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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

This Is The Wall Street Scandal Of All Scandals

“Suppose the bankers are manipulating the interest rate so they can place bets with the money you lend or repay them – bets that will pay off big for them because they have inside information on what the market is really predicting, which they’re not sharing with you.”

Just when you thought Wall Street couldn’t sink any lower – when its myriad abuses of public trust have already spread a miasma of cynicism over the entire economic system, giving birth to Tea Partiers and Occupiers and all manner of conspiracy theories; when its excesses have already wrought havoc with the lives of millions of Americans, causing taxpayers to shell out billions (of which only a portion has been repaid) even as its top executives are back to making more money than ever; when its vast political power (via campaign contributions) has already eviscerated much of the Dodd-Frank law that was supposed to rein it in, including the so-called “Volker” Rule that was sold as a milder version of the old Glass-Steagall Act that used to separate investment from commercial banking – yes, just when you thought the Street had hit bottom, an even deeper level of public-be-damned greed and corruption is revealed.

Sit down and hold on to your chair.

What’s the most basic service banks provide? Borrow money and lend it out. You put your savings in a bank to hold in trust, and the bank agrees to pay you interest on it. Or you borrow money from the bank and you agree to pay the bank interest.

How is this interest rate determined? We trust that the banking system is setting today’s rate based on its best guess about the future worth of the money. And we assume that guess is based, in turn, on the cumulative market predictions of countless lenders and borrowers all over the world about the future supply and demand for the dough.

But suppose our assumption is wrong. Suppose the bankers are manipulating the interest rate so they can place bets with the money you lend or repay them – bets that will pay off big for them because they have inside information on what the market is really predicting, which they’re not sharing with you.

That would be a mammoth violation of public trust. And it would amount to a rip-off of almost cosmic proportion – trillions of dollars that you and I and other average people would otherwise have received or saved on our lending and borrowing that have been going instead to the bankers. It would make the other abuses of trust we’ve witnessed look like child’s play by comparison.

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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Joe,
Thanks for posting these articles about the corruption and manipulation of our economy by the international bankers.

This is the key to understanding how terribly wrong our economy has become. It is broken totally. Our government has been usurped by the bankers.

Anonymous said...

Zion will not save us.


Moreover, Zion will destroy us with its usury and fiat currency.

Anonymous said...

And the Republicans fight every attempt to puts some controls on the banking industry.

Anonymous said...

This is probably not the appropriate place for this comment ,but it is of supreme importance.Governor Romney was present at the most recent Biderbergs conference in Chantilly VA on 5/30/12.That suggests that he is on the same page with them and has his finger on the worldwide economic pulse.Currently the Bilderbergs are our best hope for a recovery.

Anonymous said...

10:55
Sorry but you don't know WHO the Bildergergs represent.

They ARE the problem not the solution.

It is kind of funny that you wrote what you did, for those of us who know better.

Can you say WORLD GOVERNMENT?

Anonymous said...

The whole world is going to pot!I guess I'll go out and kick my ball around.

Anonymous said...

11:05-I can take constructive criticism.My ideas don't always pan out.What is your solution to the current and upcoming economic crisis?

Anonymous said...

The economic crisis is a planned event. Once you realize the gravity of that fact, you will realize the only pertinent thing to do is PREPARE for it.

Educate yourself and friends about how to prepare for the destruction of our currency and the likely events to unfold once that takes place.

Try to get out of debt, store your wealth in something other than U.S. Dollars, and get ready for bigger government.

Buy the things you need instead of saving cash. Convert your cash into the things you normally buy with cash. Why? Because everything is going to become more expensive.

This is happening by design.