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MSM Now Looking at AIG, Banks in Potential Fraud of Taxpayer Money

March 31, 2009 by 2 Comments
by Gayle Plato
 

GET THIS:  Barron’s believes the blogs may be onto something (we reported here yesterday) and is picking up on this odd little story of financial swapping.  It is potentially fraudulent and I suspect this issue could be the new Watergate.  Geithner and Obama are not patsies no matter what they might say as this comes out.  Maybe the bonuses were just hush money.  I dunno, I am just sayin’:

http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowatchtoday/2009/03/31/web-site-details-aigs-gift-to-banks-backhand-to-taxpayers/#comment-111951

 HERE IS POST EXERPT AS IT APPEARS-

 
“March 31, 2009, 10:08 am

Web Site Details AIG’s ‘Gift’ To Banks, Backhand To Taxpayers

Posted by Bob O’Brien

If this is borne out, this one’s a game-changer. For the financial sector. For the government’s bailout plans. For the Administration’s leadership.

The website Seeking Alpha published an account Monday of a maneuver by American International Group (AIG) to: a) fraudulently capsize its balance sheet, in order to; b) force the government to pour more capital into the capsizing insurance giant, by; c) unwinding billions of dollars of credit transactions with banks that took the other side of those trades, in a way that; d) swelled those banks’ balance sheets with what was effectively a one-time gift, and; e) the Treasury knew about the scheme, and by; f) pumping the capital that AIG clamored for, gave its tacit approval.

(See the Seeking Alpha account here.)

Keep in mind, according to the Seeking Alpha account, this wasn’t a plan by AIG. This was an act: covert, at least from taxpayers – who, let’s be honest, aren’t going to understand the intricacies of sales of credit-linked notes – but overt, with the complicity of AIG executives, especially at its AIG-Financial Products unit, along with banks and Administration officials….

The result: AIG effectively transferred a huge chunk of its balance sheet to its banking counter-parties. The banks got a one-time shot-in-the-arm to their bottom line. An increasingly desperate AIG gets the capital it clamored for.”

 See related post: http://sonoranalliance.com/?p=3974

 

Filed Under: Economics, International Trade, Spending, Taxation

US/Mexico Borderland- Gaza Strip Bound?

April 11, 2008 by 1 Comment
by Gayle Plato-Besley, M. Ed.     

Sitting in Phoenix, the Arab-Israeli conflict along the Gaza Strip seems constant and doesn’t even blip on the radar of the average American.  Why should it?  Because we’ve a chance to see the parallels of our borderland conflicts. We must stop the exponential growth of warring organized crime now becoming a political stronghold at our doorstep. 

Whether Phoenix, El Paso, Tucson, or Tijuana, all borderland states’ populated cities are part of the drug cartel super highway bleeding out over the Mexican border. Crystal Meth is liquid gold for Mexico.  In fact, there is a growing middle class, community infrastructure, and a war-lord feudal state reaching a political tipping point. We may jabber on about the cheap labor taking over our cities or the funds we spend on social programs for illegal aliens, but we are missing the real issue.  Look to Gaza- Hamas, the former PLO, Israeli and American push-me/pull-me politics with the Gaza Strip, and see how a borderland goes ballistic. 
One of the most accurate and insightful experts about Gaza and the crisis upon the region is Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Prime Minister and current Likud Party Leader.  He often explains the dire consequences of the 2005 Israeli pull-out of Gaza.  He said then that the region  will become a puppet entity of Iran, and he was right.  Hamas is backed by Iranian extremism, private Saudi funds, and international Jihadist Evil ( thats with a capital E). 
Hamas started in February, 1988, in the Gaza strip as a counter movement to Yasser Arafat and the PLO. Their charter states that their focus is to keep Palestine in Muslim hands and to wipe out Israel.  They profess daily  to keep up the Muslim Jihad . But the layers of Hamas are ignored often by the Western media.  They are not a one-dimensional entity.  Hamas has a branch that funnels money into the community too, grooming loyalty of the locals.  Gaza has been a crowded world of Muslim, Jewish, and Christians.  They were cheap labor, and worked fertile soils of organic foods for instance.  Gaza went back to Palestinian control and all Hell broke loose.  While Hamas promised a peace with Israel, it didn’t happen.  See Mr Netanyahu speak on Hannity and Colmes here:

While, we are not a small nation like Israel, carved out of a political region just 60 years ago.  We cannot deny what our borderland might become.  Drugs are a growing business and the beginning of political process:
“Cartels can challenge — and supplant — governments. Between huge amounts of money available to bribe officials, and covert armies better equipped, trained and motivated than national police and military forces, the cartels can become the government — if in fact they didn’t originate in the government. Getting the government to deploy armed forces against the cartel can become a contradiction in terms. In their most extreme form, cartels are the government.”  (http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/geopolitics_dope)     

Startfor.com defines the future dilemma I see as a critical facet of out REAL border battle.  The local politicians and criminal justice operatives of all U.S. Border states need to come together, and push to problem-solve. A prophetic take by political analyst and writer, George Friedman  is detailed here:
“The likely course is a multigenerational pattern of instability along the border. More important, there will be a substantial transfer of wealth from the United States to Mexico in return for an intrinsically low-cost consumable product — drugs. This will be one of the sources of capital that will build the Mexican economy, which today is 14th largest in the world. The accumulation of drug money is and will continue finding its way into the Mexican economy, creating a pool of investment capital. The children and grandchildren of the Zetas will be running banks, running for president, building art museums and telling amusing anecdotes about how grandpa made his money running blow into Nuevo Laredo.
It will also destabilize the U.S. Southwest while grandpa makes his pile. As is frequently the case, it is a problem for which there are no good solutions, or for which the solution is one without real support.”     

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Border, Crime and Punishment, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, International Trade, National Security

What NAFTA Superhighway?

November 30, 2007 by 18 Comments

Jim Kolbe is resorting to threats of retaliation from Mexico to push the Canamex Corridor.

It is very sad to see such a fine publication as The Arizona Daily Star join Ron Paul in his belief that an ideology of globalism exists.

Filed Under: Border, International Trade
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