By Ellen Brown - Web of Debt

Last week, Goldman Sachs was on the congressional hot seat, grilled for fraud in its sale of complicated financial products called synthetic CDOs. This week the heat was off, as all eyes turned to the attack of the shorts on Greek sovereign debt and the dire threat of a sovereign Greek default. By Thursday, Goldmans fraud had slipped from the headlines and Congress had been cowed into throwing in the towel on its campaign to break up the too-big-to-fail banks. On Friday, Goldman was in settlement talks with the SEC.

Goldman and Wall Street reign. Congress appears helpless to discipline the big banks, just as the European Central Bank appears helpless to prevent the collapse of the European Union. . . . Or are they?

Suspicious Market Maneuverings

The shorts circled like sharks in the Greek bond market, following a highly suspicious downgrade of Greek debt by Moodys on Monday. Ratings by private ratings agencies, long suspected of being in the pocket of Wall Street, often seem to be timed to cause stocks or bonds to jump or tumble, causing extreme reactions in the market. The Greek downgrade was suspicious and unexpected because the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund had just pledged 120 billion Euros to avoid a debt default in Greece.

Goldman was an investment firm until September 2008, when it became a bank holding company overnight in order to capitalize on the bank bailout, including borrowing virtually interest-free from the Federal Reserve and other banks. In January, when President Obama backed Paul Volcker in his plan to reinstate a form of the Glass-Steagall Act that would separate investment banking from commercial banking, the market collapsed on cue, and the Volcker Rule faded from the headlines.

When Goldman got dragged before Congress and the SEC in April, the Greek crisis arose as a counterpoint, diverting attention to that growing conflagration. Greece appears to be the sacrificial play in the EU just as Lehman Brothers was in the U.S., the hostage the kidnappers shoot to prove they mean business.

The Nuclear Option

It is still possible, however, for the European Central Bank to snatch Greece from the fire and rout the shorts. It can do this with what has been called the nuclear option monetizing the debt of Greece and other debt-laden EU countries by effectively printing money (quantitative easing) and buying the debt itself at very low interest rates. This is called the nuclear option because it would blow up the hedge funds and electronic sharks operated by Goldman and other Wall Street heavies, which specialize in bringing down corporations and whole countries for strategic and exploitative ends.

Will the ECB proceed with this plan? Perhaps, say some experts. It could just be waiting for the German election on Sunday, which the ECB does not want to appear to be influencing.

Enter the letter symbols of the What's Hot & What's Not stocks into the QUOTES/CO. DATA box to see what business or industry they are in.

Over a period of time you will start to recognize trends.

The trend is your friend.

Spend a few minutes from time to time and you will soon understand what sectors to be in or more importantly what sectors to not be in.

Apr 04, 2010

By: Bob Chapman

We have an economy run on smoke and mirrors, based on the manipulation of markets.

That was accomplished via the executive order signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 in the aftermath of the stock market collapse of October 19, 1987, known as the Presidents Working Group on Financial markets.

This order intended to be implemented during emergencies has been used to manipulate markets worldwide 24/7.

We experienced an example of this misuse of power when the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose from 6,500 to 10,900 over this past year.

This rise was aided by TARP and a host of other programs that injected trillions of dollars into the economy, which, of course, the American citizen is responsible for. The result is we do not have free investment markets.

A secret group led by the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury Department runs them.

The SEC and the CFTC play their parts as government agencies to make sure the public doesnt know what is going on.

Another recent example is the CFTC testimony of Andrew Maguire, who informed the CFTC the date on which the market in silver was going to be manipulated by JPMorgan Chase. The manipulation occurred as outlined by Maguire and the CFTC did nothing to stop it.

Thus, we have heavily manipulated markets that are part of control planning by our government in order to shape economic policy. If you happen to be on the right side of the trade it is fine. That is in this case if you are long the market.

The other side of the trade is you lose as your government suppressed the gold and silver markets. You lose in a rigged market. This is the new American way. Seeing 72% of NYSE trades are black box created Wall Street wins and you lose.

More Here.