Here they go again...building up to another bleeding of
the American People!
NEW YORK
– 09-13-09 - A year after the financial system nearly
collapsed, the nation's biggest banks are bigger and regaining
their appetite for risk.
Goldman Sachs,
JPMorgan Chase and others — which have received tens of
billions of dollars in federal aid — are once more betting big
on bonds, commodities and exotic financial products, trading
that nearly stopped during the
financial crisis.
That
Wall Street is making money again in essentially the
same ways that thrust the banking system into chaos last fall
is reason for concern on several levels,
financial
analysts and government officials say.
• There
have been no significant changes to the federal rules
governing their behavior. Proposals that have been made to
better monitor the financial system and to police the products
banks sell to consumers have been held up by lobbyists,
lawmakers and turf-protecting regulators.
"The big
banks now are more powerful than before," said Johnson, now a
professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan
School of Management. "Their market share has grown and they
have a lot of clout in Washington."
"Yes,
clout with the Jewish controlled Fed. Reserve, Treasury and
the FDIC."
And that means the return of
another Wall Street mainstay: Lavish compensation.
After 10 of the largest banks
received a $250 billion lifeline from the government last
fall, some lawmakers were outraged that employees were being
paid seven-figure salaries even though their companies nearly
collapsed. A handful of top executives, including
Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, have agreed to accept pay
of just $1 this year. There is no disclosure on his bonus
compensation, stock shares and so on! It is, again evident
that these people, knowing they will be bailed out whenever
things get bad...are building the market back up for yet
another raping. The compensation of most high-performing
traders hasn't changed.
Goldman spent $6.6 billion in
the second quarter on pay and benefits, 34 percent more than
two years ago. And
Citigroup,
now one-third owned by the government after taking $45 billion
in federal money, owes a star energy trader $100 million.
The CEO of Goldman,
Lloyd Blankfein says that high numbered compensation is
crucial, but should not be over done. So, Mr. Blankfein, Larry
Silverstein, Geithner, Pataki, Bloomberg and the rest of the
Jewish dominated Wall Street and Federal Reserve criminals...
My question is; "When is it ever
enough with you people?"
Government
One major component of the
Obama plan — creating an agency to oversee the marketing of
financial products to consumers — will be difficult to pass in
Congress. Industry lobbying against it and other proposed
financial rules has been fierce.
Lobbyists for hedge funds,
the large investment pools that cater to the rich, have been
able to fend off proposals that would require them to register
with the SEC and regularly disclose their holdings.
Money spent on Bush's 2 Wars,
Iraq & Afghanistan from 2002 just to mid 2006
Three-hundred-fifteen billion dollars
...
Update :
July 21, 2006
This is the
amount of money the US has allocated for the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, to be spent by September 30, 2006, the end of the
fiscal year. And the Senate has allocated another 100 billion
more in spending for 2007 and 2008.
A $315 billion
pile of cash is 125 feet wide, 200 feet deep, and 450 feet
tall.
450
feet is the height of a 38-story building. It's the height of
the Millennium Wheel in London. It is also the height of the
Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas and the Louisiana State Capitol
Building.
If you were
to stack the money in a single stack, it would be 19,887 miles
tall, enough to wrap the Moon at its equator almost 3 times.
President
Bush, Jan. 6, 2003. How could this
duck-faced moron ever have made it out of grade school
and we let his media and corporate buddies buy the US
president's office...twice! Shame on America and especially
for allowing our sons and brothers to fight and die in a war
for oil at the demise of our country...shame...shame on you
all.
The Wall Street Monster Crash Video, hilarious, but true!
CRASH DANCE VIDEO- THE CRISIS -
THE STIMULUS & THE DEBT CEILING
Political Music Video; The Day Wall Street Died
Political Music Video; The Great Depression 1928 or 2008
A Must Watch Video; Wall Street Meltdown, set to
music.
"Financial Crisis Video: The Musical" Lyrics
& Vocals: B. Hopman
The Great Depression Video, lyrics by Bing Cosby
The Great Wall Street
Swindle Video- Jan
5, 2009
Bailout Scam Video: BEND OVER AMERICA - SWINDLE OF A CENTURY
Lou Dobbs of CNN;
September 26, 2008
Seven Hundred Billion bailout fraud
The non governmental Federal Reserve Banking Industry, the
economic crash -
The 700 Billion Dollar Bailout
"Wake Up America"
911 - The Wars - The Lies
TD Ameritrade Scam (Just to mention
one)
TD Ameritrade is an online broker with over 6 million U.S. customers, and
many more internationally, that has grown rapidly through acquisition, to become
the 746th-largest US firm in 2008. TD AMERITRADE Holding Corporation (NASDAQ:
AMTD) is the owner of TD AMERITRADE Inc.. Services offered include common and
preferred stocks, ETFs, option trades, mutual funds, fixed income, margin
lending, and cash management services.
Ameritrade Apex
The preferred customers of Ameritrade, Apex clients make either fifteen trades
per quarter or have an account balance of one hundred thousand dollars to
qualify. Ameritrade Apex clients also receive level-two quote-scope software.
With level two they can see all stock orders placed by market makers in real
time.
History
TD AMERITRADE traces back its lineage to a small investment banking firm and
First Omaha Securities, Inc. (later Accutrade) in Omaha, Nebraska. Ameritrade
Clearing Inc. was established as a clearing broker in 1983, and by 1987
TransTerra Company became the holding company for Ameritrade, and the company
was subsequently known as TransTerra Company. In 1988, the company introduced
the first quote and order entry system via the touch-tone phone. In 1995, the
company acquired K. Aufhauser & Company, Inc. and its WealthWeb, the first firm
to offer online securities trading, receiving the first order in August 1994. In
October 1995, Ameritrade acquired All American Brokers. In January 1996,
TransTerra's Accutrade launched "Accutrade for Windows," the first online
investing system that let individuals partake in program investing and basket
trading. By May 1996, TransTerra launched an Internet only broker called eBroker,
and by November, TransTerra Company became Ameritrade Holding Corporation.
In March 1997, Ameritrade became a publicly held company, and its IPO opened at
$15 per share. Ameritrade formed Freetrade in November 2000, which provided
commission-free equity market orders. Freetrade has since been replaced by
Ameritrade Izone, which now offers $5 equity market orders. In 2001, Ameritrade
made two acquisitions: the February acquisition of TradeCast, giving Ameritrade
a presence in the business-to-business arena, and the September acquisition of
National Discount Brokers Corporation, adding $6.3 billion in client assets.
In 2002, Ameritrade merged with Datek Online Holdings Corporation, and changed
commissions to $10.99 from $8 for market orders and $12 for limit and stop
orders. Ameritrade purchased Mydiscountbroker.com in June 2003, and client
accounts reached 3 million. In 2004, Ameritrade completed the purchase of
Bidwell and Company in January, BrokerageAmerica in February, Investex in May
and JB Oxford and Company in October. As of August 2007, there were reports
suggesting that Ameritrade was engaged in merger talks with E*TRADE.
In 2008, long-time CEO Joe Moglia announced he would be vacating the CEO
position in the upcoming fall after seven years to pursue other interests. Fred
Tomczyk, the former COO, was named his successor and took over in September
2008. Rumors started that the company was going to move its
headquarters out of the Omaha area after Moglia took over the Chairman position
from founder and former CEO J. Joseph Ricketts. With the departure of Ricketts,
who founded the company in Omaha, the company for the first time in its history
had no members from the founding family on its management team, outside of the
two that remained on the Board of Directors. Tomczyk further strengthened the
rumors when he stated that he would not be moving out to Omaha, but rather
staying in the New York City area, where he is based out of. However, those
rumors were put to rest when in October 2008 plans were unveiled of the new TD
Ameritrade headquarters in Omaha. The new headquarters would consolidate the
call center and corporate offices together into one building. The new building,
planned for development in the Old Mill area of Omaha, has a scheduled
completion date of 2012. Tomcyzk later confirmed that the company considered
moving out of the Omaha area, but decided to stay because of the large number of
employees based in Omaha.
Tomczyk announced on June 10, 2009, that the name of the new ballpark will be TD
Ameritrade Park Omaha. He had also made a statement that morning that this move
is a sign that the company will continue to be headquarted in Omaha. TD
Ameritrade will be paying an average of $1 million a year for the naming rights.
The NCAA has also mentioned that they are interested in talking with the company
about a corporate sponsorship.
Acquisition of thinkorswim Group Inc.
On January 7, 2009 TD AMERITRADE acquired thinkorswim Group Inc. (NASDAQ:SWIM)
in a cash and stock deal valued at approximately $606 million. The transaction
aimed to advance TD AMERITRADE's growth strategy on the trading side of the
business.
Acquisition of TD Waterhouse USA
On January 24, 2006, Ameritrade Holding Corporation acquired TD Waterhouse USA
from TD Bank Financial Group. Following the acquisition, it renamed itself TD
AMERITRADE. TD AMERITRADE is one of the largest online brokerages, with 6.3
million client accounts and $300 billion in client assets. Revenue and net
income are expected to increase to $1.8 billion and $557 million, respectively.
TD Bank now owns 39% of TD AMERITRADE, and purchased Ameritrade's Canadian
brokerage operations for $60 million cash. As part of the acquisition,
Ameritrade investors received a special one-time $6 dividend, funded from
Ameritrade borrowings and excess cash contributed to TD Waterhouse USA by TD
Bank. TD Bank will limit their ownership of TD AMERITRADE to 45% for up to ten
years after the acquisition, while founder J. Joseph Ricketts will limit his
family's ownership of TD AMERITRADE to 29% for ten years after the acquisition.
Ameritrade CEO Joe Moglia became the CEO of TD AMERITRADE.
Controversies and scandals
Security breach and resulting Identity theft risk and spam flood
In October 2005, several nanae posters began to uncover what was at the time the
3rd largest data loss incident ever when they reported spam to the disposable
email addresses they'd given (only) to Ameritrade that were not the result of a
Directory Harvest Attack and TD AMERITRADE staff reported that it was
investigating the matter.
Reports of an ongoing problem continued. For example, on March 30 2007, a
Slashdot article reported that unique email addresses provided only to TD
AMERITRADE were frequently becoming targets for spammers. There was
speculation that one of TD AMERITRADE's affiliated companies was the source of
the leaks.
However, in mid-September 2007 media including the Associated Press and British
tabloid IT-news portal The Register reported that TD Ameritrade had disclosed
that TD Ameritrade had itself fallen victim to a backdoor-based network attack,
and that a database containing all customer Social Security numbers, names,
addresses, and email addresses had been compromised. The Register alleges said
breach was only disclosed after a class action lawsuit started against the TD
Group. TD Ameritrade has stated that the stolen information included account
information such as account balances.
Preliminary approval a proposed class action settlement agreement was requested
of Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who denied the request on June 30, 2008. On November
13, 2008, the state of Texas, in a letter from attorney general of Texas to
Judge Walker objected to a revised settlement agreement.
Investigation of the breach is reported to be ongoing, but no leads have been
reported.
TD Ameritrade and the Auction Rate Securities Scandal
On Monday, July 20, 2009, TD Ameritrade agreed to pay $456 million to settle a
lawsuit involving the marketing of a debt class that ended up crippling
investors. As part of the settlement, TD Ameritrade is set to repurchase all
auction-rate securities sold prior to February 13, 2008 from retail investors
with accounts of $250,000 or less within the next 75 days.
TD Ameritrade's lawsuit spawned from its involvement in the auction rate
security scandal. Ameritrade sales people actively promoted Nuveen's auction
rate securities as an alternative to money funds, resulting in individuals
inability to liquidate out of their securities.
An auction rate security is a type of closed-end fund which means the fund has a
fixed initial investment and is then traded on a secondary market. The money was
to be invested in municipal securities and other instruments at rates that would
be determined by weekly auctions. TD Ameritrade salespeople promoted Nuveen
funds with names like "Quality Preferred Income II" to corporate and individual
investors, claiming they were liquid alternatives to money market funds. In
fact they were not, because they had no expiration date and the issuer has no
obligation to pay back money it has borrowed from the investor, who can only
cash out by selling his investment to someone else.
The market for auction rate securities collapsed in February, 2008 when
broker-dealers such as UBS declined to continue to participate in dutch auctions
that determined the rate of interest for the securities. Up to this point,
brokers and issuers had propped up the auctions by acting as a bidder of last
resort; without their participation, the market quickly folded. Investors were
left with "frozen" accounts, that essentially were worth nothing, since they
could not be redeemed and the investment houses that created them refused to
close them out or return the money.
Investor groups are said to be organizing class action suits against Ameritrade,
Nuveen, and other organizations such as UBS and Merril Lynch, that have been
involved in the auction rate security scandal.
TD Ameritrade and the Reserve money funds
The firm's customers were approached by TD AMERITRADE brokers and recommended to
invest their liquid money in a money fund managed by The Reserve, RYPQX (the
Reserve Yield Plus Class R fund), according to investors in the
fund[14][15][16]. More than 98% of the fund had been sold to TD AMERITRADE's
clients, as disclosed in a statement from the Reserve in July 29, 2008.[improper
synthesis?] When the fund broke the buck along with several other Reserve money
funds in September, 2008, money assets of thousands of TD AMERITRADE clients
(including many senior citizens) were frozen. For the larger Reserve Primary
fund that also broke the buck, TD AMERITRADE said it will reimburse clients for
up to a 3% loss. Other Reserve funds, such as the Interstate Tax Exempt Fund,
were sold by TD Ameritrade, and were caught up in the Primary Fund's Failure,
leaving investors in these funds without liquidity. However, the Reserve Yield
Plus fund previously marketed by the company is not covered by the offer.
Investors allege a conflict of interest for TD AMERITRADE to promote the fund
over its clients in the presence of a distribution agreement between The Reserve
and TD Ameritrade that earns Ameritrade an undisclosed slice of fee revenue.
Fred Tomczyk (TD AMERITRADE president) argued that the contract was a standard
one and that "an investment firm has to make money in some way. According to the
Chicago Tribune article, the distribution agreement clearly was effective:
assets in Yield Plus Class R shares sold almost exclusively to TD Ameritrade
clients shot from almost nothing in 2006 to $770 million by March of this year,
public documents show. Another class dominated by the Omaha firm shot from $2
million to $171 million.
The SEC along with several state regulatory agencies are investigating TD
Ameritrade's fund promotion and marketing practices. The company is
named in a class action lawsuit for misrepresentation and marketing of the
Reserve Yield Plus fund as a money market fund. The Sacramento Bee reported that
the SEC filed a civil complaint against Reserve Management, chairman Bruce Bent
Sr., and vice chairman and president Bruce Bent II in May 2009. It also reported
anticipated investor losses of 8.3%, and TD Ameritrade spokeswoman Kim Hillyer
said it will cover up to $50 million of losses in the Primary Fund.
Now the Richett Family Owners of Ameritrade are using their ill-gotten gains to
but the Chicago Cubs, Wrigley field and 25 percent stake in the regional sports
network Comcast SportsNet.
______________________________________________
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450
feet is the height of a 38-story building. It's the height of
the Millennium Wheel in London. It is also the height of the
Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas and the Louisiana State Capitol
Building.