This morning's key headlines from
GenerationalDynamics.com:
- Syria's Bashar al-Assad gives lengthy TV interview to prove he's OK
- Citibank settles investor lawsuit without admitting guilt
- Germany stages major neo-Nazi crackdown North Rhine-Westphalia
Syria's Bashar al-Assad gives lengthy TV interview to prove he's OK
Syria's president Bashar al-Assad has been rarely seen in public since the July 18 Damascus bombing that killed much of his inner
circle. Rumors have been spreading that he was hurt in the bombing, or that he
has to hide out because he can no longer trust anyone not to be
planning to kill him. The interview was conducted on Syria's
privately-owned Addounia television channel, and all the questions
were softball questions. But al-Assad looked relaxed and
presidential, without a care in the world as his army massacred Sunni
women and children in their homes. Al-Jazeera and VOA
Citibank settles investor lawsuit without admitting guilt
Citigroup agreed to pay $590 million in cash to numerous investors who
lost billions of dollars in Citi's "CDO-related quasi-Ponzi scheme."
The investors in the class action suit acquired shares in Citi
between February 2007 and April 2008, and ended up losing almost
all of their investment. Citi lost money because of fraudulent
residential mortgage backed collateralized debt obligations (RMB CDOs),
synthetic securities based on subprime mortgages. Citi
then lied to investors about them, saying that Citi wasn't
responsible for them. Citi denies any wrongdoing, and no one
will go to jail, but will pay the settlement amount anyway, and
executives will presumably continue to draw their multi-million
dollar salaries and bonuses, using the money they get by
charging customers 30% interest.
It would be nice if a couple of Citi's banksters went to jail. I know
that I would feel better about the situation. As I wrote over two years ago, it is provable from circumstantial evidence that
banksters purposely created trillions of dollars in fraudulent
synthetic securities, knowing that they were fraudulent, and then sold
them to investors and lied about it. This is criminal activity, but
the Obama justice department refuses to prosecute any banksters
because of the huge campaign contributions they deliver. It's
absolutely incredible to me that the biggest bankster fraud in history
has impoverished millions of people, and NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON is
going to jail. Incredible!
As far as I know, those RMB CDOs are still on the Citi's books at
nominal values, and when they finally explode, Citi's shareholders
will lose a lot more money. But Citi wouldn't be guilty of anything
after 2008, because they were only doing as they were told. As I've
written many times, New York Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo spent several months in
2008 helping the banks and "monoline" bond insurance companies to
collude to commit fraud, essentially by telling them to continue to
lie to investors. Bloomberg and 2008 court document (PDF)
Germany stages major neo-Nazi crackdown North Rhine-Westphalia
More than 900 police officers raided homes and clubhouses of suspected
neo-Nazis in a crackdown on Thursday, seizing far-right propaganda
material, computer hard drives and a wide variety of weapons. The
crackdown in North Rhine-Westphalia comes amid a greater focus
nationally on the far right in Germany. That was sparked by the
revelation last year that a small group of neo-Nazis apparently
managed to kill nine minorities and a police officer over a seven-year
period while remaining off the radar of the country's intelligence
services. The German public is particularly concerned about neo-Nazi
violence, as last weekend was the 20th anniversary of the violence at
Rostock, when hundreds of right-wing extremists and local thugs spent
four days in late August of 1992 throwing rocks and firebombs at a
building used to house asylum-seekers. Thousands of others stood by
and cheered on the attackers, shouting "foreigners out!" and other
hateful slogans. The orgy of xenophobia ended when rioters set a
neighboring building on fire housing dozens of workers from Vietnam
and their families. AP and Spiegel
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