Citizens Under Attack

Everything Obama, Geithner, & Bernanke do, they do for The Banksters. 

Many people have lost their homes. Many more are paying inflated rates on inflated properties which the banks refuse to refinance. 

Savers are getting lousy rates on CDs, but are charged 10%-24% on credit cards. 

From the top of the credit menuboard to the bottom, The Banksters have Carte Blanche to suck as much blood out of the middle class as they possibly can. 

It’s a criminal plan, that TARP was paid for by The Taxpayers to save the banks from extinction only to be revived and viciously attack the hands that feed them. 

Henry Paulson should be charged with Treason for using The Taxpayers' Money to re-arm The Banks of Mass Destruction. 

 Everybody is a victim, even the homeowner without a mortgage, his equity is dropping in its entirety; he's losing more than the guy with a mortgage. 

Condos sit empty because banks don’t want to pay association’s maintenance fees, while those fees rise for the rest of unit-owners to make up the shortfall. 

The Banking Cartel is waging a war against every American Citizen, and it won’t be happy until every savings account is drained, every homeowner is broke & evicted, every credit card holder is "paying" 24.9% + $88/ mo. in overlimit and late fees, and every house is in their possession. 

Even the foreclosure process is financially draining for the owner, with insurance and electric payments continuing until property is taken out of owners’ name, an average of 2-3 years. (Upon repossession, the bank doesn't book the loss until resale, artificially covering-up insolvency issues). 

Wake up people! 

Its not Us against Each Other, its Us vs. The Banksters , who run their operations with impunity.

 Further details of TARP's covert mandate may be found in Neil Barofsky's piece,

"Where the Bailout Went Wrong"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/opinion/30barofsky.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=barofsky&st=cse

Federal Reserve's Mandate 2011

The first & foremost objective of The Fed is to pump as much money into The Banks as it possibly can. That is the ONLY objective. Once you see this, then failure to prosecute fraud, the phony irritation that the banks aren't lending or lowering interest rates to customers, all this becomes clear. The Fed doesn't care what China does, they care that we pay our old higher-rate mortgage, and our higher-rate credit cards, because that helps The Banks too. And bail out The Municipalities? Not on your life, they are not banks. Understand that The Fed is a private corporation owned by The Banks, so why do charity work for The Taxpayers? The Benbernanke has only 1 clear mandate, for as long as he's able to get away with it.

Defaulting homeowners, if cured, would put money into the economy FASTER than The Bankers. Ouch.

They've tried to heal the economy from the top down and it didn't work: Banks did not dispose of their toxic crap, they took TARP money and didn't help homeowners. They are in a big rush to foreclose and resell at a loss so they can charge The Taxpayers for the losses before the ether wears off. Why are The Taxpayers helping the Banks? Maybe The Taxpayers should help The Taxpayers: Start from the bottom up, despite all the opposition to helping underwater borrowers. Because they didn't cause the housing market to drop, on the contrary, they were part of the rise higher. Look, there are parts of historic West Palm Beach, FL 33405 that have lost 25% of their value in 2010 alone! On top of the 40% drop from 2007-2009. The number of strategic defaults can only rise in the future, so why not some TARP money for homeowners? If the TARP money for the banks was to cure their RMBS problems, then why didn't it flow (in reverse) all the way down to the homeowner? (Maybe because the bankers couldn't pay bonuses that way?). What is SunTrust doing with the $5 Billion it still has from TARP? As painful as it is for most of you to give money to underwater borrowers, these are better people than The Banksters. Start at the bottom. They will spend money again at Home Depot & Lowes, who will hire more workers. Many independent contractors and small businesses rely on the home improvement sector, can you imagine the "upward- cascading effect" this money flow would produce? Painful as it is, Mr. Responsible, whatever business you are in, it would benefit from this plan. Defaulting homeowners, if cured, would put money into the economy FASTER than The Bankers. Ouch. P.S.- This can be done without the "help" of The Courts, think FNMA & FreddieMac.

XLF Rules the World

XLF has turned lower. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayiU-4emlKg&feature=related

More Money For Education: FACEBOOK

FACEBOOK founder and CEO Mr. Mark Zuckerberg, 26, today donated $100 million to the Newark, NJ school system. He does not live in Newark, NJ. There was no other source of money seen coming into the school system, as local taxpayers are against tax increases, state governments are stretched to make their budgets balance. The sad fact is there is no realistic way to steer more money into the school system. Here in Broward County, we may have a better chance than most of the country- Broward School District is a separate taxing entity in Broward County. It is the 6th largest School District in the United States. In addition to receiving state of Florida funds, it has the ability to levy taxes on property owners in Broward County independently (and in addition) of the County Commission. Florida State Lottery pays money to schools. Bright Futures scholarships are funded by the State Lottery. Maybe higher jackpots and payouts will attract more people to play, and result in more money for the school system. More money would mean more pay for teachers- more teachers mean smaller class sizes and greater attention on individual students so it’s a great benefit. But if property values are down from last year, the only way to get more money for the school system is to raise taxes. Raising taxes is not very popular, just yesterday in Miami, Norman Braman vowed to recall (remove) Miami-Dade County Commissioners if they tried to raise taxes on property owners. School taxes on property owners is already a touchy subject, because many property owners (who own second residences here) do not have children attending local schools. Incomes are down, and so are taxes on income, but Florida has no state tax on income so that is not a source of revenue to schools. A tourist tax increase on people visiting Florida might be a source of additional money for schools. Also an increase on the tax for gambling casinos might provide much needed income. It is not easy in this day and age to find more money for schools. Benefits (health care and pension plan) are taking a bigger piece of the budget than salaries. Zero Interest Rate Policies (ZIRP) of the Federal Government make retirement calculations even more expensive. When there is nowhere else to look for money, maybe the only place to go is where the students go themselves: FACEBOOK. It’s awesome that Mark Zuckerberg is giving back some of the money generated by the people who attend the schools of the Newark School System. The dollars are out there somewhere.

Alternate Endings: The Case for a Blazing Stock Market

See my list of Retracements, a few selected stocks and indexes, showing their strength to recoup the losses since the highs in 2007 HERE The weakness shown by XLF- Banks isn't a good thing. But surprisingly, the XLU- Utilities Company isn't much better despite the 4.00% yield. I'm on the same page as Robert Prechter- the market is telegraphing its weakness. And no matter how bullish the stories are on CNBC about Treasury yield comps, historically low PE ratios, high cash hoards, all that crap doesn't mean anything to the patterns. In my opinion, if you really listened to these arguments, stocks should be at NEW ALL TIME HIGHS, much higher than 2007, and they are not, nowhere near it. So its kind of embarassing to actually see them admit this profound weakness as a reason to buy stocks. UNLESS you believe the FED can incite the public to start buying stocks. Its the Last Resort. Its the most "Not Over-valued" asset class there is. The Fed has cornered the market in mbs, so why not equities as well? Inflating Stocks would solve a lot of problems with people's investment accounts, and their willingness to go out and spend again. It would also bail out these pension funds that have no idea where the money is going to come from to fund their actuarial requirements. (A blazing stock market could negate the need to contribute any money, as it did during the late 1990's). Inflating the stock market would surely help the housing market, profits would fuel buying thus raising house prices. It may also help people who are delinquent to catch up and become current (if you think people in that situation haven't sold their stock yet). Its a Long Shot- I don't believe they could do it, they would have to drop the long term gains tax down to 10% along with the income tax on dividends. And that would take away the appeal of Municipal Bonds, creating a problem in that market, and we certainly need municipalities to be able to raise huge amounts of money for themselves. I'm just thinking out loud, asking myself what could go wrong with the Elliott Outlook and this is what I came up with. You know, TARP made the Treasury a stock investor- all those warrants were like call options on the bank's stock price, and they made $million$ on them. They also are set to profit from Citibank. Next is the GM initial public offering, and if that stock swings up later the Gov't could possibly show a profit on the shares they still hold. The seeds are there for some shrewd sweet-talking politician to make the case that Investing in Stocks is Profitable, even in the worst possible situations. Its the Capitalists' Way Out, and it would please the Republicans. And it may be the only way Obama would get elected for a 2nd term, which would still not be guaranteed even IF this scenario were to unfold. Let me know what you think of this alternative fantasy. Its how wealth is created- Bill Gates didn't get rich because he sold millions of copies of Windows, he got rich because he owned a boatload of Microsoft STOCK, same with Warren Buffet and his stock Berkshire-Hathaway. Rockefeller too with his 11 different Standard Oil stocks. Stock price appreciation is the source of wealth, not sales of a product. Product sales leverages a stock's price appreciation, ask Steve Jobs, but the money from sales doesn't go into his pocket, it just sits in a pile and grows. Hey did you read that Google is hiring ex-bankers and hedge fund traders to manage their cash-pile? Interesting, I wonder if they are buying stocks..........

COSTCO

COSTCO http://www.costco.com/ Annual report link Stock quote COST Have you ever been to one of their warehouses? 3rd largest retailer in US. It's like Sam's but they do almost twice the business as Sam's per location. They are #25 on the Fortune 500 list, 550 locations, their average warehouse does $3mill / week they stock only 4000 items as opposed to 40,000 for typical retailers. Nobody steals from them (shrinkage is less than 0.16%), ID's checked at the door (membership plan). Since 2005 they have bought back 17% of their stock float, and pay 1.48% dividend as well. I say "as well" (I hate Maria Bartiromo's constant use of this term as gibberish filler because she doesn't know what else to say to sound important) AS WELL because in the transaction of a buyback, money comes from COSTCO to the SHAREHOLDER exactly as a DIVIDEND does. It is most similar to the BOND equivalent of PRINCIPAL REPAYMENT at maturity. It has the added benefit of reducing the denominator for future per share calculations, such as earnings, etc. Strangely, many analysts don't like this tactic, however it has worked well through the years for the Best Stock of AllTime- Philip Morris (Altria). Despite improvements per share, and overall absolute improvement in sales, the stock is at 50% SwingForce from its 2007 high-2008 low. An improving sales & profit picture should be amplified in the per share numbers, pushing this stock much higher. But today, the focus is on the nominal divd 1.48% which is lower than MO 6.00%+, so COST gets left behind. The point I intend to make in the next few emails is PENSION FUNDS need to invest money. And there aren't enough bonds that yield enough % to meet their projections. Most assume an 8% rate of return. But if the going rate is an avg. yield of only 4%, they will need to invest DOUBLE the amount of money in stocks or bonds. That is, if the pension funds have any money to invest at all. The Point is, The Quest for Yield continues, and WILL continue even after all the bonds are bought. Rates can go low, and STAY low, for an extended period of time, where did I hear that before? And when the yield% gets too low, then the focus will shift to "total return", and a stock which is contracting its float will be far more lucrative than a stock who is issuing 100% more shares over the same time period (example: Bank of America).