Here’s the Bloomberg story on one of today’s regulatory theater announcements:
Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch wealth-management unit was fined $2.8 million by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for overbilling customers by $32.2 million over an eight-year period.
Merrill Lynch charged the fees to about 95,000 accounts between April 2003 and December 2011, FINRA said in a statement today. New York-based Merrill Lynch, which was acquired by Bank of America in 2009, lacked an adequate supervisory system to ensure that customers were billed in accordance with their contracts and disclosure documents, the regulator said.
Now of course, the bank says this was all a mistake, but it’s pretty certain the way Finra found about about it was via customer complaints, since the average amount pilfered per customer was under $400. This means that even if it was an initially error, Merrill and later BofA refused to correct it when alerted (customers who noticed would presumably try to get the charge reversed, and only then try other routes).
One also assumes the money was disgorged.
But let’s make some simple assumptions. Since this took place over eight years, let’s assume the average amount outstanding of money the bank had that it wasn’t entitled to was half that, or $16 million. This was free money, absolutely no cost of funds. If you assume even a low rate of return, roughly 2% or higher, and factor in that the fine was paid in arrears, and a full year after the practice stopped, the fine wasn’t even a punishment. It’s almost certain to be less than the money Merrill/BofA made from this abuse (alternatively, you could use cost of funds, which has plunged in the wake of the crisis, but was a meaningful positive number prior to when the Fed started implementing ZIRP).
So much for regulatory competence.
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The scam Wall Street learned from the mafia by @mtaibbi
http://t.co/WDsbOYi6
Of course it does. Banks and corporations have been committing crimes and buying their way out of any real justice for fucking forever. Corporations aren’t people…they are super people who can do no wrong, and aren’t hindered by morals or morality. What there is a law against something they want to do? They can write a new law and buy the politicians to pass it.
Same story different players every day. Wake me up when Teddy Roosevelt is reincarnated or someone similar who is ready to root our corruption and enforce anti trust laws.
Yes it’s quite sad, as if Yves has been cryogenically frozen for the last few decades.
“So much for regulatory competence.”
Ah, so this is it? This is what finally puts the nail in the coffin of “regulatory competence”? And here I was still holding out hope…
It’s like Yves is stuck in Groundhog Day. She’s figured out that the banking system is corrupt to its core and the “regulators” are accomplices in the crime, but she doesn’t know (or care to know?) where to go next, intellectually, so here she sits, spinning her wheels and chronicling the ongoing train wreck.
Yves is stuck in the paradigm of supporting violent coercion, and thus is blind to the causes and possible remedies to the situation. As a consequence, she has very little to offer from an intellectual or philosophical perspective, reduced to merely transcribing the events and offering the occasional spasm of moral outrage, which is ineffectual because she has no concept of the nature or logic of morals or ethics. It’s really very hard to watch.
Like Bill Murphy in that classic film, only when Yves truly understands the nature of love (voluntarism, the Non-Agression Principle, self-ownership, etc.) will she escape from this endless loop; until then, the wheels will continue to spin spin spin.
only when Yves truly understands the nature of love (voluntarism, the Non-Agression Principle, self-ownership, etc.) Freedom
And that government money should not be fiat? Hmmm?
It goes like this…they don’t give a shit about us at all. They want obedient slaves who comply and conform to their fraud. They use secrets, lies and deception to get their dirty work accomplished. They would rather see us in prison or dead than not obeying them. They want a global serfdom. That’s what they want and we are pretty much allowing it.
[Our western-style] Governments (and their Agents) are a reflection of their societal collective. So long as WeThePeople continue (out of irrational *Fear*) to enable/allow/believe in this Govt (which is nothing more than a Big Brother Police State *enforcing* a Nanny-State upon the Sovereigns of the Land (through aggression, coercion and theft), then the answer is a big resounding NO!
Why on earth would you entrust an entity (Govt) that is solely based on (and feeds on) Fear to decree to you/us/we the value of whatever we give it?
Why would you let said entity *steal* your productivity and wealth through taxation, fees, etc? To then, turn around with that stolen wealth to instantantiate and perpetuate massive death, destruction, pain, misery and atrocities throughout the globe? ..all puppets of the Global Elitist Cartel.
I don’t like the “tone” used in the post above you’ve responded to, as it’s not done out of a general respect .. and more importantly love.
Our govt, and many like it, exist solely due to Fear from the governed, ..and the more fearful the Sovereigns, the more oppressive, deceitful and corrupt the gov’t becomes — So no, i don’t trust the govt to ‘Decree’ anything. They do NOT have my Consent, I didn’t sign their contract! Null and Void is what we need to make this illegitimate entity we call “govt”.
Love
Government is a given since 1 Samuel 8. But what is NOT a given is that government should privilege private interests such as the banks.
I believe the problem isn’t “government” in the general, but the current USA government in specific. This is the ‘government’ as based on neo-lib/neo-con ‘principles’ which are nothing more than coercion, intimidation, violence and criminal theft and collusion.
There are other way that ‘government’ can be constituted, but that requires that this elusive ‘we, the people,’ get off our lazy asses and out of our lazy internet- and television-generated alternative universes and participate in something like a democracy.
The 10%, 1% or .01% (as you like it) bugbears can only continue to have their ways as long as the vast majority are more willing to live in techno-induced narcosis instead of in a rather more painful and interactive reality among people who aren’t just like ourselves except as regards their humanity, and ours.
The problems are old: fear of neighbors, alienation and exile from neighbors, a heavy dose of “expertise-driven” narcissism and elitism that has made certain that we look down on everyone else and trust no one at all.
Yet, the key to success is that the elephant in the room begin to understand just how large, strong, and able 90%-99.99% is in comparison to 10%, 1% and .01%. And that would include the weight of the wealth and assets those latter percentages control.
Passive aggression and condescension are aggression too, in New Age candy coating. You are hardly an example of what you preach.
How productive is what you offer, high and mighty finger waving and no solutions?
… You are hardly [showing yourself to be] an example of what you preach. …
I can agree with that wholeheartedly
Love
Dear Freedom;
You argue from weakness here. Secrecy and ignorance are the Kleptocrats greatest weapons. Anyone who chips away at those factors helps us all. Besides, the lady brings a lifetime of experience to the problem. Anything she considers important is important and worthy of notice. Are you perhaps trying to impede the process of discovery by denigrating the messenger?
Your criticism is unjust and quite snide. Get the whole picture.
“.. as if Yves has been cryogenically frozen for the last few decades. ”
No, no, dumbkopf, not Yves .. it’s the Ivy League product that’s been frozen. Seriously, why CAN’T you see that ??
So for every occurrence of “Yves” in your comment, Freedom, substitute the name ‘Freedom’ thereafter.
In this comment, substitute ‘Ivy League’ for “financial sector”,
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/bank-of-america-settlement-on-customer-overbilling-proves-bank-crime-pays.html#comment-743370
You were advertising Ivy League fraudin’, weren’t you ?
[FRAUDIN’ as the BIG ZERO]
YVES, “Freedom” paid to knock you repeatedly, you notice.
Looks more like encouragement than enforcement on the government’s part.
Go and sin some more.
“Looks more like encouragement than enforcement on the government’s part”
No, it’s the Government’s share of the racket – tho’ a little light. 10% for ‘protection’ would be generous on its part.
It would be just plain common sense that the penalty has to be larger in value than the crime to have any deterrence. Heck, if one could rob a bank and have to give less than 10% of the loot back as the penalty, I dare say that bank robberies would go way up.
Gee, is anybody tracking the incidence of corruption on Wall St? It’s probably still trending up:
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/fcs_report2006
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011
Looks like corporate fraud, SEC fraud, and mortgage fraud are still trending up whereas other types of financial crimes are steady or trending down.
Duh…
“Looks like corporate fraud, SEC fraud, and mortgage fraud are still trending up whereas other types of financial crimes are steady or trending down. ”
And does “Glen” perceive Enforcement Fraud ? while referring us to Justice Dept. reports ??
“Glen” would have us believe Enforcement Fraud does not exist, or that “Glen” is Enforcement Fraud’s messenger.
Either of those two options does give “Duh… “.
Ha! I’m positive enforcement fraud exists, and I suspect that it roughly correlates to real fraud, and is also trending up (You cannot have enforcement fraud until there is real fraud to cover up), I just cannot find any published reports tracking it, but based on all the reporting Yves has been doing on the forgery, fraud, and corruption in just the MBS trusts, MERS debacle, and “Linda Green forged docs”, there is a massive amount of fraud and not much enforcement.
As enouf said here,
” ’tis been said here many times in the past; “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature” “,
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/bank-of-america-settlement-on-customer-overbilling-proves-bank-crime-pays.html#comment-743327
This is what it looks like when Mr. Safeguard is “featured”, and is ‘Found Out’ by society.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/bank-of-america-settlement-on-customer-overbilling-proves-bank-crime-pays.html#comment-743370
I’m not sure “Ha!” is enough to cover the implications of Enforcement Fraud, so for the moment I’ll agree to call you “Glen”.
If the people have ‘voted with their feet’, it is ironic that Mr. Safeguard has cast his vote and that his vote leads to a Second Great Depression.
Now what kind of reflection does that cast upon Mr. Safeguard, “Glen” ?
FINRA is not a regulator. It’s a trade group.
It is “self-regulation.” so beloved of the Freidman faithful.
A devotion to SR is why Ron Paul, who says things that Americans want to hear about ending the American Empire, personal liberty, and ending unaccountable institutions, makes it to the land of batshit crazy.
A lawyer named Daniel Solin wrote a book, Does Your Broker Owe You Money? about his experiences representing clients at FINRA tribunal. He counted it a victory to get back 30%, even with the most egregious churning, frontrunning, and outrageous gambling. FINRA’s treated this embezzlement as just another customer-pimping broker game. The rest of us see it as theft.
There’s a huge difference between self-regulation and free market capitalism. Even in a free market there needs to be rule of law and respect for contracts. Support for free markets does not mean lack of support for the other. And being pro-market is not the same as being pro-business.
Ya know? you some good points until you used that ‘C’ word in there? What’s with you capitalism-bugs? What do free markets have to do with capitalism anyways?
Do you believe Corporations (as they exist today) and Insurance are “Lawful” entities?
Do you believe in Limited Liability? How about just Deferred-Liability? Lawful or Unlawful? …and don’t tell me about Legal/Illegal; those have nothing to do with Law.
Love
It may be my Italian roots, but I want to see all of the traitors hung. Because, it is a code of honor, you don’t mess with the family..and they messed with millions.
By your leave, edit: “have nothing to do with Justice.”
My point is…that is the mafia code of honor. You do not mess with the family…They broke their own code of honor by messing with millions of families who never did anything to them. That is complete dishonor. Now they must pay. IMHO…Justice is whatever we think it should be, since law enforcement refuses to hold them accountable and they are mass murderer’s…..serial killers…..psychopaths running America into destitution and abject poverty. We are who they dishonored..I think justice for treason is hanging. They have murdered millions by their criminal deceptions.
ahh ..
@ stripes
Seems Leonova was editing my comment about Legal/Illegal having nothing to do with Law [Justice] ;-)
I too was a bit confused at first.. heh
—————-
… Justice is whatever we think it should be …
Indeed ; i too am of Italian descent and know what you mean, …but i also think most others do as well ;-0
I also am thinking of starting a blog called “TheThreeTees” for “Traitorous Treacherous Treasonors!”
Love
I, too, would like to see morality rather than lawsuits and prison sentences as the rule of behavior in business, and law, and government, and highway driving, but I’m not sure it’s going to happen soon.
Wait, that last one actually works pretty well, considering. Maybe more law in highway driving.
I wasn’t sure I got my point across. I know Lenova is one of the good ones. I am pretty wound up over the way a blind eye could be turned to such a massive crime. I know people who have gotten jail time for misdemeanor pot possession. I have witnessed cops harassing people for no legal reason. I have witnessed Judges in foreclosure court non chalantly aiding and abetting these criminals. I have witnessed judges in courts of law cajholing with bank attorneys and making people who are victims of massive bankster fraud feel belittled for not paying the mortgage. I have spoken to at least 7 so called foreclosure defense attorneys who refuse to go after the banks for fraud. I have spoken with every law enforcement agency you could name, they are not particularly interested in doing anything but making excuses for these criminals. The injustice has reached a boiling point with me. I wont be satisfied until I see some criminal prosecutions of these felons. I personally know of 5 suicides caused directly by bankster fraud because these people blamed themselves for losing everything. That is why I want justice.
It is absolutely horrible that people are committing suicide because they blame themselves.
Perhaps soon the victims will start realizing who is to blame and will commit murder instead. That would be an improvement.
Hard to argue with these customer reviews,
http://www.amazon.com/Does-Your-Broker-Owe-Money/dp/0974876305
“FINRA treated this embezzlement as just another customer-pimping broker game. ”
I know she’s SEC, but isn’t that Exactly Shapiro’s attitude towards it all ?
Not only 2% to the House on “free money,” but 2% plus exponential profits from “derivatives” schemes on the back of the 2%, not to mention profits from naked derivatives just for fun.
The solution is simple. If a bank fails, no bail out, just nationalize the bank, fire the upper management without salary and bonus. Appoint qualified and honest people to run it for the nation. Same with oil companies. BP should be nationalized. Which nation? It should be us, because we were ones with the oil spill.
Is a fine tax deductable?
Interesting. How does this not violate the compelling state interest in preventing criminals from profiting from their crimes as recognized by the U.S. Supreme court in: Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N. Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105 (1991)?
Or for that matter how does it dissuade banks from doing it again?
’tis been said here many times in the past; “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature”
If ever there was a case for enforcement of RICO statutes, heh .. oh boy, …at one time, almost *everyone* involved in and around the financial sector were blatantly using FRAUD for self-gain.
the recent post (in another thread here on NC) links to billmoyers.com and an with John Reed (former Citigroup CEO in the ’90s?) and tells how all the *enthusiasm* swept ‘everyone off their little feeties’.
From all that exhuberance, I guess they couldn’t contain themselves from constantly committing massive fraud ..for our sakes, eh? The amount of people that require Orange Jumpsuits, Shackles and Leg irons, and cold damp concrete/steel cages is staggering.. .. in the millions, or 10s of millions
Love
” … at one time, almost *everyone* involved in and around the financial sector were blatantly using FRAUD for self-gain.
.. From all that exhuberance, I guess they couldn’t contain themselves from constantly committing massive fraud ..for our sakes, eh? ”
And all that FRAUDIN’ didn’t gain the public’s attention. I wonder how that is possible, and how it is not possible to conclude it’s one of those “quality of life” safeguarding issues where the only ‘quality of life’ been safeguarded is the safeguard’s wallet.
Yeah.
The media was manipulated so as to downplay or not report the frauds as much as possible.
That said, they’re so endemic that they *have* caught people’s attention. The trouble is, what do you do about it? If the legal system is broken and owned by the fraudsters, and the major parties are broken and owned by the fraudsters, it’s not obvious what to do (well, apart from “Move Your Money”). It takes a lot more than a fraudocracy to make people demand major change: it takes attacks on the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
enouf, see Jesse’s Cafe comments and link to “Additional questions for Jamie Dimon: Questions for Jamie Dimon that no Member of Congress had the Courage to Ask” by Stanley Haar (June 21, 2012):
“http://www.futuresmag.com/2012/06/21/additional-questions-for-jamie-dimon?t=financials&page=4
Aren’t these the kind of questions Pecora asked and demanded answers to?
Nothing but eunuchs in the Three Branches of Government.
“Questions for Jamie Dimon that no Member of Congress had the “Courage” to Ask.”
Needed to clean the keyboard after reading “courage.” That was a good chuckle! Everyone in Congress stood in a long que to buy Dimon’s “Suck my Dick” lottery tickets, hoping to be the lucky winners allowed to crawl under the table to suck Dimon’s dick and massage his king kong balls.
Ennuchs? Nah, the Congress gigilos are Meth-campaign “sho me the money” addicts. Those ennuchs get alot of action
The Campaign That Never Sleeps, very good. Recently saw a billboard to the effect .. “The War may be over, but the battle(s) are not.”
Isn’t that the realization the Stormtroopers had, that with the stuff ‘We can sweep all things aside.’ ?
Commentaries on Allegiances to the fore.
“Interesting. How does this not violate the compelling state interest in preventing criminals from profiting from their crimes as recognized by the U.S. Supreme court in: Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N. Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105 (1991)?
Or for that matter how does it dissuade banks from doing it again?”
Obviously, it ignores the compelling state interest and encourages banks to do it again. But I think your questions were rhetorical.
The real question is, who is going to stop the federal government from condoning criminal behavior by banks? There is one judge in NY who is fighting the SEC to try to force them to do their damned job rather than “settling” for pennies on the dollar.
The SEC has also been illegally shredding documents in order to assist banks in covering up their crimes, as newspapers reported a few months ago.
However, in our broken legal system, only Attorney General Holder, who is a criminal owned by the banks, or a federal grand jury, can prosecute the SEC for this. And grand juries do not know their duties or powers, because judges and prosecutors lie to grand juries about them; this is well documented.
Is anyone reading this on a federal grand jury? It is actually your legal duty to investigate and prosecute any crimes within your district which come to your attention (such as these, foreclosure fraud, etc.). You are *not* supposed to just do what the prosecutor tells you to. You have a *legal right* to exclude the prosecutor from your investigations, particularly if you suspect that the prosecutor is involved in the crimes.
State grand juries in the districts where major banks are headquarted can prosecute too.
I am not sure if this is applicable, but it’s definitely on the periphery of your comments;
fija.org
(and there are some others like freestateproject.org)
Love
..is enough, or as otherwise phrased,
‘all you need’
Very Naive question here, but why are the fines always, always, always lower than the damages caused? BofA can afford 32.4 million, so why isn’t the judgement 50 million? Are we not just incentivizing fraud?
Yes. And the ostensible reason is because it would be imprudent to let the banks fail, which might happen if it were to come to light that the banks are engaging in a massive amount of fraudulent schemes. (Also, banks bankroll politicians’ reelections to a significant degree.)
Also, ask: What is the lobbyist’s Corporate YIELD on “Donation” to Politico, dollar for dollar? This rarely is revealed, but this is “where the money is.”
And note the consistency with which it is kept hidden, nary a yap from any quarter, any ..
I was told by an attorney that the people who are most harmed never see a dime from these settlements. The politicians and their lawyers are pocketing the loot. Have we heard of one pension fund restored or one house returned because of these fines..? Hell no..!
Such a well greased Fraudocracy we have.
Fraud is a feature, not a bug.
Free and underpaid slave labor is a feature not a bug of Capitalism and “free markets” as in free to screw and steal labor’s wealth. Profits consist of stealing resources (ideologic and pre-emptive wars), Free labor, and overcharging the costumers. Without these features, profits are non-existent.
Free markets and capitalism have never existed anymore than the tooth fairy, santa claus, and the guys in the clouds (Zeus, Yahweh, Mohammed—) Government interference of free markets through supportive corporate measures, laws(copyright & patent), and contracts favor corporate existence and negates failure. And then there’s the added feature of handing them the honeypot; belly on up to the taxpayer trough
The middle class was a bug and not a feature. Reagan flipped the switch and transported us back in time to the Southern Master plantation model. The difference is race is no longer an indicator in human discrimation. Instead Class Wealth discrimination is the main feature. We all are brown now.
rps, Reagan led the putsch baaaaack to the CORE OF CAPITALISM: “FRUITS OF MERCHANT CAPITAL: Slavery and Bourgeois Property in the Rise and Expansion of Capitalism (1983) and “THE MIND OF THE MASTER CLASS: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders’ Worldview” (2005) by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese.
The circle was squared in text with “NOBILITY and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII” by Oliveira with complicit Foreword by Reagan’s man in “Youth Education” and Olde Virginie, Morton C. Blackwell.
It’s all there, and it’s in writing. The Holy Roman Reich IV reigns at Homeland.
The choice of Reagan as the indicator in the fall of the middle class was due to the overt rollback of labor’s rights in the destruction of union representation through corporate inflitration in the corruption of top management. Undoubtedly, it began with good ole anti-union southern boy Prez. Jimmy Carter demand in the capitulation of the UAW and forced contract revisions to ‘save’ an american icon, Chrysler. The lie of worker’s unilateral agreement was a psychological onslaught of media blaring UAW employees as greedy and the country’s decline was their fault. The UAW capitulated with the promise of saving their jobs. How did that workout? Michael Moore’s documentary “Roger and Me” details the destruction of jobs in Detroit as car factories closed and reopened over the border in search of slave labor so the big boys wouldn’t be forced to share the wealth pie.
There were many humanitarian gains since the early twentieth century in the bloody hard fought battles in the creation of Unions that had led to education for the populace, the EPA, worker rights, children welfare, women’s rights, civil rights movement, healthcare, etc…..In fact the 1950’s under Eisenhower’s income tax rates of 92% on the wealthiest had promoted an egalitarian movement.
The 1960’s was a critical era that made great strides in women and children’s poverty, racism, and work discrimination. The decline of a more equitable wealth distribution across the board began under Jimmy Carter’s subversive interference with the UAW. Since then we as a country are witnessing a horrific humanitarin rollback, wealth destruction of the great middle class, and human rights in the USA. What happened to the war on poverty? Todays paradigm of Poverty as a right, as if it’s a choice. That’s a feature, not a bug. The boys at the top think they are so clever.
We all are brown now. rps
Gray is a better description since our whole society is usury-soaked.
But even the rich die.
At least the poor have the hope of a better after-life unless they don’t.
There is always a price for screwing people over. No one is above the law and no crime ever really goes unpunished. Their quest for world domination proves wealth does not bring happiness and Greed is probably a serious mental illness.
Edit: overcharging the customers
Fraud is a bug.
It seems like a feature to each individual fraudster until *he* gets defrauded by a smarter fraudster. Then he realizes that it’s actually a bug.
And that is why it’s a bug; there’s no end to it. Eventually, when fraud is endemic, nobody trusts anyone enough for any economic activity to happen; you can’t even find a mark any more! Next step is degeneration into warlordism, unless there’s a populist revolution.
I will say, fraud’s not a bug in the system if you’re an aspiring warlord.
But if you’re just a paper-pushing type of criminal, it *is* a bug in the long run. The trouble is that the people at the center of this are incapable of thinking in the long run, because they’re mentally damaged, being clinical psychopaths.
Settling for fraud is wrong. I don’t need to elaborate on what would have been done to us if we borrowed gagillions of other peoples money without their knowledge (stole it), fraudulently induced interest payments on them, went to a casino and gambled on it, bet on the bets, gambled until the property was worthless but made gagillions on the gambling, insured our losses, illegally transferred other peoples property to other cohorts to do the same thing with and when the gambles could no longer be sold because we rendered the property worthless by over gambling, we cashed in the insurance and took the property after we got trillions of dollars from our criminal politician friends to bail us out . 3 felonies=life in prison. This crime makes Enron, Madoff, Raj Rajmatan look like child’s play.
Oh, but don’t you get the Name of the Game? “The South Shall Rise Again.” Yes, BAC Confederacy in Charlotte just KNEW what it took to “go those N.Y. Jews one better.” The Democratic Convention 2012 is in Charlotte. IF Barack Obama is “Black,” is he after all seeking to be “a traitor to his class”–implied to be related to authentic Descendants of Slaves in America? But wait. He is NOT a Descendant of Slaves in America. His “Dark” side descends from a Kenyan who apparently served Anglo-American Imperialism, just a few decades removed from the Wealth Transfer of Pax Britannica to Pax Americana in Africa. See: “IMPERIAL RECKONING: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya” by Caroline Elkins (2005), which won the Pulitzer Prize.
Can this man JUSTLY represent “Americans” African or other? Has Obama not PROVEN himself to be either captive or a willing slave to the Master Class, as its Agent in Office doing its bidding, selling us ALL down the river? Isn’t he, by his Authority of Office, turning our nation into Louisiana, with all that this implies? WE are all prisoners in Angola Plantation Penitentiary now.
“History is not dead. It’s not even past.” Obama is a Nobility Trojan Horse.
Yeah .. ya know…
I was going to go off on a tangent rant way upthread about Agents of the CROWN, and Land Patents, and Kings Letter of Patent, and how all Land east of the Mississippi River is still owned by the Crown (vis a vis Allodial Title) … etc
… but i decided it’d be too OffTopic ;-)
Love
Oh, it is off-topic. But while we’re at it, conventional legal theory states that the Crown interest (held by the state governments since the War of Independence, in the territory of the original 13, or by the federal government in the rest of the states east of the Mississippi under the interstate treaties negotiated under the Articles of Confederation)
…states that this Crown interest only exists where it was properly signed over by the natives who held alloidial title. The Seneca and other Iroquois, who never signed over large portions of their land, and who instead were subject to fraudulent “treaties” made by non-representatives, have been fighting their cases for about 200 years, and will win eventually. Right now our Supreme Court, being run by racist criminals, is unwilling to actually pay attention to this case — but as I say it is bound to be won eventually.
I think yours and rps’s post (2 down from yours, that starts; When political protected fraud is a feature of an economic system, …) describes and summates it quite nicely.
Love
When political protected fraud is a feature of an economic system, it eventually collapses the shared communal illusion of fiat currency. The Wall Street casino operators and main players role as the money handlers truly believe labor is antiquated in the production of wealth. Today’s wealth model is based upon the delusion that labor is unecessary in the production of wealth. In otherwords, money makes money, and the “they” central bankers/casino owners, and “logorithm” worhsippers have disconnected the interdependency of labor from our byproduct; fiat currency used as the exchange to barter and purchase goods.
The end result, as always, in the destruction of the shared societal illusion of paper money and electronic digits as representations of labor’s wealth, will eventually become valueless as the many will be forced to create alternative wealth representation.
“When political protected fraud is a feature of an economic system, it eventually collapses the shared communal illusion of fiat currency.”
Bingo.
Fiat currency is the best form of currency — and it is based on mutual trust.
Political protected fraud is how you destroy that common trust and therefore destroy the currency.
This is stupid behavior on the part of the people doing it, as their own wealth will also be destroyed. This is of course evil behavior. It is obviously illegal (fraud) and arguably unconstitutional (derogation of the public debt of the United States is against the 14th Amendment). But none of this matters; they don’t care about the laws, they have no morals, and they are too stupid to realize that they are stupid.
So the only question is how to get them out of their positions of power.
as long as the pols and regulators get a cut its ok right?
Dear people, let’s be honest… regulatory? my ass. These agencies are led by corporate people, not public administrators whom you can elect and get rid of. No, corporate people that are appointed by politicians who do not have your best interest at hart and guess what, get sponsored by the same corporations they are supposed to regulate. Talking about a butcher approving his own meat.
Democracy and the whole for-each-other, by-each-other is a dead horse in the USA (probably butchered by the meat industry).
Your liberty is gone and so is your privacy, and you didn’t do a damn thing about it.
You sold out your freedom and soon you will be paying fines for copy infringement when you produce offspring – after all your DNA is not your own anymore it’s patented if not soon to be for sure.
I know, it sounds harsh and over the top – but is it really…
Merrill Lynch stole $75 in an illegal, contrary-to-contract “account closure fee” from my father.
They bet on the fact that it would cost him more to file suit against them than that.
This is standard behavior for Merrill Lynch and has been for years.
It is so scummy, and they are so sure they won’t get caught for it, that I will cheer every time a Merrill Lynch employee, boardmember, or executive is murdered, beaten, or robbed; it’s the only way there will be any justice.