets across Europe have fallen after dramatic share price falls in Asia.

The FTSE 100 share index was down 8% at 3,964 points. It opened 9.8% lower at 3887 points, below the 4,000-point level for the first time in five years.

There were similar falls across Europe - Paris was down 8.4% while Germany was down 9.1%.

Investors fear a global slowdown, despite interest rate cuts and huge cash injections by central banks.

The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has again called on other countries to follow Britain's bank rescue package.

"What we need now is for other countries to be doing similar things," he told the BBC news channel.

He said he was confident the bail-out would eventually help stabilise the economy.

"Everybody depends on banks. We're trying to get the banks to do what they've traditionally done, to get the flow of money to businesses, to help people with their mortgages, to make sure people's savings are safe," he said.

FTSE 100 INDEX: 10 October 2008

*All Times GMT

DAX INDEX: 10 October 2008

*All Times GMT

In other major developments:

• The British pound tumbled to a five-year low against the US dollar to trade at $1.6902 at one point, but recovered slightly later. It also fell against the euro to 1.245 euros
• Tokyo's shares plunged 24% during the week, double their weekly fall during the 1987 market crash
• Oil prices plummeted to a one-year low in European trading, with the price of US crude oil falling below $83 a barrel.
• The three-month rate at which banks lend dollars to each other - known as Libor - has risen to 4.8%
• Finance ministers from the G7 are to meet in Washington later and President Bush is to make an address to the American people.
• Moscow and Jakarta stock markets remain suspended because of excessive volatility
• Trading in the Vienna market was suspended until Friday afternoon.

Despite concerted government action, investors are increasingly fearful the financial crisis will prompt a global recession.

The underlying illness remains in the system - as manifested in the record amounts banks were charging each other yesterday for lending to each other Robert Peston BBC Business Editor Robert Peston's blog

"It's a banking problem, it's a credit crisis problem and it's a complete loss of confidence worldwide," said David Buik of BGC Partners in London.

The BBC's business editor Robert Peston said markets were worried about Friday's auction of insurance claims on the debts of the collapsed US investment bank, Lehman Brothers.

This could not come at a worse time for bank shares, said our correspondent.

'Unstoppable selling'

Heavy falls were seen across Asia's markets as a climate of fear took hold on Friday.

In Japan, the Nikkei index slumped in its biggest one-day fall since the 1987 stock market crash.

The crisis also claimed its first Japanese financial institution, with the insurance company Yamato Life going bankrupt.

"Selling is unstoppable in New York and Tokyo," said Yutaka Miura, senior strategist at Shinko Securities in Tokyo.

"Investors were gripped by fear."

Tokyo dealers faced their worst day's trading since the 1987 crash

Elsewhere in Asia was a similar story.

In India, the Mumbai market plunged 6.5% in early trading. Shortly afterwards, India's central bank said it would make an additional $12.8bn (£7.5bn) available for the money markets.

Australian shares closed down 8.3%, Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng index slumped to a three-year low while in the Philippines, share prices closed down more 8.3%.

In Indonesia, plans to re-open the stock market were suspended in order to prevent what the president of the exchange called "deeper panic". Trading was halted for two days earlier this week.

Crisis meeting

The Dow Jones - the US benchmark index - ended down 7.3% on Thursday - tumbling below 9,000 points for the first time since August 2003.

"We're way beyond fundamentals," said Chris Orndorff, head of equity strategy at Payden & Rygel, in Los Angeles.

"This is just pure panic, that's all it is."

Finance ministers from the G7 leading industrial countries are set to meet in Washington to discuss the crisis.

US President George W Bush is due to make an address to the American people later in the day.

As well as the G7 meeting, talks will be held at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington.

The IMF has said it is ready to lend to countries hit by the global credit crunch, using an emergency lending procedure first used in the 1990s Asian crisis. It has about $200bn immediately available to lend but can tap other sources.

4 Ways to Turn a Recession Into a Depression by James Pethokoukis

September 18, 2008 02:22 PM ET

Hoo, boy. Wall Street, as well as America's Investor Class, ought to find the following statement reassuring. Here is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the credit crisis, "No one knows what to do. We are in new territory here." Well, my first piece of advice would be to do nothing. Punish Wall Street? The market is already doing that. Crack down on super risky home loans? The market is already doing that, too.

Moving forward, however, Washington might want to crack open some history books and examine just how bad policy from Washington turned an economic downturn into the Great Depression. Here are handy tips for what not to do:

1) Close the banks. This is the biggie—not letting the financial system disintegrate. Thank goodness it is already being handled by de facto copresidents Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke. (In the end, though, the American taxpayer may well have to provide M.O.A.B.—the Mother of All Bailouts.) Indeed, Bernanke is a student of the Great Depression and understands well the key role of the Federal Reserve in such a crisis. In fact, he has explicitly blamed bad Fed policy for turning a 1920s downturn into a 1930s economic catastrophe.

2) Raise taxes. Another classic. The Revenue Act of 1932 was at ... read on