[sciborg2]

The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet

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...

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?

[Madness]

Lol, seems like more of the same to me. I don't know how long people can keep denying that these bloated corporations have vested interested in self-preservation...

Ridiculous.

[Wilshire]

Interesting, but I don't agree with the shocked tone. Obviously its shitty news to see, but it is more surprising to me that there are people who are surprised. It would be amazing to see through the looking glass and watch the hidden world of the super powerful and unimaginably rich.

I wonder if there will ever be a time in history when the veil if thrown off? The world would probably collapse into chaos for quite some time...

[Royce]

It seems fitting to introduce "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G Edward Griffin.

Interesting, but I don't agree with the shocked tone. Obviously its shitty news to see, but it is more surprising to me that there are people who are surprised. It would be amazing to see through the looking glass and watch the hidden world of the super powerful and unimaginably rich.

I agree, it is not shocking if you pay attention, but many many people choose to not pay attention, for various reasons.

I wonder if there will ever be a time in history when the veil if thrown off? The world would probably collapse into chaos for quite some time...

I would suggest that the veil has been thrown off for a long time. It depends how you look at it. I think that many people do not get angry, but rather more jealous of this enormous wealth. They too want to be that rich, so they work their asses off, and tries almost anything possible to become filthy rich. They do not see flaws in the system, only "hard work" and "luck" can get you to the "hot seat".
Nothing is hidden if you pay attention, and if you do pay attention you may find yourself helpless and angry, or you just accept that you as a single person can not do much about it. So then the train just goes on and on, and I think that a massive awakening of some sorts has to occur for this to change. No "new regulations" etc etc, bla bla bla. Either the system stays and what happens happens, or we throw it away and try to create a new way to get by as a civilization.

[Callan S.]

It's founded in supposed government ownership of land (and by proxy, private land purchases from government and inter-private sales).

They wouldn't get so very far if you didn't have rent or a mortgage to pay.

Not that any of us have any heritage tie to the land anymore.

But the heritage tie was deliberately severed in the past by kings - and that still goes for our 'democractic' governments today.