http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

Naked shorting is illegal in the US, and for very good reasons. On a larger scale, it is used for price manipulation, and is the equivalent
of counterfeiting. The removal of the uptick rule
by the SEC on July 6, 2007, which had been created in 1938 as part of
the New Deal regulatory reforms, cleared the way for its more heavy
handed uses and control frauds.

The ban on naked short selling was not enforced by regulators who were willing to turn a blind eye to
blatant market manipulation. Under the DTCC regime it turned epidemic.
The alarm was raised by many whistle blowers who were either ignored or
vilified by the corporate media.

Let me be clear on this. I am not opposed to short selling. It is a trade that has many legitimate uses. It is naked short selling that lends itself so readily to abuse, particularly when there
are not limits on position sizes and massed selling to drive down
prices. The deregulatory movement, based on such lofty principles, has
become nothing more than a means to a fraud, systematically knocking
down all the regulatory safeguards that were put in place to protect
the public during the Great Depression.

And this was the result of a long and expensive campaign, led by the wealthy elite and the Wall
Street banks, to lobby the Congress and dupe the people to energize
their frauds. As such, it shows premeditation and deliberate intent,
the organized corruption of one of the most connected of all global
resources, the US financial system and control of the international
monetary reserves.

It became so outrageous that the US had to intervene during its banking crisis that triggered this global
financial crisis, and selectively enforce the law to protect its banks
from each other and the packs of unregulated hedge funds led by Goldman
Sachs.

Germany recently stepped in to ban NAKED short selling, which was being used to attempt to take down certain prices to trigger
the highly lucrative and largely unregulated Credit Default Swaps.

And commentators were outraged and even hysterical over this action by
Germany, which was the kind of responsible market regulation that the
US reserves to itself, and only when it is in support of protecting its
banking oligarchs.

This surprise and shock indicates how low our standards have fallen, and how given over to Stockholm syndrome so many otherwise intelligent people have become regarding the
speculators and the banks. Death by professors, chief strategists, and
the pampered princes of the corporate media.

I found it interesting that the heavy selling today in US equities, triggered by
the selling of large tranches of SP futures near the open, in addition
to news indicating the recovery is not gaining traction, and the threat
of another flash crash was tied by traders this morning over
‘unease the the Congress has not yet killed Blanche Lincoln’s amendment
to prohibit the banks from dealing in Credit Default Swaps.’

Regarding the recent gold action John Brimelow says:

"Waves of selling hit gold on Wednesday in the European and NY midmornings. As noted earlier, apparent CME volume pre-open was 90,000 lots, and
estimated volume between 9AM and Noon NY, during which time gold
dropped some $21, was a heavy 95,000 lots. ScotiaMocatta simply refers
to gold being “bludgeoned down” and Reuters quotes a COMEX gold floor
trader, “the big banks just put in sell orders that hit the market."

Anyone close to the market can see this manipulation. It is neither
sophisticated nor clever. That is the shame of the regulators and
insiders, who find their coverage in pleading ignorance. And what they
do in gold they are doing in equities and other markets, while working
their way up the food chain to the sovereign debt markets. None are
safe when corruption partners with government.

All this pain and uncertainty is designed to maintain their impossibly perfect trading
results for their proprietary accounts as their customers bleed for
their bonuses. And what makes this such a perfect con is that they are
bullying the public using the money taken from the Federal Reserve and
the Congress, the public's own money.

I would that Obama and the Congress had half the courage of Merkel. And that commentators and the
middle class would realize the sorry state that their economy is in,
held hostage by a bunch of spoiled brats and well heeled thugs, and a
government by and for the highest bidder.

"Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the Bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the
country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst yourselves, and
when you lost, you charged it to the Bank... Beyond question this great
and powerful institution has been actively engaged in attempting to
influence the elections of the public officers by means of its money...

You tell me that if I take the deposits from the Bank and annul its
charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true,
gentlemen, but that is your sin. Should I let you go on, you will ruin
fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin. You are a den of
vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the grace of the
Eternal God, I will rout you out."

Andrew Jackson on The Second Bank of the United States which was the Central Bank of his day.

A dangerously simplistic view? More like common sense, and the plain
spoken truth, at last. You have been given a Republic, indeed, if you
can keep it, if only for the honor of your fathers, and the sake of
your children.