Today's news is something that only the most simple minded cannot see through in two seconds and that is that the EU is investigating "suspected" rigging of its $1.5 tn bond market. First off, this is being opened as a "cartel investigation" which means that it is a witch hunt. In other words, anyone standing anywhere near the criminal actions will be implicated as part of the cartel. This is how the so called RICO laws work in the US: they call it a RICO investigation because the laws were originally put in place to fight organized drug crimes. I guess there are a lot of Colombians named Rico. In any case, RICO gives investigators in the US expanded powers to, well, investigate and it gives those caught up in the dragnet a chance to go to prison for a longer time because RICO investigations mean longer prison sentences are authorized. I can only assume that "Cartel investigations" give the EU cops similar leeway.
So why are they doing this now? Well, it's just like I said it would be during the end game of the global debt Ponzi. Things would get worse and worse for the people and sooner or later there would be anger coming from the people as they wake up and smell the con and thus begin to stop accepting the rip off that has been happening to them. Whenever the con men see this they have, throughout history, been quick to throw someone under the bus and to roll some head because the alternative would be that the people would pick up pitchforks and exact their own justice.
And so it begins. The crooks in charge are about to investigate and eventually arrest and incarcerate their underlings who were cooking the books of the bond market. So how did they do it this time? Clearly they did not manipulate rates upward. Any manipulation which might have happened was to drive rates lower. Why? Because ALL parties benefited and so the blind eye was turned. Traders made money by owning bonds and pushing yields lower which would increase the market value of the underlying bond. Governments got to take advantage of very cheap money. Markets collected fees on trading transactions. Home prices skyrocketed with low interest rates. Win, Win, Win, right?
So who got fucked in the deal? Well, of course is was the same old same old: honest but ignorant people. They paid higher prices for their homes while accepting less and less interest on their "safe" bond debt "savings".
As usual, the government quietly sat back and took its cut on the pump and now it will be here during the dump, stern-facedly chastising the manipulators and charging them billions in fines for their involvement. Business as usual, yeah? But this time I expect things will be a bit different. This time the usual "fine" (AKA payoff/bribe) to the government will not be enough. This time people will be going to jail and they will be shocked that they were singled out for this treatment. After all, didn't they do exactly what the government wanted them to do? And hadn't they gotten away with it so many times before with only a corporate fine and not even an admission of guilt?
I'll warrant that it will be different this time because of the new conservative wave overtaking the people. Conservative people want criminals put in jail, period. They will not just accept the idea that someone can pay the fine on Thursday, never be found guilty of anything on Friday and then be right back at it the following Monday bright and early.
What will be interesting is how much those who are about to be thrown under the bus actually know. The con has been running a long time this time and so the odds are high that someone knows something which his attackers don't know that he knows. So on his way under the bus he will be shouting out names and places and locations of skeletons. This becomes a self feeding cycle which eventually results in someone really big being sucked into the vortex.
If this stuff was happening in the EU you can bet it was happening in the US as well.
Well, in the recent past, the banksters did their evil deeds, were bailed out, paid some nominal fines and got back to their evil machinations. Now, when returns are diminishing and the honest, ignorant people are on the hook to bail them in, a line was crossed. Now is the time to unleash the law against the "ricos", the rich who got too greedy and too rich too quickly: the RICO law. It's not so much a conservative mood as a tar and feathers mood.
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