SORRY. NO BREAD OR CIRCUSES TODAY

SORRY. NO BREAD OR CIRCUSES TODAY
January 31, 2015

Graphic shows Citigroup draft wording and then actual wording that ended up mysteriously in the final spending bill. Courtesy David Johnson and SmirkingChimp.

Chronicle News & Opinion

(MONROE, WA.) -- You might have noticed that much if not most of the national and local news media has been hard at work of late feeding you copious amounts of bread and circuses mostly in the form of an infinitely long strand of meaningless trivia having to do with "deflated footballs" and who'll be eating what for snacks during the Super Bowl game.

Seeing this day after day some Americans, perhaps those who possess an IQ slightly above room temperature might be tempted to give in to the ongoing conspiracy theory that this is not an accident; it is a calculated plan of the corporate media elite to keep working class Americans stupid, happy and drooling at high noon on Main Street with that thousand-mile stare in their eyes.

You know. The patented Alfred E. Neumnan look replete with the goofy grin.

"What? Me worry?"

The "elite" in total being comprised mainly (it appears) of large, corporately owned media now firmly in bed with lawmakers who are now virtually (if not outright) owned by huge corporations, the Wall Street investment banks and billionaires -- all the people and entities your lawmaker needs to be reelected.

And, as you well know there is no need more pressing than a lawmaker being reelected.

How else, some ask, other than a grand conspiracy to explain the sheer tonnage of stories about deflated footballs and $7500 Super Bowl tickets when the mass media told you so little of how you and your family were sold down the river last month by your elected leaders in a move that may cost you dearly during the next Wall Street ignited Second Great Recession meltdown?

And there will be another one because your lawmakers unlocked for Wall Street the only door that had been separating the Street from gambling with your money as it did during the wild, crazy days of insane (and ultimately worthless) "derivatives" that sparked the Great Recession and virtually sank the American economy.

Did you enjoy losing your job/and or business and/or home during that time? Still haven't quite recovered you say?

Well, don't get too comfy attempting to crawl back up that ladder of middle class success because the next meltdown may be only a few years away and it may hit even harder and last longer than the first Great Recession.

GOT THAT RIVERBOAT GAMBLER FEVER

The huge banks can now, once again legally gamble with your (taxpayer) money thanks to the government spending bill Congress and the President agreed to last month.

Buried deep within that bill was a Weapon of Mass Economic Destruction: a clause that repeals part of the Dodd-Frank Act.

That clause was the only door protecting you and your family from the insatiable greed and uncontrollable gambling habits of the huge investment banks on Wall Street.

The ultimate hosing of the Great Unwashed has begun.

The act was designed to stop Wall Street from using other peoples’ money to support its gambling addiction, as it displayed quite nicely before the near-full economic meltdown of 2007-2008. Dodd-Frank had stopped the banks from using commercial deposits that belong to you, your aunt Sally and Uncle John (which are insured by the government) to make the kind of risky bets that got the "too big to fail" banks into trouble and forced taxpayers to bail them out so they could survive to do it again another day.

The reason they were too big to fail is because they had access to gambling with your money and then your money again to bail them out once they got into trouble.

And now at a time when those same banks are bigger and far more powerful than before the Great Recession, they have that open door once again to gamble with your money.

HERE'S SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO PUT YOUR FUTURE IN WALL STREET'S CROSSHAIRS

In Washington State, here's the lawmakers that voted yes for the "cromnibus" spending bill - a vote that allowed Wall Street and billionaires to get at your money again - and those who voted no.

Doc Hastings - Washington 4th R YES
Dennis Heck - Washington 10th D NO
Jaime Herrera Beutler - Washington 3rd R YES

Derek Kilmer - Washington 6th D VOTED NO
Rick Larsen - Washington 2nd D VOTED NO
Jim McDermott - Washington 7th D VOTED NO

Cathy McMorris Rodgers - Washington 5th R YES
David G. Reichert - Washington 8th R YES
Adam Smith - Washington 9th D NO

Now you know who to call up and complain to after the next Wall Street ignited meltdown of the economy that just might claim your job and/or your house.

And just where did that clause in the cromnibus bill come from almost word for word?

Citigroup.

A Dec. 16, 20914 story by David Johnson over at SmirkingChimp.com put it this way:

"Citibank (the consumer division of Citigroup) literally wrote the provision and paid someone to put it in the bill. This “Citibank” provision undid months of hard work getting the Dodd-Frank bill in place. No one in the House or Senate would admit to putting it in the bill. No one would say they supported the provision. But House/Senate leadership would not take it out of the bill because it was part of a “deal.” And, of course, it was put in at the last minute, making the choice “vote for it or shut down the government.”

Check the graphic at upper right he ran with the story showing the Citigroup draft of the bill and then the final wording.

Any questions now about who owns your lawmakers?

And just who is Citigroup? Only one of the largest "too big to fail" banks in the world.

ONE HUGE FINANCIAL GORILLA. IT GETS WHAT IT WANTS

Citigroup is a massive multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City that was formed from one of the world's largest mergers in history by combining the banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomerate Travelers Group in October 1998.

As of January 2015, it is the third largest bank holding company in the US by assets. Its largest shareholders include funds from the Middle East and Singapore. At its height until the global financial crisis of 2008 Citigroup was the largest company and bank in the world by total assets with 357,000 employees.

Citigroup suffered huge losses during the global financial crisis of 2008 and was rescued in November 2008 by you the generous, always giving taxpayers of the United States in a massive stimulus package handed to it by your government.

They gambled and won-won with your money then, and they will do it again now that that the Dodd-Frank protection door is toast.

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich put it this way in a recent column:

" The new legislation, incorporating language drafted by lobbyists for Wall Street’s biggest bank, Citigroup, does just this. It reopens the casino. This increases the likelihood you and I and other taxpayers will once again be left holding the bag."

Johnson asks this question in his December 2014 piece:

"How could something like this be in a bill if no one put it in the bill and no one indicated support for it? How is it that We the People not get it taken out if no one would say they put it in and no one would say they support it?

How FAR can we go from the principles of democracy, transparency, accountability and everything the country, the Constitution and the Congress are supposed to stand for?

This is one more example of how the economy is rigged against We the People. It is an example of how the government now works for a wealthy few against the interests of the rest of us.

In an honest system this would be a scandal deserving of a full, public, transparent investigation followed by prosecution of those responsible. In our current system what we got was “it must pass or the government will shut down.”

Johnson forgot one thing. In our current system we also get the pleasure of the major news organizations of our day - and almost all the local TV stations and newspapers - giving us a story after story about deflated footballs, 12th man flags above Space Needles and on buildings and football game nachos so those goofy, blank, thousand mile, what-me-worry stares shall never vanish from our faces.

As bread and circuses go, it's pretty effective stuff.


http://www.skyvalleychronicle.com/FEATURE-NEWS/SORRY-br-NO-BREAD-AND-CIRCUSES-TODAY-2005467

Wrong side of economic table

Last updated: November 27. 2014

Don McNay Life Lessons

 

 

“It’s a lonely, lonely road we’re on/ This side of paradise” — Bryan Adams

My late father was a professional gambler. Towards the end of his life, he was active in helping at a soup kitchen in Cincinnati, which was run by the Sisters of Charity.

One Thanksgiving, as dad was dishing out food to homeless people, my father was approached by the Sister who ran the program.

“Joe,” she said, “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a gambler,” replied my father.

“Joe,” she said “This is the first time we ever had a gambler on this side of the table.”

The key to my father’s success was that he was always on the house side of the table.

He understood that if the house has the odds in its favor long enough, the house will eventually and always win out. As he often noted, “You never see them tearing down a casino because people beat them out of money.”

First with lotteries, and then with video slots and casinos, governments realized that a very easy way to gain revenues is by allowing and sponsoring gambling.

The lottery and other games that have been legalized bring in much of their income from those on “the wrong side of the table.”

Some European countries limit access to the casinos to those who prove they have sufficient assets.

Various forms of stock and option trading, which can be considered a more elite form of gambling, require that those who invest in those instruments have the net worth to survive a loss.

In my father’s era, bookmakers cut off bettors on losing streaks. Las Vegas casinos carefully monitored their customers and cuts off their credit when they lose too much.

There have been few, if any, moves by states to monitor the losing of their lottery customers.

Legalized casinos, which have several games of skill and reasonable probability, gear most of their operations to the highly profitable slot machines and video games.

Lotteries have evolved from a form of gaming called “numbers,” formerly very popular in poor, urban neighborhoods. If you go into a grocery or liquor store in any poor neighborhood today, you will see people who can’t afford to lose even a few dollars, standing around playing scratch off lottery games until all of their money is gone.

I rarely if ever gamble. I can’t stand to part with my money on something that is such a bad bet.

My few trips to casinos have been bad experiences for the house. I bet very little and I am a terror at the low price buffet. I play high probability games and won’t go near a slot machine. I have a certain profit margin in mind and leave the second that I hit it.

In short, I am a person casinos do not want to attract.

Making gambling illegal was an attempt to protect people from themselves.

It did not stop the tide but pushed it underground. Gambling for rich people, such as options trade and sophisticated stock market games, have always been allowed. Most of the crisis on Wall Street was caused by corporations gambling with stockholders money.

When I passed the stockbroker’s (Series 7) test many years ago, I called my father and asked, “Why is futures trading legal but betting on the Bengals illegal?” There is no logical answer.

States are under pressure to legalize casinos and slot machines, and just like the lottery, they eventually will. It is much easier than raising taxes or cutting services.

When legislators do expand legal gambling, someone must think about and speak out for the person on “the wrong side of the table.”

When I was growing up, my father would go around to the sleeping room hotels and give out bottles of low cost champagne on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Just like the patrons at the soup kitchen, many of those men were gamblers. Often the bottle was the only gift they got.

Legalized gambling is not responsible for most of these people being in their positions in life, but states needs to take extreme care that we are not keeping them there.



http://www.harlandaily.com/news/home_top-local_features/150654123/Wrong-side-of-economic-table

 

Casinos tripped up

Those communities that worked so hard to educate their neighbors against overwhelming $$$, have much to be proud of!


Editorial cartoon: Casinos tripped up

East Boston

Detroit Casino Revenue or Sucking Detroit Dry

Bill Kearney

Massachusetts ‘Gaming’ Future

So far this year, the losses in the three casinos of the bankrupt city of Detroit is over, ‘One BILLION DOLLARS.’ Now how much of that money lost do you think came from the citizens of Detroit?

Chicago Tribune - October 10, 2013 - Syncora appeals bankruptcy judge's order on Detroit casino revenue...

DETROIT, - Syncora Guarantee, which insured payments by Detroit on some of its interest-rate swaps, on Thursday appealed a bankruptcy court order that allowed Detroit continued access to casino revenue that the city says it needs to avoid running out of cash.

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-usa-detroitsyncora-20131010,0,3004460,full.storySee More

 

Syncora appeals bankruptcy judge's order on Detroit casino revenue


Reuters
October 10, 2013
DETROIT, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Syncora Guarantee, which insured payments by Detroit on some of its interest-rate swaps, on Thursday appealed a bankruptcy court order that allowed Detroit continued access to casino revenue that the city says it needs to avoid running out of cash.

Syncora had tried to block Detroit from accessing an estimated $11 million in monthly tax revenue from the city's three casinos, claiming it had a lien on the money, which had been used as collateral since 2009 to secure the city's interest-rate swap agreements. Detroit's emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, and one of his top consultants said in sworn depositions that the casino revenue is key to city's survival.

Syncora on Thursday filed an appeal in U.S. district court in Detroit of an Aug. 28 ruling by Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes granting the city access to the casino funds.

Detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history in July, and it is struggling to overcome more than $18 billion in debt and other obligations.

Syncora is also one of several bond insurers and other creditors that are objecting to a deal Detroit struck with Merrill Lynch Capital Services and UBS AG to end interest-rate swap agreements.

Detroit wants to end the agreements at a discount and free up the contested casino revenue, which was used as collateral for the swaps. The city hopes to use the funds to arrange so-called debtor-in-possession financing that would allow Detroit to settle with the swap counterparties and make investments in the city.

Rhodes was scheduled to hold hearings on the proposed agreement last month but postponed them indefinitely at Detroit's request to give the city more time to negotiate with its bond insurers and other creditors. The hearings have not yet been rescheduled.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-usa-detroitsyncora-20131010,0,3004460,full.story

How Detroit went broke

Great article! Great research! Great graphs that clearly display Detroit's slide!

This is one article that needs to be read and carefully considered.

Stop Predatory Gambling

Casino fiscalism is when we as a people fail — or refuse — to make the tough economic and political decisions we need to secure a better future. This excellent piece of journalism by The Detroit Free Press reveals how the culture of casino fiscalism took over Detroit and led it to financial ruin.

 

 

How Detroit went broke: The answers may surprise you - and don't blame Coleman Young

• By Nathan Bomey and John Gallagher/Detroit Free Press Business Writers
• | FILED UNDER -
• Local News
• / City of Detroit |
• 1:10 AM, Sep. 15, 2013

Detroit is broke, but it didn’t have to be. An in-depth Free Press analysis of the city’s financial history back to the 1950s shows that its elected officials and others charged with managing its finances repeatedly failed — or refused — to make the tough economic and political decisions that might have saved the city from financial ruin.

Instead, amid a huge exodus of residents, plummeting tax revenues and skyrocketing home abandonment, Detroit’s leaders engaged in a billion-dollar borrowing binge, created new taxes and failed to cut expenses when they needed to. Simultaneously, they gifted workers and retirees with generous bonuses. And under pressure from unions and, sometimes, arbitrators, they failed to cut health care benefits — saddling the city with staggering costs that today threaten the safety and quality of life of people who live here. The numbers, most from records deeply buried in the public library, lay waste to misconceptions about the roots of Detroit’s economic crisis. For critics who want to blame Mayor Coleman Young for starting this mess, think again. The mayor’s sometimes fiery rhetoric may have contributed to metro Detroit’s racial divide, but he was an astute money manager who recognized, early on, the challenges the city faced and began slashing staff and spending to address them. And Wall Street types who applauded Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s financial acumen following his 2005 deal to restructure city pension debt should consider this: The numbers prove that his plan devastated the city’s finances and was a key factor that drove Detroit to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in July. The State of Michigan also bears some blame. Lansing politicians reduced Detroit’s state-shared revenue by 48% from 1998 to 2012, withholding $172 million from the city, according to state records. Decades of mismanagement added to Detroit’s fiscal woes. The city notoriously bungled multiple federal aid programs and overpaid outrageously to incentivize projects such as the Chrysler Jefferson North plant. Bureaucracy bogged down even the simplest deals and contracts. In a city that needed urgency, major city functions often seemed rudderless. When all the numbers are crunched, one fact is crystal clear: Yes, a disaster was looming for Detroit. But there were ample opportunities when decisive action by city leaders might have fended off bankruptcy. http://www.freep.com/interactive/article/20130915/NEWS01/130801004

When state governments become addicted to Gambling Revenues, the decline caused by Gambling Market Saturation is significant.....you can't GAMBLE your way to prosperity!

U.S. casinos continued to struggle in August

 

By Thomas Ott, The Plain DealerThe Plain Dealer


The U.S. gaming industry continues to struggle, based on a stream of August revenue reports.
A comparison of the month with the same period in 2012 shows:

• Slots revenue fell nearly 4 percent in Pennsylvania, which reports slots and table-game figures in alternating months. Decreases were reported at nine of the 11 casinos open in 2012.
• Revenue fell 3.5 percent at Detroit's three casinos. MotorCity's numbers rose 1.5 percent, but totals fell 4.8 percent at the MGM Grand and 7.7 percent at Greektown, recently acquired by Cleveland casino owner Dan Gilbert.
• Northwest Indiana's five casinos reported taking in 3 percent less. Revenue for the first eight months was off 4.5 percent when compared with the same stretch in 2012.
• Two of Atlantic City's 12 casinos reported double-digit increases, but, overall, revenue fell 5 percent. Atlantic City casino revenue was down during each month of the summer season.
• Revenue declined at five of six St. Louis-area casinos. The market's revenue declined more than 3 percent overall, compared with the same month in 2012, but individual casinos saw decreases as large as 10 percent.

Ohio regulators released new monthly revenue figures last week. The three venues open for a full year all reported declines from August 2012: 17 percent at the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland, 15 percent at Scioto Downs Racino in Columbus and 9 percent at the Hollywood Casino in Toledo.



http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/09/us_casinos_continued_to_strugg.html

Detroit: Casino Capitalism

DETROIT BANKRUPTCY OBJECTIONS RAISE POSSIBLE BANK CRIMES RELATED TO POC DEBT AND CASINO TAX DEAL; HUNDREDS PROTEST BANKS IN DOWNTOWN DETROIT

Posted on 08/20/2013 by Diane Bukowski

City retirees and their supporters joined in protest called by AFSCME Council 25 outside federal courthouse where bankruptcy hearings are being held, on Aug. 19, 2013

- See more at: http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/08/20/detroit-bankruptcy-objections-raise-possible-bank-crimes-related-to-poc-debt-and-casino-tax-deal-hundreds-protest-banks-in-downtown-detroit/#sthash.6xSXlAOX.dpuf


City retiree, pension funds object to “Forbearance Agreement”
Hearing set for Tues. Sept. 4 at 10 a.m. before Judge Rhodes
Hundreds protest banks’ role in devastation of Detroit Aug. 19
By Diane Bukowski
August 20, 2013

(Story on bankruptcy eligibility objections will be forthcoming shortly.)

Hundreds protested outside Bank of America offices in downtown Detroit Aug. 19, 2013.. Protest included street theater: here “Judge” Jerome Goldberg convicts “Bankula” of crimes, sentences him to 150 years in prison.

DETROIT – Eye-opening objections filed in the City of Detroit’s bankruptcy case Aug. 16 allege that Detroit creditors UBS AG, SBS Financial Services, and Bank of America may have been guilty of criminal activity related to the $1.5 Pension Obligation Certificates (POC) loans to the city in 2005 and 2006, and related interest swaps.

They also say those banks are continuing to rob the city through a “Forbearance Agreement” reached July 15, 2013, which is subject to approval by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes. Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr earlier boasted that this agreement will release the city’s casino tax revenue of $11 million a year, held as collateral to pay off the POC debt.

Gov. Rick Snyder, EM Kevyn Orr at press conference re: bankruptcy July 19, 2013.

“Detroit has been working its way to a level of insolvency for decades,” Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr said while announcing the bankruptcy filing July 18. “Part of the reason we’re here is that in 2005 and 2006, Detroit borrowed $1.5 billion to provide a solution for pension obligations, then hedged those with swap agreements for which we paid hundreds of millions.

We went into default on those agreements in 2009 so we doubled down and pledged the city’s casino revenues to support the agreements. For some time, Detroit has simply not been on a sustainable footing.”

Orr claims that debt is part of an outstanding $3 billion the city owes its pension systems, although they are not a party to the transactions involved and objected strenuously to the issuance of the POC bonds. Then City Councilwoman Sharon McPhail termed POC’s “one of the seven deadly sins of municipal finance.”

Protest outside federal courthouse against bankruptcy Aug. 19, 2013.

City retiree David Sole, the city’s pension funds, and other creditors including insurer Syncora, Inc., have filed objections to “the Forbearance Agreement,” which would allow the city to pay the banks involved 75 cents on the dollar on swaps related to the debt, in return for the “release” of $11 million a year in casino tax revenues held hostage to ensure the city’s payments on the POC debt.

A hearing on the objections is set for Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2013 in front of U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes.

City of Detroit retirees came out in force for courthouse protest Aug. 19, 2013.

The objections by Sole and the pension fund allege that the agreement will cost the city hundreds of millions more than what the discount saves. Despite the bankruptcy’s stay on debts, the city has continued to pay UBS and its partners on the swaps, Orr earlier admitted during a press conference July 19.

“The Interest Rate Swaps on Pension Obligation Certificates entered into by the City of Detroit with UBS and SBS/Bank of America constitute a drain of hundreds of millions of dollars to the banks from the City’s budget with nothing positive for the City in return,” Attorney Jerome Goldberg writes in the Sole objection.

“Basically, the Interest Rate Swaps obligate the City of Detroit to pay UBS and Bank of America 6.323% interest on $800 million in bonds, when the actual rate on the bonds is only 0.6056%. The banks, who on information and belief presented this ‘deal’ as a beneficial one for the City, pocket the difference between the interest paid to them and the actual interest rate on the bonds, as clear profit, amounting to at least $45.1 million according to Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr’s May 12, 2013 Financial and Operating Report.”

Numerous UAW members were part of protest at Bank of America Aug. 19, 2013.

The objection notes that UBS and Bank of America have both been charged with fraudulent practices related to municipal bonds, and are implicated in the global LIBOR and ISDAfix scandals. The two banks and many others allegedly rigged interest rates set by LIBOR (the London Interbank-Offered Rate panel) to benefit themselves and their clients. They have also been charged with rigging the ISDAfix, which affects calculations of termination fees associated with interest rate swaps.

Three UBS municipal bond executives were recently sent to prison, along with two others in LIBOR-related activities. A former Bank of America executive has also been indicated for municipal bond fraud.

UBS. Bank of America, others devastated Detroit with foreclosures, said protesters outside BOA Aug. 19, 2013.

“In addition, both Bank of America and UBS, as documented in countless lawsuits and consent judgments with the federal government and state governments including Michigan, and UBS were major subprime lenders and participants in the illicit mortgage activity that precipitated a virtual financial collapse in 2008, and that especially implicated cities with large African-American populations like Detroit,” Goldberg writes.

“The financial crisis that precipitated this Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing was in large part a result of the effects of predatory lending by the banks against the residents of Detroit, which resulted in tens of thousands of foreclosures in the city, a massive population decline and a precipitous decline in property values.”

All ages turned out for bankruptcy protest at courthouse Aug. 19, 2013.

The objection attaches a copy of a lawsuit filed by the Detroit Police and Fire Retirement System against financial institutions including UBS, “for losses suffered as a result of being sold allegedly fraudulent mortgage securities.”

Both Sole and the city’s pension funds, represented by Attorneys Robert Gordon and Shannon Deeby of Clark Hill, allege that the Forbearance Agreement includes no information necessary to assess its alleged benefits to the City.

(L to r) Detroit CFO Sean Werdlow, SBS rep Bill Doherty, Joe O’Keefe of Fitch Ratings, Stephen Murphy of Standard and Poors, and Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams press for $1.5 POC loan from UBS, SBS at City Council table Jan. 31, 2005./Photo by Diane Bukowski

“. . .the Assumption Motion is devoid of material information necessary to assess the benefits of the Forbearance Agreement,” write Gordon and Deeby.

They say the motion fails to explain “(i) whether a valid termination event exists . . . .that necessitates the Forbearance Agreement in the first instance; (ii) whether the Swap Counterparties’ asserted prepetition liens validly extend to Casino Revenue generated postpetition; (iii) what claims, obscurely alluded to in paragraph 47 of the Assumption Motion, may exist to challenge the validity of the Swap

Contracts and liens, which claims are being waived; and (iv) by what means the City intends to obtain funds likely in excess of $200 million in the next roughly 2-6 months to effectuate an Optional Termination.”

“Summer of Solidarity,” which is visting 13 cities across the U.S. to combine forces, participated in Bank of America protest Aug. 19, 2013.

Paragraph 47 of the city’s proposed Forbearance Agreement says in part, “Further, while the City has examined whether there are viable actions to challenge the Swap Contracts or the City’s pledge of the Casino Revenue to secure its obligations to the Swap Counterparties, litigation would be protracted, expensive and, in terms of success, uncertain. The Swap Contracts and related documents are exceedingly complex, as is any determination of the amounts owing and the rights of the parties thereunder. While certain creditors have informed the City of their views on these arrangements, regardless of the merits of these positions, the issues are extremely complicated and, accordingly, subject to a high degree of uncertainty.”

An obscure sentence in Orr’s “Proposal to Creditors,” issued June 14, 2013 during a meeting at the Detroit-Wayne County Airport, also says, ‘The City has identified certain issues related to the validity and/or enforceability of the COPS that may warrant further investigation.”

VOD editor Diane Bukowski (second from left) questioned Orr after he presented Proposal to Creditors at airport June 14, 2013. WWJ’s Vickie Thomas is at left.

Asked by VOD during a press conference after the meeting whether he would investigate criminal actions by the banks related to the POC’s, Orr said he would instead investigate the pension funds.

The next week, he announced such an investigation.

“Party of Interest Sole believes that if the City of Detroit’s Emergency Manager exercised his statutory mandate under PA 436, Section 16, to conduct a criminal investigation of activities of the swap counterparties . . .the City of Detroit may have been in a much better position to negotiate with the banks to resolve the interest rate swaps which have cost the City tens of millions of dollars in desperately needed revenues and which will cost the City hundreds of millions more, even under the forbearance agreement which the City seeks to implement,” writes Goldberg.

UAW worker in protest outside Bank of America Aug. 19, 2013.

He suggests that Orr should invite the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate the City’s bonds with UBS and Bank of America, noting that UBS already entered into an SEC judgment “relative to illicit activity involving the City of Detroit Water Department bonds.”

“Emergency Manager Orr could also invite the SEC to intervene in this bankruptcy proceeding pursuant to Section 1109(a) of the Bankruptcy Code which is incorporated into Section 901. The SEC could bring the expertise and information gained by their extensive examination of illicit activity in the municipal bond markets into this Chapter 9 proceeding. Interested Party Sole and several other City of Detroit retirees have taken the initiative to enlist the support of United States Senator Carl Levin in prompting SEC involvement in this case,” writes Attorney Goldberg.

Attached to the motion is a letter sent by retirees to Levin, who headed a Senate Judiciary Panel in 2009 which reported massive fraudulent activity by the global banks, resulting in the economic collapse of 2008.

Syncora, Inc., which insured payment of the swaps, has also objected to the motion, claiming it was a party to the swap agreements but was not involved in negotiating the Forbearance Agreement. Syncora may have reached a settlement on its objections, according to news reports.

Former Detroit Corporation Counsel and mayoral candidate Krystal Crittendon distributed objections to bankruptcy for protesters to submit Aug. 19. The objections insist that lawsuits against constitutionality of the Emergency Manager law, PA 436, be heard prior to continue of bankruptcy proceedings.

Related documents:
Objection to forebearance DSole JG (exhibits follow below)
FA exhibit 1 Affidavit of David Sole
FA exhibit 2 to 4 UBS article; Senate report on bank crisis; PDD report on foreclosures
FA exhibit 5 DPFRS lawsuit re UBS
FA exhibit C POC debt docs
FA exhibit G LIBOR rate calculations; articles on UBS, LIBOR ISDAfix
FA exhibit L Articles on UBS, BOA executive jailings; SEC judgment against UBS in DWSD bonds
PFRS – City of Detroit – Objection to Forbearance Agreement – FILED (Pension funds objection)
Bankruptcy objection letter 2 (This is blank bankruptcy objection letter distributed by Krystal Crittendon Aug. 19. She advised that individuals should still file after eligibility objection cut-off date of Aug. 19 because letter alleges not enough time was allowed to file objections. According to Attorney John Philo, the judge in the Stockton bankruptcy case allowed nine months.)





Story is also forthcoming on Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management Forum held Aug 17, 2012. Above is a video showing a snippet of the conference: the people’s fighter Monica Lewis-Patrick speaking.
ONNAMOVE DETROITERS!

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT THE STOP THE THEFT OF OUR PENSIONS COMMITTEE (STOP) AT 313-680-5508; Moratorium Now at www.moratorium-mi.org; Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management at (313) 782-DREM (3736); Detroit Eviction Defense at http://www.detroitevictiondefense.com/, and numerous other groups.

- See more at: http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/08/20/detroit-bankruptcy-objections-raise-possible-bank-crimes-related-to-poc-debt-and-casino-tax-deal-hundreds-protest-banks-in-downtown-detroit/#sthash.6xSXlAOX.dpuf

Banks kicking Gambling Addiction?

We've allowed Gambling to become so pervasive, so connected to government, we no longer consider the consequences.

Bankers Anonymous launched to help banks kick gambling addiction

February 18th, 2013
Author: Economic Voice Staff

Anti-poverty campaigners today launched ‘Bankers Anonymous‘, a five-step programme to help investment banks kick their addiction to gambling on global food prices.

Barclays announced a withdrawal from speculating on food last week following public outcry over its effect on hunger.

The campaign by the World Development Movement asks people to take five steps to help win new rules to prevent banks driving food prices up through financial speculation.

Banks like Goldman Sachs are speculating on food prices, increasing volatility in the markets and fuelling sharp price rises. The World Development Movement is calling for strict controls to limit speculation.

Step one of the Bankers Anonymous programme asks people to write to their MP, urging them to call on George Osborne to back tough rules. Legislation to curb speculation is being discussed at the EU, but the UK government has so far opposed effective controls.

Goldman Sachs made an estimated £251 million (US$400 million) from speculating on food in 2012.

Roulette Wheel by Toni Lozano

World Development Movement campaigner Heidi Chow said today: “Banks are addicted to gambling on food, making millions while hungry people lose out. When food prices rise, the world’s poorest people can no longer afford to feed their families. And those on the borderline of hunger are faced with having to take their children out of school, or forgoing essential health care, just to be able to buy food.

“The only way to cure banks’ addiction is to introduce strict controls on their gambling. If the UK government is serious about tackling global poverty, it must back strong legislation to curb speculation.”

Image by Toni Lozano [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Read more: http://www.economicvoice.com/bankers-anonymous-launched-to-help-banks-kick-gambling-addiction/50035032#ixzz2LIOkcTnP

Costs of casinos outweigh benefits

Costs of casinos outweigh benefits
Thursday, January 24, 2013

Letter to the Editor

On Jan. 19, The Telegraph published a guest editorial from the Concord Monitor that gives a cogent argument that raising the gasoline tax, in the long run, will return far more to taxpayers than they will pay in (Jan. 19: “Raise the gas tax? Well, it’s about time”).

 

Recently, The Telegraph printed an editorial supporting the introduction of casinos into New Hampshire that did not contain such an analysis of the impact of casinos.

An in-depth analysis of the benefits versus the costs of casinos would reveal that the costs far outweigh the benefits. Such an analysis is presented in an article by Richard Florida in the New York Daily News of Nov. 25, 2012.

 

In that article, he cites the work of Baylor University economist Earl Grinols, who wrote a book titled “Gambling in America: Costs and Benefits” in 2004.

Grinols totaled the added costs that cities must pay in increased crime, bankruptcies, lost productivity and diminished social capital once they introduce casinos to their economic mix.

 

He found that casino gambling generates roughly $166 in social costs for every $54 of economic benefit. Based on this, he estimates that the “costs of problem and pathological gambling are comparable to the value of the lost output of an additional recession in the economy every four years.”

 

Bill Bonnice

Nashua

 

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/opinion/letters/991269-465/costs-of-casinos-outweigh-benefits.html

The article referenced is below:

Gambling away our cities

Why New Yorkers must fight the drive to legalize full-scale gaming

By Richard Florida / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, November 25, 2012

 

268

328

1

• Print
• Comment

LUCAS JACKSON/REUTERS

Gamers play the slot machines at the Empire City Casino in Yonkers.

Early in September, Sheldon Adelson, the 79-year-old founder of The Sands (and a lavish political donor — he contributed more than $50 million to help Mitt Romney and other Republicans get elected), announced that Madrid will be home to a massive EuroVegas gambling and entertainment complex. When construction is completed in about 10 years, there will be six casinos with 18,000 slot machines and a dozen hotels with 36,000 rooms.

Adelson would like to do something similar in New York City, on the site of the Jacob K. Javits Center on the West Side. As New York State begins the process of amending its constitution to allow up to seven new full-scale private casinos, eager gaming interests have flooded the state with lobbying money and campaign contributions, according to a report by Common Cause New York.

In Miami, the Genting Group — the same Malaysian company that operates the casino at Aqueduct — has proposed a $3 billion plus city-within-a-city on the site of the Miami Herald building, which it has already purchased for $236 million. The project would include two condo towers, four luxury hotels, 50 restaurants, 60 luxury shops and a yacht marina.

Casinos have either been built or proposed in Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Boston, Toronto and countless other cities across the United States and the world.

This “casinoization” of just about everywhere has been going on for some time. Three decades ago, only three American cities — Las Vegas, Reno and Atlantic City — had casinos. Today, gambling is legal in more than 40 states, and roughly 2,000 gambling venues can be found across America.
Gambling generates about $90 billion in revenues annually, a figure that is projected to expand to $115 billion by 2015. A third of this flows from casinos.

For politicians, casino money is a powerful allure. Casinos offer a potent triple whammy of big ground-breakings; new jobs in construction, hospitality and gaming tables; and substantial new sources of public revenue. “[I]t’s important to look at other sources other than taxing people to death,” Florida City’s Mayor Otis Wallace (whose city just proposed a 25-acre horse racing, jai alai and casino complex), told the Miami Herald.

While politicians and casino magnates seek to sell gambling complexes to the public as magic economic bullets, virtually every independent economic development expert disagrees — and they have the studies to back it up.

More than a decade ago, the bipartisan National Gambling Impact Study Commission’s Final Report concluded that while the introduction of gambling to highly depressed areas may create an economic boost, it “has the negative consequence of placing the lure of gambling proximate to individuals with few financial resources.”

When gambling is added in more prosperous places, “the benefits to other, more deserving places are diminished due to the new competition. And as competition for the gambling dollar intensifies, gambling spreads, bringing with it more and more of the social ills that led us to restrict gambling in the first place.”

In his 2004 book “Gambling in America: Costs and Benefits,” Baylor University economist Earl Grinols totaled the added costs that cities must pay in increased crime, bankruptcies, lost productivity and diminished social capital once they introduce casinos to their economic mix. He found that casino gambling generates roughly $166 in social costs for every $54 of economic benefit. Based on this, he estimates that the “costs of problem and pathological gambling are comparable to the value of the lost output of an additional recession in the economy every four years.”

Atlantic City’s first legal casino opened in 1978 amid expectations of economic spillover in the form of retail businesses, restaurants, rising property values and jobs. But a study conducted 13 years later found that any “anticipated multiplier effect has not moved much beyond the core industry . . . Half of the population still receives public assistance, and city services continue to be substandard. Social problems, including increased crime and prostitution, are worse than ever. Since most people holding the better casino jobs live in Atlantic City suburbs, they contribute little directly to the city.”
Casino cities are “dual cities” defined by “two-tiered economies,” according to John Hannigan of the University of Toronto. “[C]rack cocaine-addled prostitutes struggle to survive in the underground economy that flourishes . . . in close proximity to the glittering casinos.”

The typical customer of an urban casino is neither a tourist nor a deep-pocketed whale, but a local of modest means. Dave Jonas, president of Philadelphia’s Parx Casino, told the Pennsylvania Gaming Congress in 2010 that his typical customer spends $25 or $30 dollars a visit — and many of them return three, four and five times a week.

Much of the tax revenue produced by gambling comes out of their pockets. A “tax on ignorance” is what Warren Buffett once called it.

“I find it socially revolting when a government preys on the weakness of its citizenry rather than serving them,” he added.

Even the profits from vice are subject to diminishing returns. According to a report from the University of Las Vegas’ Center for Gaming Research released in March 2012, Atlantic City’s gambling revenues have fallen by more than 36% since 2006, when the first casino in nearby Pennsylvania opened its doors.

The city had been plowing $100 million into restoring its vaunted Steel Pier, upgrading its beach and boardwalk, making improvements to the Atlantic City Historical Museum and the Atlantic City Arts Center — efforts that suffered a devastating setback from superstorm Sandy last month.
Competition from Bay Area tribal casinos has taken a devastating toll on Reno, which has seen its gambling revenues fall by a third since 2000. Its leaders hope that a $1 billion Apple data center and a 78-lane National Bowling Stadium will help revitalize the city.

Meanwhile, Las Vegas is trying to reduce its dependence on casinos, transforming itself into part clubland, part Disneyfied family resort destination — and is emerging as the world’s leading destination for high-end business conferences. The city is working to create mixed-use urban living around the huge City Center complex on the Strip, while Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has invested $350 million in a live-work-play district in the area surrounding the old city hall, where he has opened his new corporate headquarters.

It’s ironic: Even as America’s original gambling resorts seek to remake themselves, countless struggling cities are looking to gamble their way out of these tough times.

The late Susan Strange read the writing on the wall in her landmark 1986 book “Casino Capitalism,” in which she compared the whole economy to a giant game of Snake and Ladders: “This cannot but have grave consequences,” she wrote. “When sheer luck begins to take over . . . then inevitably faith and confidence in the social and political system quickly fades.”

The recent surge in gaming across American cities is an outgrowth of this system of casino capitalism, which, as Daniel Denvir wrote in Salon last March, “feeds on America’s job insecurity; people, whether gambling or seeking employment, have fewer viable ways to make good money.”

Indeed, casino capitalism has given way to casino fiscalism.

While gamblers might fool themselves into thinking that they can get something for nothing, public officials and civic leaders should know better. “I don’t think the state should be in the position of selling the needle,” Buffett said.

“When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino,” John Maynard Keynes famously wrote in “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,” “the job is likely to be ill-done.”

It could be the punch line of a joke, if it weren’t so tragic.

Florida is director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto, Global Research Professor at NYU and senior editor at The Atlantic, where he co-founded Atlantic Cities.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/gambling-cities-article-1.1206079?pgno=2#ixzz2JH1NjUGJ

Massachusetts: The Hidden Costs of Gambling

[Keep your hand on volume control because of audio problems]

Kweku Adoboli's risky bets fuelled by City-wide 'addiction'

City rife with undiagnosed gambling addicts and giant losses that hit the headlines are just the tip of an iceberg, says trader

 

Peter Walker

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 November 2012

 

 

A London trader says there are 'absolutely thousands' of undiagnosed gambling addicts in the City. Photograph: D Burke/Alamy

 

The City is rife with gambling addicts whose habits contribute to a risk-prone culture of the sort which helped Kweku Adoboli lose UBS £1.5bn, according to one London trader.
Adoboli's trial heard that the 32-year-old lost £123,000 with a spread betting firm in just one year, and had taken out more than half a dozen short-term loans despite a combined annual salary and bonus of £360,000. Simon Taylor, one of Adoboli's desk colleagues, told the trial that such private trading was widespread at UBS.

The risky, off-the-books bets carried out by Adoboli during his job were likely to be another symptom of a wider addiction to gambling, said the trader, who asked not to be identified.

"There are absolutely thousands of undiagnosed gambling addicts in the City. The difference is that the odds are slightly more in your favour than if you're gambling in a Ladbrokes, and so there are many more people who can be successful gambling addicts."

Such an addiction, inevitably, affected work decisions, he said: "There are human emotions and you're dealing with things that shouldn't be emotional. That, for me, is the crux of the matter. Trading decisions should be pragmatic, but they're not, especially when you're trying to recoup losses like he was."

Some trading houses had brought in psychologists to look at this, he said, adding: "But for some reason, with the banks it's still the bottom line is all that matters."

Separately, the trader said, he was aghast that UBS had supposedly failed to pick up on the extent of Adoboli's side deals in his job, something now being investigated by Swiss and UK regulators:

"When I put on a trade, just to click the button on my mouse I have to have limits set, and from there it goes through at least four or five individuals over the course of a day. Overnight, all your positions are assessed. If you avoid those processes, someone has to let you avoid those processes."

He added: "If someone wants to commit a fraud they will. There's not a huge amount you can do about it. But ever since Barings I don't understand how there's an internal system at a bank that doesn't automatically prevent them from doing things like that, or else someone overseeing it. That, for me, is the real surprise. If not, inevitably something like this will happen."

While there had been a handful of cases of giant losses racked up by banks in such ways, the trader said, this was the tip of an iceberg: "It's happened, I promise you, at least 100 more times when it's not big enough to make a news story, so we never hear about it."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/nov/20/kweku-adoboli-bets-city-addiction

UBS "rogue trader" denies he was addicted to gambling

UBS "rogue trader" denies he was addicted to gambling

Former UBS trader Kweku Adoboli arrives at Southwark Crown Court in central London October 22, 2012. Adoboli is on trial accused of fraud and false accounting that cost the Swiss bank $2.3 billion. He has pleaded not guilty.

Credit: Reuters/Suzanne Plunkett

By Estelle Shirbon

LONDON | Mon Nov 5, 2012 

LONDON (Reuters) - Accused UBS (UBSN.VX) "rogue trader" Kweku Adoboli denied on Monday that he was addicted to gambling, saying that big losses on his personal betting accounts were due to his life spiraling out of control.

Adoboli also told a London court that he had been lying to protect his colleagues when he said in an email to the Swiss bank on September 14, 2011 that he was the only person responsible for trading losses of $2.3 billion.

Adoboli, 32, was arrested at UBS offices in the early hours of September 15, 2011, about 13 hours after saying in the email that he had been booking fictitious trades to mask losses he had made on "off-book" positions.

He denies charges of fraud and false accounting, arguing that his methods were known to colleagues, that everything he did was for the benefit of the bank, and that UBS management tolerated rule-bending as long as it was profitable.

Prosecutor Sasha Wass has described him throughout the long-running trial as a gambler who in the summer of 2011 was losing billions of dollars and recklessly increasing the size of his bets in the hope that his luck would turn and he would make all the money back.

"You were an addicted gambler. You were spending every penny that you had to feed your addiction. That's what addicts do," she told Adoboli, citing his personal trading activities at the time.

"NOT AN ADDICTION"

"There was not an addiction," Adoboli said, arguing that spread-betting was extremely common among traders and that it helped them to keep in touch with the market and "to be better traders".

"It's like a taxi driver driving his own taxi home," said Adoboli.

The court has heard that Adoboli lost 123,000 pounds ($197,000) on his IG Index spread-betting account in the year running up to his arrest, and that he had been making payments to short-term loan companies such as Moneybox and Wonga.com.

At the time, his annual salary from UBS was 110,000 pounds, and he had received 129,000 pounds as part of his 2010 bonus. Wass said that meant his disposable income after tax was in the region of 140,000 pounds, most of which had been lost on spread-betting.

"You were taking out pay-day loans to make ends meet. You were not able to live on your enormous salary because you could not stop yourself from gambling," she said.

Adoboli denied this, saying that he had also spent money on helping his mother and extended family in Ghana and his sisters in Britain and the United States, and that he had paid his rent.

He said the large spread-betting losses had come at a time when he was putting all his energy into trying to recoup the trading losses he was incurring at UBS.

"My life became a mess as a result of working too hard ... My life spiraled out of control," he said.

"DIDN'T THINK IT WAS A CRIME"

In a separate strand of evidence earlier on Monday, Adoboli said that many of the details he gave in his email of September 14, 2011, and in meetings with UBS managers and lawyers later that day, were untrue.

"I was trying to protect everybody, not just the desk, not just the senior guys, but also the back office," Adoboli said.

He said that if he had known he would be accused of committing a crime, he would have told the truth about the involvement of others earlier than he did.

"I didn't think this amounted to a crime, so there would be no need to call lawyers or the police," he said.

"I expected that I would explain the trades to them and then I could go home."

Instead, Adoboli was arrested and taken to a police station, and then to prison, where he remained for nine months until he was granted bail in June.

Wass put it to him that that his colleagues had known nothing about his trades, and that he had changed his story and started blaming others when he had realized the seriousness of his predicament.

"You are a very devious liar," she told Adoboli. "You have carefully weighed up what could be denied, what could be proved ... That is how you have conducted your defense, carefully crafted lies."

The trial continues on Tuesday, when Adoboli will be re-examined by his own lawyer, Paul Garlick. After that process is complete, Wass will make her closing speech, followed by Garlick, and finally the judge will sum up the case.

Then the jury will retire to consider their verdict.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/05/us-ubs-trial-idUSBRE8A40U020121105