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BookmarkAs everyone rings in the New Year with a toast and a cheer for a prosperous 2014, Wall Street started celebrating many months ago and is ringing in the New Year with a glass of Dom Pérignon. They surely have a reason to celebrate as 2013 brought them good fortune and financial prosperity, having rung in the New Year with new all time highs on many of the US-based major indexes.
While there are many ways to measure prosperity, for Wall Street it’s all about profits and the bottom line. They only know one thing, how much wealth they can steal from others by “gaming” the system. I say “steal” because today’s markets are no longer about valuations and true price discovery. It’s more about computer algorithms, access to unlimited funds, having insider knowledge on buy and sell orders, front running the average investor and the ability to extract risk free profits by gaming the system. Of course this is nothing new for big Wall Street investment houses; over the last decade they have mastered the art of investing by gaming the system and extracting wealth from others.
Financial prosperity in today’s world means having the Federal Reserve central bank in your corner ready to bail you out in case any of your bets go bad. Becoming “Too Big to Fail” is a necessity to financial survival and having the regulators in your pocket also helps. Of course, we can’t forget about using extreme leverage, derivatives, credit default swaps and futures to squeeze some additional profits from the system.
With all these tools and means to game the system, investment banking for profit becomes a game of how much wealth you can steal from others before you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar. Of course when you do get caught, all you get is a slap on the wrist in terms of fines and penalties. If you get caught laundering money, rigging interest and foreign exchange rates — no problem, there is a fine for that, as long as you are one of the “Too Big to Fail” banks.
Today’s financial system is setup to steal your wealth. The bankers steal from you by rigging the system for their gain, and then the government fines the bankers for stealing. In order to maintain banking control and growth, the bankers have to resort to rigging the game even more so they maintain profit growth. This corrupt system of theft is definitely a win win situation, a win for the bankers and a win for the government, it’s only the average person who loses by having their pockets picked.
We can’t blame all of this on the bankers, the corruption in the Western financial world runs right to the root of the problem, government. By allowing central banking to exist, governments can ensure their own financial safety net and survival from having a system which continuously prints money to fund deficit spending. To remain in power, Government’s control only exists and grows because of taxation and the rules and regulations they impose on their citizens. Take France for example, their constitutional council and highest court just gave the green light to Hollande to introduce a top tax rate of 75 percent on earnings over one million Euros.
Of course, the most corrupt government in the world is the United States. Having the status of the world’s currency reserve empowered them to build the biggest army, thus giving them the ability to bully any other nation state by way of force or death. And if they don’t attack you directly, they surely will spy on you electronically via the NSA and they will definitely tax and fine you for non-compliance to their rules and regulations.
I always wondered if the US will ever get their deficits under control and how they will reduce their debt burden. One way for sure is that the US will tax and regulate their way out of financial debt by taking wealth that was hidden from them. After reading an article on how Swiss regulators recommended banks take provision for US tax deal, it became pretty obvious that all international bankers will be forced to comply with the US regulators or get shut out of their system.
The real irony of the situation is how this system is gamed right from the beginning to end, which then comes full circle to help governments. The bankers have been cashed up via the central banks and are making tremendous profits trading rigged markets. All this new wealth now on the banker’s balance sheet will be heavily taxed over the coming years and used to pay off fines imposed on them by governments and regulators.
In short, the corruption in US banking to help government finances, spending and debts goes like this:
- The Federal Reserve central bank print money from nothing.
- The CB then gives this newly printed money to big banks to buy US debt.
- The “To Big to Fail” banks then sell the US debt back to the Fed (for a nice profit) and receive more money.
- The big banks who are now cashed up, conduct proprietary trading to rig markets for even more profits.
- All this extra ill-gotten cash sitting with the banks is then taxed, and/or regulated and fines are imposed for illegal rigging of markets.
- This money is then given back to the US government which probably helps extinguish some debt or pays for gov’t expenses.
In this system of corrupt Western finance, the only people that lose are the people or entities who don’t see it happening or can’t take the necessary steps to avoid the theft and confiscation, and then actually profit from it happening. Anyone with savings will also get burned by either the devaluation of fiat currencies or outright theft of deposits at the banks by way of bail-ins or nationalization of retirement savings. Either way, the average person is at a disadvantage in a no win situation if they leave their assets in the western financial system.
The window to get your wealth out of the traditional western financial system is closing. Anyone who does so now will be saved from the ever growing corruption and theft that is coming down the road. Precious metals are one of many assets that should be continuously accumulated now and on any further pullback. At this point the rigged price of the metals is not as relevant as the number of ounces you own and hold outside the financial system, and that window is rapidly closing.
