Articles by Ellen Brown
July 13th, 2008
LET THE LAWSUITS BEGIN:
BANKS BRACE FOR A STORM OF LITIGATION
In an article in The San Francisco Chronicle in December 2007, attorney Sean Olender suggested that the real reason for the subprime bailout schemes being proposed by the U.S. Treasury Department was not to keep strapped borrowers in their homes so much as to stave off a spate of lawsuits against the banks. The plan then on the table was an interest rate freeze on a limited number of subprime loans.
June 26th, 2008
THE SUBPRIME TRUMP CARD:
STANDING UP TO THE BANKS
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
– Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin (1802)
June 14th, 2008
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LEHMAN
BROTHERS AND BEAR STEARNS?
LEHMAN’S CEO SITS ON THE BOARD OF THE NY FED
An earlier article by this author (“The Secret Bailout of JP Morgan”) summarized evidence presented by John Olagues, an expert in options trading, suggesting that JPMorgan, far from “rescuing” Bear Stearns, was actually its nemesis. The faltering investment bank was brought down, not by “rumors,” but by insider trading based on a plan drawn up much earlier. The deal was a lucrative one for JPM, handing the Wall Street megabank $55 billion in loans from the Federal Reserve (meaning ultimately the U.S. taxpayer). So how did JPM get away with it? Olagues notes the highly suspicious fact that JPM’s CEO James Dimon sits on the Board of the New York Federal Reserve.
May 13th, 2008
THE SECRET BAILOUT OF JPMORGAN:
HOW INSIDER TRADING LOOTED BEAR STEARNS AND THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER
The mother of all insider trades was pulled off in 1815, when London financier Nathan Rothschild led British investors to believe that the Duke of Wellington had lost to Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. In a matter of hours, British government bond prices plummeted. Rothschild, who had advance information, then swiftly bought up the entire market in government bonds, acquiring a dominant holding in England’s debt for pennies on the pound.
April 28th, 2008
SPECULATING IN HUNGER:
ARE INVESTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS?
Investment newsletters are now featuring headlines like "How You Can Profit from the Global Food Crisis." The recommended investments include agribusiness stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that speculate in agricultural commodities. These investments will no doubt do very well in the global food crisis; but before you put your money down, you may want to explore whether you will be helping to alleviate the problem or contributing to it.
April 10th, 2008
CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS:
DERIVATIVE DISASTER DU JOUR
When the smartest guys in the room designed their credit default swaps, they forgot to ask one thing – what if the parties on the other side of the bet don't have the money to pay up? Credit default swaps (CDS) are insurance-like contracts that are sold as protection against default on loans, but CDS are not ordinary insurance. Insurance companies are regulated by the government, with reserve requirements, statutory limits, and examiners routinely showing up to check the books to make sure the money is there to cover potential claims. CDS are private bets...
March 30th, 2008
APRIL FOOLS:
THE FOX TO GUARD THE BANKING HENHOUSE
The Federal Reserve, which has been credited with creating the current housing bubble and bust just as it created the credit bubble of the Roaring Twenties and the bust of 1929, is now to be given vast new powers to oversee regulation of the banking industry and promote "financial market stability."
March 23rd, 2008
On March 13, 2008, Erik Sirri, director of the SEC's division of trading and markets, told Congress that the credit crisis has spread to municipal bond auctions. "There is no question that the recent dislocations in the municipal bond markets have created unanticipated hardships for municipal issuers and in some cases dramatically increased their borrowing costs," Sirri said.
March 15th, 2008
TODAY WE'RE ALL IRISH:
DEBT SERFDOM COMES TO AMERICA
March 17 is St. Patrick's Day, when people of all national origins raise a glass and declare, "Today we're all a bit Irish!" This may be truer than we know. The Irish were driven to America by debt, and they are leading the Western world in household debt today.
January 9th, 2008
WHY IS IRAN STILL IN THE CROSS-HAIRS?
CLUES FROM THE PROJECT FOR A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY
Despite a recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) finding that Iran is not engaged in a nuclear weapons program, the push for war continues. Before President George W. Bush left for a Middle East visit on January 8, he told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, "Part of the reason I'm going to the Middle East is to make it abundantly clear to nations in that part of the world that we view Iran as a threat, and that the NIE in no way lessens that threat."
November 13th, 2007
BEHIND THE DRUMS OF WAR WITH IRAN:
NUCLEAR WEAPONS OR COMPOUND INTEREST?
On October 25, 2007, the United States announced harsh new penalties on the Iranian military and its state-owned banking systems. Sanctions, bellicose rhetoric and the implicit threat of military action are goads for another war, one that critics fear is more likely to ignite a nuclear holocaust than prevent one...
November 5th, 2007
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT:
HOW COSTS CAN BE CUT IN HALF
Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, stated in an October 15, 2007 address, "Climate change is a defining issue of our time. The science is clear. . . . We know what we have to do. We have affordable measures and technologies to do it."...
September 20th, 2007
BANK RUN OR STEALTH BAILOUT?
BETWEEN NORTHERN ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
In July 2007, the global credit crisis hit Wall Street. In September 2007, it hit Main Street, in what has been called the worst bank run since the 1970s. Northern Rock, Britain's fifth-largest mortgage lender, was besieged at branches across the country, as thousands of worried customers queued for hours in hopes of getting their money out before the doors closed. Bank officials feared that as much as half the bank's deposit base could be withdrawn before the run was over...
September 3rd, 2007
MARKET MELTDOWN:
THE END OF A 300 YEAR PONZI SCHEME
Panic struck on Wall Street, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged a thousand points between July and August, and commentators warned of a 1929-style crash. To prevent that dire result, the U.S. Federal Reserve, along with the central banks of Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan, stepped up to the plate and extended a 315 billion dollar lifeline to troubled banks and investment firms. The hemorrhage stopped, the markets turned around, and investors breathed a sigh of relief. All was well again in Stepfordville. Or was it? And if it was, at what cost?...
August 9th, 2007
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX:
HOW A BANKRUPT GERMANY SOLVED ITS
INFRASTRUCTURE PROBLEMS
Guernsey wasn't the only government to solve its infrastructure problems by issuing its own money. (See E. Brown, "Waking Up on a Minnesota Bridge," www.webofdebt.com/articles, August 4, 2007.) A more notorious model is found in post-World War I Germany. When Hitler came to power, the country was completely, hopelessly broke. The Treaty of Versailles had imposed crushing reparations payments on the German people, who were expected to reimburse the costs of the war for all participants — costs totaling three times the value of all the property in the country...
August 4th, 2007
Only five confirmed deaths have so far resulted from the dramatic collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minnesota on August 1, but in some ways the disaster was more of a shock and a wakeup call than the collapse of the New Orleans levees that took many more lives. After all, most of us will never be faced with a category 5 hurricane...
July 3rd, 2007
DOLLAR DECEPTION:
HOW BANKS SECRETLY CREATE MONEY
It has been called "the most astounding piece of sleight of hand ever invented." The creation of money has been privatized, usurped from Congress by a private banking cartel. Most people think money is issued by fiat by the government, but that is not the case. Except for coins, which compose only about one one-thousandth of the total U.S. money supply, all of our money is now created by banks. Federal Reserve Notes (dollar bills) are issued by the Federal Reserve, a private banking corporation, and lent to the government.1 Moreover, Federal Reserve Notes and coins together compose less than 3 percent of the money supply. The other 97 percent is created by commercial banks as loans.2...
June 21st, 2007
THE QUICK FIX:
A NON-INFLATIONARY SOLUTION TO THE
FEDERAL DEBT CRISIS
The U.S. federal debt has reached crisis proportions, approaching $9 trillion in 2007. U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker has warned that just the interest on the debt will soon be more than the taxpayers can afford to pay...