With Wall Street in the gutter, shadowy government market manipulators are very much “running the show” now, according to Taipan Daily editor Justice Litle. And they will do anything to protect Wall Street’s interests. Foreign powers are in cahoots with these US market manipulators. They have to be - without them the whole house of cards would come tumbling down.

This from Taipan Publishing Group:

The ethos of the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) is alive and well. It doesn’t matter whether the old form of the group exists, or what new and more potent form the PPT may have taken on. Either way, these guys are large and in charge, with Bernanke and Paulson at the forefront. The PPT is running the show now.

In sum, we’ve reached a point where government intervention in markets is so open, so blatant, that high-ranking ex-government officials with a finger on the pulse of Wall Street are now happy to admit that “We will do whatever it takes, money no object, principles no object, with the only real constraint being whether we can pull it off.” (My blunt interpretation of Summers’ artful reply.)

So that’s the answer to the question. Where is the plunge protection team, you ask? They’re right out in the open. No need to skulk in the shadows anymore. Like a one-time mafia front that somehow boot-strapped itself into a respectable enterprise, the intervention business is all but respectable now.

Manipulation Goes Global

There are still rules to the game, of course. The powers that be can’t just write Wall Street a $500 billion check, for example, and send the Dow rocketing to 20,000. (If they could, they already would have). The trouble with a bold-faced move like that would be dollar free-fall and banana-republic-style hyperinflation. You’ve got to boil the frog slowly if you want him to stay in the pot.

In the long run, the Fed and Treasury are beholden to America’s foreign creditors, just as a public company is beholden to its largest and most powerful shareholders. (John Q. Taxpayer is a captive audience and thus has far less clout.)

The good news for Uncle Sam is, most of the global players are in cahoots. They’re on board with the PPT agenda.

Why? Because central bankers far and wide have the same narrowly aligned interests. None of them wants a catastrophe on their hands. Wrenching change doesn’t suit anyone at this point. And so, in the name of stability, market manipulation has gone global. The spirit of the plunge protection team hasn’t just permeated U.S. markets. It’s everywhere. You can see the heavy hand in all the examples that follow:

1. China’s highly suspicious role in the recent U.S. dollar rally (a move that looks about as staged as a professional wrestling match).
2. Multibillion-dollar central bank interventions in defense of various emerging market currencies. (After working hard to keep ‘em down, the same bankers are now working hard to keep ‘em up.)
3. Fannie and Freddie mortgage debt spared to protect global stakeholders (as discussed last week).
4. Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) showing more of an interest in preserving the global financial system than in turning a profit… their prime directive being to keep the home government elected, which means keeping the apple cart upright.
5. Wall Street’s open call for more support and more bailout cash, with little to no attempt to hide the “visible hand” of connected players running the show.
6. The Fed’s orchestration of a brilliant hit job on commodities and hard assets, in an effort to defang the inflation monster and shore up beaten-down financial stocks.

Those are only a few examples. That last one needs more explaining, which I’ll get to in a future episode.

The long and short of it is we’re living in a manipulated world in which the spirit of the PPT, if not the genuine article, is kicking butt and taking names. The only real constraint, as Summers admits, is how much can be gotten away with in the name of preserving the status quo.

In the short run, betting against the powers that be is almost always a foolish move. But in the long run, Mother Nature is patient… and government manipulation efforts always fail.

Source: Where Is the Plunge Protection Team?