“a crisis that was was caused, prolonged, and made more severe by government policies” (note: last 10 seconds of the interview.

About John Taylor

Dr. John Taylor holds degrees in economics from Princeton and Stanford. He served as a staff economist on the Council of Economic Advisors under President Ford and as a member of the CEA under President George H.W. Bush. He also served as the undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs during the first term of President George W. Bush. He is the author of numerous books, including Global Financial Warriors: The Untold Story of International Finance in the post-9/11 World.

What they really want is to get the Capital Markets businesse revved up again (mergers/acquisitions, new bonds, new derivative propduct, initial public offerings, new stock issues for existing companies, Hedge Funds, etc.). That’s where the big money is, and that space is comotose until public confidence is restored.

Income on wall street is probably down 50% or more right now. We would probably hear more about it, but like them not debating publicly what really happened, talking about the disaster they are experiencing would only shake public confidence. We do hear about the layoffs, but that’s about it.

I did notice today an AP article that headlined “Is the worst already priced into the market”. That’s the Obamy tingly leg shills pushing to trick the suckers into jumping back in so they can trumpet a miracle. A lot of Wall Street pros think it can get a lot worse than it is now. Of course, nobody really knows….but we do know what happened in the 30’s with the kind of government interventions Barakenstein is about to foist on his marks.

Can’t wait for those windmills to kick start the economy!!!

What gets lost in all this argument is that we just printed a lot of money and once that gets into the economy it means inflation. No way around that and all the drones that thought money grows on trees will be the first to b*tch about how the mighty dollar has fallen.

Even if everyone is selling every stock they own, there’s that per-trade spiff…

Excellent point, PR.

That is probably when he got the idea he could impact politics with his schemes.

As I’ve said before, no small group of individuals can manipulate the stock market, but they can bring down individual companies, and if they can get the momentum going strongly enough, perhaps influence the entire market.

That’s what I think happened in 2008.

They were shorting financial services companies throughout the year, both to make money, but more importantly to cast gloom on the 40% of the country who invest through 401K’s. The market fell 20% from Oct 2007 until the summer, even though the economy was relatively normal. Then they went after IndyMac (with Schummer’s help), and other financial institutions.

Even though they made billions, it wasn’t enough to tank the market. The economy and market withstood the assaults through July. But when McCain grabbed the lead immediately after the conventions, it was too much for Soros and Company to tolerate. The next Monday, volume shot up 50% (and went even higher in the next two months). By the next Friday, Lehman Bros was toast (I would love to see data about Soros’ involvement, or even just the trading action). The government stepped in that weekend, Lehman went bankrupt, and the rest is history. The activity for the next 7 weeks was probably partially driven by Soros, but by that point, the lurching government mis-actions ochestrated by King Henry, were enough to get other opportunists involved and the whole thing got dangerously out of hand.

The reason nobody is talking about it is a good question to ask. The answer for the media is obvious. They were ecstatic, and will never investigate it. But why isn’t Wall Street speaking up about the once-in-two-lifetimes events? The reason, I think, is that Wall Street needs confidence to be restored in the markets to make money for themseleves. If somebody were to begin asking questions like these, a swarm of Wall Street people would descend like a hive of locusts and chew up the naysayer. And since they have access to the detailed data, they have a great advantage to prove any case they want to prove. They other party who might have an interest is the government (and there is a low-key SEC investigation in progress), but the Obamy cabal will quickly put a stop to anything that comes out from government action.

If word does begin to spread that something extremely unusual was going on, the media will portray the people talking about it as lunatic conspriacy theorists.

IMO the whole hedge fund market (which Chelsea Clinton is now a part of) and the practice of shorting is suspect. But what’s clear is that people like Soros pushed subprime lending and while it ended up compromising our economic future, they are profiting nicely. I won’t dismiss this as stupidity on their part. They knew exactly what they were doing.

Donn Luskin, a well-known conservative/libertarian Wall Street guru who appears regularly on Larry Kudlow’s show, says that Henry Paulsen caused a good bit of the financial turmoil in the fall because he screwed up the early interventions. He also says that Paulsen now has his act together, which is why the markets have stabalized.

But the Paulsen and co mentioned is probably not Henry’s company. There is another Paulsen who is apparently unconnected with King Henry. He hade even more money in 2008 shorting the market than Soros. It would be interesting to hear what his politics are.

Even so, the Soros connection is striking and additional evidence that something very very strange was going on.

Not only is it a political power grab but they have been making themselves a few dollars on the way.

“Then, around the time Mr. McCain pulled ahead in the national polls, top Democrats started a run on a bank (IndyMac, a bridge bank to Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac) and undermined a major insurance company (AIG, a major insurer for the financial markets).”

It was a technicality they used to take down AIG. They had plenty of assets in real estate but couldn’t report it as such since the properties weren’t selling at that time.

As far as IndyMac goes, there’s some interesting news out. IndyMac is being bought by a group of investers that ” include five private equity firms or hedge funds: J.C. Flowers & Co.; Stone Point Capital; Paulson & Co.; a fund controlled by billionaire George Soros’ Fund Management; and a fund controlled by Silar Advisors LP.”

Both Soros and Paulson made billions (Paulson actually made history with his $15 billion take) shorting the subprime market. Remember this S&L posting.

The Washington Times reported this today but they simply state that IndyMac “was seized by the government in July after a run on the bank as the real estate bubble collapsed.” No mention of Sen. Schumer leaking to the public a negative report about IndyMac’s viability. He knew damn well that the leak would cause a run and did it anyway. That’s intentional.

Another news item today worth noting (and investigating IMO). “Mary Schapiro is set to be named head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today – is currently chief executive of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra).”

“In 2001, she employed Mark Madoff to serve on the board of the National Adjudicatory Council – the division which reviews disciplinary decisions made by Finra, according to the Times.”

They tell us that Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme has been going on since the 1970’s without being exposed. Isn’t it no wonder when he had someone on the inside with regulators like Schapiro?

People started blaming “short selling,” and Andrew Cuomo promised to investigate in late August. Then, in late September, he said he was “expanding” his investigation.

http://cbs5.com/national/wall......20539.html

Since the September announcement, Cuomo has said nothing.

If you consider the 1930’s and the war years through 1946, the monthly increase in volume was topped 17 times (out of 965 months of history available on Yahoo). That would make it a once every 5 year event, including those highly unusual years. The odds would be 57 to 1.

The increase in volume was a VERY RARE happening,

And on Aug 17, 2008, from Obamy’s own lips:

“A confident Barack Obama raised an extraordinary $7.8 million Sunday at three California fundraisers, most of it in large checks to a Democratic Party committee.

“I will win. Don’t worry about that,” he said to the crowd of about 1,300 at his third event of the evening, according to the pool report.”

I guess he knew something the rest of us didn’t know. At that point, he had a 1 point lead in the Gallup poll of registered voters.

Did you know that the volume on the Dow jumped 60% the day after McCain took the lead in the polls. Why do you think that might be? Were investors dumping stocks because it looked like the more pro-business candidate would be elected?

The Dow loss in Sept and Oct of an election year is by far the greatest in history, including the Great Depression. Pretty strange, considering GNP growth was 3% in Q2 of 2008, unemployment was below normal, and corporate earnings were strong. Think about it. The Great Depression…..25% unemployment, Dust Bowl, mass migration to California, tent cities, bread lines. Yet, the market took bigger losses this year than even then. Where are our bread lines?

Trading was extremely strange in those 2 months. Many days were up until the last 1/2 hour of trading, and then there would be catastropic losses in a matter of minutes. It’s almost as if the market didn’t want any good news to leak out.

And don’t forget the jaw-dropping decline in gasoline prices in September and October. Totally unprecedented. But then, the biggest issue in McCain’s favor was high gas prices, wasn’t it? That’s a key reason he named Palin as VP.

And have you wondered how a 100-year economic crisis happened in the course of a few days? I mean, the sub-prime mess had been known since the prior October. Barney Franks declared Fannie Mae was a great investment in June 2008. Nobody on Wall Street was jumping off any ledges. Do you know anybody who was refused a loan? Personally, I obtained 2 car loans in 2008. I refinanced my mortgage in late 2007. Yet, Henry Paulsen suddenly declared a historic emergency in mid-September, 2008. He is the Treasury Secretary. Isn’t he supposed to be monitoring that financel system? How could we go from things are ok to a 3-alarm emergency in 2 weeks, coincidentally, the 2 weeks after McCain took the lead in the polls.

But then the article in this post disputes that there was an emergency, doesn’t it?

Maybe Henry had another agenda.

Gee, I wonder who the life-long Democrat voted for.