No 641 “En mi
opinión” Abril 19, 2014
“IN GOD WE TRUST” Lázaro
R González Miño Editor
SPANISH AND ENGLISH:
Señores Senadores, Representantes del Congreso y
Jueces de La Corte Suprema de los Estados Unidos de América: Este es el llamado
de un ciudadano muy preocupado y ocupado
por la mayor desgracia que enfrenta nuestro país en toda su historia. Este es
un llamado para que inmediatamente, con valor y decisión enfrenten al mayor problema que ha padecido
la nación americana en toda su historia.
La situación actual es peor que cualquiera de las guerras que hemos tenido que
pelear; porque esta vez el enemigo está dentro y sentado en el más alto cargo
del país.
El presidente de la nación Barack Hussein Obama tiene
que ser destituido de su cargo de presidente porque la supervivencia de America
depende de ello.
RAZONES POR LAS CUALES SE DEBE DESTITUIR A:
Barack Hussein Obama de su cargo de presidente de los Estados Unidos de América
Mediante UN JUICIO EN EL CONGRESO DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS.
1-
USO
INCORRECTO E ILEGAL DEL IRS como arma política EN CONTRA DE LOS AMERICANOS Y
ESPECIALMENTE SUS DETRACTORES.
El IRS ha infiltrado, espiados y acosado a grupos
conservadores que son los enemigos políticos de Obama - incluyendo durante el
año electoral de 2012. Sección 1, Artículo 2 de los Estatutos de juicio
político de Richard Nixon declaró:
"Él a través de sus subordinados y agentes
procurado causar una violación de los derechos constitucionales de los ciudadanos,
auditorías de impuestos u otras investigaciones de impuestos para ser abiertos
o realizados de forma discriminatoria . "
El escándalo del IRS es una ofensa acusable.
2-
EL
PRESIDENTE HA ASALTADO LA PRIMERA ENMIENDA
Una Prensa Libre es la base del gobierno representativo.
El Departamento de Justicia de Obama ha utilizado su poder para apoderarse de
los registros telefónicos personales de periodistas de de Associated Press . La
incautación secreta de un medio de comunicación importante registra un
precedente muy peligroso. Si esto no se cuestiona, no hay ninguna razón por la
que no pueden hacerlo de nuevo a cualquiera persona u organización política o
civil, en cualquier momento y por cualquier motivo. Esto constituye una ofensa
legal y acusable.
3-
El
presidente y sus subalternos han mentido al pueblo norteamericano y al Congreso
tanto como a todas las organizaciones política o legales de la Republica
Americana incluyendo a la Corte Suprema de Justicia en el lamentable caso de BENGHAZI
A medida que más está saliendo sobre el ataque
terrorista que mató a nuestro embajador y otros 3 en Libia, está claro que el
público americano se le dio información falsa sobre el ataque. El C.I.A. supo
de inmediato que era un asociado , el ataque planeado Al- Quada para conmemorar
11/9, sin embargo, los "temas de conversación " oficiales fueron
editados a tomar cualquier mención a ese cabo y mantener esa información lejos
del público durante la campaña de reelección de Obama. Desviando la atención de
los americanos diciendo que era una ataque debido a una película sobre Mahoma,
cosa que se demostró ser una mentira.
4-
Estas tres primeras razones, el escándalo del
IRS, el asalto a la primera enmienda y
el de Benghasi son más que suficientes para pedir una investigación y un juicio
político.
ANULACION DEL PROCESO LEGISLATIVO REQUERIDO POR
LA CONSTITUCIÓN
En 2010, un memorándum interno filtrado a partir
de una división del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional de Obama (DHS ) titulado
"Alternativas Administrativo para la Reforma Migratoria " esbozó una
forma de eludir el Congreso sobre esta cuestión. Dijo que " esto podría
ser una" versión no legislativa de amnistía. "Claramente, esto estaba
destinado a apaciguar al gran bloque de votantes hispanos que sería fundamental
en su 2012 a la reelección. Cuando el Congreso se negó a aprobar el Dream Act, Obama de la Casa Blanca y el DHS decidió
implementar una política de concesión de extranjeros ilegales estancias de
rechazo , que es esencialmente una amnistía por decreto. La política de Obama
incluso da a los funcionarios de inmigración locales la autoridad para despedir
a los casos de deportación contra los criminales extranjeros ilegales
condenados por delitos violentos.
Creo que Obama está manipulando administrativamente
la Constitución y abusa del poder presidencial para forzar su agenda radical , para
fundamentalmente transformar los Estados Unidos.
Su abuso del poder presidencial y flagrante
desprecio por nuestro proceso legislativo constitucional es motivo de audiencias
oficiales de acusación.
5-
ELOBAMACARE
DESTRUYE EN ÚLTIMA INSTANCIA LA LIBERTAD CONSTITUCIONAL DE LOS AMERICANOS.
El congresista Liberal John Dingell explicó por
qué decidieron esperar hasta 2014 para aplicar plenamente Obama Care: " Se
necesita mucho tiempo para hacer los trámites administrativos necesarios que
deben ser adoptadas para poner la legislación en conjunto para controlar a la
gente. "Obama Care crea 159 nuevas agencias gubernamentales - y construye
y enorme aparato administrativo del gobierno burocrático al estilo soviético .
Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos de Obama (HHS). viola la primera
enmienda al obligar a los empleadores a cubrir los medicamentos y
anticonceptivos abortivos en el seguro de salud que se ofrecen a los empleados,
incluso si va en contra de sus objeciones religiosas o morales. Además, el
Tribunal Supremo consideró la expansión de Medicaid en Obama Care es una
violación de la Constitución.
El ObamaCare debe ser dejado sin fondos y
desmantelado ?
El hecho de que el HHS de Obama está violando la
primera enmienda es una de las muchas razones que el Congreso debe convocar a
una investigación oficial de Acusación en actos inconstitucionales de Obama.
6-
OBAMA
SE NIEGA A HACER CUMPLIR LAS LEYES QU NO LE GUSTAN.
Los sindicatos reciben un tratamiento
preferencial especial bajo la ley. En algunas industrias y estados , es
imposible trabajar sin ser miembro del sindicato. Es regresar para este trato
de favor especial en virtud de la ley, se requiere que los sindicatos de
trabajadores de detallar e informar de todos los recibos detallados de los
gastos sindicales. Pero el gobierno de Obama a anunciar abiertamente que dejará
de hacer cumplir las leyes que obligan a los sindicatos a informar cómo gastan
las cuotas de los miembros del sindicato.
Obama se niega a ejecutar fielmente las leyes de
la tierra en relación con la responsabilidad financiera para los jefes
sindicales y eso es motivo de Audiencias Oficiales del Congreso del presidente
Obama.
La decisión del presidente Obama de no hacer
cumplir las leyes de divulgación de información financiera para los jefes
sindicales es otra forma para el presidente Obama para pagar los dirigentes
sindicales por todo el apoyo y el dinero que canalizan para apoyar las operaciones
políticas del presidente Obama.
7-
LA
PERCEPCIÓN DE LOS IMPUESTOS SOBRE LA INCONSTUCIONALIDAD PÚBLICA.
Según nuestra Constitución , los impuestos sólo
puede realizarse a el pueblo estadounidense con la aprobación de nuestros
representantes en el Congreso . Cuando Barak Obama no podría conseguir que el
Congreso apruebe "Cap and Trade", su EPA comenzó la subasta de
derechos de emisión de gases de efecto invernadero - básicamente la imposición
de un impuesto sobre las emisiones . Y se pasa por alto el proceso legislativo
necesario bajo nuestra Constitución. Algunos
tribunales federales están descubriendo que la Administración Obama ha excedido
su autoridad legal con otras normas ambientales.
Esta manera
de "ROBAR" de gravar al público - sin representación en el
Congreso - también se encuentra entre las muchas razones que el Congreso debe
abrir una investigación oficial Acusación en actos inconstitucionales de Barack
Obama?
8-
EL
PRESIDENTE ESTA DESTRUYENDO LA LIBERTAD DE LOS AMERICANOS.
A Barack Husein Obama en una entrevista 06 de
septiembre 2001 se le preguntó acerca de sus pensamientos sobre la Constitución
y dijo lo siguiente:
"Pero creo que ( la Constitución) es un
documento imperfecto, y creo que es un documento que refleja algunos defectos
profundos en la cultura americana, la cultura colonial naciente en ese momento
... y en ese sentido , creo que podemos decir que la Constitución refleja un
enorme punto ciego en esta cultura que lleva hasta el día de hoy , y que los
redactores tenían el mismo punto ciego ".
El 9 de febrero de 2009, Jefe de despacho de
presidente Obama de Rahm Emanuel hizo esta declaración :
"Uno nunca puede dejar que una crisis se
pierda. ¿Qué quiero decir con esto es que es una oportunidad de hacer cosas que
no podía hacer antes. "
Esto te suena como la Casa Blanca de Obama está
menos interesado en la protección de la libertad para los estadounidenses y de
proteger La Constitución o más interesados en la
promoción de una agenda radical que es incompatible con la libertad y el
gobierno limitado ?
Creo que la Casa Blanca de Obama está
dedicado a la protección de sus secretas agendas que en la libertad y de
nuestra Constitución. Creo que la Casa Blanca de Obama está más
interesado en imponer su agenda radical en América que en cualquier otra cosa.
El cree que el propósito principal de la
Constitución de los Estados Unidos debe ser la creación de una burocracia administrativa
vasta de gobierno diseñado para " controlar a la gente " (como el presidente
Obama y la izquierda están haciendo ahora) ? Cuando el propósito verdadero principal valor de
nuestra Constitución es proteger la libertad a través de un gobierno limitado
El propósito de nuestra Constitución
es la de no es el de controlar a la gente como quiere Obama, y sus seguidores; a
través de un gobierno grande con una burocrática asfixiante.
A la luz del manejo negativo de Barack Husein Obama
de la Constitución de los Estados Unidos, podemos creer que el presidente Barack
Hussein Obama se está burlando de su juramento en la toma de posesión de su
cargo. De respetar, hacer valer, “proteger y defender” la Constitución de los
Estados Unidos. El presidente Obama no está cumpliendo su juramento
de proteger y defender la Constitución y ha dejado claro que se opone a nuestra
Constitución.
9-
Presidente
Obama está protegiendo y defendiendo sus intereses socialistoides y
destructores de la nación americana y su Constitución.
Creo que el presidente Obama está violando y
destruyendo los principios que rigen la Republica y los deseos del americano. Él
está tratando de transformar a Estados Unidos en algo distinto. El presidente Obama odia a América Y está yendo
en contra de los principios establecidos por los Padres de la Patria cuando
constituyeron a Los Estados Unidos de América. Que están muy claramente
descritos en La constitución de los Estados Unidos. El presidente Obama es más
un enemigo de la libertad y los derechos de los americanos, y se dedica a destruir
los pilares de la Nación Americana. Por lo tanto es inexcusable que no se haya
empezado una: UNA INVESTIGACIÓN DEL
CONGRESO OFICIAL SOBRE TODAS LAS VOIOLACIONES Y LAS CONTRAVENCIONES DEL
PRESIDENTE REALIZADAS INCOMPATIBLES CON EL DESEMPENO DEL CARGO DE PRESIDENTE DE
LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS.
Creo que el nuevo Congreso debe iniciar de
inmediato una investigación oficial sobre si es o no el presidente Obama ha
protegido y defendido fielmente la Constitución de los Estados Unidos, como lo
requiere el juramento de su cargo?
¿Vas a seguir con los brazos cruzados, sin hacer
nada?
LAZARO
R GONZALEZ MINO.
En
Miami, Florida en el mes de Abril 20, 2014
English:
No 641 "In my opinion," April 19,
2014
"IN GOD WE TRUST " Lázaro R
González Miño Editor
Lords Senators, Congressional
Representatives and Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States of
America: This is the call of a concerned citizen and occupied by the greatest
misfortune facing our country throughout its history. This is a call to immediately
, with courage and determination to face the biggest problem that the American
nation has suffered in its history . The current situation is worse than any of
the wars we've had to fight; because this time the enemy is within and sitting
in the highest office in the land .
President Barack Hussein Obama the nation
has to be removed from office as president because the survival of America
depends on it.
REASONS WHY SHOULD remove Barack Hussein
Obama from office of President of the United States of America By A TRIAL IN
THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES.
1 - WRONG AND ILLEGAL USE OF IRS as a
political weapon AGAINST AMERICAN AND ESPECIALLY THEIR OPPONENTS .
. The IRS has infiltrated , spied on and
harassed conservative groups who are Obama 's political enemies - including
during the election year of 2012 , Section 1 , Article 2 of the Articles of
Impeachment of Richard Nixon declared:
" He through his subordinates and
agents sought to cause a violation of the constitutional rights of citizens,
tax audits or other tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a
discriminatory manner . "
The IRS scandal is an impeachable offense.
2 - THE PRESIDENT HAS FIRST AMENDMENT
ASSAULTED
A Free Press is the basis of representative
government. The Obama Justice Department has used its power to seize the
personal phone records of journalists from the Associated Press. The secret
seizure of a major media shows a very dangerous precedent. If this is not
questioned , there is no reason why they can not do it again to any person or
political or civic organization , at any time and for any reason. This is a
legal and impeachable offense.
3 - The president and his underlings have
lied to the American people and Congress as well as all political or legal
organizations including the American Republic to the Supreme Court in the
unfortunate event of BENGHAZI
As more is coming out about the terrorist
attack that killed our ambassador in Libya and 3 other , it is clear that the
American public was given false information about the attack. The C.I.A. knew
immediately that he was a partner, the planned attack Al- Quada to commemorate
9/11, however, the " talking points" officers were edited to make any
mention of that out and keep that information away from the public during the
campaign Obama's reelection . Diverting attention from the Americans saying it
was an attack because a movie about Muhammad , which was shown to be a lie .
4 - These first three reasons, the IRS
scandal , the assault on the First Amendment and the Benghazi are more than
enough to ask for an investigation and impeachment.
CANCELLATION OF THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS
REQUIRED BY THE CONSTITUTION
In 2010, an internal memo leaked from a
division of the Department of Homeland Security Obama (DHS ) entitled "
Administrative Alternatives to Comprehensive Immigration Reform " outlined
a way to bypass the Congress on this issue. He said " this could be a
" non-legislative version of amnesty. " Clearly, this was meant to
appease the large block of Hispanic voters who would be instrumental in his
2012 re-election. When Congress refused to pass the Dream Act, Obama White
House and DHS decided to implement a policy of granting illegal aliens stay of
rejection, which is essentially an amnesty by decree. policy Obama even gives
local immigration officials the authority to dismiss deportation cases against
illegal aliens criminals convicted of violent crimes .
I think Obama is administratively
manipulating the Constitution and abuse of presidential power to force their
radical agenda to fundamentally transform the United States.
His abuse of presidential power and blatant
disregard for our constitutional legislative process is of official impeachment
hearings .
5 - ELOBAMACARE ULTIMATELY DESTROY THE
AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL FREEDOM .
The Liberal Congressman John Dingell
explained why they decided to wait until 2014 to fully implement Obama Care
" . Required much time to do the necessary administrative steps to be
taken to put the legislation together to control the people " make Obama
Care 159 and builds and huge administrative apparatus of the Soviet-style
bureaucratic government - new government agencies . Department of Health and
Human Services Obama ( HHS). violates the First Amendment by forcing employers
to cover contraceptives and abortifacient drugs in health insurance offered to
employees , even if it goes against their religious or moral objections .
Moreover, the Supreme Court considered the expansion of Medicaid in Obama Care
is a violation of the Constitution.
The ObamaCare should be left without funds
and dismantled ?
The fact that Obama HHS is violating the
First Amendment is one of the many reasons that Congress must convene a formal
inquiry indictment unconstitutional acts of Obama.
6 - OBAMA REFUSES TO ENFORCE THE LAW DOES
NOT LIKE WHAT .
Unions receive special preferential
treatment under the law . In some industries and states, it is impossible to
work without being a union member . Is back for this special favorable
treatment under the law, requires labor unions to itemize and report all
itemized receipts of union expenditures. But the Obama administration to openly
announce that it will no longer enforce laws requiring unions to report how
they spend dues of union members.
Obama refuses to faithfully execute the
laws of the land in relation to the financial responsibility to the union
bosses and that is reason for Official Congressional Hearings of President
Obama.
President Obama 's decision not to enforce
the laws of financial disclosure for union leaders is another way for President
Obama to pay union officials for all the support and the money channeled to
support President Obama's political operations .
7 - THE COLLECTION OF TAXES ON PUBLIC
INCONSTUCIONALIDAD .
Under our Constitution , taxes can only be
made to the American people with the approval of our representatives in
Congress. When Barak Obama could not get Congress to pass "Cap and
Trade" , EPA began its auction of allowances of greenhouse gases -
primarily the imposition of a tax on emissions. And it ignores the necessary
legislative process under our Constitution . Some federal courts are finding
that the Obama administration has exceeded its legal authority with other
environmental regulations.
This way of " STEALING " taxing
the public - without representation in Congress - is also among the many
reasons that Congress should open an official investigation Indictment
unconstitutional acts of Barack Obama?
8 - THE PRESIDENT IS DESTROYING AMERICAN
FREEDOM .
A Barack Hussein Obama in an interview
Sept. 6, 2001 he was asked about his thoughts on the constitution and said the
following:
"But I think ( the Constitution ) is
an imperfect document , and I think it is a document that reflects some deep
flaws in American culture , the nascent colonial culture at that time ... and
in that sense , I think we can say that the Constitution reflected an enormous
blind spot in this culture that leads to today , and that the drafters had the
same blind spot. "
On February 9, 2009 , Head office of
President Obama Rahm Emanuel made this statement:
"You can never let a crisis be lost.
What do I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you could not do
before . "
This sounds like the Obama White House is
less interested in protecting freedom for Americans and protect the
Constitution or more interested in promoting a radical agenda that is
incompatible with freedom and limited government ?
I think the Obama White House
is dedicated to protecting their secret agendas that freedom and our
Constitution. I think the Obama White House is more interested in imposing
their radical agenda in America than anything else.
He believes that the main purpose of the
Constitution of the United States should be the creation of a vast administrative
bureaucracy of government designed to " control the people " (as
President Obama and the left are doing now) ? When the principal value true
purpose of our Constitution is to protect freedom through limited government
The purpose of our Constitution
is to is not to control people like Obama wants , and his followers ; through a
big government with a suffocating bureaucracy .
In light of the negative handling Hussein
Barack Obama of the Constitution of the United States, we believe that
President Barack Hussein Obama is making fun of his oath taking up office .
Respect, asserting, " protect and defend " the Constitution of the
United States. President Obama is not fulfilling his oath to protect and defend
the Constitution and has made clear that it opposes our Constitution.
9 - President Obama is protecting and
defending their interests and socialistic destroyers of the American nation and
its Constitution.
I think President Obama is violating and
destroying the principles that govern the Republic and the wishes of the
American. He is trying to transform the United States into something else.
President Obama hates America and is going against the principles established
by the Founding Fathers when formed to the United States of America. They are
very clearly described in the Constitution of the United States. President
Obama is an enemy of freedom and the rights of Americans, and is dedicated to
destroying the pillars of the American Nation. Therefore it is inexcusable that
has not started a : RESEARCH OFFICER VOIOLACIONES CONGRESS AND ALL VIOLATIONS
OF THE PRESIDENT MADE INCONSISTENT WITH PERFORMANCE OF OFFICE OF PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES.
I think the new Congress should immediately
initiate an official investigation into whether or not President Obama has
faithfully protected and defended the Constitution of the United States, as
required by the oath of office ?
Are you going to continue with his arms
crossed , doing nothing ?
MINO R
LAZARO GONZALEZ .
In Miami , Florida in the month of April
20, 2014
Just In: Obama Accused By Congressman Of Illegal
Action At Bundy Ranch
He cites a severe violation of U.S. Code --
43 U.S.C. Section 1733, Subsection C
After the federal Bureau of Land Management agents
backed down from their intimidating stance at the Bundy Ranch last weekend, ample
evidence has surfaced indicating the standoff between the government and the
Nevada ranching family is far from over. Throughout the weeklong stalemate,
members of the Bundy family were physically assaulted by armed officers,
numerous cows were shot dead, and protesters faced threats of gunfire for
merely expressing their outrage.
Immediately after what many considered a victory
against a tyrannical federal agency, a number of leftist voices – most notably,
Sen. Harry Reid – indicated the action against this family will continue.
In response, Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman sent
a letter to Barack Obama, Department of the Interior Sec. Sally Jewell, and BLM
Director Neil Kornze, laying out his position that any such action by the
agency would violate the U.S. Constitution.
“Because of this standoff,” he wrote, “I have looked
into BLM’s authority to conduct such paramilitary raids against American
citizens, and it appears that BLM is acting in a lawless manner in Nevada.”
He cited the limited powers granted to the federal
government, noting the bureau has no “right to assume preemptory police powers,
that role being reserved to the States,” and explained “many federal laws
require the federal government to seek assistance from local law enforcement whenever
the use of force may become necessary.”
The letter included a section of the U.S. Code — 43
U.S.C. Section 1733, Subsection C — stating exactly that point. [Emphasis
Stockman's]
“When the Secretary determines that assistance is
necessary in enforcing Federal laws and regulations relating to the public
lands or their resources he shall offer
a contract to appropriate local officials having law enforcement authority
within their respective jurisdictions with the view of achieving maximum
feasible reliance upon local law enforcement officials in enforcing such laws
and regulations.”
In the case of the Bundy Ranch, he continued, “the
relevant local law enforcement officials appear to be the Sheriff of Clark
County, Nevada, Douglas C. Gillespie.”
Gillespie, however, conspicuously took a back seat to
BLM forces during the standoff.
“Indeed,” Stockman wrote, “the exact type of crisis
that the federal government has provoked at the Bundy ranch is the very type of
incident that Congress knew could be avoided by relying on local law
enforcement officials.”
The stated purpose of the correspondence is for the
Obama administration “to bring the BLM into compliance with 43 U.S.C. section
1733.”
Absent a full investigation into the agency’s actions,
he concluded, “the federal government must not only stand down, but remove all
federal personnel from anywhere near the Bundy ranch.”
Legislators and law enforcement personnel have stood
alongside state militia members and the Bundy family in opposing the excessive
force employed by the BLM. Stockman’s letter adds even more weight to the
growing sentiment against the federal overreach.
Read more at http://www.westernjournalism.com/congressman-pens-letter-obama-blasting-lawless-blm/#rbjpPeqmeSHj9zFq.99
Rebels With A Clue: Gun Control is Failing
Because Americans Refuse to Obey
Despite the media and President Obama
pushing an anti-gun agenda, support for gun
control is falling, evidenced by polls and the waning
influence of Mayor Bloomberg’s
anti-gun group, as well as open rebellion against gun
registration in two states.
About 90%
of New York gun owners have refused to register their
“assault weapons” ahead of the April 15 deadline, some going so far as to burn their
registration forms in protest, and hundreds
of thousands of Connecticut gun owners have
failed to register as well.
It is at a time like this that gun owners and supporters of the Second
Amendment must rally
around the defiant ones in Connecticut and New York,
providing them support as they stand up for their right to keep and bear arms.
It was recently asked in an op-ed for Townhall, what happens when a liberal government passes a gun control law and
nobody obeys it? It points to the civil disobedience on display in
Connecticut and New York as prime examples.
Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy, who recently mocked
gun owners by saying “your side lost”,
signed tough gun registration regulations into law, that took effect on Dec.
31, 2013.
The Malloy regime expected Connecticut residents to register somewhere
between 372,000-400,000 firearms, and roughly 2 million firearm magazines that
held more than 10 rounds before January 1.
Just 50,000 of the estimated 372,000 so-called “assault weapons” in the
state were registered by the deadline, or less than 15 percent. That’s still
far better than the anemic 38,000 “high capacity” magazines that were reported
to authorities, out of 2 million.
This lack of responsiveness by Connecticut gun owners has left
politicians and the media wondering what to do.
The newspaper [Hartford
Courant] released an unsigned editorial on Valentine’s Day titled
“State Can’t Let Gun Scofflaws Off Hook,” and argued that the state should use
the background check database to hunt down non-compliant owners, presumably
targeting them for police raids and arrests.
We can only assume that the Courant’s newsroom staff skipped American
history in school, or they would know what happened the last time a group of
government forces attempted a series of dramatic gun control raids in a
neighboring state. As I recall, that day, April 19, 1775, went rather poorly
for the British Regulars under Lt. Col. Smith.
Read more at http://girlsjustwannahaveguns.com/2014/04/rebels-clue-gun-control-failing-americans-refuse-obey/#zlp4ZOxfiHdCYYAc.99
Samitier: La Mala Memoria De Muchos
Cubanos Nos Condena
El gran cantante Cheo Feliciano ha
fallecido igualmente el premio Nobel Gabriel García Márquez y Pretenden Que Se Olvide La Complicidad De Ambos Con La Tiranía
Castrista
Las Cosas Que No Debemos Olvidar
Olvidaras Es Equivalente A TRAICIÓN...
Por María Argelia Vizcaíno
17 de abril de 2014
Me duele tanto que la mala memoria de
muchos de mis compatriotas cubanos, sea gran parte culpable de que estemos
condenados por más de cinco décadas a sufrir la peor tiranía del continente
americano, que no puedo dejar de escribir por qué un 17 de abril es llamado con
justicia el “Día de la Traición”.
Ahora que acaba de fallecer un gran artista
puertorriqueño, Cheo Feliciano, no puedo olvidar lo que ocurrió en octubre de
1997, cuando actuó en el Tropicana de La Habana, y las declaraciones tan
favorables que hizo de aquella nación que hacía 40 años estaba soñando visitar,
sin manifestar nada de lo que ha estado sufriendo el pueblo cubano por culpa de
un gobierno totalitario desde 1959.
Tampoco olvido la complicidad del
bolerista-sonero contra nuestra Celia Cruz cuando participó en uno de los actos
más repudiables ocurridos el sábado, 29 de abril del 2000, en el estadio
municipal Hiram Bithorn, de Puerto Rico, donde la Fania All Stars preparó el
encuentro titulado «De esto se trata ser leyenda». Como decimos en el argot
cubano, fue “una cama” lo que le prepararon a nuestra mejor representante
artística cubana. Para presentar a nuestra reina escogieron a Cheo Feliciano,
que pocos meses antes había vuelto a viajar a Cuba para grabar un disco y se
había cansado de declarar las maravillas que encontró bajo ese sistema
destructor. Dicho sea de paso, un disco titulado “Cheo Feliciano en Cuba” y que
de las 10 canciones, sólo cuenta con un tema cubano, de Portillo de la Luz.
Al salir Celia a cantar la recibieron
con «tímidos aplausos» opacados rápidamente con vulgares abucheos, chiflidos y
gritos de «fuera», pidiendo a gritos por «Andy». Mucha casualidad que ese
concierto estaba respaldado por Andy Montañez y Cheo Feliciano.
Si quieren los detalles pueden leer mi
artículo “La Cruz de Celia” publicado enhttp://www.mariaargeliavizcaino.com/e-celiacruz.html , o escríbame a mi correomariaargelia@hotmail.com y yo se lo envío.
A esto el admirado periodista Andrés
Pascual en su excelente artículo titulado “La música cubana y el músico
boricua” (www.conexioncubana.net/tres_verdades/la-musica-cubana-y-el-musico-boricua), refiriéndose a Andy Montañez, Cheo
Feliciano y Papo Lucas nos dice, que “a pesar de sus viajes
promocionales pro Castro a la Isla para, a su vez, recibir dosis de activismo
político a desplegar en Puerto Rico por la vía del Independentismo vicioso, antiamericano
y antipuertorriqueño”, lograron un“fervoroso desarrollo del entusiasmo
castrocomunista”. Algo que no le gusta reconocer a los desmemoriados, o a
los desconocedores, o a los oportunistas, o a los que juraron tan fuertemente a
diario que serían como el asesino Guevara, que se les pegó encima del pecho más
fuerte que su propia pañoleta de pionero.
No obstante, nos unimos en oración por
el fallecimiento del artista, del esposo, el padre, el amigo, el
bolerista-sonero que fue Cheo Feliciano, por su descanso eterno y resignación
de sus familiares, pero eso no me hace olvidar que se prestó a darle
legitimidad a la tiranía que rige en mi patria, ni a su complicidad para
boicotear a nuestra Celia Cruz, ícono del exilio cubano.
¡Qué día le tocó abandonar el mundo de
los vivos!, nada menos que el 17 de abril, que se conmemora un aniversario más
de la traición cometida a los valientes patriotas cubanos que fueron a Bahía de
Cochinos a entregar su vida por la libertad de Cuba. Lo que representa otro
hecho histórico, que penosamente esos cubanos desmemoriados prefieren ni
mentar, ni informase al respecto. Por ellos, y algunas cosas más, estamos
condenados indefinidamente a sufrir la peor tiranía del continente americano, y
la indiferencia de tantos.
Por si fuera poco, hoy también ha
fallecido el premio Nobel Gabriel García Márquez, colombiano amigo personal del
tirano en jefe de Cuba, que gozó de muchísimos privilegios que le niegan a la
población cubana. Otra figura internacional que traicionó a nuestro pueblo, al
ponerse a favor de las violaciones de los derechos humanos y la libertad de
Cuba, alabando a un genocida. Su apostasía, vileza, infamia, confabulación, es
imperdonable. Por eso no me alegro de su muerte, pero no lo lloro. Solo lo
siento por sus admiradores, y sus alabarderos, que no saben nada de lo corrupto
que fue el premiado escritor.
Creo que la manera que han bautizado
al 17 de abril de 1961, como el “Día de la Traición”, ahora está más que
confirmado, y por partida triple.-
Samitier: The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet
Banks
are no longer just financing heavy industry. They are actually buying it up and
inventing bigger, bolder and scarier scams than ever
Illustration
by Victor Juhasz
Call
it the loophole that destroyed the world. It's 1999, the tail end of the
Clinton years. While the rest of America obsesses over Monica Lewinsky,
Columbine and Mark McGwire's biceps, Congress is feverishly crafting what could
yet prove to be one of the most transformative laws in the history of our
economy – a law that would make possible a broader concentration of financial
and industrial power than we've seen in more than a century.
But
the crazy thing is, nobody at the time quite knew it. Most observers on the Hill
thought the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 – also known as the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act – was just the latest and boldest in a long line of
deregulatory handouts to Wall Street that had begun in the Reagan years.
Wall
Street had spent much of that era arguing that America's banks needed to become
bigger and badder, in order to compete globally with the German and
Japanese-style financial giants, which were supposedly about to swallow up all
the world's banking business. So through legislative lackeys like red-faced
Republican deregulatory enthusiast Phil Gramm, bank lobbyists were pushing a
new law designed to wipe out 60-plus years of bedrock financial regulation. The
key was repealing – or "modifying," as bill proponents put it – the
famed Glass-Steagall Act separating bankers and brokers, which had been passed
in 1933 to prevent conflicts of interest within the finance sector that had led
to the Great Depression. Now, commercial banks would be allowed to merge with
investment banks and insurance companies, creating financial megafirms
potentially far more powerful than had ever existed in America.
All
of this was big enough news in itself. But it would take half a generation –
till now, basically – to understand the most explosive part of the bill, which
additionally legalized new forms of monopoly, allowing banks to merge with
heavy industry. A tiny provision in the bill also permitted commercial banks to
delve into any activity that is "complementary to a financial activity and
does not pose a substantial risk to the safety or soundness of depository
institutions or the financial system generally."
Complementary
to a financial activity. What the hell did that mean?
"From
the perspective of the banks," says Saule Omarova, a law professor at the
University of North Carolina, "pretty much everything is considered
complementary to a financial activity."
Fifteen
years later, in fact, it now looks like Wall Street and its lawyers took the
term to be a synonym for ruthless campaigns of world domination. "Nobody
knew the reach it would have into the real economy," says Ohio Sen.
Sherrod Brown. Now a leading voice on the Hill against the hidden provisions,
Brown actually voted for Gramm-Leach-Bliley as a congressman, along with all
but 72 other House members. "I bet even some of the people who were the
bill's advocates had no idea."
Today,
banks like Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs own oil tankers,
run airports and control huge quantities of coal, natural gas, heating oil,
electric power and precious metals. They likewise can now be found exerting
direct control over the supply of a whole galaxy of raw materials crucial to
world industry and to society in general, including everything from food
products to metals like zinc, copper, tin, nickel and, most infamously thanks
to a recent high-profile scandal, aluminum. And they're doing it not just here
but abroad as well: In Denmark, thousands took to the streets in protest in
recent weeks, vampire-squid banners in hand, when news came out that Goldman
Sachs was about to buy a 19 percent stake in Dong Energy, a national electric
provider. The furor inspired mass resignations of ministers from the
government's ruling coalition, as the Danish public wondered how an American
investment bank could possibly hold so much influence over the state energy grid.
There
are more eclectic interests, too. After 9/11, we found
it worrisome when foreigners started to get into the business of running ports,
but there's been little controversy as banks have done the same, or even
started dabbling in other activities with national-security implications –
Goldman Sachs, for instance, is apparently now in the uranium business, a piece
of news that attracted few headlines.
But
banks aren't just buying stuff, they're buying whole industrial processes.
They're buying oil that's still in the ground, the tankers that move it across
the sea, the refineries that turn it into fuel, and the pipelines that bring it
to your home. Then, just for kicks, they're also betting on the timing and
efficiency of these same industrial processes in the financial markets – buying
and selling oil stocks on the stock exchange, oil futures on the futures
market, swaps on the swaps market, etc.
Allowing
one company to control the supply of crucial physical commodities, and also
trade in the financial products that might be related to those markets, is an
open invitation to commit mass manipulation. It's something akin to letting
casino owners who take book on NFL games during the week also coach all the
teams on Sundays.
The
situation has opened a Pandora's box of horrifying new corruption
possibilities, but it's been hard for the public to notice, since regulators
have struggled to put even the slightest dent in Wall Street's older, more
familiar scams. In just the past few years we've seen an explosion of scandals
– from the multitrillion-dollar Libor saga (major international banks gaming
world interest rates), to the more recent foreign-currency-exchange fiasco
(many of the same banks suspected of rigging prices in the $5.3-trillion-a-day
currency markets), to lesser scandals involving manipulation of interest-rate
swaps, and gold and silver prices.
But
those are purely financial schemes. In these new, even scarier kinds of
manipulations, banks that own whole chains of physical business interests have
been caught rigging prices in those industries. For instance, in just the past
two years, fines in excess of $400 million have been levied against both
JPMorgan Chase and Barclays for allegedly manipulating the delivery of
electricity in several states, including California. In the case of Barclays,
which is contesting the fine, regulators claim prices were manipulated to help
the bank win financial bets it had made on those same energy markets.
And
last summer, The New York Times described how Goldman Sachs
was caught systematically delaying the delivery of metals out of a network of
warehouses it owned in order to jack up rents and artificially boost prices.
You
might not have been surprised that Goldman got caught scamming the world again,
but it was certainly news to a lot of people that an investment bank with no
industrial expertise, just five years removed from a federal bailout, stores
and controls enough of America's aluminum supply to affect world prices.
How
was all of this possible? And who signed off on it?
By
exploiting loopholes in a dense, decade-and-a-half-old piece of financial
legislation, Wall Street has effected a revolutionary change that American
citizens never discussed, debated or prepared for, and certainly never
explicitly permitted in any meaningful way: the wholesale merger of high
finance with heavy industry. This blitzkrieg reorganization of our economy has
left millions of Americans facing a smorgasbord of frightfully unexpected new
problems. Do we even have a regulatory structure in place to look out for these
new forms of manipulation? (Answer: We don't.) And given that the banking
sector that came so close to ruining the world economy five years ago has now
vastly expanded its footprint, who's in charge of preventing the next crash?
In
this Brave New World, nobody knows. Moreover, whatever we've done, it's too
late to have a referendum on it. Garrett Wotkyns, an Arizona-based class-action
attorney who has spent more than a year investigating the banks' involvement in
the metals markets and is suing Goldman and others over the aluminum case on
behalf of two major manufacturers, puts it this way: "It's like that line
in The Dark Knight Rises," he says. "'The storm isn't
coming. The storm is already here.'"
To this day, the provenance of the
"complementary activities" loophole that set much of this mess in
motion remains something of a mystery. We know from congressional records that
a vice chairman of JPMorgan, Michael Patterson, was one of the first to push
the idea in House testimony in February 1999 and that, later that year, an
early version of the bill put forward in the Senate by Phil Gramm also
contained the provision.
But even one of the final bill's
eventual authors, Republican congressman Jim Leach, can't remember exactly
whose idea adding the "complementary activities" line was. "I
know of no legislative history of the provision," he says. "It
probably came from the Senate side."
Moreover, Leach was shocked to hear that
regulators had pointed to this section of a bill bearing his name as the legal
authority allowing banks to gain control over physical-commodities markets.
"That's news to me," says the mortified ex-congressman, now a law
professor at the University of Iowa. "I assume no one at the time would
have thought it would apply to commodities brokering of a nature that has
recently been reported."
One thing that is clear in the public
record is that nobody was talking, at least publicly, about banks someday
owning oil tankers or controlling the supply of industrial metals.
The JPMorgan witness, Michael Patterson,
told the House Financial Services Committee at the 1999 hearing that his idea
of "complementary activities" was, say, a credit-card company putting
out a restaurant guide. "One example is American Express, which publishes
magazines," he testified. "Travel + Leisure magazine is
complementary to the travel business. Food & Winepromotes
dining out . . . which might lead to greater use of the
American Express card."
"That's how insignificant this was
supposed to be," says Omarova. "They were talking about being allowed
to put out magazines."
Even apart from the
"complementary" provision, Gramm quietly added another time bomb to
the law, a grandfather clause, which said that any company that became a bank
holding company after the passage of Gramm-Leach-Bliley in 1999 could engage in
(or control shares of a company engaged in) commodities trading – but only if
it was already doing so before a seemingly arbitrary date in September 1997.
This meant that if you were a bank holding
company at the time the law was passed and you wanted to get into the
commodities business, you were out of luck, because the federal law prohibited
banks from being involved in physical commodities or any other forms of heavy
industry. But if you were already a commodities dealer in 1997 and then somehow
became a bank holding company, you could get into whatever you pleased.
This was nuts. It was a little like
passing a law that ordered you to leave the Army if you were gay in November
1999 – but if you were a heterosexual soldier as of September 1997 and then
somehow became gay after 1999, you could stay in the Army.
To this day, nobody is exactly clear on
what the grandfather clause means. If a company traded in tin before 1997 and
then became a bank holding company in 2015, would it have to stick with tin? Or
did the fact that it traded tin in 1997 mean the company could buy oil tankers
and pipelines in 2020?
In 2012, the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York – the most powerful branch of the Fed, the primary regulator of bank
holding companies and the final authority on these things – put out a paper
saying it had no clue about the exact meaning of the provision. "The legal
scope of the exemption," a trio of New York Fed officials wrote in July
that year, "is widely seen as ambiguous." Just a few weeks ago, the
Fed's director of banking supervision, Michael Gibson, told the Senate,
"I'm not a lawyer," and that it's "under review."
It almost didn't matter. For nearly a
decade, this obscure provision of Gramm-Leach-Bliley effectively applied to
nobody. Then, in the third week of September 2008, while the economy was
imploding after the collapses of Lehman and AIG, two of America's biggest
investment banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, found themselves in desperate
need of emergency financing. So late on a Sunday night, on September 21st,
to be exact, the two banks announced they had applied to the Federal Reserve to
become bank holding companies, which would give them lifesaving access to
emergency cash from the Fed's discount window.
The Fed granted the requests overnight.
The move saved the bacon of both firms, and it had one additional benefit: It
made Goldman and Morgan Stanley, which both had significant commodity-trading
operations prior to 1997, the first and last two companies to qualify for the
grandfather exemption of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. "Kind of convenient,
isn't it?" says one congressional aide. "It's almost like the law was
written specifically for them."
The irony was incredible. After fucking
up so badly that the government had to give them federal bank charters and
bottomless wells of free cash to save their necks, the feds gave Goldman Sachs
and Morgan Stanley hall passes to become cross-species monopolistic powers with
almost limitless reach into any sectors of the economy.
And they weren't the only accidental
beneficiaries of the crisis. JPMorgan Chase acquired the commodity-trading
operations of Bear Stearns in early 2008, after the Fed pledged billions in
guarantees to help Chase rescue the doomed investment bank. Within the next two
years, Chase also acquired the commodities operations of another failing bank,
the newly nationalized Royal Bank of Scotland, which included Henry Bath, a
U.K.-based company that owns a large network of warehouses throughout Europe.
As a result, entering 2010, these three
companies were newly empowered to go out and start doubling down on investments
in physical industry. Through a fortuitous circumstance, the cost of financing
for bank holding companies had also dropped like a stone by the end of 2009, as
the Fed slashed interest rates almost to zero in a desperate attempt to
stimulate the economy out of its post-crash doldrums.
The sudden turning on of this huge
faucet of free money seems to have been a factor in an ensuing commodities
shopping spree undertaken by all three firms. Morgan Stanley, for instance,
claimed to have just $2.5 billion in commodity assets in March 2009. By
September 2011, those holdings had nearly quadrupled, to $10.3 billion.
Goldman and Chase – along with Glencore
and Trafigura, a pair of giant Swiss-based conglomerates that were offshoots of
a firm founded by notorious deceased commodities trader and known market
manipulator Marc Rich – all made notably coincidental purchases of
metals-warehousing companies in 2010.
The presence of these Marc Rich entities
is particularly noteworthy. According to famed Forbes reporter
Paul Klebnikov, who was assassinated in 2004 after years of reports on Russian
corruption, Rich made a fortune in the early Nineties striking crooked deals
with the Soviet bosses who controlled the U.S.S.R.'s supplies of raw materials
– in particular commodities like zinc and aluminum. These deals helped create a
fledgling class of profiteers among the bosses of the crumbling Soviet empire,
a class that would go on years later to help push Russia out of its communist
past into its kleptocratic present.
"He'd strike a deal with the local
party boss, or the director of a state-owned company," Klebnikov said back
in 2001. "He'd say, 'OK, you will sell me the [commodity] at five to 10
percent of the world-market price . . . and in return, I will deposit some of
the profit I make by reselling it 10 times higher on the world market, and put
the kickback in a Swiss bank account.'"
Rich made these reported deals while in
exile from the United States, which he fled in 1983 after the U.S. government
charged him with tax evasion, wire fraud, racketeering and trading with the
enemy after being caught trading with rogue states like Iran, among other
things. The state filed enough counts to put him away for life, and he remained
a fugitive until January 2001, when a little-known Clinton administration
Justice Department official named Eric Holder recommended Rich be pardoned. A report
by the House Committee on Government Reform later concluded that Holder had not
provided a credible explanation for supporting Rich's pardon and that he must
have had "other motivations" that he didn't share with Congress.
Among other things, the committee speculated that Holder had designs on the
attorney general's office in a potential Al Gore administration.
In any case, in 2010, a decade after the
Rich pardon, Holder was attorney general, but under Barack Obama, and two
Rich-created firms, along with two banks that have been major donors to the
Democratic Party, all made moves to buy up metals warehouses. In near
simultaneous fashion, Goldman, Chase, Glencore and Trafigura bought companies
that control warehouses all over the world for the LME, or London Metals
Exchange. The LME is a privately owned exchange for world metals trading. It's
the world's primary hub for determining metals prices and also for trading
metals-based futures, options, swaps and other instruments.
"If they were just interested in
collecting rent for metals storage, they'd have bought all kinds of
warehouses," says Manal Mehta, the founder of Sunesis Capital, a hedge
fund that has done extensive research on the banks' forays into the commodities
markets. "But they seemed to focus on these official LME facilities."
The JPMorgan deal seemed to be in direct
violation of an order sent to the bank by the Fed in 2005, which declared the
bank was not authorized to "own, operate, or invest in facilities for the
extraction, transportation, storage, or distribution of commodities." The
way the Fed later explained this to the Senate was that the purchase of Henry
Bath was OK because it considered the acquisition of this commodities company
kosher within the context of a larger sale that the Fed was cool with –
"If the bulk of the acquisition is a permissible activity, they're allowed
to include a small amount of impermissible activities."
What's more, according to LME
regulations, no warehouse company can also own metal or make trades on the exchange.
While they may have been following the letter of the law, they were certainly
violating the spirit: Goldman preposterously seems to have engaged in all three
activities simultaneously, changing a hat every time it wanted to switch roles.
It conducted its metal trades through its commodities subsidiary J. Aron, and
then put Metro, its warehouse company, in charge of the storage, and according
to industry experts, Goldman most likely owned some metal, though the company
has remained vague on the subject.
If you're wondering why the LME would
permit a seemingly blatant violation of its own rules, a good place to start
would be to look at who owned the LME at the time. Although it eventually sold
itself to a Hong Kong company in 2012, in 2010 the LME was owned by a
consortium of banks and financial companies. The two largest shareholders?
Goldman and JPMorgan Chase.
Humorously, another was Koch Metals
(2.32 percent), a commodities concern that's part of the Koch brothers' empire.
The Kochs have been caught up in their own commodity-manipulation schemes,
including an episode in 2008, in which they rented out huge tankers and used
them to store excess oil offshore essentially as floating warehouses, taking
cheap oil out of available supply and thereby helping to drive up energy
prices. Additionally, some banks have been accused of similar oil-hoarding
schemes.
The motive for the Kochs, or anyone
else, to hoard a commodity like oil can be almost beautiful in its simplicity.
Basically, a bank or a trading company wants to buy commodities cheap in the
present and sell them for a premium as futures. This trade, sometimes called
"arbitraging the contango," works best if the cost of storing your
oil or metals or whatever you're dealing with is negligible – you make more
money off the futures trade if you don't have to pay rent while you wait to
deliver.
So when financial firms suddenly start buying
oil tankers or warehouses, they could be doing so to make bets pay off, as part
of a speculative strategy – which is why the banks' sudden acquisitions of
metals-storage companies in 2010 is so noteworthy.
These were not minor projects. The firms
put high-ranking executives in charge of these operations. Goldman's
acquisition of Metro was the project of Isabelle Ealet, the bank's then-global
commodities chief. (In a curious coincidence commented upon by several sources
for this story, many of Goldman's most senior officials, including CEO Lloyd
Blankfein and president Gary Cohn, started their careers in Goldman's
commodities division.)
Meanwhile, Chase's own head of
commodities operations, Blythe Masters – an even more famed Wall Street figure,
sometimes described as the inventor of the credit default swap – admitted that
her company's warehouse interests weren't just a casual thing. "Just being
able to trade financial commodities is a serious limitation because financial
commodities represent only a tiny fraction of the reality of the real commodity
exposure picture," she said in 2010.
Loosely translated, Masters was saying
that there was a limited amount of money to be made simply trading commodities
in the traditional legal manner. The solution? "We need to be active in
the underlying physical commodity markets," she said, "in order to
understand and make prices."
We need to make prices. The head of Chase's commodities
division actually said this, out loud, and it speaks to both the general
unlikelihood of God's existence and the consistently low level of competence of
America's regulators that she was not immediately zapped between the eyebrows
with a thunderbolt upon doing so. Instead, the government sat by and watched as
a curious phenomenon developed at all of these new bank-owned warehouses, in
the aluminum markets in particular.
As detailed by New York Times reporter
David Kocieniewski last July, Goldman had bought into these warehouses and soon
began pointlessly shuttling stocks of aluminum from one warehouse to another.
It was a "merry-go-round of metal," as one former forklift operator
called it, a scheme of delays apparently designed to drive up prices of the
metal used to make the stuff we all buy – like beer cans, flashlights and car
parts.
When Goldman bought Metro in February
2010, the average delivery time for an aluminum order was six weeks. Under
Goldman ownership, Metro's delivery times soon ballooned by a factor of 10, to
an average of 16 months, leading in part to the explosive growth of a surcharge
called the Midwest premium, which represented not the cost of aluminum itself
but the cost of its storage and delivery, a thing easily manipulated when you
control the supply. So despite the fact that the overall LME price of aluminum
fell during this time, the Midwest premium conspicuously surged in the other
direction. In 2008, it represented about three percent of the LME price of
aluminum. By 2013, it was a whopping 15 percent of the benchmark (it has since
spiked to 25 percent).
"In layman's terms, they were
artificially jacking up the shipping and handling costs," says Mehta.
The intentional warehouse delays were
just one part of the anti-capitalist game the banks were playing. As an
incentive to get metal under their control, they actually paid the industrial
producers of aluminum extra cash to store the metal in their warehouses, fees
reportedly as much as $230 a metric ton.
Both Goldman and Glencore reportedly
offered such incentives, which not only allowed the companies to collect more
rent (Goldman was charging a daily rate of 48 cents a metric ton) but also
served to discourage industrial producers like Alcoa or the Russian industrial
giant Rusal (which has Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg on its board of directors)
from selling directly to manufacturers.
The result of all this was a
bottlenecking of aluminum supplies. A crucial industrial material that was
plentiful and even in oversupply was now stuck in the speculative
merry-go-round of the bank finance trade.
Every time you bought a can of soda in
2011 and 2012, you paid a little tax thanks to firms like Goldman. Mehta, whose
fund has a financial stake in the issue, insists there's an irony here that
should infuriate everyone. "Banks used taxpayer-backed subsidies," he
says, "to drive up prices for the very same taxpayers that bailed them out
in the first place."
Dave Smith, Coca-Cola's strategic
procurement manager, told reporters as early as the summer of 2011 that
"the situation has been organized to artificially drive up premiums."
Nick Madden, the chief procurement officer of Novelis, a leading can-maker,
said at roughly the same time that the delays in Detroit were adding $20 to $40
a metric ton to the price of aluminum.
Coca-Cola was the first to file a
complaint against Goldman over the warehouse issue, doing so in mid-2011, and
many people in and around the industry weren't surprised that it was the
world's biggest and most powerful corporate consumer of aluminum that came
forward first. Other manufacturers, many believe, kept their mouths shut out of
fear the banks would punish them. "It's very likely that commercial
companies deliberately avoided an open confrontation with Goldman because it
was a Wall Street powerhouse with which they had – or hoped to establish –
important credit and financial-advisory relationships," says Omarova. One
government official who has investigated the issue for Congress said even some
of the country's largest aluminum users have been reluctant to come forward.
"When some of these huge transnationals don't want to talk about it, it
makes you wonder," the aide noted.
SStill, a few days after the Times published
its aluminum-storage exposé in late July 2013, Sen. Brown held hearings to
investigate the causes of the alleged manipulation. (One executive, Tim Weiner
of MillerCoors, would testify that global aluminum costs for manufacturers had
been inflated by $3 billion in just the past year.) After those hearings, and
after word leaked out that regulatory agencies had launched investigations,
Goldman curtly announced new plans to reduce the delivery times of its aluminum
stocks. The bank has consistently maintained that its interest in the warehouse
company Metro is not "strategic," that it only bought the firm
"as an investment," and will sell it within 10 years. JPMorgan Chase
and other banks announced that it might be getting out of the physical
commodities business altogether. The LME, meanwhile, had already come up with
plans to force its member warehouses to increase their output of aluminum.
A few weeks later, on August 9th, 2013,
a company called CME Group – one of the world's leading derivatives dealers –
announced that it would henceforth be selling a new kind of aluminum swap
futures contract. The new instrument, the firm said, would be "the first
Exchange product that enables the aluminum Midwest premium to be managed."
What this signaled was that before that
moment, no one in the financial sector wanted to get within a hundred miles of
selling price insurance against the Midwest premium, because it was so
obviously corrupt. But then the Times let the cat out of the
bag, and next thing you knew, now that everyone was watching, a major
derivatives purveyor suddenly felt confident enough to sell a hedging insurance
against the Midwest premium, given that it was now presumed, once again, to be
free from manipulation and subject to market forces.
"That should tell you a lot about
how completely people in the business understood that the metals market was
broken," says Wotkyns.
One other bizarre footnote to the
aluminum scandal: According to the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, any
company that becomes a bank holding company must divest itself of certain
commercial holdings it may own within two years. To that two-year grace period,
the Fed may add up to three additional years. This was done for both Goldman
and Morgan Stanley. The aluminum scandal broke, coincidentally, just a few
months before Goldman's five-year grace period was scheduled to end. There was
some expectation that the Fed might order the banks to divest some of their
commercial holdings.
But there was a catch. "Congress in
its infinite wisdom left an ambiguity," says Omarova. Although the Bank
Holding Company Act mandated that the companies had to be compliant at the end
of the review period, it didn't actually specify what the Fed had to do if they
weren't. When Goldman's review period passed, "the Fed took the position
that nothing had to happen," says Omarova. "So nothing happened."
The aluminum delays were not just an
isolated incident of banks scheming to boost rent revenue. Recently, evidence
has surfaced that the same kinds of behavior may be going on across the LME. In
order for a parcel of metal to be traded on the LME, it has to be what's called
"on warrant." If you are the owner of a metal that you no longer want
to be traded, you can "cancel the warrant" – essentially taking it
out of the system. It's still in the warehouse, but in a kind of administrative
limbo.
When the world LME supply of a metal
features high percentages of canceled stock, that typically means someone is
moving metals around a lot even after they've been put into storage – perhaps
in a Goldman-style "merry-go-round," perhaps for some other reason,
but historically it has not been something seen often in functioning, healthy
metals markets.
In January 2009, before the American
too-big-to-fail banks and the shady Swiss commodities giants bought into all of
these warehouses, less than one percent of the total global supply of LME
aluminum was "canceled warrant." Today, with world supplies of
aluminum about double what they were then, 45.2 percent of the total stock is
classified as canceled. In Detroit, where Goldman is supposedly cleaning things
up, the percentage is even crazier: 76.9 percent of the aluminum stock has
canceled warrants.
You can see hints of the phenomenon in
other LME metals. Five years ago, just 1.3 percent of the LME's copper stocks
had canceled warrants. Today, 59 percent of it does. In January 2009, just 2.3
percent of zinc stocks were canceled; it's at 32 percent today. Zinc
incidentally has something else in common with aluminum – a
shipping-and-handling-like premium, called the U.S. zinc premium in the United
States, which has skyrocketed in recent years, increasing by 400 percent
between the summer of 2012 and the summer of 2013, when the price plateaued
just as the aluminum scandal broke.
Then there's nickel. Thirty-seven
percent of the global stock is now classified as canceled. Five years ago, 0.5
percent was. One industry insider, who is very familiar with and utilizes the
nickel market, says that despite the fact that there is a massive global
oversupply of the metal, prices are being artificially propped up as much as 20
to 30 percent.
He blames the banks' speculative weigh
stations, saying that nickel producers, despite low global demand, are
cheerfully selling their stocks to bank-run warehouses, which are paying
above-market prices to put raw materials into the merry-go-round. "They are
happy to sell to the banks and to the warehouse supply, while they pray for
demand to pick up," the insider said.
This leads to the next potentially
disastrous aspect of this story: What happens if the Fed suddenly raises
interest rates, and the banks, their access to free money cut off, can no
longer afford to sit on piles of metal for 16 months at a time?
"Look at nickel," says Eric
Salzman, a financial analyst who has done research on metals manipulation for
several law firms. "You could see the price drop 20 to 30 percent in no
time. It'd be a classic bursting of a bubble."
But the potential for wide-scale
manipulation and/or new financial disasters is only part of the nightmare that
this new merger of banking and industry has created. The other, perhaps even
darker problem involves the new existential dangers both to the environment and
to the stability of the financial system. Long before Goldman and Chase started
buying up metals warehouses, for instance, Morgan Stanley had already bought up
a substantial empire of physical businesses – electricity plants in a number of
states, a firm that trades in heating oil, jet fuels, fertilizers, asphalt,
chemicals, pipelines and a global operator of oil tankers.
How long before one of these fully
loaded monster ships capsizes, and Morgan Stanley becomes the next BP, not only
killing a gazillion birds and sea mammals off some unlucky country's shores but
also taking the financial system down with them, as lawsuits plunge the company
into bankruptcy with Lehman-style repercussions? Morgan Stanley's CEO, James
Gorman, even admitted how risky his firm's new acquisitions were last year,
when he reportedly told staff that a hypothetical oil spill was "a risk we
just can't take."
The regulators are almost worse.
Remember the 2008 collapse happened when government bodies like the Fed, the
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision
– whose entire expertise supposedly revolves around monitoring the safety and
soundness of financial companies – somehow missed that half of Wall Street was
functionally bankrupt.
Now that many of those financial
companies have been bailed out, those same regulators who couldn't or wouldn't
smell smoke in a raging fire last time around are suddenly in charge of deciding
if companies like Morgan Stanley are taking out enough insurance on their oil
tankers, or if banks like Goldman Sachs are properly handling their uranium
deposits.
"The Fed isn't the most
enthusiastic regulator in the best of times," says Brown. "And now
we're asking them to take this on?"
Banks in America were never meant to own
industries. This principle has been part of our culture practically from the
beginning of our history. The original restrictions on banks getting involved
with commerce were rooted in the classically American fear of overweening
government power – citizens in the early 1800s were concerned about the
potential for monopolistic abuses posed by state-sponsored banks.
Later, however, Americans also found
themselves forced to beat back a movement of private monopolies, in particular
the great railroad and energy cartels built by robber barons of the Rockefeller
type who, by the late 1800s, were on the precipice of swallowing markets whole
and dictating to the public the prices of everything from products to labor. It
took a long period of upheaval and prolonged fights over new laws like the
Sherman and Clayton anti-trust acts before those monopolies were reined in.
Banks, however, were never really
regulated under those laws. Only the Great Depression and years of brutal
legislative trench warfare finally brought them to heel under the same kinds of
anti-trust concepts that stopped the robber barons, through acts like
Glass-Steagall and the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956. Then, with a few
throwaway lines in a 1999 law that nobody ever heard of until now, that whole
struggle went up in smoke, and here we are, in Hobbes' jungle, waiting for the
next fully legal catastrophe to unfold.
When does the fun part start?
This story is from the February 27th,
2014 issue of Rolling Stone.
Related
- The
Great American Bubble Machine
- The
Feds vs. Goldman
- Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest
Price-Fixing Scandal Ever
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“En
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Editor.
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