White Shoe Boys

Not Your Father’s Stock Market Anymore

"Unfortunately, we live in a world where the majority of investors are granting far too much credit to the market data they are being fed. They are making decisions based on faulty premises. They often do not even understand the basics of monetary expansion and how that affects purchasing power. The most important issue, however, is that the powerful artificial forces affecting stock markets cannot hold free-market adjustments at bay forever. That is why it is important to select stocks based not just on 'mainstream' indicators of performance and industry leadership but also on the business cycle, apparent monetary stimulation and other outside forces." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNot Your Father’s Stock Market Anymore

Treasury chief Jacob Lew not worried about financial bubble

"US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Thursday that he was not worried about a potential financial bubble forming as Wall Street stocks racked up record highs. 'The analysis that I’ve seen doesn’t give me reason to be worried right now,' Lew said in an interview on US business news channel CNBC. Lew nevertheless called for monitoring of the situation in order to avoid another crisis like the 2008 Wall Street crash that led to the Great Recession. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average on Thursday closed at a record high for the eighth day in a row, though the US economy remains sluggish and massive government spending cuts kicked in on March 1." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTreasury chief Jacob Lew not worried about financial bubble

President Obama and his secret executive friends

"'Secret friends' is essentially the arrangement that the president has kept with several corporate executives. Clearly, the president likes them: they include American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault and Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, as well as, on a more fitful basis, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt. But before the executives even have time to source Washington DC real estate, their names are taken out of the running. The administration rejects being associated with them, in favor of long-serving veterans who are already in the White House cool kids' club." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPresident Obama and his secret executive friends

“We have so many more questions for Mr. Lew.”

"When you are a technocrat for the crony elite, you don't have to be bothered with questions posed by Senators when you are up for confirmation as Treasury Secretary. You especially don't have to answer questions about unusual bonuses you have received and accounts you have overseas at notorious tax havens. Why the gall of these Senators." Continue reading →

Continue Reading“We have so many more questions for Mr. Lew.”

Eric Holder: Some Banks Are So Large That It Is Difficult For Us To Prosecute Them

"While it is widely assumed that the too-big-to-fail banks in the US (and elsewhere) are beyond the criminal justice system - based on simple empirical fact - when the Attorney General of the United States openly admits to the fact that he is "concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them, since, 'it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy,' one has to stare open-mouthed at the state of our union. It appears, just as the proletariat assumed, that too-big-to-fail banks are indeed too-big-to-jail." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEric Holder: Some Banks Are So Large That It Is Difficult For Us To Prosecute Them

Why Is JPMorgan’s Gold Vault, The Largest In The World, Located Next To The New York Fed’s?

"The world's largest private, and commercial, gold vault, that belonging once upon a time to Chase Manhattan, and now to JPMorgan Chase, is located, right across the street, and at the same level underground, resting just on top of the Manhattan bedrock, as the vault belonging to the New York Federal Reserve, which according to folklore is the official location of the biggest collection of sovereign, public gold in the world. We will let readers make up their own mind why the the thousands of tons of sovereign gold in the possession of the New York Fed, have to be literally inches across, if not directly connected, to the largest private gold vault in the world." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWhy Is JPMorgan’s Gold Vault, The Largest In The World, Located Next To The New York Fed’s?

New York Fed Agreed To Testify For Bank Of America In Exchange For $43 Million

"The previously confidential agreement spells out the terms of a deal in which the New York Fed received $43 million from Bank of America’s Countrywide unit. The money changed hands to settle a narrow dispute involving cash flows on several mortgage securities held by an investment vehicle, known as Maiden Lane II. That vehicle was created by the New York Fed as part of the rescue of A.I.G., which had held the Countrywide securities. But in exchange for that $43 million, the New York Fed did something else for Bank of America. It agreed to testify on behalf of the bank in its legal battle against A.I.G. over fraud claims." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNew York Fed Agreed To Testify For Bank Of America In Exchange For $43 Million

Red White: Why a Founding Father of Postwar Capitalism Spied for the Soviets

"In the 1930s, internationalists in the U.S. Treasury Department were determined to resolve the flaws in the international economic system once and for all. In the words of Harry Dexter White, a then little-known Treasury official who became the unlikely architect of the Bretton Woods system, it was time to build a 'New Deal for a new world.' Working with his British counterpart, the revolutionary economist John Maynard Keynes, White set out to create the economic foundations for a durable postwar global peace. Despite having never held any official title of importance, White had by 1944 achieved implausibly broad influence over U.S. foreign and economic policy." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRed White: Why a Founding Father of Postwar Capitalism Spied for the Soviets

Lew Rockwell: The US Corporate State

"It didn’t take long for opponents of the market to pounce after the events of 2008. The crash was said to prove how destructive 'unregulated capitalism' could be and how dangerous its supporters were – after all, free-marketeers opposed the bailouts, which had allegedly saved Americans from another Great Depression. In The Great Deformation, David Stockman – former US congressman and budget director under Ronald Reagan – tells the story of the recent crisis, and takes direct aim at the conventional wisdom that credits government policy and Ben Bernanke with rescuing Americans from another Great Depression." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingLew Rockwell: The US Corporate State

So You Want To Short The Student Loan Bubble? Now You Can

"SecondMarket Holdings, the private-market securities trading firm best known for allowing numerous overzealous fans to buy FaceBook at moronic valuations, on Monday 'will roll out a platform allowing lenders to issue securities backed by student loans directly to investors.' Why is SecondMarket doing this? The same reason Lloyd Blankfein was selling Abacus (and all those other synthetic MBS CDOs) to clueless yield chasers all across Europe and Asia: yield chasing and career risk. The justification is also the same: making a market." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSo You Want To Short The Student Loan Bubble? Now You Can