Corruption keeps Matt a busy boy

Time wounds all heals (or at least their miseeds get uncovered):

And Hanky Panky tried but failed to help make his friends even richer. Alas, another day…

Scarcest resource in USA? Honesty.

[O]ur government’s policies are fundamentally based on the opposite of open honesty. Virtually every policy with any fiscal or financial consequence is shrouded in lies, deception, obfuscation, disinformation and propaganda.

Yes, there is outrage in some quarters, and this is a positive sign. Even more positive is the growing demands for transparency and an honest accounting of our government’s (and the Federal Reserve’s) backstops, guarantees, actions and obligations.

What we know about our government’s responses to this entirely predictable financial meltdown is that truth and honesty are nowhere in sight. The government’s top financial officers lied to Congress that the nation would implode if they didn’t give extraordinary powers and extraordinary sums of money to Treasury officials working behind cloaks of secrecy and deception.

A year later, the deceits, disinformation, half-truths, statistical conjuring and behind-the-scenes manipulations continue apace, with catastrophic results. The Treasury sells debt to the Fed which buys the debt with money created out of thin air, and we are told there is great demand for our new debt.

[ Of Two Minds ]

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“We can no longer afford a government that believes lies are necessary to maintain order.”

Federal Reserve needs to cut US Dollar in half over next 14 years

14 years? Jim thinks more like six months!

Oh what a giveaway

More Even more

The elephant in the room

Battle Royale with cheese

The shit is wide, the shit is deep, but one man has employed a boat full of lawyers to fight the power:

This shit is global

“Countrywide’s lawsuit was filed in the name of Countrywide as loan servicer, and MERS as mortgagee. I thought it strange that some unknown entity (MERS) was in a fight with me. I started doing research. This is what I found (explained in layman’s terms). Countrywide had sold the note to a trust that had been set up by the gurus on Wall St. There were 16,000 notes in the trust owned by god knows how many investors. They of course could do this because for the first time in the history of world finance, these “gurus” had separated the mortgage (collateral) from the note. MERS holds my mortgage which is recorded per law at my county court house. They don’t and will never be my, or your, note holder. This separation of the note and mortgage gives Wall St. the ability to “transfer/sell” my note at a click of a mouse thus circumventing the age old process of recording the transfer in my county court house. This slight of the hand is the fraud that created the entire secondary mortgage market and eventually the trouble we are in today. Countrywide is my loan servicer…which means they are nothing but a bookkeeper and collection agency. The holder of my note was yet to be determined.”

[How I am beating the crap out of Countrywide/MERS]

I think he means “sleight of hand” but pedantics aside, he absolutely nails it- that moment in time when our goose went into the oven at 450 degrees.

It is not done yet, but someone should check because I think I smell something burning.

I like the way in which the author reveals the sort of institutionalized chicanery that has evolved throughout the financial system unchecked, and employed like a truncheon on the back of the head of the unsuspecting little guy walking along Main Street.

…

Additional perspectives on MERS:

Mortgage Electronic Registration System Loses Legal Shield
[ Barry Rtitholtz ]

Has a MERShole opened up?
[ Karl Denninger ]

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS): A System Designed to Create the Mortgage-Backed Security Bubble
[ Dr. Housing Bubble ]

Waking up to discover the mortgage market was a giant criminal enterprise
[ Matt Taibbi ]

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Debts are not always repaid. The financial markets are not always in equilibrium.

Know your rights

Four in forty-eight

Rockefeller & Co’s CEO committed suicide: report
(Reuters) – James McDonald, chief executive officer of investment management firm Rockefeller & Co, committed suicide on Sunday in Massachusetts, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Newport Beach financier Danny Pang dies at 42
(LATimes) – Newport Beach financier Danny Pang died early Saturday at a local hospital, according to the Orange County coroner’s office. The cause of death has not been determined and an autopsy is planned for Sunday, said Larry Esslinger, supervising deputy coroner.

Financier Finn Casperson dead in apparent suicide
(Inquisitr) – Ex-CEO of Beneficial Corp. Finn H.W. Casperson was found dead in an apparent suicide behind an office building in Westerly, Rhode Island.

Dying Blagojevich fundraiser said he overdosed, mayor says
(CNN) – Police are investigating the death of the former chief fundraiser for ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich as a “death-suicide,” an Illinois mayor said Sunday.

I know, I know, people die all the time. But these fall under ‘suspicious.’

None died of defenestration, AFAIK.

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Only believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear.

A peak behind the curtain

[ H/T ] [ Prof. Anthony Sutton ]

Time wounds all heels

Rick Santelli pwns Steve Lies, man