Recovery or Recession?

By Austrian Markets

Interesting commentary on important economic charts. Austrian Markets takes a look at the fading impact of artificially low interest rates & QE, and how those policies have merely hidden or delayed a necessary economic corrections. Brace yourself...


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Wall Street Banks Extract Enormous Fees From The Paychecks Of Millions Of American Workers

Michael Snyder

Would you be angry if you had to pay a big Wall Street bank a fee before you could get the money that you worked so hard to earn?  Unfortunately, that is exactly the situation that millions of American workers find themselves in today.

An increasing number of U.S. companies are paying their workers using payroll cards that are issued by large financial institutions.  Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Walgreens and Taco Bell are just some of the well known employers that are doing this.

Today, there are 4.6 million active payroll cards in the United States, and some of the largest banks in the country are issuing them.  The list includes JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup.  The big problem with these cards is that there is often a fee for just about everything that you do with them.  Do you want to use an ATM machine?  You must pay a fee.  Do you want to check your balance?  You must pay a fee.  Do you want a paper statement?  You must pay a fee.  Did you lose your card?  You must pay a big fee.  Has your card been inactive for a while?  You must pay a huge fee.  The big Wall Street banks are systematically extracting enormous fees from the working poor, and someone needs to do something to stop this.

Big banks relieved as Fed sets debit card rule

The Federal Reserve handed a partial victory to
Wall Street on bank card fees
© AFP/Getty Images/File Spencer Platt

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Federal Reserve on Wednesday slashed the fees which banks charge for debit card transactions, but did not cut them as deeply as initially expected, handing a partial victory to Wall Street.

Under the new rules, the fee charged for the average debit card transaction of $38 would be capped at approximately 24 cents, the Fed said in a statement announcing its decision.

Currently, the fee for an average debit card transaction is 44 cents. Banks had feared that the average fee would be cut as low as seven to 12 cents and mounted a fierce lobbying campaign to thwart the changes.

The Journey to Jekyll Island

This is the first installment in a series of chapter summaries from G. Edward Griffin's must-read book The Creature From Jekyll Island.  This book may be the most important "red pill" available and we highly recommend that you buy and read the full book at RealityZone.

G. Edward Griffin

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Activist Post

Chapter 1 Summary: The Journey to Jekyll Island

The basic plan for the Federal Reserve System was drafted at a secret meeting held in November of 1910 at the private resort of J.P. Morgan on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia.  Those who attended represented the great financial institutions of Wall Street and, indirectly, Europe as well. The reason for the secrecy was simple.  Had it been known that rival factions of the banking community had joined together, the public would have been alerted to the possibility that the bankers were plotting an agreement in restraint of trade -- which, of course, is exactly what they were doing.  What emerged was a cartel agreement with five objectives: stop the growing competition from the nation's newer banks; obtain a franchise to create money out of nothing for the purpose of lending; get control of the reserves of all banks so that the more reckless ones would not be exposed to currency drains and bank runs; get the taxpayer to pick up the cartel's inevitable losses; and convince Congress that the purpose was to protect the public.  It was realized that the bankers would have to become partners with the politicians and that the structure of the cartel would have to be a central bank.  The record shows that the Fed has failed to achieve its stated objectives.  That is because those were never its true goals.  As a banking cartel, and in terms of the five objectives stated above, it has been an unqualified success.

Get the book for yourself or for others you want to wake up.  Visit RealityZone for your copy today. Summary is re-printed with permission from G. Edward Griffin.


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IMF in Wake of Scandal Turns to Lipsky

©IMF Photo/Michael Spilotro / Flickr Commons

Ian Katz 
Bloomberg

The International Monetary Fund turned to John Lipsky when it was ordered to develop an early- warning system to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial meltdown. Now, the IMF is calling on him to guide it through its own crisis.

Lipsky, 64, was named acting managing director yesterday after the fund’s chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was charged with attempted rape and a criminal sex act on a New York hotel maid. Lipsky, who has been first deputy managing director since 2006, takes temporary leadership of the Washington-based IMF as it tries to stem the European sovereign-debt crisis and deal with Greece’s request for a bigger financial lifeline.

Lipsky, who once served as chief economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Salomon Brothers Inc. in New York and represented the IMF in Chile, is described by colleagues as a steady hand who can give the fund some stability in the aftermath of Strauss-Kahn’s arrest. His promotion came three days after the IMF said he would be leaving when his term as the No. 2 official ends on Aug. 31. That could result in an “awkward period,” said Eswar Prasad, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

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Speculators, Cartels and Myths of Scarcity: How War Pushes up the Price of Oil

Oil Wars/Wikimedia image

Dean Henderson
Global Research

Last week, as if to justify his Libyan crusade, President Obama echoed the prevailing “peak oil” myth, stating that “we must accept the new reality that from here on out, demand for oil will always exceed supply”.  It was music to the ears of the Rockefeller/Rothschild energy cartel and tax-dodger oil traders in Zug, Switzerland alike.  Both know full well that oil companies pay around $18/barrel to get crude out of the ground.

Big Oil rings up its usual quarterly record profit, speculators led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley tack on another $50/barrel and people get gouged at the gas pump.  Governments “tighten their belts”, economies contract and the myth of scarcity (root word: scare) encourages a race to the bottom for the global masses, alongside an historical concentration of power and wealth by the well-fed and fueled global elite.

A day after Obama’s endorsement of concentrated corporate power and casino capitalism, the US Department of Energy reported that the main US oil stage depot at Cushing, Oklahoma was holding 41.9 million barrels of crude oil, very near its capacity of 44 million barrels.  In other words, the US is awash in crude oil.

Are Lehman's Auditors Above The Law?

Dees Illustration

Jeff McCord

Activist Post 

Many wonder why the Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Department of Justice are seemingly unable to prosecute Lehman Brothers and its auditor Ernst & Young for the massive over-valuations of the investment bank’s sub-prime mortgage-backed “assets” and other misleading (and, possibly, fraudulent) information published in financial statements in the years and quarters leading to the systemic financial meltdown that Lehman’s own bankruptcy helped fuel.  Are Lehman’s auditors above the law?  Regrettably, for a number of reasons, auditors are becoming increasingly immune from challenge by prosecutors, regulators and investors. 

The first reason is that money talks in Washington.  Although most citizens know of the overwhelming donations to federal political candidates by banks and other financial services firms, it may surprise some that accountants are also a very generous source of funding for both Republican and Democratic candidates.  In the election cycle of 2009-2010, alone, the “big four” accounting firms and their association contributed more than $8 million to federal candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.  In the same period, fraud defendant Ernst & Young contributed in excess of $1.6 million to politicians. 

CAUGHT ON TAPE: Former SEIU Official Reveals Secret Plan To Destroy JP Morgan, Crash The Stock Market, And Redistribute Wealth In America

Stephen Lerner, formerly of SEIU.

Editor's Note:  The "Corporate Media" will not waste anytime before they label Mr. Lerner a domestic terrorist.

BUSINESS INSIDER-A former official of one of the country's most-powerful unions, SEIU, has a secret plan to "destabilize" the country.

The plan is designed to destroy JP Morgan, nuke the stock market, and weaken Wall Street's grip on power, thus creating the conditions necessary for a redistribution of wealth and a change in government.

The former SEIU official, Stephen Lerner, spoke in a closed session at a Pace University forum last weekend.

The Blaze procured what appears to be a tape of Lerner's remarks. Many Americans will undoubtely sympathize with and support them. Still, the "destabilization" plan is startling in its specificity, especially coming so close on the heels of the financial crisis.

Lerner said that unions and community organizations are, for all intents and purposes, dead. The only way to achieve their goals, therefore--the redistribution of wealth and the return of "$17 trillion" stolen from the middle class by Wall Street--is to "destabilize the country."

Lerner's plan is to organize a mass, coordinated "strike" on mortgage, student loan, and local government debt payments--thus bringing the banks to the edge of insolvency and forcing them to renegotiate the terms of the loans.  This destabilization and turmoil, Lerner hopes, will also crash the stock market, isolating the banking class and allowing for a transfer of power.

Lerner's plan starts by attacking JP Morgan Chase in early May, with demonstrations on Wall Street, protests at the annual shareholder meeting, and then calls for a coordinated mortgage strike.

Lerner also says explicitly that, although the attack will benefit labor unions, it cannot be seen as being organized by them. It must therefore be run by community organizations.

Lerner was ousted from SEIU last November, reportedly for spending millions of the union's dollars trying to pursue a plan like the one he details here.  It is not clear what, if any, power and influence he currently wields. His main message--that Wall Street won the financial crisis, that inequality in this country is hitting record levels, and that there appears to be no other way to stop the trend--will almost certainly resonate.

A transcript of Lerner's full reported remarks is below, courtesy of The Blaze. We have heard the tape, but we have not independently verified that the voice is Lerner's.  You can listen to the tape here.

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Ratigan EXPOSES the Bankster Con on America (Video)

Youtube

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Regulators exist to ‘serve the banks,’ next House finance chairman declares

Sahil Kapur
Raw Story

Alabama Republican Spencer Bachus, the incoming chairman of the House banking committee, suggested Congress and federal regulators should play a subservient role with banks.

"In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks," Bachus told The Birmingham News in an interview.


The Republican leadership last week designated Bachus the next chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, which is tasked with overseeing banks, financial markets, housing and consumer credit.

Democrats characterized the remark as a Freudian slip, nicknaming the Alabaman "Big Bank Bachus" and claiming the new Republican-controlled House will put the interests of financial institutions ahead of the American public.

"Congressman Spencer 'Big Bank' Bachus has given Americans a startlingly honest answer about the House Republican agenda – do whatever is good for the big banks and Wall Street special interests, rather than what’s good for hardworking Americans,” said Jesse Ferguson, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

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Celente: American Empire is Collapsing

Youtube: RTV
As the US economy continues to struggle, it seems Wall Street and big banks are doing better than ever. The income disparity gap in the United States is the largest of all the developed industrial nations. The Trends Research Institute Director Gerald Celente says the American Empire is collapsing and the banks have committed the greatest bank robbery in the history of the world.



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10 Skills Needed to Thrive in a Post-Collapse World
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Wall Street and the Fed

Freedom Watch


Related Article:  The Worst Year Ever

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USDA Reports Food Shortages: Wall Street 'Caught Off Guard' by Severity

Eric Blair
Activist Post

Several recent headlines indicate that food prices will continue their swift climb upward. These troubling new reports show that agriculture production and stored grains are critically low and experts are now predicting food shortages on a grand scale. 

Look at a few mainstream headlines:Drought threatens global rice supply in the India Times; VA farmers say heat taking toll on crops,Associated Press; Severe food shortage follows lack of rainfall in Syria; and, finally, Corn prices bolt as USDA downsizes crop estimates, which states that, "Commodity professionals were caught off guard Wednesday by a U.S. Department of Agriculture report showing 1 million fewer acres of corn planted this year than earlier projected, and almost 300 million fewer bushels of corn in storage." And these articles don't begin to address crops being damaged by the toxic rain from the Gulf oil disaster.

We are back to recession economics and rapidly heading toward a deeper, longer “Third Depression.”  With all recent economic indicators setting new record lows and deficits at record highs, this ship is only going one way folks, down, down to Chinatown.  This WTC-Building 7-style-controlled-demolition of the U.S. economy has long been engineered by the borderless banksters and has been set in the same way to collapse at a free-fall rate.  With all of the manufactured confusion it may be difficult to know where best to invest your limited assets, but it seems to be clear that Food is on the march.

There were several trend forecasters and financial firms predicting upwards of $200/barrel of oilbefore the Gulf oil gusher. The “analysts” said this would occur because of the perception of scarcity and a weakening dollar. The oil disaster and the subsequent outrage at Big Oil will surely take care of selling the perception of scarcity, while the Federal Reserve and Congress will surely take care of weakening the dollar.

We’ve seen this Beta test before when oil prices reached their peak of $147 in 2008 sending the price of food to the stratosphere.  Food staples like ricenearly tripled in six months and at times increased 50% in just two weeks, primarily because of record oil prices and a weak dollar in 2008. During this run-up on prices, big box stores like Sam's Club and Costcowere rationing the number of bags of rice customers could buy.  You can bet that Food Crisis Beta 2.010 will be far more severe.

This third factor of actual Food Scarcity, coupled with high oil prices and a feeble dollar, will multiply the severity of increasing food prices.  Whether this scarcity is being engineered to further cull the population or is a genuine imbalance in supply and demand is not important.  The fact is that this reality is playing out in the matrix.  Being aware of this triple-threat to food costs creates an opportunity to soften the recessionary blow, and perhaps offer some economic freedom from those who would like to reduce us all to serfdom.


You don’t have to be an End Times survivalist to believe that storing food is pragmatic.  Everyone with expendable cash can and should design a good food storage and rotation system and buy bulk food as an investment -- in addition to creating self-sufficiency.

Many rationalists are touting guns, ammo, and gold as good small-scale investments given the despicable agenda unfolding in our matrix.  Certainly those are critical investments in an economy dwindling down to the rationing of necessity, but not everyone is into guns or can afford bundles of gold.  And gold, at the end of the day, can only be traded for necessity.

These recent food alerts seem to indicate that food may be the best short-term investment for the “Average Joe.” It's simple:  if the retail cost of rice doubles, as it did in 2008, then you (the investor) make 100% return in something that's immediately tangible and usable.  It’s time to pay the tax penalty for cashing out your mediocre "I-bought-in-to-the-American-Dream" 401K and invest in Food!

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Conspiracy Theory Jesse Ventura S02E03 Wall Street

If you're not ready for an armed revolt after watching the latest episode of Conspiracy Theory, you will never be ready!


Thomas Jefferson said, "If the America people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currencies, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their prosperity until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." 


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Want a Big Raise? Get a Wall St. Job

by Floyd Norris

New York Times

WALL Street incomes are surging back.

Multimedia

Graphic

Wall Street Pay Rebounds

The government reported this week that the real wage and salary income of finance industry employees based in Manhattan rose nearly 20 percent in the first quarter of this year. That surge helped make Manhattan the fastest-growing county in the United States in terms of terms of year-over-year gains in income.

Most Wall Street firms pay bonuses in the first quarter of each year, and the figures indicate that bonuses were much higher this year than in the same quarter of 2009. Then, of course, the financial crisis was at its most severe, with stock prices at 12-year lows and major banks being bailed out. It was not a good time to be paying bonuses.

The figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are based on unemployment compensation insurance premiums paid, and thus reflect virtually all employees rather than relying on surveys of workers or employers. Unfortunately, to get such detail requires substantial delays, which is why first-quarter figures are only now coming out.

As can be seen in the accompanying graphic, the average financial industry employee earned just over $100,000 in the first three months of the year, a figure that was up sharply from the same period of 2009 but still below the payouts in the previous three years.

The fact that those averages include bank tellers and trading desk clerks, as well as seniorinvestment bankers, shows just how large many of the bonuses were.

From 1990 — the first year for which figures are available — through 2007, the average financial salary in Manhattan rose almost 7 percent a year, after adjusting for inflation. In 2007, total financial industry pay in Manhattan topped $100 billion for the first time. But the average fell by nearly a quarter by 2009.

New York, unlike other cities, includes five counties, and the data includes only Manhattan, known formally as New York County. The figures cover people who work in the county, regardless of where they live.

New York remains the financial capital of the country. Manhattan has more financial workers than any other county, and those workers have a higher average income than similar workers in any other county.

In the first quarter, only 4.6 percent of the finance workers in the country worked in Manhattan. But they received 14.7 percent of the income paid to all finance workers — giving the average Manhattan worker income about three times as large as the overall figure.

Among counties with at least 20,000 financial industry workers, three of the next five counties with the highest average financial pay in the quarter were in the New York region — Fairfield County, Conn.; Hudson County, N.J.; and Westchester County, N.Y. The others were San Francisco County and Suffolk County (Boston), Mass.

Floyd Norris comments on finance and economics on his blog at nytimes.com/norris.

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