Re: Nancy Leider, Anti-American, etc

Jon Kvebaek wrote:
> 
> The Small Kahuna <person@company.com> writes:
> 
>> Jon Kvebaek wrote:
>>>
>>> Nancy Lieder <zetatalk@zetatalk.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>> Now, how was I, Nancy, to know that?  More on how, by attacking JP
>>>> Morgan affiliates, the US elite would suffer ahead of the European
>>>> elites.
>>>
>>> Silly bint.  Bin Laden has investments throughout Europe and other
>>> places - and you think a single account in one bank constitues proof
>>> of your farfetched right-wing ideas?  Neither you or your imaginary
>>> friends seem to have any grasp of international finance (or reality
>>> for that sake).
>>
>> Uh, Bin Laden is reported to have inherited the equivalent of $300
>> million US.  It is simply inconceivable to me that you could hide this
>> amount of money.
> 
> Ever heard of money laundring?  Charities?  He makes extensive use off
> these, and has a number of legel investments to help with just that.
> Of course, all the money is not hidden in one place.  Earlier today
> (and yesterday) both France and the US have frozen accounts they
> believe to be controlled by Bin Laden.

Of course I have heard of money laundering.  In order to launder money,
you have to take a large amount of money and move it through people,
organizations and financial institutions that, for whatever reason, look
the other way.  Doing this frequently enough makes the trail difficult
to follow.  The bottom line is that it is not possible to launder money
without the complicity of another agent.

I find it *incredibly* ironic that we were not able to find Bin Laden's
bank accounts after the first WTC bombing, after the bombing in Saudi
Arabia or after the embassy bombings in Africa.  Suddenly, after "only"
two weeks we manage to find it?  Give me a break.

The difference between this case and the previous cases is very simple. 
In previous cases we sat and wrung our hands and said "What is to be
done?".  In this case, we went to where the trail stopped and threatened
them in very unambiguous terms.  Suddenly, those with foggy memories and
missing data were able to discover the trail?

> 
>> In the US our banking laws have been written specifically to take
>> into account that a banker has the ability (and obligation) to know
>> a lot about a client.  That is because if you walk into the bank
>> every single day with a $3000 to $5000 cash deposit and periodically
>> make off-shore wire transfers for a significant amount of money, it
>> does not take a brainiac to figure out that you are doing something
>> illegal.
> 
>> If the banker simply looks the other way and says to themselves
>> "well, I have no proof, so I'm not going to say anything" they are
>> still violating US law, and if they get caught are gonna be looking
>> at a money laundering charge.
> 
> Bank workers can be bought.  Anyway, I think a money laundering charge
> isn't much of a treath to a sworn terrorist.

Neither, apparently, is death.  If you cannot even hold the fear of
death over someone, it clearly limits the degree of control or fear you
can inspire.  For this reason, I agree that the charges are
meaningless.  However, this is not the case for bankers, who form the
other half of this evil pair.  You get the terrorists by going after the
bankers because without the bankers, the terrorists cannot feed
themselves, and they starve. (I'm speaking metaphorically, not literal
starvation from lack of food.)  The problem is many jurisdictions have
decided, for whatever reason, to set themselves up as safe havens for
illegal activity with their banking laws.  In these cases, if you peel
back the layers of bull shit you will find not freedom but greed.

> 
>> Bottom Line: you cannot "hide" $300,000,000.  The drug dealers can't
>> do it, the mafia cannot do it, the CIA cannot do it, and neither can
>> Bin Laden.
> 
> Drug dealers world wide hide a *lot* more than a measely 300 million
> dollars.

Uh, wrong.  They have a lot more than a measly $300,000,000 but it is
not "hidden".  In fact it is in plain sight, it is just held where the
banking laws encourage and protect illegal activity so the banks in that
jurisdiction can skim off their take.  The difference between the
so-called 'drug war' and this so-called 'war against terrorism' is that
we have never gone to the bankers and held a gun to their heads (again,
I'm being metaphorical) like we did recently with Bin Laden.  "This time
we are serious.  No, really..."

> 
>>> You may have noted that the attack has *not* gained the European
>>> markets either, as your loony theory suggests.
>>
>> Well, maybe, maybe not.  Using derivatives and options one can make
>> money regardless of the *absolute* direction of the market,
>> particularly if you have advance knowledge of a likely direction.
> 
> Of course.  But do you really think a lasting decline would benefit a
> conspiracy of bankers as described in Nancy's insane rants?

There was an add that ran on US television a few years back where the
tag line was "its not what you earn, its what you keep".  If Nancy is
right and the bankers know she is right, they will not be interested in
ROI in an absolute sense, only in "losing less".  As economies rise and
fall, fortunes increase and decrease.  It is not whether or not you have
$1B or $1.5B  or $10B or $1T, it is whether or not your power base has
increased in proportion to the total size of the pie as it exists at
that instant.  Its not the surface area of the pie that these people
worry about, it is the angle of the slice.  Lets face it, after the
first $10,000,000 you have access to all the possible material goods
that exist, so it is not about money any more, it is about power.  Bill
Gates spent $60,000,000 on a house not because he lives any better than
someone who "only" spent $5,000,000 but because he is making a
statement: "I'm rich and powerful enough to piss away more money than
you will *ever* see in your lifetime on a friggin' house."

> 
>> The only people who really lose out on this are ordinary people like
>> you and me.  I have been watching my retirement account disintegrate
>> for quite some time now but there is nothing I can do about it.  So
>> while *my* account is down by 50% (and frankly, I'm one of the lucky
>> ones) I notice that the brokerage houses and banks seem to be
>> holding it together.
> 
> We all lose - persons, companies (look at the insurance and airport
> industry) and banks.  Nancy's theories are too stupid.
> 
> The only "conspiracy" I can see here is that of a small group of
> organisations/individuals, not a slew of European banks.  Only a
> right-wing american conspiracy kook could come up with such
> ideas. Like Nancy Lieder.

Conspiracies do not come about because people meet in dark rooms in back
alleys and plot the overthrow of the world.  People tried this and ended
up in jail.  Conspiracies come about because people look at the same
situation, and come to similar conclusions.  They come about because
there is communication between people on many levels, verbal, body
language, actions, paradigms.  The mafia boss does not say "did you kill
him?" but something arguably ambiguous like "did you handle the
situation?" - specific words were not used but the point is clear.

The airlines cannot collude to fix prices, but they all use the same
computer system.  One airline raises rates on a route and watches the
behavior of the other players.  Sometimes, other airlines choose to
compete, and sometimes they choose to cooperate.  But it is still price
fixing, it just uses an extremely awkward and difficult to master syntax
and semantics.  Nobody makes a phone call or meets in a dark alley.  And
it is legal because the law is written to detect "overt" communication,
not because prices are not, in fact, being fixed.

Its Prisoner's Dilemma, only at a much higher level.

> --
> Uri Geller bent my girlfriend.