The Next Financial Shoe To Drop

Here's a quick tutorial on the root cause of the 1930's Great Depression since it increasingly looks like we will replay that whole episode in slow-motion. Sure the market crashed but the reason for the depression was the failure of the banks. The banks failed because they speculated in the stock market. E.G. Morgan Bank owned Morgan Stanley brokerage .Those speculations went south and people ran on the banks to withdraw deposits. The rest is history.

After the Crash and bank failures, legislation was passed that included the Bank Act of 1935 a.k.a. Glass Steagall. It prohibited banks from ever owning brokers or insurance companies. In 1999 , Glass Steagall was struck down. Banks then did the obvious and bought insurance companies and stock brokers. Also brokers bought insurance companies and banks.

" What could possibly go wrong?". Well first there was the failure of Bear Stearns which was bought by JP Morgan Chase and today Lehman Brothers went Chapter 11 and Bank Of America bought Merrill Lynch. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are in the wings looking for deep pocket partners i.e. some bank with fat deposits of unsuspecting civilians.

So we have gone full circle with banks now back in the brokerage business in spades. The next time the brokers fail they will take their respective bank owners with them. What's a civilian to do among these financial terrorists? First avoid any bank with a brokerage or insurance subsidiary. Limit all deposits to FDIC limits. Keep some cash at home and a weapon for protection.

Our society has resorted to money as the cure all and to that end we have printed literally bales of it. But like a house of cards, paper can't take much weight.

How To Build Personal Worth And Avoid Disappointment

Looks like Lehman Brothers will follow Bear Stearns into a shotgun merger. The buzz on Wall Street sounds like Merrill Lynch is next and then AIG and then Goldman Sachs and then.....

The effective tactic that turns these once blue chip stocks of the financial sector into a powdered form is the classic "bear raid". It's nothing new. It was around before the Crash of '29. It was used by Joe Kennedy and the very successful but suicide Jesse Livermore. Simply a group of speculators target a stock and then relentlessly sell it thus creating a panic in the financial markets till it spills over into the real world. And then it either goes bankrupt or is forced into an arranged merger. And members of the bear raid group profit from the collapse of the stock price . The "effective tactic" was the bear raid. But the fundamental reason that enabled the bear raid tactic to work was the questionable value of the underlying business of the targeted stock in the first place. It begs the question, "If these companies are so valuable, then how come they can be sold down so far?".

I.E. could a bear raid be successful if Wall Street operators tried to sell a $50.00 bag of groceries for $10.00? Or how successful could a manipulator be selling a gallon of gasoline for $1.50? Not successful because groceries and gasoline have intrinsic and recognizable value with a large market. Shares of Bear Stearns, Lehman, Merrill or whoever really when, push comes to shove, don't have intrinsic value. They operate on the "greater fool" theory. That's why the machinations of Wall Street bear raids acn be pulled off. Everyone kind of knows or suspects that Wall Street can't last .

If one is interested in building self worth and avoiding future disruptions then one should join with other like-minded, value-added individuals for a barter system . Then the group can freeze out grifters, politicians, Wall Street operators and all the other usual suspects.

Lehman Brothers: Next Target Of Short-Selling Pools ?

Some of the same greedy monkeys of Wall Street that had the depression-era Glass Steagall ,a.k.a. The Banking Act of 1935 , repealed in 1999 which is the reason banks are in trouble today had another key piece of depression-era market abuse legislation rolled back in 2007. The "short sale uptick rule " was eliminated.

Simply ,short sales of stocks by speculators had to be executed at a higher price than the last sale or equal to the last sale if was a higher price. This uptick rule was part of the The Securities Act Of 1934. The legislation created the Securities And Exchange Commission. The rule was put in place to stop bear raids by individuals and/or groups that drove down stocks causing margin calls and in some cases bankrupticies of the targeted company. Joe Kennedy of the infamous/famous Kennedy family was notorious for this tactic. So much so that Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as the first S.E.C. Commisioner . Joe basically wrote the outline for The Securities Act Of 1934 because he knew how best to steal in those unregulated markets and FDR wanted Kennedy to write legislation to stop stock market abuses!

Well Lehman Brothers is down 10% today at $38.00. It's down fro a high of $80.00 about a year ago. The rumors on the Street is that hedge and/or hedge funds are spreading rumors about Lehman's ability to remain solvent. At the same time the hedge funds are selling short Lehman stock on downticks whish is now legal.

It's the same tactic that was used so efffectively to drive Bear Stearns out of business and into a Federal bailout and acquired by J P Morgan Chase. Bear Stearns stock went from a 52 week high of $170.00 to an acquistion price of $10.00 per share. So if Lehman goes down who's next?

Now if the hard learned lessons and legislation of the depression era were just left in place, then most of this market turmoil would not be happening. But of course then we would be dealing with a monkey/primate with real intelligence and not a frivolous primate wearing a three-piece suit.

Another Banking & Brokers Crisis: Can't Learn If Can't Remember.

In 1999 during Clinton's tenure of office The Glass-Steagal Act (a.k.a. Banking Act of 1935) was repealed by the republican controlled Congress . The repeal was pushed by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Citigroup's Chairman Sandy Weil, Secretary Of Treasury Robert Rubin who left government after Glass-Steagall repeal and joined Citigroup and Bill Clinton. The repeal let banks back into the brokerage business. Let Citigroup back into the securities business is an understatement. It was Citigroup's Smith Barney's unit that was part of the fraud at Worldcom that cost investors $ 150 billion in losses. It seems that Sandy and Robert and Smith Barney anaylist Jack Grubman just can't play it straight. The three should have gone to prison.

Banks by nature should be safe and secure. Brokers by nature are anything but safe and secure.Citigroups stock since reentering the brokerage and related security dealings has plunged from $56.00 per share to $19.00. Today Bear Stearns collapsed from a 14 month high of $170.00 per share and was acquired by JP Morgan Chase for $ 2.00 per share. Hello? Anyone remember why the depression-era banking reform legislation happened? What was dumb and risky for the banks in the 1920's and 1930's is still dumb and risky.

Also " Character is fate", acording to the 6th century B.C. Greek philosopher Heraclitus. That hasn't changed either.