We're on an Apollo 13 mission: Gen Kranz the Flight Director at the time said,"When bad things happen, we just calmly laid out all the options and failure was not one of them". Tough and competent, "we are forever accountable for what we do or fail to do. We will never take anything for granted. We will never fall short of our knowledge or our skills".
War is hell, seems to be a covert hacking group at large. JP Morgan Chase had the largest breach just this week, it is also reported that other financial institutions have come under attack. A bank doesn't necessarily have to report hacking to customers unless a financial threat to accounts is at risk and or compromised, ah that will change. None the less, “It was a huge surprise that they were able to compromise a huge bank like JPMorgan,” said Al Pascual, a security analyst with Javelin Strategy and Research. “It scared the pants off many people.” Some analyst believe the attacks are coming from Russia due to the sanctions, we looked at some types of financial tactics in an earlier post, "World War III? We've been Witnessing It." Now it seems these breach burrowed into the digital network maneuvering through certain corridors and mapping programs and applications for additional backdoor entries, it's like they stole the schematic. The intrusion was in JP Morgans system undetected for several weeks. So it seems the hack has the layout of the land and the financial entities will be scrambling to rebuild their network along with security cost of $250 million a year going forward. But wait, if a heavy level of attacks were coordinated at once it would set off another financial crisis. A conditioning that's already happening; Dec 16, 2015, a smartphone app was the most likely culprit for the botnet attack, which flooded the servers with five million queries per second at the peak of the attack. It is estimated that as few as 18,000 devices running the app through Wi-Fi networks would have been capable of creating such traffic.
Reminds me of the movie Marathon Man, "is it safe?" So lets talk to a Hacker.
Derivatives typically have a large notional value. As such, there is the danger that their use could result in losses for which the investor (Bank) would be unable to compensate. So many vehicles riding on one underlying where the vehicles reach escape velocity, far outperforming the original value of the financial product through leveraging and the huge dependencies on counterparties. The possibility that this could lead to a chain reaction ensuing in an economic crisis was pointed out by famed investor Warren Buffett called them 'financial weapons of mass destruction.' A potential problem with derivatives is that they comprise an increasingly larger notional amount of assets which may lead to distortions in the underlying capital and equities markets themselves.
If the sale on these were called on as a whole, the spread on the leveraging could not be covered, the original product is distorted, lesser value if any. That's a very large number 700 Trillion $dollars$ and that was in 2011, were above that now. It's known that the Banks can only cover part of the spread, hell that sounds like a Bookie! There have been several instances of massive losses in derivative markets, such as the following: Two former JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) employees were charged by federal prosecutors with attempting to conceal trading losses at the largest U.S. bank last year as part of a probe of its US$6.2 billion loss on derivatives bets, story became to be known as the The London Whale.
From Wikipedia: American International Group (AIG) lost more than US$18 billion through a subsidiary over the preceding three-quarters on credit default swaps (CDSs). The United States Federal Reserve Bank announced the creation of a secured credit facility of up to US$85 billion, to prevent the company's collapse by enabling AIG to meet its obligations to deliver additional collateral to its credit default swap trading partners. The loss of US$7.2 Billion by Société Générale in January 2008 through misuse of futures contracts. The loss of US$6.4 billion in the failed fund Amaranth Advisors, which was long natural gas in September 2006 when the price plummeted. The loss of US$4.6 billion in the failed fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. The loss of US$1.3 billion equivalent in oil derivatives in 1993 and 1994 by Metallgesellschaft AG. The loss of US$1.2 billion equivalent in equity derivatives in 1995 by Barings Bank. The loss of UBS AG, Switzerland's biggest bank, suffered a US$2 billion loss through unauthorized trading discovered in September 2011. This comes to a staggering US$46.9 billion, the majority in the last decade after theCommodity Futures Modernization Actof 2000 was passed.
Well, the public won't see any of this money but it's good practice to go after the ones who continue to line their pockets of false business. If we're to ever move forward with America to gain respect of the government and corporations, that model is going to have to work weekends and around the clock, show me! So much has come over the wire this past month I was waiting for it to accumulate and it's like a destroyer turning all guns and firing. The government can't keep picking the pockets of the taxpayers to support what is wrong, the Federal Reserve can't keep printing money and add what is not collected to the taxpayers which in turn gets tacked to the national debt of future Americans. I'll tell ya something, the dollar is just about to be burned at the stack and new money is needed in a big way, that's why all these suits are being hammered on the banks. Not only that but some Banksters seem to have a conscience, let's take a look as the pot is boiling over! To top it off the NSA scandal is also on the burner. The US government support by the people, well I'll just say it, SUCKS!
Ackermann Quit Zurich After Being Named in Suicide Note: Ackermann, who led Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) through the financial crisis in 10 years as the chief executive officer, said yesterday he was stepping down from Zurich Insurance. Read more:
Microsoft, Google plan to sue over surveillance disclosure: The U.S. Department of Justice's talks with Microsoft and Google have hit a wall as the government pushes back at the tech companies' demand for the ability to disclose the now-secret data requests they receive. Both companies may sue in order to "speak more freely."Read more:
U.S. Bank Legal Bills Exceed $100 Billion: The six biggest U.S. banks, led by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Bank of America Corp., have piled up $103 billion in legal costs since the financial crisis, more than all dividends paid to shareholders in the past five years. Read more:
Regulators Prepare Penalties for JPMorgan: Two federal regulators are preparing a series of enforcement actions and fines against JPMorgan Chase stemming from its dealings with consumers during the recession, presenting the latest legal threat to the nation’s biggest bank. Read more:
JPMorgan's former 'London Whale' supervisor arrested in Spain: Spanish police arrested former JP Morgan Chase trader Javier Martin-Artajo on Tuesday as he prepares to fight possible extradition to the United States over a $6.2 billion financial scandal at the United States' largest bank. Read more:
Charges Against 2 Former JPMorgan Traders Fault Management: Criminal charges brought against two former London traders on Aug. 14 continue to mar the reputation of investment bank JPMorgan Chase, intensifying the scrutiny surrounding its N.Y. executives. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara publicly denounced the lack of oversight and controls placed on traders by senior management officials, as well as the practice of hiding significant losses.
Emanate: unseen forces coming out of a specific source.
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com Employers are cutting full-time employees back to part-time to avoid the requirement of providing health insurance under Obama Care. Trader Karl Denninger says, “As the Obama Administration runs against the economic reality of what they passed, they are now trying to find ways to dodge it. . . . The Obama Administration’s reaction to this has been to unilaterally, and by the way illegally, put off the imposition of mandate.” This is not going to save the teetering economy as Denninger contends, “Bernanke has lost control of the bond market and, in general, his policy. . . . The reality is the Fed is not in charge, and when that confidence level breaks, you are going to see all hell break loose.” Denninger goes on to predict, “We are setting up for a collapse that is going to be worse than 1929, and it’s going to come sometime within the next two years. It could come as soon as the next couple of months, but it is going to happen, and there’s nothing that is going to stop it.” (end watchdog) Wow, here's a startling fact -- more than 10 million Americans have been evicted from their homes since 2007. That's nearly the entire population of the state of Michigan. Just imagine if the people of an entire state were rendered homeless overnight -- it would be quite a calamity. In February 2007, just before everything fell apart, Goldman Sachs bundled thousands of subprime mortgages from across the country and sold them to investors. This bond became toxic as soon as it was completed. Hundreds of thousands of subprime borrowers are still struggling. Deals like the Goldman one leave a rich paper trail that includes many details about the loans that were contained in the bond. The numbers are jaw-dropping. Three-fourths of the borrowers in the deal have fallen well behind on their payments at some point, according to a special analysis of the deal performed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Many of those people have lost their houses or will lose them. Nearly half the loans in the bond have been in foreclosure proceedings since it was issued, according to the Boston Fed. JPMorgan has lately faced a slew of sanctions by federal regulators. In January, regulators ordered the bank to take steps to correct poor risk management that led to a surprise trading loss last year of more than $6 billion. The Federal Reserve and the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency also cited JPMorgan for lapses in oversight that could allow the bank to be used for money laundering. About Greg Hunter: Greg is the producer and creator of USAWatchdog.com. The site's slogan is "analyzing the news to give you a clear picture of what's really going on." The site will keep an eye on the government, your financial interests and cut through the media spin. USA Watchdog is neither Democrat nor Republican, Liberal or Conservative. Before creating and producing the site, Greg spent nearly 9 years as a network and investigative correspondent. He worked for ABC News and Good Morning America for nearly 6 years. Most recently, Greg worked for CNN for shows such as Paula Zahn Now, American Morning and various CNN business shows. Greg Hunter
Well, just a few days ago I mentioned who's next? Here you have it, The Whale of all scandals is JP Morgan Chase, accused once again of cheating and stealing. JP Morgan is more than willing to pay the fine, can't win this one and you still bank with them? The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) staff has found "eight manipulative bidding strategies" used by a JPM affiliate in 2010 and 2011, the regulator said. A civil penalty of $285 million and return $125 million in ill-gotten profits to electricity ratepayers In one scheme, JP Morgan traders made low end-of-day bids to attract large orders from buyers to provide power the next day, the FERC said. In the first two hours the next day, the bank demanded higher rates for making the power available, a maneuver that led the grid operator to pay it millions of dollars for a period in which demand is typically low. Another ENRON, cooking the books and associated with manipulation of commodities! “JP Morgan picked the pockets of California households and businesses, and their manipulation increased the electric bills that people pay,” Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at Public Citizen, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group, said in an interview yesterday. Ya know something, want to see this practice go away, flush the toilet on this stock JPM. Just maybe the public will start to practice what these Jack Wagons shove up everybody's ass! Say the public buys up JBM, run up the price and on a single given day dump the stock. Well, one would say this is insider trading of stock manipulation, no this is outsider trading, a new breed in the market and no one understands the complexity of market trade, it's what you taught us. Sounds like fair game to me, don't do business with practices who steal from you and us. Hey, JP Morgan along with their golden boys are doing it to themselves, "notice the purple ties out there", read it and weep. Funny how we find humor in tragedy, like Dimon tied on a whale in the photo above. This image represents Capt. Ahab on the back of Moby Dick. In the movie, Moby Dick crushes the launch boats along with the crew and Capt. Ahab on the back of Moby tangled in ropes, dead by drowning. Mody now slams the ship and creates a whirlpool by swimming around the ship and sinks. I watched Moby Dick the 1956 movie again last night a Novel by Herman Melville published in 1851, Gregory Peck is Ahab. JP Morgan can be proud of that but what if Moby Dick was the PUBLIC? Is that spelled in all capital letters? Aye
Wow, this is huge Pod, never in the history of our nation has an entire city file for bankruptcy! Talk about too big to fail, the banksters get bailed out but the people of a great city like Detroit are left to sink, now you know who is on your side. People have left the Motor City in droves, a number once at 1.8 million in the 50s and now down to 700,000, folks hanging on. The murder rate is at an all-time high for nearly 40 years and the abandoned building is at a staggering rate of 78,000. The economic downturn was caused by the banks. Let's not confuse that or associate it with anything but the banksters. The Feds gave them a bailout with no strings attached sighting to big to fail, would have been nice to see many of them go but your tax dollars saved their ass. Have you noticed new names in banks popping up? For if they were associated with the ones of this crash you would not even walk through the door, but it's the same banksters with a new store front, they were given money to maneuver. As for the regulators who grade all financial vehicles, made theses investments look like a great buy. Pay no attention to what they say! Detroit is a public Titanic and a shock wave that's going to affect others. Sadly the hand of corruption also played a role in this great city and just maybe after the dust settles on all of this across America where the money dries up it will rid our nation of the greedy Jack Wagons. Do all of America a favor, do not bank with the buggers who caused the Sub Prime mortgage disaster, swaps and derivatives which not only affected towns and cities but countries as a whole, it's what JP Morgan Chase sold to Greece! Douglas Bernstein, a bankruptcy attorney at Plunkett Cooney in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, said he expected the case would last one-to-three years and would be very costly. "This could run to tens-of-millions to hundreds-of-millions of dollars," he said. CNN
Uncle Ted Stranglehold Motor City needs you son! We have to retake our Nation! Ya know something, get ready for the largest blown out Rock Concert that will benefit Detroit. The cries of this nation are going to be answered by the Brother's and Sister's who love this Land! It's open season on all Jack Wagons! See ya in Detroit rightwithhteship Eagle Rock
Well like the clock on the wall in this pic time doesn't sleep for those evolved that harms individuals, communities and a nation's for that matter. Mr. Shawn Portmann was one of the nations highest producing loan officers that worked at Tacoma-based Pierce Commercial Bank in Washington state, in 2012 The Advocate gave Tacoma the title of "Gayest City in America", in part because of the large diversity of public offices held. This indeed is a beautiful area but so much can go wrong when you think it's OK for you to have fun when you know damn well you're doing wrong. The FBI along with the IRS investigation showed Portmann was (sentenced to 10 years) leading a scheme that saw hundreds of loans issued to unqualified borrowers. Which Pierce Commercial Bank failed on behalf of its mortgage lending practice. Portmann along with two other lending officers launched Pierce Commercial Bank residential lending arm, PC Bank Home Loans in 2004, generated nearly $1 billion in home loan applications for the bank over several years. Two of his associates, Adam S. Voelker and Jeanette R. Salsi, have already pleaded guilty to lesser charges. Among those convicted in the scheme were Portmann's supervisor, Peirce Commercial Bank Vice President and Residential Lending manager. Portmann had help, of course, Portmann's loan processors handled the "fixed" loan applications, while his underwriter's stamp of approval cleared the loans for secondary sale. Like many banks in this hay day they bundled the loans and moved them out to other financial institutions, they were not worth the paper they were written on. The loans were doctored with fake employment, money that was placed in accounts and later removed to show that the borrower had met the guidelines of the loans. Now you're going to tell me that Mr. Shawn Portmann and his group are the only ones out there that made this up? This practice is what caused the collapse of many banks, the formula shared here in his conviction was practiced by many or you would not be reading this. Portmann and the rest were indicted in August 2011, just hours before U.S. Attorney for Western Washington Jenny Durkan announced that no criminal charges would be filed against lenders at Washington Mutual Bank suspected of similar misdeeds. While federal regulators pursued a civil case against former WaMu CEO Kerry Killinger, Department of Justice investigators failed to produce evidence supporting suspicions that WaMu employees were illegally padding loan applications. Now Washington Mutual failed in 2008 for mishandling of lending, way else would they file for bankruptcy protection (same as Portmann's game) after the government seized its Seattle-based flagship bank and sold its assets to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion in the largest bank failure in U.S. history.
Regulators shuttered Pierce Commercial Bank on Nov. 5, 2010. The collapse cost the federal deposit insurance fund $25 million. Pierce Commercial Bank's failure also cost taxpayers at least $6.8 million in funds loaned to Pierce Commercial Bank through the Troubled Asset Relief Program - TARP - which have not been repaid. So to date, Mr. Shawn Portmann is the only one going to jail? This guy only pulled down 1.7 million a year and with 1 billion in loans, he alone is not even the tip of the ice burg here and others get to walk! Oh the web we weave stretches across the globe. But I'll tell ya we all have not heard the end of this, you have to but a face on the lost money and Mount Rushmore is not a large enough face for this greedy practice. This is still going to be damaging to business as a whole, the trust you have in the system simply sucks and it's showing. Many banks are trying to win back your confidence in them, ah that's not going very well and you folks are doing a good job by not doing business with them. Maybe America needs a new bank, how about by the public for the public the common man, one you could trust. The word trust is going to carry far and long into the future. Tired of bad work ethics it simply doesn't work, what's going to push this over the edge is interest rates will go up. At that point, you going to hear yet another bubble POP!
Everyone on Wall Street is commenting on Jamie Dimon's Congressional testimony today. For the most part, they're saying that things went well considering the fact that the JP Morgan CEO was talking about a $2 billion trading loss. Not Jim Cramer, though. Far from it. He actually said that he thinks Dimon is a loser. He didn't say it once, he didn't say it twice... he said it a lot, and nothing his co-hosts could say change his mind. It went something like this:
