Internet Payment Processor Liberty Reserve Accused of Laundering $6 Billion 205
pdclarry writes with a followup to this weekend's story that Liberty Reserve, a huge international payment processor, had been shut down and its founder had been arrested.
"Liberty Reserve, apparently the Internet bank of choice for criminals, as reported by the NY Times, Wired and Business Week, has been accused of laundering over $6 billion dollars. Incorporated in Costa Rica in 2006, Liberty Reserve allegedly 'facilitated global criminal conduct' and was created and structured 'as a criminal business venture, one designed to help criminals conduct illegal transactions and launder the proceeds of their crimes,' Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in an indictment (PDF) unsealed today. Chatter on criminal web sites show a rising sense of panic as fortunes have disappeared in an instant."
Re:as opposed to the 300 trillion (Score:5, Informative)
I'll just leave this right here...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/may/23/hsbc-court-threat-money-laundering-charges
Re:as opposed to the 300 trillion (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, one thing is clear. Liberty Reserve didn't donate enough to Obama's campaign to get a slap on the wrist and and a cabinet post.
I don't think that's the issue here: According to opensecrets.org, in the 2012 cycle, HSBC gave only about $30K to Obama and $23K to Romney. By comparison, Goldman Sachs spent about $8 million on lobbying and "donations" (a.k.a. bribes). So I don't think HSBC bought them off at the highest level, I think they might have simply offered some extremely well-paid and cushy jobs to the bureaucrats investigating their crimes to convince them that they couldn't find specific wrongdoing on the part of specific people.
But put me in the camp that says that both HSBC execs and Liberty Reserve execs should probably be in jail for this. Or even better, you might take George Carlin's advice:
And you know, in this country, now there are alot of people who want to expand the death penalty to include drug dealers. This is really stupid. Drug dealers aren't afraid to die. They're already killing each other every day on the streets by the hundreds. Drive-bys, gang shootings, they're not afraid to die. Death penalty doesn't mean anything unless you use it on people who are afraid to die. Like... the bankers who launder the drug money. The bankers, who launder, the drug money. Forget the dealers, you want to slow down that drug traffic, you got to start executing a few of these bankers. White, middle class Republican bankers.
Re:Keep your eyes on the real criminals (Score:5, Informative)
the federal reserve corporation pumped out trillions of dollars to mask banker fraud
No they didn't. The Federal Reserve pumped out trillions of dollars because that's what the Federal Reserve is supposed to do in a recession. They pumped out a lot of cash after the S&L collapse in the 1980's too, when the bankers weren't protected and many went to jail.
And I'm not saying the Fed shouldn't be questioned or examined, but that's not in the category of things they've done that's actually wrong or fraudulent in some way.
Re:What is 300 trillion ? (Score:2, Informative)
They never "create" money. The Fed increases the money supply through Mx. Which has a proportional affect on inflation.
Re: What is 300 trillion ? (Score:3, Informative)
So even if you work more and more, the government dilutes your work so you will be as if working the same as usual?
No. It means if you stuff all your money under your mattress and don't do any work at all you're not entitled to a share of a growing economy.
Re: What is 300 trillion ? (Score:5, Informative)
"We" dont do any of this. A cabal of the best connected and wealthiest bankers in the country do it
Do you understand that banker are creditors, who benefit from a strong currency? So if their unenlightened self interest is the opposite of what they are doing, why are they doing it? Maybe because they (along with 99% of all economists) believe that we all benefit from expansionary monetary policy during recessions?
When they inflate the currency, they dont create new value - they just suck some of the value out of the old currency.
Except that inflation is near record lows, despite trillions in new money. When unemployment is at 10% and factory utilization is below 80%, there is plenty of slack for "new money" to create real value by putting labor and capital to work.
Of course they try to restrain their greed ...
Could you please explain how a creditor diluting the currency can be considered "greedy"? You might want to read some history books. In the past the conspiracy nuts were accusing the bankers of suppressing the "common man" by doing the exact opposite of what they are doing today. The most eloquent expression of this was the Cross of Gold [wikipedia.org] speech by William Jennings Bryan.
Wow, that's confused (Score:2, Informative)
"Do you understand that banker are creditors, who benefit from a strong currency?"
They don't care, they lend in dollars and receive dollars, not lend in dollars and receive euros. They don't benefit from a strong dollar, they benefit from receiving more dollars.
"Except that inflation is near record lows, despite trillions in new money."
Implosion + Explosion = zero
Without the money printing, the economy is contracting. People who made successful things should be getting richer as the dollar increases, but instead the banks are, by money printing.
"Could you please explain how a creditor diluting the currency can be considered "greedy"?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation
GP post was 100% correct, a clear understanding of what happens. You create things of value, the banks print the money corresponding to it, and spend that. When the USA is contracting, the money supply contracts, they print more dollars and spend those to balance it out. It's a unfair system that hands wealth to bankers.
The bankers put the money largely into fake Wallstreet assets (CDS's CDR's Derivatives etc. are simply betting slips where the bookies both accept the bank bets and borrow money from the banks to pay out). The great thing about these assets is the Chinese can't make them cheaper, because they cost nothing to make! So you create money, stuff it into fantasy assets less solid than Bitcoins, and that money dilutes the dollars to stop deflation.
" In the past the conspiracy nuts were accusing the bankers of suppressing the "common man" by doing the exact opposite of what they are doing today."
In the past present and future, people without arguments use the 'conspiracy nuts' claim as a weak ad hominen attack.
Re:as opposed to the 300 trillion (Score:4, Informative)
An American judge order the splitting of the HONG KONG SHANGHAI BANK OF CHINA? Yes, that's what HSBC means.
The last "C" stands for "Corporation", actually, but close enough.
HSBC was created when Hong Kong and Singapore were territories of England. They moved their headquarters to London before the English handed back Hong Kong to the Chinese (end of the 99 year lease). HSBC, despite being named Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation are a UK company and realistically, always have been.
Now it feels odd using this argument FOR the United States but...
HSBC do business in the US, so they are subject to US laws and judgements.
Re: What is 300 trillion ? (Score:3, Informative)
That is a huge problem with deflationary economies - when something that costs $1 today may cost $0.90 tomorrow - people end up hoarding the money. After all, what idiot would spend the dollar today when tomorrow they can spend 90 cents and get the same thing. Repeat "tomorrow" as forward as you want. It. Sure there will always be SOME economic activity (people need to eat, after all), and some things like rent and such are fixed (so landlords get richer because their money gets more valuable. Ironically, it also leads to rent stability because landlords won't want to evict tenants paying higher rent). And you have unemployment (because labour is a good money gets spent on).
This was a huge problem with non-fiat currency - basically the mining of gold was holding back the economy.
Of course, the reduced economic activity caused by deflation induces a recession which gets people to be even more tight-fisted.
Never a bad plan, and generally a good thing. But of course, if people aren't spending because they're afraid they'll lose their jobs and houses, it's a real danger.
Low interest rates are a blunt solution, as you're fuelling it with credit spending - while credit itself isn't a bad thing, if people are buying on credit now it just means it's artificially fueled growth.
The best solution would be to figure out why society feels unstable - if people are afraid of losing their jobs, then it leads to people hoarding and saving and reduced economic output (and ironically, more job losses as people aren't spending).
We may actually be stuck - you can't have good work without people spending money, and if people aren't spending money and generating economic activity, good work can't be produced. The only way to get a functioning economy again is to get people to earn money and spend it. Right now all that's happening is a lot of early economic expansion is being paid back, but while the money is flowing to creditors, creditors aren't spending it resulting In a stall.