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Segami
Segami's Journal
Segami's Journal
November 6, 2013
Here's Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi with a financial fraud story that involves the international banking system. Regulators on multiple continents are investigating the possibility that four of more banks were involved in widespread, Libor-style currency manipulation that went on for years:
cont'
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/matt-taibbi-has-tale-staggering
Matt Taibbi Tells A Tale Of STAGGERING International BANK FRAUD
Here's Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi with a financial fraud story that involves the international banking system. Regulators on multiple continents are investigating the possibility that four of more banks were involved in widespread, Libor-style currency manipulation that went on for years:
Here at home, virtually simultaneous to the Rabobank settlement, Fannie Mae filed a suit against nine banks – including Barclays Plc (BARC), UBS AG (UBSN), Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse Group AG, Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan – for manipulating Libor, claiming that the mortgage-financing behemoth lost over $800 million due to manipulation of the benchmark rate by the banks.
There's no way to do a slap on the wrist in these cases. If they're guilty, they're done.
And virtually simultaneous to that, JP Morgan Chase disclosed that it is currently the target of no fewer than eight federal investigations, for activities ranging from possible bribery of foreign officials in Asia to allegations of improper mortgage-bond sales to . . . the Libor mess.
"The scope and breadth of risky practices at JPMorgan are mind-boggling," Mark Williams, a former Federal Reserve bank examiner, told Bloomberg.
The point of all of this is that any thought that the potential Chase settlement might begin a period of regulatory healing for it and other Wall Street banks appears to be wildly mistaken. If anything, the scope of potential liability for all the major banks, particularly in these market-rigging furors, appears to be growing in all directions.
A half-year ago, it looked like the chief villains in the Libor mess at least were going to get away with writing relatively small checks. Back in March, a major private class-action suit filed by a gaggle of plaintiffs against the banks for Libor manipulation was tossed by a federal judge here in the southern District of New York on the seemingly preposterous grounds that a bunch of banks getting together to monkey with the value of world interest rates in this biggest-in-history financial collusion case was somehow now an antitrust issue.
The banks in that case humorously implied that the victims might have done better to sue for fraud instead of manipulation ("The plaintiffs, I believe, are confusing a claim of being perhaps deceived," one bank lawyer put it, "with a claim for harm to competition"
, and the judge seemed to agree.
Moreover, when the plaintiffs' lawyers tried to make a point about the seemingly key fact that a series of governments had already concluded settlements with the banks for manipulating Libor, the judge – the Hon. Naomi Rice Buchwald – mocked the plaintiffs' lawyers for trying to ride to civil victory on a wave of government settlements:
Wait a second. Your job here, as plaintiffs' counsel, looking for whopping legal fees, is not to piggyback on the government. Indeed, the reason that there are statutes that provide plaintiffs' counsel with attorney's fees is a recognition that the government has limited resources.
The banks must have thought they'd hit the lottery, with this potentially deadly Libor suit suddenly stopped dead in its tracks by a grumpy federal judge with an apparent distaste for plaintiff lawyers who collect "whopping" legal fees. So the victims tried to take a different tack, appealing to a federal panel in an attempt to allow them to file their suits against the banks on a state-by-state level.
But then, in a seemingly fatal blow to the private claims, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ruled in favor of the banks, sending the case right back into the courtroom of the same judge who'd dumped on the plaintiffs' lawyers and their "whopping fees."
cont'
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/chase-isnt-the-only-bank-in-trouble-20131105
There's no way to do a slap on the wrist in these cases. If they're guilty, they're done.
And virtually simultaneous to that, JP Morgan Chase disclosed that it is currently the target of no fewer than eight federal investigations, for activities ranging from possible bribery of foreign officials in Asia to allegations of improper mortgage-bond sales to . . . the Libor mess.
"The scope and breadth of risky practices at JPMorgan are mind-boggling," Mark Williams, a former Federal Reserve bank examiner, told Bloomberg.
The point of all of this is that any thought that the potential Chase settlement might begin a period of regulatory healing for it and other Wall Street banks appears to be wildly mistaken. If anything, the scope of potential liability for all the major banks, particularly in these market-rigging furors, appears to be growing in all directions.
A half-year ago, it looked like the chief villains in the Libor mess at least were going to get away with writing relatively small checks. Back in March, a major private class-action suit filed by a gaggle of plaintiffs against the banks for Libor manipulation was tossed by a federal judge here in the southern District of New York on the seemingly preposterous grounds that a bunch of banks getting together to monkey with the value of world interest rates in this biggest-in-history financial collusion case was somehow now an antitrust issue.
The banks in that case humorously implied that the victims might have done better to sue for fraud instead of manipulation ("The plaintiffs, I believe, are confusing a claim of being perhaps deceived," one bank lawyer put it, "with a claim for harm to competition"
, and the judge seemed to agree.
Moreover, when the plaintiffs' lawyers tried to make a point about the seemingly key fact that a series of governments had already concluded settlements with the banks for manipulating Libor, the judge – the Hon. Naomi Rice Buchwald – mocked the plaintiffs' lawyers for trying to ride to civil victory on a wave of government settlements:
Wait a second. Your job here, as plaintiffs' counsel, looking for whopping legal fees, is not to piggyback on the government. Indeed, the reason that there are statutes that provide plaintiffs' counsel with attorney's fees is a recognition that the government has limited resources.
The banks must have thought they'd hit the lottery, with this potentially deadly Libor suit suddenly stopped dead in its tracks by a grumpy federal judge with an apparent distaste for plaintiff lawyers who collect "whopping" legal fees. So the victims tried to take a different tack, appealing to a federal panel in an attempt to allow them to file their suits against the banks on a state-by-state level.
But then, in a seemingly fatal blow to the private claims, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ruled in favor of the banks, sending the case right back into the courtroom of the same judge who'd dumped on the plaintiffs' lawyers and their "whopping fees."
cont'
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/chase-isnt-the-only-bank-in-trouble-20131105
cont'
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/matt-taibbi-has-tale-staggering
November 5, 2013
By now you’ve probably heard horror stories about how the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare, has forced so many people to lose their insurance policies. You’ve heard that affordable health insurance policies are being canceled and replaced with policies that are far more expensive than the canceled policies. But have you heard that across the country, insurance regulators are cracking down on the private insurance companies, because of the scam they are running on their customers? Probably not.
Insurance companies, what’s going on?
What’s going on? Diane Barrette is a good example of what’s going on. Barrette, a 56 year old woman from Florida, who claimed on CBS News that her $54 life insurance policy was going to cost $591 a month because of Obamacare, was a victim of exactly the kind of scam that these state agencies are dealing with. Barrette had received a letter from one of the private insurance companies, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, telling her that her old policy was canceled. The letter went on to say that the company would be replacing it with the new policy, and quoted a price that was ten times the cost of the old policy. CBS highlighted Barrette’s story as if she were the victim of Obamacare. She wasn’t. She was the victim of another private insurance industry scam. If CBS had been doing their job and acting as reporters and not right wing spokespeople, they would have known it, too.
Here’s how this scam works.
How this scam works is that private insurance companies send out letters notifying existing customers that their current policy has been canceled, because of the ACA’s new requirements. They then offer customers a new, ACA compliant policy at far higher rates than what the customer would pay if he went through the ACA marketplace. In most cases the insurance companies do not tell their customers what other options are available or even let them know they have a choice under the new law. Some insurance companies have pressed their customers to sign up for the new policies by a certain date, saying if they don’t, their health coverage will be lost.
Consumer Reports found her a policy for $165.00.
On the program, Barrette tells CBS that she has to hurry and make up her mind by November 1st or she will lose out on her chance to buy in. CBS offered her no explanation of her alternatives, but Consumer Reports examined Barrette’s story shortly after it aired. They easily found her a policy in the Marketplace for $165.00, not the $591 Blue Cross Blue Shield was shamelessly going to charge her. What’s more, Consumer Reports also looked at her old policy, the one she was paying $54 a month for. They determined that it was “junk.” In essence, Barrette had been paying one of these corrupt private insurance companies nearly $650 per year, to have almost no real medical coverage, under her previous Blue Cross Blue Shield policy.
cont'
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/11/05/insurance-companies-obamacare-scam/
INSURANCE SCAM; How Private Insurance Companies Are Using Obamacare FEARS TO RIP PEOPLE OFF
By now you’ve probably heard horror stories about how the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare, has forced so many people to lose their insurance policies. You’ve heard that affordable health insurance policies are being canceled and replaced with policies that are far more expensive than the canceled policies. But have you heard that across the country, insurance regulators are cracking down on the private insurance companies, because of the scam they are running on their customers? Probably not.
Insurance companies, what’s going on?
What’s going on? Diane Barrette is a good example of what’s going on. Barrette, a 56 year old woman from Florida, who claimed on CBS News that her $54 life insurance policy was going to cost $591 a month because of Obamacare, was a victim of exactly the kind of scam that these state agencies are dealing with. Barrette had received a letter from one of the private insurance companies, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, telling her that her old policy was canceled. The letter went on to say that the company would be replacing it with the new policy, and quoted a price that was ten times the cost of the old policy. CBS highlighted Barrette’s story as if she were the victim of Obamacare. She wasn’t. She was the victim of another private insurance industry scam. If CBS had been doing their job and acting as reporters and not right wing spokespeople, they would have known it, too.
Here’s how this scam works.
How this scam works is that private insurance companies send out letters notifying existing customers that their current policy has been canceled, because of the ACA’s new requirements. They then offer customers a new, ACA compliant policy at far higher rates than what the customer would pay if he went through the ACA marketplace. In most cases the insurance companies do not tell their customers what other options are available or even let them know they have a choice under the new law. Some insurance companies have pressed their customers to sign up for the new policies by a certain date, saying if they don’t, their health coverage will be lost.
Consumer Reports found her a policy for $165.00.
On the program, Barrette tells CBS that she has to hurry and make up her mind by November 1st or she will lose out on her chance to buy in. CBS offered her no explanation of her alternatives, but Consumer Reports examined Barrette’s story shortly after it aired. They easily found her a policy in the Marketplace for $165.00, not the $591 Blue Cross Blue Shield was shamelessly going to charge her. What’s more, Consumer Reports also looked at her old policy, the one she was paying $54 a month for. They determined that it was “junk.” In essence, Barrette had been paying one of these corrupt private insurance companies nearly $650 per year, to have almost no real medical coverage, under her previous Blue Cross Blue Shield policy.
cont'
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/11/05/insurance-companies-obamacare-scam/
November 2, 2013
November 1, 2013 - Bill Maher offered some free advice to the Republican party on Friday night to appeal to young people. Firstly, stop going on hunting trips to prove you're a man of the people. And two, come out for legalizing weed so you can be a true dude of the people. The genesis of the bit was Ted Cruz going out and hunting this week, which Maher thought was unnecessary because "you've already proved your total dominion over creatures with brains the size of walnuts. After all, you're the leader of the tea party!"
Maher said young people don't care about hunting, that "if they want to kill something, there's an Xbox right downstairs." The average voter is not an elderly, gun-toting middle American, it's a "young Latino lesbian who smoked a boatload of dope."
But Maher may have only been suggesting the GOP embrace this issue because of his frustration with Democrats who have been far too quiet on this issue. He said if the Democrats want to win young people in 2016, they'll have to say "welcome back to stoner Hillary!"
Bill Maher’s Advice To Hillary Clinton On Marijuana Is ‘PASS THE TORCH’
November 1, 2013 - Bill Maher offered some free advice to the Republican party on Friday night to appeal to young people. Firstly, stop going on hunting trips to prove you're a man of the people. And two, come out for legalizing weed so you can be a true dude of the people. The genesis of the bit was Ted Cruz going out and hunting this week, which Maher thought was unnecessary because "you've already proved your total dominion over creatures with brains the size of walnuts. After all, you're the leader of the tea party!"
Maher said young people don't care about hunting, that "if they want to kill something, there's an Xbox right downstairs." The average voter is not an elderly, gun-toting middle American, it's a "young Latino lesbian who smoked a boatload of dope."
But Maher may have only been suggesting the GOP embrace this issue because of his frustration with Democrats who have been far too quiet on this issue. He said if the Democrats want to win young people in 2016, they'll have to say "welcome back to stoner Hillary!"
November 2, 2013
It's not official, and it may never come to pass. But various press sources are reporting about a growing movement to have NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden testify in Germany. According to the newspaper that broke the Snowden NSA revelations, The Guardian UK:
There is even talk in progressive circles of finding a legal way to grant Snowden asylum. With Chancellor Angela Merkel's outrage at having her cellphone tapped -- along with the apparently massive data mining of other German officials and German citizens -- the uproar is not likely to soon subside. On Tuesday, BuzzFlash at Truthout wrote a commentary, "What We Know About Government Malfeasance Is Primarily Due to Whistleblowers." As we pointed out, whistleblowers have shown that using massive surveillance to protect us from terrorists is a very small part of US surveillance objectives, which include political spying, suppression of protest movements, and corporate espionage conducted by the US government -- among other goals.
Many persons, even progressives, have argued that it is only natural to assume all governments, even friendly ones, spy on each other. Perhaps that is true, although to vastly varying degrees. But even if one accepts that premise, our nation has been lied to about what are the real objectives of the NSA and America's massive surveillance apparatus build-up since the Cold War. Hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent to find a few terrorists? If you believe that, we've got a three dollar bill to sell you.
cont'
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18290-call-in-germany-for-snowden-to-be-a-witness-to-nsa-wiretapping-of-merkel-deeply-embarrassing-to-obama
Call In Germany for SNOWDEN To Be WITNESS To NSA WIRETAPPING Of Merkel Deeply Embarrassing To Obama
It's not official, and it may never come to pass. But various press sources are reporting about a growing movement to have NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden testify in Germany. According to the newspaper that broke the Snowden NSA revelations, The Guardian UK:
Some German politicians and newspaper columnists have backed calls for Snowden to be invited as a witness. The justice minister, Sabine Leuheusser-Schnarrenberger, told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper: "If the allegations build up and lead to an investigation, one could think about calling in Snowden as a witness."
Thomas Oppermann, of the Social Democrats, said: "Snowden's claims appear to be credible, while the US government has blatantly lied to us on this matter. That's why Snowden could be an important witness, also in clearing up the surveillance of the chancellor's mobile."
In Süddeutsche Zeitung, the columnist Heribert Prantl wrote: "Granting asylum to Snowden could be a way of restoring Germany's damaged sovereignty."
The Bundestag will hold a special session to discuss NSA spying on 18 November. The Green party and the leftwing Die Linke have been leading calls for that session to result in a parliamentary investigation.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/01/germany-edward-snowden-witness-nsa-inquiry
Thomas Oppermann, of the Social Democrats, said: "Snowden's claims appear to be credible, while the US government has blatantly lied to us on this matter. That's why Snowden could be an important witness, also in clearing up the surveillance of the chancellor's mobile."
In Süddeutsche Zeitung, the columnist Heribert Prantl wrote: "Granting asylum to Snowden could be a way of restoring Germany's damaged sovereignty."
The Bundestag will hold a special session to discuss NSA spying on 18 November. The Green party and the leftwing Die Linke have been leading calls for that session to result in a parliamentary investigation.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/01/germany-edward-snowden-witness-nsa-inquiry
There is even talk in progressive circles of finding a legal way to grant Snowden asylum. With Chancellor Angela Merkel's outrage at having her cellphone tapped -- along with the apparently massive data mining of other German officials and German citizens -- the uproar is not likely to soon subside. On Tuesday, BuzzFlash at Truthout wrote a commentary, "What We Know About Government Malfeasance Is Primarily Due to Whistleblowers." As we pointed out, whistleblowers have shown that using massive surveillance to protect us from terrorists is a very small part of US surveillance objectives, which include political spying, suppression of protest movements, and corporate espionage conducted by the US government -- among other goals.
Many persons, even progressives, have argued that it is only natural to assume all governments, even friendly ones, spy on each other. Perhaps that is true, although to vastly varying degrees. But even if one accepts that premise, our nation has been lied to about what are the real objectives of the NSA and America's massive surveillance apparatus build-up since the Cold War. Hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent to find a few terrorists? If you believe that, we've got a three dollar bill to sell you.
cont'
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18290-call-in-germany-for-snowden-to-be-a-witness-to-nsa-wiretapping-of-merkel-deeply-embarrassing-to-obama
November 2, 2013
Most Americans are confident that their nation will remain fundamentally unchanged forever and in part it is due to the once stable functioning government. However, as world leaders, political scholars, and economists have noted, America’s government has been, for all intents and purposes, brought to a standstill due to Republican denial they lost two presidential elections. There is a faction in this country made up of wealthy oligarchs, religious fanatics, and conservative extremists who have intimated in various ways their only raison d’être is to destroy America from within and transform it into a mirror image of a stone-age nation like Afghanistan under Taliban rule. The war for America has been in the planning stages for two decades, but when American voters elected (twice) an African American man as President the insurgency began enacting their plan to destroy the federal government and by extension the country itself.
The groups lusting to destroy America and transform it into a libertarian theocracy certainly know that their goal could never reach fruition if they announced they were actively seeking to eliminate the functioning government, so they use catch phrases such as the Koch brothers’ infamous “transforming America” to fit their lawless vision of a nation without rules and regulations. Their staunch ally, Grover Norquist has been forthcoming that his goal is to “shrink government down to a size he can drown in a bathtub,” but his goal, like the Koch brothers, is a nation steeped in anarchy where peasants are at the mercy of a few wealthy industrialists. Although the Kochs and Norquist wield inordinate power and influence over a major political party, they are not elected representatives and depend on dark money and loyalty oaths to control Republicans at the state and federal level to enact their anti-government agendas. Now they have a powerful ally in the U.S. Senate who controls Republicans in the House and Senate and last Sunday he let it slip that his ultimate goal is destroying America.
It is fairly well-known that Rafael “Ted” Cruz is running the Republican Party due to being anointed the evangelical conservative messiah, and that he publicly announced the recent government shutdown and debt crisis was only the first battle in a longer war. Cruz has been unapologetic that his destructive strategy is part of a plan to achieve his future policy goals that he readily admits are more than defunding the Affordable Care Act he claims is responsible for the nation’s sluggish economy. However, when he spoke to Fox News’ host Sean Hannity on Sunday, he revealed that in his “multi-stage extended battle” he discovered “a model that I think is the model going forward to,” among other things, “abolish the IRS.” Cruz’s remark was a stunning revelation that his goal is defunding the entire United States government that will serve to hasten the Koch brothers’ agenda of a nation void of laws, regulatory agencies’ enforcement, education, Social Security, healthcare, and national defense. Abolishing the I.R.S. will also invalidate the U.S. Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 that gives the federal government of the United States its power of taxation to fund the nation’s government. Without revenue to fund the government, America as it exists now would become a lawless, uneducated, and dangerous fascist state controlled by the wealthy and policed by religious extremists imposing the bible as the de facto law of the land.
If the power of taxation is eliminated, the government may be able to function for a couple of years at best, but it would mean selling off all federal assets and raiding Social Security’s $2.8 trillion reserves just to fund this nation’s national defense and nothing more. All regulatory and consumer protection agencies would be eliminated, education funding would cease to exist, and domestic programs would come to a screeching halt. In fact, with no revenue, the entire federal government would disappear and with it all the benefits the people depend on whether it is safe food, safe medicine, disaster relief, clean water, infrastructure, and security the people are guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. Actually, without a government, the Constitution itself will be obsolete and it would open the floodgates of regional morality laws under the purview of whichever religious group had the largest armory to enforce their edicts and transform America into Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
cont'
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/11/01/america-faced-threat-posed-koch-brothers-congressional-republicans.html
America Has Never Faced The THREAT POSED By The Koch Brothers & Their OWNED Republicans
Most Americans are confident that their nation will remain fundamentally unchanged forever and in part it is due to the once stable functioning government. However, as world leaders, political scholars, and economists have noted, America’s government has been, for all intents and purposes, brought to a standstill due to Republican denial they lost two presidential elections. There is a faction in this country made up of wealthy oligarchs, religious fanatics, and conservative extremists who have intimated in various ways their only raison d’être is to destroy America from within and transform it into a mirror image of a stone-age nation like Afghanistan under Taliban rule. The war for America has been in the planning stages for two decades, but when American voters elected (twice) an African American man as President the insurgency began enacting their plan to destroy the federal government and by extension the country itself.
The groups lusting to destroy America and transform it into a libertarian theocracy certainly know that their goal could never reach fruition if they announced they were actively seeking to eliminate the functioning government, so they use catch phrases such as the Koch brothers’ infamous “transforming America” to fit their lawless vision of a nation without rules and regulations. Their staunch ally, Grover Norquist has been forthcoming that his goal is to “shrink government down to a size he can drown in a bathtub,” but his goal, like the Koch brothers, is a nation steeped in anarchy where peasants are at the mercy of a few wealthy industrialists. Although the Kochs and Norquist wield inordinate power and influence over a major political party, they are not elected representatives and depend on dark money and loyalty oaths to control Republicans at the state and federal level to enact their anti-government agendas. Now they have a powerful ally in the U.S. Senate who controls Republicans in the House and Senate and last Sunday he let it slip that his ultimate goal is destroying America.
It is fairly well-known that Rafael “Ted” Cruz is running the Republican Party due to being anointed the evangelical conservative messiah, and that he publicly announced the recent government shutdown and debt crisis was only the first battle in a longer war. Cruz has been unapologetic that his destructive strategy is part of a plan to achieve his future policy goals that he readily admits are more than defunding the Affordable Care Act he claims is responsible for the nation’s sluggish economy. However, when he spoke to Fox News’ host Sean Hannity on Sunday, he revealed that in his “multi-stage extended battle” he discovered “a model that I think is the model going forward to,” among other things, “abolish the IRS.” Cruz’s remark was a stunning revelation that his goal is defunding the entire United States government that will serve to hasten the Koch brothers’ agenda of a nation void of laws, regulatory agencies’ enforcement, education, Social Security, healthcare, and national defense. Abolishing the I.R.S. will also invalidate the U.S. Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 that gives the federal government of the United States its power of taxation to fund the nation’s government. Without revenue to fund the government, America as it exists now would become a lawless, uneducated, and dangerous fascist state controlled by the wealthy and policed by religious extremists imposing the bible as the de facto law of the land.
If the power of taxation is eliminated, the government may be able to function for a couple of years at best, but it would mean selling off all federal assets and raiding Social Security’s $2.8 trillion reserves just to fund this nation’s national defense and nothing more. All regulatory and consumer protection agencies would be eliminated, education funding would cease to exist, and domestic programs would come to a screeching halt. In fact, with no revenue, the entire federal government would disappear and with it all the benefits the people depend on whether it is safe food, safe medicine, disaster relief, clean water, infrastructure, and security the people are guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. Actually, without a government, the Constitution itself will be obsolete and it would open the floodgates of regional morality laws under the purview of whichever religious group had the largest armory to enforce their edicts and transform America into Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
cont'
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/11/01/america-faced-threat-posed-koch-brothers-congressional-republicans.html
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