The old days...........the 60's, the 70's, the 80's.......

Remember back in the "old days"?

Remember back when Americans would gather and march for KEEPING THEIR rights?

Now the dumbies march to give their rights away.........

#DumbingDownAmerica
#WrongWayUSA
#YouthGoneWrong

Planned Parenthood

Georgia FARMERS Winning Again............

I lived in Georgia for nearly 30 years.   The South would love to rise up on taxpayer funded bailouts.   South Georgia farmers are no exception and they love to "vote the ticket";  that is,  just go down the voting ballot and anyone who is a Democrat gets their vote.  Simple isn't it?  No thought to what is right for the country.   The give-away for taxpayer dollars continues unabated.   

Here is a sample of what just was passed in the Omnibus PORK BILL by Congress Critters and Trump.  Section 731 of the bill’s Division A tweaks the Department of Agriculture’s Tree Assistance program to make sure that producers of pecans can get reimbursed for disaster losses in 2017 even if they didn’t lose 15 percent of their trees, the usual standard under the program. The top pecan-producing states are Texas and Georgia, which got hit last year by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma; House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway is from Texas, and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue is from Georgia.

For Investors who allow JP Morgan to manage their money

Misleading CDO Investments

Quick Stats

• JP Morgan fined $153.6 million
• Settled on 6/21/2011
• Case Details

The SEC settled with JP Morgan after it was discovered that the company misled investors on the complexity of a number of CDOs that were being offered. Specifically, the firm failed to notify investors that it had taken short positions in more than half of the assets bundled in said CDOs. The company did not admit to any wrongdoing or deny the allegations, but it agreed to pay $18.6 million in disgorgement, $2 million in prejudgment interest, and $133 million as a penalty. It was also required that the company change how it reviews and approves certain mortgage securities.

Anticompetitive Conduct in Municipal Bonds

Quick Stats

• JP Morgan fined $228 million
• Settled on 7/7/2011
• Case Details

JP Morgan settled an anticompetitive case with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in which it was forced to admit wrongdoing and knowledge of its illegal actions. “By entering into illegal agreements to rig bids on certain investment contracts, JPMorgan and its former executives deprived municipalities of the competitive process to which they were entitled” said Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney of the case. The charges stemmed from actions the company took from 2001 to 2006.

Foreclosure Abuses and “Robo-Signing”

Quick Stats

• JP Morgan fined $5.29 billion
• Settled on 2/9/2012
• Case Details

This gargantuan settlement came as the DOJ fined the five largest mortgage servicers in the nation. The entire suit was for $25 billion and was centered around “robo-signing” affidavits in foreclosure proceedings, “deceptive practices in the offering of loan modifications; failures to offer non-foreclosure alternatives before foreclosing on borrowers with federally insured mortgages; and filing improper documentation in federal bankruptcy court.” All banks involved, including JP Morgan, have until 2/9/2015 to comply with the settlement [see also The Unofficial Dividend.com Guide to Being an Investor].

More Mortgage Misrepresentation

Quick Stats

• JP Morgan fined $269.9 million
• Settled on 11/16/2012
• Case Details

Settled with the SEC, this case focused on JP Morgan misstating the delinquency status of mortgage loans that were collateral for residential mortgage-backed securities in which JP Morgan was the underwriter. It was found that investors lost $37 million on undisclosed delinquent loans. “Misrepresentations in connection with the creation and sale of mortgage securities contributed greatly to the tremendous losses suffered by investors once the U.S. housing market collapsed” said Robert Khuzami, Director of SEC’s Division of Enforcement.

Improper Foreclosures Pt. 2

Quick Stats

• JP Morgan fined $1.8 billion
• Settled in 01/2013
• Case Details

Continuing from the 2/9/2012 fine, JP Morgan tacked on another $1.8 billion to its already massive fine of $5.29 billion, totaling just over $7 billion. Combined, it is the company’s largest fine ever up to that point. That record would not stand for long, as the latter half of 2013 had other plans for the financial blue chip.

Electricity Trading Scandal

Quick Stats

• JP Morgan fined $410 million
• Settled on 7/30/2013
• Case Details

This fine was brought on by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) as it was discovered that JP Morgan was manipulating energy markets in California and the Midwest. In total, $125 million of unjust profits were returned and $285 million came as a civil penalty to be sent back to the U.S. Treasury.

Illegal Credit Card Practices

Quick Stats

• JP Morgan fined $389 million
• Settled on 9/19/2013
• Case Details

This fine was the result of JP Morgan deceiving customers into signing up for costly, unnecessary services when opening a new credit card. Broken down, $309 million of that figure was dedicated to repaying consumers, there was a $60 million civil penalty, and a separate $20 million penalty from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The London Whale

Quick Stats

• JP Morgan fined $920 million
• Settled on 9/19/2013
• Case Details

One of the most infamous cases over the last few years is the “London Whale,” which refers to two former JP Morgan traders who committed fraud to cover up massive losses (approximately $6 billion) in a trading portfolio. “JPMorgan failed to keep watch over its traders as they overvalued a very complex portfolio to hide massive losses” said George S. Canellos, Co-Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. The SEC slapped JP Morgan with the fine and also forced the firm to admit to wrongdoing.

The Fannie and Freddie Fines

Quick Stats

• JP Morgan fined $5.1 billion
• Settled on 10/25/2013
• Case Details

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) acted as a conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in this settlement. The fine included a $4 billion charge to address infractions of both state and federal laws while another $1.1 billion went to Fannie and Freddie themselves – $670 million to the former and $480 million to the latter. Yet another case that was based on mortgage-related securities at its core, which is something of a theme for the company.

Institutional Mortgage Securities

Quick Stats

• JP Morgan fined $4.5 billion
• Settled on 11/15/2013
• Case Details

No surprises here, yet another case where JP Morgan was accused of shelling out less-than-stable mortgages. This time, however, the focus was on 21 institutional investors as opposed to a mass of retail investors. The $4.5 billion settlement covers the losses incurred from instruments that were sold between 2005 and 2008. Shortly before this case settled, the company disclosed for the first time that it had $23 billion set aside for legal expenses and penalties.

The Big One: Misleading “Toxic Mortgages”

Quick Stats

• JP Morgan fined $13 billion
• Settled on 11/19/2013
• Case Details

In the largest fine (of any single company) in corporate history, JP Morgan settled for $13 billion in November of 2013. The charges stemmed from misleading investors on what regulators dubbed “toxic mortgages.” The settlement also dictated that the company had to admit wrongdoing in that it knowingly misled investors on the quality of these securities. This has been one of the few times in recent memory that the company has actually offered a “mea culpa.” Of the $13 billion, $9 billion will be used to settle federal and state civil claims while $4 billion will be used as relief to aid consumers harmed by the unlawful practice.

Libor Rigging Scandal

Quick Stats

• JP Morgan fined $108 million
• Settled on 12/4/2013
• Case Details

The alleged manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) was one of the biggest European cases in recent memory. When the dust finally settled, it was found that a number of banks, including Citigroup (C ) and JP Morgan were involved. JP Morgan settled for $108 million as the investigation could not find any evidence that management had knowledge of the actions of the two traders who committed the act [see also The Ten Commandments of Dividend Investing].

Madoff Retribution

Quick Stats

• JP Morgan fined $1.7 billion
• Settled on 1/6/2014
• Case Details

The Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme is one of the most infamous in the history of the investing world. After faking portfolio gains and eventually losing billions for his clients, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison (after pleading guilty) and had to forfeit $17.179 billion. His scheduled release from Federal prison is on 11/14/2139. The high profile case cost JP Morgan $1.7 billion along with an onslaught of negative press.

Currency Manipulation

Quick Stats

• JP Morgan fined $1.34 Billion
• Settled on 11/21/2014
• Case Details

JP Morgan joined the likes of UBS, Citigroup, and Royal Bank of Scotland in being fined for currency manipulation and collusion-like efforts on the part of the financial institutions. Investigations revealed instant messages between traders of the institutions showing plans to buy and sell currencies after market close in order to manipulate foreign exchanges in their favor. JP Morgan was fined $996 million by U.S. and U.K. regulators along with an additional $350 million dollar fine from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

Only the dealers win at this game......................

GOODBYE Old Friend

HELLO  and Welcome

Dallas PETA fish lovers.............

My wife and I were out for dinner last evening at a local high-end, far overpriced eatery in the neighborhood.   A few PETA misfits decided to join the fray and educate the diners.

TRUMP and the 1.3 Trillion..........

Between the corruption, endless lying, outright criminality, and sheer ineptitude, a thinking person has to ask themselves, "How much longer, can this 'Merry-go-round of Idiocy' continue?"

At what point, does the realization suddenly hit people, that they're placing way too much trust in the wrong kinds of people?

As political gridlock prevents anything meaningful from being accomplished it won't be long.

The math of compounding interest on the debt will make for some tremendous political lies.

Where are the younger Americans in all this besides worrying about guns instead of wacko's who use guns to kill people? There is a fiscal shit show headed your way as you whine yourself into adulthood.

This boys and girls is what SWAMP CREATURES look like.

RIGGED MARKETS

Definition

Rig
rigged, past tense of rig

1. Used to describe situations where unfair advantages are given to one side of a conflict.
2. Describes the side of a conflict that holds an unfair advantage.

Use in a Sentence

Despite costing taxpayers billions of dollars during the financial crisis, Wall Street decided to change nothing about the rigged market. In fact, Wall Street is known to have rigged the equity market, FX market, Libor, and the Commodities market since the financial crisis.

Examples

1. To falsely represent that a trading algorithm is capable of making decisions based on real time information.
2. To falsely represent that profiling of certain participants leads to the protection of investor orders on a particular venue.
3. To falsely represent that a broker’s router is unbiased in its treatment of all trading venues.
4. To falsely represent the extent to which an investor interacts with a type of market participant.
5. To falsely represent that certain participants have been removed from a venue.
6. To falsely represent the functionality of a venue to investors.
7. To knowingly allow select participants to enter orders on a venue in a manner that is in direct violation of US regulation.
8. To willfully ignore the possibility of a broker achieving a better execution outcome for an investor.
9. To willfully obstruct the quality of executions on a venue in a manner intended to improve the relative appearance of a brokers own venue.
10. To willfully send an order(s) to a venue(s) in a manner that would reasonably inhibit the probability of executing an order on a venue.
11. To willfully route investor orders to an offshore affiliate for the purposes of allowing the offshore affiliate to generate a profit via mark-up or mark-down.
12. To willfully route investor orders to an affiliate entity for the purposes of providing that affiliate entity with an opportunity to profit ahead of the execution of that investor order.
13. To willfully provide knowledge of unexecuted trading interest on a given venue to an independent routing facility of an affiliate or partner in a manner that gives that affiliate or partner an advantage over other participants.
14. To willfully notify a select group of participants of the unexecuted interest of an investor order in a manner that could be reasonably expected to negatively affect the economic outcome for that investor.
15. To willfully send investor orders to an intermediary, ahead of any interaction with other natural investors, and in a manner that could be reasonably expected to result in an inferior economic outcome relative to interaction with other natural investors.
16. To willfully send orders to a venue(s) for the purposes of achieving an economic benefit to a broker in a manner that could reasonably be expected to be detrimental to the economic outcome of an investor.
17. To willfully manipulate the opening or closing price of security.
18. To willfully allow the manipulation of the opening or closing price of one or more securities for a period of time in a manner where any reasonable person familiar with the arts would have identified that pattern of manipulation.
19. To willfully allow a 3rd party participant to utilize a function designed for use by a specific type of market participant on a venue; but is otherwise resold by that market participant to a 3rd party in a manner that provides that 3rd party an improved queue position on an exchange.
20. To willfully disseminate market data from a venue to a select group of participants at transmission speeds that could be reasonably expected to allow those participants to effect executions on the venue at outdated prices.
21. To willfully provide trading access to domestic or overseas participants without the provision of risk safeguards required to be in accordance with US regulation.
22. To willfully obfuscate the manner in which order types work in a regulatory filing while concurrently providing select participants a more comprehensive understanding of the functionality.
23. To willfully misrepresent the concentration of a select group of participants on a publicly traded exchange in an attempt to mislead investors from the potential revenue at risk as a result of any regulatory change affecting those participants.
24. To willfully provide a select group of participants with characteristics of investor order flow that would increase the probability of those participants interacting with a type of investor order in a manner where those participants would be expected to profit from that information.
25. To obstruct an investigation or expected investigation through the destruction of data that is otherwise required to be archived in accordance with the oversight and regulation of a trading venue.
26. To unreasonably prohibit certain participants from understanding or utilizing functionality on a venue that is otherwise available to select participants.
27. To purposefully expunge source code in a manner that would obstruct an investigation or an expected investigation into manipulative trading practices.
28. To willfully allow orders to be exclusively routed to intermediaries or to venues that cater to intermediaries while acting as a fiduciary.
29. To willingly classify (or reclassify) a proprietary trading unit as a bona fide market maker under US regulation by satisfying minimum requirement(s) of a legal statute, thereby allowing that trading unit to trade directly against investor order flow via non-negotiated or indirect methods of client facilitation, and often in a manner that is not in the best economic interest of the investor.
30. To operate an exchange and knowingly allow a market participant to effect manipulative trading patterns in a manner that could lead to significant destabilization of overall market prices and a loss of investor confidence.
31. To enter into an agreement on the basis of protecting investors only to breach that agreement by insisting that a select group of trading participants are allowed to "feast" on those same investor orders.
32. To knowingly operate an exchange or dark pool that uses technology that is slower than the fastest Members of the venue as it relates to recognizing and effecting obligatory price updates, price sliding, or order routing.
33. To collude with other market participants in anti-competitive ways intended to directly or indirectly undermine the potential for a new venue to be successful at gaining critical mass.
34. To willfully breach a contract with the intent to commit fraud by allowing HFT to "feast" on clients while arrogantly threatening any effort at legal recourse.
35. To publicly endorse a safer market structure during a period of heightened regulatory scrutiny followed by a reversion to illicit activities once such scrutiny has subsided.
36. For a Firm to unduly influence exchange officials and/or regulators following a sudden and material financial loss caused by a trading technology error and for regulators and exchange officials to be unduly influenced in a manner that results in preferential ruling(s) that exonerate the Firm from incurring the full magnitude of the financial loss.
37. To willfully route a brokers customer orders to a dark pool comprised of a high concentration of HFT and proprietary trading contra party interest with a reasonable expectation that any execution in that dark pool will lead to a higher probability of canceled liquidity at any subsequent venue destination(s).
38. To willfully create the appearance of liquidity in a highly liquid Treasury market through a high percentage of wash sale transaction and for an exchange and regulatory authority to be complicit in the identification and action against such illegitimate wash sale activity.
39. To operate as a U.S. Exchange and offer a routing product that directs orders to undisclosed "low cost partners and non-NMS protected venues" operated by the largest customers of the Exchange.
40. To participate in the decision to modify the name or acronym of a category of destabilizing market participant to create the perception that the category is not involved in market manipulation.
41. To market a publicly traded broker as "agency-only" while establishing a Board-approved proprietary trading group that utilizes open investor orders as the basis for a front-running trading strategy.
42. To willfully publish a "transaction size" that is knowingly and materially inaccurate and therefore inconsistent with just and equitable principles of trade so as to create the appearance of better execution quality than all other exchanges.
43. To willfully ignore publicly available evidence that demonstrates how a type of market participant ("HFT") can profit at the expense of an investor or fiduciary whenever orders are routed to a particular market center (dark pool or exchange) as part of a wave of concurrently routed orders and in a manner in which the execution report or resulting data from some market centers will be received by HFT and used to trade ahead of any of the aforementioned concurrently routed orders.
44. To willfully ignore publicly available evidence and actual trading results, while acting in the capacity of broker, that demonstrates how a type of market participant ("HFT") may profit at the expense of that broker's customer whenever routing a series of concurrent orders on behalf of that customer to the brokers own dark pool or other market centers (dark pool, wholesaler, exchange) as part of a wave of concurrently routed orders and in a manner in which the execution report or resulting data from any market centers will be received by HFT and used to trade ahead of that customers concurrently routed orders.
45. To act as a Fiduciary and knowingly allow orders to be executed in a venue that allows faster participants to trade against pegged orders at outdated prices, thereby resulting in economic harm to the beneficial owner(s) of those executions.
46. To act as a Fiduciary and knowingly allow orders to be traded on an exchange that offers tiered access to speed involving order entry, execution, and market data, resulting in economic harm to the beneficial owner(s) of those executions.
47. To be employed in the field of financial journalism and to allow capitalist interests to compromise the integrity of reporting due to conflicts of interest including compensation, implicit or explicit endorsements or forms of remuneration, reciprocal arrangements, advertisement, paid attendance or sponsorship at a media sponsored event, etc.
48. To knowingly operate an exchange self regulatory organizational (SRO) that creates multiple tiers of access that result in economic harm to certain members of that SRO, for the purposes of generating a profit for the SRO through a commercial operation.
49. To operate as a Fiduciary while being aware of the consequences of the current market structure and the manner in which it could cause economic harm to the beneficial owner, yet do to not effect the necessary changes sufficient to eliminate the economic harm.
50. To be employed by an agency established by an Act of the U.S. Congress with knowledge that the prevailing rules created by that Agency have enabled a national market system that does not achieve the principal objectives of the Agency itself; to protect investors and to maintain fair and orderly markets; to not have a willingness or mandate to eliminate any such rules that clearly run contra to the Agency's objectives.

OMNIBUS BILL. Americans betrayed again..........

There is no blue, there is no Democrat,  there is no Republican, there is no red.  Only lobbyists, the Department of WAR, MIC and a sell-out Congress. 

At least this guy gives a shit.  The OMNIBUS Bill contains:

 Record spending levels

- No wall/border security
- Obamacare intact
- Funds Planned Parenthood
- Sanctuary Cities funded
- Barely 24 hours to read a 2,300 page bill

This Omnibus is so far from what the forgotten men and women of America voted for. I will oppose it.

— Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) March 22, 2018

Michael Savage. Listen up........Cam Hanes talking TRUTH!

This was taken from Cameron Hanes Instagram feed.

On my last trip hunting Africa we were in a very remote area of Tanzania when we saw an armed poacher 80 yards away. Not the first of the trip either which wasn't a surprise as we were hunting in game rich country. Seconds after I raised my arm and pointed, hissing, "poacher", Cedric (a game officer is required to accompany hunters) shot. I had my binos up by the time Cedric's rifle boomed as I wanted to see if the poacher had a scope on his gun. In my mind that changed things. I was more nervous when they had scopes, but this guy didn't. We caught the poacher off guard and he knew it. He ran, disappearing into the tall grass, but through my binos I could see the shot missed. But Cedric did his job, which is to protect hunters from the lawless.

This is pretty much the name of the game back there, the poachers are armed and will do whatever it takes to not get caught (including kill) so it felt to me like it was a matter of whoever can shoot first. What many don't realize is without hunters back there like us, running the poachers off, and paying for a 12-man anti-poaching team like we had patrolling, the poachers are killing anything and everything they can at will. Without properly managed hunting taking place, keeping the order, the animals are getting slaughtered. There are good men like Cedric and Rashidi here that put their life on the line each day while in the bush, earning a living, feeding their families while at the same time protecting Africa's wildlife. Social justice warriors here in the USA think hunters are the enemy...poachers are the enemy. The hunting industry in Africa, mirroring the successful blueprint of conservation-through-hunting like we do here in America is the best hope for Africa's wildlife.

Merrill Lynch. Their BEST employees ever............

Three Merrill Lynch insiders will get more than $83 million from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission -- the biggest-ever payouts -- for providing information that helped the agency bring a 2016 case against Bank of America Corp., their attorney said Monday.

Two of the people will split $50 million and a third will get an award of more than $33 million for providing help in the same case, the SEC said in its statement Monday. The agency gave no information on the three tipsters or which company was involved in the case, citing federal law requiring protection of whistle-blowers’ confidentiality.

Jordan Thomas, an attorney with Labaton Sucharow, said he represented the Merrill insiders but declined to name them or say whether they still worked for the Bank of America unit. The three provided information that helped the SEC win a $415 million settlement with the bank in 2016 for engaging in complex transactions to reduce the amount of client funds that had to be set aside in reserve accounts.

Washington DC politicians at work

Under Barack Obama's administration, US debt rose at an alarmingly rate, having nearly doubled, surging by $9.3 trillion  during Obama's 8 years. It now appears that the trajectory of US debt under the Trump administration will be no different, and in fact based on Trump's ambitious fiscal spending visions, may rise even faster than it did under Obama.

Today, Friday, March 16th,  the US Treasury reported that total US debt has risen above $21 trillion for the first time; or $21,031,067,004,766.25 to be precise.

Putting this in context, total US debt has now risen by over $1 trillion in Trump's first year!

LARRY KUDLOW..................

“The recession debate is over. It's not gonna happen. Time to move on.“

Larry Kudlow, December 2007

Fun Fact: Larry Kudlow’s $100,000 per month cocaine habit in 1994 would cost $167K today, adjusted for inflation.