Cronyism

UBS – The Swiss Bank That Keeps On Giving

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. . .  and the Ex-American Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who Keeps on Taking!

Steve Pieczenik – What a Wonderful Parasitic Relationship.

By now, we should all have Clinton-phobia or at least Clinton-Fatigue! Yet, I am still amazed by the insatiable avarice manifested by the Clintons in terms of receiving illegal payments, graft and all other forms of financial irregularities. Perhaps, there is some perversion in my delight at discovering how we, Americans have concluded that the Clinton and the Bush families are by far the most corrupt two families spanning our political spectrum from left to right. If money had an ideology than it would be reconfigured along the lines of a Clinton BitCoin that would suck up whatever was in the US treasury and the rest of the world banks and redirect it to some ersatz paradigm entitled: a non-profit foundation; super pac; or the Chelsea foundation for advanced skulduggery.

clintonI want to thank the two journalists at the WSJ [July 30, 2015]– James V. Grimaldi and Rebecca Ballhaus for detailing the incredibly incestuous relationship between UBS, one of the world’s most corrupt banks, and, of course, our Lady of the Dollar—Hillary Clinton.

“A few weeks after HC was sworn in as secretary of state in 2009, she was summoned to Geneva by her Swiss counterpart…. The American IRS was suing UBS AG to get the identities of Americans with secret accounts.”

Now it gets better…

“Within months, Mrs. Clinton announced a tentative legal settlement—an unusual intervention by the top U.S. diplomat. UBS turned over information on 4,450 accounts — A fraction of the 52,000 sought by the IRS, an outcome that drew criticism from some lawmakers …”

Now comes the piece de resistance….

“From that point on UBSs engagement with the Clinton family’s charitable organization increased. Total donations from UBS to the Clinton Foundation grew from less $60,000 through 2008 to a cumulative total of $600,000 by the end of 2014.”

And where is Bill Clinton in this financial chicanery? Continue reading →

Memo To The FED And Its Media Tool Hilsenrath: We’re Not Here To Enrich Your Corporate Cronies

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healthcareCharles Hugh Smith – The Federal Reserve is appalled that we’re not spending enough to further inflate the value of its corporate and banking cronies. In the Fed’s eyes, your reason for being is to channel whatever income you have to the Fed’s private-sector cronies–banks and corporations.

If you’re being “stingy” and actually conserving some of your income for savings and investment, you are Public Enemy #1 to the Fed. Your financial security is nothing compared to the need of banks and corporations to earn even more obscene profits. According to the Fed, all our problems stem from not funneling enough money to the Fed’s private-sector cronies.

Fed media tool Jon Hilsenrath recently gave voice to the Fed’s obsessive concern for its cronies’ profits, and received a rebuke from the middle class he chastised as “stingy.” Hilsenrath Confused Midde-Class “Responded Strongly” To “Offensive” Question Why It Isn’t Spending.

Memo to the Fed and its media tool Hilsenrath: we’re not here to further enrich your already obscenely rich banker and corporate cronies by buying overpriced goods and services we don’t need. Our job is not to spend every cent we earn on interest to banks and mostly-garbage corporate goods and services. Our job is to limit the amount we squander on interest and needless spending. Our job is to build the financial security of our families by saving capital and prudently investing it in assets we control (as opposed to letting Wall Street control our assets parked in equity and bond funds). Continue reading →

Crony Capitalism

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TheOutsiderClub September 26 2013

Make no mistake; I’m a big fan of capitalism.

Since grade school, I’ve harbored a competitive nature. My siblings have always given me a hard time for being an overachiever.

And despite everything I think is wrong with our “competitive capitalistic economy,” I still believe good, healthy competition brings out the best people have to offer.

I believe hard work should be rewarded and success shouldn’t come easily — but when it does, it should come freely and naturally, not through some sort of manipulative scheme that keeps you on top by preventing everyone else from climbing.

Unfortunately, this is no longer the case…

Since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the world has begun to awaken to the troubles of modern-day capitalism, better known as “crony capitalism.”

Free Market

The world finally broke free of the chains of tyranny and a life determined solely by one’s predisposition in the 18th century… yet somehow, we’ve managed to take a lot of wrong turns in the centuries that followed.

We’ve regressed to the state we once fought so hard to escape in the spirit of revolution, and our once celebrated free market is under attack from within.

The brilliance behind a free market mentality is that each individual has an opportunity to channel the power vested within to climb the social, economic, and professional ladder.

This is a powerful thing. It’s incentive to really strive for your goals… to make something of yourself… to dream something, and to do it — without jumping through obnoxious, unnecessary hoops and getting tied up in all that red tape.

A free market mentality means being born poor doesn’t have to be a death sentence. Instead, it could be a character-building obstacle course, a breeding ground for innovation and advancement. When we see individuals overcoming poverty, we’re generally experiencing economic growth as a whole.

We cheer one another on, because we all benefit from this progression.

Unless, of course, that economic capital is stolen by one’s “rulers or their friends or allies,” according to Hunter Lewis, author of Crony Capitalism and former CEO of Cambridge Associates…

Government Takeover

Continue reading →