PROFITS
PROTECTION
PARIS (AP) — Revelers around the world greeted 2009 with
fireworks, bell ringing and a tinge of optimism Thursday — amid
hopes they'd seen the last of 2008's disappearing jobs and
slumping stocks.
"I'm looking forward to 2009," said Randolph King of England,
whose retirement fund was gutted in the global financial
crisis. "Because it can't get much worse."
Breaking News:
SKILLED ACTOR WAS
PERFECT IN 'CON'CEPT
Top banks admit huge losses in Wall
Street 'pyramid'
fraud
Who are on the list on Democratic Bag Men?
The list of the wealthy keeps growing
Judge signs order to protect Madoff
investors
4 hours ago
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal
judge on Monday threw a lifesaver to investors
who may have been duped in one of Wall Street's
biggest alleged frauds, saying they need the
protection of a special government reserve fund
set up to help investors at failed brokerage
firms.
U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton ordered
that clients of Bernard Madoff's private
investment business seek relief under a federal
statute created to rescue cheated investors.
Stanton also ordered that business be
liquidated under the jurisdiction of a
bankruptcy court and named attorney Irvin H.
Picard as trustee to oversee that process.
Stanton signed the order after the Securities
Investor Protection Corporation asked
that steps be taken to
protect investors in the scheme, which has
ensnared several major banks and prominent
figures as victims and could result in as much
as $50 billion in losses.
Congress created the SIPC in 1970 to protect
investors when a brokerage firm fails and cash
and securities are missing from accounts. Funds
can be used to satisfy the remaining claims of
each customer up to a maximum of $500,000. The
figure includes a maximum of up to $100,000 on
claims for cash.
The order came just days after federal
prosecutors charged Madoff with securities
fraud, saying he had admitted to orchestrating
a massive Ponzi scheme. Madoff is free on $10
million bail after he was charged with
securities fraud last week.
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The List Goes On and On....
Daily News owner and real-estate mogul Mort Zuckerman
is one of the investors ripped off by swindler
Bernard Madoff, it was reported today.
Zuckerman, who also owns US News & World
Report, has "significant exposure"
through a fund that
invested virtually all of its assets with
Madoff, The Wall Street Journal says,
quoting a person familiar with his
investments.
Zuckerman said on CNBC today that none of his
personal assets were affected, but that a
charitable trust he set up several years ago valued
at $300 million has lost about 10 to 11 percent as
a result of the Madoff scandal.
The Journal further reported that
powerhouse movie
director Steven Spielberg's charity,
Wunderkinder Foundation, also got
burned, investing roughly 70 percent of its
money with Madoff. A spokesman said he
couldn't comment on whether Spielberg had any
of his own money invested.
Among the many Jewish charities that lost money in
the scam was Nobel laureate
Elie Wiesel's Foundation for Humanity,
according to the Journal.
And New Jersey Sen. Frank
Lautenberg's family charity also took a
bath, investing most of its $14 million trust with
Madoff, his lawyer told The Record of Bergen
County.
Meanwhile, more European
banks revealed that billions of dollars they
entrusted to Madoff may have vanished - and a
second Jewish charity
abruptly shut down after losing its entire
endowment.
Spanish banking giant Grupo
Santander SA, which recently purchased
Sovereign, a big US bank, said it placed
$3.1 billion of its private
banking customers in Madoff's care through its
Optimal Strategic US Equity fund.
BNP Paribas in France said it
had more than $350 million at risk. The
private Swiss bank Reichmuth
& Co. told its hedge-fund investors that
$327 million of their money was invested with
Madoff. European media also reported
Union Bancaire Privée
of Switzerland may've lost $1
billion.
And a spokeswoman for the Royal Bank of Scotland confirmed
it had invested with Madoff, but provided no
figures.
Early today, Japan's largest
brokerage, Nomura Holdings, said it has lost
about $306 million.
Also, the Chais Family
Foundation, which donated about $12.5
million a year to Jewish causes in former
Soviet states and
Israel, closed its doors for
good after losing
everything with Madoff.
The Robert I.
Lappin Charitable Foundation in Salem,
Mass., closed on Friday, after losing $8 million.
Madoff remained cloistered in his Upper East Side
penthouse, a neighbor on E 64th Street said.
The neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said
he saw the alleged con artist looking forlorn and
puffing a cigar by his window at 3 a.m. yesterday.
His wife, Ruth, came and cradled his head in her
arms.
"No comment" was all son Andrew Madoff, the
director of trading at his father's Bernard L.
Madoff Investment Securities, said outside his East
75th Street apartment. Andrew and his brother,
Mark, turned in their dad after he'd confessed to
them.
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The real causes behind the Financial crisis is
Democratic governerment intervention on free market capitalism.
The Democrats were taking huge kick backs from the financial
boom in mortgage financing and
housing lobbyist.
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STOCK MARKET FOR
DUMMIES
Once upon a time in a village, a man
appeared and announced to the villagers that he
would buy monkeys for $10 each. The villagers
seeing that there were many monkeys around,
went out to the forest and started catching
them.
The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply
started to diminish, the villagers stopped
their effort. He then announced that he would
now buy monkeys at $20 each. This renewed the
efforts of the villagers and they started
catching monkeys again.
Soon the supply diminished even further and
people started going back to their farms. The
offer increased to $25 each and the supply of
monkeys became so scarce it was an effort to
even find a monkey, let alone catch it! The man
now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50
each! However, since he had to go to the city
on some business, his assistant would now buy
on behalf of him.
In the absence of the man, the assistant told
the villagers. "Look at all these monkeys in
the big cage that the man has already
collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and
when the man returns from the city, you can
sell them to him for $50 each." The villagers
rounded up with all their savings and bought
all the monkeys.
Then they never saw the man nor his assistant
again, only lots and lots of monkeys!
Now you have a better understanding of how the
stock market works.
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Mortgage Backed Securities are
like boxes of chocolates.
Criminals on Wall Street stole a few chocolates from
the boxes and replaced them with turd's.
Their criminal buddies at Standard
& Poor rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade
chocolates.
These boxes were then sold all
over the world to investors.
Eventually somebody bites into a
turd and discovers the crime. Suddenly nobody trusts
American chocolates anymore worldwide.
Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up
and hold all these boxes of turd-infested chocolates
for $700 billion dollars until the market for turd's
returns to normal.
Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the
Wall Street criminals who stole all the good chocolates
are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted.
S&P ?
Mama always said: "Sniff the chocolates first,
Forrest."
Quote of the day from a fund manager:
"This is worse than a divorce... I've lost half
of my net worth and I still have my wife..."
The bailout, a different perspective:
Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang
Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as
required by law, tried to run it.
They failed and it closed. Now we
are trusting the economy of our country to a pack of
nit-wits who couldn't make money running a whore house
and selling booze?
Making Profits
and Protecting those profits from Political
changes...
The
Political incompetence has led to the collapse of the
world's financial markets. The
Bernanke bounce will have a
short term effect on your portfolio. I wrote in
2005, "The sad truth is that no one, not even the Federal
reserve can control inflation, and the fed has always been
behind the curve gauging the economy's inflation /deflation
curves. "
The worst mistake
the
Federal Reserve can do now is to cut interest rates while
the market is still falling lower.
Cutting Interest
rates, which by their definition will not have an effect on the
economy until 6-9 months later. I also wrote, "The
foolish Fed’s aggressive interest rate cuts caused a
housing bubble, compounded with favorable tax treatment of long
term capital gains treatment on the sale of a primary
residence. "
The wild
fires of
inflation in the housing market has spread a temporary
wealth effect among unsuspecting long term stock holders. The
next few months will determine if there is inflation or
deflation within the economy. The severity of the housing
bubble collapse will determined the next phase of inflation or
deflation."
The world's
markets in Asia and Europe have reached their limits
down. People are amazed at the speed of the declines, but
i have been warning traders about the dangers of
programmed trading.
Still,
No Capitulation For the
Bulls"The
simple answer is that for the last 3 years programmed
trading has ruled the market. The derivative markets
have artificially created the illusion of a bull market
by supporting prices at the 50 day moving average.
"
Sounds like Someone Lost Big
Money!
Here is Your
Stimulus Package
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