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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Oct 8, 2015 12:15:06 GMT -5
Another example of Russia totally frustrating the people that are occupying the caskets. time for the burial. IMO Comment: This is a rare moment in the geopolitical world where there is cause for celebration. When the illegal and murderous actions of a country, along with its psychopathic leaders are being restricted and neutralized, we think there may actually be justice in this world after all. Read on and observe how an Israeli journalist describes the current "bleak" situation for Israel, and how from now on they will have to be extremely careful before engaging in illegal military operations against other sovereign countries, otherwise they may find themselves being mauled by the Russian bear. Israel will think twice and more before it decides to initiate air force attacks inside Syria - as it did at least 10 times in the past three years. A gun placed on stage in the first act must be fired by the last one. This axiom is attributed to Russian playwright Anton Chekov - the same one whose work Minister of Culture Miri Regev proudly declared she has never read. Even though it was clear that the extensive military buildup by the Russia Army in Syria was bound to eventually lead to military intervention in the civil war, the first Russian air strikes yesterday were received with a bit of surprise. Yesterday morning the Russia Duma (parliament) approved the use of military force - as if President Vladimir Putin really needed their approval - and yesterday by noon missions were executed near the towns of Homs, Hama, and Latakiya. According to Western sources, the Russians targeted positions of rebel groups opposing the regime of President Bashar Assad, including factions supported by the US. The Russian Ministry of Defense, on the other hand, said that its air force targeted ISIS. Nevertheless, one can assume that Russia is trying to create a division of labor that is not to the liking of the US and its Arab and Western coalition partners assembled to fight on two fronts: the Assad regime and Islamic State. The Russian logic is that the US-led coalition will attack ISIS and Russia will attack the rest of the rebel groups. Regardless of whether such a division will be in place de facto, one conclusion is emerging: the big winner of the new situation is Assad and his failed regime. There are already indications that his self-confidence is growing due to the newly formed supportive coalition of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah and partially the Iraqi government to save his neck. The big losers are the US, its Arab and Western allies, and Israel, despite reports that Russia informed Washington and Jerusalem in advance of its air missions. Israel is among the losers, notwithstanding boasting by Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon on Tuesday that Israel doesn't need to coordinate its actions in Syria with Russia. Really? If so, then why did Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself travel with the chief of staff and head of military intelligence to meet in Moscow two weeks ago? And why is the deputy chief of staff traveling next week to meet with his Russian counterpart? Of course, to have talks on "deconfliction" to avoid accidental clashes between Israel and the Russia armies. Yet regardless what Israeli officials say, they will not be able to conceal the fact that Israel's previous unstoppable freedom of action and maneuverability in Syria is now restricted. Comment: A bummer, isn't it? Until now Israel could violate Syrian space whenever it wanted to. But now here come those pesky Ruskies with their advanced military airplanes and fancy S-400 air defence system, and suddenly the IDF can no longer do whatever it wants. Oh, the chutzpa! As Russian sources indicate, both Israel and the U.S. have very good reason to be upset: On Friday, 2 October, Saudi news published an interview with former U.S. Colonel Jack Jacobs, who announced that the United States can't stop the Russians in Syria, as Russia has established a "closed zone" over it. This means that any military aircraft entering the zone of hostilities can be immediately shot down as a threat to the Russian Air and space forces. American sources claim that the Russian Federation, with the assistance of deployed land-based air defense systems, has established a closed zone over the entire airspace of Syria, while in addition, the approaches to the Russian airbase in Latakia are also closed from the sea to a distance of 100-250 km from the coast to the fleet of the Russian Federation, which is now conducting exercises in the Mediterranean sea. Thus, the U.S. and its allies can't even carry out reconnaissance on the forces of the Russian Federation. A source in the military circles of the American contingent in Turkey reported that NATO aircraft, trying to get close to the forces of the Russian Federation, were illuminated by radar, while the source of illumination could not even be identified. "The Russians have made it understood, that they can see everything, and not to get anywhere closer, or be shot down", - noted the American military. "Frankly speaking, we were surprised by the air defense system of Russia. We can't even assume which systems are deployed there. We are encountering them for the first time, most likely there are the latest complexes S-400. I have no more clues" - said Colonel Jack Jacobs. Bloomberg also writes about the creation of the Russian no-fly zone over Syria, citing senior American military. So, the commander of the NATO forces in Europe General Philip Breedlove stated that the new military infrastructure of Russia in Syria, including the air defense systems, de facto creates a no-fly zone. According to Breedlove, Russia has created over Syria a "sphere of denial", which American planes can't enter. It doesn't mean necessarily that the IDF will not be able to respond in the future - as it did earlier this week to shells or rockets mistakenly or intentionally launched from Syria or to prevent terrorist attempts to penetrate the Golan Heights. But surely Israel's pulling the trigger will not be so easy from now on. Israel will think twice and more before it decides to initiate air force attacks inside Syria - as it did at least 10 times in the past three years. Yet the question of what Putin's real goals are and what his grand strategy in Syria is, if he has one, puzzles Israeli and Western experts. All of them agree, however, that on the surface it seems that Putin hopes to achieve the following aims: to help Assad to consolidate his regime, even if it means allowing him to control only his "little Syria" fiefdom - or by a different name his "Alawaitestan;" to ensure Russian access to warm water ports in the Mediterranean; to safeguard Russia's last bastion and stronghold (Syria) in the Middle East; to enable Putin to conduct a confrontational foreign policy against the US; to leverage Syria as a bargaining chip for Russia to enhance agreements across the board - Ukraine versus Syria, for example - between world powers and to divide parts of the world to spheres of influence and interest, as it used to be during the cold war era; to contain ISIS - Putin may not care that the Islamic State controls chunks of Syria and Iraq, but he doesn't want it to advance in the direction of his back yard - the former Soviet- Muslim republic in Central Asia; to avoid sending "boots on the ground" to fight in Syria - for this purpose Putin has Hezbollah, Syrian and even Iranian- sponsored Shiite mercenaries to be used as cannon folder. Comment: It's very entertaining to observe how pathological minds try to assign their own intentions and motivations to others. Contrary to Israel, the U.S. and their allies, the Russians are quite honest about their reactions to various events and occurrences, and give clear warnings to anyone who can take a hint, and tell the truth a lot. But that is difficult to parse by psychopathic minds that are always looking for the double-cross or taking the pejorative view. Russians tell the truth, just not too much, and keep their cards close to their chest. Image Despite being an authoritative ruler, he doesn't want Russians to be returned in body bags to military funerals across Russia. He knows the lessons of the Soviet-era war in Afghanistan. From all of the above, it is also clear that the bloody civil war that has already caused the death of more than 250,000 Syrians will be prolonged because of Russian involvement, at least in the short term. Still, one should not rule out the possibility that in the long run Russia's entry may enhance the chance of a political-diplomatic settlement in which Assad will remain in power for a transition period and eventually step down. Against the background of negative ramifications on Israel's security posture, there is a possible positive side, although it is not politically correct to express it: the continuation of the war benefits Israel by enhancing its standing as an unmatched regional power, while Hezbollah and Iran are weakened by their involvement. Comment: Even here the Israeli media can't get its facts straight. As it turns out, Hizb'allah have been involved in Syria for some time. In fact, it appears that they were withdrawn from engagements with ISIS just prior to the commencement of Russia's intervention. Hizb'allah is probably concerned about the Israelis and Saudis using the "jihadis" to bring the war to Lebanon so, like Russia, they've been "fighting them there so as not to have to fight them here". www.sott.net/article/303320-Israels-crocodile-tears-as-Putin-outmaneuvers-and-neutralizes-Netanyahu-in-brilliant-strategic-move
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Post by portrush on Oct 8, 2015 15:49:56 GMT -5
For those of limited view...insisting its all just conspiratorial. pr The Obama administration took a step toward backing China’s bid to have the yuan recognized as a global reserve currency, as the U.S. softened its insistence that the Chinese implement financial reforms to win support.The International Monetary Fund is reviewing whether the yuan should be included in its Special Drawing Rights, a basket of reserve currencies used by the lender as a unit of account. After U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping met Friday in Washington, the two sides issued a statement saying the U.S. supports the inclusion of the yuan “provided the currency meets the IMF’s existing criteria in its SDR review,” a point Xi highlighted in his press conference with Obama. The shift in the U.S. position follows the administration’s failed attempt to prevent allies from joining the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank earlier this year, a strategy that was faulted by former policy makers including ex-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. In June, a joint statement by the two countries said the U.S. “supports China making the reforms that would lead to the inclusion” of the yuan in the basket. Friday’s statement mentions U.S. support for “China’s commitment to implement further financial and capital market reforms.” The new language clarified to the Chinese that the IMF’s assessment of whether the yuan meets the fund’s SDR criteria will be the determining factor for American support, said an administration official who asked not to be identified. Winning the IMF’s endorsement would validate efforts by Xi to push through policies aimed at making the world’s second-biggest economy more market-oriented, boosting China’s prestige as it prepares to host Group of 20 gatherings next year. At least $1 trillion of global reserves will convert to Chinese assets if the yuan joins the IMF’s reserve basket, according to Standard Chartered Plc and AXA Investment Managers. “The train delivering the SDR to President Xi in time for the November 2016 G-20 Summit in Hangzhou remains on schedule,” said David Loevinger, managing director of emerging-markets sovereign research at asset manager TCW Group Inc. in Los Angeles. There’s “plenty of wiggle room” within the IMF criteria to allow China to meet the fund’s requirements, said Loevinger, a former senior coordinator of China affairs at the U.S. Treasury. The IMF’s executive board will make a decision on the yuan reserve-currency issue as soon as November. Approval requires 70 percent of the fund’s voting shares, and even if the U.S. opposed the move, the nation would need several allies because the U.S. has about 17 percent of votes. Many analysts have been predicting approval. The U.S. and China also look forward to continuing to discuss methods to facilitate yuan trading and clearing in the U.S., according to the joint statement. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew in previous comments this year has put the onus on China to prove the yuan belongs, saying the country needs to further liberalize its currency policy and complete financial reforms before it can get the IMF’s nod. Friday’s shift brings the U.S. closer to the positions of the U.K. and France. In a speech Tuesday in Shanghai, U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said he’d like to see the yuan added to the IMF basket as the currency becomes increasingly important in global markets and “meets existing IMF criteria.” French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said last week in Beijing that France favors including the yuan in the SDR basket, though China still needs to meet the IMF’s technical requirements first, according to Francois Coen, Sapin’s spokesman. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-25/u-s-takes-step-toward-support-for-china-s-reserve-currency-bid
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Post by 3bid on Oct 9, 2015 1:24:03 GMT -5
Most Of BP’s $20.8 Billion Deepwater Horizon Fine Is Tax Deductible
By Charles Kennedy Posted on Wed, 07 October 2015
The U.S. Justice Department touted its historic settlement with BP over charges related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. BP will be forced to pay $20.8 billion, the largest settlement ever reached with a single entity. “BP is receiving the punishment it deserves,” U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement.
But is it really?
BP will be able to write-off three-quarters of the total, taking a tax deduction on $15.3 billion of the total, as Robert W. Wood points out in Forbes. Only $5.5 billion out of the $20.8 billion total is not eligible for a tax deduction, as those charges stem from a Clean Water Act violation.
Due to quirks in the tax code, the “historic” settlement is not as significant a penalty as the U.S. government is making it out to be. It is normal for companies to deduct the business costs. Even litigation costs are often tax deductible. Violations of law, however, are often in murky territory. Sometimes there needs to be explicit language in settlements that bars companies from writing off penalties paid to the government.
It appears that BP will be able to deduct quite a bit of its settlement with the U.S. government. In this way, it is essentially treated as any other cost of doing business. Similarly, the $32 billion that BP spent to clean up the Gulf area following the massive oil spill was also tax deductible, costing U.S. taxpayers $10 billion.
Obviously, BP will do everything within its power to pay as little as possible. So, the fact that it will write off a significant portion of its settlement with the Justice Department is the fault of the U.S. tax code. Changes to the code would be needed to prevent companies from deducting penalties.
Also, some blame should be reserved for the Justice Department itself for trumpeting the settlement as a “historic” win. The Justice Department routinely boasts of large settlements with corporate offenders, with headline-grabbing fines. But the agency doesn’t necessarily discuss the fact that companies won’t actually be impacted as severely as the huge figures suggest. A 2014 report from U.S. PIRG highlights several settlements between the Justice Department and big banks in recent years that resulted in large settlements that ended up being tax deductible.
oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Most-Of-BPs-208-Billion-Deepwater-Horizon-Fine-Is-Tax-Deductible.html
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Post by John Winston Lennon O'Boogie on Oct 9, 2015 7:12:53 GMT -5
Clinton Cracking Down on Wall Street Elizabeth Chmurak By Elizabeth Chmurak ·Published October 08, 2015 ·FOXBusiness Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton unveiled her plan to combat the “abuses of Wall Street” in a statement released on Thursday. “To prevent irresponsible behavior on Wall Street from ever again devastating Main Street, we need more accountability, tougher rules, and stronger enforcement. I have a plan to build on the progress we’ve made under President Obama and do just that,” Clinton said. “We can’t go back to the days when Wall Street could write its own rules.” Her proposal includes increasing fines that can be charged by regulators requiring executives to foot the bill, closing the hedge-fund loophole in the "Volcker rule" and setting a new tax on high-frequency or “Spoof” trading. The plan also calls for stiffer penalties for financial executives and corporations when they break the law and regulations. She said it would protect “the integrity of our markets and uphold basic fairness.” In addition, Clinton wants to reduce “dangerous risks in the financial system” and ensure that it will serve the best interests of investors and consumers, “so that everyday Americans can save and invest with confidence that they’re getting a fair shake.” “We can’t go back to the days when Wall Street could write its own rules.” In the summary, Mrs. Clinton would also consider granting more power to the Financial Stability Oversight Council. She says there needs to be “more transparency in the shadow banking sector, a better understanding of the risks it poses, and stronger tools to tackle those risks.” Shortly after releasing her reform proposal, Clinton penned an Op-Ed for Bloomberg to thoroughly lay out her “Plan to Prevent the Next Crash.” In the past, Clinton has been accused of being too close to Wall Street and is no stranger to financial firms' support. Here is a breakdown of donors for her 2008 campaign and 2016 thus far: On the FOX Business Network in June, former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, who previously supported Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy in 2008, said her idea to topple the 1% is “all politics and trying to get elected to get the nomination.” Mack went on to say: “If you are running you have to win -- when you have 20 people in the field you have to get attention and I think it’s just politics.” He said he will continue to back Secretary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign. Clinton’s direct Democratic competitor, Senator Bernie Sanders, has made regulating Wall Street one of his primary campaign issues. Sanders has consistently supported breaking up the largest financial institutions and wants to re-institute the Glass-Steagall Act, which was repealed under President Bill Clinton. In a recent poll conducted by NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist, Sanders outperformed Clinton in both Iowa and New Hampshire match ups. Elizabeth Chmurak is a Reporter/Producer of FOXBusiness.com. Follow her on Twitter @echmurak www.foxbusiness.com/investing/2015/10/08/clinton-cracking-down-on-wall-street/?cmpid=prn_dailyfinance
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Post by 3bid on Oct 9, 2015 11:22:13 GMT -5
The Hope Behind Putin’s Syria Help
October 4, 2015
Exclusive: President Obama insists on looking the gift horse of Russian military help for Syria’s embattled government in the mouth. Rather than welcome assistance in blocking a Sunni extremist victory, Obama bends to the neocons and liberal hawks, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.
By Ray McGovern
Russia’s airstrikes on rebel strongholds in Syria, now in their fifth day, are a game-changer. To borrow an aphorism from philosopher Yogi Berra, “The future ain’t what it used to be.” Yogi also warned, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
What follows, then, will focus primarily on how and why the violence in Syria has reached this week’s crescendo, the magnitude of the tipping point reached with direct Russian military intervention in support of Syria’s government, and the self-inflicted dilemma confronting President Barack Obama and his hapless advisers who have been demanding “regime change” in Syria as the panacea to the bloody conflict.
Think of this piece as an attempted antidote to the adolescent analysis by Steven Lee Myers front-paged in Sunday’s New York Times, and, for that matter, much else that’s been written about Syria in the Times and other mainstream U.S. news outlets. Many articles, in accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of bad faith, have willfully misrepresented his vow to strike at all “terrorist groups” as meaning only the Islamic State as if Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and other violent extremists don’t qualify as “terrorists.”
However, if Washington finally decides to face the real world – not remain in the land of make-believe that stretches from the White House and State Department through the neocon-dominated think tanks to the editorial pages of the mainstream media – it will confront a classic “devil-you-know” dilemma.
Does Washington really think that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as demonized as he has been as a key player in a conflict blamed for killing more than 250,000, is worse than the beheaders of the Islamic State or the global-terrorism plotters of Al Qaeda? Does President Obama really think that some surgical “regime change” in Damascus can be executed without collapsing the Syrian government and clearing the way for an Islamic State/Al Qaeda victory? Is that a gamble worth taking?
President Obama needs to ask those questions to the State Department’s neocons and liberal interventionists emplaced by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who – like Israel’s leaders – positively lust for Assad’s demise. “Regime change” in Syria has been on the Israeli/neocon to-do list since at least the mid-1990s and the neocon idea last decade was that Assad’s overthrow would immediately follow the Iraq “regime change” in 2003, except the Iraq scheme didn’t work out exactly as planned.
But there may be some reason to hope. After all, Obama showed courage in overcoming the strong resistance of the neocons to the recent nuclear deal with Iran. So, he may have the intelligence and stamina to face them down again, although you wouldn’t know it from his recent rhetoric, which panders to the war hawks’ arguments even as he resists their most dangerous action plans.
At his news conference on Friday, Obama said, “in my discussions with President Putin, I was very clear that the only way to solve the problem in Syria is to have a political transition that is inclusive — that keeps the state intact, that keeps the military intact, that maintains cohesion, but that is inclusive — and the only way to accomplish that is for Mr. Assad to transition [out], because you cannot rehabilitate him in the eyes of Syrians. This is not a judgment I’m making; it is a judgment that the overwhelming majority of Syrians make.”
But Obama did not explain how he knew what “the overwhelming majority of Syrians” want. Many Syrians – especially the Christians, Alawites, Shiites and secular Sunnis – appear to see Assad and his military as their protectors, the last bulwark against the horror of a victory by the Islamic State or Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, which is a major player in the so-called “Army of Conquest,” as both groups make major gains across Syria.
Obama’s cavalier notion, as expressed at the news conference, that “regime changes” are neat and tidy, easily performed without unintended consequences, suggests a sophomoric understanding of the world that is stunning for a U.S. president in office for more than 6 ½ years, especially since he adopted a similar approach toward Libya, which now has descended into violent anarchy.
Obama must realize that the alternative to Assad is both risky and grim – and some of the suggestions coming from presidential candidate Clinton and other hawks for a U.S. imposition of a “no-fly zone” over parts of Syria would not only be a clear violation of international law but could create a direct military clash with nuclear-armed Russia. This time, the President may have to get down off his high horse and substitute a reality-based foreign policy for his rhetorical flourishes.
Yet, it is an open question whether Obama has become captive to his own propaganda, such as his obsession with Syria’s use of “barrel bombs” in attacking rebel strongholds, as if this crude home-made weapon were some uniquely cruel device unlike the hundreds of thousands of tons of high explosives that the United States has dropped on Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and other countries in the last dozen years.
Does Obama really think that his “humanitarian” bombs – and those given to U.S. “allies” such as Saudi Arabia and Israel – don’t kill innocents? In just the past week, a Saudi airstrike inside Yemen reportedly killed some 131 people at a wedding and an apparent U.S. attack in Kunduz, Afghanistan, blasted a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, killing at least 22 people.
(By contrast, too, The New York Times treated the Kunduz atrocity gingerly, with the cautious headline, “US Is Blamed After Bombs Hit Afghan Hospital,” noting that Defense Secretary Ashton Carter extended his “thoughts and prayers to everyone afflicted” and added that a full investigation is under way in coordination with Afghanistan’s government to “determine exactly what happened.” Surely, we can expect the slaughter to be dismissed as some unavoidable “accident” or a justifiable case of “collateral damage.”)
With Obama, one cannot exclude the possibility that he has become so infatuated with his soaring words that he actually believes what he told the West Point graduating class on May 28, 2014; but if he does, someone needs to give him a quick reality check. He told the graduates:
“In fact, by most measures, America has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world. Those who argue otherwise … are either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics. … So the United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come.”
How We Got Here
The world could have taken a very different direction after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the evaporation of the Warsaw Pact in February 1991, and the breakup of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Those developments left the United States in a virtually unchallenged position of power — and wise leaders might have seized the opportunity to wind down the world’s excessive investment in military hardware and war-like solutions.
But the U.S. government chose a different course, one of “permanent” global hegemony with American troops as the world’s “armed-up” policemen. Gulf War I, led by the United States in January-February 1991 to punish Iraq for invading Kuwait the previous summer, injected steroids into leading arrogant neocons like Paul Wolfowitz – already awash in hubris.
Shortly after that war, Gen. Wesley Clark recalled Wolfowitz (then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy) explaining the thinking: “We learned [from Gulf War I] that we can use our military in the region, in the Middle East, and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about five or ten years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes – Syria, Iran, Iraq before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”
Clark highlighted this comment in an Oct. 3, 2007 speech, apparently thinking this might somehow enhance his credentials as a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination (see this highly instructive eight-minute excerpt).
Clark added that neocons like Bill Kristol and Richard Perle “could hardly wait to finish Iraq so they could move into Syria. … It was a policy coup. … Wolfowitz, [Vice President thingy] Cheney, [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld, and you could name a half-dozen other collaborators from the Project for a New American Century. They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocon ‘Chaos Promotion’ in the Mideast.”]
The ideology of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was summarized in a 90-page report published in 2000 and titled, Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For a New Century, which advocated a Pax Americana enforced by the “preeminence of U.S. military forces.”
The report emphasized that the fall of the Soviet Union left the U.S. the world’s preeminent superpower, adding that the U.S. must work hard, not only to maintain that position, but to spread its military might into geographic areas that are ideologically opposed to its influence, subduing countries that may stand in the way of U.S. global preeminence.
PNAC’s dogma, in turn, had antecedents in “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” a study written in 1996 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he was running for the election of his first government. That study was chaired by arch-neocon Richard Perle, who later served as Chair of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s Defense Policy Board (2001-2003); the majority of the study contributors were also prominent American neocons.
Here’s what Perle and associates, many of whom later found influential posts in the Bush/Cheney administration, had to say on Syria: “Given the nature of the regime in Damascus, it is both natural and moral that Israel abandon the slogan ‘comprehensive peace’ and move to contain Syria, drawing attention to its weapons of mass destruction program [sic], and rejecting ‘land for peace’ deals on the Golan Heights. …
“Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right – as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.”
Why Won’t Assad Do What He’s Told?
Given the hangover from the neocon binge during the Bush/Cheney years, one might say that President Obama was “under the influence” when he began calling for Assad to “step aside” in August 2011. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chimed in, too, telling ABC, “Assad must go – the sooner the better for everyone concerned.”
The violence in 2011 was the catalyst for the civil war – as Assad’s forces cracked down on an “Arab Spring” uprising that while largely peaceful included extremist elements who killed police and ambushed troops. But the repeated unconditional-surrender demands from Secretary Clinton and other U.S. leaders that “Assad must go,” plus “covert” U.S. support for rebels fighting against Syrian government forces, surely raised expectations that Assad would bow out, making the capture of Damascus a promising prize for a variety of Sunni militants.
Particularly pathetic has been Washington’s benighted, keystone-cops support for so-called “moderate” rebels – an embarrassing fiasco if there ever was one. For a while, the “mainstream media” actually was taking note of this disaster within a disaster, after the Pentagon recently acknowledged that its $500 million project had produced only four or five fighters still in the field.
Even earlier, President Obama recognized the fallacy in this approach. In August 2014, he told New York Times’ columnist Thomas Friedman that trust in rebel “moderates” was a “fantasy” that was “never in the cards” as a workable strategy. But Obama bent to political and media pressure to “do something.”
As journalist Robert Parry pointed out, “Official Washington’s most treasured ‘fantasy’ … is the notion that a viable ‘moderate opposition’ exists in Syria or could somehow be created. That wish-upon-a-star belief was the centerpiece of congressional [approval in September 2014 of] a $500 million plan by President Barack Obama to train and arm these ‘moderate’ rebels.”
Even Pentagon-friend Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies recently conceded that “what is very clearly not happening is there has not been any meaningful military action or success on the part of any of the rebels that we have trained.”
Cordesman described the state of play in Syria as “convoluted,” noting that “In addition to Iran’s involvement in the conflict, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have all sponsored armed groups in Syria, making it a surreal proxy playground, even by Middle East standards.”
Yet, this past week, the “moderate” Syrian rebels sprang back to prominence, at least in the mainstream U.S. media, when Russian planes began bombing targets associated with the Army of Conquest, a coalition which is dominated by Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front. This militant coalition suddenly was redefined as “moderate,” as part of the argument that Russia should only be attacking Islamic State targets.
The U.S. media also has downplayed where the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) came from. It was an outgrowth of the Sunni resistance to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 when the group was known as “Al Qaeda in Iraq.” It later splintered off from Al Qaeda over a tactical dispute, whether a fundamentalist Sunni caliphate should be started now (the ISIS view) or whether the focus should be on mounting terror attacks against the West (Al Qaeda’s view.)
Putin Chides US Failures
Putin reminded the world of this embarrassing history – and other damaging consequences of U.S. interventionism – during his Sept. 28 speech to the UN General Assembly when he noted: “The so-called Islamic State has tens of thousands of militants fighting for it, including former Iraqi soldiers who were left on the street after the 2003 invasion.
“Many recruits come from Libya whose statehood was destroyed as a result of a gross violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1973. And now radical groups are joined by members of the so-called ‘moderate’ Syrian opposition backed by the West. They get weapons and training, and then they defect and join the so-called Islamic State. …
“I’d like to tell those who engage in this: Gentlemen, the people you are dealing with are cruel but they are not dumb. They are as smart as you are. So, it’s a big question: who’s playing whom here? The recent incident where the most ‘moderate’ opposition group handed over their weapons to terrorists is a vivid example of that.”
The UN speech was not the first time Putin complained about the way U.S. officials have presented the factual circumstances of the Syrian conflict. On Sept. 5, 2013, he publicly accused Secretary of State John Kerry of lying to Congress in exaggerating the strength of “moderate” rebels in Syria.
Alluding to Kerry’s congressional testimony, Putin said: “This was very unpleasant and surprising for me. We talk to them [the Americans], and we assume they are decent people, but he is lying and he knows that he is lying. This is sad.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Rebuilding the Obama-Putin Trust.”]
But the pretense continues. Obama knows only too well the sorry state of the handful of intrepid “moderates” that may still be operating within Syria. By the same token, he does not need Putin to tell him of the danger from ISIS or Al Qaeda if these Sunni extremists (either separately or together) march into Damascus.
So the question becomes: Will Obama bring himself to see Russian military intervention as a positive step toward stabilizing Syria and creating the chance for a political settlement or will he cling to the “Assad must go” precondition, rejecting Russia’s help and risking an ISIS/Al Qaeda victory?
This Time the Russians Can Stop Us
There is another element here, creating an even graver risk. It is no longer 1991 when the triumphant neocons brushed aside hopes for global military de-escalation and instead pressed for worldwide U.S. military dominance. Under Putin, Russia has made clear that it will no longer sit back and let U.S. and NATO tighten a vise around Russia’s borders.
Regarding its “front yard” in Ukraine, Putin has sharply admonished those in the West who “want the Ukrainian government to destroy … all political opponents and adversaries [in eastern Ukraine]. Is that what you want? That’s not what we want and we won’t allow that to happen.”
Putin’s deployment of aircraft and other arms to Assad reflects a similar attitude toward events in Syria, which Russia considers part of its backyard. The message is clear: “Overthrow Assad with the prospect of a terrorist victory? We won’t allow that to happen.”
The risk here, however, is that the American neocons and liberal interventionists remain drunk on their dreams of a permanent U.S. global hegemony that doesn’t broach any rivalry from Russia, China or any other potential challenger to America’s “full-spectrum dominance.” If these war hawks don’t sober up – and if Obama remains their reluctant enabler – the chances that the crises in Ukraine or Syria could escalate into a nuclear showdown cannot be ignored.
Thus, Russia’s move last week was truly a game-changer; and Putin is no longer playing games. One can only hope Obama can break free from the belligerent neocons and liberal war hawks. [For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Obama Tolerates the Warmongers.”]
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. During his 27-years as a CIA analyst, he served as chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch, and prepared and personally conducted early morning one-on-one briefings of the President’s Daily Brief. In January 2013, he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
comments:
In my opinion an even better question is whether or not BHO’s handlers will permit him a bit of wiggle room. I remain convinced the man is merely a puppet, assuming he’s not a full-blown neocon who is pretending not to be.
I have said this before and I will say it again, “Obama is a fraud and a coward.” He is afraid of saying or doing anything against the real powers in Washington, DC, because as he said at that White House dinner when liberal democrats asked why he has not lived up to his promises. He said something like, remember what happened to MLK? He is a fraud because he has known for a long time that he is a puppet of those same powers and is in this for recognition as the first black president and for the wealth he has been promised if he “plays the game” as instructed. Let us hope the same replay is not happening with Bernie Sanders. I think, and hope, not; but fool us once……and the neo’s have been using the same play book since Reagan. Let’s hope with all that is in us that Bernie is not the next Trojan Horse!
“In my opinion an even better question is whether or not BHO’s handlers will permit him a bit of wiggle room. I remain convinced the man is merely a puppet, assuming he’s not a full-blown neocon who is pretending not to be.”
I think it’s become clear over time that he’s both. While I don’t believe he could meaningfully move the needle on the overall agenda even if he wanted to, I also don’t believe that he’s not fully on board. He carries out his role willingly and sometimes even enthusiastically.
The Russians seem back on their (chess) game and Putin is playing with a strong hand. There had to be much discussion and a long lead time before Russia committed fresh military force in Syria. Boldly increasing forces just as France, Britain, Turkey and others began bombing campaigns of their own was a seemingly quick reaction by a frustrated suitor unless one believes that this move was modeled long ago, as I do. Note that Russian oil production has reached record highs. A little more tension in the area, a jump in oil prices and Russian finances improve dramatically and the cost of the intervention is minimal, the benefits profound.
This excellent article and the following comments illustrate the complexities of Middle East. USA like in Vietnam, Iraq, Libya and most other military interventions in the world ( about 210 of the 230 military conflicts were US made) to destabilize nations and when the conflict runs out of hands USA withdraws its troops and leave the human catastrophe and a nation in financial disarray behind. This is US democracy at the hands of the US defense industry.
Like Putin said when is USA learning from its errors or they must be so stupid and/or arrogant in Washington that they are blinded by their own imperial ambitions causing its own isolation. No wonder US is trying to prevent this with its secret Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with EU and the Trans Pacific Partnership in the hope they can dominate these countries with threats and economic catastrophes. When is Washington realizing that its worldwide Empire has collapsed under the hands of a chess player like Putin and Xi Jinping.
consortiumnews.com/2015/10/04/the-hope-behind-putins-syria-help/
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Post by 3bid on Oct 11, 2015 1:28:07 GMT -5
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Post by 3bid on Oct 11, 2015 19:57:20 GMT -5
Why Haven’t the Pitchforks Come yet?Psychological research helps explain why Americans tolerate the wealth gap. Clay Routledge Ph.D. | Psychology Today Nick Hanauer, a Seattle-based entrepreneur (and self-described “zillionaire”) recently wrote a very compelling article for Politico Magazine trying to convince his fellow rich Americans that “the pitchforks are coming." In a nutshell, Hanauer argues that all of the historical evidence clearly indicates that the current trajectory of economic inequality in the United States will eventually lead to revolt (the pitchforks) and that change is needed to boost the middle class, which will ultimately be advantageous for the rich. Pay workers more (e.g., increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour) and they will have more to spend. And their spending will boost the economy. His punch line: It is the middle class that creates jobs, not the rich. Hanauer makes excellent points. His case is pretty convincing. But I am not an economist or a businessman so I have little that I can intelligently say about the particulars of his argument. However, I am a psychologist and I do know something about human motivation, the psychological variables that drive our behavior. And what I know may help explain why the pitchforks have not yet come and why they may not come for some time. Americans are not ignorant. They know that the gap between the rich and everyone else is growing. They know that CEO salaries are out of control and that wages for everyone else are standing still, barely moving, or in some cases going down. They know that they have less money to spend, that prices for just about everything are going up. They know that the job market is still very tough and that many people are settling for less than ideal positions or have given up entirely. So where are the pitchforks? Knowledge is power, right? And since people have the knowledge they should be stepping up to take the power, to demand change. And yet, it seems like business as usual for the most part. Sure, there was Occupy Wall Street and the fast food worker strikes. We see a few pitchforks here and there. But why no mass revolt? There have not yet been mass revolts because psychological needs are sometimes at odds with and trump financial self-interest. Research in social psychology has long demonstrated that people gain feelings of psychological security by investing in cultural belief systems or worldviews that imbue the world with order and meaning. Cultural worldviews allow us to believe that the world is just and that people ultimately get what they deserve. And these feelings are reassuring. They comfort us and give us the motivation to move forward in life in spite of the many challenges we face. One prominent worldview in the United States is that people are independent agents who are ultimately responsible for their own financial destinies. America is the place that people go to make it. It is a place where a good idea and hard work creates success. In other parts of the world people are limited by the class they are born into. But not in America. We pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. In other words, part of the American capitalistic narrative is that rich people deserve to be rich and poor people deserve to be poor because we are responsible for ourselves. The system is fair and we all have a chance to make our own success. There are, of course, people who do not buy into this worldview, but it remains quite prominent. And perhaps this should not be surprising as it is a very seductive idea and one that likely has contributed to a lot of success in our country. The problem, however, is that people are motivated to defend this worldview even if it does not fully match reality because the worldview itself (not the potential economic consequences of it) provides psychological security. Take, for instance, studies that consider the effect of psychological threat on support for one’s cultural worldview. Dozens of experiments indicate that when you remind people of things that have the potential to provoke anxiety (e.g., terrorism, their own mortality), they respond by more adamantly defending their cultural worldviews. For example, in one now classic set of studies led by Dr. Jeff Greenberg of the University of Arizona, research participants were asked to spend a few minutes writing about how they feel about death (a psychologically threatening topic). Participants in a control condition did not write about death. Subsequently, participants read one of two essays. One essay argued in favor of the American worldview that anyone can find financial success if they try hard enough. The other essay challenged this view. It asserted that America unfairly favors the rich. After reading one of these essays, participants were asked to evaluate the essay and the author of the essay. Do they agree with the essay? Do they think the author is intelligent? And so on. So what did they find? Having people think about death increased positive responses to the essay and author that supported the idea that America is economically fair and anyone can make it here. And it also decreased positive reactions to the essay and author criticizing this worldview. In other words, when people felt threatened, their reaction was to more tightly cling to the idea that our country is fair and that each of us has the power to determine our own financial fate. Other studies similarly evidence that it is often the people that are most economically or socially disadvantaged that defend the status quo most fervently. How does this work? Shouldn’t these be the people with the pitchforks, the people that would benefit most from economic change? Yes, but it is also these people that may be the most psychologically vulnerable, the most in need of clinging to a worldview that provides some sense of order and meaning. In other words, people who are struggling financially have more to be anxious about. They feel less secure. And they want to reduce their anxiety, their feelings of doubt and uncertainty. So they may be more inclined to double down on the belief, the hope, that their efforts will ultimately be rewarded, that they are part of a cultural system that is fair and just. As some scholars have argued, it would perhaps be even more threatening to believe that the cultural system that one is participating in is unfair. This would mean not only are you facing the anxiety associated with your own economic uncertainty but you are also facing a larger, more existential, anxiety that results from feeling that you have no control over your fate. In short, to reject such a prominent cultural worldview is difficult because that worldview provides comfort and hope. Hanauer and others who have made similar arguments are correct. Eventually, when things get bad enough, people revolt. What I would add though is that this revolt is more likely to come when people begin to more broadly invest in a different worldview or when they start to see the rich as enemies of the American worldview. Recently we saw politicians on the left attempting to take this approach by referring to American companies that were relocating overseas in order to pay lower taxes as unpatriotic and un-American. As I said before, everyone has the economic facts. They are reminded daily of the ever-growing wealth gap. But what everyone has yet to embrace is the idea that our collective economic worldview in this nation may be failing us. And it is when people start to truly embrace that idea and they no longer cling to such a worldview for psychological security that we will see the pitchforks really come out. www.psychologytoday.com/blog/more-mortal/201409/why-haven-t-the-pitchforks-come-yet
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Oct 13, 2015 17:02:20 GMT -5
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Post by 3bid on Oct 15, 2015 15:25:16 GMT -5
[US debt] "The stated number they give you is 18.3 trillion; which is around 227 trillion dollars when you include pension liabilities which are grossly underfunded. We're gong to see bankruptcies in the insurance companies and the pension companies. The debt was 400 billion when President Nixon went off the gold standard. The total amount of debt added by President Obama's two administrations; the total amount was bigger than the sum of the entire 43 presidents in office in the history of the US."
From The Keiser Report [10/15/2015]:
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Oct 17, 2015 11:07:29 GMT -5
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Oct 22, 2015 8:28:47 GMT -5
zanmia Administrator Post by zanmia on 15 hours ago
The World Hits It's Credit Limit And The Debt Market Is Starting To Realize It
seeker401.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/the-world-hits-its-credit-limit-and-the-debt-market-is-starting-to-realise-it/
One month ago, when looking at the dramatic change in the market landscape when the first cracks in the central planning facade became evident and it appeared that central banks are in the process of rapidly losing credibility, and the faith of an entire generation of traders whose only trading strategy is to "BTFD", we presented a critical report by Citigroup's Matt King, who asked "has the world reached its credit limit" summarized the two biggest financial issues facing the world at this stage.
The first is that even as central banks have continued pumping record amount of liquidity in the market, the market's response has been increasingly shaky (in no small part due to the surge in the dollar and the resulting Emerging Market debt crisis), and in the case of Junk bonds, a downright disaster. As King summarized it "models linking QE to markets seem to have broken down."
Needless to say this was bad news for everyone hoping that just a little more QE is all that is needed to return to all time S&P500 highs. And while this concern has faded somewhat in the past few weeks as the most violent short squeeze in history has lifted the market almost back to record highs even as Q3 earnings season is turning out just as bad, if not worse, as most had predicted, nothing has fundamentally changed and the fears over EM reserve drawdown will shortly re-emerge, once the punditry reads between the latest Chinese money creation and capital outflow lines.
The second, and far greater problem, facing the world is precisely what the Fed and its central bank peers have been fighting all along: too much global debt accumulating an ever faster pace, while global growth is stagnant and in fact declining.
King's take: "there has been plenty of credit, just not much growth."
Our take: we have - long ago - crossed the Rubicon where incremental debt results in incremental growth, and are currently in an unprecedented place where economic textbooks no longer work, and where incremental debt leads to a drop in global growth. Much more than ZIRP, NIRP, QE, or Helicopter money, this is the true singularity, because absent wholesale debt destruction - either through default or hyperinflation - the world is doomed to, first, a recession and then a depression the likes of which have never been seen. By buying assets and by keeping the VIX suppressed (for a phenomenal read on this topic we recommend Artemis Capital's "Volatility and the Allegory of the Prisoner’s Dilemma"), central banks are only delaying the inevitable.
The bottom line is clear: at the macro level, the world is now tapped out, and there are virtually no pockets for credit creation left at the consolidated level, between household, corporate, financial and government debt.
What about at the micro level, because while the world has clearly hit its debt-saturation point, corporations - at least the highly rated ones - seem to have no problems with accessing debt markets and raising capital, even if the biggest use of proceeds is stock buybacks, thereby creating a vicious, Munchausenesque close loop scheme, in which the rising stock prices courtesy of more debt, is giving debt investors the impression that the company is far healthier than it actually is precisely because it has more, not less, debt!
The reality, as we first showed in January of 2014, is that for all the talk of "fortress" balance sheets, and record cash buffers, the debt build up among US corporations has more than surpassed the increase in cash. In fact, as of early 2014, total debt was 35% higher than its prior peak, as was net debt.
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"As King summarized it "models linking QE to markets seem to have broken down."
no poo..
"too much global debt accumulating an ever faster pace, while global growth is stagnant and in fact declining."
the capitalist model must have growth or it dies..
"They will not force us They will stop degrading us They will not control us We will be victorious So come on"
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Post by John Winston Lennon O'Boogie on Oct 23, 2015 6:27:04 GMT -5
SEC Ramps Up Enforcement Actions in Fiscal Year 2015 Dunstan Prial By Dunstan Prial ·Published October 22, 2015 ·FOXBusiness Mary Jo White SEC (Reuters) The Securities and Exchange Commission continued to ramp up enforcement actions in fiscal year 2015, filing 7% more this year than a year ago. The regulatory agency filed 807 actions “covering a wide range of misconduct,” and collected about $4.2 billion in disgorgements and penalties, according to statistics released Thursday. That’s compared with 755 enforcement actions filed and $4.16 billion collected in fines the prior year. Of the 807 enforcement actions filed in 2015, a record 507 were independent actions for violations of the federal securities laws and 300 were either actions against issuers who were delinquent in making required filings with the SEC or administrative proceedings seeking bars against individuals based on criminal convictions, civil injunctions, or other orders, the SEC said in a statement. Among the agency’s "first-of-their-kind" cases in 2015 were filings against: a private equity adviser for misallocating broken deal expenses; an underwriter for pricing-related fraud in the primary market for municipal securities; a “Big Three” credit rating agency; violations arising from a dark pool’s disclosure of order types to its subscribers; an admissions settlement with an auditing firm; and an SEC rule prohibiting the use of confidentiality agreements to impede whistleblower communication with the SEC. “Vigorous and comprehensive enforcement protects investors and reassures them that our financial markets operate with integrity and transparency, and the Commission continues that enforcement approach by bringing innovative cases holding executives and companies accountable for their wrongdoing sending clear warnings to would-be violators,” SEC Chair Mary Jo White said in the statement. Breaking down the actions into categories, the SEC highlighted cases involving financial reporting, 87 cases of insider information, and charges against 14 accountants and 10 attorneys for their roles in aiding perpetrators of microcap fraud. In a filing described by the SEC as the first non-independence case against a major audit firm since 2009, the agency charged BDO USA, LLP with issuing false and misleading unqualified audit opinions about the financial statements of General Employment Enterprises, and five of the firm’s partners, including national office personnel, for their roles in the deficient audits. In addition, the SEC sanctioned Deloitte & Touche and eight auditing firms for various brokerage firms for violating independence rules. And the agency charged Oppenheimer & Co. (OPY) and current and former E*Trade (ETFC) subsidiaries for “failing in their gatekeeping function” as broker-dealers by allowing billions of unregistered microcap stock shares to be sold into the market.
The SEC also sanctioned Morgan Stanley (MS), Goldman Sachs (GS), and Latour Trading LLC for violations of the market access rule, which requires firms to have adequate risk controls in place before providing customers with access to the market. The SEC also obtained the largest penalty to date against an alternative trading system, ITG Inc. and AlterNet Securities, Inc., to settle charges that they operated a secret trading desk and misused the confidential trading information of dark pool subscribers. Follow Dunstan Prial on Twitter @dunstanprial www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/10/22/sec-ramps-up-enforcement-actions-in-fy-2015/?cmpid=prn_dailyfinance
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Post by John Winston Lennon O'Boogie on Oct 23, 2015 6:38:37 GMT -5
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Post by John Winston Lennon O'Boogie on Oct 23, 2015 6:41:09 GMT -5
Microcap stock fraud is a form of securities fraud involving stocks of "microcap" companies, generally defined in the United States as those with a market capitalization of under $250 million. Its prevalence has been estimated to run into the billions of dollars a year.[1][2][3] Many microcap stocks are penny stocks, which the SEC defines as a security that trades at less than $5 per share, is not listed on a national exchange, and fails to meet other specific criteria.[4]
Microcap stock fraud generally takes place among stocks traded on the OTC Bulletin Board and the Pink Sheets Electronic Quotation Service, stocks which usually do not meet the requirements to be listed on the stock exchanges. Some fraud occurs among stocks traded on the NASDAQ Small Cap Market, now called the NASDAQ Capital Market.[3]
Microcap fraud encompasses several types of investor fraud: Pump and dump schemes, involving use of false or misleading statements to hype stocks, which are "dumped" on the public at inflated prices. Such schemes involve telemarketing and Internet fraud.[1] Chop stocks, which are stocks purchased for pennies and sold for dollars, providing both brokers and stock promoters massive profits. Brokers are often paid "under the table" undisclosed payoffs to sell such stocks.[1][3] Dump and dilute schemes, where companies repeatedly issue shares for no reason other than taking investors' money away. Companies using this kind of scheme tend to periodically reverse-split the stock. Other unscrupulous brokerage practices, including "bait-and-switch," unauthorized trading, and "no net sales" policies in which customers are prohibited or discouraged from selling stocks.[5]
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Post by John Winston Lennon O'Boogie on Oct 23, 2015 9:58:29 GMT -5
Oppenheimer hit with $20M in fines Kevin McCoy, USA TODAY 1:14 p.m. EST January 27, 2015 Investment advisory firm and broker dealer Oppenheimer & Co. was hit with a $20 million in regulatory fines Tuesday for improperly selling penny stocks in unregistered offerings on behalf of customers. Oppenheimer agreed to admit wrongdoing and pay half of the total fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the other half to the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the SEC said. Oppenheimer executed billions of shares of penny stocks for a purported proprietary account in the name of Gibraltar Global Securities, a Bahamas-based brokerage firm that was not registered to do business in the U.S., according to the SEC's order. The investment company either knew or was "reckless in not knowing that Gibraltar was actually executing transactions and providing brokerage services for its underlying customers, including many in the U.S., according to the SEC announcement. The investment advisory firm's anti-money laundering officer asked about a suspicious transfer between Gibraltar and an Oppenheimer customer in California, the SEC order showed. As a result, Oppenheimer assigned a surveillance analyst to review trading activity by the Bahamas brokerage. The SEC separately charged Gibraltar in 2013 with illegally operating as a broker-dealer over the transactions. Oppenheimer failed to file required Suspicious Activity Reports about the trading and didn't report, withhold and remit more than $3 million in backup withholding taxes from sales proceeds in Gibraltar's trading account, the SEC said. Additionally, the SEC said Oppenheimer engaged in selling billions of shares of penny stocks on behalf of another customers. The sales generated approximately $12 million in profits for which Oppenheimer was paid $588,400 in commissions, the SEC said. The investment firm's liability stemmed from Oppenheimer's failure to investigate whether the sales were exempt from registration requirements under federal securities laws. "Despite red flags suggesting that Oppenheimer's customer's stock sales were not exempt from registration, Oppenheimer nonetheless allowed unregistered sales to occur through its account, failing in its gatekeeper role," said Andrew Ceresney, director of the SEC's enforcement division. In a responding statement, Oppenheimer said it was pleased to move forward after resolving questions about activity that occurred years ago. "The ability to finalize matters involving two regulatory agencies in a coordinated manner was helpful in bringing this matter to a conclusion," the company said. www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/01/27/oppenheimer-sec-fine/22396695/
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