Small

     Have you ever considered the fact that you are too small as an individual to be considered by financial institutions as a “necessary” part of their operations?  Think about this for a few minutes!

     Back in 2008 we had a great financial crash as banks were unable to deal with all the worthless paper mortgages that had been written (by them) within the country.  The US Government spent over $700 BILLION to “bail out” the banks from the financial crisis.  However, according to a Forbes article from July 14, 2015 by Mike Collins this was only the tip of the iceberg.  I quote a portion of that article here:

    “Most people think that the big bank bailout was the $700 billion that the treasury department used to save the banks during the financial crash in September of 2008. But this is a long way from the truth because the bailout is still ongoing. The Special Inspector General for TARP summary of the bailout says that the total commitment of government is $16.8 trillion dollars with the $4.6 trillion already paid out. Yes, it was trillions not billions and the banks are now larger and still too big to fail. But it isn’t just the government bailout money that tells the story of the bailout. This is a story about lies, cheating, and a multi-faceted corruption which was often criminal.

• Rating agencies- Rating agencies like Standard and Poor’s are paid by the banks (which is a conflict of interest) and have a huge influence on the ratings of securities. During the housing bubble ratings agencies continued to give triple AAA ratings to toxic mortgages. The justice department wants $5 billion in restitution from Standard and Poor’s for its part in falsifying ratings.

• Money laundering – It has been proven that the American Division of the HSBC bank did money laundering for Mexican drug cartels to the tune of $881 billion according to the Justice Department. The penalty to this bank for blatant corruption was $1.9 billion and the New York Times laments that HSBC was too big to indict. Nobody goes to jail at a time when an unemployed black person gets 10 years for robbing a minute mart.

• Betting Against – Both JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs worked with hedge funds to bet against the toxic mortgages after the crash had started. They made money by selling short on the financial catastrophe they had created. JP Morgan was fined $296.9 million and Goldman Sachs was fined $550 million for actions

• Insider Trading –The jailed billionaire Raj Rajartmn made nearly $One million a minute by getting inside information from Goldman Schs. The New York attorney has fingered 70 hedge funds but the prosecution is very slow.

     The operating principles of the big banks is a cesspool of greed, ethics and criminal intent and they give a very bad name to free market capitalism. During the housing bubble Wall street was considered the heart and soul of free market capitalism, but when they were in danger of total collapse they fell on their knees as socialists, begging the government and tax payers to bail them out

     Many people have asked why the government bailed them out. Isn’t capitalism designed to get rid of the weak and the failed; so why didn’t we just let them fail? The answer was that they were too big to fail and allowing them to fail could have created a worldwide depression. . In fact, in a meeting with Congress on September 18th, 2008. Treasury Secretary Paulson told the members that $5.5 trillion in wealth could disappear by 2pm of that day. In a meeting with Senator Sherrod Brown, Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said, “we need $700 billion and we need it in 3 days.””

     I actually heard a top representative of one of the larger banks tell a reporter that “the banks were under no obligation to repay any of the funds back to the government.”

     Can you picture yourself walking into your local bank and informing you bank’s loan officer that you need $100,000 TODAY!  When asked what you were going to do with the funds you simple state “I’m not sure”.  When asked when you intend to pay the money back, you state, “I’m under NO obligation to pay any of this money back.”  How much money do you think you are going to get from the bank?  I think your problem was:  “You’re TOO SMALL!”  You should have gone into the bank and asked for BILLIONS of dollars.  Then you might have made a positive impression on the banker and gotten your money.

     Yet, the governments, themselves, also use this same type of methods.  Make the story “SUPER” sensational and provide “plausible denial” and many people will believe the stories that are being told.  You’ve seen it done many, many times.  It seems that regardless of how often this is done, people will believe!

     So the circle continues.  The “average” individual will always be too “SMALL” to take advantage of issues involved in the big picture of world events.  And so it would seem because we’re only human!

QUOTE TO CONSIDER

THOUGHTFUL GEM

"With a BILLION to ONE odds

there's still a chance!

Never give up!"