Why isn't anyone on ATS following the money re: last 4 presidents

Well hello ATS. I was an active follower and occasional poster from about 2006 onward. Took a break the last 8 years. Life happens and pulls us away no?

For the first time in a whiles I've been reading this site again. My oh my have things changed! It seems to have become a partisan slugfest. Trending toward airing of either sides grievances rather than listening, probing, etc. sure there was a fair amount of dismissal but it was based more on the "crazy level" or lack of plausibly of a given post rather than because it agreed or disagreed with one side of the political spectrum. It always felt as if that wasn't what was at stake here! No matter what party was in power or dominating government offices, the prevailing discussion was distrust of ALL political parties. Seemed that would be the spirit by which any conspiracy based message board would operate. I could go on about that but don't want to make a rant. But one last thought in that vein- calling people snowflakes (aka overly sensitive and expressing unjust or unfounded outrage with something that disagrees with their own agenda, values, no matter how sincere that dissenter feels) is the seat of hypocritical discourse. After all, is not lobbing that term at someone not all on its own an overly sensitive knee jerk reaction to someone who disagrees with you? Sheesh. A wise man once said "you have two ears and one mouth. So you should listen twice as much as you speak."

So what happened in my life? I began a demanding round the clock position in investment banking and finance. Yes! The very industry i distrusted so thoroughly. I did for a time fancy that I may become some type of inside operative. I had a chance to see behind that curtain protecting all the dark and shadowy inner dealings. For, what I learned on ATS and by my own education, research and experience is that the chaps on top of these companies had their fingers in every cup, and strings attached to nearly all powerful governments, worldwide. And it was mysterious. More on that after a fun insider revelation.

No not some super secret but something I think anyone outside looking in must understand. At these firms, there is very much a 99% vs 1% dynamic. In that 99% of the employees are worker bees at various levels and there's only a handful of folks who have the accumulated power and spare time (ibankers are notorisouly brutal jobs demanding complete, narrow focus on individual functions 80+ hours a week. Yes the jobs pay well but if you really broke it down to an hourly salary we're still making same or less than doctors, lawyers, etc... it's not a hooligan party of drugs and sex a la wolf of Wall Street. And the demand of focus means you see no more a big picture than your average curious American. I had no idea what a person 2 cubes down was working on, let alone a formal idea of what the company's ends were to the outside world. Think: compartmentalism). Why is this 1% idea important? Because it meant you had either A) long time banking family pedigrees coasting on generations of financial power sneaking them up the ranks or B) self serving shark type mentally disordered sociopaths with no socialite backgrounds scrapping and screwing others to the top.

Thus banking leadership was a combo of folks with generations long agendas (you know the same spirit as Rothschild, Warburg, brown, Harriman, bush, Delano Roosevelt, look them up for more) or, for lack of a better term, psycho A$$holes who's dog eat dog instincts were not only validated but encouraged inside these organizations, and they "knew better" but more importantly wouldn't hesitate to roll puppies under locomotives if it meant a few more basis points on their bottom line.

Was I ever one of these banking 1%ers? No. Did I meet and cultivate relationships with both of these archetypes? Yea. Honestly it was the old money types I grew to resent the least. They were usually incredibly well educated. Intelligent. Good hearted. Their fundamental flaw is their generations long, indoctrinated agenda came in front of all else. But they were usually pretty decent folks. The psychopaths? Watch out. I even had a years long romantic entanglement with one ending in abuse, hospitalizations, and it became what drove me from the industry and into a bit of self isolation. It's precisely why I have the time now to read! Yay. But seriously. Worst 3 years of my life.

Where does my outcry to ATS come in. Oy. When did people here become more interested in mud slinging and less so in FOLLOWING THE MONEY?

From Clinton onward who has been pulling the strings in financial policy:

Clinton:
Rubin. Goldman Sachs. Deregulated fire walls between trading, loans/mortgages, investment banking (capital markets/IPOS/M&A etc). This "modernized" a faultering banking system that with a loss of industry/manufacturing and overall "non service economy" that banking once existed to support and profit from. If we look back at the so called golden era of American Manufacturing, raw materials, infrastructure, banking (and government subsidy) made its cut underwriting the expansion and sustaining of these economic pillars. Whelp. We all knew that vanished. So to stay afloat, banks needed a way to A) consolidate, B) innovate (which is a fancy way of saying finding a victim). Now in the "golden era" financial services lobbying power did have a symbiotic way of ensuring subsidy and public spending kept all the aforementioned industries and projects alive and feasible. Sure it was corrupt in ways, but not like what happened later on. In the 80s and 90s, the lobbying turned into a vampiric force. Banks had to find their source of profit, and it saw the head of Goldman rising to the highest office of economic policy and conceiving and promoting this whole "money for the sake of money" idea. After all, they were running out of really useful ways to employ their financial power. Soon saw the rise of the hedge fund, which I would term the epitome of financial services cannabalism against the world. Hedge funds trade to make money from thin air. They prey on the numbers. They don't underwrite industries. They are the definition of money for the sake of money. See also: commodities futures modernization act. That really set things on fire.

Bush:
Paulson. Goldman Sachs. As the trick with Rubin worked without any real outrage, bushes treasury secretary sought to keep the party rolling and rather than exert his power to protect the people of America, it was all about "they're the victim. Allow unchecked 'innovation' for banks to find great (terrifying) ways to make money and when it fails we protect the banks first, sweep controversy under rugs, make the math too complicated for a PHD to untangle, let alone anyone else." This time saw Banks offloading nearly all risk in homebuying markets to Fannie and Freddie. This artificially inflated and created future chaos to housing markets. But they didn't care. Underwrote predatory loans, offloaded the risk, hands wiped clean. Mortgages chopped into securities. With multiple tranches. Pension funds were sold the side of the bet that these loans would succeed. Hedge funds and speculators took the side they may fails. AIG sold insurance so the MBSs were AAA rated guaranteeing the conservative pension and institutional investors would have no reason to doubt during due diligence. When the market ran out of mortgages in mid 2000s, CDOs were promoted

Continued...

As a way to stave off worry the vampire may have to go dry. These were synthetic MBSs. They referenced the same mortgages and mathematically promised to perform as such. I know this to be true because I would hire quants to work on CDOs. Here's a fun game: send a PHD with 2000 pages of calculus to argue how sound their financial product is to a lawyer at the SEC, some of the most underpaid and least intellectually accomplished of any JD- who is going to win? Yea my buddy Ahmed with the PHD thanks veddy much.

When it all went caput in 08 AIG was rushed into conservatorship because everyone found out they were the counterparty to all these failing instruments. Hedge fund managers and reckless speculators walked away with billions by buying the short tranche. Pension and institutional investors were left with failed investments. The little guy was gonna be creamed. Paulsen stepped in to insure the American treasury and FRBNY/FRB would just sweep it under the rug. They did a great job. Maiden lane project bought up the most toxic of all securities. AIG shares were bought by government so they could pay out their insurances. The honest investors had the securities taken off hands for the same price they bought at... because hey! That's better than zero. But in reality it was a way to sweep it under the rug and reinvent the system.

Paulson's game was a means test to see how far the next victim would take it. That's where we got into uncharted territory.

Enter the Obama admin.
There is such a thing as toxic altruism. That is to say, doing the right thing at the expense of actual factual interests. Meet Timothy geithner. Goldman Sachs. This saw the banking universe transfer its source of power from industry, to Main Street, to Washington.

The financial hocus pocus experimentation under Obama, while essentially well meaning, is dangerous. Untold billions pumped into banks by FRBNY to sustain wholesale repurchase of equity securities. Yes the indexes more than doubled. But needless to say it is like the corexit in the gulf. Turned the economy into a experimental lab with no real knowledge of the impact. Meanwhile, an entire segment of suffering Americans rises up. Says "things haven't gotten better for us. We're still under water and drowning in housing, student loan, revolving and other forms of debt. Our jobs never came back. We don't know what to do next." Yes, Obama and Geithner were great for bailing your rich uncle out - his stocks are better than ever! And for reinforcing the game of "dominance through myth and sublimation, protect bankers at all cost" that Paulson pioneered. But this well meaning group of Americans cried foul. They were maybe not old enough to be investors. Not young enough to have few debts and responsibilities. These became those who with little else to lose turned to Donald J Trump.

Donald trump.
Steve Mnuchin. Cohn. Bannon. All. Goldman. Sachs.

ATS friends follow the money and propel your outrage in a more informed direction. Not at each other. Goldman Sachs isn't the Rothschild of 2017. Just the best of the american ibanks. Famously we regarded them as the bankers bank. And it's sort of the best place to be a sharky psychopath puppy klller. It loves to screw over everyone including their own shareholders. This is fact.

And for those of you well meaning folks who believe in trump.

I believe you are suffering from toxic altruism.

Donald trump is not the champion of the little guy. He is a dangerous, narcissistic egomaniac.

He is not a successful business anything. The only thing he did well at was licensing his name.

Let's understand business is about results. This is a man who launched many ventures with ambition but in all but licensing, retreated in failure like a cowering dog.

Lucky for him, he was sharky enough to gut shareholder value to ensure big bonuses for himself and a single digit billion fortune (somewhat small considering how much money he's had flow through his companies for 40 or so years) in the face of investor outcry. Censure from government agencies. Contract lawsuits. You name it. I think he would be right there with our Goldman buddies tying puppies to train tracks. I'm no snowflake. I've lived this life 9 years and came back just shocked.

Wake up ATS. Wake UP.

Great post, and so well put.

Oh man it's bedtime though. Why'd you have to wake me up now?

a reply to: zosimov

Ah no harm meant. Let's just get a star/flag and hope some of the old guard comes back. I miss it. So very much.

Thanks so much for the kind words mate. This entire site would benefit from a spirit of kindness and alliance. We are all questioning, probing minds.

Cheers.

originally posted by: chaeone86
a reply to: zosimov

hope some of the old guard comes back. I miss it. So very much.

Will do my best to remain vigilant until..

And of course seek out threads like yours.

While I may not agree with everything you said here (or perhaps just the spirit in which some parts were said,) in the big picture, I totally agree.

This is something I've been trying to say every now and then, that these financial centers of influence are the real problem, and that they have maintained unbroken influence in government for quite some time now. Regardless of party, administration, ideology, etc. they are there. This is why I'm neither a Clinton, nor a Bush, nor an Obama, nor a Trump supporter. But that doesn't tend to gain much traction on the internet these days - ATS included - because only divisive and vitriolic rhetoric - the more sensational the better - seems to play now.

It's clear to me that the people in and around the new cabinet and advisory positions are largely plucked from the same power centers as the previous administrations. Until and unless that changes... I see no compelling reason for real hope of anything else changing in Washington.

It's also clear to me that macroeconomic and global strategic realities in the long term that are shaping the contours of these aggressive and consistent stratagems are also being largely ignored (things like our aging population vs the deficit, the overall relative decline of our economic influence compared to other major economic centers emerging and steadily progressing ever more toward some degree of parity with us,) and may have important implications for why exactly those with this level of influence are so steadfast in its wielding and continuance (the long term picture seems to necessitate some risky gambits, to our peril, to preserve said power.)

Sadly, this topic will likely go ignored, unread, or will be dismissed out of hand because it acknowledges a multi-administration, bipartisan, nuanced locus of influence that isn't merely left or right, and diminishes the them and us polarity that has become so entrenched today.

Peace.

a reply to: chaeone86

Unfortunately the manufactued partisanship is as alive and kicking as ever. It's crazy that Republicans would still be loyal after their party put out swill. It's also insane that Democrats are still loyal after their party ousted Bernie and helped prop up Trump (their mortal enemy since he put a R next to his name on a ticket).

The whole idea is we stay divided. God forbid we find a common platform.

originally posted by: AceWombat04
While I may not agree with everything you said here (or perhaps just the spirit in which some parts were said,) in the big picture, I totally agree.

This is something I've been trying to say every now and then, that these financial centers of influence are the real problem, and that they have maintained unbroken influence in government for quite some time now. Regardless of party, administration, ideology, etc. they are there. This is why I'm neither a Clinton, nor a Bush, nor an Obama, nor a Trump supporter. But that doesn't tend to gain much traction on the internet these days - ATS included - because only divisive and vitriolic rhetoric - the more sensational the better - seems to play now.

It's clear to me that the people in and around the new cabinet and advisory positions are largely plucked from the same power centers as the previous administrations. Until and unless that changes... I see no compelling reason for real hope of anything else changing in Washington.

It's also clear to me that macroeconomic and global strategic realities in the long term that are shaping the contours of these aggressive and consistent stratagems are also being largely ignored (things like our aging population vs the deficit, the overall relative decline of our economic influence compared to other major economic centers emerging and steadily progressing ever more toward some degree of parity with us,) and may have important implications for why exactly those with this level of influence are so steadfast in its wielding and continuance (the long term picture seems to necessitate some risky gambits, to our peril, to preserve said power.)

Sadly, this topic will likely go ignored, unread, or will be dismissed out of hand because it acknowledges a multi-administration, bipartisan, nuanced locus of influence that isn't merely left or right, and diminishes the them and us polarity that has become so entrenched today.

Peace.

Verily you need not to agree with all I say to extract value and more importantly a reason to suggest a meeting of the minds on a concept I opened and you have so expertly expanded upon. I truly loved your reply. Critical thinkers are an endagered species in this era.

I suffer from cognitive dissonance in near all my conversations with truly intelligent partisans on either side. I don't expound to belong to one or the other. But find all else do.

What is most frightening about where we are: if two seemingly intelligent people cannot agree on facts first, how will they ever build consensus in the face of subjective disagreement? This is intellectually impossible. This is what scares me so fully recently.

And I do pray everyone opens their minds to each other before it's become too late.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

That common platform is how I found this site 12 years ago. SMH and sigh, sigh, sigh. The toughest part about returning to read is to see a partisan slugfest.

When I found ATS it was a bastion of distrust and INFORMED speculation. It educated me enough to shorthand what I wrote tonight. Not going to footnote and over reference things I know to be true. And anyone else could if they had the bravery to be intellectually curious.

That's what I find to be the flaw. A lack of intellectual curiosity. If we seek the unknown, then by definition we should not seek validation of preconceived ideals. The unknown is a searching and fearless inventory. It is not about just finding affirmation of already held paranoia.

But. Maybe I'm at nostalgic for my old ATS as coal miners are for the 1950s.

a reply to: chaeone86

The irony of what you said is while in a certain conversation I think most Americans who are well versed in current events would say this country is in grave danger. I think most would say we are lacking in many areas.

But I think most would rather blame a party and psychology fight fellow Americans before admitting "our parties" know the damage they are doing. It is calculated and we are mere variables to their equations.

a reply to: chaeone86

There is a lot at stake now so that should be recognized.

And the rhetoric is strong. You speak of coal miners, and I live in Virginia so I hear the stories from those in the region.

Here on ATS I saw that there is a program to teach coal miners how to code for computer applications to alleviate the loss of coal demand. Republicans don't bring that up or support it and democrats villain I've these workers for being part of an "outdated trade".

There is a battle for our minds, and I assure you our best interests are not the driving force.

a reply to: chaeone86

Good post man 👍

Everyone I chat to hasn't a clue what an MBS or CDO etc is anymore even though lots of my friends became 'expert' in talking about this stuff back in 2008/9....

It's like the wool has well and truly been pulled over everyone's eyes. Here in the UK pretty much exactly the same thing happened except we never had any fall in house prices. UK house prices defied gravity and still do, they are way out of kilter with average wages etc etc.

The government and media narrative is that it's to do with 'supply and demand' which is absolute horse s**t as it has everything to do with printing money by the BOE and availability of credit (debt) to the masses.

The UK financial sector has almost mirrored the US in every way.

MR

a reply to: chaeone86

Bannon is really the intermediary for the Mercers. The Mercers are being largely slept on in CT circles because their influence has only recently skyrocketted. You might want to check these threads of mine out:

Mapping The Swamp
The Billionaire's Brain Hackers

Good job OP but when I saw on RT the other day protestors protesting Putins invasion of Korea as mentioned by Pelosi I thought this about America

a reply to: Marlborough Red

We live and prosper (read:suffer) under fractional reserve systems that serve all but none of us. Yet we pay for them. They are the cost of doing business in finance. Unfortunately, it is the business of imagination. If key players (including leaders, minions and everyone else like you and me) decide to give it up. We will all suffer. This is our modern paradox. Unfortunately I cannot offer a solution. Wish somebody could!

a reply to: theantediluvian

Mercers are older than I think you realize. Was very aware of them 2005-now. They are no secret.

Starred and Flagged

I'm wondering how manufactured the bipartisanship really is. Divide a country and it can easier be manipulated

a reply to: whismermill

Amen mate. Nailing it. The less opportunity we have to find consensus. Build intellectual wisdom on the ruling powers. Well, if we can't do that, all these wrong people succeed, no?

It would scare me that any other member of the forum would disagree. Yes there is something fundamentally corny about my message. But i would contend consensus has always been the best manifestation of open societies. And pray we don't keep sliding backward.

a reply to: chaeone86

Do you remember the Vietnam War? Do you remember the most critical moment of that war?

That moment, that event, didn't happen in Vietnam. It happened when Lyndon Johnson realized, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America. If he spoke out against the war, the rest of America would follow.

Since then, the globalists realized that it's not enough to control governments, they must control media as well. That's why the number of corporations that control the media has steadily decreased. When it comes to certain issues, they all sing the same tune.

The growth of the internet has enabled people to access more sources of information. This is a problem for the globalists. Internet personalities have gained as much credibility, if not more, than news anchors. Not that internet personalities are all that creditable, but news anchors have been repeatedly caught misleading the public.

So now it's no longer enough to control the media, you have to control the narrative on the internet. That means injecting the topics you want, to keep people distracted and divided so they don't focus on the common problems they should be opposing. Get people talking about abortion rather than how much tax money goes to bail out Wall St. Keep them fighting about race rather than coming together to combat homelessness. And so on.

We fail only if we play into it.

We need older members to remind us what ATS is supposed to be about. You got a crazy conspiracy theory? Bring it! Let's discuss it like logical, rational, open minded people. We should be able to examine a topic without the insults and name calling. If nothing else, it's great mental exercise. It helps keep our minds sharp so that when we see BS, we can recognize it. And we should be sharp enough to recognize the BS'ers. Maybe if we just ignore them they will go away.

a reply to: chaeone86

Completely agreed.

Sadly, when you speak of the critical nature of consensus, you've hit the nail on its hideous and increasingly inevitable head, I fear. Meaningful consensus can no longer be mounted, as facts have been rendered increasingly subjective in the zeitgeist of the internet age, and ever more brazen and blatant propaganda is employed by the myriad interest groups.

Somehow, when conspiracy theory or rather, conspiracy theory sentiment, went mainstream (imo via the nexus of 9-11, the Iraq war, Anonymous, wikileaks, occupy wall street, and the financial system bailouts,) the "feeling" of opposing that amorphous and ill defined (unless one actually studies it as many here once did) entity known as "the establishment," became en vogue in a very - imo - unhealthy and poorly focused way. Less of an analytical observation of and discourse about a process underway for some time, it became more like an "urge." Anti-establishment feeling has become fetishized. As such, people are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and with it, any semblance of nuance or desire to parse the details.

Many don't care much what the establishment is; its nature, the levers and mechanisms by which it secures and expands it power. They only know (and to this extent at least, rightly so) that it's hurting them and causing them sincere pain and threatening their livelihood and this, when coupled with the aforementioned rebellion fetish, leads them to but one conclusion: identify "them," and burn "them" to the ground, consequences and implications be damned.

Unfortunately, we continue electing those with ties to and/or strong institutional influence near "them," and those people we hand power then persuade us to target something other than themselves as the true "them..." and encourage us to burn that down instead. (Often in the form of unwittingly burning ourselves alive, unfortunately but all too predictably.)

The ability to form consensus is rapidly eroding, and our polity with it. Those benefiting from and stoking this process may believe themselves to be in control and for the moment that may be the case... but as I always opine in all matters including politics, human nature and unpredictable emergent behavior are the real wild card and risk to any organized effort anyone ever undertakes, good or bad. Meaning no matter how in control they think they are, this continual encouragement and exploitation of hyper polarity and fear (misplaced fear, employed by both sides) creates a dangerous byproduct: instability and rapidly increasing periods of volatility. (Economic yes, but also just sociological and psychological... which in the long run, are far more potent and more difficult to contain and manage.)

So they are legitimately playing with fire. The whole house of cards could collapse, to their detriment and ours. But since they appear to believe themselves unassailable and incapable of ever losing these tools and methods of influence... as we see throughout history, therein lies the risk of human folly. Even the most powerful and organized groups can never be a monolithic, perfectly oiled machine that never makes mistakes, especially of the most purely human variety.

So even apart from their own nefarious and malignant impact on our systems, and more importantly lives, the threat of big money in politics poses a danger to civilization itself the longer its capacity to disrupt and sew discontent purely to enrich itself persists and grows.

Already one of their tools - propaganda and stoking controversy and false equivalency so that unified consensus (read: OPPOSITION) can never truly emerge - is beginning to backfire and erode even their own capacity to control events. No one believes anything anymore. No authority, no scholar, no data, no empirical evidence, nothing; nothing can be pointed to so as to say, "See? This is reality," anymore. The digital age, coupled with this crumbling of confidence in any and all institutions, has begun to destroy that paradigm... a paradigm upon which civilization itself rests.

This is why I say you hit the nail on the head when you talk about consensus and how without it, nothing can be done. And that is my ultimate fear, more than any party, any "side," and even these spheres of power we're discussing... that we're sliding headlong off a precipice into madness in the long view.

I pray I'm wrong.

Peace.