While off their highs for the day stocks enter the final hour with modest losses despite positive news. The February ISM Services Index advanced to 53 beating expectations and expanding for 4 months out of the last 6. New orders increased for a 6th straight month at 55, business activity advanced for a 3rd straight month at 54.8, all together a decent report that suggests weak economic expansion. The Challenger report on announced layoffs resumed its decline in February as it fell to 42,090 announced losses a 3.5 year low. The actual employment report will be out Friday expectations are for another loss of about 50,000.
The old joke “of course you can trust the government, go ask an Indian” has become painfully relevant again, perhaps it always was. It was bad enough that the banks were given 700 billion in taxpayer funds no strings attached or questions asked as to what they were actually going to do with it, following the economic and financial sector implosion they engineered compliments of their own greed and stupidity.
Stories of back door deals, coercion, illegal behavior, willful concealment of relevant information and other shenanigans involving various shotgun marriages and bailouts of the likes of Countrywide Finance, B of A, Merrill Lynch, AIG and well most large financial institutions at taxpayer expense. Along with considerable malfeasance by the NY Fed under now Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the story of Harry Markopolis who on 4 separate occasions told the SEC to take a hard look at Bernard Madoff’s now infamous 85 billion Dollar Ponzi scheme and one wonders, gee what’s going to happen next.
Compliments of the case Murry v. Geithner the discovery and subpoena process is revealing more ugly details as the days go by. Geithner’s creation of a special “Trust” as NY Fed President to hold 77.9% of AIG’s common equity is one, as the Federal Reserve forbids equity ownership. But this pales in comparison to the following. The use of a so-called independent trust to circumvent Federal Reserve rules on equity ownership by then NY Fed President Timothy Geithner to conceal unlawful ownership, if done with prior knowledge by Mr. Geithner apparently qualifies the transaction as criminal money laundering under Title 18.
The banks and their executives have demonstrated on many occasions that they are either criminals or criminal enterprises. Abe Lincoln quoted long ago, “show me a man’s friends and I’ll show you the man”. As such it should come as no surprise that the Fed is willing to, shall we say, cut corners as there is a revolving door between the criminal enterprises that make up a good portion of the nations financial sector and the Treasury and Federal Reserve, the latter formed outside the purview of the government or its citizenry compliments of a clandestine meeting on Jekyll Island way back in 1913 and despite the Federal part of its name has no actual relation to the Federal Government. Which probably has a lot to do with the fact that they have never been audited despite having control of the nations money supply.
As appalled as I am by our “splendid little wars” and the squandering of our Tax Dollars upon them I’m beginning to question just what bothers me the most from a moral and ethical perspective, wasting Tax Dollars on illegal wars or giving Tax Dollars to the banksters, and I’ll tell you, it’s a tough call.
If you would like to read more about Mr. Geithners “ahem” lack of judgment, follow the link below.
Secretary Geithner’s Got Some Explaining to Do
Hi and welcome to The Profit Motive, I’m your host Caleb Lawrence. Once upon a time in America the media acted as the watchdog of the corporations and the state. In the modern era it’s all about ratings and profits, opinion has been substituted for news and frequently is presented as fact. 
