Category Archives: Industry Jobs Oil Economics

Wells Fargo has no Shame

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Wells Fargo appears to have a history of fraudulent decision-makers and employers. Consider this a public service announcement for those account-holders of Wells Fargo. As noted in the LA Times, the city is suing the big bank.

But this is clearly not the first rodeo for Wells Fargo as in New York in 2013:

QUEENS ATTORNEY AMONG THREE INDIVIDUALS CHARGED IN $3.3 MILLION MORTGAGE FRAUD OPERATION

Defendants Face Up To 25 Years In Prison If Convicted

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown, joined by New York State Department of Financial Services Superintendent Benjamin M. Lawsky, today announced that three individuals – including a Richmond Hill attorney and his sister – have been charged with conspiring to commit mortgage fraud and larceny from Wells Fargo Bank by fraudulently obtaining mortgage funds in excess of $3.3 million pertaining to the purchase of six properties – including four in Queens – during a six-month period in 2008. More here.

Then there was a case with Freddie Mac.

WASHINGTON — Wells Fargo & Co. has agreed to an $869 million settlement with Freddie Mac over claims on home loans it sold to the government-controlled mortgage finance company.

The agreement announced Monday by Wells Fargo involves mortgages sold to Freddie before January 2009. Wells said the amount of the agreement was adjusted to reflect credits for previous claims payments, resulting in a cash payment to Freddie of about $780 million. Freddie and its bigger sibling Fannie Mae demanded that Wells Fargo and other big banks buy back mortgages they sold that later soured in the housing bust.

Now there is May of 2015, where the City of Los Angeles has Sued Wells Fargo:

CITY ATTORNEY FEUER FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST WELLS FARGO FOR ALLEGEDLY OPENING UNAUTHORIZED CUSTOMER ACCOUNTS

Complaint Also Alleges Wells Failed to Notify Customers of Unauthorized Use of Personal Information

LOS ANGELES – City Attorney Mike Feuer today announced that his office has filed a civil lawsuit against Wells Fargo, alleging the company has victimized consumers by opening customer accounts, and issuing credit cards, without authorization–then failing to inform customers of the alleged misuse of their personal information or to refund fees for unwanted services.

“Consumers should be entitled to expect that major financial institutions will treat them fairly,” said Feuer. “Our lawsuit alleges that in Wells Fargo’s push for growth the bank often elevated profit over its customers’ legal rights.”

The complaint alleges Wells Fargo’s business model imposed unrealistic sales quotas that, among other things, have driven employees to engage in unlawful activity including opening fee-generating customer accounts and adding unwanted secondary accounts to primary accounts without permission. These practices allegedly have led to significant hardship and financial loss to consumers, including having money withdrawn from customer’s authorized accounts to pay for fees assessed by Wells Fargo on unauthorized accounts and derogatory notes on credit reports when unauthorized fees went unpaid, causing some customers to purchase identity theft protection.

Furthermore, the complaint alleges that Wells Fargo failed to properly inform customers of misuse of their personal information and failed to refund unauthorized fees. Read more here on the press release.

 

 

 

Globetrotters: Who Flew With Hillary’s Planes

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Citizens United has filed yet more lawsuits against the U.S. State Department for being non-responsive on Freedom of Information Act requests to determine who rode with Hillary on her planes during her stint as Secretary of State. The passengers would add puzzle pieces giving clues to Foundation donations, lobbying efforts and backroom deals.

The Clintons are powerbrokers and they work with other domestic and foreign power leaders demonstrating more collusion.

Firm Co-Founded By Hillary’s Campaign Chair Lobbies For Russia’s Uranium One

Chalk it up to a small world or to a tangled web, but Uranium One, the Russian-owned uranium mining company at the center of a recent scandal involving the Clintons and a close Canadian business partner, has lobbied the State Department through a firm co-founded by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign chairman.

Senate records show that The Podesta Group has lobbied the State Department on behalf of Uranium One — once in 2012, when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, and once in 2015.

Uranium One paid The Podesta Group $40,000 to lobby the State Department, the Senate, the National Park Service and the National Security Council for “international mining projects,” according to a July 20, 2012 filing.

And according to a disclosure filed April 20, Uranium One spent $20,000 lobbying the Senate and State Department on the same issue.

The Podesta Group was founded in 1988 by brothers Tony and John Podesta. Tony Podesta now heads the group while John Podesta, who has not worked for the family business for years but has been involved in plenty of other projects, leads Hillary Clinton toward a Democratic nomination.

Uranium One is significant because it fell under the corporate control of Rosatom, Russia’s atomic energy agency, through a series of transactions approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department. Rosatom’s acquisition of Uranium One effectively gave Russia control of 20 percent of uranium in the U.S.

How all of that came to pass has fostered questions about how the Clintons operate their charity, the Clinton Foundation.

The Uranium One story starts in 2005 when Canadian mining magnate Frank Giustra and several business partners came to own a small mining company called UrAsia Energy. Clinton flew with Giustra in September 2005 on a private jet to Kazakhstan. There, the mining tycoon negotiated with that nation’s mining agency, Kazataprom, for rights to three mines. After Clinton appeared publicly in support of Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had just allegedly won an election with more than 90 percent of the vote, the mining deal was approved.

Months later, Giustra donated $31 million to the Clinton Foundation with a pledge of $100 million more.

In 2007, UrAsia Energy, with its access to Kazakhstan’s lucrative mines, merged with South Africa’s Uranium One in a $3.5 billion deal. Giustra sold his stake in the company soon after, pocketing a tidy profit. But other investors and executives with close ties to Giustra maintained their interests and donated millions more to the Clinton group. As money was flowing to the Clinton Foundation, the State Department, which came under the control of Hillary Clinton in January 2009, approved a series of transactions that allowed Russia’s Rosatom to buy up shares in Uranium One. By June 2009, Rosatom had a 51 percent stake in the company.

With that majority hold, the Russian energy company effectively gained control of 20 percent of the uranium in the U.S.

Rosatom has since taken complete control of Uranium One. And while there is little risk that the metal being pulled out of U.S. soil poses a direct threat to U.S. national security, it does give Russian President Vladimir Putin control of a major source of energy amid cooling diplomatic relations.

Though Uranium One’s corporate progression has the appearance of pay-for-play, the Clintons and Giustra have denied doing anything wrong. In his capacity as Clinton’s campaign chair, John Podesta has gone on the offensive, dismissing the notion that the Clintons have done anything illegal or unethical as a conspiracy theory.

But as evidence of just how complex the Clinton Foundation’s activities are, the website Vox.com published an exhaustive list of 181 Clinton Foundation donors who also lobbied the State Department during Hillary Clinton’s tenure there.

Uranium One is not on the list. Neither is Giustra. Nor is Ian Telfer, one of Giustra’s Canadian associates who is the former chairman of Uranium One. He donated $2.35 million through his Fernwood Foundation to the Canadian wing of the Clinton Foundation, which is set up as a partnership with Giustra.

After it was revealed that the Clinton Foundation had not disclosed some of its foreign donations — such as Telfer’s — the organization announced it would be refiling some of its tax forms.

 

Iran’s Free Pass on Hijacking Cargo Ships

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Members of the U.S. Congress insist on reviewing any agreement with Iran before it takes effect, largely over Israeli concerns shared by many in Congress over Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Zarif said Tehran does not want “to get bogged down into the domestic procedures of the United States” and was negotiating with the government.

He also said Iran was committed to maintaining freedom of navigation in the Gulf in the aftermath of the seizure of a commercial ship by Iranian forces on Tuesday. “For us, freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf is a must,” he said. More here.

A few days ago, Iran seized a cargo ship. The U.S. has no plan nor responsibility to free the ship as told by the U.S. State Department. The ship is owned by the United States by flies a Marshall Island flag. There is more intrigue.

Here’s Why Iran’s Seizure of a Cargo Ship Is So Odd, and Disturbing

While Revolutionary Guard boats often harass passing vessels, the capture of the MV Maersk Tigris appears to be something new:

No one knows why Iranian military forces seized a 52,000-ton container ship in the Strait of Hormuz, and that’s worrying. Nor is it clear what the U.S. Navy or anyone else can do about it.

The strait is one of the world’s great maritime chokepoints; among other cargo, nearly 20 percent of the world’s annual supply of crude oil passes through its 6-mile-wide shipping channel. From time to time, Iran threatens to close the strait to shipping, though any such move would be vigorously contested by the United States and other countries, and it’s doubtful that the passage would remain closed for long. Still, news about maritime threats in the strait can send tremors through global markets.

The MV Maersk Tigris — a brand-new cargo ship built to carry more than 5,400 standard shipping containers — was heading westward through the strait in Iranian territorial waters on Tuesday, according to Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren. It was approached by several patrol vessels of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, or IRGCN, the maritime arm of the paramilitary unit that is generally tasked with “preserving the Islamic revolution.”

So far, nothing terribly unusual. The IRGCN, assigned to patrol the Gulf, routinely sends boats to shadow — some say “harass” — vessels of other nationalities as they transit the strait. Just three days ago, CNN reported, four IRGCN boats surrounded the U.S.-flagged Maersk Kensington in the Strait of Hormuz and followed it closely for some time. The U.S. Fifth Fleet subsequently issued a notice to mariners.

What happened next to the MV Maersk Tigris, however, was quite out of the ordinary.

“The master was contacted and directed to proceed further into Iranian territorial waters,” said Warren. “He declined and one of the IRGCN craft fired shots across the bridge of the Maersk Tigris. The master complied with the Iranian demand and proceeded into Iranian waters in the vicinity of Larak Island.”

William Watson, a maritime consultant based in Washington, D.C., called the situation “very strange and peculiar.”

Iran, which claims the entire strait as its territorial waters, might legally board a vessel if it deviated substantially toward the Iranian coast, Watson said. But ships moving normally through the strait have the right of innocent passage, a right routinely and firmly asserted by U.S. warships, among thousands of other vessels.

Via its Fars News Agency, the Iranian government said, “The ship is a trade vessel and has been seized by the Iranian navy at the request of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization…The ship was seized after a relevant court order was issued for its confiscation.” The article said the IPMO had monetary differences with the ship owner.

Watson found this mystifying. If someone has a financial claim against a vessel’s owners, the claimant can “arrest” the vessel, or hold it until the dispute is resolved. But he added that in his decades of watching the world’s maritime trade, he’d never heard of such a thing done on the high seas. Arrests happen in port or at anchor, he said.

Soon after the container ship encountered the IRGCN boats, it sent a distress signal. The U.S. Navy responded by dispatching a guided missile destroyer, the USS Farragut, to have a look. As well, it sent a maritime patrol aircraft (the Navy has two kinds, the propellor-driven P-3 Orion and the jet-powered P-8 Poseidon).

It’s unclear what the Navy might do from here. The U.S. can act forcefully to protect ships under U.S. flag, and generally must lay off when a vessel is sailing under some other country’s banner. The Maersk Tigris is a bit in the middle; it flies the flag of the Marshall Islands, which in the wake of World War II placed itself under the military protection of the United States.

“NAVCENT [U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command] is communicating with representatives of the shipping company and we continue to monitor the situation,” Warren said. “According to information received from the vessel’s operators, there are no Americans aboard.”

The incident comes just days after the U.S. Navy dispatched an aircraft carrier and escort to ward off Iranian ships headed for the civil-war-wracked country of Yemen, and amid tense and ongoing negotiations surrounding the framework nuclear deal between Iran and other nations. It is also part of a long history of naval confrontations between the U.S. and Iranian forces; most dramatically, the daylong naval battle in 1988 in which the U.S. retaliated for the mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts by sinking two Iranian warships and damaging other assets.

Update (4/29): The day after the seizure, Maersk officials told Reuters they still did not know why their ship had been taken, and that they were working with Danish diplomats to learn more. The world’s largest shipping company, Maersk is based in Copenhagen.

Update 2 (4/29): Via the government’s IRNA news agency, Iran added a bit to its explanation for the seizure, saying that “the decree was issued upon a complaint lodged by a private company named ‘Pars-Talaeeyeh Oil Products Company’ against MAERSK Shipping Line. The case passed its legal proceedings and finally MAERSK was sentenced to pay financial damages….The [Navigation and Ports Organization] underlined that the issue is merely a legal case and has nothing to do with political issues.”

Update 3 (4/29): The website MarineTraffic produced this video showing the course of the MV Maersk Tigris before, during, and after its interception.

Now there are talks with the Marshall Islands about future interceptions. Officials from the United States and the Marshall Islands are discussing “the way ahead” after Iranian patrol boats forcibly diverted a cargo ship flying a Marshall Islands flag into an anchorage in Iranian waters, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

A US Navy destroyer, the Farragut, and three coastal patrol ships, the Thunderbolt, Firebolt and Typhoon, were operating in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz conducting maritime security operations following the detention of the cargo ship, the MV Maersk Tigris, the Pentagon said.

 

Malik Shabazz Invitation to Honduras

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As the media in recent days has interviewed the militant agitators in Baltimore, the responses contain the same rhetoric of police abuses. The operatives in Baltimore that have incited the riots and destruction are made up of gang members, political combatants, thugs and criminals. Their collective call to action is to impose unrest in cities across the country in a measure and scripted operation using ‘PURGE’ as their symbolic ethos.

In a statement released Monday, Baltimore Police say they have “received credible information that members of various gangs including the Black Guerilla Family, Bloods and Crips have entered into a partnership to ’take-out’ law enforcement officers,” according to the statement.

Simply said, they are demanding a change to police tactics, recrafting laws and sentencing applications that are all under the cover of non-violent narcotic use and trafficking. Their mission is to establish NO-GO zones.

 

NO GO zones are pockets of neighborhoods in towns across the country that are self-imposed and in some cases even barricaded off from civil authorities, meaning off limits to police, fire and the application of investigations and law. There are many of these zones already across America.

 

So, we should tender an earnest invitation to Malik Shabazz, the former leader of the New Black Panthers and now founder of Black Lawyers for Justice to take his operation to Honduras. Shabazz is part of a collisional mission with other organizations such as Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, the Louis Farrakhan sect known as the Nation of Islam, where these and other militant anti-American operations collaborate. Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador, Ecuador, Nicaragua are but a handful of breeding grounds that well satisfy their objectives being ripe for their nefarious leadership.

In recent years, analysts and U.S. officials have expressed ongoing concerns about the increasing rates of violent crimes committed by drug traffickers, organized criminal groups, and gangs in Central America.1 Central American governments, the media, and some analysts have attributed a significant proportion of violent crime in that region to youth gangs or maras, many of which have ties to the United States. U.S. concerns about gangs have accelerated as the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), a particularly violent group with ties to Central America, has increased its presence and illicit activities in the United States.

 

Estimates of the overall number of gang members in Central America vary widely, with a top State Department official recently estimating that there may be 85,000 MS-13 and 18th Street gang members in the northern triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras). In 2012, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated total MS-13 and M-18 membership in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras at a more modest 54,000 11 According to UNODC, in 2012 there are roughly 20,000 gang members in El Salvador, 12,000 in Honduras, and 22,000 in Guatemala. El Salvador has the highest concentration of gang members, with some 323 mareros (gang members) for every 100,000 citizens, double the level of Guatemala and Honduras. In comparison, in 2007, UNODC cited country membership totals of 10,500 in El Salvador, 36,000 in Honduras, and 14,000 in Guatemala.

 

Sharpton, Shabazz, Marc Lamont Hill (Morehouse College professor), Baltimore mayor Rawlings Blake and more of their ilk will find lawless paradise in Central and South America to their liking. They would have unfettered opportunities to rule those countries and create their own lawless empire that would include commerce, trade and trafficking. How sweet right?

Since there has been a change in leadership at the U.S. Department of Justice, where Eric Holder resigned and has been replaced by Loretta Lynch, the White House has driven the selective prosecution operation, Lynch will continue to apply this White House policy. The policy is titled “21st Century Policing”. The mayor of Baltimore, Rawlings-Blake is on that task force. This new policy from the White House is to re-tool the criminal justice system for the single benefit of criminals and places law enforcement into a permanent restrained condition.

 

None of this will result in a peaceful nation going forward. Inviting the criminal base to find a new area of operation may be the right solution and those criminal and militant soldiers operating in America can transfer with them. While hope is not a strategy, the facts remain the same with no cure in America without real leadership and the will to win our country back.

Muslim Brotherhood by the Missing Dollars

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The top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood is found here. And last month, Morsi himself was sentenced to 20 years in Egypt. The United States has gifted Egypt more than $1 billion per year since 1987.

The Muslim Brotherhood, just a few years removed from its political ascendancy, once again finds itself outlawed. Many of its leaders remain imprisoned, including former president Mohamed Morsi. Egyptian authorities have formally designated it as a terrorist organization. The Brotherhood’s political party, the Freedom and Justice Party, has been dissolved by court order. Many former Brotherhood members are in exile, and the Egyptian government has accused the group of fomenting violence, which it denies. According to one article in Foreign Affairs, “The Brotherhood’s stubbornness—even in the face of such severe setbacks—is not particularly surprising. Far from being a ‘moderate’ or ‘pragmatic’ organization, as many optimistic analysts once described it, the Brotherhood is a deeply ideological, closed vanguard.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has been accused of taking 10 billion Egyptian pounds (U.S. $1.5 billion) from the American government, according to claims by Egyptian lawyers.

An immediate investigation into the accusation was ordered by Prosecutor General Talaat Abdallah on Thursday.

The lawyers, Mohamed Ali Abd al-Wahab and Yasser Mohamed Sayab, filed the complaint against the Muslim Brotherhood for the allegedly illegal money transaction, Egypt’s private daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported on Jan. 3.

Translated:

The National Coordinating Committee for the recovery of funds and assets of smuggled Egyptian, headed by Justice Minister, Saber archives Monday, regular meeting with Committee members, to operate to speed recovery.
The Committee discussed, during their regular meeting, follow-up to the legal and practical measures for the recovery of funds and assets of contraband for codes and systems Morsi, in coordination and cooperation with the organs concerned, under the rules of the international cooperation on measures and practical steps to recover the funds.

And the Committee on the recovery of funds, membership Advisor Yusuf Osman, Assistant Minister of Justice for graft, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the unit for combating money laundering and terrorist financing, and a representative of the international and cultural cooperation at the Ministry of Justice, a representative of the public prosecutor and the Director of the public funds Investigation Department of the Ministry of the Interior, and a representative of the national security agency, and a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a representative of the administrative control authority, a representative of the Central Bank.

Statistical daily spotted  “witness ” Kuwait 17 companies financed terrorist groups in Kuwait, through decades of studies and consulting, and Government contracts and tenders for electronic parts worth 186 million, causing its exposure to losses exceeded 90% of the capital in the past 10 years, because of its focus on the financing of the international regulation of terrorist brotherhood, and personal interests.

These companies suffered losses exceeding 90% of the capital in the last 10 years because of its focus on the financing of the international regulation of terrorist brotherhood–suggests that many of the companies approached the disappearance from the scene, the brotherhood in the financing objectives of the citizens ‘ money to kill innocent people in neighboring States, and that funding for the brothers from Kuwait during the year 2011 amounted to 600 million, and in 2012 the corporate finance 450 million and in 2013 have turned through Turkey More than 350 million dinars.

The statistics confirmed that the 17 companies assets recorded a decline of up to 80% by last year’s financial results, due to loss of funds in the financing of the special interests of the community and those companies with financing terrorist groups by nbfcs, and transfer money through private companies, and a difficult tracking methods.

And companies that financed the Community Government bids and contracts from Kuwait and other neighboring countries, spearheaded by many known and calculated investment blocks, this was not the first case, reiterated these scenarios in Gulf States raised issues and is trapped by the provisions, as well as the companies that went bankrupt, and the 17 companies, Government and capital lost, leaving only the cries of small investors.

And petroleum investments, referring to the loss of investment in renewable energy technology fund, with $ 12 million from 2008 to 2013, 6 million dinars, while the real estate sector has seen successive losses in the same period amounted to 700 million dinars, raising question marks about the evolution of the finance and investment community hidden in many States. ***