The Kevin Trudeau Show: 9-29-12
Today, Kevin explains how congressmen and government officials make a killing on making money from insider information! You won’t believe the net worth of some of these congressmen and congresswomen! Plus, Fred Van Liew gives you the facts behind electromagnetic chaos and how it is virtually killing you and your children. Find out what you can do to protect yourself and your family before it’s too late!
Health:
Exercises For Every Mood
Nutrient-Rich, Low-Calorie Diets Reprogram Fat Cells
Government:
White House Emails Show Staffer Calling Fox News’ Bret Baier A ‘Lunatic’
Congressional Trading on Advance Info Not Illegal: SEC
Congress Mulls Trading Curbs for Its Own
Abnormal Returns From Common Stock Investments From The U.S. Senate
A Perk of Power: Trading In Companies You Oversee
Conspiracy:
Whistleblower Found Dead!
Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become Kevin’s Friend on Facebook
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
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The Kevin Trudeau Show: 6-2-12
Did you know that the government arranges to kill people all over the world? KT reveals the shocking details! Plus, find out why the White House is putting the pressure on news organizations, and why news organizations are putting the pressure on the White House!
Self Help:
A Trusted Fish Oil
Your Wish Is Your Command
Supplements You Can Count On
Health
Night Owls Have Worst Diet Habits
Coffee Prevents Prostate Cancer
Government
White House Emails Show Staffer Calling Fox News’ Bret Baier A ‘Lunatic’
Wastebook 2010: A Guide To Wasteful Government Spending
Congressional Trading on Advance Info Not Illegal: SEC
Congress Mulls Trading Curbs for Its Own
Abnormal Returns From Common Stock Investments From The U.S. Senate
Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Download Kevin’s iPhone App!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become Kevin’s Friend on Facebook
Kevin’s Film Club
Kevin’s Book Club
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
Click Below to Download the Kevin Trudeau Show!
General Electric Is Targeted By Flash Mob For Dodging Taxes
April 13, 2012 by admin
Filed under News Stories
April 13, 2012
By: Stephen C. Webster
General Electric, one of the largest and most profitable corporations in the world, isn’t immune to criticism, and on Thursday some of their most vocal critics — their shareholders — gathered in the lobby of the company’s Boston offices to elaborate on their frustrations through song and dance.
“GE pays no taxes — it’s pathetic!” the group began to sing after donning red caps in the GE building’s lobby. “Billions in refunds! It’s pathetic! You know that ain’t fair — ain’t fair anywhere.”
The protest was staged by activists with MassUniting.org, which describes itself as “a coalition of neighbors, community groups, faith organizations and labor united for good jobs, corporate accountability, and stronger communities.” They group, which said it recruited “dozens” of GE shareholders for the event, targeted the company over their last two years of highly publicized tax returns. GE in Boston has been targeted before too, by protesters with the “Occupy” movement.
GE has become notorious for paying relatively little in taxes on tens of billions in profits, and earlier this year the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Tax Justice said the company’s latest filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reveals that GE massively avoided the official U.S. corporate tax rate of 35 percent by using deductions and loopholes in the tax code, allowing them to reap benefits from taxpayers during years when its profits were down.
Click Here For The Full Report From Raw Story
Worldwide Banking Resignations Triple According to Revised Numbers: Why Now?
March 21, 2012 by admin
Filed under News Stories
March 21, 2012
Activist Post
By Brandon Turbeville
On March 6, 2012, I wrote an article entitled “Mass Banking Resignations Signal A Purging Has Begun?” where I included a list of banking directors, CEOs, and board members of both national and international financial institutions standing who have resigned from their post since September 2011. The data was collected and compiled by independent blog American Kabuki and posted online complete with a description of the individual, location, and link to the resignation announcement where it was covered in the mainstream media.
At the time my article was posted, the list had already topped 122. This prompted many, including myself, to question whether or not 122 was actually such a large number, given that there are many national and international institutions across the globe, as well as the fact that these resignations took place within a span of a period of about five months.
Certainly, the number seemed enormous.
Apparently American Kabuki had the same questions. Only a few weeks after the initial posting, the blogger posted a chart that included the number of resignations filed with the SEC, as required by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, going back to 2008 and in to the fourth quarter of 2011. Tracing the resignations back to 2008 would, obviously, provide something close to a representative sample of the normal rate of resignation over a period of three years.
What these statistics revealed was a staggering increase in the number of resignations announced around the second and third quarters of 2011.
Click here for the full report.
Why Are Bankers Jumping Ship In Record Numbers, Financial Collapse Imminent?
March 16, 2012 by admin
Filed under News Stories
March 16, 2012
Activist Post
By Brandon Turbeville
On March 6, 2012, I wrote an article entitled, “Mass Banking Resignations Signal A Purging Has Begun?” in which I discussed the seemingly large number of banking resignations taking place all over the world. At the time the article was published, the number had reached 122 announced resignations.
This past week saw yet another high-profile resignation where an executive from Goldman Sachs quit in a blaze of glory taking aggressive swings at his former company and the finance industry as a whole in a widely publicized resignation letter in the New York Times. As a result of Greg Smith’s damning indictment of the “culture of greed” at Goldman Sachs, they lost over $2 billion in market share because of the bad press.
The overall list of resignations, originally compiled by the independent blog, American Kabuki, raised a number of questions for most who had the opportunity to go through it – this writer included. This is not surprising since, when one reads that 122 banking officials have resigned from relatively high-level posts, one naturally wants to know why.
Upon first reading, the resignation figure seems quite large. However, considering the number of banks in business around the world, it might have occurred to some that 122 resignations might not be quite the massive exit that many initially suspected it to be. After all, with so many institutions around the world, particularly in the midst of a worldwide economic depression, wouldn’t resignations of this scale be expected? In short, one of the baseline questions that needs to be asked when discussing the recent banking resignations is, “Is this really such a big number?”
Indeed, ever since news of the resignations first came out, no one in the mainstream or alternative media has been able to demonstrate what exactly a normal number of resignations would look like.
However, another recent post by American Kabuki may help shed a little light on this issue.
According to American Kabuki, because of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, all publicly traded companies must report to the SEC (Securities Exchange Commission) whenever certain officers or board members resign from their post. This publication is made via the database known as EDGAR.
Click here for the full report.
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 1-21-12
Did you know that the government arranges to kill people all over the world? KT reveals the shocking details! Plus, find out why the White House is putting the pressure on news organizations, and why news organizations are putting the pressure on the White House!
Self Help:
A Trusted Fish Oil
Your Wish Is Your Command
Supplements You Can Count On
Health
Night Owls Have Worst Diet Habits
Coffee Prevents Prostate Cancer
Government
White House Emails Show Staffer Calling Fox News’ Bret Baier A ‘Lunatic’
Wastebook 2010: A Guide To Wasteful Government Spending
Congressional Trading on Advance Info Not Illegal: SEC
Congress Mulls Trading Curbs for Its Own
Abnormal Returns From Common Stock Investments From The U.S. Senate
Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Download Kevin’s iPhone App!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become Kevin’s Friend on Facebook
Kevin’s Film Club
Kevin’s Book Club
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
Click Below to Download the Kevin Trudeau Show!
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 12-24-11
Which is it…is the government putting pressure on the media, or is the media putting pressure on the government? Plus, Fred Van Liew gives you the facts behind electromagnetic chaos and how it is virtually killing you and your children. Find out what you can do to protect yourself and your family before it’s too late!
Health:
Exercises For Every Mood
Nutrient-Rich, Low-Calorie Diets Reprogram Fat Cells
Government:
White House Emails Show Staffer Calling Fox News’ Bret Baier A ‘Lunatic’
Congressional Trading on Advance Info Not Illegal: SEC
Congress Mulls Trading Curbs for Its Own
Abnormal Returns From Common Stock Investments From The U.S. Senate
A Perk of Power: Trading In Companies You Oversee
Conspiracy:
Whistleblower Found Dead!
Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become Kevin’s Friend on Facebook
Kevin’s Film Club
Kevin’s Book Club
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
Click Below to Watch the Kevin Trudeau Show LIVE!
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 11-5-11
Did you know that the government arranges to kill people all over the world? KT reveals the shocking details! Plus, find out why the White House is putting the pressure on news organizations, and why news organizations are putting the pressure on the White House!
Self Help:
A Trusted Fish Oil
Your Wish Is Your Command
Supplements You Can Count On
Health
Night Owls Have Worst Diet Habits
Coffee Prevents Prostate Cancer
Government
White House Emails Show Staffer Calling Fox News’ Bret Baier A ‘Lunatic’
Wastebook 2010: A Guide To Wasteful Government Spending
Congressional Trading on Advance Info Not Illegal: SEC
Congress Mulls Trading Curbs for Its Own
Abnormal Returns From Common Stock Investments From The U.S. Senate
Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Download Kevin’s iPhone App!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become Kevin’s Friend on Facebook
Kevin’s Film Club
Kevin’s Book Club
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
Click Below to Download the Kevin Trudeau Show!
Why the SEC Won’t Hunt Big Dogs
October 31, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
October 31, 2011
Pro Publica
By Jesse Eisinger
Back when the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was doing its work, I would check in periodically with someone who worked there to find out how it was going.
“Good news!” my source would joke. “We got the guy who caused it.”
That is the way I felt last week when the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had, well, agreed to a measly $285 million settlement with Citigroup over the bank having misled its own customers in selling an investment it created out of mortgage securities as the housing market was beginning its collapse.
In addition, the S.E.C. accused one person — a low-level banker. Hooray, we finally got the guy who caused the financial crisis! The Occupy Wall Street protestors can now go home.
After years of lengthy investigations into collateralized debt obligations, the mortgage securities at the heart of the financial crisis, the S.E.C. has brought civil actions against only two small-time bankers. But compared with the Justice Department, the S.E.C. is the second coming of Eliot Ness. No major investment banker has been brought up on criminal charges stemming from the financial crisis.
To understand why that is so pathetic and — worse — corrupting, we need to briefly review what went on in C.D.O.’s in the years before the crisis. By 2006, legions of Wall Street bankers had turned C.D.O.’s into vehicles for their own personal enrichment, at the expense of their customers.
These bankers brought in savvy (and cynical) investors to buy pieces of the deals that they could not sell. These investors bet against the deals. Worse, they skewed the deals by exercising influence over what securities went into the C.D.O.’s, and they pushed for the worst possible stuff to be included.
The investment banks did not disclose any of this to the investors on the other side of the deals, or if they did, they slipped a vague, legalistic disclosure sentence into the middle of hundreds of pages of dense documentation. In the case brought last week, Citigroup was selling the deal, called Class V Funding III, while its own traders were filling it up with garbage and betting against it.
By the S.E.C.’s own investigations of and settlements with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, and by reporting like my ProPublica work with Jake Bernstein and early stories by The Wall Street Journal, we know that these breaches were anything but isolated. This was the Wall Street business model. (Goldman, JPMorgan and Citigroup were all able to settle without admitting or denying anything, which, of course, is part of the problem.)
Neither the Citigroup settlement nor any of the others come close to matching the profits and bonuses that these banks generated in making these deals. And low-level bankers did not, and could not, act alone. They were not rogues, hiding things from their bosses.
Last week’s S.E.C. complaint makes clear that the low-level Citigroup banker that it sued, Brian H. Stoker, had multiple conversations with his superiors about the details of Class V. At one point, Mr. Stoker’s boss pressed him to make sure that their group got “credit” for the profits on the short that was made by another group at the bank.
Pause, and think about that. The boss was looking for credit, but as far as the S.E.C. was concerned, he got no blame.
The S.E.C. did not respond to a request for comment, so we are left to wonder what explains its failure to reckon adequately with the pervasive problems. Contrary to expectations, the embattled and oft-assailed agency has done almost everything right with structured finance investigations, taking aim at abuses related to C.D.O.’s and other complex deals.
The S.E.C. has also devoted adequate resources to the issue. It put together a special task force on structured finance, sending the proper signal of the agency’s priorities both internally and externally. The task force is staffed by bright people, an invigorating mix of young go-getters and experienced hands. Those people have understood for years what was wrong with the C.D.O. business on Wall Street.
O.K., so what is it? Risk aversion.
Based on the major cases the S.E.C. has brought, a pattern has emerged. It is making one settlement per firm and concentrating on only the safest, most airtight cases. The agency’s yardstick seems to be, who wrote the stupidest e-mail? Mr. Stoker of Citigroup wrote an incriminating e-mail that recommended keeping one crucial participant in the dark. Goldman’s Fabrice Tourre, the other functionary the agency has sued, wrote dumb things to his girlfriend.
But the S.E.C is not the G-mail G-man. It is the securities police. Imprudent e-mailing is not the only way to commit securities fraud.
Maybe the agency hopes that private litigation will take up the slack. It cannot investigate and wring a prosecution or settlement out of every corrupt deal. Instead, it has long aimed to plant a flag and let private litigants take care of the rest.
But private litigation has failed. One problem is that the defrauded institutions often committed their own sins. In a monstrous daisy chain, C.D.O.’s bought pieces of other C.D.O.’s. These investments were run by management companies. They might have been the victim in one C.D.O., but complicit in the predations of another.
Click here for the full report from Pro Publica.
Did Citi Get a Sweet Deal? Bank Claims SEC Settlement on One CDO Clears It on All Others
October 26, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
October 26, 2011
ProPublica
By Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein
In the run-up to the global financial collapse, Citigroup’s bankers worked feverishly to create complex securities. In just one year, 2007, Citi marketed more than $20 billion worth of deals backed by home mortgages to investors around the world, most of which failed spectacularly. Subsequent lawsuits and investigations turned up evidence that the bank knew that some of the products were low quality and, in some instances, had even bet they would fail.
The bank says it has settled all of its potential liability to a key regulator – the Securities and Exchange Commission — with a $285 million payment that covers a single transaction, Class V Funding III. ProPublica first raised questions about the deal in August 2010. In announcing a case, the SEC said it had identified one low-level employee, Brian Stoker, as responsible for the bank’s misconduct.
It made no mention of the dozens of similar collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, Citi sold to investors before the crash.
A bank spokesman said the SEC would not be examining any of those deals. “This means that the SEC has completed its CDO investigation(s) of Citi,’’ the spokesman asserted in an e mail.
“The $285 million settlement resolves only the Class V Funding III CDO, and we will not hesitate to bring further charges where we determine that there has been unlawful conduct,” an SEC spokesman said.
Did Citi get a sweet deal? Some observers think so.
“Citibank arranged countless CDOs that were built to fail, but the SEC apparently limited its case to a single CDO where they had particularly vivid and powerful proof,” says Stephen Ascher, a securities litigator at Jenner & Block, which has sued Citibank on various structured finance transactions.
“This represents extreme caution, at best — and a failure to grapple with the magnitude and harmfulness of the misconduct, at worst.”
ProPublica has been investigating the practices of the investment banks in the lead-up to the financial crisis for three years. Our research found a number of Citi CDOs similar to the deal featured in the SEC’s Class V complaint, and more information on Citi’s CDO business has emerged in lawsuits and subsequent investigations. Responsibility for these practices did not begin or end with Mr. Stoker. Among the questions still unanswered: How much did Stoker’s immediate bosses know? What did the heads of Citigroup’s CDO business, fixed income business and trading businesses know about Citi’s CDO dealings?
In the settlement announced this week, the SEC charged Citigroup with misleading its clients in the $1 billion Class V Funding III. The regulator said that the bank failed to disclose that it, rather than a supposedly independent collateral manager, had played a key role in choosing the assets in the deal when the bank marketed it to clients. Citigroup also failed to tell its clients that it retained a short position, or bet against, the CDO it created and sold. In addition to the $285 million fine, the SEC also charged Credit Suisse Alternative Capital, which was supposed to choose the assets that went into the CDO, and a low-level executive at that firm, with securities law violations.
Stoker becomes only the second investment banker after Goldman Sachs’ Fabrice “Fabulous Fab” Tourre to be charged by the SEC in conjunction with the business of creating CDOs, which were at the heart of the financial collapse in the fall of 2008. According to the SEC, Stoker played a leading role in structuring Class V Funding III. Stoker declined to comment. His lawyer has said he is fighting the charges.
The SEC complaint shows that Stoker was regularly communicating with other Citi executives about his actions. One top Citi executive coaches employees in an email that Credit Suisse should tell potential buyers of Class V about how it decided to purchase the assets, even though Citi, not Credit Suisse, was making the calls.
In October 2006, people from Citi’s trading desk approached Stoker about shorting deals that Citi arranged. Later, in Nov 3, 2006, Stoker’s immediate boss inquired about Class V Funding III. Stoker told his boss that he hoped the deal would go through. He wrote that the Citi trading group had taken a position in the deal. Citi’s trading desk was shorting Class V Funding III, betting that its value would fall. Stoker noted that Citi shouldn’t tell Credit Suisse officials what was going on, and that Credit Suisse had agreed to be the manager of the CDO “even though they don’t get to pick the assets.’’ Less than two weeks later, this executive pressed Stoker to make sure that their group at Citi got “credit” for the profits on the short.
This Citi official, unnamed in the complaint, was not charged by the SEC.
If Class V Funding III was some outlier, the SEC’s action might make more sense. But it wasn’t. Citigroup’s CDO operation churned out at least 18 CDOs around the same period. Often they were large CDOs, created with credit default swaps, effectively a bet that a given bond will rise or fall. Most of the CDOs included recycled Citi assets that the bank couldn’t sell. By purchasing pieces of its older deals, Citigroup could complete deals and keep the prices for CDO assets higher than they otherwise would be. Some investors helped picked the assets and then bet against them, facts that Citi didn’t clearly disclose to other investors in the deals.
Closing the book on Citi’s CDO business means the public may never know the true story of Citigroup’s, and Wall Street’s, actions during the financial crisis. One of the largest victims of the CDOs was the bond insurer Ambac. The now-bankrupt firm settled with Citi in 2010, long before it got to the root of the problems with securities Citi convinced it to insure. A shareholder class action lawsuit that is wending its way through the courts has the potential to reveal some details, but often such cases are settled with evidence then sealed from public view.
Among the unresolved questions: What was Citigroup’s role in a series of deals involving Magnetar, an Illinois-based hedge fund that invested in small portions of CDOs and then made big bets against them? Our investigation showed that Citi put together at least 5 Magnetar CDOs worth $6.5 billion. Did Citi mislead the investors who lost big on these deals?
Here are some other questions about Citi CDOs created around the time of Class V Funding III:
888 Tactical Fund. A February 2007, $1 billion deal, it had a significant portion of other Citi deals in it. Did the bank have influence over the selection of the assets, as it did in Class V Funding III?
Adams Square Funding II. A $1 billion March 2007 deal. The pitch-book to clients for Class V Funding III was adapted almost wholesale from this deal, according to the SEC complaint. Was Citigroup shorting this deal, or adding assets that were selected by others to short the deal? And was that adequately disclosed to clients?
Ridgeway Court Funding II. Completed in June 2007, this $3 billion deal contained a mysterious $750 million position in a CDO index. Experts believe that such positions were included for the purposes of shorting the market. Did Citi disclose why it included these assets to the investors in this CDO? As much as 30 percent of the assets in the deal were from unsold Citi CDOs. Was this a dumping ground for decaying assets the bank could not unload, as a lawsuit by Ambac, which was settled, charged?
Armitage. This $3 billion March 2007 CDO looked a lot like Ridgeway II. It had a large portion of other CDOs, much of which came from other Citi deals, including $260 million from Adams Square Funding II. Did Citi adequately disclose to investors what they were buying?
Class V Funding IV. A $2 billion June 2007 deal, Citi appears to have done this directly with Ambac. The SEC complaint about Class V Funding III makes it clear that Ambac was unaware of Citi’s position in that deal. Did the bank disclose more to Ambac in this deal?
Octonion. This $1 billion March 2007 CDO bought some of Adams Square Funding II. Adams Square II bought a piece of Octonion. A third CDO, Class V Funding III, also bought some of Octonion. Octonion, in turn, bought a piece of Class V Funding III. How did Citi and the collateral managers involved in these deals justify this daisy chain of buying?
