Whistleblower Exposes JP Morgan’s Silver Manipulation Scheme
March 26, 2010
Prison Planet
By: Tyler Durden
Earlier today the CFTC held a sham hearing in which, among other thing, the organization discussed position limits in PM speculation, because, you know, it’s the mom and pop speculators that destroy the precious metal market (not JP Morgan or the New York Fed mind you). The hearing could not have come at a more opportune time. GATA has just broken a major story, in which a London metals trader-slash-whistleblower exposes JP Morgan’s silver price suppression/manipulation scheme. At this point none of this should be at all shocking, and the only thing that matters is when CFTC’s ex-Goldmanite Gary Gensler will be fired for allowing hundreds of billions of dollars to be sucked out of the PM market on behalf of such major market manipulating entities as JP Morgan and the New York Federal Reserve, for whom it transacts. Don’t worry – the answer to that rhetorical question is “never”, as it is the administration’s goal to make all the millionaires among the bulge bracket firms billionaires, via legalized theft from honest investors. Furthermore, if indeed the CFTC is complicit in these manipulative events, as GATA suggest, we hope our objective mainstream media readers enjoin GATA in seeking justice for this criminal breach of proper regulatory enforcement.
From GATA:
Additional Statement by Bill Murphy, Chairman
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Washington, D.C., March 25, 2010
On March 23, 2010, GATA Director Adrian Douglas was contacted by a whistleblower by the name of Andrew Maguire. Maguire is a metals trader in London. He has been told first-hand by traders working for JPMorganChase that JPMorganChase manipulates the precious metals markets, and they have bragged to how they make money doing so.
In November 2009 Maguire contacted the CFTC enforcement division to report this criminal activity. He described in detail the way JPMorgan Chase signals to the market its intention to take down the precious metals. Traders recognize these signals and make money shorting the metals alongside JPM. Maguire explained how there are routine market manipulations at the time of option expiry, non-farm payroll data releases, and COMEX contract rollover, as well as ad-hoc events.
On February 3 Maguire gave two days’ warning by e-mail to Eliud Ramirez, a senior investigator for the CFTC’s Enforcement Division, that the precious metals would be attacked upon the release of the non-farm payroll data on February 5. On February 5, as market events played out exactly as predicted, further e-mails were sent to Ramirez while the manipulation was in progress.
It would not be possible to predict such a market move unless the market was manipulated.
In an e-mail on February 5 Maguire wrote: “It is common knowledge here in London among the metals traders that it is JPM’s intent to flush out and cover as many shorts as possible prior to any discussion in March about position limits. I feel sorry for all those not in this loop. A serious amount of money was made and lost today and in my opinion as a result of the CFTC’s allowing by your own definition an illegal concentrated and manipulative position to continue.”
Expiry of the COMEX April call options is tomorrow, March 26. There was large open interest in strikes from $1,100 to $1,150 in gold. As always happens month after month, HSBC and JPM sell short in large quantities to overwhelm all bids and make unsuspecting option holders lose their money. As predicted by GATA, the manipulation started on March 19, when gold was trading at $1,126. Last night it traded at $1,085.
This is how much the gold cartel fears the CFTC’s enforcement division. They thumb their noses at you because in more than a decade of complaints and 18 months of a silver market manipulation investigation nothing has been done to stop them. And this is why JPM’s cocky and arrogant traders in London are able to brag that they manipulate the market.
This is an outrage and we are making available to the press the e-mails from Maguire wherein he warns of a manipulative event.
Additionally Maguire informed us that he has tape recordings of his telephone communications with the CFTC, which we are taking the appropriate legal steps to acquire.
Click here for the full report.
Government to Unveil Plan to Shrink Some Home Loans
March 26, 2010
Business
By: Nick Timiraos and James R. Hagerty
The White House will announce Friday an expansion of its foreclosure-prevention efforts to include reducing mortgage loan balances for some borrowers, a controversial step that policy makers have long resisted, people familiar with the plans said.
The revisions, which will also include temporary help for unemployed borrowers, serve as a recognition that the administration ‘s foreclosure rescue plan hasn’t kept pace with the rising number of souring loans.
Under the plan, the Federal Housing Administration will take on a much bigger role in government efforts to avert foreclosures by allowing some homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth …
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Personal Income Drops Across USA
March 26, 2010
The Wall Street Journal
By: Sara Murray
Personal income in 42 states fell in 2009, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
Real Time EconomicsOverview 2009: Income, Population, Jobs and Home Prices by State Declining IncomesView Interactive
.How state personal income changed in 2009 from 2008.
.Nevada’s 4.8% plunge was the steepest, as construction and tourism industries took a beating. Also hit hard: Wyoming, where incomes fell 3.9%.
Incomes stayed flat in two states and rose in six and the District of Columbia. West Virginia had the best showing with a 2.1% increase. In Maine, Kentucky and Hawaii, increased government benefits, such as unemployment insurance and Social Security, offset drops in earnings and property values.
Nationally, personal income from wages, dividends, rent, retirement plans and government benefits declined 1.7% last year, unadjusted for inflation. One bright spot: As the economy recovered, personal income was up in all 50 states in the fourth quarter compared with the third. Connecticut, again, had the highest per capita income of the 50 states at $54,397 in 2009. Mississippi ranked lowest at $30,103.
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Gordon Ramsay Restaurants Using Pre-Prepared Meals
March 26, 2010
Guardian
By: Stephen Bates
It is not hard to guess what Gordon Ramsay said yesterday when he fell victim to a sting by the Sun newspaper, which caught his London gastro-pubs out using pre-prepared meals including boil-in-a-bag coq au vin at mark-ups of 500%. Whatever he said, it probably had an F in it.
The television chef found himself having to defend the practice by which meals are prepared at a kitchen operated by one of his companies in south London and transported in refrigerated vans to his Foxtrot Oscar restaurant and three pubs he runs in Limehouse, Maida Vale and Chiswick.
A spokeswoman said: “Gordon Ramsay Holdings operate a kitchen facility in Wandsworth called GR Logistics. Here Gordon Ramsay chefs prepare components of dishes devised and produced to the highest Gordon Ramsay standards.”
She went on: “This is only for the supply of Foxtrot Oscar and the three pubs and allows each establishment to control the consistency and the quality of the food served. GR Logistics also supply a number of other restaurants outside the group with prepared components.”
The statement followed remarks by the chef Darran Ridley at the GR Logistics kitchen to the newspaper’s reporter that he prepared most of the food for Foxtrot Oscar.
“Everything from coq au vin, starters, terrines, snacks, salmon rillettes, various desserts, braised beef in red wine, beef pie mixes. Anything that takes a long time to cook, any braised items or items in sauces – we do all of that.
“We do coq au vin at £2.60 a portion, leg or thigh, in a bag with sauce. All you have to do is pop it into a pan of boiling water and reheat it.”
The newspaper calculated that the mark-ups in price for diners were nearly 600% in some cases, with fish cakes that cost £1.92 to produce selling for £11.25, while sausage rolls costing 75p were going for £3.50.
The newspaper’s reporter was told by an assistant manager at Foxtrot Oscar that the food is: “freshly made, definitely. Gordon wants this – he’s very fixed about this.”
The company said that the food was sealed after preparation, and then taken to Gordon Ramsay’s various establishments – the Narrow in east London, the Warrington in Maida Vale and the Devonshire in Chiswick – in refrigerated vans before being cooked on the premises.
It added that GR Logistics also supplies other, non-Ramsay establishments.
GR Logistics is the catering production arm of Ramsay’s business GR Holdings. He purchased the kitchen in south London from Albert Roux.
If the practice, which is not exactly new or unknown for restaurants, prompts Ramsay to adopt a more wholesome new catchphrase than his customary expletive – Blue Peter’s “Here’s one I made earlier” comes to mind – he may yet have cause to regret singing the praises of fresh food on one of his Channel 4 programmes two years ago.
He said then: “Using fresh ingredients is the only way to guarantee a great taste and I can’t understand how on earth people can ignore fresh food … that’s where all the flavour is, all the goodness and it’s a crime not to use it.”
Terrorists May Use Explosives in Breast Implants to Crash Planes
March 26, 2010
FOX News
Female homicide bombers are being fitted with exploding breast implants which are almost impossible to detect, British spies have reportedly discovered.
The shocking new Al Qaeda tactic involves radical doctors inserting the explosives in women’s breasts during plastic surgery — making them “virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines.”
It is believed the doctors have been trained at some of Britain’s leading teaching hospitals before returning to their own countries to perform the surgical procedures.
MI5 has also discovered that extremists are inserting the explosives into the buttocks of some male bombers.
“Women suicide bombers recruited by Al Qaeda are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery,” Terrorist expert Joseph Farah claims.
The lethal explosives called PETN are inserted inside plastic shapes during the operation, before the breast is then sewn up.
The discovery of these methods was made after London-educated Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab came close to blowing up an airliner in the U.S. on Christmas Day.
He had stuffed explosives inside his underpants.
Hours after he had failed, Britain’s intelligence services began to pick up “chatter” emanating from Pakistan and Yemen that alerted MI5 to the creation of the lethal implants.
A hand-picked team investigated the threat which was described as “one that can circumvent our defense.”
Top surgeons have confirmed the feasibility of the explosive implants.
Explosive experts allegedly told MI5 that a sachet containing as little as five ounces of PETN could blow “a considerable hole” in an airline’s skin, causing it to crash.
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Dems Pelted with Bricks & Abuse over Healthcare Reforms
March 26, 2010 by JP
Filed under Government
March 26, 2010
Guardian
By: Daniel Nasaw
Leading Democrats moved today to condemn acts of vandalism and death threats against legislators after several members of Congress were targeted by angry opponents of the healthcare reform measure.
The FBI was called in to help handle a torrent of abuse, from bricks through congressional office windows to sinister, obscene phone messages. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said the threats had “no place in a civil debate in our country”.
The House Democratic leader, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, said that at least 10 House members were concerned for their personal safety, and a number reported their offices had been vandalised.
In one incident, authorities in Virginia are investigating a severed propane gas line at the home of the brother of a Democrat who supported the overhaul measure. An activist with the “tea party” movement had posted the brother’s address on an internet forum, apparently thinking it was the congressman’s, and urged angry opponents to pay him a visit. A New York Democrat reported a brick was thrown through a window at her office, and a glass front door was smashed at the office of an Arizona Democrat.
One caller to the office of Bart Stupak, a Democrat who voted for the legislation, said: “I hope you bleed … [get] cancer and die.” A fax to his office carried a picture of a gallows with “Bart (SS) Stupak” on it and a noose attached.
Representative James Clyburn, the highest ranking black lawmaker, said he received a fax with an image of a noose. Others received threatening phone calls.
Representative Phil Hare, an Illinois Democrat, told the Politico news website that several Democrats had told their spouses to move out of their constituencies while the legislators are in Washington.
“If this doesn’t get under control in short time, heaven forbid, someone will get hurt,” Hare told the paper.
The Republican House leader, John Boehner, has spoken out against the violence, but Democrats have criticised Republicans for not forcefully condemning the violence and threats and for encouraging raucous demonstrations.
“There are a lot of angry Americans and they are angry over this healthcare bill,” he said Wednesday on Fox News. “They are angry about the fact that the Democrats here in Washington aren’t listening to them.
“But I’ve got to tell you that violence and threats are unacceptable… Let’s take that anger, and go out and register people to vote, go volunteer on a political campaign.”
President Barack Obama signed the measure into law this week after a year of intense battle on Capitol Hill and furious protest by conservative opponents. As the House prepared for a final vote over the weekend, several African-American lawmakers were subject to racial epithets from angry protestors surrounding the Capitol building, with one reporting he was spat upon.
Although healthcare reform is now law, the political wrangling continued in the Senate, which is taking up a package of modest fixes to the initial bill.
Senate Democrats this morning were fending off dozens of Republican efforts to amend the bill, moves which if successful would trigger a new round of debate in the House. Voting began about 5.30pm Wednesday and continued until well after midnight.
The Senate resumed today and by midday had held nearly 40 votes. Democratic leaders say the votes are a frivolous attempt to delay or kill the bill.
Meanwhile, Republicans won a minor victory that will force another vote in each chamber, with a parliamentary ruling that certain parts of the fixes bill must be struck because they do not have the required effect on the US budget.
The Senate is expected to approve the bill this afternoon, and the House will take it up soon after.
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Castro Endorses Obama Health Care Reform
March 26, 2010 by JP
Filed under Government
March 26, 2010
Yahoo!
By: Paul Haven
It perhaps was not the endorsement President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress were looking for.
Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform “a miracle” and a major victory for Obama’s presidency, but couldn’t help chide the United States for taking so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago.
“We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama’s) government,” Castro wrote in an essay published in state media, adding that it would strengthen the president’s hand against lobbyists and “mercenaries.”
But the Cuban leader also used the lengthy piece to criticize the American president for his lack of leadership on climate change and immigration reform, and for his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, among many other things.
And he said it was remarkable that the most powerful country on earth took more than two centuries from its founding to approve something as basic as health benefits for all.
“It is really incredible that 234 years after the Declaration of Independence … the government of that country has approved medical attention for the majority of its citizens, something that Cuba was able to do half a century ago,” Castro wrote.
The longtime Cuban leader — who ceded power to his brother Raul in 2008 — has continued to pronounce his thoughts on world issues though frequent essays, titled “Reflections,” which are published in state newspapers.
Cuba provides free health care and education to all its citizens, and heavily subsidizes food, housing, utilities and transportation, policies that have earned it global praise. The government has warned that some of those benefits are no longer sustainable given Cuba’s ever-struggling economy, though it has so far not made major changes.
In recent speeches, Raul Castro has singled out medicine as an area where the government needs to be spending less, but he has not elaborated.
While Fidel Castro was initially positive about Obama, his essays have become increasingly hostile in recent months as relations between Cuba and the United States have soured. Washington has been increasingly alarmed by Cuba’s treatment of political dissidents — one of whom died in February after a long hunger strike.
Cuba was irate over the island’s inclusion earlier this year on a list of countries Washington considers to be state sponsors of terrorism. Tensions have also risen following the arrest in December of a U.S. government contractor that Havana accuses of spying.
In Thursday’s essay, Castro called Obama a “fanatic believer in capitalist imperialism” but also praised him as “unquestionably intelligent.”
“I hope that the stupid things he sometimes says about Cuba don’t cloud over that intelligence,” he said
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Judge Strikes Down Ordinance Banning Illegals From Renting
March 26, 2010 by Andrew
Filed under Government
March 26, 2010
NBC News
A federal judge has ruled that a Farmers Branch ordinance banning illegal immigrants from renting apartments is unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Jane J. Boyle of Dallas ruled Wednesday that the ordinance was an attempt to enforce U.S. immigration laws, something only the federal government can do.
“Ordinance 2952 is a regulation of immigration and is preempted by the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution because the authority to regulate immigration is exclusively a federal power,” she wrote.
The ordinance established a licensing system for renters in Farmers Branch. Renters would be required to pay a $5 fee and obtain a residential occupancy license issued by the city’s building inspector. Under the system, the building inspector would verify a renter’s immigration status with federal officials if the renter did not declare him or herself a citizen or national of the United States. The city would revoke the licenses of people the federal government said were in the country illegally.
Boyle said in her ruling that the measure uses federal immigration classifications in ways that aren’t authorized or contemplated by federal law.
“As a result, the ordinance creates and additional restriction on alien residence in the city,” she wrote.
The judge also said in her ruling that Ordinance 2952 “directly and substantially” regulates the residence of immigrants in Farmers Branch, which interferes with the uniform enforcement of federal immigration laws.
The city has for years been trying to enforce bans on landlords renting to illegal immigrants. Federal courts have also struck down other versions of the ordinance.
Mayor Tim O’Hare, who supports Ordinance 2952, told The Dallas Morning News that he favors appealing the ruling, but said the City Council would have to vote on that.
The City Council will vote next month on whether or not to continue fighting.
But Elizabeth Villafranca, a restaurant owner, said the money the city would spend on appealing could be better spent.
“This is irresponsible, especially in these economic times,” she said.
Villafranca said continuing the fight could also hurt development.
“Big businesses are not going to come here to do new development if the city is perceived as being backward,” she said.
But O’Hare said the city has seen development, and is likely to see more with DART rail on the way.
“What is the cost of doing nothing?” he said. “And the cost of doing nothing, it affects your school districts, it affects your shopping centers.”
O’Hare said he thinks the city can win on appeal.
“What we seem to have gotten away form in this country is doing what the people that elected you want you to do,” he said.
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Senate Majority Leader Accidently Votes ‘No’ TWICE on Healthcare Bill
March 26, 2010 by Andrew
Filed under Government
March 26, 2010
CNN
By: Ted Barrett
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid mistakenly called out “no” Thursday when asked for his vote on the health care reconciliation bill, setting the chamber howling with laughter.
Reid voted the wrong way when the clerk called for his vote, realized his error and quickly changed his vote to “yes.”
“He did it again,” someone said amid laughter.
Reid, who spent months persuading fellow senators to vote “yes” on President Obama’s top domestic priority, made the same mistake December 24 when voting on the original health care bill.
His office said Reid made the gaffe because he was so focused on getting health care passed.
What’s fueling health care rage?
The reconciliation measure, also known as the “fixes” bill, makes changes in the broader health care overhaul measure that Obama enacted Tuesday.
The Senate had to vote again on health care after Republicans forced two minor provisions involving student loan funding to be stripped from the bill. The final vote was 56-43 for approval, after which it was sent to the House, which also passed the measure.
The “fixes” bill now goes to Obama to be signed into law.
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Kevin Adds Station in West Virginia
March 25, 2010 by JP
Filed under Radio Stations
March 25, 2010 - CHICAGO, IL – The Kevin Trudeau show is proud to announce that starting March 27th, 2010, it will be airing on WCST in Berkeley Springs,WV!
The show will air on WCST 1010AM every Saturday from 9am to 11am!
Listeners have compared Kevin Trudeau’s radio show to the best parts of Michael Savage, Howard Stern, Art Bell, John Tesh and Rush Limbaugh.
Mr. Trudeau is one of the most read authors of all time. His books have all been best sellers and have sold over 30 million copies globally. Mr. Trudeau’s most controversial book, Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About was number 1 on the New York Times best sellers list for 26 weeks in a row becoming the best selling health book of all time.
The Kevin Trudeau Radio Show originates from studios at Trudeau’s World Headquarters in Chicago. For information regarding affiliate relations visit www.KevinOnAir.com
