"Criminal investigators can bust the Russian mob.They can break up drug syndicates. They doggedly run 'roided-up pitchers into court. Twice. They beat the hell out of Napster. But set them down amid the financial-services crowd and, suddenly, they can't find a whore at high Mass. -- Charles P. Pierce, on The Politics Blog, commenting on reports that Jon Corzine will likely avoid criminal prosecution in the MF Global scam.
Dear All,
With his having achieved the trifecta in sociopathy, one would have expected Jon Corzine, a former co-head of Goldman Sachs, a U.S. politician, and now an un-prosecuted financial fraudster to move next to a low-profile life of false humility and redemption (at the very least until the 2016 presidential bundling season kicks off). Mr. Corzine could for example attempt to rehabilitate his disgraced name in the agricultural community, where victims of his firm's malfeasance were defrauded of several hundred million dollars. His personal knowledge of the MF Global fraud or alleged lack of it aside, he was its CEO and there are an awful lot of good farmers who are suffering from its having absconded with their crop-hedging funds. Mr. Corzine however will be doing no such thing. Rather, we are told --he is making immediate use of his 'get-out-of-jail-card' and will will be starting a hedge fund: NYTimes: No Criminal Case Is Likely in Loss at MF Global
Fortunately for him, Mr. Corzine is not a ballplayer suspected of steroid use (93 agents were reportedly assigned to the Roger Clemens prosecution) but an elite banker and major Democratic Party bundler who enjoys immunity from prosecution for his crimes. John Aziz captures the moment of the American descent into ethical rot: 'Assange or Corzine':
"But the issue at hand is the sense that we have entered a phase of exponential criminality and corruption. A slavering crook like Corzine who stole $200 million of clients' funds can walk free. Meanwhile, a man who exposed evidence of serious war crimes is for that act so keenly wanted by US authorities that Britain has threatened to throw hundreds of years of diplomatic protocol and treaties into the trash and raid the embassy of another sovereign state to deliver him to a power that seems intent not only to criminalize him, but perhaps even to summarily execute him."
Under the new "get-tough" environment, low level bank employees will be fired for petty mischeof while the banks' top level criminals keep their jobs and continue to earn milions: USAToday: Low-level workers fired because of new banking standards
"Embassies are hallowed sovereign ground, not to be trespassed. Ever. This is the most sacrosanct, fundamental, inviolable principle of international relations...[C]onsider that ECUADOR is now the only nation which stands to defend freedom and human rights against an assault from the United States, the United Kingdom, and their spineless allies."
As has been emphasized here repeatedly, other than central banks drug cartels are the single largest source of bank liquidity. Were the government to ever win its inane and phony war on drugs it would imperil the entire financial system. NYTimes: Where the Mob Keeps Its Money
"In 2009, Antonio Maria Costa, an Italian economist who then led the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, told the British newspaper The Observer that “in many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks at the height of the crisis. “Interbank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities,” he said. “There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.”
Warren Buffet is aggressively unwinding his municipal bond insurance positions; having recently terminated (at a loss) credit default swaps insuring $8.25 billion of municipal debt. For owners of munis it is a move worth paying attention to: WSJ: Buffett's Move Raises a Red Flag. Notwithstanding attempts to obfiscate the problem using impossible investment return assumptions, the unfunded pension liabilities of states and municipalities, along with a potpourri of budgetary restraints assure that these entities are going to hit a wall. Good luck to municipal bond holders.
Only in the public sector could you even conceive of such a thing: NYTimes: State Agency Web Sites May Work Business Hours
A word on the passing of Gore Vidal: Aside from being a fiercely independent thinker with a particular disdain for the political creature, he managed to remain throughout his life, attractively arrogant -- something tough to pull off even with the requisite intellect.
The Racism Referee...Here, a once relevant and important organization has succumbed to becoming the very essence of what it once quite productively fought. Today's discredited NAACP encourages intolerance by distorting and selectively defining bigotry, while conducting itself as though it has the right to define racism in accordance with its own self-demeaning mission.
The myth of a college degree...Marketwatch: 'Trading caps and gowns for mops'
"Half of graduates in the past five years say their jobs didn’t require a four-year degree and only 20% said their first job was on their career path."
Two years ago I transported my daughter to college to start her freshman year. It was a long day of driving, unloading and unpacking. By late afternoon I was ready to get back on the road, only to be told that all new parents were attending something called an "Invocation Ceremony." I was unfamiliar with such an event (it certainly wasn't something I recalled from my student days). Tired, mildly curious and not wanting to disappoint my daughter, I attended what can only be described as a graduation ceremony without the graduates. There were programs printed on expensive paper, a procession of gowned faculty followed by a thousand street-clothed, incoming freshmen (which alone easily killed three quarters of an hour), attendant music and at its conclusion -- a food buffet for all. Faculty speeches were imposed, identical in virtually all respects to those regularly served up at graduation ceremonies --a canned and banal litany of meaningless insights from people who have spent their entire lives in academia. And for what? What achievements were being noted? Apparently this: The kids showed up.
As I sat fuming at being subjected to this nonsense I calculated the cost of the boondoggle -- the expense of air-conditioning a 10,000 seat arena on a muggy August day, the program printing, the food and the labor costs. My daughter had not even begun classes and already massive waste was being thrown in our faces. Yet, I'm sure that most of the parents in attendance thought it was a lovely event, oblivious to the cost and never connecting it to the tuition bills they complain so loudly about.
Report: Cost of College Degree in U.S. has Increased 1,120 Percent in 30 Years
"Newspeak" -- the collectivist Sesame Street state in action... In a post this past December we marveled at Lilly, the 'Food Insecure' Muppet. Now, an acquaintance who works as a lawyer for the City of New York informs me that employees in her department are required to attend sensitivity training sessions (on the taxpayer nickel, of course) wherein workers are taught the "nice words" and the "bad words" they may use/not use in speaking with one another. If this sounds like the sort of cirriculum one normally thinks of for nursery school students, welcome to a nanny-city (whose mayor proposes to regulate the size of soft drinks) where the distortion of the meaning of things and control of language is an integral part of enforcing politically correct agenda. So in what is essentially a "Head-Start' program for adults, subjects are taught what to say to one another. In my friend's most recent session she was taught that the term "wheelchair-bound" is now verboten! The replacement term?..."Differently-Abled."
The politically correct left continues to bastardize the English language by devaluing honest and concise composition and implanting awkward, hyphenated euphamistic contortions into conversations -- ostensibly in the interest of sparing feelings, empowering underdogs and leveling playing fields. Truth avoidance and the imposition of false self-esteem is central to collectivism and so, crippled people first become "handicapped," then "Wheelchair Bound" and now "Differently-Abled." If I were confined to a wheelchair I'd find it all gratuitous and insulting as I suspect many who are in fact do. The re-branding of hungry, poor people as "Food Insecure" or black people as "African-Americans" and "People of Color" distorts reality, diminishes rather than enhances their humanity and demeans their capacity for genuine achievement. The message is: There is little else by which to define ourselves/them so we must continually develop clever marketing slogans for our/their most superficial, physical attributes (and incidentally, why use one syllable when five will do?).
I will add these two points as well. First, many with black skin from places such as the Caribbean take exception to being called "African-American," a term that is not only inaccurate but associates them -- undesirably from their viewpoint, with American blacks. Secondly, the insertion of unnecessary prepositions in language is pretentious. If the difference between respect and slur comes down to a preposition, someone's got too much time on their hands.
"People of Color" -- 5 syllables
"Colored people" -- 4 syllables
Returning to my acquaintance at the City, I asked her what the upshot was of this communication sensitivity training. Her response?..."People now basically try not to talk to one another."
The trend...
The Russian Central Bank reported that it increased its gold holdings by 600,000 ounces or 2% during the month of July.
CME Clearing Europe to Accept Gold as Collateral
BusinessInsider: China is Looking into Taking Over One of Africa's Biggest Gold Miners
FoxBusiness: Pimco Adds to Gold Holdings
Gold and silver...
Since Bill Murphy's appearance on CNBC more than a decade ago, The Gold Ant-Trust Action Committee (GATA) has been blacklisted there as well from other mainstream U.S. media outlets. Fortunately independent journalism is still practiced at sources such as Aljazeera and Russia Today, where one can access information censored in the United States. RT's Lauren Lyster, a financial journalist who has an actual understanding of finance sat down with GATA's Chris Powell for a chat recently.
The metal prices have been stabilizing nicely. In spite of their having outperformed most stocks for the past month, the PM stocks are still snoozing and still wonderfully cheap. Grab the gift with both hands.
All the best,
Jeff