About Me 0060: Companies Making Money

Remember when double and even triple inverse leveraged ETFs were all the rage? That all occurred in the brief period of time before it became clear that Bernanke would first take down the global financial system before he let Citi get back to $1/share again. Apparently one reader recalls it all too well: "In 2008 at the bottom of the market I sold positions I owned in physical
gold and banks stocks such as Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C) and
also non financial companies such as Ford (F). I used these proceeds to
purchased inverse ETF’s such as NYSE: FAZ (Direxion Financial 3x Short)
and NYSE:SRS (Proshares Real Estate 2x Short). Since making these purchases, these ETF’s have suffered significant
drops in value as reflected in their price. In fact NYSE: FAZ has
plummeted from $1100 per share to $11 per share and SRS has reduced in
price from $1000 per share to $19.50 per share. It is now apparent that
the Fed spent trillions of dollars to raise the price of bank stocks and
to inversely suppress the price of these inverse ETFs." Yet is this nothing but a case of fippers' remorse? Is there legal precedent for an actual claim? Was the Fed in breach of duty "by allowing investors to make investments into funds such as FAZ and SRS
and other inverse ETF’s, while the Fed was performing transactions that
the Fed knew or should have known would severely harm the investors in
these publicly traded fund." Will Bernanke cave and make whole everyone who dared to put money into the market, even if it meant betting on a broad market decline? After all the whole purposes of the latest propaganda campaign is to get people to put money in the market with no fear of loss whatsoever: whether one is bullish or bearish (and as the lack of participation shows, most are certainly still bearish). Which is where it gets interesting: "Therefore, I appeal to your office
to make due and just compensation in treble damages amounting to $__
million dollars for a full and good faith settlement of this matter. If
this is agreeable, I am prepared to enter into a confidential good faith
settlement." In our ridiculous bizarro world, in which nothing makes sense following each recurring Fed intervention, perhaps the Fed making whole those who lose money regardless of their bias, is just what is needed to break the 33 weeks of outflows...

Full letter submitted by Bill Pitts:

December 7, 2010

Mr. Ben Bernanke
Chairman
Federal Reserve Bank
20th Street and Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20551-0001

Re: Financial Loss Suffered By Owners of Inverse ETF’s

Dear Chairman Bernanke:

On or about March of 2009, the Federal Reserve Bank (The “Fed”) commenced in actions that involved making loans to banks, financial institutions, wholly owned Fed companies (i.e. Maiden Lane), lenders and publicly traded companies. Additionally evidence suggest that the Fed through these firms and at the direction of the Fed made direct purchases of equities in publicly traded companies for the purpose of raising stock prices. These transactions were undisclosed to the public and investors. Neither the Fed nor the recipient companies disclosed these material transactions to the investing public. Ostensibly, this assistance from the Fed was conducted with the objective of increasing the stock value of many troubled companies and banks. Additionally, under the plan by the Fed and U.S. Treasury, these banks and financial institutions used the Fed supplied funds to purchase each other’s stock. This was conducted to allow each bank to raise each other’s stock values to improve the assets values on one another’s balance sheets. These actions were supported encouraged, known about and assisted through actions of the Fed and the United States Treasury.

While these actions may have been helpful to those firms to abate the systemic problems within the market, assisted in working to make recipient banks more solvent and may have prevented additional bank failure, these actions resulted in severe detrimental damage to many individual investors.

As you are keenly aware, most every market transaction has two sides to a trade. As a stock or asset class increases in value, some investors realize gain while simultaneously others who concluded that the stocks would NOT improve in price and made investments accordingly known as taking a “short” position would loose money. The inverse of this scenario is also true.

As stock prices decrease, those investors who purchased inverse Exchange Traded Funds (“ETF’s’) would gain value in their investments.

As I understand it, between the Fed and the SEC you all are charged with ensuring fairness, honesty and integrity in our markets and monetary system. It is also my understanding that the Fed professes to never intervene in the markets unless it is to prevent crisis.

I attempted to understand current events, market conditions and the fundamentals of financial and cash flow statements prior to making personal direct investments. I have always assumed that significant transactions with companies being publicly traded would be conducted in the open and that significant transactions would be disclosed to all investors to make informed decisions. Unfortunately, it appears that as a result of the Feds efforts to correct the current financial crisis these rules of disclosure and openness were set aside.

After the September 2008 market crash I took a much more active role in managing my investments. Based upon reading financial data and analyst reports it was very obvious to me that there many commercial property REITS, banks and lending institutions were severely impaired, would suffer significant cash shortfalls and were insolvent or would go bankrupt. It appears that your office arrived at the same conclusion as evidenced by the subsequent injection of hundreds of billions of dollars of cash directed to these institutions by the Fed.

In 2008 at the bottom of the market I sold positions I owned in physical gold and banks stocks such as Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C) and also non financial companies such as Ford (F). I used these proceeds to purchased inverse ETF’s such as NYSE: FAZ (Direxion Financial 3x Short) and NYSE:SRS (Proshares Real Estate 2x Short).

Since making these purchases, these ETF’s have suffered significant drops in value as reflected in their price. In fact NYSE: FAZ has plummeted from $1100 per share to $11 per share and SRS has reduced in price from $1000 per share to $19.50 per share. It is now apparent that the Fed spent trillions of dollars to raise the price of bank stocks and to inversely suppress the price of these inverse ETFs.

Now 20 months after these investments were originally made, your office disclosed that it had directly and indirectly injected hundreds of billions of dollars into numerous publicly traded companies. However, this information was not made public to investors by either the Fed or the institutions receiving these cash injections as these significant material transactions were occurring.

As a result, investors could not make informed investment decisions. By allowing investors to make investments into funds such as FAZ and SRS and other inverse ETF’s, while the Fed was performing transactions that the Fed knew or should have known would severely harm the investors in these publicly traded fund.

My damages had I continued to hold onto my shares of Ford and physical gold are in excess of $__ million. Therefore, I appeal to your office to make due and just compensation in treble damages amounting to $__ million dollars for a full and good faith settlement of this matter. If this is agreeable, I am prepared to enter into a confidential good faith settlement. I would also be prepared to drop action in attempting to raise public awareness to prepare for a class action lawsuit against the Fed regarding this matter.

Should we not be able to resolve this matter I will be forced to file a claim in the Federal District Court and work to initiate a Class Action Lawsuits to represent all owners of these inverse ETF’s that suffered economic loss. Enclosed please find a few of the reports relied upon to arrive at the conclusions. I would seek to further explore this through depositions and discovery of the many recipients of funds from the Fed.

I do not envy your position and the challenges you face during these very difficult times. Had I been on the other side of these trades I may very well hold a higher opinion of the Fed and its actions. Unfortunately I have been damaged as a result of your decisions.

Should your office desire to discuss this, I can be reached at my office at XXX-XXX-XXXX or my mobile at XXX-XXX-XXXX

Regards,

William G. Pitts

Enclosures

Totally Busted: The Truth About Goldman's Bailout by the Fed

"Secret bailouts do not merely benefit recipients; they also deceive investors into mistaking fantasy for fact. Such deceptions often punish honest investors, like the honest investors who sold short the shares of insolvent financial institutions early in 2009.Based on all available public disclosures, the story remained fairly grim into the spring of 2009. Accordingly, the short interest – i.e., number of shares sold short – on Goldman Sachs common stock hit a record 16.3 million shares on May... 15, 2009 – about 3.3% of the public float. But over the ensuing six months, Goldman’s stock soared more than 30% – producing roughly $500 million in losses for those investors who had sold short its stock. Not surprisingly, the total short interest during that timeframe plummeted to less than 6 million shares, as short-sellers closed out their losing positions."

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2010/12/totally-busted-truth-about-goldmans.html

12/1/10 Fed aid in financial crisis went beyond U.S. banks to industry, foreign firms

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/01/AR2010120106870.html

12/1/10 Fed gave $3.3 Trillion to banks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTPa1hGtpJs

12/1/10 Fed made $9 trillion in emergency overnight loans

http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/01/news/economy/fed_reserve_data_release/index.htm?hpt=T1

12/1/10 Meet The 35 Foreign Banks That Got Bailed Out By The Fed (And This Is Just The CPFF Banks)

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/meet-35-foreign-banks-got-bailed-out-fed-and-just-cpff-banks

12/2/10 Federal Reserve May Be `Central Bank of the World' After UBS, Barclays Aid

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-02/federal-reserve-may-be-central-bank-of-the-world-after-ubs-barclays-aid.html

Fed Releases Details on Bear Stearns, AIG Portfolios

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aymTlczlMmpA&pos=1

Fed in hot water over secret bailouts

http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/Robert-Reich-s-Blog/2010/0401/Fed-in-hot-water-over-secret-bailouts

The Fed Admits To Breaking The Law

http://networkedblogs.com/21Xqv

Fed Opens Books, Revealing European Megabanks Were Biggest Beneficiaries

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/01/fed-opens-books-revealing_n_790529.html

Paulson/Goldman/Center for Responsible Lending

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E10bHAI7U68&feature=player_embedded

Goldman CEO Visited WH 4 Times During SEC Investigation

http://www.thefoxnation.com/business/2010/04/22/goldman-ceo-visited-wh-4-times-during-sec-investigation

Goldman's White House connections raise eyebrows

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/21/92637/goldmans-connections-to-white.html

Indymac Boys Get Sweetheart Deal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssl5yb7FewA

Obama’s $6.3 Trillion Scam Is America’s Shame:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a.G6KFfaDdSc

Congress threatened with Martial Law if they do not give hundreds of billions to Bankers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8

Alan Grayson: "Which Foreigners Got the Fed's $500,000,000,000?" Bernanke: "I Don't Know."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0NYBTkE1yQ&feature=player_embedded

BoE Secretly Loaned $102.9 Billion to RBS

http://www.cnbc.com/id/34126826

Bank of England tells of secret £62bn loan to save RBS and HBOS

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/6646923/Bank-of-England-tells-of-secret-62bn-loan-to-save-RBS-and-HBOS.html

Bank of England advisers not told about secret £62bn loan to HBOS

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/03/bank-england-secret-loan-hbos

Federal Reserve refuses to tell the US Senate to Whom they have given $2.2 Trillion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EQDrVKYWmc

Bailouts could cost U.S. $23 trillion

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25164.html

Sticker Shock: $23.7 Trillion Bailout?

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Politics/story?id=814

Tracking the $19 Trillion Bailout Funds

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/wealthofnations/archive/2009/09/22/tracking-the-19-trillion-bailout-funds.aspx

Fed Lends Two Trillion Without Oversight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxuqmPyKqcs&feature=player_embedded

How Lehman, With The Fed's Complicity, Created Another Illegal Precedent In Abusing The Primary Dealer Credit Facility

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/how-lehman-feds-complicity-created-another-illegal-precedent-abusing-primary-dealer-credit-f

Access to fed Money - One of few naked Short Sellers who destroyed Bear Stearns and Lehamn Bothers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q48eSoTNByQ&feature=related

Geithner: Pickpocketing Trillions from the People to Give to the Oligarchy Was "Deeply Unfair", But We ... Um ... WE Had To

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/04/geithner-looting-country-for-trillions.html

Why Is The Fed Actively Managing A $25 Billion Maiden Lane MBS Portfolio When Its $2.4 Trillion SOMA Holdings Have A $1 Billion DV01? (And Are Unhedged)

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/why-fed-actively-managing-25-billion-maiden-lane-mbs-portfolio-when-its-24-trillion-soma-hol

Did The Fed Just (Surreptitiously) Bail Out Europe?

http://www.themarketguardian.com/2010/04/did-the-fed-just-surreptitiously-bail-out-europe/

Goldman Sachs pay out $111million in bonuses despite taking billions in bailout money

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1339220/Goldman-Sachs-pay-111million-bonuses-despite-taking-billions-bailout-money.html#ixzz18NTzHyqF

Goldman's White House connections raise eyebrows

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/21/92637/goldmans-connections-to-white.html

Israeli made partner at Goldman Sachs

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3320118,00.html

Goldman Sachs was top Obama donor

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-04-20/politics/obama.goldman.donations_1_obama-campaign-presidential-campaign-federal-election-commission-figures?_s=PM%3APOLITICS

Israel OKs US ‘Gift’ of Billions of Dollars in Warplanes

http://news.antiwar.com/2010/09/16/following-fierce-debate-israel-decides-to-buy-f-35-warplanes/

h/t Will

President Obama spent much of Wednesday huddled with a group of business executives, an effort The New York Times said afterward "went a long way to reset the tone of the relationship between Mr. Obama and corporate America" in the eyes of the corporate chieftains who attended.

That's all well and good, if the problems with today's economy were rooted in a lack of warmth and fuzziness between President Obama and corporate CEOs. But they aren't. For decades, the interests of corporate lobbyists—the people acting on behalf of many of the executives at the White House meeting—have been at odds with the interests of working people. The White House "making peace" with corporate CEOs, to use The Washington Post's description of the meeting, is one thing. But Wall Street needs to make peace with those of us who have been forced, as a result of the conservative policies they promoted, to live through a decade of stagnant wages, unemployment and underemployment. Wall Street needs a reset with working America.

Unfortunately, it's not at all clear that this meeting delivered much for working-class people. The Post reported that "after the meeting, several chief executives said their conversation with the president was constructive and open as they discussed education, trade, taxes and jobs. But the executives and Obama remained vague about specific outcomes they expected from the meeting."

And one of the few specifics reported from the meeting is highly disturbing. Bloomberg reported that the CEOs had their hands out for yet another tax cut:

While Obama has called on the CEOs to spend the $2 trillion in cash their companies have accumulated on job creation, the executives said much of that is earnings from overseas sales that are retained abroad to avoid paying U.S. corporate income tax. U.S.-based multinational corporations pay corporate income tax on earnings when they are brought back to the U.S. If the revenue remains abroad, either in cash or investment in overseas facilities, the money isn’t taxed.

Obama said he would consider the issue and asked what the executives would be willing to give up in other corporate tax rates to make sure it remains revenue neutral.

Actually, in many cases the earnings involved are not necessarily from "overseas sales." Many multinational corporations have created elaborate schemes to ensure that domestic sales are credited as foreign ones in order to avoid paying corporate income tax. It's how Google avoids paying billions in corporate income taxes to the United States and the United Kingdom.

President Obama has rightly pledged to go after this tax dodge and sent some proposals to Congress last year that Citizens for Tax Justice said were "steps in the right direction." Businesses have countered with demands for a "tax holiday," The Financial Times reported in October. Again, at least until now, the Obama administration has resisted. One reason, as the FT notes, is that there is no guarantee that the money coaxed back into the U.S. will actually be used for investment and job creation.

We've been here before. In 2004 the Bush administration and the Republican Congress gave corporations a tax amnesty on profits sheltered overseas. The benefits for workers were negligible. Gannett News Service reported earlier this year in a story about Sen. Barbara Boxer's support for an offshore tax break:

A Congressional Research Service analysis published in January 2009 found that 10 of the top dozen companies that took advantage of the 2004 break cut jobs. Hewlett-Packard repatriated $14.5 billion and laid off 14,500. Pfizer repatriated $37 billion and cut 9,000 jobs in 2005.

California-based Oracle and Intel also repatriated foreign earnings. The money helped Oracle acquire two U.S. companies and helped Intel build a new factory

The Business Roundtable, a champion of the tax amnesty idea, says of the money that came back to the U.S. as a result of 2004 holiday, 25 percent went to capital investments and 23 percent to hiring and training new workers. Even that positive spin suggests the country doesn't get very much for coaxing businesses to do less than what they should be dong as corporate citizens.

Corporations succeed in the United States not simply because of what they do on their own. Their success depends on the quality of public schools that prepare their workers, transportation networks that move goods and people, agencies that help keep people healthy and safe, and efforts to ensure that each American is able to maintain at least a minimal standard of living. All of these are government functions that corporations undercut when they engage in schemes to avoid paying taxes, leaving the rest of us to struggle with the consequences.

The businesses that profit as a result of the public commons that We the People provide should not have to be given special inducements to pay their fair share toward supporting that commons. (As it stands now, contrary to conservative claims to the contrary, the truth is U.S. corporations pay some of the lowest tax rates of major industrial powers.) That is the starting point from which President Obama should begin in building a new tax framework in which businesses and Main Street can profit together in a new economy.

Even as corporations are seeking a tax holiday, these same corporations spent hundreds of millions of dollars electing congressional candidates opposed to government initiatives that would stimulate the economy and stoke the demand that would coax their hoarded cash off the sidelines. Instead of egging on, tacitly or otherwise, the anti-spending crowd, these CEOs could still choose to back a real economic stimulus—not just cross-your-fingers-and-hope-they-trickle-down tax cuts, but real investment in the economy's future.

Lew Prince, a small business owner in St. Louis, recently penned an op-ed that offered a more Main Street perspective on what businesses need to prosper:

We shouldn’t borrow billions more dollars from China and Saudi Arabia to give to the wealthy. Instead the wealthy should pay their fair share. We need adequate tax revenue to invest in our economy. More tax cuts at the top won’t create jobs. But we will create jobs and strengthen our economy by rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, public transit, levees and water and gas pipelines. We will save and create jobs by investing in education and clean energy research and manufacturing now growing much more rapidly in other countries.

Now that Obama has met with business executives, his next step should be a summit meeting with the unemployed. And then let's have a real debate in which business executives and their conservative benefactors are called to account on whether they are really interested in the fates of American workers or just in their own balance sheets.

surface encounters complaints surface encounters rock tops surface encounters complaints surface encounters surface encounters complaints surface encounters complaints surface encounters rock tops surface encounters surface encounters rock tops surface encounters surface encounters review surface encounters rock tops surface encounters complaints surface encounters rock tops surface encounters complaints surface encounters surface encounters rock tops

About Me 0060

Thursday 30 December 2010

Companies Making Money

Salvatore A. Giunta to Drop the Times Square Ball and 5 Other New <b>...</b>

No, Snooki Will Not Be Dropping in a Ball in Times Square on New <b>...</b>

Year's Worst Ads Get What's Coming to Them - AOL <b>News</b>

No comments:

Post a Comment