Financial terrorism suspected in 2008 economic crash – Washington Times
Many have said the term ‘Financial Terrorism’ was extreme to describe what happened to the economy in 2008. No more. The Pentagon confirms the reality.
I agree with everything in this article about causes of the crash, and glad the government is finally officially admitting this to be the case, this was a very big step in the right direction. The only problem is we blame every foreign enemy possible, according to the report, and fail to look right under our noses at our own hedge funds, financial firms, banks, and other large players who have way too much power, exclusive access to what is becoming an unaccountable Fourth Branch of government (i.e. the Federal Reserve), and the ability to manipulate the market any which way they choose, winning on the way up and on the way down (via exotic financial products like derivatives, CDO’s, MBS’s, etc). And then appealing to the government for a bailout if another firm can’t pay up what is contractually theirs.
Our form of capitalism has turned into what former Wall Street trader and insider Max Keiser calls “Rigged Market Capitalism”. Can’t think of a better term. It’s turned into a rigged Casino almost, specifically via High Frequency Trading (HFT) algorithms. There are still a great number of solid financial firms out there doing the right thing. But the heart of Wall Street seems to be one of manipulation now, hence all the macro and micro flash crashes we’ve been seeing over the past couple of years, documented in detail by Zero Hedge, increasing in pace (carried out by HFT algo’s). And the average guy can only hope to ride on the coat tails of these big players (hence why so many people are rushing into commodities like silver and gold as a safe haven).
Our leaders swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, protecting us from enemies both foreign and domestic. It seems there is an assumption in our society (not sure why at this point) that no single person or group of citizens in America could be so evil as to manipulate literally trillions of dollars in an effort to make out like Madoff. Enron, Madoff, WorldCom, just pick a Ponzi from over the years … the dirty little secret message no one in government wants to go main stream is that these toxic, fraudulent accounting practices have themselves gone main stream among major financial service firms and corporations (namely the Too Big To Fails, another stupid assumption propagandized by none other than the companies themselves).
In the regulatory world, they call it “Accounting Control Fraud,” in which the executives, CEO’s, etc, lead the fraud themselves and it trickles down and takes on a life of its own, many times the people in the middle and at the bottom not realizing what is going on above them. More and more people are waking up to this and realizing our economy, and specifically the large player financial services industry, is essentially very Ponzi-like, at least at the heart of Wall Street and not the total economy overall.
Ponzi-nomics takes on a whole new (realistic as opposed to theoretical) meaning now. It is a very unfortunate state of affairs. And the corporate owned media is complicit in covering up how bad it is too, including Fox many times, whitewashing what should be made known and dealt with, in all its ugly truth. This is a perfect example of the necessity for investigative journalists to continue digging the dirt and bringing these issues to light, and also why many in main stream media want limits imposed on alternative media.
Madoff, in a recent interview, spoke the truth about how he was able to game the market and government regulators: it’s all a Ponzi scheme itself to one degree or another, more akin to groupthink than outright intentional conspiracy though: “And [Madoff] doesn’t see himself as the only guilty party on Wall Street. ’It’s unbelievable. Goldman [and I insert JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citi, major hedge funds, et al, the ones through whom all this was and is being carried out] … no one has any criminal convictions—the whole new regulatory reform is a joke. The whole government is a Ponzi scheme.” Also, “‘It was always a business where you had to have an edge, and the little guy never got a break. The institutions controlled everything,’ he said in a voice surprisingly thick with emotion. ‘I realized from a very early stage that the market is a whole rigged job. There’s no chance that investors have in this market.'” … of course he is still fairly unrepentant about certain actions based on the interview, but that’s beside the main point for our discussion: http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/berniemadoff-2011-3/. Interesting read.
The first step to addressing the problem though is admission of the situation and I’m glad they’ve taken this step. I’m just not sure the general public is ready for the gravity of the situation. And it is unfortunate we want to scapegoat every problem to some other entity outside of ourselves and fess up to the fact that domestic enemies here and now are themselves causing these problems for the most part, though of course with foreign involvement I’m sure in the form of foreign “investment” in these frauds and manipulations.
Regardless of your perspective on these findings and the real cause, Mr. Freeman, who wrote the report for the Pentagon, has one thing straight: “Ignoring the likelihood of this very real threat ensures a catastrophic event.” Nuff said.
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