http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-brown/stock-market-collapse-mor_b_568164.html?ref=email_share

The shorts circled like sharks in the Greek bond market, following a highly suspicious downgrade of Greek debt by Moody's on Monday. Ratings by private ratings agencies, long suspected of being in the pocket of Wall Street, often seem to be timed to cause stocks or bonds to jump or tumble, causing extreme reactions in the market. The Greek downgrade was unexpected because the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund had just pledged 120 billion Euros to avoid a debt default in Greece. Strategically-timed ratings downgrades of this sort are so suspicious that Indian market regulator SEBI recently created a stir by asking the rating agencies operating in India for periodic reporting concerning their fees and rating norms.

Markets were roiled further on Thursday, when the U.S. stock market suddenly lost 999 points, and just as suddenly recovered two-thirds of that loss. It appeared to be such a clear case of tampering that Maria Bartiromo blurted out on CNBC, "That is ridiculous. This really sounds like market manipulation to me."

Manipulation by whom? Markets can be rigged with computers using high-frequency trading programs (HFT), which now compose 70% of market trading; and Goldman Sachs is the undisputed leader in this new gaming technique. Matt Taibbi maintains that Goldman Sachs has been "engineering every market manipulation since the Great Depression." When Goldman does not get its way, it is in a position to throw a tantrum and crash the market. It can do this with automated market making technologies like the one invented by Max Keiser , which he claims is now being used to turbocharge market manipulation.

Whether Goldman actually crashed the market in this case will be left to conjecture, but Keiser explained in an email how it could theoretically be done:

Remove all the buy orders that you control (since HFT traffic is 70% of the order flow, if you simply pull your HFT buy orders, you remove a huge chunk of the market - in a heartbeat - leaving a sudden price vacuum). If you wanted to scare congress to vote the way you wanted them to vote - a congress that is directly invested in stocks trading on the exchange and ETF's tied to the prices on the exchange - just pull your buys. When they do what you want them to do - replace your buys. If you want to make the market go up - pull your sell orders. It works both ways. (It's all detailed in my Virtual Specialist Technology patent - how to make markets in an 'infinite inventory environment.')

Goldman was an investment firm until September 2008, when it became a "bank holding company" overnight in order to capitalize on the bank bailout, including borrowing virtually interest-free from the Federal Reserve and other banks. In January, when President Obama backed Paul Volcker in his plan to reinstate a form of the Glass-Steagall Act that would separate investment banking from commercial banking, the market collapsed on cue, and the Volcker Rule faded from the headlines.

When Goldman got dragged before Congress and the SEC in April, the Greek crisis arose as a "counterpoint," diverting attention to that growing conflagration. Greece appears to be the sacrificial play in the EU just as Lehman Brothers was in the U.S., "the hostage the kidnappers shoot to prove they mean business."

and read this:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19075

How did all this happen late yesterday afternoon? What was the threat that forced all of these legislators to vote against the will of the people and to suddenly side with the corrupt banks? How on earth did all this happen LATE YESTERDAY AFTERNOON?

Hmmmm…. what else happened yesterday, PRIOR to the vote in the senate and Bernie Sander’s meeting in the White House? Hmmm…

Could it be the “glitch” in the supercomputer that crashed the stock market by nearly a 1000 points in a few minutes? Could that have had something to do with it?

Could it have been Goldman Sachs and the big 6 mega banks sending a message to congress that if they think they are going to break up their hold on this nation, they will bring it all down with their stock market manipulating supercomputer?

Nesto calling these trades “bogus” drew backlash from the host and CNBC veteran Maria Bartiromo, who said those trades sounded like “market manipulation” to her.

“ That is ridiculous,” Bartiromo replied. “I mean this really sounds like market manipulation to me. This is outrageous.” Business and Media Institute

Hmmm… I think we might be onto something.

Think about it… all that money poured into the CEOs and banking bigwigs bank accounts in the form of record-setting bonuses. Why is that important? Because if they chose to gut the economy, if they chose to trash the markets by 10,000 points in one day, they will be in their private jets by noon and super wealthy in another country sipping single-malts on the sea-shore by dinner.

And we will be left to fight for the scraps while the dollar becomes virtually worthless.

That was the threat yesterday. While the MSM was busy blaming the working class Greeks who are being robbed right in front of everyone’s eyes, our congress was busy quietly handing over control of the nation to a bunch of criminal bankers who caused all of this in the first place.

The market didn’t crash by a “glitch” and it wasn’t the European Union or Greek riots either… it was terrorism. It was a message: Don’t Fuck With Us. Congress got the message and acted accordingly.

The banking oligarchs sent a clear and unmistakable message that they could drop this nation’s economy into the toilet at any time they wished and if congress thought for a minute that they really ran America, they had better rethink that position.

That’s what happened yesterday.

It isn’t a “coincidence” that the super-computer “glitch” happened a few hours before that senate vote and just a while before the White House had a chat with Sanders about his Audit the Fed bill. It was financial terrorism, pure and simple.