They Got Away With It AGAIN!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Last week several of the ‘BIG’ banks – you remember, the ones that are too big to let go bust – were fined in the region of $5.7 billion for illegal manipulation of the currency markets.

The usual suspects were included, J P Morgan, Citibank, Barclays  and RBS all pleading guilty – but only after they were sure what the medicine they would be getting would be.

It’s a huge amount of money, there’s no denying that. And losing it will make the banksters hurt a bit. But only a bit.

And that’s the problem.

Yet again the United States government has failed to bring these criminals to justice after more of their deliberate fraud and theft.

In other words, they let them get away with it AGAIN!

Now, if I walk into a branch of, for example, Citibank and try to steal the money that their customers have deposited with them for safe-keeping, I would be videoed, photographed, and if I was lucky enough to get out of the premises, pursued by the police and even the FBI for as long as it took to capture me.

And I couldn’t have any complaints because that’s the way it should be. Thieves should be sought out, captured and after due process thrown into jail.

However, if I am a bankster, have good government contacts, and ply money and favors to those in government, then I am treated very differently.

I can embark on insider trading (which is essentially what the banksters were doing when they were illegally manipulating the currency markets), I can sell loans to people that clearly can’t afford them, then take their houses away or sell on their debt wrapped up in a ‘AAA’ bundle to my richer customers, and after all that steal even more of the money my customers have entrusted to me by awarding myself and my collaborators big bonuses that none of us have earned or are entitled to.

In this scenario am I pursued by the police and FBI?

Nope.

Am I thrown in jail to be the bitch of Skull-cracker Jones or Scarface Smith?

Nope.

Will I have to personally pay back the money I stole?

Nope, again.

So what will happen to me if I am a bankster?

At worst I will get a slap on the wrist and told not to do it again. Even though recent history has proved that this is no deterrent and I will do it again at the first opportunity I get.

And, of course, I don’t have to personally pay the government’s fine no matter how big it may be. Instead my company has to cough up on my behalf.

Not that the company is much bothered either because when it runs out of money it goes back to the government which hands it back at least the value of the fine and usually much, much more.

Think this system is fair?

Neither do I.

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Friday Wasn’t Quite Black, But It Did Lose A Bit Of Its Shine

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

You couldn’t exactly call yesterday “Black Friday” the way financial pundits like to do, but that traditional “safe haven”, gold, certainly lost a lot of its shine.

In fact the price of gold went into freefall, plunging the best part of $100 an ounce in a massive selling spree and ending up below the magic $1500 mark for the first time in a while.

I don’t think anyone is sure yet just what triggered the almost panic sell off on the Comex, but my gut feeling is that, once started, the computer generated trading gizmos used by the big hedge funds etc., kicked in big time and made matters go from bad to worse.

These automatic trading monsters trigger sales when a pre-chosen stop loss figure is reached, one stop loss sell off triggers the next and so on until there is a massive market plunge, as happened yesterday. The same could just as easily happen on the stock market.   

What most ordinary folks don’t realize is that the majority of traders in the financial markets are idiots. They just hang around looking at their screens and then follow whatever they see happening. It’s the herd mentality syndrome. When the big boys start to sell then the little boys follow suit and the whole thing goes from bad to worse, often without anyone really knowing who started it or why it is happening.

That seems to have been the case yesterday as there were no catastrophic economic indicators, like major inflation fears, currency collapses, etc., to trigger a significant movement one way or the other.

Whatever caused it, it is a warning to investors to be cautious. It could be a blip or the harbinger of turbulent times ahead.

Although there are many doom-and-gloom merchants with their “the end is nigh” web sites urging their followers to dump paper money, fiat currencies they call them, and stock up on gold, the truth is that gold has not been a good investment in recent months and years.

By definition the very worst a good investment should do is hold its value in line with inflation – if it doesn’t you are losing value.

For almost two years now gold has been steadily falling in value. Anyone who bought, for example, in August or September 2011 has seen their investment fall significantly in value – down by more than twenty percent in fact. You put $10,000 in, you get less than $7,900 out, and the dealers take their cut both ways.

So will the bear market for gold continue or was Friday just a glitch? Well, if you could answer that one for certain you would be able to make a lot of money.

My feeling, for what it’s worth is that the price will probably fall further. Maybe not so dramatically as yesterday, but it could easily trickle downwards to the $1200 region.

That assumes no dramatic sell offs by bankrupt governments and banks, because that is definitely a last resort measure that they would be most reluctant to take. If or when it does happen it means BIG financial trouble for everyone.

So will gold ever be a good investment again?

Warren Buffet never thought so, but it could be. Possibly a very good investment. But probably not a long term hold. Many western economies are just hanging together at the moment. The amount of debt and insolvency has to mean that at some stage the normal investment vehicles like currencies, stocks, bonds etc., will start to suffer and people will turn back to “safe havens” like gold.

IF you buy at the right time, and remember that you need to get rid of it and fast when the cycle turns again, you could do very well. But I wouldn’t jump in and buy it just yet.

Take it away Shirley….

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Thou Shalt Not Steal (Exodus 20:15)

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The Bible (Exodus 20:15) tells us that one of God’s Ten Commandments is that “Thou Shalt Not Steal”, and it is a rule that has been adopted almost universally. Theft is against the law and is punishable by imprisonment, or in some countries harsher treatment.

And rightly so.

I’ve written in this blog before about the fact that I hate thieves.

Maybe that’s part of what gets me so riled up about the banksters and the government stooges who won’t go after these thieves.

But it seems now that the governments themselves are testing the water for a grand theft of their citizens’ money.

I don’t just mean raising taxes, or hyping up environmental issues so they can bring in new taxes to eradicate problems that they themselves have created.

Yes, they are doing that, but it isn’t enough.

Governments throughout the western world have amassed so much debt by stupid policies and incompetent management of their economies that they are now contemplating out and out theft of YOUR money!

Don’t believe me?

Witness the goings on the other day with Cyprus and the EU.

If you haven’t heard, it all started Saturday when the people of Cyprus discovered that their government and a bunch of EU bureaucrats had conspired in secret to rob their savings accounts to pay for the country’s bailout.

Anyone with savings accounts of over 100,000 euros are to have 9.9% of its value seized, and those with less than 100,000 euros will have 6.75% stolen.

In other words if you are a Cypriot and have been careful and frugal with your money, as opposed to amassing large personal debt on credit cards and loans, you are to be punished by the government. 

It all needs to be ratified by the Cypriot parliament, but whether or not they approve it on this occasion, the thinking and intent of the bureaucrats is clear.

They want to steal your money!

This is a big step. Previously raiding savings deposits was unheard of and unthinkable. Now it is an option that is very much on the agenda for desperate Western governments.

So be warned. If they set a precedent in Cyprus it could, and probably will, happen elsewhere.

And with the advance of technology it is soooo easy for governments to steal your money. If it is in a bank account it is just electronically stored numbers, there for the taking, or rather, the changing.

 

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Can Heads That Have No Brains Handle A No-Brainer?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Time for another rant about the slime of creation, also known as the banksters.

This blog is about highlighting and fighting against stupidity and bureaucracy and there is no better example of this than the banking industry.

Their stupidity is only matched by their arrogance and their greed.

More than five years on from plunging the world into a financial catastrophe, and all of us into debt that will take generations to sort out, they are still at it!

And the governments are still faffing about, afraid to take on those who bribe them with “contributions” to their election campaigns.

For example, the European parliament only reached a “tentative deal” last Wednesday evening to limit bankers’ bonuses at twice the value of their fixed pay. They call it “imposing the toughest limits on pay since the financial crisis”. Gimme strength!!! Of course, the deal, still has to be endorsed formally by governments and lawmakers (i.e., the bureaucrats), and is the result of 18 months of farting around (they call it negotiating).

It’s a start, but a poor and a slow one.

It shows how long it takes for a no-brainer to happen in heads that have no brains!

In timely manner, latest results last week came from Europe, namely the grandly named basket-case Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Lloyds Group, and Spain’s lesser sounding Bankia.

Already more than 80% owned by the British Government (i.e., taxpayers) who stupidly bailed out these idiots to the tune of almost $70 billion, RBoS have announced further losses of around $9 billion!

To make matters worse, $1.6 billion of that was to compensate clients wrongly sold insurance and interest-rate hedging products – which is a nice way of saying they have been caught fleecing their customers and now have to pay back money they cheated their clients out of in the first place.

They called it a “chastening year”.  

Meatime Lloyds chalked up further losses to the tune of more than $2 billion!

And the banksters aren’t any smarter in Spain either. Bankia also this week reported a net loss of €19.06 billion ($25.04 billion) for 2012, by far the largest in Spanish corporate history.

And you know what? Let’s add insult to injury.

These dumb-asses are looking for bonuses for their efforts.

Can you believe it?

If someone starts a business and it fails, no one gives them a bonus – they lose their business (usually because the banksters force them to close down).

Just how on earth have we allowed the banking industry to create a culture of stupidity to take hold and remain in place after such clear evidence that it is not working. It is completely absurd.

Hit your sales targets, make money for the company and yes sir you can have a bonus and well deserved. Cost the company $ billions and drive it to bankruptcy because of your incompetence and the only bonus you should get is early parole for good behavior.

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That’s Europe taken care of, can’t go without a word about the American banksters too.

Latest news is that they “have discovered” that they wrongfully foreclosed on more than 700 members of the military during the housing crisis and seized homes from about two dozen other borrowers who were current on their mortgage payments,

The banks, namely Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, only found the foreclosures after regulators ordered them to examine mortgages as part of a multibillion-dollar federal settlement. Each bank “discovered” around 200 members of the military whose homes were wrongly foreclosed in 2009 and 2010.

So while military personnel are putting themselves in harm’s way to protect and defend the country, the slime in the banks are busy trying to illegally foreclose on their homes.

Incredible!

Not only do these foreclosures violate the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, a federal law requiring banks to obtain court orders before foreclosing on active-duty members, but they violate every common law of decency.

The sooner governments come to their senses and put these banksters out of business the better and cleaner the country will be.

***end rant***

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Can You Answer Any Of These Conundrums? Or Should That Be Conundra??

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Well if you can answer the question in the title of this post then you’re off to a good start. I know what my speel chekkar says, and I think that it is wrong.

Which brings me to another short semi-rant in the form of a question. Why does the WordPress speel chekkar keep highlighting the word “wordpress” as being spelled incorrectly?

Think on that as you tackle the rest of today’s (cue the wavy red line)  conundra!

Enjoy.

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If all the nations in the world are in debt, where did all the money go?

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When you open a bag of cotton balls, is the top one meant to be thrown away?

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If blind people wear dark glasses, why don’t deaf people wear earmuffs?

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If corn can’t hear, why does it have an ear?

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If crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight?

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If everything is part of a whole, what is the whole part of?

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If humans get a charley horse, what do horses get?

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If I save time, when do I get it back?

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If man evolved from apes why do we still have apes?

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If our knees were on the backs of our legs, what would chairs look like?

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If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?

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If the #2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still #2?

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If tin whistles are made out of tin, what do they make fog horns out of?

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If you didn’t get caught, did you really do it?

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Can you be a closet claustrophobic?

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If a mute child swears, does his mother wash his hands?

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I Suppose I Should Be Doing These On A Punday Not A Thursday

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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I got an email recently from Paul Ryan (well, probably one of his little helpers) inviting me to some kind of election shin-dig they were having. How he got my email address I don’t know because I haven’t signed up for anything even resembling political.

Whoever wins, we get the same people really in charge. There can be no doubt about that after Obama’s four years of “no we can’t” and changing nothing of consequence.

And then there was the debate in Denver. By all accounts a win for Romney and a lackluster performance by Obama. A CBS News poll of “uncommitted voters”, gave Romney 46% as opposed to 22% for Obama (with 32% calling it a tie).

Not that performance in debates count for much in the long run, but this one has made an “unshakable” lead for Obama into a much closer competition – until the next debate anyway – which might turn what has been a relatively dull campaign into something more exciting. Don’t hold your breath, though.

 

Meantime we have much more important things to investigate and to lighten the mood.

Yes, from pundit to punday, another excuse for more bad jokes, using the clever ploy of the pun.

Can you take it?

If you can, then enjoy.

 

 

You feel stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.

 

 

Is the Local Area Network in Australia – the LAN down under?

 

 

Every calendar’s days are numbered.

 

 

A lot of money is tainted – taint yours and taint mine.

 

 

A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.

 

 

He had a photographic memory that was never developed.

 

 

Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.

 

 

Are Santa’s helpers subordinate clauses?

 

 

Acupuncture is a jab well done.

 

 

Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I’ll show you A-flat minor.

 

 

Seven days without a pun makes one weak.

 

 

When the actress saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she’d dye.

 

 

When a scientist was doing a large experiment with liquid chemicals to try to solve a problem he accidentally fell in and became part of the solution.

 

 

If you leave alphabet soup on the stove and go out, could it spell disaster?

 

 

After they bought a water bed, the couple started to drift apart.

 

 

To write with a broken pencil is pointless.

 

 

The best way to communicate with a fish is to drop them a line.

 

 

Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.

 

 

Rabbits like their beer brewed with a lot of hops.

 

 

Once you’ve seen one shopping center, you’ve seen a mall.

 

 

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The Richest Nation The World Has Ever Known Has Become The Greatest Debtor The World Has Ever Known

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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****A Saturday rant****

One day this week, according to all reliable financial sources, the United States of America’s debt burden reaches the $16 trillion mark, or as close to it as makes no difference.

That’s $16,000,000,000,000.00

The richest nation the world has ever known has now become the greatest debtor the world has ever known.

And the problem which began to get seriously out of control under the Bush Presidency is still spiraling out of control under Obama’s regime.

go bananas

To add a little perspective to the huge numbers, it took the United States government more than two hundred years to accumulate its first trillion dollars of debt, BUT it took only two hundred and eighty-six days for the most recent trillion dollars of debt to be added. And that was under the  “Yes We Can” and “Change” administration.

So what has changed?

Nothing much.

Yes we can what?

• Borrow and borrow and borrow again?
• Let the horrific bankster’s mess run on for a few more decades?
• Dream up more and more new government programs that we cannot afford?
• Leave future generations in so much debt that they will never and can never get out from under it, (because there won’t be enough money to pay the interest on the debt let alone repay it)?
• Continue to stick our heads in the sand while other nations kick our ass?

As I write this I can hear the Fed’s printing presses clunking away producing more new dollars out of thin air, which they will distribute through the banks  –  who will keep most of the money instead of releasing it to individuals and businesses to stimulate the economy and create employment.

Sadly, not only is the nation bankrupt, but the politicians who govern it are too  –  bankrupt of good ideas, intelligence and common sense. Their mentality is, ‘if something isn’t working, don’t change it, just do more of it’.  (Aaaarrrrrrggggghhhhhhh!!!)

Their ultimate solution will be, as it inevitably always is – more taxes and more control! Just wait for those shoes to drop.

In the US, Hawaii and Florida are the only states that grow bananas. I suggest that they start looking for ways to up production because that is the type of republic the politicians seem hell bent turning us into!

****End rant****

naked banana

 

We’ve Looked At Beautiful Numbers, Now How About Some Really BIG ones!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Taking a break from the funny stuff today.

A while ago I did a post about Beautiful Numbers. And yesterday I was having a look at the debt situation in various countries, which sparked off this post about numbers, BIG ones.

I will post links to the US debt figures and a couple of others at the end of this post. They are kind of fascinating because they are real-time counters, continually updating.

However, to get on with the post, everybody knows 1 (one), 10 (ten), 100 (hundred), 1,000 (thousand), and 1,000,000 (million). We are all familiar with 1,000,000,000 (billion) although none of us have ever counted that far. In fact oil mogul John Paul Getty once said that if you could count your money you weren’t a billionaire. I can, and I’m not, so perhaps he was right!

And, thanks to the massive debt that the US and other countries are building up, we are also getting more and more familiar with 1,000,000,000,000 trillion.

After that, however, most people would be stuck. Here are the next big numbers.

1,000,000,000,000,000 quadrillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000 quintillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 sextillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 septillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 octillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 nonillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 decillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 vigintillion

10¹⁰⁰ better known as a googol from which the search engine google derived its name.

10³⁰³ centillion

And finally for now, a googolplex which is 10^googol

That’s a lot of zeros!

You may have noticed in all this that the names for a lot of the larger numbers end in “illion”. This is also true for the names used to describe numbers that don’t actually exist and that are of no specific size.

For example, words like , ‘jillion’, ‘gadzillion’ and ‘squillion’ (there are many other variations). Their size is dependent upon the context, but can typically be considered a very very large number. And if you are talking about the super rich then all you have to do is stick ‘-illionaire’ on the end.

But the best term for describing a number is one that also doesn’t really exist. I mean it exists as a word, but it is not a precise mathematical term and it just describes a big number rather than a specific big number.

The term I’m talking about is ‘Umpteen’. From the name you would imagine that it should represent a number somewhere in the teens, but it can be used to describe virtually any number, real or imaginary. A useful term if you don’t have a specific number in mind.

Now for the clocks. Here are the links. Hope you find them interesting, maybe a little scary in some cases.

Probably the best of these is from the wonderfully named poodwaddle.com

http://www.poodwaddle.com/clocks/worldclock/

Some others to look at too if you are interested in this type of thing

US Debt clock   http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html

World Debt Clock   http://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html

And some real time world counters on a variety of things

http://www.worldometers.info/

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