Uranus in Pisces: Swiss Banks & End of the Oligarchy

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Uranus in Pisces: Swiss Banks & End of the Oligarchy

By Theodore White Jr., judicial astrologer

In Mundane Astrology, world events are always prime, and we continue to witness the effects of a series of outer planet configurations showing that continue to shock the world about the state of the financial system.

On February 19, just two weeks after the second exact opposition between Saturn and Uranus, over 17,000 wealthy Americans woke to a shock. It had been reported that the U.S. Justice Department had struck a deal with the Swiss banking giant UBS (this is the awe part) to hand over their formerly secret identities to U.S. authorities.

Meanwhile, customers and investors with an American billionaire awoke to another sudden shock in the nature of Uranus, when it was revealed that they might have been the victims of a $9.2 billion dollar scheme. For more see below.

What often seems too surreal to be true is coming true, like some angry Black Hole running amok in a 500-page Ayn Rand novel, the world we thought we were living in, has been turned upside down, and inside out into a kind of mind-numbing, disoriented 'Alice in Wonderland' psychedelic nightmare with billions of investments and savings lost in Robber Baron orchestrated ponzei schemes, turning into ever more billions and then trillions of dollars gulped down into this raging Black Hole of non-existence, and taking along with it all our notions of common sense, financial security, fair play, decency and reality along with everything else.

World Transits:
Planetary Aspects & A Strange Green Comet Brings Dire Warnings
In another play on the intense energies of the Saturn-Uranus opposition on the Virgo/Pisces mutable axis, and with the transiting last quarter Moon conjoined to Pluto in Capricorn on Thursday, February 19, and as the Sun enters tropical Pisces, the world transits continue to usher in more proof that the world around all of us is changing, and that we can expect more sudden (Uranus) news of past events (Saturn) revealed and thus transforming (Pluto) how all of us see and live in the new era to come.

At this time, transiting Mars and Jupiter are conjoined to the Dragon?s Head in Aquarius, and transiting Mercury, recently stationed direct on Feb. 2, has picked up speed, and by early next week will also conjoin the North Lunar node, showing strong inclinations to open reveal the secrets of the past, which, in current astrological newspeak concerning world events, is also prologue.

Added to all of this planetary energy, a strange celestial object in the form of a shining green-colored Comet named Lulin, is transiting backwards, speeding at an incredible 5-degrees per day along the ecliptic to conjoin Saturn on February 24, and three days later will conjoin the Earth in tropical Virgo before it comes to conjoin the fixed star Regulus in its trek clockwise around the Zodiac.

We can see correlations to events on Earth, and warnings, as comets are seen in mundane astrology, of major world news just to come, the deaths of kings, and leaders, and the falls of important, wealthy people from past deeds and misdeeds along with their victims.

Comet Lulin, a rare parabolic comet, surely comes at a time of great changes on Earth. It's appearance and travel so close to the ecliptic and passages past Uranus in 2003, Mars in late 2008, and Saturn on Feb. 23, before conjoining the Earth four days later on Feb. 27 is no accident.

This comet is a warning for the planet, and we should all heed the current events and unprecedented happenings globally at this time, and in the near future. The comet will stay within our solar system through to the year 2018, when it passes the orbital line of Uranus 15 years after first conjoining Uranus and Neptune back in 2003.

This comet is a strong sign of major world events to take place from now to the later years of the next decade. We can expect to hear more stories like the one below, with consequences in the future that will lead several countries to the edge of anarchy, and some nations towards revolution due to the great chaos caused by the global economic crisis and the many players who horded and stole trillions in global wealth to feed their own hunger for greed and false power.

Another Multi-Billion Dollar Scheme: The "Sir" Allen Stanford Saga

In what seems to be story after story of incredible levels of financial fraud circulating the globe, from the $50 billion ponzei scheme of New York City's Bernard Madoff to the most recent revelations emerging from the alleged $8 billion investment and banking scheme of Houston, Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, Americans are being treated to near daily accounts of fraud after massive fraud with investors losing everything, banks failing, and customers fearing their bank will be next to be swallowed whole.

To date, another billion-dollar scam has hit the airwaves. This one comes in the form of Texas-bred billionaire, "Sir" Allen Stanford, who is being sought by the SEC for allegedly operating what authorities say amounts to an estimated $9.2 billion ponzei scheme to defraud investors and banking customers. The scandal is now spreading around the globe.

See ~ http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090220/wl_ ... nford_td_1

What was not generally known, but seen through mundane transits is the fact that Stanford?s banking empire has been allegedly bankrolled the Gulf Cocaine Drug Cartel, with the groups at war with one another since mid-2007, with an estimated 6,000 dead in Mexico, and with the war leaking into the Southwestern U.S., where kidnappings and hit squads are known to be operation.

With the current Saturn/Uranus opposition, this drugs connection is just now coming to light.

See ~ http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/ ... article.do

See ~ http://biz.yahoo.com/portfolio/090219/b ... .html?.v=1

A U.S. federal judge appointed a receiver to identify and protect Stanford's assets worldwide, including about $8 billion managed by his Antigua-based Stanford International Bank, which has affiliates in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Also frozen were assets of Houston-based Stanford Capital Management and Stanford Group Co., which has 29 brokerage offices around the U.S.

On Wednesday, February 18, while Stanford was trying his best with his credit card to get a private jet pilot who refused to fly him out of Houston to Antigua, it was reported that "hundreds of people rushed... to withdraw money from banks in Antigua and Venezuela linked to Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, as the fallout from U.S. fraud charges against him rippled across the globe." See ~ http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_stanford

The U.S. Forces Swiss UBS Bank To Come Clean

For the first time in history, the U.S. government has forced a major Swiss bank to reveal its secret American banking clients, and, actually managed to get them to hand over hundreds of millions in penalties in the process. For the Swiss to admit they did wrong is one thing, but to get them to reveal 17,000 Americans hording American wealth in their Swiss bank coffers is quite another.

UBS, the giant bank based in Zurich and Basel Switzerland, has agreed to pay the United States UBS $780 million in fines, penalties, interest and restitution for conspiring to create sham accounts to hide the assets of 17,000 U.S. clients from the U.S. government with estimated losses to the United States of over $20 billion through UBS alone.

The deal struck in U.S. Federal Court in Florida is unprecedented due to Switzerland?s strict bank secrecy laws and numbered bank accounts. However, Switzerland?s financial regulator ordered UBS to hand over its U.S. client data to the U.S. Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission ~ a first for a Swiss bank.

"The veil of secrecy has been pulled aside and we will continue to aggressively pursue those who shirk their federal tax obligations or assist others in doing so," the Justice Department said in a statement.

UBS Bank Website states ~

?UBS settles US Cross-Border Case with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
UBS is resolving investigations relating to its US cross-border business by entering into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and a Consent Order with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Today, UBS announced that it has entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and a Consent Order with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

As part of these settlement agreements:
? UBS will pay a total of USD 780 million to the United States, USD 380 million representing disgorgement of profits from maintaining the US cross-border business and USD 400 million representing US federal backup withholding tax required to be withheld by UBS, together with interest and penalties, and restitution for unpaid taxes associated with certain account relationships involving fraudulent sham and nominee offshore structures and otherwise as covered by the DPA.
? UBS will complete the exit of the US cross-border business out of non-SEC registered entities, as announced in July 2008, which these settlements now allow us to do in a lawful, orderly and expeditious manner.
?
? UBS will implement and maintain an effective program of internal controls with respect to compliance with its obligations under its Qualified Intermediary (QI) Agreement with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as well as a revised legal and compliance governance structure in order to strengthen independent legal and compliance controls.
?
? Pursuant to an order issued by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), information will be transferred to the DOJ regarding accounts of certain US clients as set forth in the DPA, who, based on evidence available to UBS, appear to have committed tax fraud or the like within the meaning of the Swiss-US Double Taxation Treaty.

Under the DPA, the DOJ has agreed that any prosecution of UBS be deferred for a period of at least 18 months, which is subject to extension under certain circumstances, such as UBS needing more time to complete the implementation of the exit of its US cross-border business. If UBS satisfies all of its obligations under the DPA, the DOJ will refrain from pursuing charges against UBS relating to the investigation of its US cross-border business. The agreements do not resolve issues concerning the pending ?John Doe? summons which the IRS served on UBS in July 2008.

Additionally, FINMA published today the results of the investigation conducted by the Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC). The SFBC concluded that UBS violated the requirements for proper business conduct, and it barred UBS from providing services to US resident private clients out of non-SEC registered entities. Further, the SFBC ordered UBS to enhance its control framework around its cross-border businesses and announced that the effectiveness of such a framework will be audited.

The order by FINMA in support of the resolution achieved with the DOJ was instrumental in averting the imminent risk of further negative implications and uncertainties for the bank.

"UBS sincerely regrets the compliance failures in its US cross-border business that has been identified by the various government investigations in Switzerland and the US, as well as our own internal review,? stated Peter Kurer, Chairman of UBS AG. "We accept full responsibility for these improper activities. We are firmly committed to the terms of the settlement agreements we have reached with the DOJ and the SEC. We are determined to fully comply with the terms of these agreements and will complete the process without delay.

"Client confidentiality, to which UBS remains committed, was never designed to protect fraudulent acts or the identity of those clients, who, with the active assistance of bank personnel, misused the confidentiality protections embedded in the QI Agreement with US authorities by providing false declarations regarding their tax status," Peter Kurer commented.

"It is apparent that as an organization we made mistakes and that our control systems were inadequate," said Marcel Rohner, Group CEO of UBS. "We will strengthen our compliance programs. UBS seeks to achieve the highest standards of compliance throughout its organization and is committed to fulfilling its obligations under the laws and regulations in every country in which it operates."

The cost for the settlement will be fully charged to the performance year 2008 and will be reflected in the audited results for 2008 to be published in March 2009.?

See ~ http://www.ubs.com/1/e/about/news.html?newsId=162297

Included is this Associated Press story out of Washington DC ~

February 18, 2009---WASHINGTON ? ?Banking giant UBS has agreed to pay $780 million and turn over once-secret Swiss banking records to settle allegations it conspired to defraud the U.S. government of taxes owed by thousands of American clients.

As part of the deal struck in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., UBS has made the unprecedented step of agreeing to immediately turn over to the U.S. government account information for U.S. customers of the bank's cross-border business.

In doing so, federal authorities have struck a big crack in Switzerland's vaunted bank secrecy laws.

UBS will pay $780 million in fines, penalties, interest and restitution for conspiring to create sham accounts to hide the assets of U.S. clients from the U.S. government.

The financial hit on UBS is more than double the penalty imposed by federal authorities just last month on a different international bank, Lloyds TSB Bank PLC, for helping its clients skirt U.S. sanctions against Sudan, Iran and Libya.

"We accept full responsibility for these improper activities," Peter Kurer, chairman of Swiss-based UBS AG, said in a statement. He added that the bank was determined to abide by the terms of the deal with U.S. criminal and securities officials.

"Client confidentiality, to which UBS remains committed, was never designed to protect fraudulent acts or the identity of those clients, who, with the active assistance of bank personnel, misused the confidentiality protections," he said Wednesday.

About 17,000 American clients concealed their UBS accounts from the IRS, hiding total assets of roughly $20 billion, U.S. officials said.
According to U.S. officials, when an acquisition in 2000 of a U.S. company brought UBS a host of new, American clients, the bank set about to evade new reporting requirements for those clients.

To do so, UBS executives helped U.S. taxpayers open new accounts in the names of sham entities.

Prosecutors contend that UBS executives used encrypted software and other counter-surveillance techniques to prevent anyone from detecting that they were actively marketing such Swiss bank secrecy ? and tax evasion ? to American taxpayers.

The clients, in turn, filed false tax returns that omitted the income they earned in their Swiss accounts, according to the court papers.
Federal officials said they had pulled aside a veil of secrecy that hid a corrupt international banking practice.

"This was not a mere compliance oversight, but rather a knowing crime motivated by greed and disrespect for the law," said Alexander Acosta, U.S. attorney for southern Florida.
Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman warned U.S. taxpayers hiding money overseas that it was time to come clean with Uncle Sam.

"People who have hidden unreported income offshore need to get right with their government. They should come forward and take advantage of our voluntary disclosure process," Shulman said.

U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., has estimated that abusive tax shelters and hidden offshore accounts cost the U.S. government nearly $100 billion a year in lost tax revenue.

Prosecutors are still hunting for UBS executive Raoul Weil, who was indicted in November 2008 on charges he conspired to defraud the government when he was managing the bank's cross-border business.

After the UBS settlement was announced Wednesday, Weil's lawyer Aaron Marcu said the charges should have been dropped against his client as part of the deal.

"Mr. Weil is an innocent victim of a political dispute between the United States and Switzerland over Swiss bank secrecy," Marcu said.

In June 2008 former UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld pleaded guilty to a similar charge.

If UBS fails to turn over the clients' information, or stops cooperating with authorities, federal prosecutors could re-file charges against the bank.
Under the deal, UBS also will completely stop engaging in the type of cross-border banking business that got them into trouble.?

See ~ http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ubs_secrets

Uranus in Pisces: Switzerland's Chart, and End of the Oligarchy

As for the UBS story, and Switzerland, I expect to continue to hear more about that country in the near future because of world transits.

Mundane Natal Chart For Switzerland's Constitution
September 12, 1848
11:12 a.m., LMT
Berne, Switzerland


The chart has an AC at 12-Scorpio, IC at 7-Pisces, and MC at 7-Virgo. These last two points, of course, are being affected by the current global Saturn/Uranus opposition, which, is also conjoined to Switzerland's Dragon's Head & Tail, or, the North & South Lunar Nodes at 21-Pisces (north node) and 21-Virgo (south node) located in the nation's Mundane Fourth & Tenth Houses.

Saturn in the constitutional chart is conjoined to Switzerland's South Node at 21-Pisces, with the Sun, Mercury, Venus & Mars clustered around the country's North Lunar Node at 21-Virgo.

Today, we find transiting Saturn & Uranus now on the mutable Virgo/Pisces axis, very close to the regions' lunar nodes ~ transiting Saturn conjoined to the North Lunar Node, in opposition to Switzerland?s natal Saturn (retrograde at 22-Pisces.)

Usually, when we find two planets conjoined to the sensitive Lunar Nodes at the same time, such as we do with Saturn/Uranus, we get radical changes, surprises, and intense pressure. This is happening now in Switzerland.

The UBS banking swindle, and secrecy surrounding the banking activities of this country and its banks are feeling the full force of the Saturn/Uranus opposition through contact with the country's lunar nodes.

The 1848 Swiss chart, and transits of that notable year for Europe, will see special changes for the entire European continent during the 2010s and into the 2020s, from my calculations.

There will be a number of squares from transiting Pluto in Capricorn to Pluto in late Aries in the 2020s, while many nations that received new constitutions from the events of the Revolution of 1848 in Europe will see Uranus returning to Aries, and a Neptune Return in Pisces.

Also, in the year 1848, there was a Uranus/Pluto conjunction in the latter degrees of Aries ~ this will be squared by transiting Pluto in Capricorn in the 2020s.

The geopolitical ramifications of what has been going on for a long time under cover of secrecy with billions upon billions of dollars, certificates of deposit, and gold, will be exposed by the time transiting Uranus reaches 21-Aries in the mid-2010, which is the natal position of Switzerland's own Uranus at 21-Aries in the 1848 constitutional chart.

When Switzerland experiences its Uranus Return in Aries in the years 2016-2017, much will have changed. Moreover, transiting Pluto will square Switzerland's natal Uranus from Capricorn, causing systemic and radical changes at the highest levels of government, and especially within its highly secretive banking community.

All this is connected to the rampant corruption, greed, theft, and hording of huge amounts of wealth over the last 29 years or so. The generation born in the 1920s, now having their own Uranus Returns in Pisces have basically used the baby boom generation to call in their bets on the world economy ~ which is why things are falling apart, more or less, in the global banking system, and in world trade.

This happens once every 80-84 years; with peaks and falls every 42.5 years. When Uranus returns to the sign (Pisces) where a specific generation was born, in this case, the current oligarchy born the last time Uranus was in Pisces (January 1920 to January 1928) ~ we are seeing that this group, where geopolitical power rests with a small elite segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family, military powers or occult spiritual hegemony is coming to terms with their own mortality.

The current transit of Uranus in Pisces is bringing their lives on Earth to an end. They know this, can feel it, and frankly, they are freaking out because they have had secret plans for many decades to "control the world" through their wealth and political influence. This is the so-called "new world order" that this particular Uranus in Pisces generation has been crafting since the end of the Second War World, and especially since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s.

The problem with Uranus is what you often want, you do not get. And, the plans a group, or generation makes in certainty, often are not seen in the unintended consequences that come along with Uranus' penchant for the unusual, unconventional, and, the un-natural.

This Uranus in Pisces oligarchy do not trust the Baby Boomer generation (who are their own children) who have been the managers, presidents, prime ministers, CEO's, bankers, public and private corporate leaders, framers of society since the late 1980s ~ but are now being called out, let go, with a small minority of baby boomers being kept in key areas to continue to do the bidding of the very old Uranus in Pisces generation, while their money-changers continue to horde as much wealth as possible, in a hope that this will somehow keep them alive for a few more years in total comfort.

Here is where theology and spiritualism enters. We all know that humans are born, live, and are deemed to die once by the laws of the Creator. What is happening with this generation is their deep realization that their time in history has come, and gone. They are overreacting, and as we can see in world news, they are overreacting very badly.

Expect the death rate for this generation of oligarchs to rise dramatically when Jupiter enters Pisces, and moves in to conjoin Uranus in 2010. There are always spikes in the death spikes when Jupiter makes such a transit, and I expect the years 2010-2011 to be one of those major years when we will see the passing of well-known and not so well-known personages of this particular current generation of the oligarchy and their associates.

We no longer live in the geopolitical world shaped by this Uranus in Pisces generation, the ones that lived through the Great Depression, fought in World War II, the Cold War years, and experienced the Space Race, Civil Rights Movement, and the Counter-Culture Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The last hurrah for this generation were the years of President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s, which looked back, not forward, and was a lost decade for much of the world.

This continued into the 1990s, and, via the Baby Boomer generation, into the first decade of the 2000s World transits are clear. Change is coming.

The Uranus in Pisces oligarchy has always been known for their very secretive ways, in principle with the Twelfth Mundane House of Pisces. With their natal and progressed Uranus in Pisces, many of these secrets are now emerging out into sunshine, forced by the ongoing Saturn/Uranus opposition. We can see this in the recent UBS case that the U.S. has been battling with Switzerland over, and won.

As Uranus makes transit through the last 10 degrees of tropical Pisces between 2009-2011, we are witnessing the passage into a new era that ends the one that began in 1928 for the world. This time now, to the ingress of Uranus into Aries in spring 2011, sees the setting of the Sun for those whose lives were shaped by the 20th century, and rises for a new generation as the next decade of the 2010s nears.
Theo

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?Saturn-Uranus?, ?Saturn-Uranus? ... and on and on. It's enough to make a person forget that the traditional planet of banks, bankers, wealth and the wealthy elite is Jupiter ? until current-age astrologers moved in, that is.

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It's enough to make a person forget that the traditional planet of banks, bankers, wealth and the wealthy elite is Jupiter
Not to mention Jupiter's association with laughter and mirth:
"The veil of secrecy has been pulled aside and we will continue to aggressively pursue those who shirk their federal tax obligations or assist others in doing so," the Justice Department said in a statement.
This is a riot given the string of tax cheats the Obama administration has nominated for cabinet posts (Including the Secretary of the Treasury) and said Justice Department looking the other way at the tax evasion by the current chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee - you know the committee that writes the tax laws.

Tom

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Furthermore nobody seems to have noticed that Jupiter and Saturn were in trine aspect from beginning 2007 till end 2008 (one month after the october crash of Iceland's index) which exact aspect occurred no less than five! times (mar, may 2007 jan, sep, nov 2008).

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I have been spending a great deal of my limited free time lately trying to understand the nuts and bolts of what has been going on with the world financial crisis...at least from the U.S.'s involvement in this whole mess. According to what I have learned, the current crisis has been in the making since at least the 1980's, if not before. Btw, historically in the U.S., there have been many cycles of depressions and bank panics and collapses...the worst most recent being the Great Depression.

Anyways, from the period of the Great Depression to the Reagan years, the government did not trust the banks or businesses and regulated and taxed them heavily. By the late 1970's, the pendulum swung so far as to create a stagnant economy along side crippling inflation...called "stagflation". In the Reagan years, policy changed to tax cuts for business and deregulation, which continued through the administrations of Bush, Sr., Clinton, and George W. In the last few years, the pendulum swung so far that banks have been essentially completely unregulated and the financial world became the Wild West.

In this Wild West atmosphere, banks were issuing and pushing mortgages for houses in mostly minority and poor areas with no money down, with adjustable rates, while telling people not to worry about the adjustable rate because they could just refinance. Also, because the U.S. tax code gives income tax deductions for mortgage interest, and not for other types, many people refinanced their unsecured debt, like credit cards and car loans into their houses.

Now if this was not bad enough, the banks were packaging, bundling, and selling pieces of these mortgages with pieces of other mortgages, in "mortgage-backed securities," AND were being rated as AAA ("extremely safe") investments. This means that one person's mortgage might be held by numerous people, such as an investor in China, one in Russia, and a little old lady in Florida in her pension fund. To make matters worse, the government allowed "credit default swaps", which were essentially bets on whether someone would default on their mortgage...so a default of a $100,000.00 mortgage could create losses in the millions. This was all based on the myth that housing prices would always rise. Now, I am not an economist by any means, but when I was reading about all of this, from a common sense standpoint, I kept thinking...."Well, what did people THINK was going to happen???!!!"

Astrologically, I think that looking towards the Jupiter-Saturn cycles would make the most sense here. Yes, much of this occurred during trines of Jupiter and Saturn, but the public found out about all of this in September, shortly after Jupiter went direct in Capricorn from its long retrograde period from May through September of 2008. Interestly enough, in my research I discovered that in February and March of 2008 (when Jupiter was in same degrees of Capricorn as it was in September and October of 2008), Congress already knew of the problem and debated giving relief to homeowners, but did not, under the guise of not wanting to protect people from their bad decisions. At that time Saturn was retrograde. Nothing was done until October, when both Jupiter and Saturn were direct.

Now, we have Jupiter in better shape in Aquarius, yet Saturn is retrograde again. Interestly, the conservative forces in the country have, for the most part, just completely dug in their heals...and we are hearing the same argument about the current plan to help homeowners.

I have wanted to take on the project of reviewing the Jupiter/Saturn cycles during the Great Depression and other past recessions/panics/depressions in U.S. history...to see if these can be used to predict the resolution of this current cycle...but, well, I have not quite gotten to that yet... :) .

As an aside:

This is a riot given the string of tax cheats the Obama administration has nominated for cabinet posts (Including the Secretary of the Treasury) and said Justice Department looking the other way at the tax evasion by the current chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee - you know the committee that writes the tax laws.

Well...I personally think that in order to raise money to pay for all of these stimulus packages, the government should audit the tax returns of all of the Congresspeople and Department Heads. I mean from the review of Obama's cabinet picks, we have already recovered at least $150,000.00 in back taxes...imagine if all of their tax returns were audited...imagine how much money would be raised.... :D

Cindy

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Well, I would say that you only have a common sense standpoint EXACTLY because you are not trained as an economist
LOL. You have a point here. One of the frustrating things watching the House and Senate debates on the economy is that all we are hearing is Congresspeople grandstanding...on both sides of the aisle....which tells me that no one really has any clue what to do! In talking with people about this, I was wondering why the Congresspeople are talking so much rather than listening to the supposed "experts", the economists. Someone than made the point that it was the "experts" who got us into this mess in the first place. I conceded the point. Interestingly the build-up to all of this happened during Saturn's sojourn through Cancer and Leo...both in detriment, and now Saturn is peregrine in Virgo with no power. It seems like the authorities and "experts" are useless right now.

Back to the original post in this thread, about the Swiss scandal...financial scandals have been happening throughout history...and certainly have played a huge role in U.S. history as well as English and European history. A really good book regarding the history and dynamics of the financial mess is The Ascent of Money, by Niall Ferguson. There is also a historical ficton novel that I just read, The Whiskey Rebels, by David Liss that is set in a major financial scandal in the begining of the U.S.

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Now if this was not bad enough, the banks were packaging, bundling, and selling pieces of these mortgages with pieces of other mortgages, in "mortgage-backed securities," AND were being rated as AAA ("extremely safe") investments.
The astrology is getting misplaced here, but I'd like to correct an increasingly popular misconception in the hopes of having the astrologers use more accurate information to improve their understanding and thus their astrology.

Mortgages have been packaged and sold as securities for a long, long time. I worked in this industry more than 25 years ago and we were doing it then, and it wasn't new. It is, in fact a good thing when sound lending practices are followed. What happens is that a loan is made at an interest rate. Loans are then packaged in what were called "blocks." A "block" 25 years ago, was a group of loans totaling $1 million. It's probably higher now. If the bank or lending institution had a block with an average return (interest rate) of say (I'm making this up) 7% they would sell the package or block usually to either Fannie Mae (government loans, VA mortgages or FHA mortgages) or Freddie MAC (private mortgages from banks and mortgages companies) for cash at less than the 7% average. This in turn allowed them to make more loans and in so doing increases the amount of available mortgage money thereby driving down interest rates which allowed more people into the home purchasing markets, and increases the value of the homes. Home prices are enormously influenced by the monthly payment amount. That amount is determined by the interest rate to a great extent. Supply and demand does the rest.

These agencies (Fannie and Freddie) would then package and repackage the loans and sell them to other agencies (banks and securities firms) as mortgage rates went up and down. This is a great system as long as the borrowers can afford the mortgages and the foreclosure rates are kept down. Most borrowers are unaware of this system as they continue to make their payments to the lender throughout the life of the loan. They assume the lender still holds the paper when in fact they are only servicing the loan (collecting the payments). Take it from me, you want your lender to service the loan but that's another story.

What happened is an awful lot of bad loans were made and the finger pointing begins here. Mortgage companies sprouted up, made a bunch of bad loans pawned them off to Fannie, Freddie and large banks, all of whom should have known better than to buy them but they did. The mortgage companies took their profits and ran - all perfectly legal, and if the loans didn't default perfectly harmless. The Government got into the act by insisting via a law passed in the Carter years and expanded during the Clinton years that allowed the creation of the little or no down payment loans and Janet Reno, Clinton's Attorney General, supposedly threatened banks that did not go along with these rules.

Things got bad. Loans went into default. Freddie and Fannie began lying about their financial condition and Congress went along with their stories and looked the other way to appease constituents who liked these loans. Rating agencies either through ignorance, arrogance, stupidity or all of the above kept telling investors everything was just fine and then POP the bubble burst when loan defaults got high, and lending institutions ran out of money. Banks made things worse on themselves by following all sorts of bad practices in an effort to hide the problems in the hopes of getting out of the game before it collapsed. It doesn't take much to cause a collapse either. Right now it is estimated that more than 92% of all mortgages in the US are up to date. Less than 8% caused the current problems in this industry (which triggered all the other problems). And 0% down mortgages are still advertised.

No more from me. I just wanted it on the record that buying and selling of mortgages is an old practice and when done right, enables people to buy houses and pay for them when they might otherwise not be able to do so. This is a good system. It promotes prosperity (as we all now know, the housing industry drives a lot of the economy) unless and until it is abused by borrowers and lenders and government, and we now know the consequences of that.

Tom

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Hi Tom,

I understand your point about selling mortgages being an old practice, and I agree to a point. Also the initial premise surrounding credit default swaps made sense, which in my understanding, was insurance against the borrower defaulting on the loan. What I found to be insane was reading that people could take credit default swaps on mortgages in which they were neither the borrower or the lender and did not have any interest in...which to me, just seems like legalized gambling. Also, the other problem is that now there is so much separation between the borrower and the ultimate holder of the note that there is not really anyone to work things out with if the borrower gets in trouble.

Now there is plenty of blame to go around, that is for sure. I tend to be harder on those that made millions off of all of this than I am on those who just got a fancier house than they could afford or a new plasma TV, but that is my own personal bias.

What you said, Tom, about the practice being old goes back to my point with respect to the astrology. It seems to me that what is happening now is part of a cyclical phenomonon...as would be seen from a planetary cycle such as a Jupiter/Saturn cycle, as opposed to a revolution or cataclysm from a comet or other such astrological event. I favor the Jupiter/Saturn cycle over a Saturn/Uranus cycle for two reasons 1) I have misgivings about the use of Uranus period; and 2) economic cycles are usually based on the optimism/pessimism of people...Jupiter/Saturn. As scary as things are right now, in reading the history of economics...things have been *much* worse at various times in history, and the economy has recovered. It will be interesting to see what happens as the Jupiter/Saturn cycle moves from the trine to the opposition in the next couple of years.

Cindy

Economists

11
yuzuru wrote:
Now, I am not an economist by any means, but when I was reading about all of this, from a common sense standpoint, I kept thinking...."Well, what did people THINK was going to happen???!!!"
Well, I would say that you only have a common sense standpoint EXACTLY because you are not trained as an economist


:lala
This is actually a very good point Yuzuru. For several years there have been critical views on how many economists made sense of credit derivitives (credit-default swaps) and the insurance instruments used to back the once vaunted securitized mortgage packages given high ratings and used by many investment banks and hedge funds to make and lose billions of dollars and Euros and other currencies around the world.

Derivatives are basically just "side bets" ~ gambling on the outcome of games, or events. Basically, many these bets were made via investments of trillions of dollars or, buying insurance via a bet that something will win, or will lose.

Considering the strength of Saturn's transit in opposition to Neptune, effective within orb from about August 2005 through to August 2007, along with other combinatory global transits of the outer planets, it is no surprise that many of these massive "bets" went bad. We are now seeing the consequences worldwide in the financial markets and in society.

Many of the computer models used by economists to justify the "sense" of betting on the massive credit-default swaps have been proven worthless. Few economists saw this, but those who did were horrified at the results, but were often placed on the fringe.

See ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHXuUx0vT0Q

Wall Street's Shadow Market ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y9A0C45 ... re=related

I cannot say that I see "Jupiter" as being the only planet involved with business, in the sense that it has been commented on. In mundane astrology, one has to see all the complex variables; especially among the superior planets, and how they play out over a period of time in the future, as well as in the past.

To do this, it is important to remember that any large planet nearing any of the angular points ~ Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn ~ always represents major world events, and energies that affect the Earth. We see several planets near, or at these cardinal points, with Pluto already at the southern solstice point of Capricorn, and Saturn and Uranus heading towards the two equinox angular points of Aries and Libra next year.

We are seeing a repeat of cycles related to something similiar back in 1920s and early 1930s with the current position of Uranus' transit in the 12th Mundane House of Pisces. The old legacy age of the 20th century is ending (1928-2011) and a new age will begin fully by the spring of 2011.

We are now in the global transition between the 20th century and the 21st century. Most transitions are difficult to adapt to; especially for those not used to having to adapt; however, Uranus' transit, and planetary configurations, as they relate to the other planets relative to the Earth is causing upheavals throughout the world which is easily been seen globally.

This will continue into the 2010s with Uranus' coming square aspect to Pluto in Capricorn (2012-2018.)

Moreover, the planetary configuration of Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto in their cardinal T-square of the early 1930s is about to repeat itself in 2010-2012, more or less, as Saturn enters Libra, and Uranus transits into tropical Aries, while both planets are squared by Pluto in Capricorn.

Called the Cardinal Climax, the mass psychology of the world is charted by the movements and configurations of the outer planets in a mundane graph called the Cyclic Index (CI) which you can see here ~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ00rZzK ... re=channel

Common sense will have to reign in a huge way in the times ahead. After the madness of financial speculation in the just past era of de-regulation of the financial industries worldwide, the global configurations continue to show great changes ahead which will be very eventful for a long time to come.
Theo

12
Jesus threw down the moneylenders' tables and chased them from the temple. Seems to me that this new paradigm is repeating a very very old pattern. Probably not a bad thing in the long run. I find this whole time period: the Jupiter/Saturn, Saturn/Uranus, Pluto ingress, etc. quite interesting, probably because I'm 'lucky' enough to not have anything to lose in the downsizing...no house, no assets, no millions lost in someone else's bank!

GH :)