Slog Comments

The Extradition of Ernesto Zedillo

Recently the government of Mexico legally requested the extradition of Ernesto Zedillo --- from Yale University, of course --- with the request denied by the US government.

This was criminal, naturally, but predictable given that our president has routinely gone before the American public and proclaimed:

The super-rich didn't break any laws; laws don't apply to the super-rich. (Obama also prattles on about his man-crush on JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon, but we shall ignore that perversity for now.)

Since the individual who should be Public Enemy Number One, Robert Rubin, was Obama's campaign economics advisor, and Zedillo was Rubin's inside guy in the destruction of the Mexican and American workforces, and the privatization and foreign ownership of Mexican banks, one would presume the criminals would back up each other.

Since many are too young to know the mechanics of NAFTA, here is a brief synopsis: Bush #1was unable to force it through, so Wall Street brought in Clinton to get the crime done. (Clinton had previously greatly aided in turning Arkansas into a "right-to-work" state, i.e., killing collective bargaining and workers' rights, so they knew he was the man for the crime.)

In 1994, the Mexican President Zedillo, out of the blue with no valid reason, devalued the Mexican currency downward by 13%. The very next day Zedillo ordered the floating of the Mexican currency, thereby allowing it to be speculated downards by another 39% (thus immediately raising prices by 55% or more).

A few months later things were even worse, but such actions had more than doubled the purchasing power of the bankster billions which had been withdrawn from Mexican banks three weeks prior to Zedillo's inexplicable devaluation and currency float.

Of course, when the USA announced it was bailing out the Mexican economy by financing the loans of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, et al., to that government, it was on the same day Clinton appointed the head of Goldman Sachs, Robert Rubin, to be his Treasury Secretary; within a year of the passage of NAFTA, between 80% to 90% of the now-privatized Mexican banks were foreign-owned, and Mexican independent farmers were being driven off their lands --- into instant poverty --- by giant ag corporations, while US jobs were outsourced there, taking advantage of even more artificially-lowered wages in that country now, while Rubin's Goldman Sachs, etc., profited from massive currency speculation and greatly increased purchasing power of Mexican banks and stocks. (Rubin would go on to play pivotal advisory roles in the overturning of Glass-Steagall and the killing of any oversight and regulations of credit derivatives --- super-speculative financial instruments based upon debt.)

These credit derivatives would be utilized by hedge funds, several years later, to do naked short selling against approximately 7,000 small public companies, effectively short selling them out of existence (i.e., a massive transfer -- and theft -- of wealth from small business to the super-rich).

We know this due to a class action lawsuit (referred to in the business press at the time as "Stockgate" -- but essentially receiving no publicity in the corporate mediate) brought against the DTCC (owned by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and the NYSE).

Several years later, very quietly, congress would pass legislation giving loan preference to small businesses (via the SBA) which already were invested in --- or owned --- by hedge funds or private equity firms (private banks/leveraged buyout firms); a perfect design for monopoly creation over small business, and therefore all business!

During the same timeframe those hedge funds were shorting those small public companies out of existence, congress passed that so-called bankruptcy reform legislation, making it far more difficult for lower-income people to declare the type of bankruptcy which would normally discharge their debts, while the US congress very quietly added an amendment onto that so-called bankruptcy legislation giving top priority and preference to those creditors who were derivatives dealers (as in credit derivatives) and the bondholders!

During that very same timeframe again, the top banks were utilizing credit derivatives ("structured finance") to do leveraged loans to the largest private equity LBO firms (Blackstone Group, Bain Capital, Carlyle Group, KKR, etc.) to aid and abet those hedge funds in their shorting activities, as well as speculation and leveraged buyouts across the healthcare sector, dramatically driving up costs, and later, during the 2007-2008 period, speculating oil costs dramatically upwards as well.

Got that???? A total financial frontal assault on the American citizen, American worker and small business owners/creators!

Over the past thirty to forty years, the criminal congress of America spends at least 90% of their time passing legislation to screw the American worker and citizenry, and they are doing it on behalf of their paymasters, the super-rich and their corporate overlords they employ.

Just recently, the InterContinental Exchange, or ICE, purchased the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). It was ICE which has been involved with a preponderance of financial manipulation and speculation of oil prices, commodities, etc., and is owned by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and the oil companies BP, Royal Dutch/Shell and Total. The NYSE, in turn, is part owner of that aforementioned DTCC (used in the naked short selling), along with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse.

The owners of the worldwide climate exchanges (carbon permits, cap-and-trade, etc.) is the holding company, Climate Exchange PLC, which is owned by Goldman Sachs and ICE.

Observe the extreme interlocking ownership and the resultant capacity for insider manipulation and insider trading --- and that's just the tip of the iceberg of financial manipulation and fraud.

http://www.ycsg.yale.edu/center/zedillo.…

http://www.group30.org/members.shtml