From Zero Hedge who evidently has drawn enough mainstream attention to be noticing some blowback.

While our government economists assure us that inflation is under control at under 2%, General Mills is having a completely different experience, and is of course passing that experience on to you.

Just skip down to the red.

The following is Professor William Black's testimony to the House Financial Services Committee's hearing on the failure of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

Professor Black's qualifications which are about as long as your right arm, can be found here.

The following is an interview with Professor Black on the street in New York City during the Occupy Wall Street happening this past fall wherein he discusses having put over 1000 banksters in jail during the 1980's Savings and Loan meltdown, and the cause (not causes) of our present issues .....

FRAUD.

Very good stuff, you should watch it.

If you like Professor Black, here's his interview with Bill Moyers who is one of the only mainstream journalist paying any attention to the pervasive corruption that is Wall Street and Washington DC.

I keep wondering, who is us in this conversation?

This one doesn't take a rocket scientist to grasp.

US monthly surplus/deficit.

The US just set a record for the largest monthly deficit in it's long history.

From Zero Hedge

Physical gold held by ETFs, at 2,469 metric tons, is now the world’s 4^th largest gold stash, behind the US, Germany and the IMF.

Iceland is considering adopting the Canadian dollar, “the loonie”, as its currency.

Every $10 increase in the price of crude oil reduces US GDP by 1%.

A record 46.5 million Americans are on food stamps, 15% of the US population, over 22 million US households.

TSA’s VIPR teams conducted 9,300 unannounced checkpoint and frisking operations in the US in 2011 on highways, subways, train stations, ferry terminals, all mass transit locations.

Windows 8 will have a “kill switch” that will have the capability to arbitrarily access your computer and delete “dangerous software”.

The yield on the 10-year bond issued by Portugal jumped by 70 basis points last week coming close to a 14 percent yield. The Greek 10-year bonds jumped to a yield of more than 38 percent.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), obtained hundreds of documents from the Department of Homeland Security through the Freedom of Information Act and found details of an arrangement with General Dynamics in which DHS has been paying the defense contractor to monitor social media websites and other Internet communications to find criticisms of the department’s policies and actions. The company was contracted to monitor the Web for ‘reports that reflect adversely on DHS,’ including sub-agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Citizenship and Immigration Services, Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

From Dealbook.New York Times.

In Mr. Holder's defense, he makes no distinction between historically good and historically bad.

Detroit area attorney, Kurt Haskell and his wife Lori were travelling aboard famed "Underwear Bomber" flight Northwest Airlines 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25, 2009.

The following is Mr. Haskell's prepared statement for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's sentencing hearing,

Click this here little gear for Mr. Haskell's list of "anomolies" in the official account of this incident,

It'll get you thinking. 

Victim Impact Statement

by Kurt Haskell

Every victim of a crime in Michigan is entitled to make a statement in open court regarding the impact of the crime on their life. The statement is limited to the victim's physical, emotional and financial well being as it relates to the crime. Keep that in my as you read my statement. Below is a copy of the victim impact statement I gave today at the Underwear Bomber sentencing hearing. When reading my statement, keep in mind that I am a practicing attorney in the State of Michigan. In addition, I regularly practice in the Court the hearings are taking place at and therefore, I am somewhat limited as to what I can say. We were limited to 5 minutes each.

I wish to thank the Court for allowing me these 5 minutes to make my statement. My references to the government in this statement refer to the Federal Government excluding this Court and the prosecution. On Christmas Day 2009, my wife and I were returning from an African safari and had a connecting flight through Amsterdam. As we waited for our flight, we sat on the floor next to the boarding gate. What I witnessed while sitting there and subsequent events have changed my life forever. While I sat there, I witnessed Umar dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, being escorted around security by a man in a tan suit who spoke perfect American English and who aided Umar in boarding without a passport. The airline gate worker initially refused Umar boarding until the man in the tan suit intervened. The event meant nothing to me at the time. Little did I know that Umar would try to kill me a few hours later as our flight approached Detroit. The final 10 minutes of our flight after the attack were the worst minutes of my life. During those 10 minutes I sat paralyzed in fear. Unfortunately, what happened next has had an even greater impact on my life and has saddened me further.

When we landed, I was shocked that our plane taxied up to the gate. I was further shocked that we were forced to sit on the plane for 20 minutes with powder from the so called bomb all over the cabin. The officers that boarded the plane did nothing to ensure our safety and did not check for accomplices or other explosive devices. Several passengers trampled through parts of the bomb as they exited the plane. We were then taken into the terminal with our unchecked carry on bags. Again, there was no concern for our safety even though Umar told the officers that there was another bomb on board as he exited the plane. I wondered why nobody was concerned about our safety, accomplices or other bombs and the lack of concern worried me greatly. I immediately told the FBI my story in order to help catch the accomplice I had seen in Amsterdam. It soon became obvious that the FBI wasn't interested in what I had to say, which upset me further. For one month the government refused to admit the existence of the man in the tan suit before changing course and admitting his existence in an ABC News article on January 22, 2010. That was the last time the government talked about this man. The video that would prove the truth of my account has never been released. I continue to be emotional upset that the video has not been released. The Dutch police, meanwhile, in this article (show article), also confirmed that Umar did not show his passport in Amsterdam which also meant that he didn't go through security as both are in the same line in Amsterdam. It upsets me that the government refuses to admit this fact.

I became further saddened from this case, when Patrick Kennedy of the State Department during Congressional hearings, admitted that Umar was a known terrorist, was being followed, and the U.S. allowed him into the U.S. so that it could catch Umar's accomplices. I was once again shocked and saddened when Michael Leiter of the National Counter terrorism Center admitted during these same hearings that intentionally letting terrorists into the U.S. was a frequent practice of the U.S. Government. I cannot fully explain my sadness, disappointment and fear when I realized that my government allowed an attack on me intentionally.

During this time, I questioned if my country intentionally put a known terrorist onto my flight with a live bomb. I had many sleepless nights over this issue. My answer came shortly thereafter. In late 2010, the FBI admitted to giving out intentionally defective bombs to the Portland Christmas Tree Bomber,the Wrigley Field Bomber and several others. Further, Mr. Chambers was quoted in the Free Press on January 11, 2011 when he indicated that the government's own explosives experts had indicated that Umar's bomb was impossibly defective. I wondered how that could be. Certainly, I thought, Al Qaeda wouldn't go through all of the trouble to plan such an attack only to provide the terrorist with an impossibly defective bomb.

I attended nearly all of the pretrial hearings. At the hearing on January 28, 2011, I was greatly disappointed by the prosecution's request to block evidence from Mr. Chambers "as it could then be able to be obtained by third parties, who could use it in a civil suit against the government". It really bothered me that the government apparently was admitting to wrongdoing of some kind as it admitted that it was concerned it would be sued. It further upset me to know that the government was putting its own interests ahead of those of the passengers.

When I attended the jury selection hearings, I questioned why versions of the same two questions kept coming up, those being:

1. Do you think whether you'll be able to tell whether something is actually a bomb? and

Although it is gonna take me a minute to get there.

Here's why the MF Global story matters to you.

Let's just suppose that you own one share of Apple and the caca having hit the fan, your brokerage firm goes upside down ... or boobs up, as my beloved partner used to say.

Here's the nasty suprise heading in your direction.

You don't really own that share of Apple as it has been purchased with your funds but is being held in your brokerage firm's name supposedly for your benefit.

What is even more interesting is that you have most likely given your brokerage firm permission to pledge that share of Apple as collateral for it's own purposes, be it trading or borrowing or whatever they might want it for when you signed that paperwork you didn't read.

Here's why the MF Global story double matters to you.

The customers of MF Global weren't trading stocks which were purchased in MF Global's name, they were holding segregated commodity accounts, US government treasuries and in some cases physical product most typically gold bars, all of which were held in their own name with MF Global being paid to provide secure housing.

This means that without specific authorization which it mostly never recieved, by law MF Global should not been able to pledge those assets for it's own purposes.

The law was ignored by MF Global but much more importantly, our government regulators who are supposedly in the employ of the victims of this crime actually abetted this theft in the following fashion:

Faced with the choice of the typical Chapter 7 liquidation for a commodities brokerage concern wherein customer assets are untouchable, the SEC deliberately approved the Chapter 11 reorganization of MF Global, the one of two bankcruptcy options that threw customers assets into the entire pot of stuff to be carved up among all of MF Global's creditors.

What's even more interesting is that the SEC did this secretly without contacting the Commodities Futures Trading Corporation which probably is the governmental entity that should have made this decision as it has handled most if not all previous commodity brokerage failures and had experienced people and proven systems in place that would have more likely protected customer accounts.

So to make a long story short federal regulators have abetted the theft of money from private citizens in favor of in this case ... as usual ... JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, with the now addition of George Soros as the likely discount purchaser.

Nice eh?

Not to beat a dead horse, but remembering the words of President Barack Obama.

Ok, so here's my first ... Ok, Ok second question,

Just axin.

Now for Chris Whalen's question from The Institutional Risk Analyst.

"So why is it that the Large Media have such trouble reporting this story? The fact seems to be that the political powers that be in Washington are protecting JPM CEO Jaime Dimon from a possible career ending kind of stumble with respect to MF Global. By stuffing the commodity customers of the broker dealer via an equity bankruptcy resolution supervised dutifully by SIPIC, JPM and Soros apparently get to benefit at the expense of the commodity customers of MF Global. This situation stinks to high heaven and everyone on the Street we've spoken to about the matter knows it. As the article below notes:

"Rather than being treated as a bankruptcy of a commodities brokerage firm under sub-chapter IV of the Chapter 7 bankruptcy law, MF Global was treated as an equities firm (sub-chapter III) for the purposes of its bankruptcy, and this is why the MF Global customer money in so-called segregated accounts "disappeared".

The effort by former New Jersey governor and MF Global CEO Jon Corzine to save his firm by stealing customer funds seems to warrant further discussion, yet instead we have silence. Here's a question: When is Corzine going to be indicted for securities fraud and other high crimes and misdemenors? The answer seemingly is that the Obama Justice Department is afraid to go there. Thus the fraud at MF Global continues and Washington does nothing to inconvenience the banksters as customer funds are expropriated.

But please, to our friends in the Big Media, could we stop saying that we don't know the location of the missing $1.6 billion of client funds from MF Global? The money is safe and sound at JPM and other counterparties. As with Goldman Sachs et al and American International Group, the banks have been bailed out at the cost of somebody else. And the various agencies of the federal government are complicit in the fraud."

Mr. Whalen's conclusion feels about right to us with regards to Fox and the Wall Street Journal who the other day "reported" that funds had "VAPORIZED".

But can you imagine The New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, CBS etc. ignoring this story in an election year with a Republican in the White House?

 Ya can't ... can ya?

The following article referenced above is from Clearing and Settlement.com.

How JP Morgan And George Soros Ended Up With MF Global Customer Money

In recent testimony before a Congressional committee, MF Global’s former chief Jon Corzine as well as other MF Global executives said repeatedly the didn’t know where the failed brokerage firm’s $1.2 billion of missing client money was. In fact, MF Global executives knew exactly what happened to the money, as do the regulators who oversaw the firm’s bankruptcy. The so-called segregated customer funds were repeatedly, and legally (through re-hypothication), used as collateral for MF Global loans for 100:1 leveraged bets on European sovereign debt.

Ok so whose political party benefits when George Soros is flush with cash?

It all sort of comes together after a while don't it?

Evidently there are Al Queda flags flying atop public buildings all over Libya.

This has raised a question in the mind of Congressman Dennis Kucinich worthy of your consideration.

At least we prevented that bloodbath.

Oopsies!

From Syracuse University's Trac Report program via Chris Martinson (sort of) and The Economic Populist (moreso).

All three pieces are very good and worth the time.

Criminal Prosecutions for Financial Institution Fraud Continue to Fall

Federal prosecutions for financial institution fraud have continued their downward slide despite the financial troubles reported in this sector. The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during the first eleven months of FY 2011 the government reported 1,251 new prosecutions were filed. If this activity continues at the same pace, the annual total of prosecutions will be 1,365 for this fiscal year, down 28.6 percent from their numbers of just five years ago and less than half the level prevalent a decade ago.

Table 1: Criminal Financial Institution Fraud Prosecutions

I'm thinking that the Obama/Democrat excuse here should be that the failed policies of the Bush Administration and it's mismanagement of the Justice Department among other agencies has forced him to continue this deficit of prosecutions.