Which Wall Street Criminals were responsible for today's crash?

Short answer: All Of Them.

Long answer: Some are more responsible than others.

For example, there is Charles and David Koch employee, Stephen Moore.
After Friday's dramatic 666 point sell-off, Moore was concerned that mom and pop small investors might sell and leave rich people holding the bag if the market crashed on Monday...which ultimately it did.
So he got on CNN.

After the market plunge on Friday, Moore was on air at CNN by Saturday afternoon urging the little guy to stand pat.

When queried about the Friday stock market selloff Moore stated: “Well, I want to try to walk people off the ledge here…I mean, it was a terrible day, no question about it, 670 points. A lot of points to lose on the Dow. But remember the Dow has been up 6,000 points or so over the last 14 months or so. So it’s given up about 10 percent of the gains. Look, the worst thing people could do right now is go out and sell their stock, especially if you are in a retirement fund, a 401(k). Just you know, in fact, I would say, you know, a lot of times you want to buy on the dips because stocks fell, and I would anticipate next week they will go up.”

Mission accomplished!

Don't hold it against the financial media.
Their job is to sell financial products, even if they have to lie to you.
To give you an idea, consider these two headline that were posted within an hour of each other.

Marketwatch: Stock-market volatility surges, but VIX traders aren’t panicking yet

Business Insider: The stock market's fear gauge spikes the most on record

Guess which headline is accurate?
Yep, the second one.

The Cboe Volatility Index — or VIX — spiked 84% on the day, its biggest single-day increase of all time, according to data going back to 1990.
The VIX reflects expectations for volatility in the S&P 500, and trades inversely to the benchmark roughly 80% of the time.

Let's put that in perspective: the VIX - which measures fear in all Street traders - spiked more today than when terrorists were flying airplanes into Manhattan skyscrapers, or when Lehman Brothers went under.
...but traders aren't panicking.

I should point out that "traders" might give you the wrong impression, because we aren't talking about actual people.

While it’s impossible to say for sure what was at work when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as much as 1,597 points, the worst part of the downdraft felt to many like the machines run amok. For 15 harrowing minutes just after 3 p.m. in New York a deluge of sell orders came so fast that it seemed like nothing breathing could’ve been responsible.
...“We are proactively calling up our clients and discussing that a 1,600-point intraday drop is due more to algorithms and high-frequency quant trading than macro events or humans running swiftly to the nearest fire exit,” said Jon Ulin, of Ulin & Co. Wealth Management in Boca Raton, Fla., in an email.

Oh, well. That's OK then.
You know what caused it. It was the machines, not the people.
So you are going to turn them off now, right?

No? You aren't going to turn them off?
Then why the FUCK would what you just said reassure me?!?

“What was frightening was the speed at which the market tanked,” said Walter “Bucky” Hellwig, Birmingham, Alabama-based senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management, who helps oversee about $17 billion. “The drop in the morning was caused by humans, but the free-fall in the afternoon was caused by the machines. It brought back the same reaction that we had in 2010, which was ‘What the heck is going on here?”
It may never be clear what accelerated the tumble -- people still aren’t sure what caused the flash crash on May 6, 2010.

Except we do know what caused, or at least was a major culprit in the 2010 flash crash - high-frequency traders.

You might recall the Michael Lewis' book Flash Boys.
In one sentence, high-frequency trading is front-running. Which in theory is illegal.

The financial media immediately revealed the truth to the public.

Forbes: Flash Boys And High Frequency Trading: Trust Markets, Not Regulators

CNBC: High-frequency traders can’t front-run anyone

Oh, right. They denied everything, even the obvious.
The good news is that the financial media, the analysts, and everyone else is consistent.

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and another set of laws for the wealthy

If you’re a citizen of the United States and commit a felony, it’s a big deal. If you’re a Wall Street bank and commit a felony, it’s business as usual.

In January 2014, JPMorgan Chase was charged with two felony counts by the U.S. Department of Justice for its involvement with Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme but given a deferred prosecution agreement, meaning if it kept out of trouble for two years, the government would dismiss the charges. The bank also agreed to pay $1.7 billion into a restitution fund for the victims of Madoff’s fraud.

After reading the documents released by the Justice Department in connection with the settlement, the Los Angeles Times asked in a photo caption: “Bernie Madoff: Was he part of the JPMorgan ring, or was JPMorgan part of his ring?”
...
The very following year, on May 20, 2015, JPMorgan Chase agreed to a third felony count brought by the U.S. Justice Department, this time for its involvement in rigging foreign currency markets.

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@gjohnsit
but a lot can happen in the next 8 hours

Dow futures slumped more than 800 points, or 3.5%, early Tuesday morning, suggesting the turmoil of the past few days is set to deepen.

The Dow has already plummeted more than 1,800 points over the previous two trading sessions. Monday was particularly brutal: the index tumbled a record 1,175 points. The 4.6% plunge was the Dow's worst day since August 2011 and knocked it into the red for the year.

The tremors also spread to the other side of the globe, with stocks in Asia plummeting overnight. Japan's Nikkei lost more than 6%, while stocks in Hong Kong dropped nearly 5%.

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WaterLily's picture

@gjohnsit I, of course, was outraged by the story.

Little did we know how relevant it would become, AGAIN, within hours.

Fuck Wall Street.

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Mark from Queens's picture

@WaterLily
instead of the mega conglomerate Wall St Economic terrorists that colluded to crash the economy for their own personal gain.

Emblematic of a corrupt bought and paid for justice system in service of the elites DA, Cyrus decided to use a little family-owned Chinatown bank to show how "tough" (for a comparatively tiny crime) he was on bankers by frog-marching out a bunch of employees in chains before tv crews for his grand phot-op. Wouldn't dare do that at JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs or Wells Fargo, now would he. Scumbag. In a scumbag system. Two-tiered justice is what we've got in America. Everyone in positions of law enforcement and prosecution are on the take. Another component of unbridled capitalism: everyone wants a little more, because there is no real social safety net that says you won't ever have to live in poverty in old age, or be foreclosed upon for a medical emergency, have to save every penny for kids' education, etc (which is what socialism is).

There is no "rule of law" whatsoever here. It's an arbitrary cruel joke; pure propaganda to get you to think we live in the Greatest Country In the World - when really the evidence shows something more like a banana republic, which is what the rest of the world sees pretty clearly (everyone but us, blinded by faux patriotism and jingoism). The unwritten rule is, if you have the money and power you buy your immunity.

The rest of his brilliant book portrays this whole fraud by juxtaposing the stories of black and brown kids in NY being churned up in a dystopian criminal justice system for things like loitering, swiping a metro card for someone, while the serious high crimes of stealing from pensioners and homeowners go unpunished. Highly recommended read.

Where did you see a film on Abacus, and what was the angle taken (who made it)?

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

WaterLily's picture

@Mark from Queens Tracks closely to Taibbi's (thanks for mentioning The Divide, as I somehow missed it; it's now on my short list). Taibbi appears in the film, in fact.

While I hate patronizing Apple, we rented it on iTunes for 99 cents. May still be available at that price.

Here's the trailer. Steve James directs -- and it shows.

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to program machines to be afraid. As FDR said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

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around the world is what I expect today. Even market insiders are warning investors to "buckle up" for today's expected continuation of the blood bath. As if there's anywhere to hide.

Why small investors and 401K's continue to put any faith in our financial markets is beyond me. The large institutional traders may make it to the exit doors or hedge their bets on derivatives and avoid the brunt of a major collapse but everyone else takes it on the chin. Makes you wonder if it isn't designed to periodically fleece the little fools who keep coming back with dreams of big gains and a plush retirement.

Talk about a wealth redistribution program.....this one goes right to he top.

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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

divineorder's picture

@ovals49 us with fixed benefit government pensions have to perennially fight back the wolves and vultures circling at the state legislatures to change us over to 401ks.

https://www.actionnetwork.org/letters/dont-let-your-pension-be-destroyed...

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Lookout's picture

@divineorder

They own Georgia-Pacific which owns a lot of Alabama. The forest industry is a major player in AL politics.

So the Koch's set up a dept. at Troy whose sole purpose was to discredit our state pension program.
http://www.rsa-al.gov/uploads/files/Koch_s_Latest_Propaganda_Disaster__A...

Fortunately the director of our system (a smart man) managed to shoot them down.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Mark from Queens's picture

@ovals49

Makes you wonder if it isn't designed to periodically fleece the little fools who keep coming back with dreams of big gains and a plush retirement.

When I first got a company 401k during the 90's I eventually put it all in the stock market. Over the years made some gains, lost some and then steadied out. I should have learned my lesson before.

One of my best friends from college who graduated a few years before me became a broker in the late 80's. For a minute there I got wide-eyed with the seeming excitement of what really amounts to gambling, nothing more and nothing less (something I've never had a fancy for). He and his colleagues, a number of whom I'd meet and hang out with, always seemed to be driving nice new cars and living the high life.

But it quickly seemed vapid to me, and furthermore something didn't add up. Seemed only the guys who had inside information made big bucks. I smelled a rat and got out for good. I was too young and naive and influenced by a couple of really good friends who were into wheeling and dealing. My account however, went up and down, up and down, and always with a knot in my stomach. In the end I concluded I probably broke even. All that fleeting stuff was never my style at all anyway. But I did move my 401k to stocks thinking that a diversified fund should be fairly insulated.

Learned my lesson for good after 2008. Moved all my 401k out of the market.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

@Mark from Queens left the market after what the wolves left us in 08. Hiding in short term CD's with the local banks now. Would think employees could opt out of markets. Employers don't own their money?

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@QMS
how much someone would have to put aside for retirement each month at 1% interest to generate a 401K or IRA account that, along with social security, would provide say 80% of the person's prior income?

It isn't greed. It's desperation.

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Cassiodorus's picture

I'm imagining the floor traders: "Now it's down 667 points -- OK, buy just a little bit... and, there!" (closing bell rings)

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus

I'm imagining the floor traders: "Now it's down 667 points -- OK, buy just a little bit... and, there!" (closing bell rings)

It was Satan.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

@Timmethy2.0
sending a message to fundamentalist preachers supporting Trump. What better place to get their attention?

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The Aspie Corner's picture

over who is to blame for this shit.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Lookout's picture

Bitcoin is up a few points though.

The world of high finance is beyond my pay grade I guess, but don't you think the elite and the corps will plow their tax bonus back in causing the market to rally?

The whole game reminds me of a casino.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
People flee stocks into cash = dollar bullish/gold bearish (except in extreme cases)

As for the small bitcoin bounce today, well, after the way it's been massacred it was due to bounce.

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liquidity.jpg

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I had a conversation with a tax lawyer at my local coffee shop the other day and he said that this new law is so confusing that corporations are going to have a hard time predicting their future financials. That sounds like uncertainty creating crap to me. Also, the anti-Trump voting states that tend to have higher state taxes (and better economies) were punished by putting sharp limits on the amount of state tax that could be deducted from federal tax. That was also an attempt to mitigate the looming new debt that the tax plan will create. Now these states, led by California and New York, are passing laws that allow state taxes to be claimed as charitable donations and therefore deductible from federal taxes. This means our national debt is going to really explode. This tax lawyer said that for him personally, he will have to pay more taxes if things stand as they are. This coffee shop, by the way, is the crossroads of the World. Trump supporters, Hillary supporters, homeless people, neo-nazis all seem to get their coffee there.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

Meteor Man's picture

I kid you not, Hannity actually went there:

As the market was tanking, I tweeted, half jokingly that Obama would be blamed since Trump is a Godlike figure that needs to be praised at all times.

During Sean Hannity's radio show, the stock market guru that he is, did not disappoint.

Hannity said, "Because the Obama economy was so weak all of these years we had just artificially cheap money. Now what’s cheap money? Cheap money is when you can borrow at ridiculously low rates. The era of cheap money at some point has to come to an end."

He continued, "The government has artificially, the Fed has artificially kept the price of money down and the price borrowing down and now that’s going to come to an end. In many ways it represents; Ashley Webster is the name? In many ways it’s a sign of the strength of the economy more than anything else."

(emphasis added)

https://crooksandliars.com/2018/02/sean-hannity-blames-obama-stock-market

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

@Meteor Man
Republicans do that, and Republican voters want to believe them

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@gjohnsit Republicans getting red in the face over Clinton taking credit for an economy that was all due to Reagan, who'd been out of office around seven years if I remember right when I first started hearing that one.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

@Meteor Man
Help solve problems or something? They don't know anything and they refuse to learn. Reality is blowing their buzz. They just need to keep blaming other people for a little while longer and it will all go away.

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Beware the bullshit factories.