The Buddha says, “Those who are awake live in a state of constant amazement.”
In the blink of an eye, Bear Stearns goes from $70 a share to being picked up for a few dollars a share by JP Morgan Chase, all financed by the Federal Reserve. As discussed in earlier posts, Elliot Spitzer can no longer complain as he is no longer Governor. JP Morgan has set up a $6 billion litigation reserve, so hard to imagine too many members of the American Bar Association will complain. Put trading patterns indicate that Bear Stearns demise could profitably be called “financial cannibalism” or a “financial assassination”. It appears that the put trading anticipated that Bear Stearns would fail. After Bear Stearns goes down, suddenly the price of gold heads down as well. The dollar is flying up.
On April 23, the Wall Street Journal, now owned by Ruppert Murdoch, published an article (or perhaps, infomercial), “Investment Options for Beating Inflation.” In a nutshell, it says real things can not protect you against inflation. Not real estate. Not gold. It does not mention JP Morgan Chase’s role in engineering the real estate bubble. It does not mention JP Morgan Chase’s role in engineering gold price volatility or suppression. Nor does it mention JP Morgan’s role in all the things causing inflation — including the Bear Stearns deal or trillions missing from the federal government. Guess what it recommends you should invest in to protect yourselves? You got it, an inflation protected note from JP Morgan Chase. That way we can finance JP Morgan Chase buying up control of all the real things, like gold, or finance its clients and investments doing so.
Chase’s former Chairman David Rockefeller just announced a $100 million gift to Harvard University. The announcement that I read noted that Rockefeller was an heir to the Standard Oil fortune. I would point out that the Rockefeller family office has profitably invested in many things since Standard Oil was established.
My question is, “Were puts on Bear Stearns’ stock and subsequent shorting of the gold and silver prices among those investments over the last month, at least to the tune of $100 million or more?”
Short-term speculative gains are taxed at a higher rate. Such investment positions would be ideal to transfer into a tax-exempt vehicle like the Harvard Endowment or just shelter with a large donation. This, of course, raises more unanswered questions about how many foundations and endowments and their investment vehicles were in on the hit. The SEC is unlikely to be responsive to these questions. They have their hands full responding to the Paulson’s Plan proposal to reorganize them with the CFTC and expand the Feds powers announced shortly after the Fed-JP Morgan plucking of Bear Stearns.