http://www.newser.com/story/57203/cash-rich-italian-mafia-grows-in-recession.html

New Businessweek article:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_18/b4129000840714.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

‘The Connecticut state treasurer, Denise Nappier, who controls a $20 billion retirement fund, called for you to step down today. The Service Employees International Union has mounted a campaign against you, in part because BofA is said to be actively lobbying against the Employee Free Choice Act, which would eliminate the secret ballot in union elections.
First of all, the SEIU would like to unionize Bank of America, and so I think they have an ulterior motive. And then secondly, I was told that the state of Connecticut owns 1.4 million shares [of BofA]. I own around 5 million, so I’m going to outvote her.’

MoveOn involved as well (though you don’t see that in that story?? Why??). You need to go here to see the nexus:

http://www.seiu.org/2009/04/tens-of-thousands-of-taxpayers-to-protest-at-100s-of-bank-of-america-branches-nationwide.php

Conclusion: George Soros is behind much of the union-forming fomenting with BAC through MoveOn. Gee, do you think George might be shorting the bank/country/world? Wouldn’t he love to cripple BAC? Worker’s rights? Think George really cares?

“Banks Aren’t Yet in the Clear
Analysts see several reasons why the recent strong earnings reports by the likes of Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs may not be repeated”

THIS ARTICLE QUOTES MOB-OWNED ANALYST DONN VICKERY – GRADIENT ANALYTICS.
WHEN WILL THESE GOONS GO AWAY?

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_17/b4128019360698.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

But I think they are onto something/someone…

And, what’s worse, is that the administration seems to regard him as some type of Yoda while the (Times/WSJ) press lionizes him.

Here’s our new sister site:

http://www.soroswatch.com/

On the other hand, the use of the word “SALE” might cripple or prevent the WALL STREET COUNTERFEIT MACHINE from operating.

How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years
By EAMONN FINGLETON

An old maxim has it that newspaper editors separate the wheat from the chaff, then print the chaff. By this standard, the editors of the Wall Street Journal showed special deftness in their handling of the Madoff affair.

They used the occasion of whistleblower Harry Markopolos’ testimony in Washington in February to address seemingly every minuscule detail of the scam. They even published an irrelevant, if lovingly crafted, floor plan of the Madoff firm’s office in the Midtown Manhattan Lipstick building. Yet, in all their apparent desire to “flood the zone” (maybe they were angling for a Pulitzer!), one detail was missing. Not a word of explanation was offered about the curious role played by the Journal’s own Washington-based investi­gative reporter John R. Wilke.

As Markopolos’ written testimony made clear, Wilke long ago knew the score. As far back as 2005, he had been entrusted with Markopolos’ now famous dossier raising no less than 29 red flags about Madoff. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, on the strength of an afternoon’s research, a good reporter could have worked up any one of Markopolos’ points into a cracker of a front-page story. Taken as a whole, the dossier represented the biggest “career development opportunity” any journalist has been handed since Deep Throat delivered the goods on Richard Nixon to Woodward and Bernstein a generation ago.

There are differing accounts of what happened next. According to Markopolos, Wilke was hot to trot but needed the blessing of higher-ups. And, unfortunately, the Journal’s “news” operation is apparently run much like an Amtrak marshaling yard. As months turned into years, Markopolos’ 29 red flags festered like so many rotten tomatoes in some desk jockey’s in-tray. Other sources, however, place the blame firmly on Wilke’s shoulders. Apparently, he started to dig but lost heart because there was so little publicly available information on Madoff’s modus operandi.

It is all very puzzling. The question, of course, is why would Markopolos lie about something like this? And then there is the simple fact that his testimony on other, more weighty matters has already been resoundingly vindicated.

What is not in dispute is that, to the Journal’s eternal shame, the story eventually came out only after an avalanche of redemptions left Bernie with nowhere to hide and he turned himself in. In the interim, by remaining silent, the Journal played a devastatingly ignominious role in one of the biggest and most brazen scams in history.

If the Journal’s shame is particularly acute, virtually no one in the wider American financial journalism profession emerges from this fiasco with much credit.

One dog that snoozed in its kennel was the New York Times. The Madoff scam was, of course, a local story for the Times, not least because Times editors undoubtedly knew many of Madoff’s victims socially. It is surprising, to say the least, that no Times person ever seems to have sensed there was something fishy going on in the Lipstick building. The Upper East Side was buzzing with rumors about his apparently sensational investment returns. Many a New York socialite either had money invested with him – and boasted of it in a loud stage whisper – or at least wanted to do so.

Yet it was only on the day of Madoff’s arrest that the Times condescended to inform its readers that many of his more alert peers had sensed he was a fake all along. For years, he had been pegged as an outright Ponzi artist by Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, for instance, and he was blacklisted also at Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, and UBS. Indeed, as far back as 1991, CounterPunch contributor Pam Martens, in her capacity as a Wall Street broker, had told him she was on to his game and had so advised a client. For thousands of aggrieved Times readers, who lost their life savings in Bernie’s financial Bates Motel, the question is why they were the last to know.

For the rest of the story..

http://www.counterpunch.org/fingleton04232009.html

You stated:
“Securities scholars argue as to whether a “loan” from the SBPs “lending pool” that involves the transference of “legal ownership” is a “loan” or a “sale”. The DTCC argues vehemently that it is a “loan” and therefore they have the right to credit the account of the “lender” with a “long position”/”securities entitlement” to denote his “right” to call in the “loan”. If it were characterized as a “sale” because of the transfer of ownership then the DTCC would have no right to credit the donor firm with a “securities entitlement”.”

Interesting…. Here are some thoughts that came to mind while reading this paragraph………….

Yesterday as I was writing the first draft of the WALL STREET PONZI SCHEME, I noted in my mind and in the text that the BUYER’s brokerage statement says he is long xxxx shares, even though HIS MONEY was NEVER USED to buy long shares…. His Money was placed in an interest-bearing-account.

By calling the shares used to cure the FTD a LOAN, the DTCC can allow the BUYER’s Money to remain in an interest-bearing-account so the Wall Street Criminals can divert this money into their pockets. The use of the word “LOAN” also allows the Wall Street Criminals to counterfeit more and more shares to drive the stock price down, which then gives them the ability to steal the BUYER’s money.

On the other hand, IF the DTCC referred to the shares used to cure FTDs as a “SALE,” then the money in the interest-bearing-account would have to be transferred to the firm SELLING the shares to the BUYER.

So it appears that the use of the word “LOAN” enables the WALL STREET COUNTERFEIT MACHINE to operate efficiently – creates the greatest amount of income for the Wall Street Criminals – allows the Criminals to leverage the BUYER’s money to its greatest extent.

On the other hand, the use of the word “SALE” might cripple or prevent the WALL STREET COUNTERFEIT MACHINE was operating.

In studying abusive naked short selling frauds you need to appreciate the role of this financial accounting term referred to as a “long position” in a corporation’s shares. First of all it has nothing to do with the “legal ownership” of the “shares” of a corporation. On Wall Street the party inscribed on a transfer agent’s “record of ownership” is the “legal owner” of those shares. The investor/purchaser of the shares held in “street name” at the DTCC becomes the “beneficial owner” of that which he purchased. When it comes to these rather peculiar “long positions”/”securities entitlements” nobody “legally owns” them. They have “holders” but no “legal owners”. That’s what makes them invisible to prospective investors and a corporation’s management team.

In reviewing how the NSCC’s “Automated Stock Borrow Program” (SBP) operates we saw how the lending of a (conveniently) impossible to trace parcel of shares from the SBP’s self-replenishing “lending pool” of securities done in order to “cure” a failure to deliver resulted in the buying party in a transaction involving a delivery failure receiving the borrowed shares. Along with the borrowed shares came the “legal owner” title. Unfortunately for “long” investors the specific investor whose shares were chosen to “cure” the delivery failure cannot be identified and told that he just lost “ownership” of that which he purchased.

We also saw how the brokerage firm who “donated” the shares chosen to cure the delivery failure was awarded a “long position”/”securities entitlement” theoretically denoting his right to demand those loaned out shares back at a time of his choosing. This one “loan” resulted in the transference of “legal ownership” of a given parcel of shares to the recipient as well as the generation of a separate “long position” out of thin air. UCC-8-501 then came along and empowered the “holder” of this “long position”/”securities entitlement” (the “donor” brokerage firm FBO his client the investor) to “exercise all of the rights and property interest of the “shares” that got sent electronically to the new “legal owner”. So now we have 2 separate parties being allowed “to exercise all of the rights and responsibilities that comprise the SAME parcel of securities”.

The new “legal owner” of this particular “parcel” of shares now has all of the right in the world to “re-donate” this same parcel of impossible to trace shares right back into the same lending pool of securities it just came out of as if it never left in the first place. Once it is chosen to “cure” a delivery failure then 3 separate parties will be allowed “to exercise all of the rights and property interest that comprise that security”. The “legal owner” title will go to the most recent party receiving the borrowed shares.

All of the rest of the parties that at one time held the “legal owner” title to this one parcel of shares now become “co-beneficial owners”. FINRA, the DTCC, the NSCC and the SEC have no problem whatsoever in this “counterfeiting machine” known as the NSCC’s SBP even though after a period of time perhaps a dozen different “co-beneficial owners” have the right to sell that SAME parcel of shares. Apparently all of these SROs and regulators have no problem with the obvious share price depressant effect associated with the massive increase in the “supply” of that which by law (UCC-8-501) must be treated as being readily sellable.

When the DTCC and NSCC get sued for the facilitation of naked short selling crimes and “counterfeiting” abuses associated with their SBP the SEC always shows up with an “amicus curiae” brief recommending to the judge to dismiss the case because we at the SEC find no problem with how the SBP operates. They insanely claim to the judge that the SBP does not serve to “counterfeit” shares because the number of shares “legally owned” does not go up in number. That’s an interesting claim for the party with the congressional mandate to provide investor protection and market integrity.

Of course the number of shares “legally owned” and “outstanding” does not go up in number but the number of “legally owned” shares is only one part of the “supply” variable that interacts with the “demand” variable to determine share price. The “supply” variable also includes all of these readily sellable “long positions”/”securities entitlements” that DTCC participants are creating right and left via not only SBP loans but also via every single delivery failure that the NSCC management pretends to be “powerless” to buy-in even after it becomes obvious that the seller of securities had no intent whatsoever to deliver in the first place.

We also see this “long position” terminology on an investor’s monthly brokerage statement wherein even if the investor’s clearing firm never did get delivery of that which its client purchased the client is still awarded a “long position” in the “securities held long” column. You have to keep in mind that these “long positions” being awarded all over the place are over and above the number of shares already “outstanding” and they TECNICALLY have no “legal owner”; instead they have “holders” referred to as “security entitlement holders”.

Securities scholars argue as to whether a “loan” from the SBPs “lending pool” that involves the transference of “legal ownership” is a “loan” or a “sale”. The DTCC argues vehemently that it is a “loan” and therefore they have the right to credit the account of the “lender” with a “long position”/”securities entitlement” to denote his “right” to call in the “loan”. If it were characterized as a “sale” because of the transfer of ownership then the DTCC would have no right to credit the donor firm with a “securities entitlement”.

A financial arrangement referred to as a “repurchase agreement” bridges this gap in that in an “RA” the seller retains the right to buy the shares back within a given amount of time. Repurchase agreements are used all the time to mask delivery failures and to facilitate naked short selling thefts. If the seller has the right to buy it back then why not just keep the shares and “hypothecate” the shares to the counterparty. “Hypothecation” refers to pledging shares without delivering them.

The net-net of all of this is that the granting of “long positions” is very tricky and easily abused and those with a superior working knowledge of how things operate on Wall Street can absolutely run circles around Joe Sixpack. That’s why we have theoretically UNCONFLICTED SROs and UNCONFLICTED regulators THEORETICALLY protecting Joe and his family. If they refuse to do so for any of a variety of reasons then the investment funds of Joe and his family will easily be rerouted into the wallet of those “banksters” committing these thefts while leveraging their superior working knowledge of sometimes complex financial arrangements.

The ability of Wall Street insiders to credit these nebulous “long positions” to the accounts of investors in and of itself is not that damaging. But when you factor in UCC-8-501’s mandate for clearing firms holding these “long positions”/”securities entitlements” created out of thin air to allow their “holders” to “exercise all of the rights and property interest that comprise that security then you have laid the foundation for massive levels of theft of an unknowing investor’s money by those with this superior working knowledge.

Jim Hall, I got a kick out of those links you posted, especially this one:

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/another-view-tighten-short-selling-rules-for-now/?hp

I was tempted to leave a comment on that story when I read it, but I noticed that everything that I had to say had already been said by the vast majority of the other responses already posted.