Banks hit worldwide by US 'fraud'

[Crabtownboy]

Some of the world's biggest banks have revealed they are victims of an alleged fraud which has lost $50bn (£33bn).

Bernard Madoff has been charged with fraud in what is being described as one of the biggest-ever such cases.

Among the banks which have been hit are Britain's HSBC and RBS, Spain's Santander and France's BNP Paribas.

One of the City's best-known fund managers has criticised US financial regulators for failing to detect the alleged fraud.

Nicola Horlick, boss of Bramdean investments, told the BBC: "I think now it is very difficult for people to invest in things that are meant to be regulated in America, because they have fallen down on the job."

Emphasis mine.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7783236.stm

 

[carpro]

Nobody likes being had and looks for someone else to blame.

More of the same.

 

[sag38]

Yep, blame the U.S. There's nothing new under the sun.

 

[windcatcher]

All the major economies of the world and the public investments and offerings of companies have been based upon a fiat currency and a greedy gamble on futures speculation. The joke is when a system of financing and investment is already based on fraud and the people, thinking that it is a legitimate economy, have been fooled into neither recognizing the fraud and/or thinking that it be regulated to protect their interest. Sadly, its not the people who perpetuate the fraud that pay..... but all the 'smaller fish' who had hoped their investment in paper documents was a investment in tangible properties of real worth.

 

[billwald]

Repeating myself, but when we had a "sound" money (according to metal fans) the middle class was maybe 15% of the population and the 75% working class mostly lived hand to mouth. The good old days were mostly terrible days but the serfs didn't know that anything else was possible.

 

[Crabtownboy]

Repeating myself, but when we had a "sound" money (according to metal fans) the middle class was maybe 15% of the population and the 75% working class mostly lived hand to mouth. The good old days were mostly terrible days but the serfs didn't know that anything else was possible.

There was a fascinating article in Forbes, I am pretty sure it was Forbes, over 15 years ago. In the article life on a Tennessee farm in the 1930's was described and it sounded absolutely terrible, really miserable. At the end of the article it stated that this was a description of one of the richest farmers in that county and that he was living better than most of America.

We, today, really do not realize how good we have it. And IMHO you folk born after 1960 really do not realize how good you have it. Now I am not saying this to insult anyone but I do not believe that many of the folk below the age of 55 have an accurate conception of what life was like in rural America in the 1940's ... my first memories. I cannot speak on city life as I did not grow up in a city.

 

[carpro]

Nicola Horlick, boss of Bramdean investments, told the BBC: "I think now it is very difficult for people to invest in things that are meant to be regulated in America, because they have fallen down on the job."

Her concerns are well founded.

The biggest "Ponzi" scam going is run by the U.S governament. It's called "Social Security" and now amounts to over $ 50 Trillion of unfunded obligations.