U.S. Taxpayers now on hook for future Wall Street and FOREIGN MARKET gambling losses

[Sammich]

Once again, kids, the merger of state and corporate powers is FASCISM. This is not capitalism.

As An Encore to Bailing Out the Big Banks, Government to Backstop Derivativees Clearinghouses … In the U.S. and Abroad (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/05/as-an-encore-to-bailing-out-the-big-banks-government-to-backstop-derivativees-clearinghouses-in-the-u-s-and-abroad.html)

Little noticed is that on Tuesday Team Obama took its first formal steps toward putting taxpayers behind Wall Street derivatives trading — not behind banks that might make mistakes in derivatives markets, but behind the trading itself. Yes, the same crew that rails against the dangers of derivatives is quietly positioning these financial instruments directly above the taxpayer safety net.

Specifically, the law authorizes the Federal Reserve to provide “discount and borrowing privileges” to clearinghouses in emergencies.

To get help, they only needed to be deemed “systemically important” by the new Financial Stability Oversight Council chaired by the Treasury Secretary.

Last year regulators finalized rules for how they would use this new power. On Tuesday, they began using it. The Financial Stability Oversight Council secretly voted to proceed toward inducting several derivatives clearinghouses into the too-big-to-fail club. After further review, regulators will make final designations, probably later this year, and will announce publicly the names of institutions deemed systemically important.

We’re told that the clearinghouses of Chicago’s CME Group and Atlanta-based Intercontinental Exchange were voted systemic this week, and rumor has it that the council may even designate London-based LCH.Clearnet as critical to the U.S. financial system.

U.S. taxpayers thinking that they couldn’t possibly be forced to stand behind overseas derivatives trading will not be comforted by remarks from Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler. On Monday he emphasized his determination to extend Dodd-Frank derivatives regulation to overseas markets when subsidiaries of U.S. firms are involved.

The derivates market is nothing but a giant UNREGULATED casino and is estimated to be $1.2 QUADRILLION. $1,200,000,000,000,000. It is 20 times the entire GLOBAL economy.

Top Derivatives Expert Estimates Size of the Global Derivatives Market at $1,200 Trillion Dollars … 20 Times Larger than the Global Economy (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/05/top-derivatives-expert-finally-gives-a-credible-estimate-of-the-size-of-the-global-derivatives-market.html)

[acealive1]

unless we're getting some kind of huge tax break or no tax at all on working people for like a decade then this is all bad.

[Sammich]

unless we're getting some kind of huge tax break or no tax at all on working people for like a decade then this is all bad.

Even if they did this in the U.S. everyone still would be paying a "tax" as the Federal Reserve is a privately owned bank that prints our currency and lends it to the U.S. government at interest. So in effect, there is already more money owed on each dollar than it is worth the moment it rolls off of the printing press. It also makes it IMPOSSIBLE to ever pay off the federal debt. This is because in 1913 Congress handed over their powers of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution (To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures) to a private entity.

Oh and guess what? There is a incestuous revolving door of personnel exchange between the Fed Reserve and the "too big to fail" banks.

[EvilNed]

To be honest, I believe we're right now in a situation where capitalism has gone out of control. Not saying this is better, but I'm hard pressed to think how anything can get any worse.

[Christopher Jon]

To be honest, I believe we're right now in a situation where capitalism has gone out of control. Not saying this is better, but I'm hard pressed to think how anything can get any worse.

It's not capitalism, it's crony capitalism. I'm not 100% behind all of Ron Paul's ideas but it's going to take a dude like that to clean up the mess. Four more years of Obama is a disaster waiting to happen and Romney isn't much better.

[shootemindehead]

Actually, I call it a perfect example of capitalism.

The more this kind of thing goes on, the more people will see that Capitalism is a separate thing from Democracy and that can only be a good thing.

[acealive1]

Even if they did this in the U.S. everyone still would be paying a "tax" as the Federal Reserve is a privately owned bank that prints our currency and lends it to the U.S. government at interest. So in effect, there is already more money owed on each dollar than it is worth the moment it rolls off of the printing press. It also makes it IMPOSSIBLE to ever pay off the federal debt. This is because in 1913 Congress handed over their powers of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution (To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures) to a private entity.

Oh and guess what? There is a incestuous revolving door of personnel exchange between the Fed Reserve and the "too big to fail" banks.


we had a nice debt free society about 1995 when clinton and NEWT GINGRICH of all people co existed, got the budget balanced and then had a surplus......gas was low......things were cheaper.... and people still said clinton wasnt shit. fast forward 17 years, we have no surplus because of a bird brained ex president giving it all to an island nation after a tsunami..... yet those people who hated clinton are hating the new guy because he cant fix shit fast enough that they voted for.


i understand ur point about interest on the dollar....which is why we've seen an explosion of cash 4 gold places sprouting up.....gee i wonder where all that gold is going.


one more thing. we are now saddled with the debt of the post office who cant seem to figure out how to cut costs.....i got a perfect idea. cut all salaried idiots. they seem to think firing HOURLY people will work.......but that money isnt even applied til those people punch in....so its much ado about nothing.

that on top of auto and bank bail outs....we cant get shit done.and guess who people are blaming again?

[Publius]

The more this kind of thing goes on, the more people will see that Capitalism is a separate thing from Democracy

If only it were...

[Sammich]

Actually, I call it a perfect example of capitalism.

The more this kind of thing goes on, the more people will see that Capitalism is a separate thing from Democracy and that can only be a good thing.

IMO, capitalism is the economic version of democracy. People freely and without government coercion are able to use their money to "vote" for which business succeed and which ones fail. Fail means out of business, not a government supplied handout that allows a continuation down the same self-destructive path.

In the current system of the U.S. you have the government mandating and coercing what people must buy (car insurance, health insurance), what crops farmers can plant, what drugs the sick are allowed to take, what foods you can eat and what $10,000 "milspec" toilet seats tax money must buy. You have government going against the will of the people (calls the capital switchboard were 100-1 and as high as 1000-1) against bailing out failed corporations through TARP. The economic industry, agricultural industry, medical industry and military industry have completely and thoroughly corrupted the majority of elected representatives in BOTH the democrat and republican parties. It would look like something from a NASCAR race if there were a law that required these people to wear the logos of the corporations that contributed to their "re-election campaigns".

[Tricky]

You guys think gas is expensive over there? Try UK prices, currently sat at £1.40 p/litre for diesel and about £1.38 for petrol (and this is after its just dropped by about 8p recently because of supermarket price wars) :eek: driving a car has become a very expensive occupation and not many people drive places just for the pleasure of it anymore! The vast majority of what we pay on fuel is tax as well which makes it even harder to stomach, around 64% I think :mad:

[shootemindehead]

It isn't going to get any better in your lifetime.

[Tricky]

It isn't going to get any better in your lifetime.

Not in this country it wont, with the EU on the brink of collapse we're all going to be taking a bite of a huge shit sandwich which will last for decades, wonderful.

[Andy]

You guys think gas is expensive over there? Try UK prices, currently sat at £1.40 p/litre for diesel and about £1.38 for petrol (and this is after its just dropped by about 8p recently because of supermarket price wars) :eek: driving a car has become a very expensive occupation and not many people drive places just for the pleasure of it anymore! The vast majority of what we pay on fuel is tax as well which makes it even harder to stomach, around 64% I think :mad:

64% is a VERY conservative estimate, its probably alot higher (id say around 70-75%) if you sat down and worked it out considering that every litre of fuel is currently taxed 3 times over.


Not in this country it wont, with the EU on the brink of collapse we're all going to be taking a bite of a huge shit sandwich which will last for decades, wonderful.

The damage could be limited in this country if we had a government with a backbone. If we pulled out of the EU now and started looking at alternative trading partners, we could secure a much better future for britain while the shit hits the fan on the continent.

Just a shame our government is pocketing too much money from brussels to actually do this.

[Christopher Jon]

The damage could be limited in this country if we had a government with a backbone. If we pulled out of the EU now and started looking at alternative trading partners, we could secure a much better future for britain while the shit hits the fan on the continent.
From my limited US perspective, it seems like you have a handful of countries that are dragging the rest of you down. Give 'em the boot and get back to screwed up politics as usual.

[acealive1]

You guys think gas is expensive over there? Try UK prices, currently sat at £1.40 p/litre for diesel and about £1.38 for petrol (and this is after its just dropped by about 8p recently because of supermarket price wars) :eek: driving a car has become a very expensive occupation and not many people drive places just for the pleasure of it anymore! The vast majority of what we pay on fuel is tax as well which makes it even harder to stomach, around 64% I think :mad:


our gas is high.....its easy to compare to somewhere else....but if i can remember 99 cent gas and that was fairly recently, then gas is way too fuckin high at almost 4 a gallon

-- -------- Post added at 11:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:23 PM ----------


From my limited US perspective, it seems like you have a handful of countries that are dragging the rest of you down. Give 'em the boot and get back to screwed up politics as usual.



agreed, england by itself is very strong....but like you said.......only as strong as the weakest link

[Sammich]

Since the creation of the derivative and credit default swap, just dumping the failing EU countries isn't so easy. As I mentioned before the derivatives market is at $1.2 quadrillion dollars. Basically these are insurance (i.e. bets) placed without regulations on anything and everything including on entities the betters have no ownership of. A simple analogy would be allowing a doctor (and any friends he tells) to take out life insurance policies on his terminally ill patients.

If enough of these devices are triggered were greece, italy or spain to default, there could be a catastrophic cascading affect as financial institutions holding the derivatives/credit default swaps on those countries find they are unable to make payouts and begin failing one after another.

Oh and by the way, there is a reason why so many big financial instutions are based in London. It is because London has the weakest regulations protecting investors from securities fraud.

[shootemindehead]

Not in this country it wont, with the EU on the brink of collapse we're all going to be taking a bite of a huge shit sandwich which will last for decades, wonderful.

Well, actually I wasn't thinking about the EU at all. It's the one way street that petrol is travelling down that's of more concern. It's cost, as it runs out is ONLY going to get worse and worse. 20 years from now, people won't believe the price of oil and driving will probably become a luxury passtime, or one of absolute controlled necessity. In 30 years, it'll be even worse.

[Andy]

our gas is high.....its easy to compare to somewhere else....but if i can remember 99 cent gas and that was fairly recently, then gas is way too fuckin high at almost 4 a gallon

Someone correct me if im wrong.

1 gallon is roughly 4 litres, and your paying $4 dollars for that, so about $1 a litre, at the moment $1 = £0.63, so you americans are paying 60 pence a litre (almost) and complaining about it!!

Do you understand how much we pay for fuel?.. Even at $4/Gallon your still not even paying half of what we pay.. If you were paying british prices over there, you would be paying about $8.22/gallon. You guys should be ecstatic your only paying what your paying..

[erisi236]

Yeah, you UK fellas just get raped for fuel almost totally by taxes. We'd both pay basically the same amount if not for that.

Random note on that: You know despite the prices the US' biggest EXPORT last year was fuel.

The Euro thing is funny tho', you look at the money markets and everyone over there who trades in currency is buying Dollars and Pounds hand over fist, they know the score.