Warren Buffett – Page 2 – The Burning Platform

CIVIL WAR II – FOURTH TURNING INTENSIFYING (PART 2)

In Part One of this article I laid out the case against the criminal establishment and how the regeneracy is being driven by the anti-establishment sentiment sweeping across the land. This atonement Fourth Turning will de-establish decade’s worth of delusional decisions. This election has destroyed the last vestiges of trust in this fraudulent system.

native advertising

This dysfunctional rigged presidential election reflects the tearing of the civic fabric at points of maximum susceptibility. As a country we have neglected, denied, or delayed necessary action on a plethora of vital issues threatening our long term viability as a nation. The deferral of difficult painful decisions has been a ploy of the ruling class, allowing them to further siphon the wealth of a dying empire, while maintaining control over the masses through laws, regulations, taxes, surveillance, intimidation, technology bread and circuses, and mainstream media propaganda.

This is a country truly divided, much along the lines of the first Civil War. The divisions aren’t just along political party lines, but race, education, geography, gender, age, class, religion and ability to think critically. The presidential polls (IBD) reveal many of these divisions clearly:

Continue reading “CIVIL WAR II – FOURTH TURNING INTENSIFYING (PART 2)”

Caught On Tape: Hillary Exclaims “We Will Raise Taxes On The Middle-Class”

by Tyler Durden

Flanked by sleepy billionaire-for-the-masses Warren Buffett, Hillary Clinton was cheered by a crowd of mooing followers in Omaha as she angrily exclaimed “…we are going to raise taxes on the middle class!”

Buffett seemed a little perplexed as she spoke…

“Because while Warren is standing up for a fairer tax code, Trump wants to cut taxes for the super-rich,” said Clinton.

“Well, we’re not going there, my friends. I’m telling you, right now – we’re going to write fairer rules for the middle class and we are going to raise taxes on the middle class!”

As The Daily Wire notes, presumably a slip of the tongue, Clinton’s comment came amid broader Marxist-themed demagoguery about forcing “the wealthy” to “pay their fair share” of taxes.

Furthermore, as Fox reports, Hillary Clinton comes up $2.2 trillion short in paying for her policy agenda, despite hiking taxes by $1.3 trillion, according to a new analysis of the Democratic nominee’s campaign platform.

The American Action Forum, a center-right policy institute, released a report Thursday finding Clinton’s domestic agenda would “have a dramatic effect on the federal budget.”

Gordon Gray, American Action Forum’s director of fiscal policy, based the report on estimates of policy proposals from the Clinton campaign itself, as well as independent analyses from the Tax Policy Center and the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Gray found Clinton’s policies for expanding government’s role in family leave and student loans would contribute significantly to the deficit, and in turn a growing national debt that stands at $19.358 trillion.

In fact, the amount of debt held by the public alone would reach $25.825 trillion in 2026 under Clinton’s plan. The amount of debt held by the public today is $13.968 trillion.

WORST CASE SCENARIO = 73% DOWN FROM HERE

As the stock market gyrates higher and lower in a fairly narrow range, the spokesmodels and talking heads on CNBC breathlessly regurgitate the standard bullish mantra designed to keep the muppets in the market. They are employees of a massive corporation whose bottom line and stock price depend upon advertising revenues reaped from Wall Street and K Street. They aren’t journalists. They are propagandists disguised as journalists. Their job is to keep you confused, misinformed, and ignorant of the true facts.

Based on the never ending happy talk and buy now gibberish spouted by the pundit lackeys, you would think we are experiencing a bull market of epic proportions and anyone who hasn’t been in the market has missed out on tremendous gains. There’s one little problem with that bit of propaganda. It’s completely false. The Fed turned off the QE spigot at the end of October 2014 and the market has gone nowhere ever since.

QE1 began in September 2008, taking the Fed balance sheet from $900 billion to $2.3 trillion by June 2010. This helped halt the stock market crash and drove the S&P 500 up by 50% from its March 2009 lows. QE2 was implemented in November 2010 and increased the Fed balance sheet to $2.9 trillion by the end of 2011. This resulted in an unacceptable 10% increase in the S&P 500, so the Fed cranked up their printing presses to hyper-speed and launched the mother of all quantitative easings, with QE3 pushing their balance sheet to $4.5 trillion by October 2014, when they ceased their “Save a Wall Street Banker” campaign.

As Main Street dies, Wall Street has been paved in gold. The S&P 500 soared to all-time highs, with 40% gains from the September 2012 QE3 launch until its cessation in October 2014. Like a heroine addict, Wall Street has experienced withdrawal symptoms ever since, and begs for more monetary easing injections. Yellen and her gang of central bank drug dealers keep the patient from dying by continuing doses of ZIRP and psychologically comforting dialogue designed to cheer up Wall Street bankers.

Continue reading “WORST CASE SCENARIO = 73% DOWN FROM HERE”

Warren Buffett’s extraordinary delusion about America

Guest Post by Simon Black

Before there was an America, before there was a Britain, before even Rome and Ancient Greece, there was Assyria.

For more than five centuries, the Assyrian empire was the wealthiest, strongest superpower in the world.

If you could go back thousands of years during the reign of Ashurbanipal and suggested even the possibility that the Assyrian Empire would decline (let alone cease to exist) you would have probably been executed.

The mere thought was heresy.

Of course, once empires reach their apogees they always assume that they’re entitled to the top spot forever.

But the historical record is filled with former superpowers who fall victim to their own narcissism. And yet the pattern continues to repeat.

Today is no different. The political and financial establishment in the Land of the Free refuses to acknowledge the obvious data evidencing America’s decline in wealth and power.

One of those members of the establishment is Warren Buffett, America’s self-appointed Minister of Economic Good Cheer.

With grandfatherly charm, Buffett always seems to find the silver lining.

And that’s certainly great– there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic.

But to anchor one’s optimism in this absurd notion of “once a superpower, always a superpower” is absolutely nuts.

Continue reading “Warren Buffett’s extraordinary delusion about America”

THE GREAT CORPORATE EARNINGS FRAUD

“What are the odds that people will make smart decisions about money if they don’t need to make smart decisions–if they can get rich making dumb decisions? The incentives on Wall Street were all wrong; they’re still all wrong.” ― Michael Lewis, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Corporate earnings reports for the fourth quarter are pretty much in the books. The deception, falsification, accounting manipulation, and propaganda utilized by mega-corporations and their compliant corporate media mouthpieces has been outrageously blatant. It reeks of desperation as the Wall Street shysters attempt to extract the last dollar from their muppet clients before this house of cards collapses.

The CEOs of these mega-corporations accelerated their debt financed stock buybacks in 2015 as stock prices reached all-time highs and are currently so overvalued, they will deliver 0% returns over the next decade. This disgraceful act of pure greed by the Ivy League educated leaders of corporate America to boost their own stock based compensation is reckless and absurd.

It is proof education at our most prestigious universities has produced avaricious MBAs following financial models and each other like lemmings going over the cliff. Proof of their foolishness is self evident after perusing the chart below. These intellectual giants evidently never learned the basic rule of buying low and selling high in order to make a profitable trade.

Continue reading “THE GREAT CORPORATE EARNINGS FRAUD”

HOW RICH ARE YOU?

The four guys listed below all started businesses or invested in businesses that succeeded. Entrepreneurs starting businesses is what creates jobs in this country. The problem seems to be that once these men reach a certain level of wealth, they can buy influence in our government. When they use this influence to further enrich themselves, you end up with a warped corporate fascist society that eventually leads to revolution. At this point, there seems to be no solution.

The elite are meeting in Davos to ponder how they can reverse the global stock market crash currently under way. Their hundreds of billions in wealth is on track to become tens of billions in wealth. The central bankers will be instructed to print money at a more rapid pace. None of their solutions will benefit the poor or middle class. You are nothing but expendable peasants to the elite. A good war will cull the herd.

When you consider how poor most of the 7 billion people on this planet are, putting your data into this website should make you feel pretty good.

See how you compare to the GLOBAL RICH.

OBAMA’S PLAN IS WORKING TO PERFECTION

The destruction of our coal industry by Obama is proceeding perfectly. So 4,000 workers have to be sacrificed at the altar of global warming. Big deal. They’re just peasants. Al Gore, Leonardo Dicaprio, and our savior Obama don’t need coal to fuel their luxury jets and Air Force One. They say “Let Them Eat Sunshine”. We are on the verge of green energy independence. Everything would be perfect if Buffett’s oil trains would just stop derailing and blowing up every week.

FORWARD!!!!

Second Largest Coal Miner East Of The Mississippi Files For Bankruptcy: 4000 Patriot Coal Jobs In Peril

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/12/2015 09:23 -0400

At last check Patriot Coal had around 4000 employees. Those soon to be former employees will soon require yet another massive seasonal adjustment by the BLS to be “adjusted” out, because moments ago the second largest coal miner east of the Mississippi and the second largest producer of thermal coal in the eastern US filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

As part of its filing, the Peabody spinoff announced it had obtained a $100 million DIP, which will be sued to fund the company until it finds a “strategic buyer” or otherwise restructures its balance sheet. Alas, with the price of coal being where it is these days, the most likely outcome for ticker formerly known as PCX is an outright liquidation and another 4000 people in the rest belt left without jobs who, just like the case of Denny Ryder of Decatur, IL, will promptly disappear from the labor force so as not to spoil the US “recovery” propaganda.

Continue reading “OBAMA’S PLAN IS WORKING TO PERFECTION”

Warren Buffet Is The Definition Of “Scumbag”

Guest Post by Investment Research Dynamics

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” – Warren Buffet, NY Times 11/26/2006

The “aura” of Warren Buffet is nothing more than the epitome of Orwellian propaganda. Nothing is but what is not. What Buffet “is not” is a good-ole rags to riches boy who has fulfilled the American dream. Warren Buffet is the quintessential mascot of American hypocrisy, criminality and political corruption.

“A country that is now aspiring to an ‘Ownership Society’ will not find happiness in – and I’ll use hyperbole here for emphasis – a ‘Sharecropper’s Society.’ But that’s precisely where our trade policies, supported by Republicans and Democrats alike, are taking us.” – Warren Buffet, 2005

Of course, Warren Buffet is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the U.S. trade policies. I haven’t seen him lift a finger toward implementing reform…

I remember in the mid-90’s when I was working on Wall Street and was “pro” anything that could generate a profitable trade, including Greenspan’s money printing. But I always cast a weary, suspicious eye on Warren Buffet. I had read an article back then which detailed the myth vs. reality about Warren Buffet.

For instance, remember the auro of his “everyday man, wrinkled “sack” suits?” It turns out that his suits were carefully tailored in Italy to cultivate that look and cost thousands of dollars. How about the myth that he lived with his wife in the same small brick house in Nebraska that he started out in with her? Total fabrication. As it turned out, that house had been empty for years – although still owned by him – and Buffet had been mistress-jumping for years. He also owns expensive homes in lesser-known hideaway places for the ultra-wealthy like Sun Valley and Sante Fe and other places all over the world.

Anyone/Everyone remember his “special” relationship with CNBC’s Becky Quick? It was so obvious he was sleeping with her that CNBC never tried to deny it by planting disinformation in the alternative media world.

Continue reading “Warren Buffet Is The Definition Of “Scumbag””

DANGER WILL ROBINSON

It’s funny how the truth sometimes leaks out from the government. I’m guessing that Mr. Ted Berg will not be working for the Office of Financial Research much longer. This new agency was created by the Dodd Frank Law and is supposed to protect consumers from the evil Wall Street banks. But we all know the evil Wall Street banks wrote the bill, have gutted the major provisions, have captured all the regulatory agencies, own the Federal Reserve, and control all the politicians in Washington D.C. So, when an honest government analyst writes an honest truthful report that unequivocally proves the stock market is grossly overvalued and headed for a crash, the Wall Street banking cabal will surely call the top government apparatchiks to voice their displeasure. Truth is treason in an empire of lies.

The soon to be fired Mr. Berg’s verbiage is subtle, but pretty clear.

Option-implied volatility is quite low today, but markets can change rapidly and unpredictably, a phenomenon described here as “quicksilver markets.” The volatility spikes in late 2014 and early 2015 may foreshadow more turbulent times ahead. Although no one can predict the timing of market shocks, we can identify periods when asset prices appear abnormally high, and we can address the potential implications for financial stability.

Markets can change rapidly and unpredictably. When these changes occur they are sharpest and most damaging when asset valuations are at extreme highs. High valuations have important implications for expected investment returns and, potentially, for financial stability.

However, quicksilver markets can turn from tranquil to turbulent in short order. It is worth noting that in 2006 volatility was low and companies were generating record profit margins, until the business cycle came to an abrupt halt due to events that many people had not anticipated.

The full report can be found here:

http://financialresearch.gov/briefs/files/OFRbr-2015-02-quicksilver-markets.pdf

The meat of the report is in the charts. The CAPE Ratio, which has been a highly accurate predictor of market tops is now almost two standard deviations above the long term average and at the same level it was before the 2008 crash. It has only been higher in 1929 and 1999. That should give you a nice warm feeling about the coming bull market. Right?

Profit margins are at all-time record highs as corporations don’t have to pay higher wages, can borrow for virtually free, and continue to outsource to foreign countries. Profit margins are 60% above the long-term average and always revert to the mean. Do you expect them to expand or contract from here?

Continue reading “DANGER WILL ROBINSON”

WHO NEEDS A PIPELINE WHEN YOU HAVE WARREN BUFFET’S CANNONBALL EXPRESS?

Dramatic Explosion Footage: Warren Buffett-Owned Oil Freight Train Derails, Bursts Into Flames

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/05/2015 21:14 -0500

Back in March 2013 we wrote a post presenting “the new US petroleum pipelines” in which we explained “why crony capitalist #1, the “rustic” Octogenarian of Omaha, and Obama tax advisor #1, Warren Buffett has been aggressively attempting to corner the railroad market, while the administration relentlessly refuses to allow assorted new, and very much competing petroleum pipelines from America’s neighbor to the north to cross through the US.” The answer was shown on the chart below which showed the exponential increase in petroleum rail car loadings.

It also explains why after Buffett’s purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) in 2009, Obama has been so staunchly against allowing the Keystone XL pipeline: because if there is anything that would allow Buffett to preserve the momentum of his soaring oil transit business, it is maintaining a veto on any competing pipelines. A veto which Obama implemented for the latest time just a few days ago.

Of course, it would be uncouth of the US president to say that he is against a pipeline because one of his crony backers, his tax advisor (“push income tax higher all you want, but don’t you dare touch that capital gains and dividend tax”), and perhaps the biggest single beneficiary of the government bailout of Wall Street in 2008, tells him to. So instead Obama, to appease his progressive rank and file, decided to crack down on the “danger” of pipelines – after all, the world is riddled with horror stories about the tens of thousands of miles of US commodity pipelines spontaneously combusting, exploding or otherwise blowing up and destroying the pristine nature all around them.

Maybe not, but that’s where the “unbiased” media comes into play. The same media which we doubt will have much if anything to say about the train derailment, crash and subsequent massive explosion which took place at 1:20 pm in a rural area where the Galena River meets the Mississippi.

The train in question? One of Warren Buffett’s own: a BNSF Railway freight train loaded with crude oil.

Continue reading “WHO NEEDS A PIPELINE WHEN YOU HAVE WARREN BUFFET’S CANNONBALL EXPRESS?”

BRING SOME MARSHMALLOWS

This is video of the latest in a series of explosive train derailments over the last few years. A 109 car CSX train derailed earlier this week in West Virginia. It was carrying some of that good old North Dakota fracked oil. Well, at least we know it burns just as well as regular oil.

And these oil cars were the new super safe railcars that are supposed to resist rupture. I think CSX may have been sold a load of shit, because these railcars didn’t resist too much.

I wonder if the costs of these unfortunate accidents are factored into the shale oil miracle storyline. Obama and his environmental nazi minions do everything they can to block the Keystone pipeline and other rational pipeline extensions. With oil at $50 per barrel, these pipelines probably no longer make much sense economically. But from a safety and environmental standpoint how can they possibly argue that sending oil by rail across our horrible rail infrastructure is a safer and more environmentally friendly method.

Continue reading “BRING SOME MARSHMALLOWS”

FOURTH TURNING – THE SHADOW OF CRISIS HAS NOT PASSED – PART FOUR

In Part One of this article I explained the model of generational theory as conveyed by Strauss and Howe in The Fourth Turning. In Part Two I provided an overwhelming avalanche of evidence this Crisis has only yet begun, with debt, civic decay and global disorder propelling the world towards the next more violent phase of this Crisis. In Part Three I addressed how the most likely clash on the horizon is between the government and the people. War on multiple fronts will thrust the world through the great gate of history towards an uncertain future.

War on Multiple Fronts

“The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, a total war. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind’s willingness to use it.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

The drumbeats of war are pounding. Sanctions are implemented against any country that dares question American imperialism (Russia, Iran). Overthrow and ignominious imprisonment or death awaits any foreign leader questioning the petrodollar or standing in the way of America spreading democracy (Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Egypt). The mega-media complex of six corporations peddle the government issued pabulum about ISIS being an existential threat to our freedoms; Russia being led by the new Hitler and poised to take over Europe; Syria gassing innocent women and children; and Iran only six months away from a nuclear bomb (they’ve been six months away for the last fourteen years). Hollywood does their part with patriotic drivel like American Sniper, designed to compel low IQ unemployed American youths to swell with pride and march down to enlistment centers, located in our plentiful urban ghettos.

The most disconcerting aspect of Fourth Turnings is they have always climaxed with total destructive all-out war. Not wars to enrich arms dealers like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, but incomprehensibly violent, brutal, wars of annihilation. There are clear winners and losers at the conclusion of Fourth Turning wars. Leaders mobilize all forces, refuse to compromise, define their enemies in moral terms, demand sacrifice on the battlefield and home front, build the most destructive weapons imaginable, and employ those weapons to obtain victory at any cost.

It may seem inconceivable that war on such a scale will happen within the next ten years, but it was equally inconceivable in 1936 that 65 million people would die in the next ten years during World War II. We valued all the wrong things and made all the wrong choices leading up to this Crisis and during the early stages of this Crisis. The accumulation of unmet obligations, unpaid bills, un-kept promises and unresolved issues will provide the fuel for an upheaval that will shake our society to its core and transforms the country’s direction for the next sixty years. The outcome of the conflict could be tragedy or triumph. Our choices will make a difference.

There will be war on many fronts, and they have already begun. The culmination will likely be World War III, with the outcome highly uncertain and potentially disastrous.

Continue reading “FOURTH TURNING – THE SHADOW OF CRISIS HAS NOT PASSED – PART FOUR”

WARREN BUFFETT LOSES ANOTHER $700 MILLION TODAY

Poor uncle Warren. He better drink a lot more Coke Classic. He owns 400 million shares of Coke. He lost $1 billion yesterday on his 70 million shares of IBM. What a genius. The doddering old fool doesn’t see the death of consumer spending. He is so rich and disconnected from the real world, despite portraying a folksy uncle, that he hasn’t grasped that the middle class has been gutted by his buddies at the Federal Reserve and on Wall Street. They are the people drinking Coke and eating Big Macs. The average family is so stretched after seeing their real household income not grow since 1989, while their debt load has skyrocketed, they can no longer afford a lousy McDonald’s Happy Meal.

Coke and McDonalds were the poster children for the American consumer society. These are mega-corporations who generated $50 billion and $30 billion in revenues annually. They are in decline. They will not be revived, because the consumer is gutted and dead on the side of the financial superhighway. Keep believing the economic recovery storyline as companies selling stuff to consumers keep reporting shitty results. Only a blithering idiot, Warren Buffett or a CNBC bimbo would believe it.

Buffett the genius also owns millions of shares of Wal-Mart. Simply brilliant!!!

Coke profit falls as soda volumes remain flat

By Michael Calia

Published: Oct 21, 2014 7:50 a.m. ET

Coca-Cola Co. said its soda volumes were flat in the third quarter, while earnings and revenue both declined, hit by currency fluctuations.

The beverage unveiled a new cost-cutting plan, aiming to reduce $3 billion a year in costs by 2019, while also saying it intends to proceed with plans to refranchise the majority of its North American bottling territories by the end of 2017. The company had unveiled a three-year plan in February with the goal of cutting $1 billion in costs.

Shares declined nearly 4% premarket as revenue unexpectedly declined.

The company said its worldwide beverage volumes grew 1%, while soda volume was flat. Coke posted higher soda volumes in the second quarter after reporting its first decline since 1999 earlier this year.

Coke has pursued aggressive marketing tactics, along with restructuring, to lessen the impact of dwindling soda demand on its results. The company has also had to contend with headwinds from foreign currencies.

In further moves to fight the shrinking soda market, Coke has also sought partnerships with purveyors of other kinds of beverages. In August, the company said it would by a 16.7% stake in energy-drink producer Monster Beverage Corp. for $2.15 billion as part of an asset swap. It is also working on developing a cold beverage system with Keurig Green Mountain Inc.

Overall, the company posted earnings of $2.11 billion, or 48 cents a share, down from $2.45 billion, or 54 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding items, per-share earnings were flat at 53 cents.

Revenue declined to $11.98 billion. Currency-neutral net revenue rose 1%.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had projected 53 cents a share in earnings, with $12.12 billion in revenue.

McDonald’s shares drop after disappointing sales results

By Tomi Kilgore

Published: Oct 21, 2014 8:13 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Shares of McDonald’s MCD, +0.60% dropped 2% in premarket trade after the fast-food restaurant giant reported disappointing third-quarter revenue and same-store sales, and provided a downbeat outlook. Revenue fell to $6.99 billion from $7.32 billion a year ago, missing the average analyst estimate compiled by FactSet of $7.19 billion. Global same-store sales declined 3.3%, amid a 3.3% drop in U.S. sales, while analysts were projecting declines of 2.8% and 2.5%, respectively. Profit for the quarter fell to $1.07 billion, or $1.09 a share, from last year’s $1.52 billion, or $1.52 a share. The company said non-recurring items reduced net earnings per share by 42 cents. The FactSet consensus adjusted EPS forecast was $1.37. The internal and external challenges it faced during the third quarter “will continue into the fourth quarter, with global comparable sales for October expected to be negative,” said Chief Executive Dan Thompson. The stock has lost 5.6% year to date through Monday, compared with a 3% gain in the S&P 500.

WALL STREET HAS ALWAYS BEEN CORRUPT OR ABOUT TO BE CORRUPTED

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”― Upton Sinclair – I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked

“The U.S. financial markets had always been either corrupt or about to be corrupted.” – Michael Lewis, Flash Boys

I finished reading Michael Lewis’ Flash Boys take-down of Wall Street banks, hedge funds, government regulators and high frequency traders last week when I had spare time created by a weeklong denial of service attack on my website. It appears to me technology is being utilized more frequently as a mechanism for malevolence rather than a mechanism for good. The smartest guys in the room are figuring out ways to steal you blind in the financial markets, pilfer your personal information, spy on your electronic communications, and censor your right to free speech by taking away your ability to communicate freely on the internet. After reading Lewis’ maddening tome and experiencing the frustration of an attack that reached 50 million hits per day on my website, I’m reminded of two quotes from the brilliant dystopian visionary Aldous Huxley.

“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” ― Aldous Huxley – Ends and Means

“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.” – Aldous Huxley

Technology has been pushed on the masses like a drug by the mega-corporation and mega-media dealers. Just walk down any city street and observe the technologically entranced zombies shuffling along the sidewalks staring blankly at a tiny screen, tapping away on an itsy bitsy keypad as if whatever they are conveying is of vital importance to the future of mankind. # Give me a break. God forbid if we had to go out in public without our iGadget attached to an appendage. We might actually have to use our brain to think. We might be able to look someone in the eye and smile. We might be able to say hello to a stranger. We might have to act like a human being.

Being connected electronically 24 hours per day is not progress. The technology being peddled to the masses by mega-corporations is designed to keep people amused, apathetic, distracted and uninterested in thinking critically. Our society has devolved into a technologically narcissistic, ego driven, submissive, trivial culture, asphyxiating in a sea of irrelevance and driven by greed and need to fulfill our every desire, rather than a technologically proficient, selfless, humble, critical thinking, civil minded society of self-reliant human beings who take responsibility for their own lives and refuse to saddle future generations with the financial consequences of living beyond their means. Our willful ignorance, misuse of technology, and inability to control our impulses and desires will be the ruin of our perverted civilization.

If the masses were capable of critical thinking and questioned the existing paradigm, they would conclude a small cadre of evil men has colluded to hijack the financial, political, and social systems in order to syphon off the nation’s wealth, while controlling the serfs through propaganda and luring them into debt servitude. Those who haven’t been brainwashed by media propaganda or amused to death by technology, are kept in check by thousands of laws, statutes, and regulations, enforced by millions of government bureaucrats and police state thugs. Technology is used by the state as a means of control, surveillance, censorship, and bilking the populace of their wealth. And if you don’t like it, the IRS, DHS, FBI, CIA, BLM, HHS, or some other three letter government agency will harass, arrest, fine, or kill you for not “cooperating”. And while the government is keeping you under their thumb, Wall Street shysters are stealing you blind.

The Truth Shall Make You Mad

“As soon as you realize that you are not able to execute your orders because someone else is able to identify what you are trying to do and race ahead of you to the other exchanges, it’s over. It really just pissed me off that people set out this way to make money from everyone else’s retirement account. I knew who was being screwed, people like my mom and pop, and I became hell-bent on figuring out who was doing the screwing.” – John Schwall – Flash Boys

As I continued reading Flash Boys I got progressively madder as more truth was revealed about the inner workings of Wall Street, the wasting of human intelligence on technological schemes to defraud the public, and the utter level of corruptness in the government agencies supposed to protect the public from the vultures in the financial industry feasting on the carcasses of dupes who still believe the “stocks for the long run” drivel regurgitated incessantly by the bimbos and slime balls on CNBC. The concepts of right and wrong, moral and immoral, honesty and dishonesty, and truth and lies are all purposefully blurred in shades of grey by those in power, in a blatant attempt to maintain and expand their vast wealth, immense power and complete governing control.

Michael Lewis focuses on our warped, rigged financial system, but his insights apply across the board to our entire society. Our economic, financial, political, regulatory, and judicial systems are all rigged. This serves the interests of the Deep State, Invisible Government, Oligarchs, Owners, or whatever other term you choose to describe the obscenely wealthy minority controlling this country. The existing establishment will never willingly change the system because it serves their myopic gluttonous interests.

“The deep problem with the system was a kind of moral inertia. So long as it served the narrow self-interests of everyone inside it, no one on the inside would ever seek to change it, no matter how corrupt or sinister it became.” – Michael Lewis – Flash Boys

Flash Boys is the fourth Michael Lewis book I’ve read. I had previously read Liar’s Poker, The Big Short, and Boomerang. He is a masterful storyteller. He has the ability to humanize complicated financial concepts and cut through the purposeful complexity built into the financial system to reveal the corruption, criminality and moral degradation of Wall Street bankers and Washington DC politicians. He slices through all the spin, misinformation, and mistruths flogged by Wall Street and their paid-off media mouthpieces to reveal everyone on Wall Street to be in on the action when it comes to fleecing their customers (muppets). The stench emanating from the bowels of Wall Street banks, hedge funds, and high frequency trading bucket shops hangs like toxic smog over our bloated fetid crony capitalist corpse of a country. This cast of despicable felonious characters, scalps investors day after day, with the insiders pretending all is well and the man on the street is being protected.

“The reason is that everyone is a bad actor. There’s an ecosystem that has risen up around a broken pipe on Wall Street. You have high-frequency traders who are scalping the market. They pay exchanges for the tools they need to scalp investors; the exchanges pay banks to essentially mishandle the stock orders so high-frequency traders can maximize the take. It’s a system designed to extract taxes from investors.” – Michael Lewis –Wired

The average person believes the stock market is run on free market principles, with willing buyers and sellers paying and receiving the most efficient price with regards to their transactions. The American people have put their trust in gargantuan bureaucratic government agencies, funded with their tax dollars, to protect their interests and fight for their rights in the financial marketplace. They innocently believe a private bank – The Federal Reserve – owned and controlled by the Too Big To Trust Wall Street Mega-Banks, is actually enforcing regulations and looking out for the best interest of the small investor. They evidently haven’t been paying attention for the last fourteen years, as the Federal Reserve has purposefully created bubble after bubble with ridiculously low interest rates, money printing on an epic scale, encouraging complete deregulation of banks, inciting speculation, and ignoring criminal behavior by their Wall Street owners.

After reading Lewis’ exposes about these Wall Street scumbags, you realize Scorsese’s seemingly over the top portrayal of these people in Wolves of Wall Street is accurate. Nothing has changed since Lewis worked at Salomon Brothers in the 1980’s. The people inhabiting that culture are unscrupulous, greedy, obtuse, ignorant, and intent upon preying on the weaknesses of their “clients”, who they hold in contempt. They are the wolves and you are sheep. The comforting picture of a stock broker representing your interests on a small commission basis has been replaced by stock exchanges colluding with Wall Street banks, hedge funds and high frequency traders to fleece mom and pop out of hundreds of billions on an annual basis using their super-fast computers located within the stock exchanges. The people who know the truth have no interest in drawing the new picture because their massive paychecks depend upon not drawing the picture.

You can tell how accurate a portrayal is by the reaction of those being portrayed. Flash Boys and the subsequent interview of Lewis by 60 Minutes resulted in a broad based assault by Wall Street bankers, HFT dirt bags, corrupt stock exchange CEOs, SEC lackeys, Federal Reserve Chairwomen, bought off politicians, faux financial journalists, sellouts like Buffett, and of course the mouthpieces of Wall Street on CNBC. The oligarchs benefitting immensely from the HFT scams, Dark Pool schemes, and Stock Exchange pay to play swindles, attempted to ambush the good guys (Brad Katsuyama and Michael Lewis) on CNBC, the captured media pawn of the Wall Street ruling elite.

CNBC stacked the deck against the good guys with the President of the BATS exchange, William O’Brien, given the task of shouting the loudest in an attempt to discredit the factual assertions made in the book. The BATS exchange was founded by high frequency traders and designed to foster the predatory schemes of high frequency trading firms who paid the exchange for the privilege of swindling investors. He went berserk on-air, accusing Brad Katsuyama of lying and denying that his firm purposefully allowed high frequency traders to front run slower orders from regular investors. I guess he thought rage, fury, screaming and false accusations would convince the hoi polloi of his innocence. He was wrong. The traders on the NYSE and in trading firms across Wall Street stopped trading to watch the contest on their screens. They would cheer every time Brad Katsuyama calmly responded with truth based facts.

Michael Lewis described the encounter shortly thereafter in an interview:

“The substantial shocker from this encounter is that Katsuyama tried to get O’Brien to admit that the BATS Exchange uses one very slow data feed to give investors the prices in the market, while selling, for vast sums of money, a faster feed to high-frequency traders, the effect being that the high-frequency trader knows the prices in the exchange before your order. So he has the privilege of trading against you at an old price if he wants to. And O’Brien says no that’s not true. He lied, on national television, about a central fact about his business.” – Michael Lewis –Wired

Under threat of prosecution, the BATS exchange had to admit its esteemed President blatantly lied on national TV. That seems par for the course when it comes to Wall Street executives. Deceitfulness, duplicity, and evasiveness are crucial requirements for the psychopaths occupying the corner offices in this warped world of high finance. The Wall Street Journal reluctantly revealed the truth:

BATS Global Markets Inc., under pressure from the New York Attorney General’s office, corrected statements made by a senior executive during a televised interview this week about how its exchanges work.

BATS President William O’Brien, during a CNBC interview Tuesday, said BATS’s Direct Edge exchanges use high-speed data feeds to price stock trades. Thursday, the exchange operator said two of its exchanges, EDGA and EGX, use a slower feed, known as the Securities Information Processor, to price trades.

The distinction matters because high-speed traders can use powerful computers and superfast links between markets to outpace traders and trading venues that rely on slower market data, such as the SIP.

Would the BATS Exchange have revealed the truth if they had not been pressured by the New York Attorney General to do so? Not bloody likely. Wall Street never admits guilt for any of its crimes, wrongdoings, misconduct, deceit or deceptions. They pay $1 billion in fines to their government co-conspirators as a public relations ploy, without admitting guilt and after reaping $10 billion of criminally generated profits. Not a bad ROI. The principles of right versus wrong, moral versus immoral, honesty versus dishonesty, and clarity versus opacity are willfully evaded by the titans of Wall Street and create no dilemmas for these greed driven psychopaths. Money and power are their drugs and the Federal Reserve is their dealer.

Michael Lewis books strike a chord with the public because he chooses a good guy hero his audience can empathize with. He played the sympathetic character in Liar’sPoker. Michael Burry, the brilliant Asperger’s Syndrome suffering investment genius, plays the role in The Big Short. And Brad Katsuyama, the mild mannered good hearted hobbit-like Canadian, takes on the evil forces of Mordor in Flash Boys. These characters all have something in common. They don’t fit in. They question the existing paradigm. They refuse to give in to the depraved culture permeating Wall Street. They exhibit an inner moral strength that enables them to resist the temptation of ill-gotten riches. And they don’t surrender their principles for a buck. This passage gives you a glimpse into the soul of Brad Katsuyama:

“In America, even the homeless were profligate. Back in Toronto, after a big bank dinner, Brad would gather the leftovers into covered tin trays and carry them out to a homeless guy he saw every day on his way to work. The guy was always appreciative. When the bank moved him to New York, he saw more homeless people in a day than he saw back home in a year. When no one was watching, he’d pack up the king’s banquet of untouched leftovers after the NY lunches and walk it down to the people on the streets. “They just looked at me like, ‘What the fuck is this guy doing?’” he said. “I stopped doing it because it didn’t feel like anyone gave a shit.” – Michael Lewis – Flash Boys

The apologists for the corrupt establishment attempted to trash Lewis and Katsuyama by contending the market has always been rigged and manipulated, therefore, the HFT embezzlement is just business as usual. Warren Buffett, king of oligarchs and apologist for the Wall Street billionaire club, assures the peasants the financial markets are fairer than ever. If Uncle Warren says it’s so to his girl Becky Quick on CNBC, how can anyone doubt him? It’s as if the supposedly mathematical genius billionaire forgot everything he learned in business school.

There is $21 trillion worth of U.S. stocks traded every year. Based upon Katsuyama’s analysis of how much high frequency traders, Wall Street dark pools, and the stock exchanges selling access were skimming on virtually every transaction, he estimated at least $160 million per day was being stolen from stock investors. That comes to a cool $40 billion per year, at a minimum. High frequency trading accounted for 25% of all stock trades in 2005. By 2008 high frequency traders accounted for 65% of all trades. They now account for in excess of 80% of all trading. The Ivy League educated Wall Street elite insist this extreme level of computer generated trading provides liquidity and efficiency for the markets. In reality, the actual trading results of the HFT firms, hedge funds and Wall Street TBTF banks prove the game is rigged. JP Morgan experienced ZERO trading loss days in 2013. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and most of the mega-banks have had virtually perfect daily trading results since 2010. If they are all winning, who is losing? Guess. Lewis provides further evidence of “investing” perfection:

“In early 2013, one of the largest high-frequency traders, Virtu Financial, publicly boasted that in five and a half years of trading it had experienced just one day when it hadn’t made money, and that the loss was caused by “human error.” In 2008, Dave Cummings, the CEO of a high-frequency trading firm called Tradebot, told university students that his firm had gone four years without a single day of trading losses. This sort of performance is possible only if you have a huge informational advantage.” – Michael Lewis – Flash Boys

Buffett, the financial “journalists” on CNBC, and all of the defenders of the Wall Street criminal cabal must have been asleep during their Stat class in college. The statistical probability of going four years or even four weeks without a losing trading day is as close to zero as you can get, unless the game is rigged and you are cheating. These results were not accomplished due to the brilliance of Wall Street big hanging dicks and their oversized brains. They were accomplished by front running stock market orders, bribing stock exchanges for first access, gaming the system with more powerful computers, ripping off clients in shadowy dark pools, and keeping the SEC at bay with promises of jobs and riches if they look the other way. This was all done under the veil of hyper-complexity designed to obscure, confuse, and cover-up the truth from unsuspecting investors.

And it is all done “legally” under the auspices of Regulation NMS, established by the SEC in 2007, to foster both competition among individual markets and competition among individual orders, in order to promote efficient and fair price formation across securities markets. As with almost every government regulation, law, or diktat, the new method of “protecting” the sheeple created fresh ways to fleece the sheeple by those who wrote the regulation. See Dodd-Frank and the Affordable Care Act. I don’t need a law or regulation to tell me the difference between right and wrong.

When obnoxiously wealthy pricks with the ability to bribe stock exchanges to place their trading computers on the floor of the exchange and financially induce the Wall Street banks to funnel trades through their dark pools in order to know what is happening a nanosecond before everyone else, and use this information to front run unknowing investors to generate risk free profits, it’s wrong. It really is black and white. I don’t care that it is supposedly “legal”. By complying with Regulation NMS the smart order routers of institutional investor firms like Vanguard, Fidelity and Schwab simply funneled naïve investors into various snares laid for them by the unscrupulous high frequency traders. The bad guys always win and the good guys always lose on Wall Street. And no one does anything because they are all on the take. Lewis puts it in terms the average person can understand.

“It was riskless, larcenous, and legal – made so by Reg NMS. The way Brad had described it, it was as if only one gambler were permitted to know the scores of last week’s NFL games, with no one else aware of his knowledge. He places bets in the casino on every game and waits for other gamblers to take the other side of those bets. There’s no guarantee that anyone will do so; but if they do, he’s certain to win.” – Michael Lewis – Flash Boys

If you aren’t mad yet, you will be after I go into the details of the regulatory capture, obscure deep pools within the bowels of the Too Big To Trust Banks, misuse of technology to defraud the public, and purposeful complexity built into the financial system to confuse and mislead the investing populace. I’ll tackle that in Part Two of this article.

<br />