I don't have much time today, but wanted to comment on the ruling handed down today in the NSS suit against the brokers.
Basically, the judge decided that a jury couldn't be trusted to hear the case, because the gray area of securities law is too complicated for the knobheads that comprise the jury system.
Here's the most offensive quote:
"The threat of a 'nonexpert jury' (meaning mouthbreathing American morons, versus Wall Street insiders) mistaking (meaning correctly determining that the conduct is fraud and criminal) lawful conduct under the securities laws (versus illegal fraud and corruption and chicanery) as evidence of a conspiracy under the antitrust laws (basically correctly determining that Wall Street functions as a criminal cartel, under all possible RICO definitions) and exacerbated by the prospect of trebled damages, would place immense pressure on defendants to curtail the open exchange of information (meaning the brokers wouldn't want to supply any discovery, as it would show they are guilty)," the judge said. "Such antitrust suits would likely chill a broad range of activities that the securities laws permit and encourage (why is unknown) , and would likely inhibit the short selling activity that provides market liquidity and pricing efficiency. (Of course, it would also curtail criminal naked short selling and stock manipulation, but apparently the stakes are too big to let the banks face any rule of law)".
Why securities should be exempt from antitrust protections covering all other products or goods is unknown. Why juries are too stupid to be trusted to rule on something as simple as price fixing, and yet can rule on everything else imaginable, is also unknown. We just have to assume the judge, being apparently endowed with incredible intellect unseen in common men, and thus convinced that they shouldn't be allowed to sit in judgement of something as important as naked short selling and price rigging (but capable of making decisions causing men to go to the gas chamber), understands far more than the framers of the Constitution and the bill of rights.
I don't have any questions - basically, the judge can't allow a case to go before the jury, because if all facts were known the jury would likely slam the brokers for tens of billions, due to the obvious fact that they are behaving exactly as the anti-trust laws prohibit them from acting, using the SEC's self-serving rules, often passed without appropriate scrutiny, as a pretense for violating the law of the land. Nowhere do I know of anything in the Securities rules that say you can just ignore the law of the land, because you are Wall Street, however apparently that is the case.
What a frigging farce.