Matt Taibbi - The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam yet...

[truth2power]

Early last week, someone posted a Mike Papantonio clip in the multimedia forum, "Predator Banks Go After Commodities".

Link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017178702

During that discussion, Pap mentioned a recent Matt Taibbi article which details what the megabanks are up to now. Here's a link to the article:

The Vampire Squid Strikes Again

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-vampire-squid-strikes-again-the-mega-banks-most-devious-scam-yet-20140212

This is what Taibbi calls, "...the wholesale merger of high finance with heavy industry." The megabanks are now speculating in commodities.

snip...

"Allowing one company to control the supply of crucial physical commodities, and also trade in the financial products that might be related to those markets, is an open invitation to commit mass manipulation. It's something akin to letting casino owners who take book on NFL games during the week also coach all the teams on Sundays.

...snip

In just the past few years we've seen an explosion of scandals – from the multitrillion-dollar Libor saga (major international banks gaming world interest rates), to the more recent foreign-currency-exchange fiasco (many of the same banks suspected of rigging prices in the $5.3-trillion-a-day currency markets), to lesser scandals involving manipulation of interest-rate swaps, and gold and silver prices.

But those are purely financial schemes. In these new, even scarier kinds of manipulations, banks that own whole chains of physical business interests have been caught rigging prices in those industries.

I encourage everyone to read Taibbi's article. Will this thievery ever stop?

[GoneFishin]

1. Nice. The banks borrow money from the Fed at virtually 0% interest, and drive up the living

expenses of Joe Average by creating artificial scarcities. When Joe can't make ends meet on his paycheck, they give him a 29% credit card underwritten with money they borrow from the Fed for free.

Then, if any of their riskier, glutenous investments go south, they send Joe the bill by way of government bailouts to the banks and higher taxes for Joe and the rest of middle class america.

[benld74]

2. SCUM of the earth!

Their slogan should be 'We make money the new fangled way, we make people pay more to live!'

[bvar22]

3. "Will this thievery ever stop? "

Not until WE stop it.
It is painfully clear that neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party in their current incarnations have any interest in stopping the thievery.


[font color=white]................[/font][font size=4]Paulson with Co-Conspirators

[font color=white]...........[/font][font size=4]Now THIS is Bi-Partisanship![/font][/font]



You will know then by their WORKS.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. We've had trouble ever since they gamed it to make money through a profit loss.