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"THE ONLY THING NECESSARY FOR THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL IS FOR GOOD MEN TO DO NOTHING"
--Burke

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Goldman Sachs and Asarco copper price fluctuations-- and Goldman Sachs-speech by arrested Occupy-Wall Street Chris Hedges....."What we are asking for today is simple—it is a return to the rule of law."

Goldman Fraud Charge Hits Copper Prices
Copper Investing News 2010
Grupo Mexico will show benefits from its acquisition of Arizona's Asarco, ... Grupo Mexico won back control of Asarco in December, pulling the US copper ..."

"By Leia Michele Toovey- Exclusive to Copper Investing News" "As news over impending fraud charges against leading commodities player Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) hit the market last Friday, copper witnessed considerable downside. Risk averse investors jumped from their positions, sending copper plummeting to a three month low.... Hiding behind the Goldman front, negative data is still weighing down copper..."

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Asarco Bankruptcy ends, and bring predictions "... that Grupo Mexico's total copper sales volumes should be propelled 43 percent year-on-year" as METAL PRICES RECOVER

"Google Web Alert for: asarco
PREVIEWGrupo Mexico profit seen up on Asarco copper prices ...
WHAT: Grupo Mexico Q1 earnings results * WHEN: Friday, April 23 * REUTERS FORECAST: Net profit seen soaring year-on-year By Mica Rosenberg MEXICO CITY, ...
in.reuters.com/article/.../idINN2021866520100420
"
"MEXICO CITY, April 20 (Reuters) - Grupo Mexico, the nation's biggest copper miner, is set to report a sharp jump in quarterly results as ...metal prices recover, a Reuters poll showed.  Seven analysts consulted by Reuters estimated the company's (GMEXICOB.MX...) first-quarter net profit at $383 million, about 20 times year-earlier earnings of $19 million. Grupo Mexico won back control of Asarco in December, pulling the U.S. copper miner out of bankruptcy by winning a drawn-out court battle and outbidding India's Sterlite Industries Ltd...).  ...."In the first quarter that Asarco's results are fully consolidated, we estimate that Grupo Mexico's total copper sales volumes should be propelled 43 percent year-on-year," brokerage Grupo Bursatil Mexicano said in a report."

"Analysts consulted by Reuters expect [Asarco owner --- GMEXICOB.MX] first-quarter net profit will soar almost 2,000 percent"


See current speech/arrest in front of Goldman Sachs this week...

Chris Hedges' Speech in Front of Goldman Sachs Leads to Arrest

By Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges made this statement in New York City's Zuccotti Park on Thursday morning during the People's Hearing on Goldman Sachs, which he chaired with Dr. Cornel West. The activist and Truthdig columnist then joined a march of several hundred protesters to the nearby corporate headquarters of Goldman Sachs, where he was arrested with 16 others.

Goldman Sachs, which received more subsidies and bailout-related funds than any other investment bank because the Federal Reserve permitted it to become a bank holding company under its "emergency situation," has used billions in taxpayer money to enrich itself and reward its top executives. It handed its senior employees a staggering $18 billion in 2009, $16 billion in 2010 and $10 billion in 2011 in mega-bonuses. This massive transfer of wealth upwards by the Bush and Obama administrations, now estimated at $13 trillion to $14 trillion, went into the pockets of those who carried out fraud and criminal activity rather than the victims who lost their jobs, their savings and often their homes.

Goldman Sachs' commodities index is the most heavily traded in the world. Goldman Sachs hoards rice, wheat, corn, sugar and livestock and jacks up commodity prices around the globe so that poor families can no longer afford basic staples and literally starve. Goldman Sachs is able to carry out its malfeasance at home and in global markets because it has former officials filtered throughout the government and lavishly funds compliant politicians—including Barack Obama, who received $1 million from employees at Goldman Sachs in 2008 when he ran for president. These politicians, in return, permit Goldman Sachs to ignore security laws that under a functioning judiciary system would see the firm indicted for felony fraud. Or, as in the case of Bill Clinton, these politicians pass laws such as the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that effectively removed all oversight and outside control over the speculation in commodities, one of the major reasons food prices have soared. In 2008 and again in 2010 prices for crops such as rice, wheat and corn doubled and even tripled, making life precarious for hundreds of millions of people. And it was all done so a few corporate oligarchs, the 1 percent, could make personal fortunes in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. Despite a damning 650-page Senate subcommittee investigation report, no individual at Goldman Sachs has been indicted, although the report accuses Goldman of defrauding its clients. 

When the government in the fall 2008 provided the firm with billions of dollars in the form of cheap loans, FDIC debt guarantees, TARP, AIG make-wholes, and a late-night label-shift from investment bank to bank holding company, giving the firm access to excessive Federal Reserve aid, access [the corporation] still has, it enabled and abetted Goldman's criminal behavior. Goldman Sachs unloaded billions in worthless securities to its clients, decimating 401(k)s, pension and mutual funds. The firm misled investors about the true nature of these worthless securities, insisted the securities they were pushing on their clients were sound, and hid the material fact that, simultaneously, they were betting against these same securities—$2 billion against just one of their deals. The firm then had the gall to extort from its victims—us—to make good on its bets when the global economy it helped trash lost $40 trillion in worldwide wealth and huge insurance firms were unable to cover their bad debts.

The Securities Act of 1933, established in the wake of the massive fraud that pervaded the securities market before the 1929 Crash, was written to ensure that "any securities transactions are not based on fraudulent information or practices." The act "prohibits deceit, misrepresentation, and other fraud in the sale of securities." The subcommittee report indicates that Goldman Sachs clearly broke security laws.

As part of the political theater that has come to replace the legislative and judicial process, the Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to a $550 million settlement whereby Goldman Sachs admitted it showed "incomplete" information in marketing materials and that it was a "mistake" to not disclose the nature of its portfolio selection committee. This fine was a payoff to the SEC by Goldman Sachs of about four days' worth of revenue, and in return they avoided going to court. CEO Lloyd Blankfein apparently not only lied to clients, but to the subcommittee itself on April 27, 2010, when he told lawmakers: "We didn't have a massive short against the housing market, and we certainly did not bet against our clients." Yet, they did.

And yet nothing has been done. No Goldman Sachs officials have gone to trial. This is because there is no way within the corporate state to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs. There is no way through the formal mechanisms of power to restore the rule of law. There is no way to protect the ordinary citizen and the poor around the globe from the predatory activity of financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs. Since our courts refuse to put on trial the senior executives at Goldman Sachs, including Blankfein, who carried out these crimes and lied to cover them up, we will. Speculators like those in Goldman Sachs—who in the 17th century when speculation was a crime would have been hanged—must be prevented by law from again destroying our economy, preying on ordinary citizens, hoarding food so the poor starve and running our political process. We are paying for these crimes—not those who orchestrated perhaps the most massive fraud in human history. Our teachers, police, firefighters and public employees are losing their jobs so speculators like Blankfein can make an estimated $250,000 a day. Working men and women are losing their homes and going into personal bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical bills. Our unemployed, far closer to 20 percent than the official 9 percent, are in deep distress all so a criminal class, a few blocks from where I speak, can wallow in luxury with mansions and yachts and swollen bank accounts.

What we are asking for today is simple—it is a return to the rule of law. And since the formal mechanisms of power refuse to restore the rule of law, then we, the 99 percent, will have to see that justice is done.

This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/chris-hedges-speech-front-goldman-sachs-leads-arrest-1320422765.
Included here in full-text, with citation as Fair Use (creative commons, non-commercial)



Asarco associated Citigroup (Citigroup and Harbinger Hedge fund were creditors in Asarco's bankruptcy)

for more on Citigroup and Asarco, search for these key-words within the google-blog's search engine...

"Robert Scheer, Op-Ed:
“Can we all agree that a $1 billion swindle represents a lot of money, and the fact that Citigroup agreed last week to pay a $285 million fine to settle SEC charges for “misleading investors” demonstrates a damning admission of culpability? So why has Robert Rubin, the onetime treasury secretary who went on to become Citigroup chairman during the time of the corporation’s financial shenanigans, never been held accountable for this and other deep damage done to the U.S. economy on his watch?”

Rubin’s tenure atop the world of high fi­nance began when he was co-chair­man of Gold­man Sachs, be­fore he be­came Bill Clin­ton’s trea­sury sec­re­tary and pushed through the re­ver­sal of the Glass-Stea­gall Act, an ac­tion that le­gal­ized the for­ma­tion of Cit­i­group and other “too big to fail” bank­ing con­glom­er­ates.

Rubin’s de­struc­tive im­pact on the econ­omy in en­abling these giant cor­po­rate banks to run amok was far greater than that of swindler Bernard Mad­off, who sits in prison under a 150-year sen­tence while Rubin sits on the Har­vard Board of Over­seers, as chair­man of the Coun­cil on For­eign Re­la­tions and as a leader of the Brook­ings In­sti­tu­tion’s Hamil­ton Pro­ject.

Rubin was re­warded for his ef­forts on be­half of Cit­i­group with a top job as chair­man of the bank’s ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee and at least $126 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion. That was “com­pen­sa­tion” for steer­ing the bank to the point of a bank­ruptcy avoided only by a $45 bil­lion tax­payer bailout and a fur­ther guar­an­tee of $300 bil­lion of the bank’s toxic as­sets.

"
http://www.nationofchange.org/too-big-jail-1320412438

for starters, see:
Jul 27, 2009 ... Citigroup and Harbinger are creditors in Asarco's pending bankruptcy proceeding. They are based in New York and together are owed $300 ...

epgtlo.blogspot.com/2009/07/citigroup-comment-on-pemex.html

Jul 30, 2010 ... Citigroup has agreed to pay the SEC $75 million to settle charges that the bank hid exposure to more than $40 billion [1] in subprime CDOs. ...

epgtlo.blogspot.com/2010/.../asarco-former-principle-bondholder.html
Sep 17, 2009 ... Citigroup Bank is a "Key Financial Team member" for the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority (CRRMA) that builds El Paso TX highways ...

epgtlo.blogspot.com/.../citigroup-bank-is-key-financial-entity.html
Aug 4, 2010 ... ASARCO Bondholder Citigroup's head of Latin America team handled CEMEX acquisition of RMC and a 1.1 Billion$ offer for Grupo Mexico S.Peru ...

epgtlo.blogspot.com/.../asarco-bondholder-citigroups-head-of.html
Jul 30, 2009 ... Banking giant Citigroup recommends investment in Mexican state-run oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) via its dollar-denominated bonds. ...

epgtlo.blogspot.com/2009/.../harbingers-citigroup-recommends.html
Aug 27, 2009 ... Citigroup's Oil Trader's $100000000 Payday: A Wakeup Call for the Nation ... Google "Citigroup" in search engine for epgtlo.blogspot.com and ...

epgtlo.blogspot.com/2009/.../bank-associated-with-asarco-bonds.html
Jul 30, 2010 ... ASARCO former principle-bondholder Citigroup now ordered to pay SEC over ... " Citigroup to Pay $1 for Every $500 in Subprime Exposure It Hid ...

epgtlo.blogspot.com/2010_07_25_archive.html
Sep 9, 2010 ... 8: Government argues that 75 mil settlement with former Asarco principal bondholder Citigroup is"fair, adequate, reasonable and in the ...

epgtlo.blogspot.com/.../2010-sept-8-government-argues-that-75.html
Aug 4, 2010 ... ASARCO Bondholder Citigroup's head of Latin America team handled CEMEX ... "John Boord heads Citigroup Global Markets' Latin America ...

epgtlo.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html





Thursday, November 3, 2011

Now that Asarco's secret liabilities are behind it, Owner Grupo Mexico says that "Asarco's results were promising".

Now that Asarco's secret liabilities are behind it, Owner Grupo Mexico says that "Asarco's results were promising".  What about the children remaining behind its Asarco El Paso smelter site, and its community that must socialize the costs remaining from the toxins left behind?   The Company profits go to the owners while the costs of polluting a 30-mile-radius zone in a key NAFTA industrialized-zone have been socialized to an unprepared and unknowing community.  Grupo Mexico plans (below) to spend nearly 1/2 billion dollars on Asarco in the next three years but got away with only spending 52 million to "remediate" its century-old site in El Paso TX.   The clean-up TRUST is not required to remediate ANY of the illegal wastes processed there from 1991-1998 and not required to remediate the deep ground-water beneath that old site (a highly toxic arsenic plume moving in a wide swath -- with some of that groundwater plume already reaching the Rio Grand the width of the company's site according to the TCEQ.)

"...Grupo Mexico said that Americas Mining the holding company of the mining division that includes Southern Copper and Asarco could list separate securities in capital markets. It did not give details about what kinds of securities AMC could offer, noting this is one of the strategic alternatives AMC is considering.

Banamex said that floating AMC shares would allow Grupo Mexico to raise capital. ....Mr Muniz [CFO of Grupo Mexico] said that Asarco's results were promising and that the mines in Arizona would be able to increase copper output to 280,000 tonnes by 2016...."

http://www.steelguru.com/metals_news/Grupo_Mexico_scraps_plan_for_mining_unit_merger/233777.html

Caveat emptor : ASARCO EL PASO CLEAN-UP TRUSTEE PASSES THE BUCK TO BUYERS


"... the realities of more than 100 years of contamination have left a legacy. One audience member asked whether the stacks and their surroundings would be safe for children.

"I'm not going to say that," Puga said. "The new owners have to say that.""

God help us all, and all the little children who will be playing on the playgrounds and elementary-school-yard on top of the existing Asarco lands in the new "smart code" neighborhoods.   Because the children have a high surface volume to body ratio they will intake more dusts and aerosols per pound of body than an adult, and have it affect them and their own babies' development throughout their lives.   Simply covering the ground with asphalt will not stop the off-gassing of materials beneath the developments and "will not make it safe" [KVIA interview with UTEP Geologist].

El Paso ASARCO Clean-up Trustee admits that the ASARCO stacks contain contaminants

The El Paso ASARCO Clean-up Trustee admits that the ASARCO stacks contain contaminants that would require sealing the stacks to make these safe, rather than just letting the stacks stand.

"But Puga said money from his $52 million budget could be spent only on remediation efforts. It is possible, however, that something like sealing the stacks to prevent the spread of contaminants would qualify, he added."
The Trustee/TRUST did not test the CONTOP/Acid Plant's primary metal stack for contaminants, but wrote it off to the Bankruptcy court's decision releasing the TRUST from fiduciary-responsibility to test-for and/or remediate for the illegal chemicals illicitly incinerated by Asarco in El Paso TX from 1991-1998 -- in fact, the Bankruptcy courts totally publicly ignored that such incineration of D.O.E. and other wastes ever happened.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_19242239

EPA to retest Illinois ASARCO zinc smelter site for Beryllium and other contaminants

After Asarco El Paso TX was secretly-caught by the EPA and Federal DOJ to be running a multi-state illegal and unpermitted hazardous waste disposal/incineration operation from 1991-1998, the EPA made ASARCO do a demolition and clean-up of all buildings/stacks related to its El Paso Asarco zinc plant.  We are not told how much Beryllium is on site; but, we note that recently the EPA is re-testing an Illinois Asarco Zinc plant site (active until 1994) that is contaminated with beryllium.  Beryllium is extremely toxic and there is a Federal Program to compensate all workers thus exposed to it on-the-job.

Why isn't the Federal DOJ/Bankruptcy Court/EPA requiring the TRUST doing El Paso Asarco's "clean-up" to look for and report the levels to the public of Beryllium?
Interested Taylor Springs [IL] residents learned during a meeting Oct. 20 with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that a thorough study of the Asarco Superfund site is set to begin.... Within the month, residents can expect to see technicians in required protective clothing [sampling] sediment and surface water from Shoal Creek Middle Fork, ground water from 14 existing monitoring wells and six additional yet-to-be-installed wells, air quality samples, and samples of fish, plants, and animals that may have been affected by site contaminants....Asarco is the 533-acre site of which about 100 acres is covered with residue from former zinc smelting and zinc oxide operations [up to 1994]. The residue includes zinc slag, plant cinder wastes, calcine clinker, sinter clinker, and coal. The primary contaminants are arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, copper, lead, nickel, and zinc.
http://www.thejournal-news.net/articles/2011/10/27/news/news03.txt