Finansiella Insikter

Mer från Telegraph

New York Times avslöjar att amerikanska myndigheter de kommande dagarna kommer att lämna in en stämningsansökan mot ett dussin större amerikanska banker för deras försäljning av paketerat finansiellt skräp till Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac där de kommer att kräva kompensation för de förluster som dessa transaktioner orsakat bostadsjättarna.

Tidpunkten för denna stämning kunde knappt komma mer olägligt för bankerna, med tanke på den senaste tidens nervositet på marknaden över deras ohälsa (insolvens). För Bank of Americas del kan läget bli än mer akut trots tillskottet från farbror Warren (vilket för övrigt var ett stort skämt).

Här är ett utdrag från NYT:

The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation.        

The Federal Housing Finance Agency suits, which are expected to be filed in the coming days in federal court, are aimed at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, among others, according to three individuals briefed on the matter.

The suits are being filed now because regulators are concerned that it will be much harder to make claims after a three-year statute of limitations expires on Wednesday, the third anniversary of the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The suits will argue the banks, which assembled the mortgages and marketed them as securities to investors, failed to perform the due diligence required under securities law and missed evidence that borrowers’ incomes were inflated or falsified. When many borrowers were unable to pay their mortgages, the securities backed by the mortgages quickly lost value.

Fannie and Freddie lost more than $30 billion, in part as a result of the deals, losses that were borne mostly by taxpayers.

Private holders of mortgage securities are already trying to force the big banks to buy back tens of billions in soured mortgage-backed bonds, but this federal effort is a new chapter in a huge legal fight that has alarmed investors in bank shares. In this case, rather than demanding that the banks buy back the original loans, the finance agency is seeking reimbursement for losses on the securities held by Fannie and Freddie.

Bankerna vill självklart ännu inte kommentera NYTs uppgifter, men det är helt klart att man kommer att hitta bortförklaringar. Eller vad sägs om följande:

..privately, financial service industry executives argue that the losses on the mortgage-backed securities were caused by a broader downturn in the economy and the housing market, not by how the mortgages were originated or packaged into securities. In addition, they contend that investors like A.I.G. as well as Fannie and Freddie were sophisticated and knew the securities were not without risk.

Om inte annat så kommer man sannolikt att försöka med skrämseltaktik av olika slag:

Investors fear that if banks are forced to pay out billions of dollars for mortgages that later defaulted, it could sap earnings for years and contribute to further losses across the financial services industry, which has only recently regained its footing.

Bank officials also counter that further legal attacks on them will only delay the recovery in the housing market, which remains moribund, hurting the broader economy. Other experts warned that a series of adverse settlements costing the banks billions raises other risks, even if suits have legal merit.

“While I believe that F.H.F.A. is acting responsibly in its role as conservator, I am afraid that we risk pushing these guys off of a cliff and we’re going to have to bail out the banks again,” said Tim Rood, who worked at Fannie Mae until 2006 and is now a partner at the Collingwood Group, which advises banks and servicers on housing-related issues.

Här är en kommentar från Zerohedge:

…the gloves are coming off, and while we want to believe that this is the final nail in BAC’s coffin, we do have a nagging feeling that the US will not purposefully do everything in its power to destroy its banking sector.

The Telegraph uppmärksammade i en mycket intressant artikel igår att Grekland på onsdagskvällen var tvungna att aktivera en obskyr nödfond (Emergency Liquidity Assistance – ELA) för sina inhemska banker då de inte har tillräckligt med säkerheter som är godtagbara av ECB. 

Nödfonden är den sista utvägen som en centralbank i euro-området har om landets banker är i akut behov av likviditet för att inte gå under och har tidigare bara använts i Irland, där landets banker snabbt blev beroende av den.

Som ZeroHedge rapporterade igår så har räntan på grekiska statspapper skjutit i höjden (2-åringen var uppe på hisnande 46%) till följd av Finlands beslut att trotsa Tyskland och gå vidare i sina förhandlingar om att erhålla grekiska säkerheter i utbyte mot fortsatt stöd, vilket äventyrar det ‘räddningspaket’ för Grekland som presenterades i juli. Att detta satt de grekiska bankernas balansräkningar under oerhörd press är ingen överraskning.

Den grekiska smittan spred sig på torsdagen till Tyskland, där DAX index under en period kraschade och var som mest ned med 4% då marknaden nu inser att Grekland är nära en kollaps, trots upprepade ‘räddningsförsök’.

Som vi talat om så många gånger tidigare så är det en bilkrock i ‘slow-motion’ som vi just nu bevittnar för det finansiella systemet. Det är just detta som gör att så många människor inte vaknar upp och inser vad som håller på att ske. De Styrande är väl medvetna om att genom att ‘kontrollera hastigheten’ och ta hjälp av propaganda kan man lätt invagga den sovande befolkningen i förhoppningar om att ‘det kommer att ordna sig bara man ger det lite tid’. 

Vakna läsare av bloggar som denna har sannolikt sedan länge inset att det finansiella systemet inte går att rädda utan en nollställning är både nödvändig och ofrånkomlig.

Här är ett längre utdrag från The Telegraph:

In a move described as the “last stand for Greek banks”, the embattled country’s central bank activated Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) for the first time on Wednesday night.

Raoul Ruparel of Open Europe told The Telegraph: “The activation of the so-called ELA looks to be the last stand for Greek banks and suggests they are running alarmingly short of quality collateral usually used to obtain funding.”

He added: “This kicks off another huge round of nearly worthless assets being shifted from the books of private banks onto books backed by taxpayers. Combined with the purchases of Spanish and Italian bonds, the already questionable balance sheet of the euro system is looking increasingly risky.”

Although it was done discreetly, news that Athens had opened the fund filtered out and was one of the factors that rattled markets across Europe. At one point Germany’s Dax was down 4pc before it recovered.

Athens’ activation of the ELA will raise concerns that Greece will simply shift debt to Brussels.

The ELA was designed under European rules to allow national central banks to provide liquidity for their own lenders when they run out of collateral of a quality that can be used to trade with the ECB. It is an obscure tool that is supposed to be temporary and one of the last resorts for indebted banks. So far it has only be used in Ireland.

By accepting a lower level of collateral the debt in the ELA is, in theory, supposed to be the responsibility of Greece. However, since the Greek state is surviving on eurozone bailouts and Greek banks are reliant on ECB funding, in practice the loans are backed by the eurozone. The terms of lending and other details are not disclosed publicly.

Mr Ruparel said: “Though the ELA is meant to be a temporary emergency solution, we know from Ireland, where the programme has been running for almost a year, that once banks get hooked on ELA they rarely get off it.”

Regelbundna läsare är vid det här laget sannolikt väl medvetna om Finansiella Insikters inställning till ‘korruptionsvärderingsinstituten’ S&P, Moodys, Fitch m fl som under åratal mer eller mindre tagit emot mutor för att ge högsta möjliga betyg för diverse finansiella skräpinstrument.

Att Financial Times nu rapporterar att S&Ps ägare, McGraw-Hill, beslutat att sparka VDn Deven Sharma strax efter nedgraderingen av USA och ersätta honom med Citybanks COO Douglas Peterson har gjort att denna inställning bara blivit än starkare.

Som ZeroHedge poängterar så hör Citybank till de banker som behövde tiotals miljarder dollar i stöd från Federal Reserve och deras överlevnad är ofrånkomligt beroende av att USA aldrig får genomgå en enda nedgradering igen. 

McGraw-Hill hjälper på detta sätt till med att skicka ut en signal om att om du försöker göra det rätta och tala sanning så kan du räkna med att du inte kommer undan. Framförallt inte om det handlar om att tala sanning om det amerikanska korthuset.

Här är ett utdrag från Financial Times med den ‘officiella förklaringen’ och givetvis ett förnekande om att det hade något med sänkningen av USAs kreditbetyg att göra:

Deven Sharma is stepping down as president of Standard & Poor’s only weeks after the rating agency issued an unprecedented downgrade of the credit of the US, according to people familiar with the matter.

The McGraw-Hill board made the decision to replace Mr Sharma at a meeting on Monday, where it also discussed an ongoing strategic review.

Mr Sharma will be replaced as S&P president by Douglas Peterson, chief operating officer of Citibank, the banking unit of Citigroup, they said.

People familiar with the matter said Mr Sharma’s departure was unrelated to the downgrade, or reports that S&P is being investigated by the Justice Department in connection with its ratings of dozens of mortgage securities in the years leading up to the financial crisis.

People close to the company said the search for Mr Sharma’s replacement has been going on for six months, and was triggered by the split of its data, pricing and analytics business from its ratings business. The creation of that new group, McGraw-Hill Financial, reduced the scope of Mr Sharma’s oversight, they said.

Här är en kommentar från ZeroHedge:

This is nothing but a case study of modern corporate reality in America: if you are not with the status quo, you are against it, and you are promptly booted out of it: anyone who does not share the visions of one glorious future built on ponzi schemes, houses of cards, and games of three card monte, will be promptly suicided, either physically or professionally.

We expect that this flagrant example of how the powers that be will deal with any dissenters will instill the fear of god in anyone at either Moodys (or the French sycphants from Fitch) and nobody will ever again menton the words “US” and “downgrade” in the same sentence.

So let us get this straight: in America when you dare to tell the truth, your career is over, while if you are a corrupt, lying, incompetent tax evader you not only get to be Treasury Secretary but likely will be on for life as long as you do the one duty you are entrusted with: pander to the interests of the Too Big To Fail financial institutions

We should be speechless but at this point we are well beyond the point of even caring.

För den som ännu inte hunnit se den oscarsbelönade dokumentären Inside Job finns nu en fantastiskt möjlighet att göra det helt gratis tack vare Open Culture.

Och här är en av recensionerna av denna finansiella skräckfilm:

“A must watch for anyone and everyone who has even a passing interest in the intersection of finance, economics, politics, corruption, crime, complacency and above all, the human inability to predict the future when the only driving force is pure greed.” – ZeroHedge

Om någon mot förmodan behöver ytterligare bevis på att vi lever i en bisarr värld, så spana in rubriken och läs inlägget nedan hämtat från TheEconomicCollapseBlog.

The More Americans That Go On Food Stamps The More Money JP Morgan Makes
JP Morgan is the largest processor of food stamp benefits in the United States. JP Morgan has contracted to provide food stamp debit cards in 26 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. JP Morgan is paid for each case that it handles, so that means that the more Americans that go on food stamps, the more profits JP Morgan makes. Yes, you read that correctly. When the number of Americans on food stamps goes up, JP Morgan makes more money. In the video posted below, JP Morgan executive Christopher Paton admits that this is “a very important business to JP Morgan” and that it is doing very well. Considering the fact that the number of Americans on food stamps has exploded from 26 million in 2007 to 43 million today, one can only imagine how much JP Morgan’s profits in this area have soared. But doesn’t this give JP Morgan an incentive to keep the number of Americans enrolled in the food stamp program as high as possible?

There are just some things that are a little too “creepy” to be “outsourced” to private corporations. The JP Morgan executive in the interview below does his best to put a positive spin on all this, but it just seems really unsavory for a big Wall Street bank to be making so much money off of the suffering of tens of millions of Americans….

So if unemployment goes down will this ruin JP Morgan’s food stamp business?
Well, apparently not. In the interview Paton says that 40% of food stamp recipients are currently working, and he seems convinced that there could be further “growth” in that segment.
So is this what America is turning into?

A place where tens of millions of the unemployed and the working poor crawl over to Wal-Mart and the dollar store every month to use the food stamp debit cards provided to them by JP Morgan?

It turns out that JP Morgan also provides child support debit cards in 15 U.S. states and they also provide unemployment insurance benefit debit cards in seven states.

Apparently states have found that they can save millions of dollars by “outsourcing” the provision of these benefits to big financial firms like JP Morgan.

So what happens if you have a problem with your food stamp debit card?

Well, you call up a JP Morgan service center. When you do this, there is a very good chance that you are going to be helped by a JP Morgan call center employee in India.

That’s right – it turns out that JP Morgan is saving money by “outsourcing” food stamp customer service calls to India.

When ABC News asked JP Morgan about this, the company would not tell ABC News which states have customer service calls sent to India and which states have them handled inside the United States….

JP Morgan is the only one today still operating public-assistance call centers overseas. The company refused to say which states had calls routed to India and which ones had calls stay domestically. That decision, the company said, was often left up to the individual states.

JP Morgan has been moving some of these call center jobs back inside the United States due to political pressure, but this whole situation is a really good example of what the “global economy” is doing to middle class Americans.

Just try to imagine the irony – a formerly middle class American that has lost a job to outsourcing calls up to get help with food stamp benefits only to be answered by a call center employee in India.
Welcome to the global economy, eh?
But wait, there is more.

It has just been announced that JP Morgan has admitted that they wrongly foreclosed on over a dozen military families and that they have been overcharging “thousands” of other military families on their mortgages.
Ouch.

It is a really bad public relations move to mess with military families.
Is anyone over at JP Morgan even paying attention?
JP Morgan has also been one of the primary financial institutions involved in the foreclosure “robo-signing” scandal.

They just seem to be having all kinds of problems lately. But they are not alone.
The truth is that we have gotten to the point where big Wall Street banks such as JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Citibank and Morgan Stanley just have way, way too much power.
The biggest Wall Street financial institutions had no trouble begging for bailouts from the U.S. government during the financial crisis, but when the American people have needed a little grace and mercy from them they have been less than helpful

Brittiska The Guardian uppger att en Schweizisk sk ‘whistleblower’ vid namn Rudolf Elmer planerar avslöja 2000 rika skattesmitare via Wikileaks. Elmer har ett långt förflutet inom finansvärlden och var senast COO (Chief Operating Officer) inom den välrenommerade schweiziska banken Julius Baer.

Enligt The Guardian kommer materialet att via hur inte bara hedgefonder och företag men även politiker slussat pengar till offshore-stiftelse på bl a Cayman-öarna för att undvika skatt.

Här är ett utdrag från artikeln i The Guardian:

Elmer says he is releasing the information “in order to educate society”. The list includes “high net worth individuals”, multinational conglomerates and financial institutions – hedge funds”. They are said to be “using secrecy as a screen to hide behind in order to avoid paying tax”. They come from the US, Britain, Germany, Austria and Asia – “from all over”.

Clients include “business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates – from both sides of the Atlantic”. Elmer says: “Well-known pillars of society will hold investment portfolios and may include houses, trading companies, artwork, yachts, jewellery, horses, and so on.”

“What I am objecting to is not one particular bank, but a system of structures,” he told the Observer. “I have worked for major banks other than Julius Baer, and the one thing on which I am absolutely clear is that the banks know, and the big boys know, that money is being secreted away for tax-evasion purposes, and other things such as money-laundering – although these cases involve tax evasion.

Avslöjandet kommer knappast som inte som en chock för ‘vakna’ läsare av bloggar som denna, då vi talat om dubbelmoralen och korruptionen vid otaliga tillfällen, utan är snarare bara ett i raden av många bevis hur sjuk vår värld har blivit.

Nedan är en intressant summering av artikeln med kommentarer från ZeroHedge:

Julius Baer Whistleblower To Expose 2,000 High Net Worth Tax Evaders To The World

Vi har flera gånger tidigare tagit upp det faktum att kreditvärderingsinstituten är högst delaktiga i skapandet av den gigantiska skuldbubblan genom att medvetet ge höga kreditbetyg åt länder (banker, företag, bolåneinstrument etc etc) som är insolventa sedan länge, däribland USA. Sakta men säkert börjar de dock nu förbereda oss för den ofrånkomliga nedgraderingen av alla dessa kreditbetyg till skräpstatus.

Det känns helt klart som om det finns paralleller med hur våra kära ekonomer sakta men säkert börjar tala om sakre man tidigare bara vågade erkänna bakom stängda dörrar. Räkna därför med att det är mycket värre än den som förmedlas via S&P och Moodys. Kom ihåg att när nedgraderingen av USA väl kommer är det redan ‘game over’ för då har systemet troligen redan nollställts.

S&P, Moody’s Warn On U.S. Credit Rating

• By MARK BROWN And NATHALIE BOSCHAT
LONDON—Two leading credit rating agencies on Thursday cautioned the U.S. on its credit rating, expressing concern over a deteriorating fiscal situation that they say needs correction.

Moody’s Investors Service said in a report Thursday that the U.S. will need to reverse an upward trajectory in the debt ratios to support its triple-A rating.

“We have become increasingly clear about the fact that if there are not offsetting measures to reverse the deterioration in negative fundamentals in the U.S., the likelihood of a negative outlook over the next two years will increase,” said Sarah Carlson, senior analyst at Moody’s.

A Wall Street sign stands outside the New York Stock Exchange. S&P and Moody’s warned the U.S. about its credit rating and urged the government to do more to arrest a deteriorating fiscal situation.

Standard & Poor’s Corp. on Thursday also didn’t rule out changing the outlook for its U.S. sovereign-debt rating because of the recent deterioration of the country’s fiscal situation. The U.S. currently has a triple-A rating with a stable outlook at both agencies.

“The view of markets is that the U.S. will continue to benefit from the exorbitant privilege linked to the U.S. dollar” to fund its deficits, Carol Sirou, head of S&P France, said at a Paris conference Thursday. “But that may change. We can’t rule out changing the outlook” on the U.S. sovereign debt rating in the future, she warned. She added the jobless nature of the U.S. recovery was one of the biggest threats to the U.S. economy. “No triple-A rating is forever,” she said.

Moody’s said the U.S., Germany, France and the U.K. still have debt metrics, including the debt affordability, compatible with their triple-A ratings at Moody’s. But all four countries must bring the future costs arising from pension and healthcare subsidies under control if they “are to maintain long-term stability in their debt burden credit metrics,” Moody’s said in its regular triple-A Sovereign Monitor report.

Moody’s noted that measures were recommended by the U.S. National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, appointed by President Obama, to achieve a balanced primary budget by 2015, but that there was insufficient support to trigger consideration of those recommendations by the full Congress.

They included a wide variety of measures, including Social Security reform, cutbacks in the growth of Medicare outlays, elimination or modification of the mortgage interest tax deduction, a gasoline tax and other measures, Moody’s said.

“In Moody’s view, a plan that would result in a reversal of the upward trajectory in the debt ratios would indeed be supportive of the country’s Aaa rating,” the ratings agency said in its report. “However, it is unlikely that the Commission’s recommendations will be adopted.”

The most recent official figures show the ratio of federal debt to revenue averaging 397% of gross domestic product in the period to 2020, while the ratio of interest to revenue will rise to 17.6% by 2020, from 8.6% in the last fiscal year. “These figures are “quite high for an Aaa-rated country,” Moody’s said.

Debt affordability is “very important to the rating process,” Ms. Carlson said. U.S. general government debt affordability, including states and municipalities, is “rising over time to a high level for an Aaa-rated country,” the report said.

En del av er kanske noterade att Bloomberg News har lämnat in en stämningsansökan mot den Europeiska centralbanken ECB för att centralbanken inte vill lämna ut dokument som beskriver hur Grekland med hjälp av derivat lurade skjortan av omvärlden om hur det stod till med statsfinanserna. Bloomberg News menar att om dokumenten skulle släppas skulle det kunna försvåra för andra stater att göra något liknande i framtiden.

Greklands agerande är dock inget unikt. Det talas om att många länder, inte minst de så kallade grisarna, använt sig av liknande knep, om ej i samma omfattning omfattning, för att kunna klara av kraven på t ex budgetunderskott i samband med inträdet till Euron. Lehman Brothers använde sig också av dessa derivat knep för att lura omvärlden om hur det stod till med räkenskaperna, vilket vi skrivit om tidigare.

Inte för att vi behöver mer bevis för att hela det finansiella systemet är fullständigt korrupt, som vi talat om så många gånger tidigare, men det faktum att ECB väljer att hemligstämpla denna information är uppseendeväckande. Det skall bli intressant att se hur ECB bemöter Bloombergs argument.

Men det finns givetvis en anledning till att ECB säger nej. Skulle denna information bli allmänt känd skulle detta göra det ännu svårare att hålla pyramidspelet vid liv. Ett pyramidspel som är helt och hållet beroende av förtroende host allmänheten.

Ni kommer kanske ihåg hur Federal Reserve stretade emot och inte ville avslöja vilka mottagarna var av flera biljarder med dollar. Till slut gick det inte att komma undan längre och informationen som släpptes bekräftade de misstankar som många haft. Det visade sig att Fed till och med agerade bank åt Harley Davidson! Ingen kan påstå att det finansiella systemet skulle braka ihop om inte Harley Davidson skulle överleva. Detta visade istället på hur eliten agerar i det dolda och att det inte längre finns några regler som gäller utan det är personer med de rätta kontakterna (eller mutorna) som får som de vill. Korruption med andra ord. Många menar dessutom att Fed ‘städade upp’ dokumenten innan de släpptes och att den verkliga sanningen är ännu värre. Skulle inte förvåna mig det minsta.

Hur som helst, här är ett utdrag från Bloomberg angående dess stämning av ECB:

Bloomberg News filed a lawsuit against the European Central Bank, seeking the disclosure of documents showing how Greece used derivatives to hide its fiscal deficit and helped trigger the region’s sovereign debt crisis.

The lawsuit asks the European Union’s General Court in Luxembourg to overturn a decision by the ECB not to disclose two internal documents drafted for the central bank’s six-member executive board in Frankfurt this year. The notes show how Greece used swaps to hide its borrowings, according to a March 3 cover page attached to the papers obtained by Bloomberg News.

ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet withheld the documents after the EU and International Monetary Fund led a 110 billion- euro bailout ($144 billion) for Greece. The dossier should be disclosed to stop governments from employing the derivatives in a similar way again and to show how EU authorities acted on information they had on the swaps, according to the suit, filed by Bloomberg Finance LP, the parent of Bloomberg News.

Och här är en kommentar från Jim Sinclair:

For the times we have found Bloomberg lacking, let’s say bravo to the following.

The answer is that Greece did the 105 swap like Lehman and every other financial institution. Clean all the crap off your balance sheet before the year end and buy it back two weeks into January of the New Year. That is called kiting losses (deficits in this case) and was considered illegal before OTC derivatives were invented, which are all frauds anyway.

By the way, kiting losses is still illegal, but I imagine FASB sold out on that as well.

Brittiska The Telegraph rapporterar att JP Morgan, som av allt fler utpekas som en av huvudaktörerna bakom manipulationen av silver, har tagit en så kallad ‘corner position’ i koppar.

Här är ett utdrag från The Telegraph:

The American investment bank JP Morgan is the mystery trader that grabbed more than half the copper on the London Metal Exchange, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

The $1.5bn (£1bn) trade was described in the LME’s daily update as “between 50pc and 80pc” of the 350,000 tonnes in reserves. This pushed up the price for the immediate delivery of copper to $8,700 – its highest level since the financial crisis in October 2008.

Banken är enligt tidningen på väg att lansera en ETF för fysisk koppar och handlare uppger att banken helt enkelt positionerar sig före denna ETF för att dra nytta av situationen och sko sig på investerarnas bekostnad. Med tanke på hur det framkommit en uppsjö med bevis för det groteskt oetiska och kriminella beteendet bland banker så är detta inte alls förvånande.

För inte så länge uppmärksammade vi just koppar och bad läsare att hålla ett öga på ‘doktor koppar’ som har en unik förmåga att ta temperaturen på tillståndet i den globala ekonomin. I detta fallet handlar det om det stora inflationstryck som centralbanker och politiker försöker att dölja eller förklara bort. Skulle koppar byta igenom 4 dollar, som vi skrev om i inlägget, skulle det skicka en kraftfull signal. Att oljan ser ut att bryta igenom det stora motståndet kring 90 dollar är därför sannolikt ingen slump. Att JP Morgan är så aggressiv på köpsidan för koppar är definitivt ingen slump.