NEOLIBERALISM IS ACCUMULATION
BY DISPOSSESSION
Free and democratic capitalism have been replaced by fraud
Free and democratic capitalism have been replaced by fraud
See THE
‘NEW’ IMPERIALISM: ACCUMULATION BY DISPOSSESSION. By DAVID HARVEY
To David Harvey the central features of neoliberal financial
system are:
1- Privatization and commodification of public assets (transferring
property from public ownership to private ownership);
2- Financialization (governmental deregulation which has made the financial system one of the
main centers of redistributive activity. Stock promotions, Ponzi schemes,
structured asset destruction through
inflation, asset stripping
through mergers and acquisitions, dispossession of assets via raiding
of pension funds and their decimation by stock and corporate collapses by
credit and stock manipulations).
3- Creating
and manipulating crises (by suddenly
raising interest rates that force poor nations into bankruptcy; or by forcing them into structural adjustment programs that
legitimize chronic debts, tributary
dependency and econ subordination of client regimens to the empire; or by
forcing them to singing FTA with dollar
currency, all of this under the control of the U.S.
Treasury, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
4- State redistributive policies and prices-manipulation
(the former is done by changing the tax code to profit returns on investment
rather than incomes and wages and the later, price manipulation in favor of big
corporations, is documented below).
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Posted on May 2, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog [Here only extracts]
Energy Prices Manipulated
The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission says that JP Morgan has massively manipulated energy markets in California and
the Midwest, obtaining tens of millions of dollars in overpayments
from grid operators between September 2010 and June 2011.
As shown below, Wall Street has
manipulated virtually every other market as well – both in the financial sector
and the real economy – and
broken virtually
every law on the books.
Interest Rates Are Manipulated
Bloomberg reported in
January:
Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc was
ordered to pay $50 million by a federal judge in Connecticut over claims that
it rigged the London interbank offered rate.
The Libor interest rate
scandal in perspective:
- The big banks have conspired for years to rig interest rates … upon which $800 trillion in assets are pegged
- This was the largest insider trading scandal ever … and the largest financial scam in world history
- Local governments got ripped off bigtime by the Libor manipulation
- Even though RBS and a handful of other banks have been fined for interest rate manipulation, Libor is still being manipulated. No wonder … the fines are pocket change – the cost of doing business – for the big banks
Indeed, the experts say that big banks will keep manipulating markets unless and until
their executives are thrown in jail for fraud.
Why? Because the system is rigged to
allow the big banks to commit continuous and massive fraud, and then to pay
small fines as the “cost of doing business”. As Nobel prize winning economist
Joseph Stiglitz noted years ago:
“The
system is set so that even if you’re caught, the penalty is just a small number
relative to what you walk home with.
The fine is just a cost of doing
business. It’s like a parking fine. Sometimes you make a decision to park
knowing that you might get a fine because going around the corner to the
parking lot takes you too much time.”
Experts also say that we have to
prosecute fraud or else the
economy won’t ever really stabilize.
But the government is doing the
exact opposite. Indeed, the Justice Department has announced it will go easy on big banks,
and always settles prosecutions for pennies on the dollar (a form of stealth
bailout. It is also arguably one of the main causes of the double dip in housing.)
Indeed, the government doesn’t even force the banks to admit any guilt
as part of their settlements.
Because of this failure to
prosecute, it’s not just interest rates. As shown below, big banks have
manipulated virtually every market – both in the financial sector and
the real economy – and
broken virtually
every law on the books.
And they will keep on doing so until
the Department of Justice grows a pair.
Currency Markets Are Rigged
Currency markets are massively rigged.
And see this and this.
Derivatives Are Manipulated
The big banks have long
manipulated derivatives … a $1,200
Trillion Dollar market.
Indeed, many trillions of dollars of
derivatives are being manipulated in the exact
same same way that interest rates are fixed: through gamed
self-reporting.
Oil Prices Are Manipulated
Oil prices are manipulated as well.
Gold and Silver Are Manipulated
Gold and silver prices are “fixed”
in the same way as interest rates and derivatives – in daily
conference calls by the powers-that-be.
For both gold and silver commodities
there were, on average, no comparable price changes at any other time of the
day. These patterns are consistent with manipulation in both markets.
Commodities Are Manipulated
The big banks and government
agencies have been conspiring to manipulate commodities prices for decades.
The big banks are taking over
important aspects of the physical economy, including uranium mining, petroleum products, aluminum, ownership and
operation of airports, toll roads, ports, and electricity.
And they are using these physical
assets to massively manipulate commodities prices … scalping consumers of many billions
of dollars each year. More from Matt Taibbi,
FDL and Elizabeth Warren.
Everything Can Be Manipulated through High-Frequency Trading
Traders with high-tech computers can
manipulate stocks, bonds,
options, currencies and commodities. And see this.
Manipulating Numerous Markets In Myriad Ways
The big banks and other giants
manipulate numerous
markets in myriad ways, for example:
- Shaving money off of virtually every pension transaction they handled over the course of decades, stealing collectively billions of dollars from pensions worldwide. Details here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here
- Charging “storage fees” to store gold bullion … without even buying or storing any gold . And raiding allocated gold accounts
- Committing massive and pervasive fraud both when they initiated mortgage loans and when they foreclosed on them (and see this)
- Pledging the same mortgage multiple times to different buyers. See this, this, this, this and this. This would be like selling your car, and collecting money from 10 different buyers for the same car
- Cheating homeowners by gaming laws meant to protect people from unfair foreclosure
- Pushing investments which they knew were terrible, and then betting against the same investments to make money for themselves. See this, this, this, this and this
- Engaging in unlawful “frontrunning” to manipulate markets. See this, this, this, this, this and this
- Participating in various Ponzi schemes
- Charging veterans unlawful mortgage fees
- Cooking their books (and see this)
The criminality and blatant
manipulation will grow and spread and metastasize – taking over and killing off
more and more of the economy – until Wall Street executives are finally thrown in
jail.
It’s that simple …
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