Ben Franklin we need YOU!

You might have caught in the local news that we've got a spanking new C-note coming out. The company line is it's to prevent counterfeiting. We're talking you North Korea and Iran. Anyhow I couldn't help but wonder if the new $100 had more to do with the fact we just printed up over 2 TRILLION of them to get that pesky stock market to quit going the wrong way.

First, a little history so you can read along yourself. Here's the low down on the C-note, and not coincidentally it's also the history of bailing out our financial oligarchs when they make bad bets at the parlor.

Watch and be amazed at the world's most advanced Ponzi Scheme. Pay special attention to this paragraph in the Ponzi definition:

"Knowingly entering a Ponzi scheme, even at the last round of the scheme, can be rational economically if there is a reasonable expectation that government or other deep pockets will bail out those participating in the Ponzi scheme."

On Main St. the Ponzi implodes when too many people want their money back. Not this bad boy...we just print Mo' Money to pay off those who want it, and once the supply of panicked sellers is exhausted away we go to the upside. The peasants wind up having to pay more for EVERYTHING, since the currency value just went down by the amount printed, but that's a small price to pay for saving "The System". We're reminded nightly of "How bad things could've been" if we'd let the slide continue. The reality is we won't get the chance to find out, until the final collapse of our currency (which will be blamed on something other than Keynesianism Gone Wild). There's always a new Fed chief in shining armor that spent 14 years at Princeton learning how turn on a printing press, enabling what has become a parasitic banking system to continue sucking the life out of our middle class while grossly enriching themselves in FDIC insured Casinos. You'll never hear that on the TV since the major networks are wholly owned subsidiaries of said banks. The ultra-wealthy won't lose money or power as long as the bottom 90% of America is willing to keep picking up the tab. This fiat money system is da BOMB when you're at the top!
History of the $100 bill
Here is the history of the $100 along with the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Behold the power of the printing press...



The Dow Chart doesn't go back that far, but we can see we're coming up from somewhere much lower in 1914.





45% decline from 1919-1922. Decline halted.



A 50% drop in two months, as the "wealth effect" from 1922 flames out. It's not enough, however.



Unable to stop the slide, FDR makes Joe Kennedy chairman of the SEC. An experienced inside trader and market manipulator, this unlimited power allows him to halt the 90% stock slide via the printing press, but the recession wears on until WWII.
The fact the rest of the world's industrial capacity was demolished in WWII, resulting in America being the "last man standing" and pulling our REAL economy out of recession has been lost. Now it's FDR's adoption of John Maynard Keynes visionary monetary policies that did the job. Hey, why don't we try that just to make things go UP?

No, the founding fathers did not put that on our currency notes. Those asshole athiests are actually right about that.
A 40% drop in three months? Let's print some cash with "God" on it. "Ponzi on Wayne!" Also, Lloyd Blankfein was born. Ok I made the last part up.

A 31% drop in two years? Dammit we just printed some in 63! Where's the green ink at!

Hey, things are going OK! Don't you think they'd be better if we had more money though? We'll pass it off as "anti-counterfeiting" measures.

Note how we've evolved into printing money to make things go up, not just stop them from going down. Man this is great! Who cares if milk is now $4 a gallon! You know what'd be even BETTER? Let's get rid of that stupid Glass Steagall Law!

We managed to halt the 2000 bear market with only 1% interest rates for the big banks for four years. I'm sure that'll turn out..oh crap. Housing bubble.

Ok..our private economy is in big trouble. It's 70% consumption driven, but the consumption is credit driven. With little to no savings for many it's one credit bubble to the next, in the final chapters of "kick the can". This decline halted with 2.2 trillion in printing and 20 trillion at the discount window. Bankers are doin AH-ight with that it seems. Financial firms report 40% rise in bonuses worldwide Main Street keep paying your mortgages by the way.

A family of four now has a very difficult time making ends meet on $70,000 per year. That's about what Wall St executives spend on shower curtains annually. I'm sure glad "The System" is still intact.

"I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things."

-Benjamin Franklin

"Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor."
-Thomas Jefferson

Casino's doing great! (Don't fight the FED)

Here's a look at what $2.2 trillion freshly printed greenbacks and a $20-trillion interest-free credit line can do in the "right" hands. It'll trickle down to the peasants eventually, I'm sure. Please remember not to ask questions when stocks are going up children. What's good for stocks is good for the banks and what's good for the banks is good for everyone. Quit your bitching about banks paying zero percent while you pay 10% -29% and realize this is "for the good of the country" (well, the top 10% anyway).

Citigroup "surprises" with profit on gambling trading

JP Morgan "surprises" with record fixed-income gambling trading revenue

Bank of America posts profit on record Merrill Lynch gambling trading revenue

Goldman Sachs earns 3.46 billion on record gambling trading

You might be unfamiliar with the Wall St. trading axiom "Don't fight the Fed". It means don't short the market when the FED is conducting open market operations. Ignore it at your peril. It's not there because of the FED's wisdom and foresight, perfectly adjusting policies and getting it "right" so markets respond "positively" i.e. GO UP. It's there because in times of market duress, the Federal Reserve Bank ("Fed" for short) will physically PRINT MONEY (called "quantitative easing" so it doesn't erode "confidence") and use it to buy anything they want (shitty mortgage backed securities and treasuries this time around) to arrest falling markets. More importantly for stocks, they open the discount window to the largest market players (see above) which at 0% interest rates is essentially a free line of credit, for them to do with as they will. The FED tells the public it's for "lending..to spur job growth". Really? Seems like they mostly trade with it to me, paying themselves absurd amounts of money, with a little set aside to screw the common folk with predatory lending rates. But I'm biased. There is one teensy little string attached to this...You have to BUY!BUY!BUY! stocks if you wanna "play ball". Once the largest players have an unlimited bankroll (the fix is in), the bears get the hell out of dodge,and fast, to avoid being mauled by the newly enabled bulls (a picture's worth a thousand words!)
Fundamentals? fugettaboutit. Reality? fugettaboutit. Just changed the accounting rules to hide losses? doesn't matter. It is on like Donkey Kong! Pity anyone who attempts to short in this environment. The Fed is dispensing "confidence", and you can't have that if markets keep falling. The bears must be taught that there's no money to be made selling short, and short positions are quickly vaporized. It's like playing Texas Hold-em where you're opponent goes all in, every time, and even if he loses another mountain of chips just "appears" before him. You'd have to leave the rigged table in disgust, bet against him and lose everything eventually, or in the case of markets start betting with him, even if you think his hand sucks. He's got unlimited chips, after all. Presto! We now have a bull stock market that "surprisingly" exists in it's own little printed world where unemployment, taxes, massive deficits, commodity prices, inflation, deflation, or anything else no longer matters. Reality has been put in suspended animation, to be dealt with sometime down the road. The thinking goes that eventually, the real economy will catch up with our artificially created market. The "wealth effect" where printed money = rising markets = rising bank accounts = rising confidence = growing business = hiring = jobs = more earnings = rising markets in a positive feed-back loop. Unfortunately the loop the last 20 years now is free/ printed money = massive price distortion (tech stocks, home prices) = rapidly rising markets = record bank trading profits = record bank bonuses = more reckless/leveraged trading = more obscene bank profits = even more leverage = bubble implosion=bailout = more free/printed money. The Main Street parts of "hiring" and "jobs" are no longer "in the loop" as the endless greed of Wall Street consumes the capital. Don't fret though..Main Street does get one thing out of this...they are stuck with the tab! The inflationary results of increasing money supply. All this printed money comes from America's future in the form of astronomical debt levels and devalued currency, for the benefit of the top 10% of individuals who actually even own stocks. You can earn the same but it buys less. Look at what your dollar is worth compared to 25 years ago (HT Jesse at Cafe Americain). Even a novice can see it's...half of what it was. Meaning you need to be earning twice as much now as in 1985 to have the same standard of living.

Food and Energy prices (dutifully stripped out of the Consumer Price Index...they're volatile!), gold, commodities in general. Everything under the sun becomes more expensive, and hurts the bottom of the economic ladder all the more. 50k a year used to be a nice job. Now you can barely support a family of four on that...assuming of course no savings, no vacations, no college for the kids, and you hold off retirement until death.

I suppose I'd view it more favorably if I was the one on top of the ladder...

SpiNBC

In the most blatant case (this week) of the corporate shills being bullish because...well...they're paid to be bullish I give you this WTF? Spin not 4 HOURS after Goldman Sachs is indicted for fraud by the SEC. Try not to spit up whatever you're eating on the monitor as you laugh out loud. And if you value your money you'll watch CNBC with the sound off like the pros, and just watch the tape. I love the way the head cheerleader cues in the "experts" with "Is this a golden buying opportunity?" Like, Omygod fer sure! I can't imagine anything I'd rather own than a company under investigation for fraud! The truly funny part is this is like..so..deja vu 2008. One wonders what could make these hacks not tell you to buy something. Iran with nukes? Bullish for anti-missile contractors and hazmat cleanup. Imminent meteor strike that could destroy all life? Bullish for canned food and MRE companies. Plus Smith & Wesson. All delivered with a straight face in a fancy suit, so they must know. They're experts, after all. Honestly. Look at these Dweebs. I don't know about you but I'm buying whatever they're selling!


Here's a refresher course in "buyer beware" in case you missed it.


If you wonder "Why don't we get opposing points of view?" Funny you should ask. Opposing view...meet "the door".

Matt Taibbi Collection

Matt Taibbi is a reporter for Rolling Stone, and you won't get a better dissemination of the screw-job Main Street America is getting courtesy of Wall Street anywhere. I've compiled several of his articles for easy access here. Hat tip to you Matt please keep up the great work.

The Great American Bubble Machine A scathing indicitment of Goldman Sachs and Wall St in general. A must read if you've ever wondered why ordindary Americans seem to be falling further behind, while the rich get richer. Goldman and the general media painted Matt as a "tin-foil hat guy" and conspiracy theorist, and never responded to his claims. However not one defamation lawsuit or even refutation of the facts as he saw them ever surfaced. Curious. Here's why:
Goldman Sachs charged with fraud

A little vindication nearly a year and a half after Matt's article (and nearly 100 years Goldman's been screwing the lower 99% of Americans and the world). Goldman players have always been touted as "the smartest guys in the room". The reality is they're the most connected guys in the room, and have had a license to steal for generations via Congress. Let's hope that's about to change.

Obama's big sellout A look at Obama's cabinet that somehow escaped the Main Stream media's attention. Think Matt's off-base? This is from December now read the next one...

Wall Street's "Bailout Hustle" A sobering update on what the TBTF banks are doing with the trillions in bailouts. Failure must always be an option for capitalism to work..otherwise you get this.

Looting Main Street The title speaks for itself but trust me...your jaw will drop. Again, you won't see this on CNBC since they're a subsidiary of bailout recipient GE capital.

Vampire Squid follow-up It's been one year since the "Great American Bubble Machine". What's been going on?

Putting the "M" in Manipulation

Most everyone probably missed this story since the mainstream media squashed it like a bug on a windshield. Andrew Maguire is a London commodities trader who blew the whistle on JPM's active manipulation of the silver market. This is a very informative interview from someone who was profiting from the manipulation because he could see when and where it was occurring, but chose to expose it because, in a nutshell, he knows it's completely destabilizing to our financial future. How can governments the world over print trillions of paper currency and not have commodities go sky-high? By manipulating the markets, that's how. As long as everybody plays ball it seems fine on the surface but underneath it's rotten. Most won't know about the rot until it collapses under them. People that voice concerns like this get the "tin foil hat" treatment but listen to what these guys have to say when you can.

Andrew Maguire interview on King World News