Tag Archives: federal-reserve

New $100 Bill Rollout Derailed: A Billion Notes Quarantined For Flaws (PHOTO, VIDEO)

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on New $100 Bill Rollout Derailed: A Billion Notes Quarantined For Flaws (PHOTO, VIDEO)

What happens when the Federal Reserve and the Dept. of Treasury has no quality control in place and print $110 billion worth of new money that is flawed? We're about to find out. added by: gmc1

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Republicans Move to Block Ron Paul from Monetary Policy Subcommittee Chair

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Republicans Move to Block Ron Paul from Monetary Policy Subcommittee Chair

Ron Paul will not head up the House’s monetary policy subcommittee if John Boehner has anything to say about it. “Five GOP leadership aides, speaking anonymously because a decision isn’t final, say incoming House Speaker John Boehner has discussed ways to prevent Paul from becoming chairman or to keep him on a tight leash if he does,” reports Bloomberg. “If Boehner, who will help determine who gets to chair subcommittees as early as Dec. 8, rejects Paul, he may have to contend with thousands of grassroots supporters and dozens of younger lawmakers who see Paul as a hero.” Boehner and the establishment Republicans rode to victory last month on the shoulders of the Tea Party movement. Prior to the election, Tea Party activists in Maine, Colorado, and Utah focused on abolishing the Federal Reserve. Some predicted that if Republicans were to sweep the House they would become much more confrontational with the Federal Reserve. “The popularity of Tea Party candidates in U.S. elections could spell renewed efforts to curtail the power and independence of the Federal Reserve, which has been cast as an emblem of big government overreach,” Reuters reported in late October. Many establishment Republicans agree with senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who insists the Tea Party and its vision of less government has no long-term vision or prospects for political viability. Instead of dismantling the Federal Reserve, establishment Republicans have called for reforming the private bankster cartel masquerading as a government agency supposedly answerable to the American people. On Tuesday, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. and Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind. called for Congress to change the Fed’s “dual mandate” now requiring it to promote both price stability and full employment and instead focus on keeping inflation low and not worrying about reducing unemployment. “It is time that we work to clarify the mandate of the Federal Reserve,” said Corker, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, in a statement announcing his support for the change. “Providing our central bank with a clear and explicit focus on keeping inflation low will serve America better than the broader mandate approach we have today,” the National Journalreports. Corker and Pence proffered their milquetoast bill after it was revealed the Fed gave a big chunk of its multi-trillion dollar Wall Street bailout to foreign banksters and transnational corporations. “We now know that the Fed loaned trillions of dollars at zero or near-zero interest rates not only to the largest financial institutions in the country, but also to many of our largest corporations — including GE, McDonalds and Verizon,” said an outraged Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont. “Perhaps most surprising is the huge sum that went to bail out foreign private banks and corporations, including two European megabanks — Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse,” he said. “As a result of this disclosure, other members of Congress and I will be taking a very extensive look at all aspects of how the Federal Reserve functions.” Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul may take a serious look at the Fed. But we shouldn’t expect the rest of Congress to support an effort to cut out the cancer that plagues the economy. In July, Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency Act that would have eliminated restrictions on GAO audits of the Fed and open its operations to congressional oversight was defeated. “Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny or oversight, while Congress has kept its hands off and its eyes closed,” Ron Paul wrote after language from his bill failed to make it into a conference report on the so-called financial reform bill (that ultimately gave the Fed more power, not less). “The Federal Reserve has presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar. Since 1913 the dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Transparency Act would achieve much-needed transparency of the Federal Reserve System.” Now that Republicans are in charge of the House, they join the Democrats and make sure the Federal Reserve continues to operate in the shadows and remains unanswerable to the American people. http://kommoncents.blogspot.com/2010/12/why-does-boehner-not-want-ron-paul-as.ht… added by: Dagum

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The Federal Reserve bailout scandal explained

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on The Federal Reserve bailout scandal explained

All the numerous tendrils of financial corruption are starting to re-converge on the core of the scandal. Here is what happened and how you got screwed by the bankers and the US Government in layman's terms. 1. Wall Street created the mortgage-backed security as an investment device, sold them, used ponzi scheme tactics to make them look immensely profitable while the SEC looked the other way. 2. In order to meet the demand for MDS created by the illusion of major profits from the Ponzi activity, the mortgage bundlers pledged the same mortgages over and over and over again into different investment bundles. 3. In late 2008 the fraud started to appear in US financial circles. Congress, itself invested in the financial firms that bought those fraudulent mortgage-backed securities, voted through TARP to save their own fortunes at the expense of the US taxpayer. 4. In 2009, the foreign banks began to realize that Wall Street had screwed them and began to demand the repurchase of the bad paper. The Fed started handing out trillions of dollars borrowed against the American people, mostly to foreign banks, to cover the fraud. 5. But cash was flowing out of the nation faster than the Federal Reserve could print it up. Something needed to be done to balance the loss and put the bankers back into the black, so the only real hard assets left n the nation, Americans' homes, were to be sacrificed for the good of the banks' capital structure. 6. By perpetuating tax credits that encouraged the offshoring of American jobs to other countries, the US Government created a situation in which millions of Americans would no longer be able to make their mortgage payments and lose their homes to the banks. The banks would then add the full value of those homes to their balance sheets to keep themselves appearing solvent. The US Government deliberately killed your jobs, so the fraudulent bankers could save themselves from prison by taking your homes to cover the buybacks from Europe. That is pretty much the story of the last few years. Analysis from Mike Rivero at What Really Happened added by: maasanova

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Man Finds he is Wanted for Murder by Googling Himself!

Posted on December 1, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Man Finds he is Wanted for Murder by Googling Himself!

Seriously? A man who curiously Google'd his own name was shocked to discover that he was wanted for murder. University of Florida student Zachery Garcia was so bored that he went to Google … http://bit.ly/hTc2WB added by: itgrunts

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The Worst Year Ever

Posted on December 1, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on The Worst Year Ever

Did you know that the U.S. Dollar has lost 97% of it's purchasing power (value) since 1913, the same year Congress passed the notorious Federal Reserve Act? Few Americans know the truth about the Federal Reserve. The reality: the Federal Reserve is no more a part of the federal government than is Federal Express. The Federal Reserve is a private corporation run by private bankers. Why should we care? Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/12/worst-year-ever.html added by: GLOBALPOLITICAL

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Quantitative Easing Explained "Video"

Posted on November 21, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Quantitative Easing Explained "Video"

What the Federal Reserve is up to, and how we got here. added by: Radical_Centrist

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Fed Leads America “To The Brink Of Collapse”

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

When even the New York Times and CNN are admitting that the United States faces not only a double-dip recession but potentially a new great depression, any alarm bells that have not been rung should now be sounding loudly. Following in the footsteps of the New York Times’ Paul Krugman, who in June wrote that the United States had entered a third depression similar to the Long Depression of the 19th century, CNN Money carried an article yesterday brazenly entitled, Is this finally the economic collapse?. The piece, written by Keith R. McCullough, points out that the Fed’s announcement that it will start buying Treasury debt, is a “crossing the Rubicon” moment and “could lead the country to the brink of collapse”. “Crossing the 90% debt/GDP threshold is the equivalent of crossing the proverbial Rubicon of economic growth. It’s a point from which it’s almost impossible to return,” states the article, adding that the market has not responded to quantitative easing so to engage in more of the same would be completely futile. “With 40.8 million Americans on food stamps (record high) and 45% of the unemployed having been seeking employment for 27 weeks or more (record high), what’s left if (or when) QE2 doesn’t kick start GDP growth? Should we start begging for QE3? Should we cancel the bomb of the National Association of Realtors’ existing home sales report, scheduled for public release on August 24th? Or should we bite the bullet and accept that current economic policy dictates 0% returns-on-savings, even as Washington continues to lever-up our future to the point of economic collapse?” writes McCullough. The Dow Jones slipped by 265 points yesterday as both the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve indicated that, as we predicted all along, the happy clappers who blithely talked of “robust recovery” were in fact completely wrong and now that the futile and transitory life-support machine of quantitative easing has been turned off, the picture looks almost as bad as when the crisis began in 2008. Predictions on GDP growth seem to be shrinking by the day as Ben Bernanke greases the skids for QE2 – a fresh round of printing money out of thin air, destroying the long term value of the dollar which has already had 9 consecutive down weeks since June but ensuring the central bankers that run the United States continue to reap lucrative interest payments on the spiraling national debt. The U.S. government, via the taxpayer, paid out nearly $20 billion in interest on debt last month alone, as the Federal Reserve enjoys record profits, only 20 per cent of which is returned to the Treasury…. Continued at: http://www.prisonplanet.com/fed-leads-america-to-the-brink-of-collapse.html added by: Dagum

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Hard Life of Ukrainian Street Children (33 pics)

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Hard Life of Ukrainian Street Children (33 pics) added by: poojam

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Judge orders Wells Fargo to pay back $203M in fees

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Eileen Aj Connelly, AP Business Writer, On Wednesday August 11, 2010, 7:55 pm NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge in California ordered Wells Fargo & Co. to change what he called “unfair and deceptive business practices” that led customers into paying multiple overdraft fees, and to pay $203 million back to customers. In a decision handed down late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup accused Wells Fargo of “profiteering” by changing its policies to process checks, debit card transactions and bill payments from the highest dollar amount to the lowest, rather than in the order the transactions took place. That helped drain customer bank accounts faster and drive up overdraft fees, a policy Alsup referred to as “gouging and profiteering.” Wells Fargo adopted the policies beginning in 2001, and they became widespread across the banking industry. It is unclear how the ruling would apply to the rest of the industry. The ruling detailed the experiences of two Wells Fargo customers who used their debit cards for multiple small purchases, and were then charged hundreds in overdraft fees because the order the purchases were cleared by the bank depended on the amounts. The judge found the customers, who were part of a class action, were not properly informed of the bank's policies on processing payments and were unaware the bank would allow debit purchases to go through when their accounts were overdrawn. “Internal bank memos and e-mails leave no doubt that, overdraft revenue being a big profit center, the bank's dominant, indeed sole, motive was to maximize the number of overdrafts,” Alsup wrote. That policy would “squeeze as much as possible” from customers with overdrafts, in particular from the 4 percent of customers who paid what he called “a whopping 40 percent of its total overdraft and returned-item revenue.” The judge dismissed Wells Fargo's arguments that customers wanted and benefited from the policies, and detailed evidence he said showed efforts to obscure the practices in statements and other materials. Wells Fargo's online banking system, for example, would display pending purchases in chronological order, “leading customers to believe that the processing would take place in that order.” “The supposed net benefit of high-to-low resequencing is utterly speculative,” he wrote. “Its bone-crushing multiplication of additional overdraft penalties, however, is categorically assured.” Alsup also criticized the bank for allowing overdraft purchases after accounts had been drained by offering a “shadow line of credit” that customers were unaware existed. The decision noted that the Federal Reserve has outlawed some of the practices detailed in the case, most notably debit card overdrafts permitted without customers agreeing to accept overdraft protection. Judge Alsup ordered Wells Fargo to stop posting transactions in high-to-low order by Nov. 30 and to reverse overdraft fees charged to customers from Nov. 15, 2004, to June 30, 2008, as a result of the policy. A study cited in the decision by a Wells Fargo witness put the restitution at “close to $203 million.” Wells Fargo spokeswoman Richele Messick said the bank is “disappointed” with the ruling. “We don't believe the ruling is in line with the facts of this case and we plan to appeal,” she said. Messick noted that Wells Fargo changed its policies earlier this year, and customers can no longer incur more than four overdraft charges in one day. Wells Fargo shares closed Wednesday trading down $1.47, or 5.3 percent, at $26.30, as the broader markets dropped sharply on economic concerns, with banks being particularly hard hit. The case, heard in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, is Gutierrez vs. Wells Fargo. (This version CORRECTS Corrects spelling of spokeswoman's name to Richele sted Rochele.) added by: Almibry

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NBC Reporter Discovers New Immigration Law Causing Illegals to Leave Arizona

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

NBC’s Lee Cowan, on Thursday’s NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, discovered a stunning result of Arizona’s new immigration policies – illegal immigrants are now leaving the state. Cowan opened his piece noting a long line now “stretches around the Mexican Consulate in Phoenix every day” but noticed a twist, as the line was full of “immigrants trying to figure out not how to stay in Arizona, but how to flee it.” Cowan peppered his story with anecdotes of local businesses losing customers “A look around this once-bustling barrio is telling. The local hair salon has more empty chairs now than customers” and schools losing students as he claimed “School numbers are dwindling, too. This one is 75 percent Hispanic. Since the immigration law passed, they’ve lost more than 100 students.” Cowan even punctuated this factoid with the sob story of a boy being taken out of school by his father to go back to Mexico: LEE COWAN: For the Bolanos family, they stayed as long as they could. MARCIAL BOLANOS, ARIZONA RESIDENT: Arizona is a good state, but no more now. COWAN: He took his 15-year-old son out of school and is headed back to Mexico, which brings Hugo to tears. But you’re really going to miss your friends? HUGO BOLANOS: Yeah. While Cowan did air a soundbite of a Republican state senator who pointed out that it was “kind of a novel idea” that people were “actually worried they may be arrested for breaking the law” he concluded his piece by emphasizing the economic cost of Arizona’s new immigration policy: “It may be months before anyone knows for sure just how many illegal immigrants and their business the law has scared away. Supporters say good riddance, but critics fear the damage has already started.” The following is a transcript of the Cowan segment as it was aired on the July 8 edition of NBC’s Nightly News with Brian Williams: BRIAN WILLIAMS: Now we turn to Arizona, where the federal government is challenging the state’s tough new immigration law. Arizona’s governor set up a fund to defend the law. As of today, 9,000 people, mostly from out of state, have contributed a half a million dollars to the effort. Some of those targeted by the new law are not waiting for it to take effect later this summer. They’re leaving the state now. NBC’s Lee Cowan has our report. LEE COWAN: One way to measure the effect of Arizona’s pending immigration law is the length of this line. It stretches around the Mexican Consulate in Phoenix every day, immigrants trying to figure out not how to stay in Arizona, but how to flee it. LUIS BALENCEA, ARIZONA RESIDENT: There’s a lot of people already leaving for New Mexico, leaving something else, you know. COWAN: Anywhere but here. BALENCEA: Anywhere, yeah. Nobody want to stay here. COWAN: A look around this once-bustling barrio is telling. The local hair salon has more empty chairs now than customers. The owner is even losing two employees. ROSANA QUINTERO, SALON OWNER: People look very sad. And we feel sad, too. COWAN: The café next door is even emptier. MARIA SIERRA, BUSINESS OWNER: I ask the people, and they say they afraid to come out. COWAN: School numbers are dwindling, too. This one is 75 percent Hispanic. Since the immigration law passed, they’ve lost more than 100 students. JEFF SMITH, BALSZ SCHOOL DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT: This is sort of the tip of the iceberg. More are waiting until the law goes into effect, and then we’ll see more people leaving during the summer. COWAN: To the authors of Arizona’s tough new immigration stance, if there is a mass exodus of illegal immigrants, so be it. REPUBLICAN STATE SENATOR RUSSELL PEARCE: Kind of a novel idea, you know, people actually worried they may be arrested for breaking the law. COWAN: The problem is there really are no hard numbers on the issue. So the question critics are asking: Is this exodus a myth or a fact? BILL HART, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY: We think it’s fact. We don’t exactly know what’s happening, but we know something’s happening on a large scale. COWAN: For the Bolanos family, they stayed as long as they could. MARCIAL BOLANOS, ARIZONA RESIDENT: Arizona is a good state, but no more now. COWAN: He took his 15-year-old son out of school and is headed back to Mexico, which brings Hugo to tears. But you’re really going to miss your friends? HUGO BOLANOS: Yeah. COWAN: And your school? (Hugo nods head) COWAN: It may be months before anyone knows for sure just how many illegal immigrants and their business the law has scared away. Supporters say good riddance, but critics fear the damage has already started. Lee Cowan, NBC News, Phoenix.

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NBC Reporter Discovers New Immigration Law Causing Illegals to Leave Arizona

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