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Warner: Senate could vote to reinstate Glass-Steagall - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room By Michael O'Brien - 05/01/10 12:00 PM ET Senators could approve an amendment to reestablish the separation between banks' commercial and investment operations, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) suggested. Warner, a member of the Senate Banking Committee who's been closely involved in negotiations over a Wall Street reform bill, said that while he opposed such a measure, the Senate could get the votes to reimpose the Depression-era Glass Steagall law. "It may have a chance," Warner said during an appearance on C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" of the chances for passage of an amendment to reimpose the law, which was repealed by Congress in 1999.... Norton's comment: This former law stopped banks from additionally acting as investment bankers. When this was repealed under pressure from the banking and investment lobbies, it opened the door to what is now the credit default swap ...

...And we thought moving our slave wages to our local credit union was going to save us! ...This means that the investment bank's European derivatives exposure is now backstopped by U.S. taxpayers. Bank of America didn't get regulatory approval to do this, they just did it at the request of frightened counterparties. Now the Fed and the FDIC are fighting as to whether this was sound. The Fed wants to "give relief" to the bank holding company, which is under heavy pressure. .. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/236509-Holy-Bailout-Federal-Reserve-Now-Backstopping-75-Trillion-Of-Bank-Of-America-s-Derivatives-Trades

How Six Layers of Deficits will Lead to a Retirement Disaster | Daniel R Amerman CFA | FINANCIAL SENSE

Treasury officials: Never saw a loan like Solyndra - BusinessWeek : "at private investors moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment on part of the loan in case of a default." 'via Blog this' Norton's comment: Now is there anyone out there who still doesn't get the the Fox is still in charge of the chicken coup? On Wallstreet, Main Street, Energy St......that is; those who are creating financial risk and calamity, are still being bailed out by their comrades with public funds without our votes... too big to fail is just another excuse to keep the free market from placing the results of risky financial behavior on those who created, promoted, lied about the transactions to the public; another excuse to bypass what makes democracy work with one vote one man.....and an educated public of voters.

Can Margin Debt Give Us A Clue On Market Direction? : "bottoms in the market occur when there are positive net credit balances" 'via Blog this' "...By the time the bottom of the decline was reached in March of 2009, positive net credit balances had ballooned to almost $200 Billion. Surprisingly, after investors had been wiped out twice in a single decade, they came storming back to the casino flush with cash as the Fed, due to the introduction of Quantitative Easing, which removed investment risk from the markets. Investors scrambled to lever up their portfolios for a third time. This time margin debt didn't quite achieve its previous peak but quickly surged to $330 Billion. ..."

by By Bud Conrad, Casey Research ...As to what speculators – what anyone – should do, it doesn’t really matter whether the fall of the dollar precipitates the level of crisis we expect. The steps we advocate are reasonable for anyone who doesn’t want to get hurt by a currency crisis: buying physical gold (and silver – both are still relatively cheap in inflation-adjusted dollars); getting a useful portion of one’s assets into a stable country outside of the US (preferably one with no involvement in the “War On Terror/Islam”); and investing a fraction of one’s portfolio in gold stocks....

Highlights From That Ultra-Gloomy Goldman Report That Everyone Is Talking About : "" 'via Blog this'