Wednesday, June 13, 2012

The Cost Of Doing Business

JPMorgan is Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson's second-largest contributor over the last two-plus decades, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which analyzes campaign giving from companies' employees and their political action committees since 1989. The same is true for the committee's top Republican, Sen. Richard Shelby, and its second-ranking Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed.  (link below)
I have been arguing since way before it has become vogue in the media that the economy is a lot weaker than the Fed/Obama people would have us believe.  Especially when measured on a real, inflation-adjusted basis.  A big part of the GDP equation is retail sales/consumerism.  In fact, during the past decade, debt-fueled consumption has been 70% of the GDP in this country.  Pathetic if you ask me.   

Retail sales for May were reported today and they showed a decline vs. April.  More troubling, but consistent with the "report positive news then revise it downward the following month when no one is paying attention" policy our Government, April retail sales were revised to down .2% from the originally reported gain of .1%.   The credit-card fueled consumer bounce has died and another leg of the economy is broken:  LINK  See the pattern here:  a decline on a decline, month to month.

The big news of the day, and that which is nicely deflecting attention from our tanking economy and the ongoing collapse in Europe, is Jamie Dimon's testimony in front of the Senate Banking Committee on JP Morgan's massive derivatives loss.  For anyone who naively thinks that Jamie Dimon will be properly brought to justice, or that the Senate intends to take any action beyond publicly grilling the boozehound who runs JPM, you better read this:  LINK

Like most Americans, if you are too lazy or complacent to read about the truth, here's the Cliff Notes to that article:  JP Morgan owns the key players on the Senate Banking Committee (see the opening quote).  Here's a nice chart from zerohedge which details the big money beneficiaries in the Senate:  LINK

As you can see, and as I've been arguing for a long time, party affiliation makes no difference.  It's irrelevant.  "Show me the money" is what counts.  For all you liberals/Democrats who idolize Chuck Schumer, please take note that he's by far the biggest ankle-grabber for the Too Big To Fail Banks.

Bottom line:  democracy is dead and the big banks will continue to rape and pillage our system until it collapses.  Those monetary donations are nothing more than the cost of doing business for Wall Street.  If you ask me, the whores in Congress are selling out way too cheaply and anyone who thinks it makes a difference as to whether Romney or Obama is the next President is an idiot.  Obama has received a record amount of whore money from Wall Street and he had the nerve to campaign on a populist, I'm for the people platform.  Everyone forgot to nail him down on exactly who his "people" are.

Finally, I wanted to share a must-watch speech given in the European Parliament by Nigel Farage.  Mr. Farage is one of the UK representatives on the EP, which is the parliamentary body of the EU.  Mr. Farage is known (and hated by elitists) for his outspoken criticism of EU system policies which are being implemented in tragic failure to address systemic disaster in Europe - the same tragic policies and disasters we are experiencing in the U.S. 

Please watch this video and wonder how awesome it would be if the U.S. Congress had someone who had the balls to speak up like this - of course, any Congressman who preached the Truth would never get elected:

14 comments:

  1. michael schumcaherWednesday, 13 June, 2012

    sorry to defile your wonderful site with the following:

    @UCK you Jamie Daimon...if ever there was a single person more responsible for this entire mess it would be him....with Timmay a close second.

    MS

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    1. LOL. Not defiling. You don't need the "@" edit. Let 'er rip next time!

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  2. Sorry about my error yesterday. the Italian insolvereign auction is tonite... or Thursday in Italia.

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  3. What struck me during Nigel Farage's speech was not the speech itself, which is spot on, but the bemused insouciance of those around him, as if he were an idiot. Truly we are screwed, and not in a way which will please us.

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    1. This is the British way my friend, just look at Tony Blair in Parliament. They do speak with venom, but it's all a sideshow, as they speak only words, and not actions.

      Here in the U.S. they are more like the iconic 3 monkeys. See no truth, hear no truth, speak no truth. Here the truth is evil, and evil is the only truth.

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  4. Farage makes my argument (as well as yours). There IS a solution, AND ... all evidence points to it's gradual formation picking up traction.

    G O L D !!

    Gold will "bail out" the ECB (in essence preventing it from "going bust").
    Gold will extinguish ALL debt in the world, as so many times before.

    I F and only if ... it is "priced" high enough.

    The hyperinflation of currencies ... that is already well underway. It takes time for "price" to reflect this.
    The end of dollar reserve hegemony ... this has already happened. The long range impact gradually materializing across the western economies.
    Never again in our lifetimes will the debt of one nation be held as a reserve "store of value" by the world's economies.

    GOLD will resume that function. Morgan will go down in flames with it's leveraged paper derivatives (of gold).
    -W

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    1. I agree with Will here.

      What alot people miss is all the Gold sitting on the European Central Bank's balance sheet. (It's located on LINE 1 on the ASSET side of the ECB's balance sheet for god sakes.) Whenever they (the EU) want, they can just revalue this gold, sell a little off and pay off all their debts. And presto, the EU is "recapitalized".


      The politics of the ECB? It is as a "side show"? - Another 1998


      Also, something else people don't notice. The UK is not part of the EU, monetarily. Most of the other nations in the EU adopted the Euro but the UK still has the pound. If the EU becomes the new world reserve currency, they (the Europeans) will control the world for the next 100+ years. Taking this power away from the Americans and their allies....which includes the U.K.

      One more thing:

      The European Central Bank is located in Frankfurt, Germany. You think thats a coincidence?!


      WW2 may be over, but the combatants are still fighting!


      -Sicilian Gold

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    2. Oh yes, I forgot to add:

      Methinks the UK/American faction is trying to take down (and/or poison) the Euro faction.

      There's a currency war going here....just open your eyes.

      Remember, Saddam wanted Euros for his oil, not American dollars!:

      Petro-dollar vs Petro-euro (part 1)
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki2D8YVxrFE

      Petro-dollar vs Petro-euro (part 2)
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5yKxOBj2zk

      -Sicilian Gold

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  5. Here's to hoping that NF pays his bodyguards very well and stays out of airplanes.

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  6. Was Dave in D.C.? LOL

    http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t2#/video/politics/2012/06/13/dimon-jp-morgan-chase-heckler.cnn

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  7. The thing that bugs me Dave is this thing is coming off at the wheels but the question remains what will the people build after the fall? Without different leaders and mindsets the nations will build back the same defiled economic system we have now. I mean look at obummer, he is the sorrests scumbag we have seen in my generation and that's probably insulting scumbags. I liked Farage's speech but it's falling on deaf ears yet one day he will be able to say "I told you so." Oh great!

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  8. I have often wondered about this guy. Is he an elected official? How do they permit him to stay around? How does he get re-elected. Why hasn't someone taken him out behind the building yet? The only thing I can think of is he is completely powerless and they don't fear him.

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  9. Alan Grayson is the person and he was not re-elected - sad

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  10. Nigel may be a bar fly but he is very carefull about what he says. His backers are the Goldsmith family (cousins to the Rothschilds). Jimmy founded UKIP, and the money probably comes from the hedge funds. Don't forget there is really big money in breaking up the euro and a gadfly always pumping out the message serves a purpose.

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