A bank does not get rich without a few dead bodies in the woods

[cyu]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/03/us-hsbcusa-probes-idUSBRE8420FX20120503

HSBC intentionally flouted the law. The bank created a "sham paper-product designed solely to make it appear that the Bank has complied" to detect money laundering

employees debated whether the bank should help a Miami client get around U.S. sanctions by moving the client's business to HSBC's Hong Kong office.

The bank understaffed its anti-money laundering division and hired "gullible, poorly trained, and otherwise incompetent personnel."

The bank maintained accounts with foreign-exchange dealers widely suspected of laundering drug-trafficking proceeds

In some instances, "management intentionally decided" not to review suspicious activity. management altered risk ratings on certain clients so that suspect transactions didn't set off alarms.

Now the fifth-largest bank in the world in terms of market value, HSBC had $2.6 trillion in assets at the end of 2011 and operations in 85 countries and territories.

the U.S. Attorney's office in West Virginia entered into plea negotiations with HSBC. For reasons that aren't clear, prosecutors in West Virginia were told to stand down

[Manic Impressive]

I would be shocked if every major bank wasn't complicit in money laundering. I used to work, not in banking but in another sector where money laundering was prevalent. To say the least it wasn't discouraged and at times it was encouraged for one group while discouraged for others, it's always good for appearances to show you've caught a small fish while you let the big fish keep on swimming. During the act of money laundering large sections of the money stays in your business, it's the cost of laundering the money. So I would certainly expect large banks to do the same.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

...might have to change banks...or just not have any bank accounts...

Are their banks or building societies that are truly ethical in their practices? If so, need to give them my crappy wages

[citizen of industry]

I'm unsurprisingly unsurprised.

[cyu]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/woman-who-couldn-t-be-intimidated-by-citigroup-wins-31-million.html

By 2006, the bank was buying mortgages from outside lenders with doctored tax forms, phony appraisals and missing signatures. It was Hunt’s job to identify these defects, and she did, in regular reports to her bosses.

Executives buried her findings, before, during and after the financial crisis, and even into 2012.

Citigroup took $45 billion in bailouts from the U.S. government and billions more from the Federal Reserve -- more in total than any other U.S. bank

Jeffery Polkinghorne, an executive in charge of loan quality, asked Hunt and a colleague to stay after a meeting. The number of loans classified as defective would have to fall, he told them, or it would be “your asses on the line.”

Hunt sued Citigroup in Manhattan federal court, accusing its home-loan division of systematically violating U.S. mortgage regulations. Citigroup didn’t dispute any of Hunt’s facts; it didn’t mount a defense in public or in court. On Feb. 15, 2012, the bank agreed to pay $158.3 million to the U.S. government to settle the case.

the notion that the bailed-out banks have somehow found God and have reformed their ways in the aftermath of the financial crisis is pure myth

In late 2007, Hunt’s group estimated that about 60 percent of the mortgages Citigroup was buying and selling were missing some form of documentation. Hunt took her concerns to her boss, Richard Bowen III. he alerted Citigroup executives, including Robert Rubin, then chairman of Citigroup’s executive committee and a former Treasury secretary. He went from managing 220 people to overseeing two. By January 2009, Bowen no longer worked for Citigroup.

“More people haven’t come forward because they saw what happened to me,” says Bowen.

the fraud prevention and investigation group shipped questionable loans, with issues such as obviously forged signatures, whited-out income lines on tax forms.

CitiMortgage created another team whose mission was to challenge the findings of Hunt’s quality-control group and persuade her and her colleagues to change their decisions on the suitability of loans. a senior director of CitiMortgage’s retail bank mortgage unit, sent an e-mail ordering his staff to meet its goal of a maximum 5 percent defect rate on home loans.

Citigroup isn’t the only bank. In February, Bank of America settled a false-claims case with the government for $1 billion, without admitting wrongdoing. In May, Deutsche Bank AG agreed to pay $202.3 million for endorsing unqualified mortgages for FHA insurance.

What continues to set Citigroup apart is that the bank approved flawed loans well past the 2008 financial crisis.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

...and they keep getting away with it. They'll pay a settlement (which, in my no-legal-training opinion is a strong indicator of guilt) but never reform their practises or be held truly accountable.
So disheartening to see how much power and immunity these banks have.

[cyu]

Yep, they get away with it because despite all denials, the system of government in these countries is simply plutocracy. There is no justice under plutocracy - the only "justice" there is comes from what money can buy. So the rich do whatever they want - not only are they above the law, but they write the law to suit whatever they fancy.

[Prometeo liberado]

Did Dante's Inferno have a special place in hell for these people?

"They struck against each other; at that point,
each turned around and, wheeling back those weights,
cried out: Why do you hoard? Why do you squander?' "

[Sea]

This is pathetic. Just watch, these guys aren't going to see a day in prison. Just what's to them a chip in the pocketbook.


Did Dante's Inferno have a special place in hell for these people?
No. He didn't write of a tenth circle. :rolleyes:

[cyu]

What's the difference between today's global finance system and a Ponzi scheme?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-06/is-global-finance-a-ponzi-scheme-ask-a-russian-expert.html

Depositors would be paid solely from funds invested by other depositors. There would be no attempt to generate income in any other way. This was no different than the way some of the largest institutions in global finance operated.

The U.S. is paying back its bondholders with money freshly printed by the Fed. Greece is paying back investors with money the European Union has borrowed from other investors -- or maybe some of the same investors. The developed world's central banks have printed the equivalent of trillions of dollars in new money to keep their financial systems and economies afloat.

MMM-2011 halted payments on May 31. “This is a pyramid! If everyone rushes to withdraw the money, there is no way there will be enough money for everybody. In fact, it would be the same with any bank.”

[cyu]

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-06-29/big-banks-have-become-mafia-style-criminal-enterprises

all the big banks have engaged in “bid-rigging” of municipal bonds, to bilk money from every city in the nation to the collective tune of tens billions of dollars.

Barclays and other large banks – including Citigroup, HSBC, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lloyds, UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland – manipulated the world’s primary interest rate which virtually every adjustable-rate investment globally is pegged to.

Other stories also show criminal fraud as well. the big banks have been cheating homeowners … especially veterans.

banking giants Mellon and State Street shaved money off of virtually every pension transaction they handled over the course of decades, stealing collectively billions of dollars from pensions worldwide

There’s no recovery because the government made it official policy not to prosecute fraud

the cop is on the take … and the government’s only actions are to cover up the fraud

[cyu]

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Banks-allegedly-charged-vets-illegal-mortgage-fees-2328659.php

Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase were among 13 banks and mortgage lenders accused of charging veterans illegal fees

The banks charged fees barred under a Department of Veterans Affairs program and hid the charges to get government guarantees for the loans

This is a massive fraud on the American taxpayers and American veterans. Knowing they weren't allowed to charge the fees, the banks and mortgage companies inflated charges to hide these illegal fees without telling the veterans or the VA they were doing so.

more than 1.2 million loans have been made to veterans and their families over the past decade, and up to 90 percent of them were tainted with fraud

Spokespersons for Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan declined to comment

[cyu]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/17/us-hsbc-compliance-senate-idUSBRE86F18220120717

HSBC's top compliance officer announced he was stepping down and that the bank will shut down businesses in secret havens such as the Cayman Islands

money laundering problems at HSBC have been flagged by regulators for nearly a decade. investigation into HSBC found persistent lapses in the bank's anti-money laundering compliance since 2010

the bank would close thousands of Caymans accounts as part of its renewed compliance efforts. HSBC had little oversight of client accounts housed in a shell operation in the Cayman Islands

HSBC did regular business in areas tied to drug cartels, terrorist funding and tax cheats. Mexican operations moved $7 billion into the bank's U.S. operations. Both Mexican and U.S. authorities warned HSBC that the amount of money could only have reached such a level if it was tied to illegal narcotics proceeds

HSBC did in Saudi Arabia with Al Rajhi Bank, which the report said has links to financing terrorism.

[The Burgundy Rose]

...might have to change banks...or just not have any bank accounts...

Are their banks or building societies that are truly ethical in their practices? If so, need to give them my crappy wages

the co operative bank is good and you can take part in the business' decision making process if you become a member of the co operative group...

http://www.co-operativebankinggroup.co.uk/servlet/Satellite?c=Page&cid=1166431280866&pagename=Corp/Page/tplCorp

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/jul/20/cooperative-bank-how-compare

[cyu]

Note: this is from a member of the former Reagan regime:

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2012/07/19/the-libor-scandal-in-full-perspective/

As the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are themselves fixing interest rates in order to mask the insolvency of their respective banking systems, they naturally do not object that the banks themselves contribute by fixing the LIbor rate

The lower is Libor, the higher is the price of floating-rate debt instruments, such as CDOs, and thus the stronger the banks’ balance sheets appear.

Does this mean that the US and UK financial systems can only be kept afloat by fraud?

The answer is yes, but the Libor scandal is only a small part of the interest rate rigging. The Federal Reserve itself has been rigging interest rates.

As villainous as they might be, Barclays chief Bob Diamond, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs are not the main villains. The main villains are former Treasury Secretary and Goldman Sachs chairman Robert Rubin, who pushed Congress for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall, and the sponsors of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill, which repealed the Glass-Steagall

No doubt that JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and others were after maximum profits by hook or crook, but their opportunity came from the neoconservative triumphalism of “democratic capitalism’s” historical victory over alternative socio-politico-economic systems.

The financial concentration that deregulation fostered has left us with broken financial institutions that are too big to fail. Some are saying that as the fraud was known by the central banks and not reported, that the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England should be indicted for their participation in the fraud.

Imagine the Federal reserve called before Congress or the Department of Justice to answer why it did not report on the fraud perpetrated by private banks, fraud that was supporting the Federal Reserve’s own rigging of interest rates (and the same in the UK.)

The Federal reserve will reply: “So, you want us to let interest rates go up? Are you prepared to come up with the money to bail out the FDIC-insured depositors of JPMorganChase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, etc.? Are you prepared for US Treasury prices to collapse, wiping out bond funds? Are you prepared to take responsibility, you who deregulated the financial system, for this economic armageddon?"

Obviously, the politicians will say NO, continue with the fraud.

Some also believe that they see the Federal Reserve’s hand in the stock market. One day stocks fall 200 points. The next day stocks rise 200 points. One possible explanation is that as wary investors sell their equity holdings, the Federal Reserve, or the “plunge protection team,” steps in and buys.

the financial crisis has resulted in the Federal Reserve moving far outside its charter and normal operating behavior.

deregulation of the financial sector has caused a financial crisis that can only be managed by fraud. Civil damages might be paid, but to halt the fraud itself would mean the collapse of the financial system.

[cyu]

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/08/bankster-fraud-is-not-a-victimless-crime-it-has-driven-100-million-into-poverty-killing-millions.html

the economy will never recover until fraud is prosecuted.

Fraud is the business model adopted by the giant banks.

The Obama administration has made it official policy not to prosecute fraud. Indeed, the “watchdogs” in D.C. are so corrupt that they are as easily bribed as a policeman in a third world banana republic.

The mouthpieces in Wall Street and D.C. pretend that financial fraud (like Libor) is a “victimless crime“. the financial crisis – you know, the one caused by financial fraud – has driven between 64 and 100 million people into destitution.

Some estimate the figure to be much higher. one 2009 study estimated that 140 million people would be driven into poverty in Asia alone.

This is not just a matter of having less money for entertainment or luxury goods. Increased poverty leads to death.

an increase of between 200,000 and 400,000 in infant mortality and that child malnutrition, already rising, will be one of the main drivers of higher child death rates.

increased poverty and hunger are hitting the U.S., Britain and other first world countries are as well. The inability of the newly-poor to pay to heat their homes also kills.

Paul Moore – former Head of Risk at HBOS – says that the financial crisis has resulted in the greatest humanitarian crisis since WWII.

[cyu]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/have-you-heard-about-the-16-trillion-dollar-bailout-the-federal-reserve-handed-to-the-too-big-to-fail-banks/

remember the TARP bailout? people were absolutely outraged that the federal government spent 700 billion dollars bailing out the banks. that was pocket change compared to what the Federal Reserve did. the Federal Reserve actually handed more than 16 trillion dollars in nearly interest-free money to the banks between 2007 and 2010. have you heard about this on the nightly news? Probably not.

The Federal Reserve has been actively picking “winners” and “losers” in the financial system, and it turns out that the “friends” of the Fed always get bailed out and always end up among the “winners”.

the GDP of the United States for the entire year of 2010 was only 14.58 trillion dollars. The total U.S. national debt is only a bit above 15 trillion dollars right now.

Citigroup – $2.513 trillion
Morgan Stanley – $2.041 trillion
Merrill Lynch – $1.949 trillion
Bank of America – $1.344 trillion
Barclays PLC – $868 billion
Bear Sterns – $853 billion
Goldman Sachs – $814 billion
Royal Bank of Scotland – $541 billion
JP Morgan Chase – $391 billion
Deutsche Bank – $354 billion
UBS – $287 billion
Credit Suisse – $262 billion
Lehman Brothers – $183 billion
Bank of Scotland – $181 billion
BNP Paribas – $175 billion
Wells Fargo – $159 billion
Dexia – $159 billion
Wachovia – $142 billion
Dresdner Bank – $135 billion
Societe Generale – $124 billion
“All Other Borrowers” – $2.639 trillion

This report was made available to all the members of Congress, but most of them have been totally silent. According to the GAO audit, approximately $3.08 trillion went to foreign banks in Europe and in Asia.

the “too big to fail” banks are larger than ever. The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006 and September 30, 2011. So now they are more “too big to fail” than ever.

[cyu]

When money buys power, the only way any financial institution can become a major player is by walking a long path of fraudulent activity to which government officials are paid to turn a blind eye.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/49536637

The United States filed a mortgage fraud lawsuit against Bank of America Corp, accusing it of deliberately generating and then selling thousands of toxic home loans that later defaulted to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

the sales had resulted in more than $1 billion of losses and "countless" foreclosures.

[piet11111]

Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank.
Give a man a bank and he can rob the world.

[cyu]

The fruits of allowing the wealthy to buy power

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12996-goldman-sachs-global-coup-de-tat

There’s one tie that binds Lucas Papademos in Greece, Henry Paulsen in the United States, and Mark Carney in the U.K., and that’s Goldman Sachs. All were former bankers and executives at the Wall Street giant, all assumed prominent positions of power, and all played a hand after the global financial meltdown of 2007-08, thus making sure Goldman Sachs weathered the storm and made significant profits in the process.

As Europe descends into an austerity-induced economic crisis, Goldman Sachs's people are managing the demise of the continent. the technocrats currently steering or who have steered post-crash fiscal policy in Greece, Germany, Italy, Belgium, France, and now the UK, all hail from Goldman Sachs. In fact, the head of the European Central Bank itself, Mario Draghi, was the former managing director of Goldman Sachs International.

In 2001, Goldman Sachs secretly helped Greece hide billions of dollars through the use of complex financial instruments like credit default swaps. This allowed Greece to meet the baseline requirements to enter the Eurozone. But it also created a debt bubble that would later explode. But, always looking ahead, Goldman protected itself from this debt bubble by betting against Greek bonds, expecting that they would eventually fail.

the man who headed up the Central Bank of Greece while this deal was being arranged with Goldman was – drumroll please – Lucas Papademos.

The normal scenario usually involves helping a nation hide a problem and sell its debt until the problem blows up into a bubble that bursts in a spectacular way…Goldman Sachs then puts their ‘man’ into a position of power to direct the bailouts so that Goldman gets all its money back and more, while the nation's economy gets gutted.

Why have thousands of homeowners in the United States turned to suicide, domestic violence, and even mass murder when faced with home foreclosure, when a simple solution like re-writing mortgages, which FDR did successfully, could put an end to the bloodshed and misery?

It’s because re-writing mortgages would force banks like Goldman Sachs to take a hit.

Why have banksters at Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street institutions not been thrown in jail for defrauding customers, manipulating LIBOR interest rates, and throwing thousands of Americans out of their homes in a massive robo-signing scandal?

It’s because we have a two-tiered justice system in which those in power, like Goldman Sachs executives, get a slap on the wrist when they steal $50 billion, but people like you and me go to jail for stealing a 7-11 Slurpee.

we have an economy that’s geared to exploit working people for Goldman Sachs.

Trader Alessio Rastani told the BBC, “We don't really care about having a fixed economy, having a fixed situation, our job is to make money from it…Personally, I've been dreaming of this moment for three years. I go to bed every night and I dream of another recession.”

[cyu]

The joke that we pretend is a "republic"

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2012/12/14/banking-on-criminality-drug-money-the-above-the-law-global-banking-cartel/

HSBC, the world’s second largest bank, failed to be indicted for extensive criminal activities in laundering money to and from regimes under sanctions, Mexican drug cartels, and terrorist organizations (including al-Qaeda).

With more than $7 billion in Mexican drug cartel money laundered through HSBC alone, the fine amounts to a slap on the wrist: if the ‘cost’ of laundering billions in drug money is less than the ‘benefit,’ the policy will continue.

not one banker at HSBC was to be charged in the case. It seems that at the Justice Department, they continue to have the same job: protecting the major banks from being persecuted for criminal behavior.

little mention was made of the fact that HSBC had roughly $2.5 trillion in assets, and earned $22 billion in profits in 2011.

as HSBC executives were testifying before the Senate, admitting their role in drug money laundering, a poor black man was convicted of peddling 5.5 grams of crack cocaine just across the river, and he was given 10 years in prison.

"If these people aren’t prosecuted, who will be? What do you have to do to be prosecuted? When is there an offense that’s bad enough for a big bank to be prosecuted?"

Welcome to the world of financial criminality, the “international cartel” of drug money banks and their political protectors. These banks not only launder billions in drug money, finance terrorists and commit massive fraud, but they create massive financial and economic crises, and then our governments give them trillions of dollars in bailouts. On top of that, we, the people, are handed the bill for the bailouts and have to pay for them through reduced standards of living by being punished into poverty through ‘austerity measures’.

These criminal banks dominate the global economy, and dictate policies. a clear sign that the financial system does not function for the benefit of people and society as a whole

[cyu]

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Emails_Prove_JPMorgan_Committed_Massive_Mortgage_F raud/24431/0/0/0/Y/M.html

the bank knew the mortgage investments it sold were seriously flawed.

JPMorgan hired independent analysts to review the quality of the home loans it was packaging for sale prior to the collapse of the housing market.

That review found that 20 to 80 percent of the mortgages did not meet underwriting standards. JPMorgan bundled these mortgages anyway and then sold them without disclosing their problems

JPMorgan at times dismissed the critical assessments or altered them

JPMorgan employees were well aware of these flaws and even exchanged emails about them. after a review finding that at least 1,154 mortgages were delinquent, JPMorgan told investors that only 25 were delinquent.

[cyu]

http://www.laweekly.com/2013-03-07/news/wells-fargo-typo-victim-dead-larry-delassus/full/

in a Torrance courtroom, Larry Delassus' heart stopped

Wells Fargo mistakenly mixed up his address with that of a neighbor. The bank's typo led Wells Fargo to demand that Delassus pay $13,361.90 — two years of late property taxes

Wells Fargo relied on its typographical error to double Delassus' mortgage — from $1,237.69 to $2,429.13 — as its way of recouping the $13,361.90 in taxes Delassus didn't owe. Delassus, a retiree living on a $1,655 check, couldn't meet the mysteriously increased mortgage. He stopped paying, and soon was far behind

after admitting its error, Wells Fargo foreclosed on Delassus anyway and sold his condo.

L.A. County Superior Court Judge Laura Ellison indicated that she intended to side with Wells Fargo. Delassus had been very sick. But he wanted his day in court

as his attorney spoke, somebody yelled, "Call 911!"

[cyu]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/13/1208738/-Leaked-Data-Could-Result-in-Biggest-Tax-Evasion-Investigation-Into-Offshore-Accounts-in-History

leaked information expose covert companies and private trusts in the British Virgin Islands, Cook Islands, Singapore and other offshore hideaways. It is believed to be the largest stockpile of secret tax information ever gathered by media organizations in history.

files include names of associates of long-time despots, Wall Street swindlers, international arms dealers

they expose how offshore financial secrecy has proliferated around the world in recent years. The process has fueled corruption and brought economic strife in both wealthy and poor countries around the world.

the data contains both the identities of the individual owners of these entities, as well as the advisors who assisted in establishing the entity structure

[cyu]

http://qz.com/101722/sp-amazingly-says-no-one-should-believe-its-ratings-are-independent-and-objective

Standard & Poor’s told a court of law that it figured every reasonable investor would know its promise to objectively rate securities was mere “puffery,” like a used-car salesman who tells you the last owner of your car was an old lady who only drove it on Sundays.

The US government thinks that S&P should pay $5 billion in penalties for giving safe ratings to risky securities while it had cozy relationships with people creating them.

Moving to dismiss the suit in federal court, S&P said that reasonable investors would know its assurances of independence were just marketing, and that its ratings should be treated as free speech, not as financial statements.

the whole industry of rating securities depends on the idea that ratings have some analytical value.

[cyu]

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/07/two-sentences-that-explain-the-crisis-and-how-easy-it-was-to-avoid/

lenders were pressuring appraisers to place artificially high prices on properties... blacklisting honest appraisers and assigning business only to appraisers who would hit the desired price targets

Sophisticated CEOs can send three key messages: (a) you will make a lot of money if you report exceptional results, (b) I don’t care whether the reports are true or the results of fraud, and (c) if you do not report exceptional results or if you block loans from being approved by insisting on effective underwriting and honest appraisals you will suffer and your efforts will be overruled.

They created the blacklist to extort the most honest appraisers. A fairly small minority of suborned appraisers can provide all the inflated appraisals required. The honest appraisers will lose a great deal of income and many will be driven out of the profession by the lost income or because the degradation of their profession disgusts them.

[cyu]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/19/did-jpmorgan-commit-bribery-by-hiring-the-kids-of-chinese-politicians/

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s anti-bribery unit is taking a look at the bank’s hiring of the son of the chief of a state-controlled financial conglomerate (and former No. 2 official of China’s bank regulator), and the daughter of the state-controlled China Railway Group.

The investigators are looking into whether hiring the children of high Chinese officials was a back-door way of winning business from state-controlled firms.

JPMorgan, for example, handled the public offering of the China Railway Group’s stock.

[cyu]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-auerbach/janet-yellen-st-louis-fed_b_4313365.html

From August 2008, just before the financial crisis in September 2008, until September 2013, the monetary base of the country's money supply increased by $2.6 trillion to over $3.5 trillion. By September 2013, excess reserves constituted 83.8 percent of the monetary base. Only 16.2 percent of the increase in the monetary base is circulating as currency or required reserves behind private sector deposits.

the Bernanke Fed began paying banks interest to hold their reserves during October 2008.

Much of the money would be a gift to bank stockowners. Since six of the nine directors at each of the twelve Federal Reserve district banks are elected by the banks, Fed officials might find it desirable to continue to increase excess reserves and the gift to bank stockowners.

[cyu]

http://usawatchdog.com/jp-morgans-frauds-are-epicunprecedented-in-world-history-william-black/

Jamie Dimon has presided over the largest financial crime spree in world history. it is more than a dozen, and more in the range of 15 major felonies that either the United States investigators have found, state investigators have found or foreign governments have found.

JP Morgan’s frauds are epic in scale, unprecedented in world history. in these $23 billion, these are frauds that made Jamie Dimon and other senior officers incredibly wealthy by creating fictional income that led to very real bonuses.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is the anti-canary in the coal mine because Lew has been gutting regulation for virtually all of his professional life. Lew is saying, my God we’ve gone so far we’re going to cause the collapse of the system. You know when Jack Lew keels over, you know that carbon monoxide has already killed everybody reasonable.

[cyu]

http://aattp.org/breaking-mitt-romney-is-being-sued-in-federal-court-for-criminal-racketeering/

Haas is the owner of the firm which was retained to oversee the bankruptcy of eToys. Haas came across irregularities, unethical practices and outright criminal acts originating from the top at Bain Capital, Goldman Sachs, Kay Bee Toys and Stage Stores.

Haas has evidence that the parties involved have committed perjury on 35 separate occasions — even murders carried out in attempts to cover up their wrong doing.

after he had uncovered numerous irregularities, he had been offered $850,000 by Bain to keep silent about what he had discovered. When he attempted to report the bribe, he was told that since he had not accepted it, he didn’t have a case.

[cyu]

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/01/rbs-pays-600-million-manpulating-interest-rates-big-banks-manipulating-every-market-tune-trillions-dollars.html

Royal Bank of Scotland pleaded guilty to wire fraud over Libor manipulation. Global investigations into attempts to manipulate benchmarks for profit have led to RBS, Barclays Plc, UBS AG and Rabobank Groep.

banks have conspired for years to rig interest rates upon which $800 trillion in assets are pegged

though RBS and a handful of other banks have been fined for interest rate manipulation, Libor is *still* being manipulated. the fines are pocket change – the cost of doing business – for the big banks

experts say that banks will keep manipulating markets until their executives are thrown in jail for fraud. the system is rigged to allow banks to commit continuous and massive fraud, and then to pay small fines as the “cost of doing business”.

banks have manipulated virtually every market – both in the financial sector and the real economy – and broken virtually every law on the books.

Currency markets are massively rigged. banks have long manipulated derivatives … a $1,200 Trillion Dollar market. Oil prices are manipulated. JP Morgan has massively manipulated energy markets in California and the Midwest, obtaining tens of millions of dollars in overpayments from grid operators. banks and government agencies have been conspiring to manipulate commodities prices for decades.

Committing massive and pervasive fraud both when they initiated mortgage loans and when they foreclosed on them. Pledging the same mortgage multiple times to different buyers.

Pushing investments which they knew were terrible, and then betting against the same investments to make money for themselves.

[cyu]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-07/scandal-bank-england-encouraged-currency-manipulation-private-banks

virtually every major bank was manipulating currencies. the Bank of England - and who knows how many other monetary authorities, were openly encouraging traders from private banks to do more manipulating currencies - with their explicit blessing knowing very well such behavior is undisputedly illegal.

In other news, head FX traders for Goldman, JPMorgan, RBC and Deutsche have resigned in recent weeks

maybe the world's central banks will be kind enough to just let everyone in on where they determine to close at any given day so that everyone can benefit from a broken and corrupt system, instead of just a few not so good bankers. After all, with everyone profiting from the no risk, guaranteed return market all the time, at least inflation will finally go off the charts.

[cyu]

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2014-02-11/sec-lashes-out-wolves-wall-street-suspends-225-companies

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has suspended 255 shell companies from trading until 14 February to prevent “pump and dump” fraud, and stocks will not be relisted if companies fail to prove they are operational.

violators talk up a thinly traded microcap stock through false and misleading statements about the company to the market. The violators buy up the company’s shares cheaply and the pump up the stock price by creating the appearance of market activity and then dump the stock for a massive profit.

The SEC moved to suspend 61 other shell companies in June last year, along with 379 shell companies in 2012.

according to the SEC, the “trading suspension essentially renders the shells worthless and useless to scam artists.”

[cyu]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-14/european-banks-avoiding-risky-loan-disclosure-face-review.html

European Central Bank inspectors are sifting through the question of whether banks are giving money to companies that deserve to go bankrupt and keeping them alive to avoid recording losses

The now-defunct Committee of European Banking Supervisors said in 2010 that seven European banks needed 3.5 billion euros of extra capital, one-tenth of the lowest analyst estimate. Within months, Ireland’s two biggest banks, which both passed the examination, needed a bailout.

[cyu]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/17/us-austria-centralbank-bribery-idUSBREA1G1F520140217

The former deputy governor of Austria's central bank and eight other people went on trial charged with bribing officials to win banknote contracts, paying about 14 million euros ($19 million) in bribes between 2005 and 2011.

the OeBS had urgently needed new business to compensate for a loss-making contract with Singapore, and so had turned its attention to "exotic countries". two lawyers helped set up a mailbox company in Panama to launder money and transfer the bribes to Azerbaijan and Syria

[cyu]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/20/us-jpmorgan-madoff-idUSBREA1J21W20140220

Two senior officials at JPMorgan Chase repeatedly confronted Bernard Madoff over irregularities in his business, suggesting that bank leaders had "direct knowledge" of his Ponzi scheme.

faced with the prospect of shutting down Madoff's account and losing lucrative profits, JPMorgan - at its highest level - chose to turn a blind eye.

JPMorgan agreed to pay $2.6 billion to settle lawsuits over its Madoff dealings.

[cyu]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-08/vatican-bank-profits-plunge-following-clean

It seems not even The Pope's private bank can make money when its only allowed to do it the legal way. in sum - accounts fell 8% and profits collapsed 97%.

Having shut all Embassy accounts to halt money laundering, almost 3,000 accounts have been closed and more than 2,000 have been blocked as a result of a screening process of all the accounts.

“This is a time of major change in the Holy See . . . we are creating simpler, more efficient structures for those serving the mission of the Catholic Church.”

The Vatican bank, officially known as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), now has 17,419 customers, down from 18,900 in 2012.

the bank announced net profit fell from €86.6m in 2012 to €2.9m last year.

decades of corruption and mismanagement did much to tarnish the image of the Vatican, the IOR is expected to be stripped of its powers to manage assets and return to its original purpose of sending funds to missionaries and Church groups around the world.

[cyu]

http://dailymorning.net/german-man-locked-up-over-hvb-bank-allegations-may-have-been-telling-truth/

Gustl Mollath was submitted to a psychiatric hospital seven years ago after court experts diagnosed him with paranoid personality disorder following his claims that staff at the Hypo Vereinsbank (HVB) – including his wife, then an assets consultant at HVB – had been illegally smuggling large sums of money into Switzerland.

recent evidence shows that money-laundering activities were indeed practiced over several years at the Munich-based bank, the sixth-largest private financial institute in Germany. A number of employees, including Mollath’s wife, were subsequently sacked.

The “Mollath affair” now threatens to bring down the government of Bavaria. Under the weight of public and political pressure Horst Seehofer, the prime minister of the rich southern state has now called for the case to be reopened, amid charges that Mollath was possibly the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice.

justice minister Beate Merk, who has refused repeated calls to resign, said she had no doubt the case had been carried out “by the book and quite correctly”.

[cyu]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-17/honesty-shocker-telegraphs-political-commentator-quits-over-hsbc-coverage-accuses-pa

The coverage of HSBC in Britain's Daily Telegraph is a fraud on its readers. If major newspapers allow corporations to influence their content for fear of losing advertising revenue, democracy itself is in peril.

the chief political commentator of The Telegraph resigned from the paper and launched a blistering attack on the Telegraph, saying it put bank’s interests before readers to save ad contract.

the paper deliberately suppressed stories about the banking group in order to keep its valuable advertising account.

the paper discouraged critical stories of HSBC when the bank suspended its advertising with the paper following a Telegraph investigation into its operation in Jersey.

one former Telegraph executive told him HSBC was “the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend”.

MacLennan agreed that advertising was allowed to affect editorial, but was unapologetic, adding that there was a long history of this sort of thing at the Telegraph.

It is not only the Telegraph that is at fault here. The past few years have seen the rise of shadowy executives who determine what truths can and what truths can’t be conveyed across the mainstream media. One of the consequences of this conspiracy of silence was the appointment of Andy Coulson, who has since been jailed and now faces further charges of perjury, as director of communications in 10 Downing Street.

MacLennan was determined not to allow any criticism of the bank. Anything that mentioned money-laundering was just banned.