Is this rally for real? No. Is it going to continue? Yeah! I don't know that, but Goldman Sachs does. Take a look at the daily chart of the golden gangster. You can see it bounced off its 100 day moving average just as the stochastics are turning up, crossing over, from under 20.
Don't be discouraged by the dangerously anemic volume. It is a natural consequence of the rig rally. Think of it this way in a free market Goldman Sachs would no longer exists, but here it is at $172 per share. That means that the powers that be and the plunge protection team insists on a rally into the holidays.
As far as the rest of the market goes there isn't one, it's all Goldman Sachs. Up or down the rest of the market will follow the golden gangster, let's do the same.
Take a look at the daily chart of Hecla Mining company. You can see how the price is getting very far north of the 100 day moving average signaling an overbought condition. Now I am not saying that the stock will sell off, but the farther the price gets from the hundred day moving average the more the risk is. An overbought condition is also singled by the stochastics, but they are not as significant in a trend.
Without arguing that the stock will or will not do, I will tell you what I will do in case of the selloff.
We are along 25 shares at $9.13 and long 75 shares at $2.03 for cost basis of $3.08. With Hecla Mining (HL) closing at $6.26 in Friday we have more than double so I'm going to place a stop at that little area of congestion between five and six dollars, or all say $5.25.
So now we can preserve our profits but remain in if it continues going up.
Look for the volume to diminish as a signal to a pull back.
Take a look at the SLV. We are along 25 shares from $16 and now want to fill out our position. You can see that Silver has broken out above $18 and that would be a good place to keep a stop. We want to keep stop out of the way of the market makers though so let's place it at about $17.25.
Is this the silver breakout that everyone has been looking for? I don't think so, I think we will see gold and silver crushed again to make profits for Goldman Sachs commodities trading unit. I don't know if I'm right or wrong but we will get out of all 100 shares at $17.25 if I'm right. Otherwise we have a long great ride ahead.
The phony rally is on in the broader market, and judging by the volume there, no one is buying it; they are buying the metal stocks instead.
We went long 50 shares of SVM on November 11, at $5.69. Now it's up nearly a buck at $6.47. The stochastic is flashing overbought as it should since the trend is up. But the price is the only arbiter of profits. With that said let's pick up or remaining position right here, with a $2.0 stop.
An old farmer walked into a rural branch of Washington Mutual to open a savings account. Being a conservative sort, he asked, “What happens if Washington Mutual goes broke?”
“Well,” said the branch manager, “in that case I suppose we’d be taken over by somebody like Chase Bank, and they’d make sure you got your money back.”
“But what happens,” asked the farmer, “if Chase goes broke?”
“In that case,” the manager answered, “you’d get your money back from the F.D.I.C.”
Not satisfied, the old farmer asked, “And if the F.D.I.C. doesn’t have enough money?”
“Then your money would be covered by the United States government.”
“And if the government is bankrupt?” he asked suspiciously.
“Then the Federal Reserve would just print you up some new worthless dollars.”
“But what if the Federal Reserve is finally put out of business?” asked the old man.
“Well, in that case, you’d lose all your money,” said the manager. “But really, wouldn’t it be worth it?”
Anyone who still believes our present income tax is constitutional should watch the video above.
The point is that an un-apportioned direct tax upon our income is grossly unconstitutional. Furthermore I make the following two claims:
1. you are not legally obligated to pay income tax, unless your income is derived from the federal government. You will not have to go to court the IRS will not even challenge it.
2. You can get a full refund of your last three years of the income tax you have already paid.
Notice what I said in that number 2. You will get a refund of the money he had already paid.
To those who call me crazies, a wacko, a conspiracy theorists, or any other goofy thing, I have just one question; how much do you want to bet?.
That's is, show me the law that requires non-government workers pay an income tax.put up or shut up, show me the law.
I found another really good piece on The Market Ticker. Here it is unadulterated.
For two and a half years The Market Ticker has pointed out the foibles of The Fed and other claims of "help" for the economy - when the prescription for "help" is just an extension of the same failed policies that created the mess in the first place.
But now we are starting to see this show up in the so-called "mainstream media", with the latest being The Wall Street Journal:
It takes similar reasoning to reconcile the elation felt across America every time the stock market rises—partially replenishing personal investment portfolios and 401(k) retirement plans—with the uneasy feeling that we are being set up for yet another big financial disappointment. We dare to hope that the economy is growing solidly once more, that the Federal Reserve has superior knowledge about providing liquidity, and that the U.S. Treasury knows what it's doing by guaranteeing money market-fund assets.
But what if the Fed's efforts to stoke a recovery are merely creating asset bubbles in equities and elsewhere? What if government guarantees—explicit and implicit—are encouraging high-risk investment behavior rather than restoring conditions for normal market returns? What if excess dollars produced here are being channeled by speculators into foreign stock and bond markets as part of a currency play?
No, really? Did you get that from the correlation charts of the dollar and S&P 500? You know, this one, showing correlation from March onward:
Judy continues to opine:
Deflation is seen as the bugaboo of Keynesian economics. But it can actually serve to spur economic activity as lower prices enable struggling consumers to get back in the game, and enterprising individuals can build businesses using tangible assets that yield valid profits.
But the Fed seems to think that prices should only go in one direction—up—no matter the circumstances. It's this bias toward inflation that is revealed by the FOMC's reference to "stable inflation expectations"—which is less a paean to price stability than an inadvertent oxymoron.
What Judy misses (perhaps because she's unaware of it, or perhaps because she simply doesn't feel comfortable saying it) is that deflation destroys over-levered debtors. It forces them into bankruptcy.
When that happens to the "little people" (that is, you and I) it doesn't matter to the oligarchs and robber barons on both Wall Street and Washington DC.
But defaults also destroy lenders who made imprudent loans. That's unacceptable as a matter of Washington DC's bought-and-paid-for policy, which is why we have Treasury Secretaries and the Chairman of The Fed corralling Representatives and Senators in a room and literally threatening them with the collapse of America if they don't fork up $700 billion of taxpayer funds for an open-ended, one-page slush fund that includes absolute legal immunity for whatever might be done with it.
If this had ended at $700 billion it would have been bad, but it didn't. No, The Fed then continued onward to announce the purchase of $1.2 trillion dollars (that's $1,200 billion more!) of debt and securities that, according to Section 14 of The Federal Reserve Act, they are not lawfully allowed to buy. (Section 13.3, often cited as justification, only allows the making of loans - not the purchase of assets. All purchase authority rests in Section 14.)
The FDIC then stepped outside of its legal mandate as well, "deciding" to guarantee bond issuance by banks - something that has absolutely nothing to do with depositor insurance. Why? Because once again, it is unacceptable in the Washington DC establishment if those who make bad loans - on purpose - have to eat them. Only the borrower - that is, the "ordinary Joe" - is allowed to have his future destroyed. The lender, who is supposed to also lose his money when he makes a bad decision (thereby providing a strong disincentive to making bad loans) is to be protected by the taxpayer, thereby screwing the borrower twice - first by bankrupting him, then demanding that he bear the cost for the lender who made the bad lending decision as well!
Keynesian Economics and it's offshoot ("Chicago" economic theory) is, at its core, a scam. Not because the idea is invalid, but because it dictates that during times of plenty ("booms") the government must raise taxes and pay down debt - not just "decrease deficits." Yet in the post-war era we have never managed to run a material surplus, not even during Clinton's years despite the claims of his boosters - he, like all other modern administrations, cheated by "banking" FICA and Medicare deposits (which are pledged against liabilities in the future!) The boosters of Keynes refuse to discuss the fact that they're not even following his claimed theories, but rather are playing "black sharpie marker" with the parts they don't like.
Now here's the scary part: Even though more than half of all American households now own equities directly or through mutual funds, an increase in equity prices does not figure into the Fed's calculation of inflation. So while measures of core inflation (which exclude food and energy) carefully register minute gains in the price of a fixed basket of goods and services meant to reflect what a typical family buys to achieve a minimum standard of living, they ignore massive price surges in what has effectively become a widely held consumer good: stocks.
Moreover, the Fed's inflation-targeting approach overlooks price increases for real estate and rising commodity prices. Don't even mention gold, which has gone from $707 to $1,114 since a year ago.
Of course not.
But again, this is by design. The Fed is intentionally applying the wrong standard for the construction of the monetary base, because if it were to not it would have to recognize the asset price moves that underlay the actual economy in its economic numbers. This, in turn, would have led housing price increases to have been reflected in monetary aggregates and people would have freaked out starting in about 2004 - instantly derailing the bubble before it could get going.
As I have repeatedly argued if you get the original premise wrong everything else you do from that point forward is also wrong.
The monetary base in a credit-based monetary system is not "M0", "M1" or "M'" (M-prime.) It is the unencumbered assets against which one is both willing and able to borrow.
Further, the definition of sound lending is not predicated on some leverage limit or wildly-distorted view such as Basel-II. It is in fact very simple: if one never lends unsecured beyond one's capital there is never a systemic risk that can arise.
Here's the problem with all the games once one gets down to brass tacks: you cannot screw people indefinitely and expect them to come back for more abuse. Oh sure, you can occasionally con people a second time, but since these "big interests" rely on a continued volume of business.....
As just one example, how many municipalities will buy interest-rate derivatives from one of these "big banks" after the disclosure that Jefferson County overpaid by 400% - and a good part of that overpayment went to bribes? Further, it has become clear that the municipal government didn't understand the risks involved - and one can reasonably presume that was because those risks were intentionally hidden - probably by the bribing parties, the recipients of the bribes, or both.
There are solutions here but it is increasingly obvious that if Government doesn't step in the market will. All I have to do is look at volume - the percentage that is represented by "high frequency computer trades" has gone sky-high since last fall, yet volume has been dropping dramatically since March.
When the market degenerates down to a handful of trading houses with high-frequency trading computers passing the same 100 shares back and forth between themselves as the remainder of the market participants have gotten tired of getting reamed on a daily basis due to the cheating and decide to take their ball and go home, how do the "big trading houses" make money?
We're witnessing the destruction of the capital markets as the system is imploding from within as a direct and proximate consequence of willful blindness and outright fraud.
When I first started following Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter they were under attack from Loan Center of California. The bank claimed that it lost funding because a would be lender read something on the blog site that made them change their mind. For this the bank thought that Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter should be punished. In my mind it was mission accomplished, but Loan Center of California spent hundreds of thousands of dollars attacking them and they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending themselves in Federal court, even as the bank was going down in flames. Now Loan Center California is just another dead, deadbeat of it's own doing not the blog's.
Since then they have been under attack by one or another disgruntled lender, in December of 2008 alone Implode-O-Meter had over $100,000 in legal bills. Now comes along the next Johnny Lately, Mortgage Specialists Inc (MSI), a cesspool of an operation in New Hampshire, to try to finish what Loan Center of California could not.
MSI caught Implode's attention following a 2008 investigation by banking regulators in Massachusetts and New Hampshire for alleged violations of banking law. Some of these alleged violations include:
"Represented photocopied customer signatures as originals; Removed a signature from a loan file; Altered broker fee agreements after the consumer signed the documents; Failed to keep customer application files under lock as required by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act; Fraudulently issued a 40-year adjustable rate mortgage with a balloon payment at the end of 30 years to a customer who had applied for a fixed-rate, 30-year mortgage."
As a result of the investigations, MSI was fined $725,000 and required to open its old loan files for further review by state regulators.
After being spanked for $725 million by the The New Hampshire Banking Department you have to wonder what MSI has against the Implode-O-Meter, but rather than licking their wounds they sicked their attack dogs on the web site. I asked the site's founder Arron Krowne via e-mail, what laid they thought they had to stand on. Here's what he said.
I've noticed a pattern in these goons... they don't particularly cover up their cronyism, even when it is in the public record -- their concern is to stop us from actually pointing it out to people, so there will be consequences of their bad behavior.
I don't know how I was able to force myself to watch," Inside the Meltdown" on the Frontline. It was a propaganda piece is dressed up as a documentary and carried a partyline up-and-down so much you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was written by Paulson, Bernake, and Geithner.
If you can force yourself to watch it, pay particular attention to the part where Paulson and Ben Bernake roundup Congress, and tell those nitwits that if they don't give the bankers $700 billion there will be martial law. Unlike what the frontline report wants you to believe that was not a warning, but a threat. It's the most serious kind of Fed Speak targeted to a very select audience. It's a carrot or the stick. The Fed makes lots of threats that way. Look for it. Any time the Fed says give us our way or the economy is at risk, it's a threat.
We are hearing that discussion of breaking up large financial institutions that pose systemic risk to the market is gaining traction on the Hill. At this point, discussions are in the early stages, but we understand that an amendment addressing breaking up institutions deemed “too big to fail” could be introduced in the House over the next few days. How does one define “too big to fail” and how would the divestiture process work - these are good questions that Congress will have to address as the discussion moves forward. To our understanding, any amendment that could be introduced in the coming week would likely be vague and would give the regulators discretion to determine which institutions qualify as “too big” and how to address the risk they pose to the system.
The author goes on to say that Kanjorski may be the originator of this. Good, as far as it does, assuming it's real.
But that's not the bombshell in the post. No, it's this:
He left Geithner with two documents. One was a fact sheet that listed all the attributes of AIG FP [the division run by Joe Cassano that blew the company up] and argued why it should be given status as a primary dealer. The other–a bombshell that Willumstad was confident would draw Geithner’s attention–was a report on AIG’s counterparty exposure around the world, which included “2.7 trillion of notional derivative exposures, with 12,000 individual contracts.” About halfway down the page, in bold, was the detail that Willumstad hoped would strike Geithner as startling: “$1 trillion of exposures concentrated with 12 major financial institutions.”
I am looking for a good opportunity to get into SVM. Yesterday India cotton front of China to buy half of the IMF gold and gold actually responded by moving up.
The stock was recommended by Peter Schiff and trades under six dollars. You almost can't go wrong, but the stochastics are over 80 flattening out and turning over. The 50 day moving average seems to provide good support and I would like to buy it on a bounce off of that. Still it's not stochastics and moving averages that make money from its the price, period.
So without being too careful or too crazy, let's pick up a one half position or 50 shares of SVM right here at $5.69, with a stop at $3.69.
The stop is well out of the way of a market maker and any phony baloney from the financial media and still protects our downside risk.
For all the fake stimulus and Fed induced mini bubble, all we got was a stockmarket rally in which four financial stocks provided 40% of the volume.
For those who believe in an economic recovery I have one more word for you.
Get a Reality Check.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
History shows that theFed and the bankers who own it have stair stepped their way to power via a policy of we broke it, you pay for it, and give us more control of it.
And so it was with TARP, that the weight of the bankers leveraged risk was dropped on the taxpayers back. No one wants to tell you but bankers had that baked into the cake at least before Henry Paulson became Treasury Secretary. And they continue to get everything they want under the Obama, administration, just as they did at Bush before him.
Paul Volcker and senior Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron both testified to Congress this week that the government is trying to make bailouts for the giant banks permanent.
Writing Wednesday in The Hill, Congressman Brad Sherman pointed out that :
That is a huge gravy train to the top 20 [financial institutions] because it allows them to borrow money at a lower rate. Think of what this does to moral hazard. I’m not looking for a TARP on steroids with oversight. I’m looking for an end of TARP.
But this is just the beginning of TARP as the bankers seek to make it permanent. In essence the bar to casino its pouring free drinks and all the bad bets will be covered by the taxpayer. How long will the party last? At least until they can pull the TARP up over the taxpayer's stone cold body.
Fight Club entered popular culture in 1999 when director David Fincher adapted Chuck Palahniuk’s novel into a film that reflected the zeitgeist of modern America with its empty culture, obsession with aesthetic beauty, and slavish under and middle classes.
Warning: Decade-old spoiler coming up.
The film ends with the agents of “Project Mayhem,” protagonist Tyler Durden’s followers, destroying the headquarters of the major credit card companies with many tons of explosives. Durden’s theory is that without the records of debt, everyone gets a fresh start. They are no longer slaves to the banks, and they are free.
This concept resonated hugely with Americans, and not just the douche bag frat boys who taped Brad Pitt’s six-pack to their dorm walls. Citizens are working harder for less these days, and the American ennui originating from Reagan’s tyrannical reign of deregulation, union busting, and middle-class rape has now exploded into severe disillusionment and anger. Americans are being crushed by debt, can’t afford health care, and have less job security than ever.
Even the dimmest Americans know they’re getting screwed by Wall Street fat cats, and nothing could have made that reality clearer than the bailouts: $1 trillion dollars of taxpayer money that went to line the pockets of the guys and gals who crashed the economy.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, once the fat cats and credit card companies’ armies of Repo Men were through collecting the contents of the houses, they came back for the houses themselves. The banks tried to sell the old, familiar lie that “irresponsible people” i.e. “black people” went and got themselves into a mess they couldn’t dig themselves out of, which was almost always a lie. Subprime lenders issued mortgages in a predatory fashion, frequently lied, and used creative math to convince people they could afford mortgages with hidden, adjustable interest rates.
Those that can afford to play Capitalism: The Game prosper, while the rest of society suffers. Of course, those of us who don’t work for the Big 4 banks in the Too Big To Fail gang, wither and die. Today, The New York Times announced the 100th small bank failure of 2009. Don’t expect any mourning. The bank isn’t named “JPMorgan Chase.”
It’s projected that by 2012, there will be eight million home foreclosures in the United States. Lots of politicians are siding with the banks during the foreclosure epidemic, but a few brave souls are standing up to the Wall Street criminals.
Tyler Durden’s strategy of destroying the paper trail is currently being utilized by the most unlikely of persons, a broach-wearing, bespeckled Congresswoman from the Midwest named Marcy Kaptur. The Ohio representative sounds more like a woman ready to chirp a cheerful “you betchya’!” than explode into a revolutionary diatribe, which is why Kaptur amazed the hell out of everyone when she urged her constituents to remain in their foreclosed homes:
In other words, Kaptur started a peaceful Project Mayhem, a revolution where the wronged refuse to happily play their parts in a fixed game concocted by Wall Street and the government, who work hand-in-hand to protect a tiny coterie of wealthy people, while average Americans unwittingly pick up the bill in a Corporate Socialism system that should really be called the United States of Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, and Goldman Sachs.
Wall Street gets to invest taxpayer money in their harebrained schemes (S&Ls, derivatives, Chinese cars, etc.) and when everything goes to hell, it is the taxpayer who gets to clean up the mess. I believe this is the system first-generation bankers envisioned during the country’s founding when they were heard remarking, “Fucketh it. They’re too busy tilling the soil to noticeth.” I may be paraphrasing.
Much like the fictional character Tyler Durden, Kaptur knows the business world operates on precariously narrow tightropes of paper trails. Without the records of transactions, it’s difficult for large banks and businesses to prove homeowners and customers are in debt.
“Produce the note,” says Kaptur. She means that the banks must produce the mortgage they claim to own. The beauty of this system is that most mortgages were flipped, chopped up, and sold to other lenders and servicers during the lending boom feeding frenzy. As a result, many of the new lenders don’t have the proper paperwork to show they own the mortgage.
And without that proof of mortgage, the banks cannot legally kick people out of their homes. Not only that, but this puts a homeowner in an excellent position to renegotiate a mortgage. It’s finally a way for the fucked to offer a giant “fuck you” right back to banks.
Kaptur is hardly a revolutionary for the revolution’s sake. The Congresswoman wants to work out a way to help people keep their homes. She is merely a good politician (remember that concept?) who wants to protect her constituents. She is the woman who still lives in the same house in the Toledo working class neighborhood where she grew up. When she talks about her “constituents,” she’s talking about her friends, family, and neighbors, and not the emotional ants she apathetically observes from her ivory tower.
In Toledo, Ohio, foreclosures have gone up 94 percent. For Kaptur, the results of economic turmoil are not theoretical. They’re very real. The squatting project is a last ditch effort for Kaptur to save her community, but she also wants President Obama to take Ohio’s empty units and require his administration to broker rental agreements with families, so they’re not kicked out of their homes.
In an interview with Bill Moyers, Kaptur explained that foreclosed land is being sold by the banks to out-of-state parties, who then drive down local Ohio property values.
…I live in Toledo, Ohio. The house next to me was foreclosed. And so, I called, the other day, a little plaque appeared on the door of this house. And it said, ‘$500 down, $300 a month rent.’ I said, ‘What is that, a land contract deal? What’s going on there?’ So I called the number. I get a repossession dealer in South Carolina.
I said, ‘Hello sir, what’s your name?’ ‘Johnny,’ or something. I said, ‘And what’s your address?’ He gave me a P.O. Box number. I said, ‘Now listen,’ I said, ‘Your property is bringing down the value of our property because you’re on our heels.’ ‘Lady, I get these things from the bank.’ And he said, ‘You know, we try to unload ‘em. What are you going to offer me?’
This is what he’s saying to me over the telephone. I don’t think a single one of my neighbors knows that that home is now in possession of a group in South Carolina that could care less about it.
There is no reason any of this has to happen. As former IMF chief economist, Simon Johnson, explained on Moyers, Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac are now government agencies. That means they own a lot of mortgages that are in default or close to default, and they’re also responsible for enormous amount of new loans.
Kaptur’s rental agreement strategy is entirely doable if the Obama administrations summons the same enthusiastic support for average citizens as they possess for private industry and the Big 4 banks. The cold months are upon us. It would be a terrible time for anyone to lose their home, particularly if they are one of the millions of victims of predatory lending and the crimes of the unregulated banking behemoths.
Not only was I shock to learn the 44,000 Americans are dead because they couldn't afford health care, but Rep. Alan Grayson maybe single handedly bringing the two party system to life.
You knew the financials were rigged win 40% of the volume was done by four stocks. But if you're holding SKF or any other pro shares ETF'sit just keeps getting crookeder and crookeder.
Gilman and Pastor LLP filed a class action lawsuit on September 21, 2009 in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, on behalf of Plaintiffs and all persons who purchased or otherwise acquired shares in the following ProShares Funds:
Let's just hope these guys are as good as they're supposed to be.
The foxes are guarding all the hen houses and the bankers are in complete control. The federal reserve is the root of all evil. If there's any way to get our country back, it will start with ending the Fed.
Bank of America is taking the hard line at every turn with the government whose citizens saved it. The bank is the recent recipient of a two bagger of cash transfusion from the taxpayer, in one arm went $45 billion under TARP and the other arm was a $118 billion backstop against Merrill losses, that all the government strong arming in the world couldn't make Kenny boy wrap his arms around Merrill without. Simply it was a loss sharing deal under which the the best the taxpayer could do is break even.
Bank of America agreed to pay USD 425 million to government agencies, including the Treasury Department, to exit an arrangement under which public funds might have been used to shoulder losses on USD 118 billion worth of risky assets from the Merrill Lynch takeover. The option was never used, but the government has argued that the bank benefited from the promise of protection.
The move is part of a broader effort by the bank to reduce its reliance on various forms of government support. Charlotte, N.C.-based BofA has been one of the largest benefactors of the government's financial rescue programme, receiving a total of USD 45 billion from the taxpayer-financed USD 700 billion financial bailout programme.
Now that the taxpayer financed mini bubble has allowed the bank to profit on trading gains, the bank says that it shouldn't have to pay for the loss sharing provision, since it never went into effect. You might think they'd be grateful for the implicit gaurentte that made counterparties will to do business, or you might think that they'd repay the full amount as a show of good faith or even gratitude. You would of course be wrong.
Thus, taxpayers were owed $4,427 billion for the guarantee. They got $425 million. That is less than 10 cents on the dollar. Just because you don’t burn down your house, the insurance company will not give you a ninety percent refund of the premiums.
By my math that's $.425 B /4.427B =0.096 and that is indeed less than a flat dime to the dollar.
See how that works; Heads they win, Tails Screw You.
When you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit. Idiot Harry Reid maintains that paying income tax is voluntary in the U.S.. Harry Reid is the Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate. He's obviously not very bright. But then again... he is a politician. Interviewer Jan Helfeld does a great job of trying to nail him down but... well, you'll see. See more bottom Line Interviews by Jan Helfeld at janhelfeld.com
Well why not; the banks have been robing us not so much blind as with our hands tied. So this old geyser tried to take a little back. Too bad he got caught.
Think of it this way, the money he could not repay came from thin air, the cash he stole was just Federal Reserve notes, not US dollars, but by not repaying the fictional money he is going to be homeless, by robing the forgery's he is going to jail.
"I had to get us out of this," the elderly man said Friday from the other side of the glass at San Diego central jail. "I've never done a bad thing in my life. But when you get desperate, I guess you throw all that sh-- out the window."
Listening to how Michael Casey Wilson of Santee tells it, a 17 percent mortgage, the threat of homelessness and a terminal health condition will turn a man to crime.
Wilson, 69, is accused of walking into the Bank of America branch in the 4100 block of El Cajon Boulevard in City Heights and handing a bank manager a demand note, saying he had a bomb. Prosecutors said he made off with $107,000 before he was caught lying on a front porch near the bank.
"I wrote them an apology. I am so sorry," he said referring to the employees who rusrushed out of the bank. "It's not my purpose in life to scare people."
"If it would've worked the way I wanted it to, it would've just been he and I. But he told everybody. He shouldn't have done that," Wilson said.
On Thursday he pleaded not guilty to three counts of robbery and one count of falsely reporting a bomb to a business. In an interview Friday, Wilson was very open about the plan he had hatched to save his home.
"I was hoping to get $50,000 to pay off my mortgage," he said. "Just to get the money and get the hell out of there."
Wilson said he had planned to hail a taxi and drive with the bank manager to the airport. Once the manager was gone, Wilson said he had hoped to pick up another taxi to take him to his home in Santee. But he said he never thought the bank manager "had the balls to call the police."
"I saw all of a sudden all the people rushing out and I knew I was had," he said. "I knew that he had called me in. C'est la vie."
Wilson said he lives with his 73-year old wife who he described as a "gentle soul." He said he feared for her future living on the streets if he couldn't make their house payment.
Looking at Wilson, you can see his health is suffering. He claims doctors have diagnosed him with severe arthritis, sleep apnea, heart problems, and a disease he described as one "that makes you fly off the handle." Wilson said he was told he had one to two years to live.
When he hatched the bank robbery plan, he said that he had considered the consequences but thought, "It was 50-50. Well if I get caught, I get caught. I'm dying anyway so what different does it make."
Wilson could face more than seven years in prison if he is convicted. His bail was set at $50,000.
"I'm an asshole. Let's face it," he said. "Here's a man who f--ked up his life and his family's life but I did it with good intentions. Just stupid intentions."
As opposed to the bad intentions of the bankers we are all up against.
So you wonder how Wells Fargo manages to positive quarters in a row during the greatest credit crisis of all time. It’s easy. They have a ready-made buyer for any crap they want to sell at any price. Don’t believe it?
This borrower couldn’t pay and thus stopped doing so. This should generate a “NOD” (Notice of Default) and ultimately lead to foreclosure, right? It should result in an impaired asset which might be sold to some other company (at a discount), right?
It got sold all right – right at the “120 day” late point where Wells counts a loan as “defaulted.”
But look at who it got sold to…..
Wells Fargo has literally become a snake eating its own tail.
With green shoots are sprouting up all over the road ways and side walks and Ben Bernanke's shrill statement that the "recession is likely over", which he more likely wants you to read "recession is over", you might begin to believe all the hype.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday that the recession was "very likely over," as consumers showed some of the first tangible signs of spending again.
Mr. Bernanke, who had become cautiously more upbeat in recent weeks amid signs of third-quarter growth, said for the first time that forecasters agree "at this point that we are in a recovery."
Why would anyone listen to this clown who said there was no housing bubble and claimed there would be no recession until we were in a recession. You don't have to work too hard at it to conclude Ben knows better, but the people in the know certainly do know better and they want more proof before putting their money where big Ben's mouth is.
Citigroup Inc (C.N) plans to pay back $20 billion it owes the government when the bank sees more concrete signs of recovery, Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said on Wednesday.
He said Citigroup has plenty of capital to use to pay back the $20 billion.
"To us it's really more about timing than capacity (to repay)," Pandit said, speaking at a conference at Barclays Capital in New York.
To everyone it's all about timing and it's clear that the time of recovery is not now.
1.By a full position we mean 100 shares of a stock: So,, a 1/4 position is 25 shares if you have 100 shares of a stock or it's 100 shares if you hold 400 shares of the stock.
2.The Plunger Protection Team (PPT): This refers to the cabal consisting of among others secretary of the Treasury, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the chairman of the SEC and the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Officially known as The Working Group on Financial Markets, it was created by Ronald Reagan to prevent a repeat of the Wall Street meltdown of October 1987. But on Wall Street no good thing goes uncorrupted.
3.Ponzi Unit or Ponzi Finance Unit: A business unit whose interest charges of a business unit exceed cash flows from operations of that unit.
4.Ponzi Finance: A method of finance (borrowing) where repayment of debt is achieved by the issuance of new debt. e.g. payment of a monthly credit card bill with another cerdit card.
June 25, 2008 Short full SLV @ 167.00 Buy full SLV @ 164.23
June 25, 2008 Short C @ 19.79 Buy 1/2 C @ 19.48 June 25, 2008 Short 1/2 MER @ 34.36 Buy 1/2MER @ 36.36
June 24, 2008 Sell 1/2 MER @ 33.53 Buy 1/2MER @ 34.70 June 13, 2008 Sell 1/2 LEH @ 24.46 Buy 1/2 LEH @ 25.50 June 11, 2008 Buy 1/2 OIL @ 76.73 Sell 1/4 OIL @ 80.57
Buy 1/2 UGA @ 61.97 Sell 1/4 UGA @ 63.35 June 06, 2008 Buy 1/2 OIL @ 76.73 Sell 1/4 OIL @ 83.01
Buy 1/2 UGA @ 61.97 Sell 1/4 UGA @ 65.72 June 03, 2008 Sell short 1/2 XLF @ 26.48 Cover 1/2 XLF @ 24.23
June 02, 2008 Sell short 100 shares LEH @ 34.37 Buy to cover full 1/2 LEH @ 30.74 May 29,2008 Sell short LEH 1/2 @ 36.13 Buy to cover 1/2 LEH @ 38.14 May 22,2008 Buy OIL 1/2 @ 75.33 Sell 1/2 OIL @ 80.02 May 21,2008 Sell short full IAU @ 95.55 Buy to cover full IAU @ 91.55
May 20,2008 Short 1/2 C @ 167.50. Stopped out @171.00 Short 1/2 C @ 169.61. Stopped out @ 171.00 May 19,2008 DUG-1/2 @ 29.14 sold @ 26.90 DUG-1/2 @ 30.12 sold @ 26.90
April 28,2008 Short 1/2 C @ 24.76. Stopped out @ 26.75 Short 1/2 C @ 25.85. Stopped out @ 26.75 April 23,2008 Short 1/2 SLV @ 177.29 Cover 1/2 @ 170.08
April 18, 2008 GDX Full @ 51.34 GDX Full called away @ 49.50 GDXDS sold 1 contract @ 5.50-expired April 17,2008 Short 1/2 SLV @ 178.45 cover @ 180.62 Short 1/4 SLV @ 179.00 Cover @ 180.62
April 01,2008 Short 1/4 SLV @ 176.15 stop out @ 167.59 Short 1/4 SLV @ 177.51 stop out @ 167.59 March 24, 2008 Short 1/4 SLV @ 198.51 stop out @ 170.56 Short 1/4 SLV @ 180.90 stop out @ 170.56 March 19, 2008 Sell 1 GDX March 50 call (GDXCX) @ 5.00 Buy 1 GDX March 50 call @ 0.70
